Workshop 6: Conscious Love: Better than any Fairy Tale

Beautiful orange sunset over a deep blue ocean. — Tapestry is Sunsetting

The UUA is no longer updating Tapestry of Faith programs.

Part of Exploring Our Values Through Poetry, High School

In This Section

Introduction
From Exploring Our Values Through Poetry

With my poems, I finally won even my mother. The longest wooing of my life. Marge Piercy Today’s workshop is about romantic love. The poetry we use in this workshop runs the gamut, from song lyrics to Yeats to urban hip-hop….
Workshop-at-a-Glance
From Exploring Our Values Through Poetry

ACTIVITY MINUTES Opening 5 Activity 1: Fairy Tale Love 30 Activity 2: Being Yourself in Love 20 Faith in Action: Poetry Pajama Party Closing 5 Alternate Activity 1: Lyrics as Poetry 15 Alternate Activity 2: Perfect and Imperfect Love 20…
Spiritual Preparation
From Exploring Our Values Through Poetry

The activities in this workshop look at romantic love. Love poems are common and popular. Do you have a favorite love poem? If so, does it portray love in a realistic way or idealistically? There are two different ways to think about art: Some think that art should imitate life, or be realistic.
Opening
From Exploring Our Values Through Poetry

Activity time: 5 minutes Materials for Activity Chalice and matches Description of Activity Use the Opening designed by your group or the one provided below. Gather around the chalice. As a volunteer lights the chalice, ask the group to focus on the word “love” in silence. After about fifteen…
Activity 1: Fairy Tale Love
From Exploring Our Values Through Poetry

Activity time: 30 minutes Materials for Activity Art supplies, including drawing paper, pencils, markers, colored pencils, and other materials Newsprint or a dry erase board and markers Journals and pens or pencils Optional: CD player and music Preparation for Activity If youth will be free to wo…
Activity 2: Being Yourself In Love
From Exploring Our Values Through Poetry

Activity time: 20 minutes Materials for Activity Handout 1, A Rumi Poem Preparation for Activity Photocopy Handout 1, A Rumi Poem, one for each participant. Description of Activity Participants read a poem and explore their own views about a common theme in love poems: merging with another versus…
Closing
From Exploring Our Values Through Poetry

Activity time: 5 minutes Materials for Activity Chalice Singing the Living Tradition Description of Activity Use the Closing designed by your group or the one provided below….
Leader Reflection and Planning
From Exploring Our Values Through Poetry

With your co-leader, discuss which activities were successful and which ones were less so. The date, time, and location of the Poetry Slam should be set by now. Start thinking about publicity outlets, especially congregational newsletters that might be printed a month in advance. If advance…
Faith In Action: Poetry Pajama Party
From Exploring Our Values Through Poetry

Materials for Activity Books of children’s poetry Arts and crafts materials Blankets, pillows, sleeping bags, and/or bean bag chairs Congregational calendar Newsprint or dry erase board and markers Optional: Hand puppets or materials for making simple puppets Optional: Snacks Preparation for…
Alternate Activity 1: Lyrics As Poetry
From Exploring Our Values Through Poetry

Activity time: 15 minutes Materials for Activity Index cards and pens Newsprint or a dry erase board and markers Preparation for Activity Optional: Prepare a few index cards with love lyrics as an example for participants. Description of Activity Participants use the lyrics of popular songs to…
Alternate Activity 2: Perfect And Imperfect Love
From Exploring Our Values Through Poetry

Activity time: 20 minutes Materials for Activity Handout 2, “To a Young Girl,” by William Butler Yeats Handout 3, “.05,” by Ishmael Reed Journals and pen or pencils Preparation for Activity Photocopy Handouts 2, “To a Young Girl” and 3, “.05,” one for each participant. Description of Activity…
Taking It Home: Conscious Love: Better than any Fairy Tale
From Exploring Our Values Through Poetry

With my poems, I finally won even my mother. The longest wooing of my life. Marge Piercy DURING TODAY’S SESSION… We drew pictures of our own fairy tale romances. We discussed popular notions of romantic love and our own ideas about what that might look and feel like. We read a poem about lovers…
Handout 1: A Rumi Poem
From Exploring Our Values Through Poetry

Jalalud’din Rumi (!3th Century), translated by Kulliyat-e Shams, from Rumi’s Divan of Shems of Tabriz: Selected Odes (Element Classics of World Spirituality). (England: Dorset Books, 1997) A moment of happiness, you and I sitting on the verandah, apparently two, but one in soul, you and I….
Handout 2: Celebration
From Exploring Our Values Through Poetry

This poem is written in dialect. I will bring you a whole person and you will bring me a whole person and we will have us twice as much of love and everything I be bringing a whole heart and while it do have nicks and dents and scars, that only make me lay it down more careful-like An’ you be…
Handout 2: To A Young Girl

William Butler Yeats

From Exploring Our Values Through Poetry

My dear, my dear, I know More than another What makes your heart beat so; Not even your own mother Can know it as I know, Who broke my heart for her When the wild thought, That she denies And has forgot, Set all her blood astir And glittered in her eyes. From The Wild Swans at Cooley (1919).
Handout 3: Five Cents
From Exploring Our Values Through Poetry

Excerpted from Chattanooga by Ishmael Reed (New York: Random House, 1973). Permission granted by Lowenstein Associates, Inc.If I had a nickel For all the women who’ve Rejected me in my life I would be the head of the World Bank with a flunkie To hold my derby as i Prepared to fly chartered Jet to…
Find Out More
From Exploring Our Values Through Poetry

Jalalud’din Rumi is the oldest poet represented in this program. You can find a … of Rumi at the website, Poet Seers. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) website features a short piece about http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/subdivisions/sufism_1.sht…;, Rumi’s religion, which…

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The UUA is no longer updating Tapestry of Faith programs.

Workshop 6: Conscious Love: Better than any Fairy Tale

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