An Immersive Evening with Erin Geesaman Rabke
Live Event Program
Friday, October 7th, 2022
Saturday, October 8th: Don’t miss our companion Depth Workshop: Gratitude, Grief and Going Forth
Live Music: Lilly Jane Jeffery, Harpist
“You are never too old to set a goal or to dream a new dream.” – C.S. Lewis
Lilly Jeffery is 18 years old and a 12-year veteran on the harp. She also plays the drum set in a band with her three other musical sisters (who all also play the harp). She lives in Riverton and is currently attending Salt Lake Community College, studying computer science.
Featured Artist: Randee Levine
“Be here, now.” -Ram Dass
Randee Levine has spent the majority of her life exploring art and psychology, drawn to the fluid edge between the implicit and explicit. She has her undergraduate degree in Art and a Master’s from the Process Work Institute, where she trained with Jungian Analyst, Dr. Arnold Mindell and colleagues. Randee works as a Facilitator and Creative Coach with individuals, partners and teams. She shows and sells her artwork at Phillips Gallery.
Explore and purchase Randee’s work (including the pieces on display tonight).
Opening Poet: Nan Seymour
Nan Seymour is a poet who lives, sleeps, and writes in Great Salt Lake’s prehistoric bed. Her debut poetry collection, prayers not meant for heaven was published in 2022. As the poet-in-residence on Antelope Island, Nan led a 47-day vigil for the imperiled Great Salt Lake throughout the 2022 Utah State legislative session. During the vigil she assembled hundreds of lines of poetry and praise from over 400 voices, in loving witness of the great saline heart of their ecosystem. The collection, called irreplaceable, will be published later this fall.
Nan is smitten with life in all forms including gambel oak forests, vultures, and wild violets. She is devoted to the future of microbialites, brine shrimp, brine flies, and the entire feathered citizenry of the Pacific Coast flyway. You can find her throughout Utah gathering people at the shorelines and river banks, inviting them to lend their voices to the water and to bear witness with their pens.
Limited copies of Nan’s book are available for sale tonight at the books table, and Nan will be signing copies after the program.
invocation for irreplaceable
when praise began to flow
we watched the water rise
along both sides of the causeway
eleven islands recovered
their autonomy. microbialites sighed
with relief. when praise began to flow
the dust subsided. metals resettled
on the seafloor, arsenic and mercury
were lulled back to sleep
blanketed once more
by the great weight of water
when praise began to flow
three rivers rushed forth unhindered
as greed relinquished its grasp
and fat flakes of snow tumbled
into the great body becoming
clouds, drifting into peaks
making snow and more snow
and then creeks, then rivers
then lake, and then lake effect
also known as sustenance
also known as snow
and the waters did not desert
us when praise began to flow
when praise began to flow
we returned to fourth grade field trips
to picnics run amok, spirited floats
and salt-encrusted bodies
boats bobbed back to their docks
we recalled how to sail
we could taste our first kiss
we remembered a day we didn’t die
when praise began to flow
we gathered and told these stories
and a culture of disdain released its chokehold
our eyes shone with love and even
reverence, which began to grow
when praise began to flow
we sorrowed over the way
we had shunned her
irreplaceable body and vowed
never again to part from her company
and the love we felt for each drop
making a way to her whale-heart
became unfathomable
when praise began to flow
we thirsted for the names of birds
we learned the mouth-feel of the words
grebe, avocet, willet
pelican, curlew, stilt
we observed their long dives
sudden swerves, and bright eyes
we noted their cries and habits
tracing murmurations
we drew love
beyond naming
when praise began to flow
we felt the genesis of our feathers
we felt water return to the sea
of ourselves, we felt
a swell in the lake
of ourselves. we felt
the surge of our rivers
we felt tidal. we felt primal. we fell
with the snow. we grew ocean-
hearted. we began to know
we had never been separate
and thus could not be parted
when praise began to flow.
About irreplaceable
Born of a 47 day vigil for Great Salt Lake, irreplaceable is a chorus of lament and praise swelling with love. There are over 2200 lines and hundreds of perspectives in the poem; the size of the work echos the square mile area of the lake bed and reflects a community call for Great Salt Lake’s full restoration. irreplaceable is a polyphonic love-letter to an imperiled beloved.
Poetry is a call to pay attention and what we attend to grows.
Poetry buoys our power to transform a culture of apathy and disdain into one defined by reverence for life. As we turn our hearts and faces toward the lake, we pray to hasten her repair and restoration.
The book-length poem will be published by Toad Hall Editions later this fall with a forward by Terry Tempest Williams. Meanwhile, may our praise continue to flow alongside our inevitable grief. Grief and praise are companions, and two names for love.
Love is the right action regardless of outcome.
Presenter: Erin Geesaman Rabke, Somatic Naturalist and Embodiment Mentor
Erin is a long-time champion of the Jung Society of Utah, and for our overall community in Salt Lake. She is a somatic educator with 25+ years of professional training and practice, integrating a variety of methodologies, including yoga, tai chi, Feldenkrais, Embodied Life, and somatic meditation, among others. She holds a degree from the University of Utah emphasizing Integrated Somatics.
“Above all, the way afterwards,
you thought you had left the island
but hadn’t, the way you knew
you had gone somewhere
into the shimmering light
and come out again on the tide
as you knew you had to,
as someone who would return
and live in the world again,
someone granted just a glimpse,
someone half a shade braver,
a standing silhouette in the stern,
holding the rail,
riding the long waves back,
ready for the exile we call a home.”
– David Whyte, excerpt Leaving the Island
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