“Graced in Sacred Ground: The Hour of Forgiveness”

CollaborationColaboração. “Graced in Sacred Ground: The Hour of Forgiveness” is the second section of a book-length pilgrimage that began when two colleagues dared to become fellow peregrinas & subsequently recognized the other as a kindred artistscholar. Our collaboration has been just that—our time spent getting to know one another; our support of one another, even when geography has attempted to work against us; and most importantly, the communitas that continues to drive our selection of the Words. Words—single moments in language that reveal the human condition—live at the heart of our project. We pilgrimage together through language—dictionaries, thesauruses, & personal stories—to arrive at seven words that resonate, reveal, and reflect the hour’s theme, here “Forgiveness.” We collaborate on words, we take our own artistic, yet parallel journey, towards those words, and we arrive at a liminal space in which word&image slide one onto the other creating our collaborative experience.

Nicole De Leon is a poet&scholar. She earned her B.A. & M.A. in English from Sonoma State University. Currently, she is working on her Ph.D. in Historical & Cultural Studies of Religion at the Graduate Theological Union. Her dissertation focuses on two 20th century poets, Marianne Moore & Denise Levertov, and the ways in which they construct their poetic worlds so as to create imaginary spaces where readers can pilgrimage (to, from, within, and through).