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Hello and Welcome to episode 4 of my fourth season: Lessons from Vita Sackville-West.

How do we or our communities represent the old, established bush? What are the secret yearnings of our soul(s) that would promote creativity and newness in a community or in ourselves?

This week I'll share some insight from Vita on this and I hope you will take some time this week to think about it too.

Please consider sharing or subscribing to my new Substack Page!

Thank you for being here!!

Brianne Turczynski is an award-winning author and educator in Michigan as well as the creator of Loving the Imperfect podcast. Her nonfiction, fiction, and poetry have appeared in various magazines and online news publications including Halcyone, 3288 Review, Sheepshead Review, Michigan Out-of-Doors, and Planet Detroit News. Her nonfiction, Detroit’s Lost Poletown: The Little Neighborhood that Touched a Nation was released with the History Press in 2021. Her forthcoming collection of poetry, Lake of Our Histories will be released with Finishing Line Press late in 2026. She attends Duke University’s Divinity School with plans to obtain her Master of Divinity degree. You can learn more about her by visiting her website, www.BrianneTurczynski.com

For more information about me and my work, please visit www.brianneturczynski.com or www.lovingtheimperfect.com

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Hello and welcome!

This episode is about what we may call a weed, but if we look closer, we can come into a relationship with the plant or with our neighbor that looks beyond names and reputations.

Check out pictures and subscribe to my Substack.

Thank you for joining me.

Brianne Turczynski is an award-winning author and educator in Michigan as well as the creator of Loving the Imperfect podcast. Her nonfiction, fiction, and poetry have appeared in various magazines and online news publications including Halcyone, 3288 Review, Sheepshead Review, Michigan Out-of-Doors, and Planet Detroit News. Her nonfiction, Detroit's Lost Poletown: The Little Neighborhood that Touched a Nation was released with the History Press in 2021. Her forthcoming collection of poetry, Lake of Our Histories will be released with Finishing Line Press late in 2026. She attends Duke University’s Divinity School with plans to obtain her Master of Divinity degree. You can learn more about her by visiting her website, www.BrianneTurczynski.com

For more information about me and my work, please visit www.brianneturczynski.com or www.lovingtheimperfect.com

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Thank you for joining me. This is the second episode of my garden posts featuring the writings of Vita Sackville-West.

You can see pictures and follow me for more posts at Brianne Turczynski

Brianne Turczynski is an award-winning author and educator in Michigan as well as the creator of Loving the Imperfect podcast. Her nonfiction, fiction, and poetry have appeared in various magazines and online news publications including Halcyone, 3288 Review, Sheepshead Review, Michigan Out-of-Doors, and Planet Detroit News. Her nonfiction, Detroit's Lost Poletown: The Little Neighborhood that Touched a Nation was released with the History Press in 2021. Her forthcoming collection of poetry, Lake of Our Histories will be released with Finishing Line Press late in 2026. She attends Duke University’s Divinity School with plans to obtain her Master of Divinity degree. You can learn more about her by visiting her website, www.BrianneTurczynski.com

For more information about me and my work, please visit www.brianneturczynski.com or www.lovingtheimperfect.com

Send us Fan Mail

Hello and welcome to Loving the Imperfect. Today I'm going to try something different. Years ago, I managed a blog called Miss Sissinghurst on WordPress, which is now my website www.brianneturczynski.com. It was a garden blog based on the writings of Vita Sackville-West.

I wanted to try to take all of my old articles, there's seventy-two of them and transfer them to my new Substack account. So, if you'd like, you can follow me there where you can see pictures and connect with me on a more personal level. You can find me at substack.com/@brianneturczynski.

This is my way of recording my voice so that people can listen to my Substack posts as well as read them if they'd like. Thank you for your support!!

Brianne Turczynski is an award-winning author and educator in Michigan as well as the creator of Loving the Imperfect podcast. Her nonfiction, fiction, and poetry have appeared in various magazines and online news publications including Halcyone, 3288 Review, Sheepshead Review, Michigan Out-of-Doors, and Planet Detroit News. Her nonfiction, Detroit's Lost Poletown: The Little Neighborhood that Touched a Nation was released with the History Press in 2021. Her forthcoming collection of poetry, Lake of Our Histories will be released with Finishing Line Press late in 2026. She attends Duke University’s Divinity School to obtain her Master of Divinity degree. You can learn more about her by visiting her website, www.BrianneTurczynski.com

For more information about me and my work, please visit www.brianneturczynski.com or www.lovingtheimperfect.com

Send us Fan Mail

Welcome to Loving The Imperfect. This is a special episode for Lent or Good Friday. We will begin by talking a little bit about St. Therese of Lisieux, the 19th century mystic. And afterward I will talk a little bit about what mysticism is because there's a lot of misconception about that.

And then afterward, at the very end of this episode is a holy face meditation that I wrote myself, but I encourage you to add to it, using your own imagination, and thinking about what Jesus, through the senses might have experienced on the cross.

I hope that you enjoy this episode and that it's fruitful for you and all these episodes will continue to be fruitful for you as you move forward in your spiritual life.

Thank you for listening.

For more information about me and my work, please visit www.brianneturczynski.com or www.lovingtheimperfect.com

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Hello and welcome! This is a virtual writing retreat featuring the work of Lech Walesa. Rhetoric is everywhere, from what we read to what we hear and see. In this retreat we will work with a few different meditations, from artwork, to the work of Cicero, to the Gospel of John, then we will follow the patterns of history in Poland from 1938-1989. The hope is that through these exercises we will begin to see how we process the information given to us on a daily basis, and by the end of this workshop participants will be able (I hope) to see what they are called to do in this moment in history. This is a recording of what I prepared for my church community, St. Philip's Episcopal church and the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan.

The questions were taken, with permission, from Rhetoric Professor Curry Kennedy of Texas A&M. And one is from the work of interspiritual author Mirabai Starr (Think of the people who have loved you into being), from her book Wild Mercy.

All quotes have been given sources within the slides shown. Slides 19 & 21 were quotes found on Wikipedia but fact-checked elsewhere:
About Solidarity

All quotes from Lech Walesa not given documentation on the slides were from an interview he did with the Red Cross (Volume 87 Number 857 March 2007, International Review of the Red Cross). Red Cross Interview

YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/3M_efhiPvLE

For more information about me and my work, please visit www.brianneturczynski.com or www.lovingtheimperfect.com

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Today we'll talk about the work of Mirabai Starr, an Inter-spiritual teacher, writer, and translator of the mystics. Mirabai is a well-known teacher of the divine feminine. She has written several books and her translations of St. John of the Cross's poetry as well as St. Teresa of Avila and St. Julian of Norwich's work won her critical acclaim. She is well-versed in the way of all things holy and feminine and wishes to empower women with the simple truth: that we are loved and holy just as we are.

St. Philip's Rochester YouTube Channel

Mirabai Starr's Website

For more information about me and my work, please visit www.brianneturczynski.com or www.lovingtheimperfect.com

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Welcome to season 3 of Loving the Imperfect!

Thank you for being patient with me over my long break. Join me this season along with my kindergarten classmate, Erin Grossi, as we introduce and discuss some modern-day prophets, people who, we believe, have at least one thing in common: the prophetic voice. The purpose of this season is to introduce listeners to some new artists and writers. We hope the selection we have for you will inspire you to read, write, and create to be a force of love in the world.

Links to cool stuff mentioned on the show:

Hold Your Own: Poems by Kae Tempest

Book of Traps and Lessons Album by Kae Tempest

On Connection by Kae Tempest

Olga Tokarczuk's Divine Cosmos interview with the Paris Review

Kae Tempest Interview with Fe Ferraris: Musik Express

The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot read aloud

Richard Rohr's Everything Belongs Podcast

Versed Community Membership Invitation

For more information about me and my work, please visit www.brianneturczynski.com or www.lovingtheimperfect.com