K Burkowski
Born in Ontario, Canada in 1949, Karis Burkowski has been exploring world religions for half a century. She was an adolescent in the 60s, when Eastern religions were beginning to appear in the West. Meditation, ecstatic dance, and the concept of Enlightenment as an alternative to belief provided enticing options to explore.
Through life passages of careers and marriages, children and step-children, she read about comparative mythologies, spiritual metaphor and the power of myth, and realized that while she was not seeking a religion, she was fascinated by religions.
In 1989 Karis joined a Goddess-based ‘feminine spirituality’ group and subsequently became a neo-pagan. She visited Newgrange in Ireland. In India, she worshipped Durga in her temple, experienced the exquisite Baha’i Lotus, visited mosques, gurdwaras, temples and shrines, and learned about the peaceful Jains. She celebrated in churches and synagogues in Europe, and across North America, and experienced the catharsis of a sweat lodge.
A member of Interfaith Grand River since its inception in 2001, Karis formed connections with clerics from the many religious traditions in the Grand River watershed. She facilitated public lecture series presentations that included taking the class to worship services, to meet with practitioners, share a meal with them and ask questions. Through classes in larger centres she met Wiccans, Native Elders, Zoroastrians and Rastafari. In 2005, she engaged in a public debate with an imam regarding the idea of Shari’a Law in Ontario.
In 2007, at the age of 58, she became a ‘peregrina’ on the 850 km. El Camino de Santiago de Compostella and experienced the power of pilgrimage. Realizing that secularists, agnostics, humanists and atheists can also be deeply spiritual, she created the Redefining the Sacred website and posted “My Place in the Universe”, mainly for her six grandchildren, but also for children everywhere.
In 2012, she co-founded the Sacred Secular Sanctuary. Deeply concerned about the apathetic political response to Climate Change, she was pleased to discover the World Pantheist Movement (WPM) and its attitude of reverence for Nature. On the WPM website, she ‘met’ Rod Fleming, a stranger on the other side of the world, and that chance encounter lead to the publication of Why Men Made God in 2015.
Karis is enjoying an active retirement, continuing to explore and experience the fascinating tapestry of human beliefs.
