Cynthia Bourgeault

Letter from Cynthia Bourgeault: I am very grateful to Joseph Azize for his willingness to make five of the Gurdjieff exercises available to us within the cyber confines of our Wisdom School Community. These exercises are powerful tools of healing, cleansing, and clarity, and even when practiced individually or in small groups, they have the power to significantly shift our present planetary atmosphere. They are something you can actually DO: to steady yourself and ready yours

In late June Cynthia started an important series of posts with a message to students, sharing her ideas and suggestions for “a worthy project for our Wisdom circle to take on.”  Cynthia also presented a riveting keynote address at the American Teilhard Association (ATA) annual meeting. Find links for both below. THE ‘COMMON GOOD’ BLOG SERIES BY CYNTHIA BOURGEAULT Cynthia provides an orienting emphasis toward the evolving terrain of the ‘Common Good’ and the rebirth of moral l

Photo by S Migaj  from Pexels After a short hiatus in her series of reflections, Cynthia Bourgeault continues with a new post drawing upon Jean Gebser’s Ever Present Origin and his perspectives on Integral consciousness.     Go Beyond the Mind, LESSON 13 When I say that the ability to access and sustain the Integral structure of consciousness is developmental, I mean just that: it is fundamentally a question of physiology, rather than of moral virtue or mystical yearning. We

What’s new with our Principal Teacher Cynthia Bourgeault? Recently we’ve heard from a number of you wondering  what Cynthia is up to   while in-person events and retreats are widely curtailed.   Well, unless you happen to spot her on the high seas, here are some opportunities to tune into Cynthia’s activities and catch some of her upcoming  appearances: CONVERSATIONS & BLOGS   New ICN Podcast:   From a Cosmic Nudge to an Integral Christianity – A Conversation with Cynthia Bou

Photo by Andy Vu  from Pex els In this potent and engaging conversation, Cynthia Bourgeault is hosted by Paul Smith (author of Integral Christianity ) and Luke Healy of the Integral Christian Network . Together they offer deep insights and personal experiences to illuminate the emerging scope and potential for Christianity. The dialogue is infused by their shared appreciation and revelations inspired by Jean Gebser’s seminal work Ever Present Origin .  As the conversation unf

If you’re considering the multiple online course opportunities with Cynthia that are coming up, she provides this message to the Wisdom community and offers some additional input for consideration. It occurred to me that people may want a little guidance as to how to pick and choose among the sudden embarrassment of riches of Cynthia Bourgeault online course options currently opening up for registration. Here’s a bit more information to help you make your selection(s).  Spiri

In the following podcasts and interviews Cynthia Bourgeault illuminates the Imaginal and some key insights offered in her groundbreaking new book EYE OF THE HEART: A Spiritual Journey into the Imaginal Realm :   ENCOUNTERING SILENCE: Silence and the Imaginal Realm (Audio: October 2020) In this two-part interview, Cynthia Bourgeault speaks with Encountering Silence hosts on her practice of silence, and thoughts on navigating through the particular challenges of our current tim

NOW AVAILABLE: This groundbreaking book shares the evolution of Cynthia Bourgeault’s spiritual journey and offers a new map to understanding energy and our collective reality. In Eye of the Heart , Cynthia Bourgeault investigates the imaginal realm–an energetic realm well known to the mystical traditions but often forgotten in our own times. It is invisible to the physical eye, but clearly perceptible through the eye of the heart. The imaginal realm has long been associated w

Posted on Facebook April 14, 2020 Going Forward…. For the past four weeks, as many of you know, I have been hanging out here on the edge of the known universe on Eagle Island, taking the time to renew my flagging hermit skills. What little technology I have access to on my two-panel, four-battery solar system huffs and puffs to keep up. On days like yesterday when I sat in the teeth of a gale for twelve stormy hours, the whole system went down by sunset. Surrounded by mostly

Letter from Cynthia Bourgeault: Dear Wisdom friends, ' Here is my own recommendation for inner work during this time of profound planetary readjustment. I will send you a fuller explanation as soon as I can, but the internet system has just gone very wonky out here on Eagle Island, and you may need to be patient for my further elucidations of this admittedly countercultural prescription. For those of you who have seen an advance manuscript of my book, this would be a course o

(the background to Instructions, posted on Cynthia Bourgeault’s Facebook page, March 23) I am keenly aware of the irony in all this. Here I sit on my prayer cushion in the remote seclusion of Eagle Island, more than twenty-four hours now elapsed since the island’s only other occupant headed ashore for an undisclosed period of time, taking the mailboat with him.  It’s me, the eagle, the deer herd, the communion of saints. And nothing much in between. But I did not come out her

(Posted by Cynthia Bourgeault on Facebook, March 24, 2020.)   As I expected, I am receiving plenty of raised cyber-eyebrows about my instruction 3 in yesterday’s posting, to “radically decrease or discontinue altogether your use of internet technology to support social distancing.” Please don’t jump to the conclusion that I am calling for an immediate cold turkey here: more like a gentle challenging of some assumptions we’ve all bought into a bit too automatically, and a phas

Dear Friends,  If the wisdom path calls to you, I am delighted to share with you an opportunity to participate in an online course created in partnership with the Center for Action and Contemplation. Introductory Wisdom School , a 14-week online module that emerged from an in-person event I led for 200 students, integrates Christian wisdom teachings and contemplative practices for an embodied experience. Registration ends soon—Feb. 28, 2020— and the course runs from March 4

Dr. Rudy Hwa Rudy is an emeritus professor of Physics at the University of Oregon as well one of my one of my senior Wisdom Students, both chronologically (we’ve been traveling this path together for nearly two decades now) and in his recognized eldership in the scientific and Wisdom communities. This delightful blog post seamlessly weaves together his scientific rigor with his passion for music. It’s a delight and a privilege to share it with you here. ~ Cynthia Bourgeault A

Dear friends in The Contemplative Society, It is an honour to be asked to contribute a few words in support of the Margaret Haines Scholarship Fund . Where do I start, with Margaret Haines or with the contemplative vision that sustained her every step of her long and fruitful journey? Margaret was the spiritual mother of The Contemplative Society, our tiny, “can-do” organization she founded to bring me to British Columbia, and she was my own spiritual mother, midwifing my eme

“ WHUR WE COME FROM… “ ~ Br. Raphael Robin “Teachers of contemplative Christianity, who acknowledged the limitations of human knowledge and the inconstant nature of human sentiment, instead encouraged a commitment to practice. A scripturally grounded commitment to practice and service – rather than a reliance on unsteady belief and feeling – is the fulcrum of contemplative Christianity.” ~ Paula Pryce, The Monk’s Cell From time to time in the unfolding life of a lineage, it b

“Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” ~ Exodus 3:5 “ Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamagate …” (“ Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone utterly beyond …”) We used to chant this ancient Hindu chant in our small contemplative circle in Snowmass, Colorado back in the early 1990s, during the “Advaita” phase of our work. I hadn’t thought of it for years, but it suddenly popped back into my mind this morning as the following exchange with a student sudde

For almost thirty years the standing joke has been, “What enneagram type is Cynthia?” Leading teachers in all the various schools have typed me variously (frequently categorically ) as a Four, Five, or Six. While I can see certain points of congruence (after all, my mom was a Four, my dad a Six, and most of my partners Fives, so I know these types well), none of them really resonated – and more important, none of them really captured my interest. They failed to paint for me a

Arthur Russell’s “The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea” This piece by Cynthia Bourgeault is the seventh in a series beginning with “ A Surprising Ecumenism “, her response to “ Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism in the USA: A Surprising Ecumenism “, an article published by  La Civiltà Cattolica . The second is “ Abortion, Pro-Life, and the Secular State: A Modest Proposal “,   the third is “ When Does Life Begin? “,  the fourth is “ The

This piece by Cynthia Bourgeault is the sixth in a series beginning with “ A Surprising Ecumenism “, her response to “ Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism in the USA: A Surprising Ecumenism “, an article published by  La Civiltà Cattolica . The second is “ Abortion, Pro-Life, and the Secular State: A Modest Proposal “,   the third is “ When Does Life Begin? “,  the fourth is “ The Developmental Soul “, and the fifth is “ Teilhard, the Personal, and the Develop