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

Dear Contemplative Friends,   This has been a year of momentous change and uncertainty!   Here at The Contemplative Society, we have been prayerfully discerning our future path through the challenges and opportunities during this tumultuous time.    The Board has made some difficult decisions to reduce administrative costs and bring expenses into alignment with income. We’ve had to change our usual way of operating and are exploring alternative and creative means to support t

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

From a fairly young age, Mary-Clare Carder has had mystical encounters with the spiritual world. In her late twenties, she developed Sjogren's syndrome – a painful, incurable condition which blunted her career and made her life very challenging. This challenging life led her to a deeper spiritual path and an enriched interior life. Along the way, she learned about the wisdom of silence, a form of meditation known as centring prayer, energy healing, and has had after-death com

My journey with the teacher named ‘covid’ began with odd symptoms that I did not connect and so for a couple of days worsened until the telltale cough put the lights on and my doctor sent me for a test. Soon I had night sweats, fever, nausea, diarrhoea, body aches, a ferocious headache upon waking in the morning and pain under my shoulders, and I couldn’t stay awake all day. My first reaction was denial quickly followed by waves of panic. My body has a history of over-reactio

The day before Islam’s holiest month Ramadan was set to begin, I received an email from The Contemplative Society. I was logistically and mentally preparing for my fourth decidedly non-traditional foray into this time of fasting and spiritual recommitment. While I am not Muslim myself, I occasionally take advantage of the opportunity to participate in a global joint effort to purify ourselves and reorient to what is truly important: community and charity through what I would

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

This meditation on the Stations of the Cross during the Pandemic has been provided by Rev. Dawne Taylor of Kamloops, British Columbia. We thank her for allowing us to share this beautiful teaching.  She suggests this Good Friday service at Kamloops United Church. GOOD FRIDAY STATIONS OF THE CROSS In the Roman Catholic traditions, churches mark Good Friday by walking the 14 Stations of the Cross with a prayer at each station. The stations take the Christian from the 1 st stat

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

Charlotte Futcher participated in Holy Wisdom, the Mother of God with Matthew Wright in September, 2019 at the Cowichan Lake Research Station on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. She generously shared her experience. During that crisp and sunny week spent at the Lake Cowichan Forest Research Station, with the lake lapping and greens transforming to reds all around us, I went through a reintroduction to and transformation in the relationships with both myself and the

In April 2019 I attended a unique “retreat”, known as a Wisdom School (WS). This five-day event led by The Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault, PhD and sponsored by The Contemplative Society ( contemplative.org ) was held at the Lake Cowichan Education Centre and filled to capacity. Although it rained for four of the five days and I was sleeping in a tent, the WS was filled with a light and joy, carried in many radiant hearts. In her teaching Cynthia clarified and expanded on eight point

I have been a seeker/yearner since I was a teenager looking for a spiritual path that really spoke to me. I was raised Roman Catholic and left the church when I was 17. And although I tried a few times to renew my faith and understanding of Catholicism, for most of my adult life, I have called myself a recovering Catholic. I became very involved with Buddhism for many years and found a lot of it very helpful but it was missing something important—mysticism. In the last 3 year

Please Note: This article has been condensed from 8 original parts, published on the Contemplative Society's blog between March 4th 2019 and July 2nd 2019. Skip to the section you are looking for: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 1 This 8-part blog offers excerpts from my book, The Monk’s Cell: Ritual and Knowledge in American Contemplative Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2018). Photo Courtesy of The Society of Saint John the Evangelist To

Our Kamloops contemplative group has evolved through several incarnations over the years. Initially we were simply four people in our local parish who were getting together weekly to share our stories and to “pray”. That was some twenty-five years ago. Four years into our existence I found myself at a week-long workshop-retreat on Centering Prayer given by Cynthia Bourgeault and was profoundly affected by both the practice and the teachings upon which it was built. After what

Dear Members and Friends of The Contemplative Society, I have had the great privilege of serving the society for the last 3.5 years as your administrator. Back in 2015, I was a fledgling meditator and fairly new to the contemplative side of Christianity. Since then, I have learned much and made many friends, and I am grateful to the board who have given me this opportunity to say thank you to you all. As I pack up my things here at the office and prepare for a new chapter in

This post continues our series of bringing you more Wisdom from your fellow students of the contemplative path. We hope you will find these posts enriching, enlightening, and inspiring for your own journey. If you would like to submit a post for future consideration, please email admin@contemplative.org . Read on for the fourth and last part of a series from our deeply knowledgeable audio ministry editor, Peggy Zimmerman. Post 3 ended with the wisdom formula representing the

You wander from room to room Hunting for the diamond necklace That is already around your neck ~ Rumi Wandering, hunting, seeking, yearning…sometimes I think that what is around my neck is a heavy burden…yet I am invited to treasure the beautiful necklace that is there, and has always been there. My 65 th year has been a year of wandering, pilgrimaging, seeking to make sense of my life of yearning, seeking. I started the year by walking the Camino de Santiago and shared in t