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

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 third part of a series from our deeply knowledgeable audio ministry editor, Peggy Zimmerman. By the end of our last post , the Job story has led us to three h

Credit: hoodmystic.com 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 second part of a series from our deeply knowledgeable audio ministry editor, Peggy Zimmerman. By the end of Part 1 of this exploratio

Credit: catholicnewstt.com This is our second post in the continuation of our series 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 first part of a series from our deeply knowledgeable audio ministry editor, Peggy Zimmerman. Since learning

Photography as an Act of Faith While we have featured many guest posts in the past, we are setting the intention to bring 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 an enlightening testimonial to art as a spiritual practice by Cynthia Bourgeault’s

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

Retirement: often lauded as a time to enjoy what we have worked for all our lives, taking trips, cultivating hobbies, and being with friends and family. Many use their freedom for kicking back and pampering, while others take advantage of the extra time to engage in transformational contemplative work. It can be a time of great joy and pleasure, but it’s not always smooth sailing; it can also be a time of great loss, whether of career, health, or loved ones, and often concurr

Our retreat participants are diverse: we serve Christians and SBNRs, young and old, wealthy and financially constrained. You might put yourself in one of these categories, or volunteer your own. But one thing we all have in common is our seeking of contemplative Wisdom and our wish to inject the world with love, as well as the need for practice opportunities to deepen our journey along this path. Going on retreat allows contemplatives to learn and sink into practice in a saf

I arrived at the Wisdom School on Lake Cowichan both exhausted and depleted. While I am an advocate for self-care, I have found it very difficult to practice sincerely in this all-consuming stage of motherhood that I am currently immersed. I had not attended a retreat since my first child was born almost five years ago, despite the fact that retreat was the bedrock of my spiritual practice. Retreat was where I found sustenance, insight, and communion with God – quite simply

You might not recognise her name, but without her, The Contemplative Society wouldn’t exist. You might not have access to audio teachings, Wisdom Schools, or a community of contemplatives to reach out to for support. When hearing the name “Cynthia Bourgeault,” you might respond, “Cynthia who?” Or worse, you wouldn’t hear the name at all. But rather than entertaining those dark thoughts, we get to celebrate! And the person who deserves our praise and gratitude was Margaret Hai

“ 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

Dear Members and Friends, This time of year often propels us into a vast amount of “doing” in an attempt to recreate an atmosphere that might reflect the transcendent mystery celebrated at Christmas. I have recently been reminded that the only doing which can open us to the Hope and Light of this season is the doing of waking, noticing, and trusting the present moment in all its fullness, mystery, and wonder. There is no need to attain anything, all is given and is available

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

In the last week of September, The Contemplative Society welcomed Mirabai Starr to Vancouver Island for a retreat entitled “One Heart: Weaving a Tapestry of Inter-spiritual Community” at Cowichan Lake Research Station, a first collaboration between our organization and this renowned author, translator of the Mystics, and speaker. While she is perhaps best known for her memoir Caravan of No Despair , in which she chronicles her many tales of love, loss, and transformation, w