August 2022 Newsletter
“We have more news to share with you in this, our August newsletter…”
In Loving memory of Anne Henderson
“-Honouring Anne’s generous and gentle spirit, grounded in Divine Love…”
Holding the Post: An invitation to know our place within the sacred space we live, by Therese DesCamp
An invitation to know our place within the sacred space we live…
Cultivating a Sense of Place: Contemplative Ecology in a Time of Loss
A Zoom retreat, Saturday July 23, 2022, with Douglas Christie…
Spring Silent Mini-Retreat
Hello Contemplative friends in the Greater Victoria Region,
We can meet again in person! We can ditch the Zoom separation and gather again as living, breathing, contemplatives. Not on a 2-dimensional screen, but in multi-dimensional embodiment of community – to sit, walk, celebrate, and enjoy our living presence to each other and the Divine Presence in all Creation.
Join us for a Spring Celebration with a gentle morning of Contemplative Silence.
We’ll Celebrate with chant in the Style of Taize, Centering Prayer, Lectio-Divina, Labyrinth, and Meditation – surrounded by the wondrous Spring verdancy of the Finnerty Garden.
Spring Silent Mini-Retreat
Saturday, April 30
9:30am – 1:30pm
UVIC Multifaith Centre
We will have refreshments and we will finish the morning with a simple Soup, Bread, and Fruit lunch to chat and re-connect.
Hosted by The Contemplative Society and the UVic Multifaith Centre.
Suggested donation at the door $5—$20
See you at the Centre!
Henri Lock, The Contemplative Society
and
Greg Powel, UVic Multifaith
Click HERE to register for the Silent Mini-Retreat
Fall Update & News from TCS
Now is a good time to update you on the new movements here at The Contemplative Society, and how these may involve you…
UPDATES FROM CYNTHIA: Teilhardian Vision and Evolving Toward the Common Good
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
THE ‘COMMON GOOD’ BLOG SERIES BY CYNTHIA BOURGEAULTCynthia provides an orienting emphasis toward the evolving terrain of the ‘Common Good’ and the rebirth of moral leadership. She provides explicit aims and suggestions for Wisdom students who are “up to the challenge of holding the post during this epochal consciousness shift.”
You can find the full series on Cynthia’s website here:
EVOLUTIONARY THEORY AND THE COMMON GOOD: The Beginnings of a Wisdom Inquiry
The Common Good from an Evolutionary Perspective
Autopoiesis: A Continuing Blog Series on the Common Good
REIMAGINING THE COMMON GOOD: The Common Good as Good, Part 1
REIMAGINING THE COMMON GOOD: The Common Good as Good, Part 2
Constraint and the Common Good
VIDEO RECORDING
In this virtual keynote address to the ATA annual meeting, Cynthia Bourgeault offers an illuminating and instructive overview of Teilhard’s emphasis on ‘personalization’ as an inherent and intensifying quality of consciousness in the evolutionary process toward a convergent unity.
“… the more relationship, the more complexity, the stronger the flow of consciousness. For Teilhard, consciousness, relationship, and the personal are an unbreakable triad. Each implies the other and cannot be sustained apart from the other.”
Cynthia shares how Teilhard’s potent understanding of the ‘Hyper-Personal’ aligns with the emerging Integral structure, as described by Jean Gebser in his book The Ever Present Origin. The complementary perspectives of these two visionary 20th century thinkers leverage each other and point the way toward a renewed confidence in the maturity and profundity of the Western unitive vision. Teilhard set forth a characteristically Western and enstatic approach to the highest states of realized consciousness — a vision independently confirmed and concluded by Gebser.
Weaving it all together, Cynthia helps us imagine a radically unified, relational field as the ultimate destination of the evolutionary journey.
“The Person represents a higher evolutionary stage on the journey. Teilhard intuited that from his evolutionary map, Gebser confirms it chapter and verse from his phenomenological map.”
Cynthia’s talk is followed by short presentations from authors of recent publications on Teilhard’s life and work.
Watch below or on YouTube:
This video is generously shared by the American Teilhard Association, recorded at their annual general meeting on June 12, 2021. The ATA explores and builds on the life and work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and aims to make his visionary thinking more widely available. To learn more, or to become a member of the ATA, please visit their website at teilharddechardin.org
FEATURED AUDIO TEACHING
TEILHARD: A VISIONARY FOR OUR TIME – Audio Teaching by Cynthia Bourgeault
In both Cynthia’s ‘Common Good’ message, and her ATA presentation, she draws squarely upon Teilhard de Chardin’s evolutionary vision. Teilhard’s prophetic writings and ideas offer us essential wisdom to understand our times, and points us toward a more unitive, Integral consciousness to meet the emergent and unfolding future.
A full description and ordering details available here:
TEILHARD: A VISIONARY FOR OUR TIME – Audio Teaching by Cynthia Bourgeault
