November 2024 Newsletter

Holdfast.

As a kid, I used to love finding seaweed on the beach after a big storm. We would wield short strands of kelp like clubs in mock fights, twirl the long ones above our heads so they’d whistle in the wind, and pop the little air-and-slime-filled bladders. Once in a while we’d even find a root-like holdfast.

Holdfasts. Such a lovely name; such an unglamorous appearance. By the time a holdfast shows up on the beach, it is dead: brittle and broken, a woody knot no longer holding fast to anything. Nothing to play with.

But when a holdfast is alive, wow. It anchors seaweed in place, helping maintain forests of algae that provide fish habitat and food. Living holdfasts enable kelp to sequester carbon, make oxygen, filter pollutants, and protect shorelines. They hold both ocean and land life together.

I’ve been thinking about the unglamorous holdfast these last weeks. A living holdfast is closely akin, in an odd way, to the daily rule of life that a contemplative might follow. A rhythm of prayer and meditation and service anchors us: it holds us fast to the deep Centre.

And no holdfast functions alone.

No single holdfast can anchor a kelp forest; no single meditator can maintain a community. When the tempests come, every holdfast needs to hang on. But it is the collective that withstands the storm. When darkness looms, every contemplative needs to centre down into Love. But it is the collective that supports us when we falter.

One person who clearly understood the importance of holding on, together, was Brian Mitchell. Brian gave hundreds of hours to the Christian Wisdom community—transcribing tapes from retreats, anchoring the Kamloops contemplative group, and serving on TCS boards and committees. None of this work was glamorous; all of it was deeply necessary. Brian knew the importance of steadfastness and commitment. He knew how necessary community was to the contemplative life. He knew how to holdfast.

This year, we invite you follow Brian’s example by supporting our collective work through a contribution to The Contemplative Society. Your one-time or monthly donation will make possible some unglamorous but deeply necessary work (revamp an aging IT system, re-write bylaws) that is crucial to TCS’s ability to offer increased retreat and education offerings. Your support also importantly empowers TCS to plan its next series of retreats over 2025.

We also invite you to make an additional contribution to the recently established “Brian Mitchell Fund”. Cynthia Bourgeault, our founding teacher, donated the initial gift for this fund; with Tom Musial, a TCS supporter, contributing soon thereafter to the fund. They are joined by Brian’s family as TCS establishes a resource intended to defray retreat costs, especially for rural participants.

We are indeed experiencing tempests these days. Between the fires and floods of the past few months—both literal and political—there’s a lot of wrack and ruin. Our best discernment is that more darkness lies ahead.

But we know that we are heldfast in Christ by the grace of God. We honor this gift through our commitment to our own practice, and our commitment to share this lifegiving reality. Dear friends, we are anchored—and anchor each other—in Love.

Therese DesCamp
TCS President

The Contemplative Society Presents…

“The Body is like Mary: An Online Evening Retreat to Deepen into Advent.“

December 16th, 2024
6:30–8:30pm PACIFIC TIME
with Heather Ruce.

“The body is like Mary, and each of us has a Jesus inside. Who is not in labour, holy labour? Every creature…God is really there within, so innocently drawing life from us with Her umbilical universe – infinite existence… though also needing to be born. Yes, God also needs to be born!” — Rumi

Advent is a season rich with anticipation as we, alongside Mary, carry and prepare to bear God in our own lives yet again. Christ revealed to the world a life rooted in the heart, at the intersection of time and timelessness. We enter the dark and soft stillness of winter; ripening with courage and surrender to participate in the ongoing co-creation of embodied love in this world. As we anchor in our own awakened hearts, with roots in the finite and the infinite, cultivating our own deep “yes” parallel to Mary’s, we have the opportunity to carry forth tending to the horizontal demands of the season from a profound fullness. Slowing and staying awake to the true meaning of this season and offering the fruits of our awakened hearts.

Join us as we gather together for an Evening Retreat grounded in three-centered Wisdom practices and teaching, sitting and lingering in the quiet, readying our hearts to enter Christmas with humility, compassion, and great love; that we may offer what is needed.

For more Information and to Register

Heather Ruce, M. A. is a Wisdom Spiritual Director who offers Wisdom Practice Circles, Retreats, and Wisdom Schools focused on the expansive Christian Wisdom Tradition. She works within the lineage of Wisdom Teacher Cynthia Bourgeault whom she has been a student of for over a decade. Heather weaves her Masters in Marital & Family Therapy and training in Somatic Experiencing, Organic Intelligence & Spiritual Direction into her teaching and guidance in various Wisdom practices, all in service of waking up and putting on the Mind of Christ. Find out more at heatherruce.com.

Year-end Invitation 2024

The Contemplative Society (TCS) is lovingly and care-fully supported in both of its finances and financial sustainability by its circle of members and friends, with and through whom TCS is able to support its Mission: “To embrace and share the visionary and mystical heart of the Christian Wisdom tradition.”

TCS provides contemplatives with many moments for spiritual deepening alongside prominent North American Wisdom teachers… and does so on the smallest of budgets. TCS is fiscally responsible and equally expansive in the delivery of our affordable Wisdom-themed programming. Our Society is also instrumental in supporting existing and new Wisdom teachers in their ongoing Wisdom gifts and work.

At each year-end, we at TCS invite any person who has been touched or benefitted by our Society, our programming, and the Wisdom way of knowing that TCS imparts, to consider making either a one-time donation or a 12-month commitment to a monthly donation of any amount. As a donor to TCS, you can also select to become a member of TCS and participate more deeply in the operations of the Society.

To make donating easier, TCS now accepts donations in both Canadian and USA dollars.

There is no gift too small or heart too big in the spirit of goodness and generosity.

For Canadian dollar donations, please visit: Support Our Work (Canadian Residents).

For USA dollar donations, please visit: Support Our Work (USA Residents)

You can also visit our website to find out more about: MEMBERSHIP AND SUPPORT OPTIONS

Please also be most welcomed to contact TCS via e-mail at: admin@contemplative.org or via telephone at: 1.250.381.9650 to discuss donating to The Contemplative Society in any manner, including for donations to any of our new “Brian Mitchell Fund”, the existing “Margaret Haines Scholarship Fund”, and with Legacy Gifts.

Thank-you for your loving beings, ways, and support of your The Contemplative Society.

Self-Inquiry and Silent Retreat Opportunity

September 17-23, 2025

Metchosin, B.C.

Members of The Contemplative Society are invited to join a unique retreat opportunity.

This private retreat is designed to support deep self-inquiry and self-observation all while being nurtured and held in the profound silence and stillness of 30 acres of meadows and forest on the ocean at the Krishnamurti Centre in Metchosin, B.C.

This retreat is primarily held in silence.

There will be time each day for groups sits and an evening group reflection which are optional. As students of the Wisdom School lineages and Cynthia Bourgeault, this could be an opportunity to participate in the forming of a conscious web.

There will be an opportunity to do Tai chi and Qigong each day (in silence).

In the spirit of welcoming dialogue, there will be a short period each day to enter into discussion with the facilitator in residence, Cynthia Overweg.

A maximum of 7 retreatants are invited to participate. The retreat centre has 7 private rooms with shared kitchen and bathroom facilities. Retreatants need to bring their own food and prepare their meals. Cost is $540. (6 nights,7 days)

For more information contact: Suzanne Sarioglu.

To enquire about registration, please contact: Judith Green.

(Please note that this event is a private retreat and is not a TCS event. TCS, as a community service, offers to identify community events that might be of interest to our supporters.)

TCS is a non-profit society and registered charitable organisation in Canada run by a volunteer board and a dedicated circle of contemplatives. It was formed in Victoria, BC, Canada in 1997 to serve an emerging contemplative renewal, and to support and spread the teachings of Cynthia Bourgeault and other distinguished Wisdom teachers. We lovingly carry forward this work, adapting to the changing needs of the present and future, while anchoring ourselves in the ancient Wisdom tradition.

We welcome you to join us as a member, and to help sustain and build our offerings with a donation of any amount.

Please visit our website to find out more:

CLICK HERE > FOR MEMBERSHIP AND SUPPORT OPTIONS

Our mailing address is:
PO Box 23031, Cook St. RPO
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, V8V 4Z8

E-mail: admin@contemplative.org

Telephone: +1.250.381.9650

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