January 2025 Newsletter

The Contemplative Society
Jan 13
7 min read

New Year 2025 blessings, contemplative companions.

A February 2025 online retreat with Justin Coutts is offered by TCS in this newsletter.

“The Gate of Heaven is Everywhere” ~ Thomas Merton

by Barbara Cecil

(Dedicated to the young people who are inheriting the world we have created.)

I was touched by how Heather Ruce opened the daily Pause of meditation and Centering Prayer earlier this month. She spoke of a great wave surrounding us, permeating us, which is itself the flow of God. The name God is shorthand (a nickname) for this unfathomable, ever-present, source of love. More and more, as the disconnected world we have constructed collapses, I find myself orienting deliberately in this pervasive energy. I am committed to consciously generating the conditions whereby this creative current is invited into the world. This article is about those conditions.

I am in utter awe at the development of the human embryo (and maybe all embryos?). There is mention in close observation of early fetal formation by embryologists, that catches my attention. At around week four, when the embryo is barely detectable, there is a measurable pulse in the unformed tissue. It registers on an ultrasound as a heartbeat but the heart has not yet developed. I have always felt that this rhythmic pulse forms the heart, not the other way around. Could it be that this universal rhythm reliably enters readied conditions and literally draws new form into being?

I walk regularly in the forest, always drawn to places least altered by human interference. Always, the miracle and beauty of life opens my heart. The old growth forests are indeed cathedrals. The greater-than-human beings simply have no intellectual power or will to block or manipulate the pervasive flow of being. That flow of being flowers, bursts into song, migrates thousands of miles, bathes us in the aurora borealis, makes honey. We are embedded in the natural world that unfolds from this cosmic pulse. And can thus attune ourselves, if we take the time, to its slower rhythms, to its healing energy, to its generosity. We are thus drawn into place in the web of life. We become receptive to the tidal flow of love that awaits entry into our consciousness and bodies. And we can feel our natural place in the web of life, a reciprocal relationship finally remembered.

I honour the indigenous people who, for tens of thousands of years, have lived in harmony, and kinship with all life, despite the gigantic odds we imposed on them. Their wisdom arises out of right relationship with the earth. They know for sure that everything is alive, an expression of the Creator, and therefore sacred. Their reverence for the earth, their prayer and ritual are their invitation to the living presence, of which Heather speaks, to guide their way of living.

I have had the great privilege of working in the lineage of David Bohm, a renowned physicist who won a Nobel Prize. His research describes an “implicate order”, enfolded in the invisible world. When given the right reception in the material world, the patterns in the implicate order unfold into the world as we know it. He stumbled on a reliable way for humans to collectively tune to this hidden wholeness, that awaits expression. People in communities, businesses, women’s and men’s groups, spiritual circles gather with this intent. The medium for perception of possibility is silence.

Bohm pioneered the art and disciple of “Dialogue”. In this form of conversation, people from diverse orientations who are seeking to work together learn to listen to the spaces between personal and cultural beliefs. We learned open-ended inquiry, in the spirit of curiosity. We learned to say what is true for us and suspend our own sureness. Above all, we learned to slow down and sit quietly together. And, lo, that great presence finds its way into such a prepared gathering, igniting fresh thinking, unprecedented ideas and timely practical action. In such a receptive group one can discern the shift in atmosphere when the “wisdom field” becomes accessible to both mind and heart. At some point someone in the circle often comments, in a hushed moment, “Ahh, can you feel it? The Circle Being is here now.” The Circle Being is an intelligence made up of, and greater than, the individuals present, and speaks through those assembled. I think of this as “collective metis.”'

I want to close by saying how hungry our young people are for an understanding of how to create the conditions in which the universal pulse can inform their lives and the future of human kind. I recently asked a friend who is part of an international network of men and women in their 20’s and 30’s, “Are people your age interested in spirituality?” Maura’s answer was a clear yes, with caveats. She is a graduate student studying environmental crisis management in Stockholm.

“More and more it is obvious to us that no matter how we try to fix the social, political and environmental crises that spell near term catastrophe, we are past the point of no return. We need the invisible forces that can help us create and ensure a future, forces that can help us live honestly and constructively now in the midst. We are not interested in institutions, but we are desperately interested in something bigger than we can grasp, something that is more a feeling than a belief system. It has to include the earth. They do not teach us how to do this at school.”

Can we help them?

Today I accept responsibility for the fires and floods destroying life as we have known it. I have dear young friends whose homes burnt to the ground earlier this month in Los Angeles. To them I say, “I accept responsibility for the consequences of my ways of living and thinking and worshipping. I dedicate my life to creating the conditions into which the tone and pulse of life may yet enter. We are in this together, come what may.”

Barbara Cecil

(with the The Well Keepers)

Images courtesy of Barbara Cecil, painter.

In the first image, Barbara was inspired by Jackie Morris.

The Contemplative Society Presents…

“The Triple Way: An Introduction to Contemplative Prayer”, with Justin Coutts.

Saturday 22nd February 2025, 10am to 12noon Pacific Time (PT).

There is an ancient teaching in the mystical streams of Christianity, a threefold path to divine union. It is a pedagogical approach to spiritual formation – gathering our mind, body, and spirit into a single harmonious prayer. A mixture of traditional and contemporary, solemn and playful, this retreat introduces the three stages of the Triple Way with liturgy, chanting, and spiritual practices. Creating a sacred space through the shared meditation of our hearts, our prayer will include times for silence and teaching, as we listen to the Spirit flowing in and through us. Please bring an open mind, a patient heart, and a candle.

CLICK HERE > FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO REGISTER

Justin Coutts is a contemplative teacher and spiritual director at New Eden Ministry. Over the course of his life, he received spiritual formation in the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), Indigenous ceremony (Ojibwe and others), and the United Church of Canada. He currently teaches Celtic Christianity with a particular emphasis on the monastic tradition and its application for people today. As spiritual director, he focuses primarily on religious formation, pastoral care, and theological exploration.

Thank-you for your year-end 2024 support.

The Contemplative Society (TCS) thanks you for your generous support offered during our year-end financial appeal. Your donations ensure TCS continues in its ability to offer you with the retreats, events, and resources that support you in your own personal contemplative journey. TCS is gladdened that we, each and all of us together, are able to be a support to one another.

A sharing with you that, administratively, TCS is moving to new software platforms to help TCS better support you as contemplatives, members, donors, supporters, and participants. We have heard over years from many of you on a preference for alternative payment processing options. To that end of our listening and hearing your perspectives, our financial supporters can expect to receive an e-mail from TCS over the next few months, inviting you to transition your monthly donation from PayPal to another payment processing provider. The transition will be made easy and TCS will be with you as a support through this process.

Thank-you and New Year 2025 blessings.

Save-the-dates for these coming retreats of The Contemplative Society, with fuller details to come:

Thursday 08th May 2025, from 6:30 to 9pm Pacific Time: TCS will hold an online retreat with Heather Ruce, who may be joined by a surprise guest.
This June 2025, TCS will hold an online retreat with Alana Levandoski. Details to follow!
Sunday 05th October to Thursday 09th October 2025: TCS will hold an in- person retreat with Heather Ruce at Bethlehem Centre, Nanaimo, Canada.
TCS members and donors will first be invited to pre-register for early-bird access and pricing for the retreat, prior to TCS supporters next being invited to access early- bird registration and pricing for the retreat, before the general public will be invited to access early-bird pricing, after which time full-pricing will be available.
During Advent (December) 2025, TCS will hold an online retreat with Therese DesCamp, held on the theme of ‘Metis’.
(As defined by TCS’s Events Planning Committee, Metis (not Métis, the peoples), is: “To maintain pose and act perfectly in the present moment. It is being the Presence.”)
April 06th to 10th, 2026, TCS will hold an in-person retreat with Heather Ruce for Eastertide.
September 24th to 28th, 2027, TCS will hold an in-person retreat with Heather Ruce.

To become eligible for early bird access and pricing to a TCS retreat as a TCS member, please be welcomed to become a member of TCS. Details on becoming a TCS member are found at: MEMBERSHIP.

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 would love for you to join us as a member and to help sustain and build our offerings with a donation of any amount.