Tag Archive for: Advent
Fostering our Connection
Advent 2020
Dear Friends and Members of the The Contemplative Society,
Mercy. An old-fashioned word that conjures up so many contrasting images. Mercy is “a bond,” writes Cynthia Bourgeault in Mystical Hope, “an infallible link of love that holds the created and uncreated realms together.” Far from condescension or political power, the origin of the word mercy points instead to a flow of connectedness, reciprocity, and exchange.
Mercy is the great weaver that binds us together. With your assistance we will continue to work on the tapestry of conscious belonging, connectedness, and reciprocity – the binding love – that our world so needs.
Your ongoing support of The Contemplative Society is especially important this Advent. For many years, we have been grateful recipients of annual resources. A number of those resources are no longer available, and we are increasingly dependent on you, our donors, to help fund our work of supporting and teaching Wisdom Christianity.
Kindling a Light in the Darkness
Strengthening our members’ experience of connectedness and belonging has become a growing centre of the TCS mandate during this year of turmoil. Our first online event was an example of how we are adapting. In a late summer Zoom retreat, beloved teacher Matthew Wright led a hundred of us with his characteristic intimacy and heartfulness. Together we chanted, meditated, and studied fourteenth-century English mystic, Julian of Norwich, whom Matthew described as the “patron saint of sheltering in place.” Especially poignant were Julian’s teachings on the transformation of brokenness and helplessness to awakening love. Participants were so enthusiastic that we have been encouraged to offer more virtual retreats.
Sign up here to join us for a Zoom retreat on December 12: Light in Advent: A Contemplative Quiet Day with David Frenette, a seasoned spiritual teacher and author of The Path of Centering Prayer: Deepening Your Experience of God.
This time of in-between has prompted us to develop a closer connection to sister associations. Many of you know that The Contemplative Society is the seedbed organization that helped launch Cynthia Bourgeault in her work to revitalize Wisdom Christianity. Since the 1990’s, we have watched with delight as communities have sprung up in many of the places where Cynthia has taught. Nearly twenty-five years later, we are now in discussion with like-minded contemplative groups such as Northeast Wisdom (soon to be Wisdom Waypoints) to collaborate in providing resources for a flourishing global network of Wisdom Christianity. By decreasing duplication of our collective work, we will be able to do more together to foster steadiness and compassion in an uncertain world.
A strong container for local contemplative practitioners is essential to cultivating and maintaining a vibrant, connected global network. Collaboration with other associations will also allow TCS to increase support for regional communities in western North America.
This Advent signals the Board’s movement towards encouraging local leadership, contemplative circles, and retreats throughout the Pacific West region, while continuing to provide opportunities to learn from well-known teachers like Cynthia Bourgeault, Matthew Wright, Ward Bauman, and David Frenette.
A Vibrant and Responsive Community
What a mercy it has been for us to be part of a network of conscious belonging, giving, and receiving, especially during this time of wearisome upheaval. Other members of The Contemplative Society have felt this too. Therese, for example, describes how she has been “holding the post” in a rural corner of British Columbia:
“During these days when it’s hard to know what we can actually do for each other,” she and her local contemplative group have been practicing remotely to enkindle “the dialysis machine of which Cynthia has spoken: breathing in the suffering of the world into our own deepest heart, which is the heart of Christ, and breathing out compassion.”
Jennifer, another TCS member, similarly depicts community connectedness in her online Centering Prayer meetings with others from Ontario, England, and British Columbia. She writes,
“We are an improbable gathering, but a COVID-induced blessing. With the intensity of isolation now stretching over many months our holy and healing space in contemplation has strengthened my practice and given true solace – like a deep, clear pool of water.”
Brian also writes of the healing power of communion:
“I now trust more than ever in the connective tissue that I have with my contemplative community – within The Contemplative Society and in the world at large. No matter how alone this little old self may sometimes feel, I know more fully now that my ‘Real I’ is never alone.”
Whether we can gather physically or not this Advent, we know that a flow of unity is vital, both to ourselves and to serving the greater good.
What a mercy that we are together in the rising tide of Wisdom Christianity during these volatile times. This season of Advent, may we nurture the mercy that weaves renewal, healing, and connectedness in a “fierce, binding love.”
Every blessing this Advent,
The Contemplative Society Board & Staff
Henri Lock, President
Henri Lock, President
Kate Morgan, Vice President
Gerald Morton, Treasurer
Barb Britton, Secretary
Kim Gye, Director
Sho Ya Voorthuyzen, Director
James Douglass, Director
Paula Pryce, Director
Jennifer England, Director
Charlotte McNeil, Director
Eilen deVerteuil, Interim Administrator
Christmas 2017 – Letter from President
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 as we become aware of our subtle resistance to stopping right now, allowing ourselves to drop into the fullness of this present moment.
Recently I was sent a poem by Sylvia Plath which reminds me of the importance of keeping our eyes open to the subtle and hidden nature of the Divine as revealed in our midst. The Christ Child was revealed to us in the humblest of settings, within the mundane stuff of life. How easy to forget this and seek instead a brighter more transcendent star rather than allowing our subtle senses to be touched by that still point available through a deeper noticing, even of a “black rook”.
I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grantA brief respite from fear…
In a world that seems so often to be tilting towards harshness and violence, it is ever more important that we hold the light for the gentle art of listening and opening deeply. As Cynthia said in an Advent address in Aspen Chapel in 2009:
The eye of our mind can only see separation and feel ourselves to be in competition to everything else.
But, when the eyes of the heart open, we see the connection and alignment which we really participate in. As we enter that which is really true, we begin to prepare ourselves for the Christmas message of peace on earth and good will to all humanity.
We on the board are grateful to you for sharing with us in the ministry of The Contemplative Society as we provide support for contemplative practice that might guide us into deeper seeing. Your faithfulness makes it possible for us, through Wisdom Schools, retreats, workshops, books, on-line e-courses, and audio recordings, to continue reaching people hungry to hear this ancient wisdom of the heart.
God bless you all in this season of hope, peace, joy, and love and may our attention be drawn to “whatever angel may chose to flare suddenly at my elbow.”
Heather
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Advent 2016 – Letter from President
Dear Members and Friends of The Contemplative Society,
Advent: a time of waiting, of drawing more inward, a season of contemplation. It is easy for our personal energies to be dispersed and scattered, especially at this time of year. In the midst of the restlessness, fear, and general noise of day-to-day living, I am mindful 
of the need to consciously and honestly take a closer look at how we manifest our own energies. Advent is an opportunity to take time, to pause in the midst of all that calls us outward. We have an opportunity at this very moment as we read this to sense the activity and energies within our own minds, emotions, and physical bodies. Can we practice being here now in the midst of all that pulls our attention away from the present moment?
Advent is an opportunity to open to that place within where the deep, the holy, the inexpressible resides. Soon the festivities, celebrations, and joyful outpouring will be upon us providing much opportunity to manifest outwardly in abundance, gratitude, and thanksgiving. The weeks of Advent are a perfect container for allowing the soul to hibernate and quieten for a time. During these last days of Advent might we, like Mary, “treasure up these things and ponder them” in our hearts, or as Fr. Bruno says below, “allow yourself to be gathered into it”, into that place where “you know within yourself the perfect stability of the universe”?
Fr. Bruno Barnhart died a year ago
, on November 28th, the eve of the first Sunday in Advent last year. Fr. Bruno was a Roman Catholic priest at New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, California, and has been on my heart and mind this Advent. Cynthia and Bruno were two of my earliest contemplative teachers. Contemplatives on Vancouver Island were blessed to have a group who annually brought Fr. Bruno here to lead and teach at extended silent retreats at the Sisters of St. Ann’s retreat house, Queenswood, and later at Bethlehem Retreat Centre. The extended sitting, as well as the teaching, deeply nourished me as well as challenged my pre-existing assumptions of what defined a spiritual life. I am deeply grateful to have been the recipient of Fr. Bruno’s words and his remarkable presence which gave witness to a life lived deeply. Those times of deep retreat laid a firm foundation and continue to inform my spiritual practice and growth today. This section from Fr. Bruno’s book, Second Simplicity (p. 20-21) seems timely for this season of year:
Friend, just for a moment, allow your mind to disengage itself from its surface and to be drawn inward by the pull of its root, its invisible ground and stem. There at the center you are aware of something uncircumscribed, which is one with yourself, which is yourself illimitable. There: we should say here, for in this place there is only here. This is the here of being, the place of the burning bush, the crossing of time and space, of history and possibility, of experience and cosmos.
You cannot think of this, it is not an object of thought. You cannot focus on it, but from time to time it enkindles, it becomes conscious within you, and you can allow yourself to be gathered into it.
…What if it is not a place but everyplace, what if it surrounds you, so that the problem is not that of finding a way to it, but of finding the way out of the ways in which you are stuck? What if is the everywhere that we are imprisoned from, blinded from, the burning reality that we reach toward at every moment through the strong vertical bars of our mind, our will?
But still there are these moments of consciousness. There are moments when you know within yourself the perfect stability of the universe and the absolute sufficiency, the intrinsic rectitude of light.
…Maybe the way is a crazy multiple of love for this thing inside us: the pearl, the treasure. But be careful not to name it in such a way that you bring it home. For you do not live where you think you do. Instead, let it lead you. Let it be wild, an eccentric center, a city hidden in the wilderness, an unspoken name, an unspeakable syllable, a fire burning all the words into a wild and weaving script of smoke. Come back to this again and again.
One practice that can support our intention to open and receive is Centering Prayer. Cynthia’s first book, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening is one of the best books available on this practice and I eagerly await the follow-up to this book, The Heart of Centering Prayer: Nondual Christianity in Theory and Practice, which is now available for pre-order from Shambhala Publications. Fr. Thomas Keating writes of Cynthia’s newest book, “A masterpiece of spiritual wisdom firmly rooted in the Christian mystical tradition. A brilliant analysis of nondual Christianity in theory and in practice and a major contribution to the Centering Prayer movement and to interspiritual dialogue.”
I am grateful to contemplatives around the world who continue to support the mission of The Contemplative Society in its efforts to encourage contemplative practice and wisdom teaching. May this Advent and Christmas be a holy time for you filled with abundance and joy.
Heather
Deep practice, deep listening, deep hope
Dear Wisdom friends,
I want to make very clear to all of you that the “keep calm and carry on” tone of my earlier (immediately post-election) post does not imply that I’m feeling sanguine about the course of events now facing our country and our world. Quite to the contrary, I believe over the next several months we’re in for some hard reversals, probably harder than most Americans born post-World War II have ever seen in their lifetime.
I’ve been out here on Eagle Island for a few days of Advent deep listening, trying to second-guess myself. But the premonition remains.
And it’s still Wisdom’s hour. Because I believe that those of us seriously committed to walking the Wisdom path have something to bring to the mix which most of our culture – either secular or spiritual – is simply not going to be able to get at. And it’s the missing piece, I believe, where clarity and resolve are to be found, if at all.
As you know, the two main influences on my overall metaphysical bearings are Teilhard and Gurdjieff. From Teilhard I get the reassurance that deep hope takes place over deep time. So much of our human terror and horror comes from trying to compress the timescale too tightly, insisting that coherence must be found over the course of only a few generations, or at best a few centuries. That’s like a pressure cooker without a steam valve; it will inevitably blow up.
From Gurdjieff, I’ve come to understand that all planetary evolution operates under the sway of the Law of Three – and that, once again, we must look beyond immediate “good and bad” / ”winners and losers” modes of thinking in order to see the deeper lines of causality actually directing the unfolding from within a still-coherent field. What looks in the short-range to be unmitigated catastrophe can prove in the longer range to be addressing serious systemic malformations that need to be confronted and corrected before the evolutionary mandate can truly move forward.
It’s exactly this kind of long-scale and impartial visioning that we need to bring to these up-ended times.
My stubborn foreboding is that in the upcoming months we will witness the substantial dismantling not only of the past eight years of Obama progressive liberalism, or even the past eighty years of New Deal social welfare, but something far more resembling eight hundred years of the Western intellectual tradition – all the way back to the 13th century when the rise of scholasticism and the secular university began to displace the hegemony of the faith-based dogmatism in favor of free inquiry based on rational empiricism.
And the centerpiece in this domino chain of destruction is of course democracy itself, whose whole foundation lies in the sanctity of the above-mentioned principles.
Faced with threats – already underway – to what most of us still take for granted as the unshakable foundation of our national life – freedom of speech, freedom of the press, civility of discourse, and a commonly agreed-on factual data base – I believe that the great American liberal progressive establishment will almost inevitably lose heart. I am seeing it happening already: people simply too numb and disoriented to even know what’s hit them. The possibility that democracy itself might fall victim to the collective insanity now massing on its horizon is too devastating even to ponder; we either dig in our heels, give up in despair, or distract ourselves in a dwindling oasis of “business as usual”.
Let there be no mistake about this: what has just come to pass is a serious blow to the foundations of Western Civilization. To name it at a lesser degree of magnitude is to set ourselves up for mere reactivity rather than understanding. We need to name it for what it is and be able to hold our footings as the edifices of post-Enlightenment culture reel-and-tumble in this seismic shift.
And yet, I think it is precisely at this scale – i.e., eight hundred years – that we can discover the real ley lines of the Law of Three at work, in the situation, and we can understand more powerfully, impartially, and strategically what needs to be done as we hold the space for the course corrections which have necessarily arisen. This is not the destruction of consciousness, but a legitimate and ultimately propitious reconfiguration. We must not lose sight of that hope. If nothing else, we need to keep saying it so that it does not vanish from the face of the earth.
I invite all who feel so moved to join me in the work awaiting at this other scale of magnitude. It will involve a combination of deep practice and wider reading and thinking.
The deep practice is about collecting our hearts so as to be more directly and acutely in alignment with “the conscious circle of humanity” – those of all ages and faiths who help hold the bandwidth of compassionate and wise presence around this fragile earth. It is in this imaginal bandwidth that wisdom comes magnificently into her own, but only as our own hearts grow wide and gentle and calm enough to receive her.
The deep reading: for starters, we need a small group or groups who are seriously willing and able to take on Gurdjieff’s sprawling cosmological masterpiece, Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson. If you doubt that our own times are already brilliantly encapsulated there (including an eerily accurate portrait of our POTUS-elect), have a close look at chapters 25-28. (Read Cynthia’s follow-up post to find out more about engaging with this book.)
The other three which are part of my nightly bedtime reading for this retreat and these times: And There was Light by Jacques Lusseyran; Riddley Walker, Russell Hoban’s iconic 1980 post-apocalyptic novel; and of course, The Passion of the Western Mind by Richard Tarnus.
Over the next few months, I will be listening further into how our work wants to take shape “on the ground”: independent small groups? A new round of Wisdom retreats? Online learning formats? Officially rebooting the Omega Order? Road not clear at this point. But I do know that the real Wisdom step is not to pre-design the format, but simply to put the heart out there and see how it seeds itself.
So that’s what I’m doing here, dark and cold time of the year, commemorating this weekend Advent III and the 21st anniversary of the crossing over, into that conscious circle, of Rafe [see Love is Stronger Than Death], in all things my teacher and lightholder.
Let me hear from you if you’re in.
Blessings and love,
Cynthia
Advent 2015 – Letter from President
As Advent draws to a close, Heather Page, President of The Contemplative Society, reminds us of how love was and is made manifest. Also, a special announcement regarding Cynthia Bourgeault’s plans to visit Vancouver Island in 2016.
Dear Members and Friends,
As we approach the final days of Advent and move into Christmas celebrations, I am filled with gratitude for those who support The Contemplative Society in a variety of ways: from our faithful volunteers to those who offer steady financial support, as well as those who bear witness to the mission of the society through their steady contemplative practice. Although based in British Columbia, Canada, TCS is a global community offering and receiving support from contemplatives throughout the world.
I am also grateful to Cynthia Bourgeault, our principal teacher and advisor, who continues to teach and model incarnational Wisdom to a growing audience worldwide. Through Wisdom Schools, retreats, workshops, books, on-line e-courses, and audio and video recordings, this teaching continues to reach people hungry to hear and practice the ancient wisdom which is at the heart of early Christian practice but often forgotten in our culture today.
We are delighted that Cynthia has agreed to be with us on Vancouver Island, September 19-24, 2016, when she will teach on the writings of Teilhard de Chardin. Cynthia says she aims to make Teilhard’s writings “less dense and see how he is carried through in liturgy and practice…” We will begin taking registrations in the spring. Be sure your membership is up-to-date so you will be the first to hear when registration opens. Cynthia’s retreats fill quickly!
As Christmas approaches, I am reminded of Cynthia’s teaching on love made manifest in the midst of “density and jagged edges”. God chose to incarnate, to suffer constriction, and to carry divine love and sorrow together in a finite body as witnessed and embodied in the Christmas story. I want to share a beautiful passage from The Wisdom Jesus that seems appropriate for our day:
Could it be that this earthly realm, not in spite of, but because of, its very density and jagged edges, offers precisely the conditions for the expression of certain aspects of divine love that could become real in no other way? This world does indeed show forth what love is like in a particularly intense and costly way. But when we look at this process more deeply, we can see that those sharp edges we experience as constriction at the same time call forth some of the most exquisite dimensions of love, which require the condition of finitude in order to make sense – qualities such as steadfastness, tenderness, commitment, forbearance, fidelity, and forgiveness. These mature and subtle flavors of love have no real context in a realm where there are no edges, no boundaries, where all just flows. But when you run up against the hard edge, and have to stand true to love anyway, what emerges is a most precious taste of pure divine love. There, God has spoken his most intimate name.
Let me be clear here. I am not saying suffering exists in order for God to reveal himself. I am only saying where suffering exists and is consciously accepted, there divine love shines forth brightly. Unfortunately, linear cause-and-effect has progressively less meaning as we approach the deep mysteries (which originate beyond time and thus have no real use for it). But the principle can be tested. Pay attention to the quality of human character that emerges from constriction accepted with conscious forgiveness as compared to what emerges from rage and violence and draw your own conclusions…
…Our jagged and hard-edged earth plane is the realm in which this mercy is the most deeply, excruciatingly, and beautifully released. That’s our business down here. That’s what we’re here for.
[Source: Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus (Shambhala, 2008), 99-100.]
My prayer is that we might be given courage, patience and great humility so “that we may learn to bear the beams of love”. May we be conscious of how this love manifests in the days ahead.
With sincere gratitude,
Heather Page
President