Reading the past

There are very few who can read the future. . . . But reading the past is a skill in and of itself. It's not just knowing the past. It's feeling it. It's deriving new strength and knowledge from it--learning from it all the time. It's my own guess that this was intended to be the great strength of human beings, when the Unnamed God came up with the notion of you. Sadly, like so many good ideas, it hasn't quite worked out in practice.

from Gregory Maguire, Son of a Witch

Hearing 'the Other'

West African pastoral theologian Emmanuel Lartey writes:

God is to be approached through listening to the limits of our existence. The being of God is encountered deeply in the otherness of those who most differ from ourselves. These others may help us to perceive the Other with whom we wish to be related. In fact we are unable even to begin to be related to the Other precisely because we are looking for the same--for One like us. We look for and desire God to be 'like us' in significant ways and thus are cut off from that which lies beyond us. The theological word from pastoral theologians is: listen to the different, for in this listening you may begin to encounter the Other whom you seek.

From Pastoral Theology in an Intercultural World (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 2006), p. 113.

Light-Womb

I and Eternal Love were born into the Universe
From one Light-Womb;
I may seem a new Lover,
But I am older than the two worlds.

--Rumi

Kabir on the “Nag”

I lived with her night and day--
the Nag.

I don't mean my wife or mother-in-law,
they are both angels.

I am talking about that voice in me that would not
let me hold each moment
as I did my son when
he was born.

How to slay the Nag?

I am afraid I have become fond of you
dear student,
if I spoke the answer,
you might run.

--Kabir (1440-1518)

Thinking About the "World That Is..."

Honstly now, if you were God, could you possibly dream up any more educational, contrasty, thrilling, beautiful, tantalizing world than Earth to develop spirit in? If you think you could, do you imagine you would be outdoing Earth if you designed a world free of germs, diseases, poisons, pains, malice, explosives and conflicts so its people could relax and enjoy it? Would you, in other words, try to make the world nice and safe--or would you let it be provocative, dangerous, and exciting? In actual fact, if it ever came to that, I'm sure you would find it impossible to make a better world than God has already created.

--Guy Murchie
from The Seven Mysteries of Life: An Exploration of Science and Philosophy

Rumi's Vision of Life

Life without "turning" (metanoia) is spiritual agony;
For to be absent from God is immediate death.
But life and death are both sweet in God’s presence:
Without God even the Water of Life is fire.

from the Mathnawi
Courtesy of Gary O'Connor

Entertainment

The business of humanity has become entertainment,
and entertainment is the business of feeding fake fitness cues to our brains.

From Seed magazine, Vol. 2, No. 4

The Academy and the Collegium

The two-week Academy at the Praxis Retreat and Learning Center has been completed, and its members have now dispersed into their work as a part of the Collegium—that larger network of practitioners of Perennial Wisdom found in multiple places across the planet. The work of the Texas Academy was strong, covering two important topics: an early Christian wisdom recorded in the Gospel of Philip, recovered at Nag Hammadi, and the Wisdom of the Tao, a gift from the Chinese. To read and work with these two traditions under the superb guidance of Ward Bauman and David Stringer was a privilege for us all—widening our understanding of world wisdom in two important contexts.

At the Academy our work is focused in an intense way. As we disperse into the Collegium we practice and transmit the fruits of the Academy’s work. Many of you reading this will have been (or will be) at one of the Academies this summer, but the extended work in groups throughout North America and the world are the real life-blood of this endeavor: to make wisdom available, at the level of the heart in the life-stream of world spirituality. We work together always as colleagues (the purpose of the collegium) to accomplish a goal far wider than any individual or local region. Our task is to add the crucial element of theosophia (divine wisdom) to the energetic flow necessary for our life and future survival. This website is dedicated to providing as much of that nutrient as possible.

"News"

Driving the other morning I heard someone on NPR say, “Poetry is news that stays news.” You read the local newspaper, and today’s news is forgotten tomorrow. Crash’s win at the Oscars will be “old news” soon, and almost forgotten at next year’s Academy. But Poetry? It is somehow perennial. The following lines will be as much “news” in one hundred years as they are today:

When all thoughts
Are exhausted
I slip into the woods
And gather
A pile of “shepherd’s purse.”

Like the little stream
Making its way
Through the mossy crevices
I, too, quietly
Turn clear and transparent.

--Ryokan

Amazement

If you had read the front page story of the SF Chronicle just before the New Year (on Thursday, Dec 14, 2005), you would have read about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body-her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth. A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farralone Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help. Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her--a very dangerous proposition. One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer.

They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her. When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed them gently around-she thanked them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives. The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following him the whole time, and he will never ever be the same.

Rumi's Field

Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing
There is a field. I will meet you there.

When we lay down in that grass
The world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.

- Rumi

Letting Go

I let go my need for security and survival.
I let go my need for power and contgrol.
I let go my need for esteem and affection.
I let go my need to change the situation.

-- Cynthia Bourgeault