There are ten more days of this season of Eastertide leading up to Ascension Day. It is a good time to pause and ponder how we have been leaning into the ongoing charge to "acknowledge, explore, and live out of our" second body [also known as our Queen/King/Kin-dom of Heaven body]. Or how it may be leaning into us working quietly on our behalf to be of service to the real causal energies—faith, hope, love, gentleness, joy, peace, courage, conscience, compassion, integrity, forgiveness, etc.—in order that they might enter and change our world. We may take notice of these changes within us, our life, and/or around us. Changes that continue to repair the past and prepare the future. We ought not be discouraged if we cannot see how this may have been occurring these past several weeks. There may be ways in which this is taking place beyond our awareness, and we always have a new present moment in which to do this kind of inner work.
Whether or not we have been engaging this charge consciously, it is not too late to lean in and to begin again today in this present moment. All we really have is the present anyhow. The past and future are always enfolded in the now, outside of time. Ravi Ravindra says, “I see that much of the effort is for the purpose of freeing oneself from displaced time. Only then can one be here, now. This ‘now’ is in time but it is not of time; it refers more to a quality of being. In that sense, one wishes and needs to live in eternity, freed from time. Time and imagination are very intimately connected. Action can be sacred only when it is done from the perspective of eternity, situated in the present.” (Heart Without Measure: Work with Madame de Salzmann (Halifax: Shaila Press, 1999), p. 129).
Our second body already lives from the perspective of eternity, situated in the present within this animal body. And the present moment endlessly offers us another chance to allow the causal energies to enter and change our world. In relation to this Gurdjieff said, "It is only with the present that you can repair the past and prepare the future. The future and the past do not exist without the present. The present exists for you to repair all your errors and prepare the future, that is, another life that is desirable for you. It is very important for you to feel the present. To have a present, you have to do everything possible and do the exercises. This applies to everyone, but especially to you. You have to be in the present.The past is the past, yesterday, finished; it will never come back. Tomorrow may come: a different tomorrow depends on the present today. Everything has to be done today. Forget yesterday and forget tomorrow. With today, you repair yesterday and you make it possible for yourself to do what is necessary tomorrow." (G.I. Gurdjieff Paris Meetings 1943 (Toronto: Dolmen Meadow Editions, 2017), p. 276.)
Let our inner work be a collective offering to repair the past and prepare the future.
Eastertide Love,
Heather
Daily Contemplative Pauses Readings
from last week
Monday, April 22nd with Heather
Readings:
Earth teach me quiet — as the grasses are still with new light.Earth teach me suffering — as old stones suffer with memory.Earth teach me humility — as blossoms are humble with beginning.Earth teach me caring — as mothers nurture their young.Earth teach me courage — as the tree that stands alone.Earth teach me limitation — as the ant that crawls on the ground.Earth teach me freedom — as the eagle that soars in the sky.Earth teach me acceptance — as the leaves that die each fall.Earth teach me renewal — as the seed that rises in the spring.Earth teach me to forget myself — as melted snow forgets its life.Earth teach me to remember kindness — as dry fields weep with rain.
— Chief John Yello Lark
Treat the earth well.It was not given to you by your parents,it was loaned to you by your children.We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors,we borrow it from our Children.— Ancient Indian Proverb
Chant: song of the universe
Tuesday, April 23rd with Heather
Reading: “There are many forces over which the individual can exercise no control whatsoever. A farmer plants a seed in the ground and the seed sprouts and grows. The weather, the winds, the elements, [one] cannot control. The result is never a sure thing. So what does the farmer do? [She] plants. Always [she] plants. Again and again [she] works at it—in confidence and assurance that, even though [her] seed may not grow to fruition, seeds do grow and they do come to fruition.
The task of [humans] who work for the King[Queen/kin]dom of God is to work for the King[Queen/kin]dom of God. The result beyond this demand is not in their hands. [She] who keeps [her] eyes on results cannot give [her]self wholeheartedly to [her] task, however simple or complex that task may be.” — Howard Thurman, Disciplines of the Spirit
Chant: Listen listen wait in silence listening to the One from whom all Mercy flows
Wednesday, April 24th with Heather
Reading: “Thus a [hu]man is driven back upon one of the most ancient insights of religion: that there is a Purpose that invades all [one’s] purposes and a Wisdom that invades all [one’s] wisdoms. To seek to relate oneself to such a purpose and such a wisdom is to seek to know God and to walk in [God’s] Way. The discipline of growth becomes the discipline of the spirit, and the increase in stature and wisdom can mean a growth in the knowledge of God and the understanding of [God’s] King[Queen/kin]dom. Thus the Master teaches us that if we seek the King[Queen/kin]dom and [God’s] righteousness, all else will be ours. We will not be guaranteed against failure, but we will learn that we may fail again and again and yet be assured always that we are not mistaken in what we affirm with all our hearts and minds. The prayer of the Psalmist becomes our prayer: "Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, ... Thou knowest it altogether...
Search me, O God... try me, and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the Way ever-lasting." — Howard Thurman, Disciplines of the Spirit
Chant: spirit of truth open my mind, soul of wisdom open my heart
Thursday, April 25th with Faye
Chant: we are sending you light, to heal you, to hold you, we are sending you light, to hold you in love
Friday, April 26th with Heather
Reading: Stay Awake by Henri Nouwen
“The practice of contemplative prayer is the discipline by which we begin to “see” the living God dwelling in our own hearts. Careful attentiveness to the One who makes a home in the privileged center of our being gradually leads to recognition. As we come to know and love the [Holy One] of our hearts we give ourselves over to this incredible Presence who takes possession of all our senses. By the discipline of prayer we are awakened and opened to God within, who enters into our heartbeat and our breathing, into our thoughts and emotions, our hearing, seeing, touching, and tasting. It is by being awake to this God within that we also find the Presence in the world around us. Here we are again in front of the secret. It is not that we see God in the world, but that God-with-us recognizes God in the world. God speaks to God, Spirit speaks to Spirit, heart speaks to heart.
Contemplation, therefore, is a participating in the divine self-recognition. The divine Spirit alive in us makes our world transparent for us and opens our eyes to the presence of the divine Spirit in all that surrounds us. It is with our heart of hearts that we see the heart of the world. . . .”
Chant: you the one, one in all, say I am, I am you
Saturday, April 27th with Heather
Reading: "Each spring the seeds stir and push up tender shoots through the warming soil; buds swell, lining the tree limbs like tiny jewels. All around there are signs that the Earth is renewing herself, that the Holy relationship of loving reciprocity endures. This is more than reassuring, because by now we must see that we are witnessing the unraveling of the sustaining systems of a myriad of worlds and realms. How shall we make sense of this?
Old stories may help. When the Old Woman in the Cave returned to weaving the garment of the world after stirring the stew that sustained the seeds of spring, she found that her painstaking work had come apart and lay in a mess on the cave's floor. She sat within the womb of that holy cave and beheld the utterly tangled strands in deep Silence. For how long the story doesn't say. Only then, out of deep Silence and contemplation, did her hands begin to find the threads in the chaos to weave the unknown world to come. In these uneasy times, when all that we have known and love is fraying, we are invited into that cave and into that moment of Silence, that broad edge of hearts cracked open, that long in-breath. Indeed, as friends and practitioners of Silence, it may be precisely what we are given to do in this time." — Lindsay McLaughlin
Sunday, April 28th with Catherine
Reading: "Be the one who, when you walk in, blessing flows to the one who needs it most.
Even if you've not been fed, be bread." — Rumi
Chant: Every cell of this body sings mercy/kindness/blessing