Conscious Labor Day
- heather
- Aug 31
- 8 min read
Updated: Sep 6
One of the maps that can be quite helpful in navigating the troubled waters of our current circumstances is called the Ray of Creation. This map, laid out in depth by Wisdom teacher Cynthia Bourgeault who herself was influenced by Gurdjieff’s teachings, shows a progression of different worlds, realms, or spiritual domains existing in a dynamic reciprocal exchange. This map offers a way to understand the task that we are being invited to take up, the post we are to hold if we wish to participate consciously in what Cynthia calls the divine exchange.
As Cynthia has taught, the Ray of Creation offers a way of seeing how God, the Absolute, all encompassing endlessness, unfolds and emanates the universe throughout a chain of worlds or realms. Each successive world becomes more dense, material, and subject to an increasing number of laws or constraints. Yet there is always a dynamic exchange between them, as energy and influence flow both from higher to lower and from lower to higher. This maintains a cosmic balance and allows for evolution and transformation throughout the entire Ray. The vibrancy of God is not diluted but becomes more creative and resourceful as it flows into denser realities. She reminds us that even the most dense or mechanical worlds do not fall out of divinity.
Here is a shorthand overview of the map which can be found in her book Eye of the Heart:
World 1: The Holy Absolute — the unmanifest source, pure potential, and absolute unity beyond light, consciousness, and even being itself; formless, infinite, and unknowable
World 3: The Holy Trinity — the first differentiation from the Absolute; pure consciousness expressing itself in three forces
World 6: The Logos — the headwaters of divine desire to manifest, the conversion of energy from pure will into something measurable
World 12: The Christic Realm — the “Light of the World,” where divine love and presence take on form, with greater complexity and constraint, continuity of creative forces
World 24: The Imaginal Realm — the “Kingdom of Heaven,” the realm of unitive consciousness, presence, love, joy, and transformation. It acts as a bridge or “cosmic intertidal zone” between the invisible and visible worlds, allowing reciprocal exchange of energy and blessing
World 48: Earth — our familiar home, the world of slow-moving, dense form; the best of human culture, healthy egoic functioning, and the capacity for self-reflective consciousness (awareness of mental, emotional, and physical processes)
World 96: Formatory World — a denser realm of greater mechanicality, automaticity, and the lowest state of human consciousness, marked by habitual thought, stereotypes, and mythic membership; life is largely unconscious and reactive
World 192: The Hell Realm — a place of complete breakdown where there is no freedom or consciousness, a collective psychosis and total disconnection from the higher realms
Cynthia speaks of a hesitation point between World 48 and World 24, where our conscious participation is needed in the greater cosmic exchange (this relates to the law of seven which we will not go into here). The alchemical task we are called upon to participate in is “releasing the vivifying and generative properties that belong properly to the higher realms into the bloodstream of our own ‘sensible’ realm” (Eye of the Heart, p.50). We are called to fully occupy World 48 while also realizing residence in World 24, “where authentic consciousness actually begins,” thereby generating conscious energy that can be offered back as food for “the greater cosmic ecology” (p. 53-54).
One of the ways we generate this conscious energy is through conscious labor. This is not to be confused with the dignity of labor and the collective effort that built much of modern society (and which Labor Day celebrations in the United States are honoring today). Cynthia describes the practice of conscious labor as “basically any intentional effort that moves against the grain of entropy, i.e., against that pervasive tendency of human consciousness to slip into autopilot. It means summoning the power of conscious attention (in our era perhaps more widely known as "mindfulness") to swim upstream against that pervasive lunar undertow drawing us toward stale, repetitive, mechanical patterns, the siren call of World 96” (p.54).
She goes on to illustrate this with the words of the Khwajagan, the Central Asian Masters of Wisdom, whose teachings were near and dear to Gurdjieff's heart, "Be present with every breath; do not let your attention wander for the space of a single breath.” And in a passage from Maurice Nicoll, near and dear to her teacher Rafe's heart, the work amounts to "a continual inner effort, a continual altering of the mind, of the habitual ways of thought, of the habitual ways of taking everything, of habitual reactions." She says, “Whether the effort is as modest as simply noticing a negative emotion rather than blindly reacting or as heroic as struggling with an addiction, it is not the scale of the undertaking but the honesty of the struggle that reverses the direction of flow” (p.54).
If conscious labor increases our capacity to stay present, then all of our spiritual practices may be seen as ways of engaging this work. They help us perceive reality as it is, without being immediately co-opted by our reactivity. This labor awakens us to a responsibility–for ourselves, for our states, and for the energy we bring to any situation.
Spiritual practices are also about learning to perceive from the Heart. The Heart can perceive these worlds or realms within us and all around us, and enables us to participate in World 24, the Imaginal Realm, to be a bridge between worlds.
Perhaps on this Labor Day, we might also celebrate and honor the dignity of Conscious Labor and the Conscious Circle of Humanity whose collective efforts serve the Whole Ray of Creation.
With Love,
Heather
Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses
*All previous readings & reflections can be found here*
Monday, August 25th
Reading: “Suppose this world isn’t a mistake, a myth, a fall, suppose it is precisely these conditions of fragility, finitude, density which allow the divine heart when its focused and brought to radiance in the heart of a human being who is actively courageously intelligently receptive then we have the real co-creation of the Christ, the infinite love in finite form.” — Cynthia’s stuff on Mary’s courage from An Advent Meditation by Cynthia Unedited Transcript 2017 Center for Action and Contemplation
Tuesday, August 26th
Chant: Do not give your heart, do not give your heart, to that which does not satisfy your heart – Susan Latimer
Wednesday, August 27th
Reading: “I AM is not an autonomous assertion of "my" individual being; it arises within a relational field as a gift mysteriously given in each moment. The name of this field is The Mercy, and as I have been pointing out for twenty years now (borrowing an insight from that venerable wisewoman Helen Luke), the root of the old Etruscan term mercy—merc—literally means "exchange." It has nothing to do with pity, let alone condescension. It speaks of flow.
"Every breath you take is the breath of God," the wise old monk Theophane of Snowmass was fond of saying. We sense this gift freely flowing toward us, and realize that we do not hold ourselves in life; it is renewed in us, breath by breath. Try to sense The Mercy as you say the I AM; let them dance in one another. And if you want, ponder this comment Gurdjieff made: "When I say I, something inside me stands up; when I say AM, something inside me sits down." If you recall Olga Louchalova's insight (in my last commentary) about standing on the threshold of "innermost mystery of the ontopoietic (self-manifesting) process"—well, there you are! – Cynthia Bourgeault, Mystical Courage, p.29-30
Thursday, August 28th
Reading: 'There is a Brokenness' by Rashani in Woman Prayers: Prayers by Women from Throughout History and Around the World
There is a brokenness
out of which comes the unbroken, a shatteredness out
of which blooms the unshatterable.
There is a sorrow
beyond all grief which leads to joy and a fragility
out of whose depths emerges strength.
There is a hollow space too vast for words
through which we pass with each loss, out of whose darkness we are sanctioned into being.
There is a cry deeper than all sound whose serrated edges cut the heart as we break open
to the place inside which is unbreakable and whole,
while learning to sing.
Friday, August 29th
Reading: Eighteen
Roadmaps
From the center, Eternal Guide,
You watch our steps
As we move on diverse paths.
The route is ours;
The map is Yours.
Give us eyes to look beyond the next step,
To search for the horizon.
The scene is ours;
The vista is Yours.
Give us ears to identify the passwords,
To filter out the clamor.
The message is ours;
The code is Yours.
Give us hands to part the thicket,
To push aside the undergrowth.
The tree is ours;
The forest is Yours.
Give us feet to hurry past confusion,
To stride along straightways.
For we are the walkers,
And You, our Guiding Light.
We are the explorers,
And You, our Native Land.
We are the travelers,
And You, our Welcome Home.
– Debbie Perlman, Flames to Heaven: New Psalms for Healing & Praise, former Psalmist-in-Residence at Beth Emet The Free Synagogue
Saturday, August 30th
Reading: "Oh God, whose true nature I cannot know,
You who are at once
source and substance and sustenance of my life,
I lift to you the rockhard pain I feel for this world
—and my pain dissolves into love.
I reach to the outer limits of my rational mind
to comprehend this despairing Earth
— and you call me back to my heart.
I abandon myself into my aching heart
— and it dissolves into the Heart of the Universe.
In this mystery in which all I am sure of is nothing
and all I can know is You,
give me strength; give me wisdom; and give me love.
Give me the courage and the resolve
to be the nothing that I am alone,
and to live wholly into the heart of this hurting world,
which is You." – Phoebe Phelps, in Woman Prayers: Prayers by Women from Throughout History and Around the World
Chant: sometimes the cost of an open heart is anguish, but we needn't hold it on our own – Heather Ruce
Sunday, August 31st
Reading: 'Hymn For The Hurting' by Amanda Gorman
Everything hurts,
Our hearts shadowed and strange,
Minds made muddied and mute.
We carry tragedy, terrifying and true.
And yet none of it is new;
We knew it as home,
As horror,
As heritage.
Even our children
Cannot be children,
Cannot be.
Everything hurts.
It’s a hard time to be alive,
And even harder to stay that way.
We’re burdened to live out these days,
While at the same time, blessed to outlive them.
This alarm is how we know
We must be altered —
That we must differ or die,
That we must triumph or try.
Thus while hate cannot be terminated,
It can be transformed
Into a love that lets us live.
May we not just grieve, but give:
May we not just ache, but act;
May our signed right to bear arms
Never blind our sight from shared harm;
May we choose our children over chaos.
May another innocent never be lost.
Maybe everything hurts,
Our hearts shadowed & strange.
But only when everything hurts
May everything change.
Chant: Love one another, as I Love you, Love one another, as I Love you – Henry Schoenfield
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