Dying to Self.

Dear ones,

One of the central contemplative Wisdom themes of this season is the conscious participation in the Paschal Mystery as an inner event. Lent invites us into a voluntary, lawful dying so that a deeper root or order of Being, already latent within us, may resurrect.

This “dying to self” is not moral self-negation but the gradual relinquishment of identification with the self formed under the dense laws of World 48, 96, and 192. Here, our sense of “I” is fragmented and mechanical—structured by personality, roles, defense patterns, acquired buffers, and the automaticity of three-centered imbalance. In our ordinary consciousness, we take this composite to be who we are.

To die at this level is to withdraw identification from this provisional construct as our primary identity.

As this relinquishment deepens, identity begins to re-root in World 24 in Essence. Here we encounter a finer materiality: presence, inner unity, a stable field of 'I Am' Being not generated by personality. Our center of gravity begins to shift. Personality remains as instrument and vehicle, but it no longer occupies the center.

Yet the path continues even deeper than Essence.

In time, we are invited into a more radical dying: relinquishing identity as the essential self. The subtle attachment to “being someone who is present” or “someone established in Essence” must also pass through the Paschal gate. What then emerges is Real I, the selfhood carried in World 12, the Christic principle individualized. This marks a degree of objective Being that becomes more stabilized, as well as a growing capacity for objective feeling. Here, identity participates more directly in conscious Will. The image of God shines through particularity without distortion.

For many walking this path, this is the deepest stabilization of the root of self available in earthly life. And still, there remains the mystery of further surrender, where selfhood yields into its own source in World 6: the root vibration of divine creativity coming into form. Here objective conscience flowers more fully. The distinction between “my being” and God’s creative activity grows exceedingly thin. God manifests Godself through a uniqueness that is no longer claimed as "mine."

Though we rarely perceive or sustain the unmediated intensities of World 3 and World 1, their energies are already embedded within the very fabric of our cells. We cannot fall outside the Trinitarian structure of reality. Separation exists only at the level of identification.

Wherever we find ourselves in this lawful sequence of deaths before physical death, our conscious consent—our willingness to participate in the divine movement toward the Root of the root of ourselves (in Rumi's words)—is itself a kenotic act: self-emptying and intelligent cooperation with higher laws. In this way, we join Christ both in death and in resurrection.

With Great Love,

Heather

You can now find these reflections on Substack.

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Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses

*All previous readings & reflections can be found here*

Monday, February 16th

Reading: “When, during the time of meditation, angry or frightened or self-justifying thoughts arise, we use whatever method our practice teaches (saying the mantra, inner witnessing, letting go, etc.) to help us stay clear of attachment (which drags us immediately back to our smaller self) and connected to that deeper level of awareness. With patience and persistence, these skills first patterned in meditation can be transferred to "real life" so that we actually begin to live like the Good Samaritan, the woman at the well, or the generous father in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Through meditation it gradually becomes ingrained in us that "losing one's life," regardless of the action that may ultimately be required of us in the outer world, entails first and foremost a passage from our ordinary awareness to our spiritual one, because only at this deeper level of non-fearbased, wholistic perception will we be able to understand what is actually required of us. In fact, more than a few recent writers have suggested that Jesus' well-loved Kingdom of Heaven is none other than this: life lived from the perspective of an attained spiritual awareness.” — Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, p. 81-83

Chant: Awaken o my heart, Awaken o my heart, so I can move into the larger mind, for the kingdom is at hand  — Tony Martin

Tuesday, February 17th

Chant: Hold fast the hope, which anchors the soul, which is sure and steadfast, that you may float above the world’s sea.  — Paulette Meier, Wellsprings of Life

Wednesday, February 18th

Reading: ”We are in the birth canal now. The Great Womb is in its pangs. No going back. Everything is at stake. Everything. Hold on to your ceremonies. And they had better all be Love. A species is dying. It is us. Go far inside. Fetch life. Break yourself open. Become feast. Offer medicine. Fetch life. The soft soil of this life will not bed you until you soften yourself as well. Your heart is asking you to touch it like you touch something you Love. Before earth can flower, sky must cry. Your soul and life are earth and sky. Your heart is tender. Soften your life accordingly. Try not to screech at your heart when you can sing to it. Gentle your thoughts and language. Borrow the ways of light clouds and drifting feathers. Ease is a practice. Practice tenderly. When incense is burned it releases its blessings. See if you can do this with the fires that test your life. A newborn thing is soft, vulnerable. Care for it. It will grow divinely. This too is true for a newborn year. And you, you are always a newborn thing.” — Jaiya John, Wildflowers Praying at Midnight

Chant: Be right here, in the Heart of God  — Henry Schoenfield

Thursday, February 19th

Reading: When all things are perceived as infinite and holy, what motive can we have for covetousness or self-assertion, for the pursuit of power or the drearier forms of pleasure?"

— Aldous Huxley

Chant: All is one, and everything that lives is holy — Words from J.G. Bennett’s Prayer put to chant by Karla Oakley

Friday, February 20th with LeMel

Reading: Poem (I lived in the first century of world wars)

I lived in the first century of world wars.

Most mornings I would be more or less insane,

The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories,

The news would pour out of various devices

Interrupted by attempts to sell products to the unseen.

I would call my friends on other devices;

They would be more or less mad for similar reasons.

Slowly I would get to pen and paper,

Make my poems for others unseen and unborn.

In the day I would be reminded of those men and women,

Brave, setting up signals across vast distances,

Considering a nameless way of living, of almost unimagined values.

As the lights darkened, as the lights of night brightened,

We would try to imagine them, try to find each other,

To construct peace, to make love, to reconcile

Waking with sleeping, ourselves with each other,

Ourselves with ourselves. We would try by any means

To reach the limits of ourselves, to reach beyond ourselves,

To let go the means, to wake.

I lived in the first century of these wars.

Chant: Letting go

Beyond ourselves

Help us to wake

— LeMel's Youtube and Substack (for daily readings and chants)

Saturday, February 21st with LeMel

Reading: Let Evening Come

Let the light of late afternoon

shine through chinks in the 

barn, moving

up the bales as the sun moves 

down.

Let the cricket take up chafing

as a woman takes up her

needles

and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe

abandoned

in long grass. Let the stars 

appear

and the moon disclose her silver

horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy

den.

Let the wind die down. Let the

shed

go black inside. Let evening 

come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the 

scoop 

in the oats, to the air in the lung

let evening come.

Let it come as it will, and don’t

be afraid. God does not leave us

comfortless, 

so let evening come.

— Jane Kenyon

Chant: Let rest come

As God’s comfort

Come, oh Sabbath, come

— LeMel's Youtube and Substack (for daily readings and chants)

Sunday, February 22nd with LeMel

Reading: 

A Blessing For The New Year

BEANNACHT

For Josie.

On the day when

The weight deadens

On your shoulders

And you stumble,

May the clay dance

To balance you.

And when your eyes

Freeze behind

The gray window

And the ghost of loss

Gets into you,

May a flock of colors,

Indigo, red, green, 

And azure blue,

Come to awaken in you

A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays

In the curragh of thought

And a stain of ocean

Blackens beneath you,

May there come across the waters

A path of yellow moonlight

To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

May the clarity of light be yours,

May the fluency of the ocean be yours,

May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow

Wind work these words

Of love around you,

An invisible cloak

To mind your life.

— John O’Donohue

Chant: Be still. Be silent. Held in the arms of love — Henry Schoenfield

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