Rooted, awake, and skillfully responsive.
- heather
- 5 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Dear Ones,
In these times of great unraveling, when so much of what we have known is shifting beneath our feet, many of us sense a call to something deeper—not to escape the world’s pain, but to remain rooted, awake, and responsive within it. There is an call to hold our post with steadiness and love, to remember who we are beneath our small sense of self and all the noise, and to let that remembrance guide how we move, serve, and rest.
Our post—as we have been exploring—is to be rooted: tethered and firmly grounded in a Greater Self, or what James Finley calls “a base of operation deeper than the self that things happen to;” awake: perceiving the imaginal (world 24) and Christic realms (world 12) within us and in our midst; and skillfully responsive: through wise action, or presence and inaction, to what is being asked of us right now.
When we say 'yes' to holding this post in our lives, it slowly eats away at the temptation toward despair or the feeling of being small and powerless in the face of global chaos and systemic fragmentation. This post is one of service to the Whole, held in the midst of the ongoing and intensifying pain and suffering of our human and other-than-human kin, who both cover and are part of this Earth.
To hold our post is to choose a meaningful and purposeful life. It is a form of peaceful resistance, a refusal to comply with the prevailing crisis of meaning. Meaning and purpose arise not from the outcome of our contribution but from our willingness to participate in the flow of Life itself.
Just as Jesus spoke of his food being to do the will of the One who sent him (John 4:34), this too is part of what feeds and nourishes us. We can ask ourselves: What is it that most troubles my smaller self? What keeps me awake at night and stirs the deepest sorrow?
We can bring this question into silence—rooted in the Greater Self, anchored in the deeper base of operation, open to the will of the Divine Indwelling—and listen deeply. We can ask: Is this trouble an indication of some engagement being asked of me to take on as part of holding my post? What might right action look like? Who else might I engage with in discernment around what may be required in order to come to a collective wisdom knowing?
Though we are in some ways small and powerless, we are not only so. Our deeper base of operation can be that which animates our smaller sense of self. Our egoic operating system can participate in a much larger vision, letting go of my will and aligning with Thy Will. Our whole life—every moment, every breath, all that we are and do—can become a conscious offering, an expression of devotion and love for God. Holding our post and all the ways we serve one another, regardless of the results of our actions, can become an inner posture of honoring the Source of all Life.
This deeper base of operation is rooted in what Wisdom teachers such as Meister Eckhart, Teresa of Avila, and many others have called the Divine Presence—that which dwells in the deepest center of our being, the indwelling Christ within our hearts. This Presence does not snuff out or override our smaller sense of self but rather suffuses it, offering nourishment and sustenance.
Our Greater Self recognizes that the wellspring of Life is not outside of us but within us at our deepest center, and that our very existence is a participation in the life of God. The Greater Self already knows how to receive the naturally flowing, ever-renewing living water and bread of life, and wishes to re-collect and re-mind the smaller self how to live from this deep center.
Any spiritual practice that helps us connect to, or from, this deeper base of operation supports us in awakening. Awake, our Greater Self and smaller self can work together in relationship, feeding and sustaining one another. This is our work to do as we navigate the entire Ray of Creation within and all around us.
As you move through your day, you might take a quiet moment to sense where your own post is anchored. What part of you already knows how to stay rooted, awake, and skillfully responsive amid uncertainty? What is being asked of you, not in grand gestures, but in small, steady acts of devotion?
May we remember that all is Sacred. And may our lives, just as they are, become a collective prayer of service and offering.
With Love,
Heather
p.s. The reflections shared here will also now be available to read on Substack.
Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses
*All previous readings & reflections can be found here*
Tuesday, November 4th
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
Wednesday, November 5th
Chant: They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies, nor can spirits ever be divided that love and live in the same Divine Principle, the root and reward of their friendship. — words of Quaker William Penn, 1660 put to chant by Paulette Meier
Thursday, November 6th
Reading: "Kenosis is not the same as renunciation. Renunciation implies a subtle pushing away; kenosis is simply the willingness to let things come and go without grabbing on. For all intents and purposes it is synonymous with nonclinging or nonattachment. But unlike a more Buddhist version of this spiritual motion, kenosis has a certain warm spaciousness to it; to the degree one does not assert one's own agenda, something else has the space to be. The "letting go" of kenosis is actually closer to "letting be" than it is to any of its "non-" equivalents (nonclinging, nonattachment, nonidentification, and so forth); its flow is positive and fundamentally creative. Between the "let it be" of kenosis and the "let it be" by which biblical tradition envisions Creation itself as having come into existence, there is a profound resonance." — Cynthia Bourgeault, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene
Chant: I surrender
Friday, November 7th with Tom
Chant: I am giving you...
(by Darlene Franz)
Saturday, November 8th
Reading: “One cannot love God as an object. God is always and only the subject of love. God is that which makes love possible, the source from which it emerges and the light by which it is recognized. Thus, "love of God" is not one love among others, not love for a particular "one" to whom my saying "yes" requires that I say "no" to another. Rather, God is the all-encompassing One who unlocks and sustains my ability to give myself fully to life in all its infinite particularity, including the excruciating particularity of a human beloved.
“It is not an easy notion to wrap one's mind around (it confounds the inherent structure of language itself), but if the basic principle can be grasped, then the apparent contradiction between the divine and human beloved evaporates. God is the divine giving, who flows out and through our human expression to manifest love in all its fullness. And so the way to give oneself fully to God would be to give fully of oneself." — Cynthia Bourgeault, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene
Chant: . In love alone, we take our rest, we dwell, unafraid – Kirsty Christian
Sunday, November 9th
Reading: “The kind of spirituality Jesus calls us to is less about withdrawal, protection, safety, and preserving our lives as we know them, and more about risk, vulnerability, and even mutual dependence. On this path, we make progress not by practicing ‘shelter in place’ but by being able to touch what frightens us in the world. We make progress by removing the protective walls, the clear boundaries dividing the world into good and bad, and engaging with it, struggling with it, and in the process, discovering new levels of God’s expansiveness.
“On this path, we are asked to let go of what prompts us to reject people even before considering their experience and, instead, touch what is foreign to us. We touch what is foreign to us so that we may risk being changed by it, because we know there is no transformation without change. This is what conversion — a lifelong process — is all about. As my friend Fr. Michael Holleran once said to me, if you have not changed your mind on any of the big issues you believe in, most likely you have not been following the guidance of the Holy Spirit in your life. Most likely you have not been open enough to people to hear what God may be whispering to you through them. The lesson that Jesus is teaching seems to be that simple.” — Adam Bucko, Let Your Heartbreak be Your Guide
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