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The tide of Epiphany.

heather

Good day, good people,

 

This tide of Epiphany season is alive with the mystery that Christ within us is manifesting through our Whole anthropos, fully human nature, our transformed enlivened being. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene tells us that in fact we have been readied for this, saying Yeshua "has prepared us so that we might become fully human." We do not always recognize or remember this reality, yet all of our Wisdom practices are in service of this becoming, this integration and union of our divine and creature natures.

 

The practices of Creating Moon and Sun in ourselves that we have been engaging collectively are transformational practices of this integration and union within. In The Wisdom Jesus, Cynthia Bourgeault tells us this "integration takes place on a cosmic scale and is accomplished through learning how to anchor one's being in that underlying unitive ground: that place of oneness before the opposites arise...its origin is on the vertical axis, in a realm and mode of perception far more subtle than our own. It has less to do with what one sees than with how one sees; it amounts to a fundamental shift in perception." By way of our surrendered engaged open hearts, which cognize that we are an integration and union of seeming opposites—the finite and infinite within—we are re-minded of and see from our inherent Wholeness.

 

As this fundamental shift continues to take place, we are more capable of moving in our lives in a way that serves the situation in front of us. Mary Magdalene is a beautiful example of such a spiritual ancestor who had become fully human. Cynthia reminds us that Mary Magdalene had internalized Yeshua's teachings, had been prepared, and her own aligned life revealed a spiritual energy of baraka, a grace, that impacted the other disciples so palpably that it actually shifted their emotional states. She was able to "turn their hearts to the good."

 

The quality of her unique presence shined through what she did and said. This kind of operating from Wholeness isn't something we can just decide to do. It is a fruit that naturally matures as the shift in our selfhood and perception takes place and stabilizes. This Wholeness is not an individual goal one strives for in order to be enlightened but rather an essential participation that each one of us submits to as a Whole within a Whole within a Whole... We are prepared for this. Let us continue to become fully human and open to our own unique presence shining through in this season.

 

Epiphany Light, Love, and Wholeness,

Heather

 

Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses

 

*All previous readings & reflections can be found here*


Monday, January 13th with Joy


Reading: "To get out of the turmoil, according to spiritual teaching, you actually have two options. You can either stay in the egoic perception and try to deal with the problem at that level—or you can shift to a whole new way of being. …Deeper than our sense of separateness and isolation is another level of awareness in us, another whole way of knowing. Thomas Keating, in his teachings on centering prayer, calls this our "spiritual awareness" and contrasts it with the "ordinary awareness" of our usual, egoic thinking. The simplest way of describing this other kind of awareness is that while the self-reflexive ego thinks by means of noting differences and drawing distinctions, spiritual awareness "thinks" by an innate perception of kinship, of belonging to the whole." — Cynthia Bourgeault, Mystical Hope 


Chant: Be right here, in the heart of God [Henry Schoenfield]


Tuesday, January 14th with Joy


Reading: “(God is) the infinity of the unforeseeable; so we know that [the unforeseeable] is trustworthy, because in everything, God is trying to move us into Christ consciousness. If we are absolutely grounded in the absolute love of God that protects us from nothing even as it sustains us in all things, then we can face all things with courage and tenderness and touch the hurting places in others and in ourselves with love.” — James Finley 


Chant: When we are with you, what fear of loss could we possibly have, We swim in Mercy as in an endless sea (by Susan Latimer) 


Wednesday, January 15th with Joy


Reading: "But he who does truthful things comes to the light, so that his works may be known, that they are done through God." הַו דֵּין דּעָבֵד שׁרָרָא אָתֵא לוָת נוּהרָא דּנֵתִידעוּן עבָדַוהי דּבַאלָהָא עבִידִין / haw dēn dəᶜāḇeḏ šərārā ᵓāṯe ləwāṯ nūhrā dəneṯīḏᶜon ᶜəḇāḏaw dəḇălāhā ᶜəḇīḏīn — John 3:21


Does (avad) do, make, perform, serve, work, act, participate in, bring to pass, commit, execute, practice, accomplish, plan, cause. Also: to worship God

Truth (sherara) to be bound tightly together (e.g. with God), a bond nothing can break. Like an umbilical cord. Also close root: sherah, to let go, send away, to free; to loosen, to dwell. 

Come (atha) Come, arrive, bring forth, journey, pass through. (Used in maranatha; Lord come)

Light (nurah) light / that which shines. From root to shine, dawn, bring to light, enlighten. To flow, stream.

Know (y’dah) know, realize, understand, be aware of, make known, be evident, inform, recognize, acknowledge

Work (avad, same root as above) work, action, act

God (alaha) God From root: mighty, strong, god, goddess, godlike one, works of God, the true God

Whoever serves in the world/ worships God, with genuineness and integrity, or bound strongly and nurtured by God (as with an umbilical cord)/ comes to, brings forth the light/ shining radiance, thus it is perceived/ known that their works, or all works/actions are done in God.


Chant: I am here, here with you, rest in me, I in you, you in me, all is well (by Joy Andrews Hayter)


Thursday, January 16th with Catherine


Reading: "Grief is the work of mature men and women. It is our responsibility to be available to this emotion and offer it back to our struggling world. The gift of grief is the affirmation of life and of our intimacy with the world. It is risky to stay open and vulnerable in a culture increasingly dedicated to death, but without our willingness to stand witness through the power of our grief, we will not be able to stem the hemorrhaging of our communities, the senseless destruction of ecologies or the basic tyranny of monotonous existence. Each of these moves pushes us closer to the edge of the wasteland, a place where malls and cyberspace become our daily bread and our sensual lives diminish. Grief stirs the heart. It is indeed the song of a soul alive." — Francis Weller


Chant: When you are with us, what fear of loss can we possibly have (by Susan Latimer)


Friday, January 17th with Catherine


Reading: "I am quite confident that even as the oceans boil, and the hurricanes beat violently against our once safe shores, and the air sweats with the heat of impending doom, and our fists protest the denial of climate justice, that there is a path to take that has nothing to do with victory or defeat: a place we do not yet know the coordinates to; a question we do not yet know how to ask… There are things we must do, sayings we much say, thoughts we must think, that look nothing like the images of success that have so thoroughly possessed our visions of justice.

…May this [time] decade bring more than just solutions, more than just a future - may it bring words we don't know yet, and temporalities we have not yet inhabited.

…And may we be visited so thoroughly, and met in wild places so overwhelmingly, that we are left undone. Ready for composting. Ready for the impossible." — Bayo Akomolafe


Chant:  Oh God, I entrust myself to you that I may be transformed


Saturday, January 18th with Chris

 

Reading: "…What is needed is for us to not just hear the echoes, but to instead fully hear the way in which Love speaks directly to us through each part of creation.

In hearing this, we also begin to hear how we should respond to each part of creation with Love. This is part of what the feeling center in human beings was designed to do…

This is a completely different way of living than what we generally understand.

There are paradoxes afoot in this action, because the true pathways to Love are formed through channels of sorrow. … the deeper that we come into contact with our sorrow, which is what Gurdjieff called "remorse of conscience," the more we clear out the channels that can bring Love forth from the deepest roots of awareness and Being, where it perpetually dwells, and into the outer light of the world here where it can be manifest and perform great actions." — Lee Van Laer, Becoming more transparent, January 17, online

 

Chant: Open my heart (by Ana Hernandez)





 


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