Heather Ruce

Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses *All previous readings & reflections can be found here* Monday, May 11th with Tom Reading: Ours is not the work of seeking You here or there or where we think you might be, But of opening the heart's door. And when we do this, You cannot resist coming in, since our opening and Your entering are one: You knock and wait, and when we open we find that You were there all along and will not leave us. — Meister Eckhar

Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses *All previous readings & reflections can be found here* Monday, May 4th with Tom Reading: I remember one morning when I discovered a cocoon in the back of a tree just as a butterfly was making a hole in its case and preparing to come out. I waited awhile, but it was too long appearing and I was impatient. I bent over it and breathed on it to warm it. I warmed it as quickly as I could and the miracle began to happen befo

Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses *All previous readings & reflections can be found here* Monday, April 27th with Faye Reading: I have come here to this planet to take in my life into my body and my being as deeply as possible. So I begin each day searching for a way within to reconnect to what is essential in me: the way I sense, the way I breathe. And in order to conduct that search, I begin by moving the whole of my being closer to the gre

Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses *All previous readings & reflections can be found here* Monday, April 20th Chant: Born of above, born of below – a vessel of the Kingdom — Henry Schoenfield Tuesday, April 21st Chant: Born of above, born of below – a vessel of the Kingdom — Henry Schoenfield Wednesday, April 22th Reading: “Each one of us, and every action we make, has a quality of aliveness to it, a fragrance or vibrancy uniquely its own. If th

“By their fruit you will recognize them.” – Matthew 7:16 Dear Ones, We are now well into the season of Eastertide, a time in the liturgical year when Yeshua, having passed through death, appeared again and again to his students. He came reminding them of the arc of his life, consolidating his teachings, and encouraging them to carry the path forward. Through the lens of the Ray of Creation, Yeshua’s life, death, and resurrection reveal something essential about our own

Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses *All previous readings & reflections can be found here * Monday, April 6th Reading: “Everyone who begins to study and know their own states is well aware that our experience is a constant dying and rebirth. We must not be frightened as we come to see this, although it really is a terrifying thing that we have no power to keep hold of our own life; that it has to be renewed or given back to us by something that does not

Dear Ones, Here we stand in the midst of Holy Week. As we recollect the events that unfolded, we begin to sense that they are not only sacred stories, but living patterns that continue to reverberate within us and around us now. Holy Week begins with celebration. A road covered with palm branches. A king entering the city. On the surface, all appears well. Yeshua (Jesus’s name in Hebrew/Aramic) is hailed as king. His students must have felt a kind of relief, perhaps

Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses *All previous readings & reflections can be found here * Monday, March 23rd Chant: O Sacred Three, [you are with/you are in] me — The Oriental Orthodox Order in the West Tuesday, March 24th Chant: We surrender — Heather Ruce Wednesday, March 25th Reading: We awaken in Christ's body by Symeon the New Theologian English version by Stephen Mitchell Original Language Greek We awaken in Christ's body as Christ awakens our

Dear Ones, In recent reflections, we have been exploring the image of the acorn—the shell of personality and false personality cracking so that the deeper seed of Essence can take root and grow into a greater Selfhood. We have also considered how this same process is unfolding collectively. The structures that have organized our shared life—the collective “shell” of our wegoic operating system—are beginning to crack open. As they do, we experience the destabilization, dis

Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses *All previous readings & reflections can be found here * Monday, March 9th Reading: “Joy is not a heightened state of happiness—it's entirely different. It's an experience of communion, of "being one with" beyond the boundaries of self, of interbeing Joy is a sensation of our entire being, difficult to describe in words but similarly felt whenever we experience it. Strangely, the experience of joy often feels the same a

Dear Ones, Last week we explored the image of the acorn—how the shell of personality and false personality, both based in what some call the egoic operating system, must crack so that the deeper seed of Essence (our World 24 self) can take root and grow into the oak of Real I or True Self (our World 12 self). This same image can also be applied to humanity’s collective shell of personality and false personality—what some call the wegoic operating system . For the deeper c

Dear Ones, Let us continue with the theme of dying to self through the lens of the Ray of Creation (you can find out more about the Ray here ). Many Wisdom teachers affirm that we are born with an essential self—a seed of the Kingdom of Heaven (World 24) already present within us. As we develop within the visible world in which we live (World 48), we necessarily form a personality self. This World 48 structure of selfhood is not a mistake. It is required and protects Ess

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

Dear Ones, We enter the season of Lent tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, the forty-day journey that mirrors Jesus’ time in the desert. Lent is often described as a season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Within these practices lie deeper interior and transformative dimensions of self-remembering and self-examination, both also at work in this season. One way of understanding self-remembering is as present moment embodied recognition of a deeper current of identity ultimately ro

Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses *All previous readings & reflections can be found here * Monday, February 2nd Reading: Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. — Talmud Chant: What does the Lord require of you? Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly — Henry Schoenfield Tuesday, February 3rd Reading: “O

Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses *All previous readings & reflections can be found here * Monday, January 26th Reading: “They did not lash out in anger or grab the nearest microphone or collapse in victimhood. Instead, they went into silence. They refused to speak to the media and sought the gifts of grace only revealed in silent contemplation. This they knew well, the process they relied on in personal conversations and with hundreds of nuns at their a

Dear Ones, There is a Taizé chant that has been echoing throughout the season of Advent and now into Epiphanytide. As the collective unlit night we are moving through continues to feel ever more dense, the words return again and again: “Within our darkest night,you kindle a fire that never dies away,never dies away.” These words are a hauntingly beautiful reminder of the Christic fire revealed, enduring, and already burning within us, even when the night feels long. A

Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses *All previous readings & reflections can be found here * Monday, January 12th with Tom Reading: The Courage To Fully See From Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life Maybe, for the time being, we have to accept the many fluctuations between knowing and not knowing, seeing and not seeing, feeling and not feeling, between days in which the whole world seems like a rose garden and days in which our hearts se

Dear Ones, Last Tuesday we marked the feast of Epiphany, the celebration of Christ’s incarnation revealed to the world—a revelation whose tide does not end in a single day, but continues to unfold. As we have been exploring together , our task of participation, our post, in the Ray of Creation during these seasons is the ongoing formation, birthing, and revelation of the Christic Realm— World 12 —within us, and through our own lives. From the perspective of World 48 and W

Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses *All previous readings & reflections can be found here * Monday, December 29th Reading : Now God says to us What He has already said to the earth as a whole Through His grace-filled birth: I am there. I am with you. I am your life. I am your time. I am the gloom of your daily routine. Why will you not hear it? I weep your tears – pour yours out to me. I am your joy. Do not be afraid to be happy; ever since I wept, joy

Dear Ones, The season of Christmastide is now upon us, carrying its quiet yet important invitation to be present to what has been birthed once again. If we turn to the Ray of Creation as a way of understanding what the “tide” of Christmas is truly about, we begin to glimpse the deeper significance of the Incarnation and its implications for our own lives and spiritual work. As Cynthia Bourgeault has taught, when God brought creation into existence, it was not fashioned a

Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses *All previous readings & reflections can be found here * Monday, December 15th with Lacey Reading: “Come, Lord, Jesus,” the Advent mantra, means that all of Christian history has to live out a kind of deliberate emptiness, a kind of chosen non-fulfillment. This keeps the field of life wide open and especially open to the grace and to a future created by God rather than ourselves. This is exactly what it means to be “awak

Dear Ones, We are now in the third week of Advent, drawing closer to the celebration of Christmas. For many of us, this season is marked by familiar rituals with those we love, such as exchanging gifts and sharing a special meal or feast. On the horizontal plane of ordinary life—what Cynthia Bourgeault’s Christian Wisdom lineage names World 48 —these rituals matter deeply. They help weave meaning, belonging, and continuity into our lives. When, for any reason, we are unable

Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses *All previous readings & reflections can be found here * Monday, December 1st Readings: “Advent is a journey towards Bethlehem. May we let ourselves be drawn by the light of God made man.” — Pope Francis “For outlandish creatures like us, on our way to a heart, a brain, and courage, Bethlehem is not the end of our journey but only the beginning – not home but the place through which we must pass if ever we are to reach