Offered by Vesna Nikolic, a Wisdom Group Facilitator
During the past week, I’ve been reflecting on the aims of our group, how it came to be, the questions that we grappled with, themes we explored, invitations we tried to respond to. Taking a peek into the months gone by, with gratitude to all who participated and with questions of what might be asked of us as we move forward.
This group was created on the heels of Cynthia’s Holding our Planet retreat in Guelph, still sensing the strength of the web and what might be possible when seekers work together – our bodies, hearts and mind in service to the higher, aware of the entangled relationships that make our very being possible. About 12 of us gathered online, most participants from Eastern Canada, several local to Guelph. We felt something being asked of us and we gathered for meaningful work, music, movements, conscious efforts, sharing of questions and struggles, knowing that our atmosphere, our care and our being, however tiny, are not insignificant.
Our meetings became a space to slow down so what we engage with can be embodied, become truly part of ourselves. Invitations were made to release and let go of the weight of expectations and accomplishment, of any needs to be or appear to be in a certain way. And invitations were made to engage in efforts, in inner tasks, with intention, courage and playfulness. To hold contradictions and opposing forces within us for a moment longer. To listen to ourselves, and to others, deeply. To become aware of our existence, the sheer miracle of it, and the duty it carries.
Aligned with the season of fall, we began with practices of shedding, releasing, dissolving. We connected with our atmospheres, listened to the greater rhythms around us, listened to our being breathed, followed the exhale all the way through. Sensing the subtle currents within our bodies, noticing the vibration in our voice changing as we connected to a more real place within us, pausing frequently. Reminding ourselves of the overarching aim of creating the container, the vessel capable of receiving, so we may be of greater service to the whole.
We pondered together: What may be in need of shedding? What habits, preconceived ideas, reactions and resentments may be in need of being seen and of being gently moved to a lesser room within this mansion we call ourselves?
We began an exploration of ideas, so we can engage with them experientially, reminding ourselves to believe nothing unless proven in the laboratory of lived experience. Taking a deeper look at the Law of Three and Law of Seven, we explored how they are showing up in our lives, within us and around us. Embracing resistance as a necessary nutrient, an engine for the movements that keep the world alive.
We started to hold questions that continue to reverberate – what is my aim? My wish? Why am I here?
As we continued to study ourselves, we were invited to take a closer look at what is taking place with our attention. What might be the repertoire of associations and distractions that pull our attention around? Can we look at what is taking place within us with impartiality and acceptance, even with amusement? As judgements show up, can we see them for what they are, experience how they might close further inquiry?
We took a deeper dive into negative emotions and daydreaming. What is taking place there?
Coming back to the body whenever possible, trying to sense what is taking place within, connecting with our feet. Are there tensions? Constrictions? Can I connect with my breath? Is there a gesture that accompanies certain thoughts, certain emotions? Are there thoughts or emotions that keep me firmly within a certain repertoire of experiencing the world? Can I step one tiny bit aside and just watch them? How do they impact my energy, my sense of aliveness – are they draining the well or filling it up?
We took a deeper look at our three centers – feeling, intellectual and instinctual/ movement centers. What are they, what are their roles, are they taking their given roles, are they in relationship with one another? Another line of inquiry, another branch of self-study that continues to grow and evolve. Another lifetime project. We looked at the parable of the carriage, the horse, the driver and the passenger. At the present moment, Gurdjieff said, the carriage is in disrepair, the horse’s reins have vanished, the driver is at the pub and the owner is nowhere to be seen.
A driver can not hear the Master. What is needed for the Master, the Real “I” to show up, to begin directing the multitude of passengers, each one calling themselves an “I”?
We acknowledged our willingness to stay awake, to recognize the scale of things, to recognize deep suffering and yearning towards that which binds us together by engaging with Lord Have Mercy exercise.
We explored the four sources of transformation, as brought forward by J.G. Bennet – learning, struggle, sacrifice and help. Help sometimes referred to as grace. Bennet suggested ways to organize our struggles and gave us some guidelines around it. We each tried to engage with it in our lives.
While practice and theme explorations provided the backbone of our meetings, our hearts were in the sharing, the exchanges we had, what each of us saw, felt and sensed. We shared our vulnerabilities, as masks dissolved in the moments of reaching deeper within ourselves, carved the container further, no matter how slightly. The chants composed and sang by a fellow seeker carried the reverberations of the meetings further within and without, into daily life.
As winter approached, our practices of shedding and dissolution were followed by closer experience of the void, the emptiness, the descent. We sensed into the space in which incubation may occur. We engaged deeply with Centering Prayer.
We revisited Gebser’s structures of consciousness. We reminded ourselves that the new structure, the integral structure, is not the next step in the progression, rather, that the new structure includes the development of our capacity to hold all other structures in a deeper container, the capacity to move effortlessly from one to another.
This led to the beginning of the exploration of the mythical structure that is latent within us, that passes through us and shapes our bodily experience of the world. Mythical structure that reflects energetic dynamics and patterns of the natural world which surrounds us, permeates us and of which we are an inextricable part of. Can myths serve the vital function of reconnecting us to what these cycles are?
We were invited into exploration of the myths by listening to them, by sensing where they live in our bodies – our individual bodies, communal bodies, even cosmic bodies.
In many traditions, myths are enacted ritually to repattern relationships across different layers of existence. Can we see how our mind wishes to engage with myths by explaining them?
This was followed by exploration of our two natures, our ordinary nature and our divine nature and the reciprocal maintenance that is called for between them, that we can be in service of. When were the two connected? When did the higher self nourish our ordinary life? Could we notice how our ordinary life becomes richer, more alive and more meaningful? Though not often talked about, we also noticed how our ordinary self, through its way of being in the world, nourishes the higher self. It is reciprocal maintenance all the way through.
This nourishment happens in the moment of choice. We reminded ourselves of Victor Frankl’s saying that between stimuli and response there is a gap. In that gap there is a choice. In that choice there is freedom. So, we engaged with the practice of recognizing such moments in our lives and then practiced the muscle of surrender, of letting go. We all noticed where so many of our parts wish to go into reaction or retreat, or into denial. We also recognized the moment in time when it is still not too late to choose, in spite of the pull to do otherwise.
We briefly explored the world of symbols as an intermediate world. We took a peek at the Tower of Destruction from the Meditations of the Tarot book. There was a reminder there that all towers built by humans will sooner or later be struck down by the thunderbolt. So, one must not build, it is a matter of growth. Growth through perpetual dying. An invitation to deeper listening came loud and clear, so we can align vertically with Thy Will.
Invitation to deeper listening called us to a deeper relationship with Silence. Silence as a companion, the living presence in the depths of everything around us. Silence that Robert Sardello writes about in his book Silence.
We engaged with ideas from the book in our practice, exploring the encounters with the Guardians of Silence, as well as the true meaning of purification. Purification which does not refer to getting rid of all we may not like within us, rather, purification as capacity to be alertly present to whatever is going on – with honesty, humility, acceptance and truthfulness, with no place to hide.
We engaged with deeper exploration of the buffers.
What are the buffers, what function do they serve? How do they get created, how do they take control over us and how might we engage in their deconstruction? We became interested in exploring contradictions within ourselves, the places where buffers may begin to break.
We looked at the relationship between destroying the buffers, development of real Will within us and Fear. What is fear? How does it manifest in our body? We were invited to look into our capacity to become aware of the truth of our fears, to witness them. Anything that keeps me away from feeling the truth of myself, keeps me asleep.
With the events of the world unfolding during spring of 2025, living in the midst of daily upheavals – cultural, social, political, in the midst of natural disasters around the world, in the midst of uncertainty, we saw the tendency in us to become overwhelmed. We witnessed the wish to go back to that which is familiar. And yet, tradition after tradition is saying that times of great uncertainty are also times when transformation is most possible.
This led us to deeper exploration of trust and of suffering. Can we awaken to the deeper sense of self, the parts that have capacity to bear, the parts that are connected to the thread which helps us not become lost in the most intense conditions, the thread that helps us not succumb to fear completely.
In the Spring, coming back from a Holy Week gathering with Cynthia, we were reminded reminded of the help of a longer perspective. We focused on the three remarkable thinkers and visionaries – Teilhard, Gebser and Gurdjieff – who were united in their knowledge that humanity has a collective responsibility. Holding a very specific and important place on the ray of creation, human beings that are aspiring to become conscious are called to not break faith with what it means to become human. We are called to live into our humanity fully. Ultimately, it is not about us.
Cynthia raised these questions:
What does it mean to go beyond one’s self-protection?
What does it mean to die before you die?
What does it mean to stand for something so purely that nothing will make you bend?
While we considered these questions, we also asked ourselves if we knew where our feet were. And we reminded ourselves that we can only work with something specific and tangible. So, we took a closer look at our own patterns of worrying.
As we approached the time before the summer break, the group was invited to take an honest look at our work together and to begin discernment of what may be needed going forward. So that – whatever it may be – it is intentional, practical and does not continue out of habit or some type of inner considering.
Are our practices pointing in the direction of greater awareness, greater service, and greater compassion? Are they helping to quiet our minds and connect us with truth that lives within us? Or more specifically – is our work together helping me see the multitude that I am? My reactions, the workings of my centers? My sleep? What may we want to engage with in a different way? Might there be something we may wish to change, or engage with deeper, consider further? What further explorations are calling us?
And finally, at our last meeting before summer break, we each shared what we may try during summer months. Knowing that the intention voiced may gain strength through being spoken aloud and shared with the group.
In deep gratitude to each participant’s work and efforts.
Vesna
Summer 2025