Cynthia Bourgeault

Cynthia Bourgeault is an Episcopal priest, writer, and internationally known retreat leader. She is the original creator of the Wisdom School and has been organizing and teaching schools since 1999. Founding director of the British Columbia-based Contemplative Society and the Aspen Wisdom School, she has now returned home to the East Coast to divide her time between Wisdom teaching, writing, and solitude at her small hermitage on Eagle Island in Maine. To find out what Cynthia's up to, you can view her master teaching calendar.

The Mythic and Magic Structures: Exploring Jean Gebser, Lesson VI

Cynthia Bourgeault | December 11, 2020

I know that a number of you, in growing awareness of the of the blind spots and shadow elements in the mental structure of consciousness, have been casting a fond […]

The Deficient Mental Structure: Exploring Jean Gebser, Lesson V

Cynthia Bourgeault | December 6, 2020

Structures of consciousness have their own life cycles. When a new structure bursts definitively onto the stage of history, it is typically at its most vital and creative, filled with […]

The Perspectival Mainspring: Exploring Jean Gebser, Lesson IV

Cynthia Bourgeault | December 3, 2020

All structures of consciousness have at their center of gravity, a core value or “moral mainspring” around which all else is ordered. Often unstated and even unrecognized, it nonetheless establishes […]

The View from the Periscope: Exploring Jean Gebser, Lesson III

Cynthia Bourgeault | November 27, 2020

Gebser’s brilliant unpacking of the structures of consciousness in terms of PERSPECTIVE (as it is understood in the art world rather than in philosophy) gives us a powerful new visual […]

Unperspectival, Perspectival, Aperspectival: Exploring Jean Gebser, Lesson II

Cynthia Bourgeault | November 24, 2020

Jean Gebser’s cultural home base was the world of art. He was a personal friend of Pablo Picasso’s, and examples culled from art history dot the landscape of his The […]

Stages Versus Structures: Exploring Jean Gebser, Lesson I

Cynthia Bourgeault | November 18, 2020

The introduction to this series, entitled An Invitation to Begin the Healing Work, was posted November 10, 2020, and is an invitation to dive in together with the work of […]

An Invitation to Begin the Healing Work: Exploring Jean Gebser, Introduction

Cynthia Bourgeault | November 10, 2020

Well, the oasis of grace miraculously opened, and now it’s time to roll up our collective sleeves and get on with the healing work! I know that my own first […]

Stonington Imaginal School Serves Up Rich Bread for the Journey

Cynthia Bourgeault | September 17, 2020

My heart is filled with gratitude and reverence for the sixteen plucky souls who accepted the invitation to join me for a tiny, on the ground Wisdom School in Stonington […]

Pandemic at Pentecost (letter from Cynthia)

Cynthia Bourgeault | June 1, 2020

Okay, y’all, God help me, here goes…Please note I am not speaking ex cathedra here, from my post as a Wisdom leader, but as a fellow human being speaking my own truth…

Going Forward: Time, Tides, Benedict & Zoom

Cynthia Bourgeault | May 3, 2020

For most of March and April, as many of you know, I have been hanging out here on the edge of the known universe on Eagle Island, taking the time […]