Both my spirits and my hopes have been raised by the recent appearance of an important and already game-changing new article in the most recent edition of La Civilta Cattolica. This is a prestigious Jesuit publication, whose contents are personally…
In my previous blog (concurrently posted on both the Contemplative Society and Northeast Wisdom websites), I invited members of our Wisdom community to begin to engage a conversation on the emotion-charged issue of abortion rights as a means to promote…
In this third installment of what now looks to be shaping up as five-part series, I hope to bring a Wisdom perspective to that profound liminal sphere encompassing conception, birth, and the formation of the soul. For it’s in the…
ESSENCE According to Gurdjieff, the mysterious “x-factor” that enters in the moment of conception is not yet soul but essence. Think of it as the hand of cards you’re dealt at the start of a card game. It comprises a…
The clear, simple truth: Nothing can fall out of God. Where would it go? God is not “somebody” (not me)—“somewhere else” (not here.) God is the ALL, the now, the whole; the undivided, dynamic totality of form and formlessness. As…
As we come down the home stretch in this extended Wisdom inquiry into the abortion issue, I’ve tried to draw together here some of the most important implications and “business arising” out this exploration. Most of my following “top five”…
Part 1 of a three-part blog series by Cynthia Bourgeault. See below for links to the full series. As many of you know, I have been breaking ground on a new book on the Imaginal Realm. While “breaking ground”…
Part 2 of a three-part blog series by Cynthia Bourgeault. See below for links to the full series. Traditional metaphysical maps based on “the great chain of being” will tend to situate the imaginal as the station “above” ours,…
Part 3 of a three-part blog series by Cynthia Bourgeault. See below for links to the full series. ***** I cannot emphasize strongly enough that the word imaginal does not mean “imaginary.” That unfortunate but all too understandable confusion was…
Dear Wisdom Friends, As the new decade gets underway, it feels like an appropriate moment to share one of my earlier essays, which is still to my mind one of the best things I’ve ever written. It was originally published…
This is Part II of an eight-part Northeast Wisdom Home Page Blog series that began with “Part I. The Light Within” posted Sunday January 12, 2020. Cynthia introduced the series with this message: “Dear Wisdom Friends, As the new decade…
This is Part III of an eight-part Northeast Wisdom Home Page Blog series that began on Sunday January 12, 2020. Cynthia introduced the series with this message: “Dear Wisdom Friends, As the new decade gets underway, it feels like an…
This is Part IV of an eight-part Northeast Wisdom Home Page Blog series that began on Sunday January 12, 2020, with two posts weekly, Sundays and Wednesdays, during the season of Epiphany. You are invited to share your responses in…
This is Part V of an eight-part Northeast Wisdom Home Page Blog series that began on Sunday January 12, 2020, with posts every Sunday and Wednesday during the season of Epiphany. Please share your reflections in the Comments section below.…
St John the Evangelist, 17th century Iran, courtesy Getty Museum This is Part VI of an eight-part Northeast Wisdom Home Page Blog series that began on Sunday January 12, 2020, with posts every Sunday and Wednesday…
This is Part VII of an eight-part Northeast Wisdom Home Page Blog series that began on Sunday January 12, 2020, with posts every Sunday and Wednesday during the season of Epiphany. Look for the last post Wednesday, February 5th; and…
photo courtesy pxfuel This is the last in an eight-part Northeast Wisdom Home Page Blog series that Cynthia prepared from what she calls “one of the best things I have ever written.” It began on Sunday…
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 assignment has something to do with helping to expose—and hopefully…
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 Jean Gebser, seen first through the eyes of Jeremy Johnson…
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 Ever-Present Origin, illustrating almost every significant point he makes. It’s…
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 tool with which to begin to see where we’re pinned.…
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 yardstick by which value is measured and priorities are…
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 powerful constellating energy and psychic force. It will quickly establish…
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 glance toward indigenous cultures, which seem to offer counterbalancing strengths…
Sometimes I wish we could all just declare a temporary moratorium on the term “Integral!!!” What Gebser intended when he chose that name for his emerging fifth structure of consciousness is challenging enough to wrap one’s mind around in the…
Gebser names his book The Ever Present Origin, and Origin is indeed the center point around which everything else in his in his magisterial teaching revolves. But his vision of Origin is unique, to say the least, and highly elusive to…
The Baton Has Been Passed. Can We Now Run With It? No, dear friends, I didn’t send you off on a wild goose chase to immerse yourself in 450 pages of some of the most dense and intellectually challenging prose…
In my last post I invited us all to begin thinking more specifically in terms of the gifts and strengths contributed to the whole by the magic and mythic structures of consciousness. By now we’ve been working in Gebser long…
In Beelzebub’s Tales, in the chapter on Beelzebub’s Fourth Sojourn on the Planet Earth, Gurdjieff describes the founding of the original Wisdom School in Atlantis, under the inspired conscience of Belcultassi. The comments and organizational structure seems curiously relevant to the…
Whatever you may take Gebser’s Integral structure of consciousness to be, its most striking characteristic is that it entails a radically different approach to time. Time presents in a strikingly different way in Integral. Gebser rightly describes it as a…
There are two other things you should know about Gebser’s “aperspectival” time: it is non-exclusionary, and it is purposive. Linear or perspectival time, the time we’re used to, is exclusionary. Its linear, unidirectional flow provides sequencing and causality. Things that happen earlier cause…
Cynthia Bourgeault continues her unfolding series of reflections upon Integral structures of consciousness and ideas brought forth in Jean Gebser’s masterful book, Ever Present Origin. If you’re new to Gebser’s revelatory ideas, Cynthia recommends starting with Seeing Through the World:…
Cynthia Bourgeault continues her series of reflections upon Integral structures of consciousness and ideas brought forth in Jean Gebser’s book, Ever Present Origin (EPO). See below for related resources and links to prior posts. In all honesty it must be…
One of the more surprising revelations to grow out of our winter’s pilot “Civics for Wisdom Students” project has been the growing realization that while our Constitution pays lips service to “the Common Good,” it actually makes very little constitutional…
Freeway image by Ruiyang Zhang from Pexels The following provides further reflections on the “Civics for Wisdom Students” theme, as introduced in the prior post EVOLUTIONARY THEORY AND THE COMMON GOOD: The Beginnings of a Wisdom Inquiry So let’s begin by situating our inquiry…
The second major shift as we approach the question of the common good through the Integral structure of consciousness is, I believe, that we will increasingly understand it as an emergent property of a self-specifying system—or in other words, not…
We have just begun our next Wisdom Practice Book Circle this week, in which over one hundred and sixty people are gathering to engage one of Cynthia’s foundational books Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening. In addition, as a way of…
Photo by Ivan Pozniak from Pexel The third aspect to note about the common good as it manifests in the Integral structure of consciousness is that it is, well, good. It is not just virtuous, righteous, dutiful, or morally correct,…
Soaring bird image by Abdullah Ahmad from Pixabay For prior blogs in this series exploring the common good and the potential of an emerging Integral structure of consciousness, please refer to the links included below this post. This is the…
From everything I’ve said so far about flow systems and keeping the infrastructure rolling, you may get the idea that any form of constraint is an intrinsic obstacle to the common good. And yes, this proposition has been periodically aired…
Last month we held our first small Wisdom Book Practice Circle gatherings to engage with Part I of “Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening,” as well as our Wisdom Practice Day on August 28. The Practice Day was gratifying to all…
The Psychology of Centering Prayer in Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening by Cynthia Bourgeault This month in our Foundational Book Group Series, we are reading Part III, The Psychology of Centering Prayer in Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening by Cynthia…
See below this reflection for the Spanish translation. This month in our Foundational Book Group Series, we’re reading Part IV of Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, in which Cynthia takes us into “the heart” of Centering Prayer—and into our own…
Cynthia Bourgeault continues her series of reflections upon Integral structures of consciousness and ideas brought forth in Jean Gebser’s book, Ever Present Origin (EPO). See below for related resources and links to prior posts. ***** After a long hiatus, I…
Cynthia Bourgeault continues her series of reflections upon Integral structures of consciousness and ideas brought forth in Jean Gebser’s book, Ever Present Origin (EPO). See below for related resources and links to prior posts. ***** Yet another connecting link between…
Wisdom Waypoints is offering the timeless and succinct Cynthia Bourgeault classic, The Wisdom Way of Knowing: Reclaiming an Ancient Tradition to Awaken the Heart, as the subject of a book discussion group beginning January 25 with live monthly Zoom meetings…
Our Wisdom Waypoints Wisdom study of The Wisdom Way of Knowing by Cynthia Bourgeault is off and running! If you’re not participating in the online groups we’d still love to have you join the study in imaginal space, connecting from wherever you are…
See below this reflection for the Spanish translation. This month, Marcella Kraybill-Greggo and Jeanine Siler Jones are teaming up to join Bill Redfield and Matthew Wright in highlighting a chapter of The Wisdom Way of Knowing: Reclaiming an Ancient Tradition to…
It’s extraordinary, but of course not surprising, how utterly relevant and pertinent these two chapters are, incidentally, written before the emergence of the first iPhone. It is also no coincidence that these chapters are preceded by the chapter on the…
Welcome to a monthly series of posts from the leaders of Wisdom Waypoints Book Study Group. In January the class took up The Wisdom Way of Knowing: Reclaiming an Ancient Tradition to Awaken the Heart by Cynthia Bourgeault. We invite you to…