Our wholeness is seen, known, and cherished. There is a fullness, a coherence, underlying all the seeming brokenness and randomness. Despair does not have the final word. On this festival day of Christmas, Jesus again steps forward as the symbol…
Photo by Endel Kallas On Monday December 21, 2020 Cynthia Bourgeault sat down with Marcella Kraybill-Greggo on zoom to have a conversation about the work of Jean Gebser. This conversation came into being through the desire…
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…
Dear Wisdom Friends, As we enter this Feast of Epiphany, celebrating the arrival of Holy Wisdom at the stable, I invite you all to join me over the next twenty-four hours in keeping Wisdom vigil for our American nation as…
I invite you into this read as an invitation to action and a stronger commitment to practice: including the Epiphany practice recently invited by Cynthia, which is posted on the home page blog. Over the last year I’ve worked closely…
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…
As one’s level of being increases, receptivity to higher meaning increases. As one’s level of being decreases, the old meanings return. ~Maurice Nicoll Dear Wisdom Seekers, The age-old debate, between contemplative communities and communities of action, has been reinvigorated…
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…
As we continue on in the season of Epiphany, the veil still thin, we are invited to bring the gifts of Wisdom to that which is springing forth and desiring to manifest through form in the collective. We are in…
“As one’s level of being increases, receptivity to higher meaning increases. As one’s level of being decreases, the old meanings return” ~Maurice Nicoll These past several weeks have brought an intensification of force and timing to the age old question:…
It occurred to me that people may want a little guidance as to how to pick and choose among the sudden embarrassment of riches of Cynthia Bourgeault online course options currently opening up for registration. Here’s a bit more information…
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…
By the skin of her teeth (the way she always seems to do things), Cynthia has made it onto the prestigious Watkins List, honoring the hundred most spiritually influential people of 2021. This recognition comes partly on the strength of…
It seems fitting that Abdul Aziz Said should have passed at a time when our nation cries out for an elusive unity. Professor Said affected thousands as an educator. For six decades, year after year, thousands of students passed through…
Our friend Bill Espinosa considered Abdul Aziz Said to be his spiritual teacher for many years. In honor of his recent passing, Bill has shared his remembrance, “Peace and Unity” in the Community Forum. This article, written by Said twenty…
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…
Thanks to a prompt from Cynthia, I have been looking again at Gurdjieff’s notion of the horse, carriage, driver and Master. In fact, it appears that this metaphor is much older. The Hindu tradition—Katha Upanishads states: Know the âtman as…
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…
As we curate life from the food in our atmospheres… Earlier in Lent, I set the stage for one of the greatest rites of Jesus’ initiation—the Transfiguration—by mentioning the gospel which is probably one of the better known photographs of…
Are you a good listener? I confess that I am not. In conversation I get excited and barge in with a comment; or I get distracted and forget what the other person is saying. We all have our conversational quirks…
The following update was recently posted by friends at The Contemplative Society, and provides a great summary of my recent and upcoming activities. What’s new with our Principal Teacher Cynthia Bourgeault? Recently we’ve heard from a number of you wondering…
In stillness nailed to hold all time, all change, all circumstance in and to love’s embrace Beloved One, creation longs to be held in the great hands of your heart; O let us know this now. Into them we place…
Take Off Your Shoesby Adwoa Lewis-Wilson Take off your shoes,In fact, remove all your coverings –The cloak of achievement, adornments of knowledge, Every false veil of ‘self’.For the place you stand is holy ground.Here is where I will burn away…
We see that at Christ’s death the whole world entered upon a cosmic spring the harvest of which will be the remaking of our universes in newness and splendor. At the moment of Christ’s death the veil in the temple…
All of nature with its forms and creatures exist together and are interwoven with each other. They will be resolved back to their own proper origin, for the compositions of matter return to the original roots of their nature. Those…
Part I, Holy Week 2021, Maundy Thursday. Absence mills around the body like a guard dog pacing the fence line. Rigidly keeping off the night creatures, jealously defending its property. I am within a picketed sphere of isolation. Longing, despair,…
Part II, Holy Week 2021, Easter Sunday I throw open the gate to rushing wind and creaking branches. Not knowing what lays ahead, I step into the forest with my companions, fear, awe, and more hesitantly, joy. Like many, perhaps…
Dear wisdom friends, By now the word is out that I am officially stepping back from active duty as a core faculty member at the Center for Action and Contemplation. As a newly minted “faculty emeritus,” I will no longer…
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…
The following review of Cynthia’s book Eye of the Heart: A Spiritual Journey into the Imaginal Realm is provided by David Lorimer from Paradigm Explorer, the journal of The Scientific and Medical Network, edition 2021/1 Cynthia Bourgeault is a mystic…
Dear Wisdom Seekers, I’m just back from a week away in Stonington, Maine with friends and teacher, Cynthia Bourgeault, diving directly into the insides of what mystical courage might look like when we actively choose to keep within in order to…
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…
We are pleased to welcome The Rev Benjamin Thomas as the newest member of our Wisdom Council. Ben is the associate rector at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in Boca Raton, Florida, and a veteran wisdom postholder.
There are rich currents flowing through the Wisdom stream, so it’s hard to offer a “one size fits all” reading list. Some people will be more drawn to the esoteric end of the spectrum; others feel more at home in…
The past two weeks I was in France with my wife, where we had traveled to see her grandmother. Her grandmother’s health is in decline, and family felt that we should come for a visit sooner rather than later. As…
“In each of these crises, can be rediscovered to a certain degree the primitive image of all emergencies, namely birth. In that primitive experience, the whole organism had to readapt itself completely to save itself from immediate death. The lungs…
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…
Sister Lois Barton, Sister of Saint Joseph, was a trusted friend, colleague, and always a willing partner in crime. Over twenty-five years, we together experienced many of the most extraordinary experiences of each of our lives. And because of the…
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…
Hold fast the hope, which anchors the soul, which is sure and steadfast,that you may float above the world’s sea. Paulette Meier, Quaker Wisdom Chants On August 28, 2021, Wisdom Waypoints hosted a worldwide practice day, gathering 275 Wisdom friends…
One of the great joys in my life is hanging out in this big old Wisdom community. Its timeless! We are all part of Wisdom’s never-ending flow and manifestation. Wisdom always has and always will – in all places and…
Last week my father, Mahan Siler, and I trekked from the mountains of western North Carolina to the low country of South Carolina. We joined 12 others for a Wisdom School retreat at Mepkin Abbey, led by Cynthia Bourgeault, on…
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…