Cynthia offers a teaching on métis — the capacity to take skillful, decisive, appropriate action in a moment based on three-centered awareness. When we can access this quality, we leverage a compassionate “imaginal cunning” which is key to navigating the space between contemplation and action to instead yield a contemplation-in-action that “restores wholeness where wholeness is in risk of being broken.” Using stories from the Bible and her own life, Cynthia expands on what encountering metis looks like and how to call it forth in our own lives.
This teaching was originally offered at the “Holding our Planet” Wisdom School in Guelph, Ontario at the Ignatius Jesuit Centre.
Key topics and themes:
- Discusses a rarely mentioned quality that lies between contemplation and action.
- Introduced to the concept of Métis by Peter Kingsley, a British scholar.
- Métis is often translated as cunning or shrewdness but can also mean imaginal cunning when used for compassionate, skillful action.
- Describes Métis as the capacity to take skillful, decisive, appropriate action based on three-centered awareness (head, heart, and body).
- Shares three stories illustrating Métis:
- Biblical Story of Jesus and the Coin: Jesus cleverly avoids a trap by the Pharisees by asking whose image is on the coin, thus saying to give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.
- Personal Experience in Halifax: During a work intensive, a senior teacher skillfully resolves a conflict between the speaker’s haste and another’s mindfulness without judgment, demonstrating external considering.
- Biblical Story of Solomon and the Baby: Solomon’s wisdom in determining the real mother of a baby by suggesting to cut it in half, revealing the true mother’s compassion.
- Emphasizes the importance of external considering—seeing beyond one’s own perspective to understand and serve the whole situation.
- Discusses the need for purification in the three centers (head, heart, and body):
- Head: Requires obedience and the ability to listen deeply, moving away from internal considering.
- Heart: Needs chastity and the ability to avoid being driven by emotions.
- Body: Requires poverty, freeing it from conditioned behaviors and impulsivity.
- Suggests that true Métis involves being prepared but not premeditated, allowing actions to be guided by a higher intelligence or third force.
- Encourages a state of internal stillness and receptivity to act decisively and appropriately when the moment arises.