Member of Community of Grey Sisters of Pembroke; Masters Degree in Religious Communication, Loyola University, Chicago;
Author: Called to Egypt on the Back of the Wind (2013) Planted in the Sky (2006) both published by Borealis Press, Ottawa Canada www.borealispress.com
Retreat facilitator: The Wooing of the Soul (2013)
The Sophia Salons, beginning in February 2016, offer journeys to one's own inner wisdom for small groups of women. For information: amclaughlin@sympatico.ca
“The universe, as a whole, cannot ever be brought to a halt or turn back in the movement which draws it towards a greater degree of freedom and consciousness” (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Christianity and Evolution, 109).
How did Teilhard move from examining rock layers to exploring the inner dynamics of the universe and of the human spirit?
How did he reach his conviction that matter is moving towards spirit, that everything is “driven, from its beginning, by an urge toward a little more freedom, a little more power, more truth?” (Writings in Time of War)
Kathleen Duffy writes that Teilhard “began by plumbing the depths of his own being, plunging into the current that was his life so that he could chart the development of his person from the very beginning. He wanted to see whether, and if so, how, the principle of Creative Union was operating in his own cosmic story.” (Teilhard’s Mysticism, 83)
Teilhard himself tells us of that inner journey:
And so, for the first time in my life…I took the lamp and, leaving the zone of everyday occupations and relationships where everything seems clear, I went down into my inmost self, to the deep abyss whence I feel dimly that my power of action emanates. But as I moved further and further away from the conventional certainties by which social life is superficially illuminated, I became aware that I was losing contact with myself. At each step of the descent a new person was disclosed within me of whose name I was no longer sure, and who no longer obeyed me. And when I had to stop my exploration because the path faded from beneath my steps, I found a bottomless abyss at my feet, and out of it came — arising I know not from where – the current that I dare to call my life. (Divine Milieu 76-77)
artwork by Mary Southard, CSJ
On this deep inner journey, Teilhard felt “the distress characteristic to a particle adrift in the universe” (DM, 78).
Kathleen Duffy describes his experience: The immensity and grandeur of the universe overwhelmed him. As he descended back through the eons of time, the landscape became less and less familiar; patterns came and went at random and then disappeared. Finally, near the beginning of time, all cosmic structure dissolved into a sea of elementary particles. Troubled, at first, by the apparent lack of unity, Teilhard reversed his direction, exploring instead the cosmic becoming. As he moved forward through time, he watched elementary particles fuse into fragile streams. Amazed by how these streams continued to coalesce, he focused on those that would eventually form his own current, noting the way they converged. Extending “from the initial starting point of the cosmic processes…to the meeting of my parents” (Writings in Time of War, 228), rivulets were growing in strength and beauty. As time progressed, they came alive – they began cascading in torrents, swirling in eddies, pulsating with life and with spiritual power. Teilhard could feel the energy of life gushing from his core. (Teilhard’s Mysticism, 84)
From this mythic/mystical inner journey through his own being Teilhard began to trace the evolution of spirit within matter.
It became clear to him that “a certain mass of elementary consciousness becomes imprisoned in terrestrial matter at the beginning” (Human Phenomenon, 37).
Contemplating the first cells bubbling up from the ocean floor, Teilhard was aware of more than the evolution of matter; he realized that he was also witnessing the evolution of spirit…. The more complex matter becomes, the more capable it is of embodying a more developed consciousness or spirit (TM 87).
We hear an excitement in Teilhard’s words as he sees the implications of this: And here is the lightning flash that illuminates the biosphere to its depth …. Everything is in motion, everything is raising itself, organizing itself in a single direction, which is that of the greatest consciousness (The Vision of the Past, 72).
Seeing the evolutionary process moving in this way, Teilhard is assured that: The universe as a whole, cannot ever be brought to a halt or turn back in the movement which draws it towards a greater degree of freedom and consciousness (Christianity and Evolution, 109).
If we also feel that “lightning flash”, that stirring of excitement and promise, how will our everyday lives change?
For starters, we must free ourselves from that tangle of despair and helpless that ensnares us when we look only at the challenges (immense and awe –inspiring as they are), and free up our energies to look at the 14.8 billion years of evolution that have brought us to this threshold.
We may trust that we are made for these times, that we have evolved to face this crisis, that we have all that we require to do what is demanded of us.
For why else was Teilhard sent to us as a guide in this moment in human history?
The internal face of the world comes to light and reflects upon itself in the very depths of our human consciousness. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
We continue our spiral journey, guided by Kathleen Duffy, (Teilhard’s Mysticism, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York, 2014) through Teilhard’s Circles of Presence, Consistence and Energy towards his discoveries in the Circle of Spirit. As I begin today’s Reflection, lured by Teilhard’s vision for our planet, his hope for the spiritualization of consciousness, I hear another voice that breaks through: the voice of teenager Greta Thunberg who crossed the Atlantic Ocean on a boat without the aid of fossil fuels to address World Leaders at the UN yesterday.
16-year-old Swedish Climate activist Greta Thunberg speaks at the 2019 United Nations Climate Action Summit at U.N. headquarters in New York City, New York, U.S., September 23, 2019. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri – HP1EF9N1AIFX9
Her words to us: “HOW DARE YOU?” weave themselves through Teilhard’s words as counterpoint, a drumbeat, a call to action, a reminder of how little we have advanced on the path that Teilhard showed us. There was anguish on her face, passion in her words, a tone of despair as she cried out, “This is all wrong. I should not be here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean.”
“People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”Greta Thunberg
Asking why governments have failed to act on thirty years of scientific evidence that show the earth hurtling towards disaster, Greta expressed her inability to believe those who claim they understand the crisis. If you have truly understood, she told the assembly, and yet have not acted, “then you are evil”, and that she refuses to believe.
With Greta’s words still echoing, I begin, not with Teilhard’s own journey through the darkness of feeling himself like “a particle adrift in the universe”, before he became aware of the consiousness within matter, but instead with the ending of Kathleen Duffy’s Chapter on “The Circle of Spirit” . Here I find hope strong enough to support this NOW moment in our planetary story, a moment for which Teilhard intended to prepare us.
Inspired by Kathleen Duffy’s research into Teilhard’s thought, I would like to suggest what he might have said to young Greta had they walked together in Central Park.
“Greta,” (I hear Teilhard say) “you showed great courage in your words today to the UN. You challenged the pretence of understanding as well as the despair that leads to paralysis by demanding that if the leaders understand the crisis, they must act. You told them they must not look to young people for hope because this is now their own task, their Great Work. You have shown them the face of courage, matched with deeds, by crossing the ocean on a long journey unaided by fossil fuels.
“I believe firmly that nothing is more dangerous for the world than resignation and false realism. Though you are deeply distressed, you have chosen courageous action over despair. Know this, Greta; the Universe is drifting towards spirit in a forward movement that cannot ever be stopped. It is moving towards greater freedom and consciousness.
“The Internet, a technology I glimpsed in my lifetime, has allowed people around the planet to hear your words, even to watch your expression, your eyes, as you spoke yesterday. And yet not only your words, but your deep passion, your challenge, have entered the hearts of those who listened, and have entered the noosphere, a weaving of soul I imagined that gently wraps itself around the planet, its golden threads of spirit, its crimson threads of matter, intricately entwined. You, my dear brave Greta, are a weaver in the noosphere.
“The noosphere is conscious of itself, capable of collaboration, of spiritual relationship, and of sympathy, and thus of counteracting the dissolution brought on by individualization …though it is a fragile envelope, because of its capacity for relationship, it can overcome the tendency to fragmentation. I see it as the sphere of the conscious unity of souls…. I would call it “the Soul of the Earth”. You yourself are living the same vision, a young woman who understands that it is the capacity for relationship, for union, that brings about growth, that must be our greatest source of hope.
“Moving from the individual to the collective is the most crucial challenge facing human energy. For the work can be done only if humanity participates in the forward movement and each person can be saved only by becoming one with the universe.
“My dear Greta, may you keep a zest for life, a passion for the whole and above all a flame of expectation for the awakening of full human potential. Only faith in the future will give us the motivation and the energy to overcome the obstacles to unity. We shall direct our energy to the creativity required to live the dream of the future.
“Keep developing a deep sense of yourself, Greta, the true self that allowed you to speak truth to power before the United Nations, unshaken by applause or criticism or any need for adulation. In your growth, be free to move beyond all boundaries, all structures and strictures that no longer serve the Great Work. Be like the cosmos as you continually develop new forms. I so look forward to what you shall become Greta, and to what you will achieve with your passion as you weave with the noosphere.
“And trust me in this, Greta, for I have passed through great darkness to come into the light that does not grow dim. Earth’s story is not ended. The Universe is not yet finished. Earth is moving towards wholeness, her people towards oneness.”
In gratitude to Kathleen Duffy for her own great work in bringing the essence of Teilhard’s spirit to us, I close with her words:
As co-creators in the ongoing evolution of life and spirit, the future of the cosmos depends on the choices that we make, the effort that we exert, the work that we do….The Great Work consists in providing impetus for the transformation into greater consciousness, promoting the cultural transition through which we as a species are slowly moving, fostering the next major phase transition in human history. It calls us to assess our impact, to take responsibility for our actions, and to forward the cosmic project in the direction of spirit. (TM 97, 106)
Kathleen Duffy’s exploration of Teilhard’s Circle of Energy (Teilhard’s Mysticism, Orbis Books Maryknoll, NY 2014) shows the uniqueness of his mystic path.
Rather than fleeing the earth, Teilhard seeks the sacred in the deep heart of life on Earth in all its wonder and terror, and in the fiery depths of the cosmos, as it cycles through destruction and rebirth.
Touched by the intricate and beautiful structure of the cosmos and yearning to be possessed by the Sacred Presence that fills it…Teilhard continued his mystical journey, ever searching for the supreme tangible reality. As he stepped into the third circle, he found the cosmos ablaze with activity. The Divine Presence that had been alluring him had suddenly acquired a new aspect—Energy. (TM 55)
Teilhard was stirred by the evolutionary story, a story whose creativity and energy were shown to him in the layers of rock, in the depths of the earth, as he worked as a geologist and paleontologist. Enthralled by the emergence of living organic matter from inorganic, Teilhard writes:
See how (Earth’s) shades are changing. From age to age its colors intensify.Something is going to burst out on the juvenile Earth. Life! See it is life!” (The Human Phenomenon, 38, translation Sara Appleton-Weber, Portland OR: Sussex Academic Press, 1999)
Teilhard imaged evolution as a tapestry whose threads revealed “the amazing energy at work at the heart of the cosmos” (TM 59).
He describes this tapestry as: endless and untearable, so closely woven in one piece that there is not one single knot in it that does not depend upon the whole fabric (Science and Christ, 79, trans. Rene Hague New York, Harper and Row, 1968).
Teilhard saw that since the beginning of time complex structures have been emerging from the union of simpler ones: “a thrust towards union seems to be coded into the very fabric of the cosmos” (TM 60).
As his awareness of the complexity and interconnectedness of the Universe deepened, Teilhard could see that these qualities lead to understanding our global life:
…No elemental thread in the universe is wholly independent…of its neighboring threads (The Future of Man, 87, trans. Norman Denny, New York: Harper and Row, 1964). For just as the simplest vibration of a single cosmic tapestry thread affects the whole fabric, so local interactions can be felt on a global scale (TM, 70).
Teilhard came to know the importance of considering the whole in order to grasp the order that lies under the appearance of disorder.
He intuitively understood that “deep down there is in the substance of the cosmos a primordial disposition …for self-arrangement and self-involution” (Heart of Matter, 33).
Yet Teilhard knew in his life what today’s scientists continue to explore: the “transition region between the two extremes of ordered stability and chaotic instability called the edge of chaos” (TM 73). In the trenches of World War 1, the horror in which he was immersed still allowed for “feelings of freedom, unanimity, and exhilaration” (TM 75).
Because he understood that “the self-organization of the world progresses only by dint of countless attempts to grope its way” (Christianity and Evolution, 187, trans Rene Hague, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1969), Teilhard saw the mystic must also “test every barrier, try every path, plumb every abyss” (The Divine Milieu, 70, New York, Harper and Row, 1960).
Moving through the Circle of Energy, Teilhard became aware of the universe as “alive, vibrant, filled with Divine Energy and solidly enduring….undergoing a cosmogenesis…slowly moving it toward greater complexity and deeper union” (TM, 75).
This deep knowing led Teilhard to see his own sufferings as part of the larger story: Putting his personal suffering into a cosmic perspective, he turned his attention to the pain and suffering that pervades the evolutionary story, a story that is rife with misfortune, struggle, disease, and death: natural disasters beset Earth on every side; predators prey on more vulnerable species;changing environmental conditions cause many species to become extinct; within the human community, war and oppression continue to rage.It is not only humans who suffer. Every part of the cosmos bears the scars of the chaos and tragedy that accompany the evolutionary process (TM, 76-7).
Within the cosmic story, Teilhard’s mystic path would become one of uniting with “the Divine Fire at work at the heart of matter” (TM 78)
Earth’s story had shown Teilhard that the Divine is continuing to shape the universe and therefore human action may “channel … the whole of the World’s drive towards the Beautiful and the Good” (Heart of Matter, 204).
Seeing the “sacred duty” of working with Divine Energy, Teilhard vowed: “I shall work together with your action…. to your deep inspiration… I shall respond by taking great care never to stifle nor distort nor waste my power to love and to do” (The Divine Milieu, 79).
In a letter written to a friend during his work as a geologist, Teilhard describes a moment of mystic knowing:
… this contact with the real does me good. And then, amid the complexity and immobility of the rocks, there rise suddenly toward me “gusts of being,”sudden and brief fits of awareness of the laborious unification of things, and it is no longer myself thinking, but the Earth acting. It is infinitely better (Letters to Two Friends 1926-1952, 73, translated by Helen Weaver, edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen, New York: New American Library, 1967).
Teilhard’s mystic path led him to the heart of the earth:
He was convinced that he must steep himself in the sea of matter, bathe in its fiery water,plunge into Earth where it is deepest and most violent, struggle in its currents, and drink of its waters. Earth was the source of his life:through the world Divine Energy enveloped him, penetrated him, and created him. Because Earth had cradled him long ago in his preconscious existence, he knew that the Earth would now raise him up to God. (TM 80-1)
Everywhere there are traces of, and a yearning for,
a unique support, a unique and absolute soul,
a unique reality in which other realities are brought together in synthesis,
as stable and universal as matter, as simple as spirit.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Writings in Time of War (translated by Rene Hague, New York, Harper and Row, 1968)
a unique and absolute soul … in which other realities are brought together in synthesis
Teilhard’s Life Journey spiralled through five circles. We have glimpsed his discoveries in the Circle of Presence where the loveliness of earth lured and enchanted him. Guided by Kathleen Duffy through her book Teilhard’s Mysticism (Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY 2014), we now explore Teilhard’s search in the Circle of Consistence where “he focused not only on the beauty of nature but also on the properties and structure of the cosmos as a whole “(39).
Pierre is four years old, living in a family deeply grieving the loss of a child, his sibling.His mother is cutting his hair, tossing the shorn locks into the fire.Before his eyes, the boy sees part of himself vanish.
In such moments a life’s work may begin. For Teilhard, it began with a search for what can last… He began to collect bits of iron, until rust betrayed his trust in metal. Walking with his father over the hills of the Auvergne near his home, he found something that would endure. He fell in love with rocks.
Duffy writes that “his choice to abandon his collection of iron scraps for rock was fortunate since it led him from mere rock collection to the study of the Earth’s crust and eventually expanded his thinking to the planetary scale”(40).
Later in life, Teilhard would reflect: It was precisely through the gateway that the substitution of Quartz for Iron opened for my groping mind into the vast structures of the Planet and of Nature, that I began, without realizing it, truly to make my way into the World—until nothing could satisfy me that was not on the scale of the universal”. (The Heart of Matter)
Teilhard was seeking “an ultimate Element in which all things find their definitive consistence“(Teilhard’s Mysticism, 40). Though field work in geology and palaeontology in China, Africa and North America allowed him to enter Earth’s body, his brief time studying physics opened his wondering eyes to the cosmos. Still asking What holds everything together? Teilhard wondered if the answer was gravity.
Duffy notes that “throughout his journey along the Circle of Consistence, Teilhard focused his attention on matter in all of its intricacy without much consideration of spirit….The Divine Presence in which he felt himself bathed seemed to be not some vague spiritual entity, but rather, a supreme tangible reality”( 41).
Observing unity and interconnectedness within matter, Teilhard wrote: “The further and deeper we penetrate into matter with our increasingly powerful methods, the more dumbfounded we are by the interconnection of its parts”. (The Human Phenomenon)
Over time Teilhard would reconcile his childhood abhorrence for what perishes with his love for the strength and beauty that he found in what cannot last: This crumbling away, which is the mark of the corruptible and the precarious, is to be seen everywhere. And yet everywhere there are traces of, and a yearning for…a unique and absolute soul. (Writings in Time of War)
Teilhard came to “distinguish in the Universe a profound, essential Unity, a unity burdened with imperfections…but a real unity within which every ‘chosen’ substance gains increasing solidity”. (Teilhard’s Mysticism, 53)
Spiralling through the Circle of Consistence, experiencing the cosmic structure as “intimate, intricate and profound”, seeing himself as ”part of an interdependent and interconnected reality, sharing the one life that is in everything”, Teilhard realized that a search for consistency in what is visible would ever disappoint him.
Now at last he began to see: the very consistency of the World …welling up …like sap, through every fibre… leaping up like a flame .(The Heart of Matter)
Duffy’s conclusion to her chapter on the Circle of Consistence pulses with life and beauty, drawn in part from Teilhard’s Writings in Time of War (W):
Divine Presence, so powerfully real to him as he traveled along the first circle, had acquired a new power for him. At the very heart of matter, Divine Consistence was, by its very presence, holding all things together. Once he became aware of “the unifying influence of the universal Presence” (W, 124), he was no longer distressed by the mutability of things: “Beneath what is temporal and plural, the mystic can see only the unique Reality which is the support common to all substances, and which clothes and dyes itself in all the universe’s countless shades without sharing their impermanence”. (W, 125) He knew that Divine Consistence is trustworthy (W, 123):
“Having come face to face with a universal and enduring reality to which one can attach those fragmentary moments of happiness that…excite the heart without satisfying it” (W, 124), ”a glorious, unsuspected feeling of joy invaded my soul” (W,126).
He longed to surrender, to drive his roots into matter so that he could become united with Ultimate Reality. (Teilhard’s Mysticism, 54)
Universe became apparent to me as a great rising surge,
in which all the work that goes into serious enquiry,
all the will to create, all the acceptance of suffering,
converge ahead into a single dazzling spear-head –
now, at the end of my life,
I can stand on the peak I have scaled and continue
to look ever more closely into the future,
and there, with ever more assurance,
see the ascent of God.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Heart of Matter, 52
Teilhard’s life journey along the mystic path was not for himself alone. His writings, published only after his death, are a gift to us. They are a travel guide of such depth and wisdom that even in our own complex, sometimes terrifying, often mystifying reality, his footsteps shed a light that we may follow into a future filled with hope.
For this exploration of his climb to the peak where he could “look ever more closely into the future”, I rely on the July 2019 retreat experience led by Kathleen Duffy, SSJ and her book, Teilhard’s Mysticism (Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York, 2014).
Teilhard left us a road map, a set of five circles, stages of his mystical growth.
These circles, which are more properly imaged as loops of a spiral that he revisits throughout his life, provided him with steeping stones into an ever-deepening reality, a reality informed as much by the science of his time as by his religious tradition. They plot his growth and development as he sinks ever more deeply into the heart of matter and into the heart of God….Stepping with him through each of these circles…we come to understand ….how we too can be drawn more and more deeply into that privileged point where the depths of our hearts and the heart of the cosmos converge with the heart of God. (Kathleen Duffy, Teilhard’s Mysticism 4, 5)
Of the first of these spiralling loops, the Circle of Presence, Teilhard writes: There were moments, indeed, when it seemed to me that a sort of universal being was about to take shape suddenly in Nature before my very eyes. (The Heart of Matter, 26)
Duffy tells us that “something as simple as a song, a sunbeam, a fragrance, or a glance would pierce his heart and heighten his awareness of an unexplained presence.” (23) These encounters with beauty in sensations elicited by encounters with nature, with music, with persons, drew from Teilhard a wonder and a joy that illumined his life. At times they occurred in settings that hardly seem the stuff of poetry. In the midst of a long, arduous voyage to China, he wrote to his beloved cousin Marguerite:
Yesterday I could never tire of looking to the east where the sea was uniformly milky and green, with an opalescence that was still not transparent, lighter than the background of the sky. Suddenly on the horizon a thin diffuse cloud became tinged with pink; and then with the little oily ripples of the ocean still open on one side and turning to lilac on the other, the whole sea looked for a few seconds like watered silk. Then the light was gone and the stars began to be reflected around us as peacefully as in the water of a quiet pool.(Letter cited in Teilhard’s Mysticism, 25-6)
While serving as a stretcher bearer in the First World War, Teilhard “…had occasion to look into the eyes of many a dying soldier. Just before the moment of death, a strange light would often appear in a soldier’s eyes. Teilhard was never sure whether the eyes were filled with “unspeakable agony or…with an excess of triumphant joy” (HM 65). Each time the light went out and the wounded soldier died, Teilhard was overcome with deep sense of sadness. (Teilhard’s Mysticism 34-35)
Teilhard discovered light in other eyes when he came to know his cousin Marguerite as a kindred spirit with whom he could share the depths of his own soul. “A light glows for a moment in the depths of the eyes I love….under the glance that fell upon me, the shell in which my heart slumbered, burst open”. (Writings in Time of War, 117-8)
Of Teilhard’s relationship with Marguerite, Duffy writes: A new energy emerged from within, causing him to feel as vast and as rich as the universe. Marguerite had awakened the feminine aspect of his being. His love for her drew him out of himself, sensitized him, and stimulated his capacity for deeper and more intimate relationships. (Teilhard’s Mysticism 34)
Teilhard tells us that his encounters with beauty in the Circle of Presence, “drew me out of myself, into a wider harmony than that which delights the senses, into an ever richer and more spiritual rhythm” (Writings in Time of War, 117).
Duffy comments: Having invaded his being and penetrated to its core, having pierced through to his depths, Beauty drew him into that single privileged point where Divine Presence exists equally everywhere, and where all diversities and all impurities yearn to melt away.(36)
photo credit: Brenda Peddigrew
Teilhard saw that underlying Earth’s surface charms a vivid Presence lies hidden within and penetrates all things. This was the only source that could give him light and the only air that he could ever breathe (Writings in Time of War, 123). He yearned to sharpen his sensibilities so that he could see ever more deeply into the heart of matter. Along the first circle, the palpable world had truly become for him a holy place, a divine milieu, permeated with a vast, formidable, and charming presence. (Teilhard’s Mysticism 38)
Teilhard understood that the duty of a mystic is to be aware of the inner rhythm of the universe, and to listen with care for the heartbeat of a higher reality…. At this privileged place, he tells us, “the least of our desires and efforts…can…cause the marrow of the universe to vibrate.” (Teilhard’s Mysticism 32)
As Teilhard wrote in Human Energy: Indeed we are called by the music of the universe to reply, each with his own pure and incommunicable harmonic. (HE, 150 in Teilhard’s Mysticism 38)
Five sun-soaked, star-speckled days walking, listening, speaking, learning, even dreaming of a sacred- earth centered spirituality, inspired by the writings of Teilhard de Chardin have filled my writer’s quiver with fresh insights into the mystic path for our time. Kathleen Duffy, SSJ, brought her own love for Teilhard, her years of deep pondering on his life and writings, to Jericho House in Ontario’s Niagara Region from July 24-29, 2019, in her Retreat on “Teilhard’s Mysticism”.
Teilhard de Chardin, Jesuit priest, palaeontologist, mystic, France 1881-1955
Wondering how I might share this experience with you, I was drawn back to the words of theologian Margaret Brennan, IHM:
Mystics are people who come in touch
with the sacred source of who they really are and are able to realize and
experience that in their lives.
Teilhard’s life path led him to the sacred source not only of
himself but of the entire Universe. Beginning with his childhood enchantment
with rocks, through his work delving into the depths of the earth as a
palaeontologist in China, and, while he volunteered as a stretcher bearer in
the First World War, through watching the light that briefly illumined the eyes
of a dying soldier, Teilhard grew into knowing a divine presence at the heart
of all that exists. He wrote:
During my life, as a
result of my entire life, the world gradually caught fire for me and burst into
flames until it formed a great luminous mass lit from within.
The Diaphany of the
Divine at the heart of a glowing Universe, as I have experienced it through
contact with Earth – the Divine radiating from blazing Matter: this it is that
I shall try to disclose and communicate. (The Divine Milieu, translated by Bernard Wall, New York,
Harper and Row, Publishers, 1960)
During my life, as a result of my entire life, the world gradually caught fire for me and burst into flames until it formed a great luminous mass lit from within. (Teilhard de Chardin).
Thinking back to Kathleen Duffy’s unfolding of Teilhard’s story, I see in that quote above the significance of the word: “gradually”. Mystics are not born that way! And for Teilhard the path was truly a “long and winding road”.
I was touched by his struggles as a young Jesuit novice reading the book The Imitation of Christ by the fifteenth-century writer Thomas a Kempis. That spiritual handbook counselled that one must love ONLY Christ. Teilhard feared that his great love for the natural world would draw him away from his love for the Christ. His life experiences would gradually bring those two loves into a deep harmony so that he could finally write with deep joy:
Now Earth can certainly
clasp me in her giant arms. She can swell me with her life or take me back into
her dust. She can deck herself out for me with every charm, with every horror,
with every mystery. She can intoxicate me with her perfume of tangibility and
unity. She can cast me to my knees in expectation of what is maturing in her
breast. But her enchantments can no longer do me harm, since she has become for
me, over and above herself, the body of him who is and of him who is coming. (The Divine Milieu)
Of all that
I learned of Teilhard during Kathleen Duffy’s Retreat, this revelation of his
personal struggle and its resolution is what stirred me most. It reveals
Teilhard as a mystic not only OF our
time but FOR our time. He recognized
the allurement of the Universe for the people of our time:
The great temptation of
this century is (and will increasingly be) that we find the World of nature, of
life, and of humankind greater, closer, more mysterious, more alive than the
God of Scripture. (The Heart of Matter, translated
by Rene Hague, New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1978)
Sun-blessed path through the woods at Jericho House
Yet that allurement was what he saw as most needed for spiritual healing: Our age seems primarily to need a rejuvenation of supernatural forces, to be effected by driving roots deep into the nutritious energies of the Earth. Because it is not sufficiently moved by a truly human compassion, because it is not exalted by a sufficiently passionate admiration of the Universe, our religion is becoming enfeebled…(Writings in Time of War translated by Rene Hague, New York, Harper and Rowe, Publishers, 1968)
Teilhard looked at the earth with the eyes of a mystic, with the heart of a lover. Finding the Holy Presence at the deep heart of all that exists, he could echo Rumi’s wonder-filled exclamation: “Is the one I love everywhere?”
Through
Teilhard’s eyes, we can learn to see what mystic-poet Catherine de Vinck calls
“the fire within the fire of all things”. Once we see that fire, we know the
call that Teilhard knew to put our hearts at the service of the evolution
towards love that is the call of the Universe, as well as our personal call
within the universal call, for the two are inseparable.
Teilhard
shows us that our deepest call is to love, that evolution is advanced by union
on every imaginable level of being. And, as another poet, Robert Frost observed:
Earth’s the right place for love: I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
Nothing that lives on our planet is outside of us. We can no longer accept lines of division between religions, between cultures, between nations, between species. This Universe is evolving as one.
Our place within it, like Teilhard’s, is to be its eyes of wonder, its heart of love, its allurement toward union. In co-creative partnership with the Love at its heart, everything that we do contributes towards that great comingled work of the evolution of the Universe, the evolution of ourselves.
This article was prepared for the Winter 2014 issue of LCWR Occasional Papers, published by The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Silver Spring, MD, USA. It is reprinted with permission from the editor, Annmarie Sanders, IHM and the author, Kathleen Duffy, SSJ.
Although science continues to astound us with ever more detail about the cosmic story, we often miss its inner spiritual dimension. Cosmic processes happen slowly by our standards, making the emergence of novelty difficult to imagine. Despite the beauty of the story, we are often left wondering how to relate what we are learning about the cosmos to our daily lives, to the mission of our congregations and to the life of the world. Yet mystics who have contemplated Earth processes and spent time in intimate contact with Earth have been able to sense a parallel spiritual energy operating at the heart of matter.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
While searching for fossils, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was often overwhelmed by the spiritual power at work within earth’s rocky layers. Within Earth’s crust, he was able not only to read Earth’s amazing story but also to sense the Divine Presence at the very heart of matter, a personal Presence that kept him aware of the mystery of the world around him and sustained him in his vocation.
Thomas
Merton suggests that the art of seeing the inner dimension of things requires a
spark of religious imagination: “Our faith ought to be capable of filling our
hearts with a wonder and a wisdom which see beyond the surface of things and
events, and grasp something of the inner… meaning of the cosmos which, in all
its movements and all its aspects, sings the praises of its Creator.” (2) Since
metaphor carries with it a raft of nuances and associations and provides
connections between entities that otherwise seem paradoxical, mystics often
rely on poetic expression to describe experiences that are unspeakable. For
Teilhard and Merton, contemplation of Sophia, the wisdom of God so beautifully
portrayed in scripture, integrated the beauty and power of the outer world with
the beauty and power that reside within. (3) Sophia became a powerful personal
image of God, one that suggests ways to co-operate with Divine Energy.
According to scripture, Sophia is the “breath of the power of God, a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty… a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God and an image of (God’s) goodness.” (Wisdom 7:25-27)
(Sophia) is the dynamic wisdom and life force…infused into every elementary particle…
She is the dynamic wisdom and life force that has been infused into every elementary particle from the beginning, the presence of God poured out in self-giving love. She is closer to us than we are to ourselves, ever arousing us to passion for the Divine. From the heart of matter, she gazes at us lovingly, urging us always towards greater union and deeper love
From the
very beginning, when she first became immersed in the fiery plasma, she has
been catalyzing a process that Teilhard calls Creative Union, a process that
encourages union at every level of the cosmos, a process that creates novelty,
beauty, and eventually, the ultimate form of union which is love. She begins by
instilling into the protons a desire to become more. She urges them to open to
the other, to overcome their resistance, to let down their repulsive
barriers. And when they do, they are
transformed by the process of fusion into something greater than themselves
without ever losing their identity. Their courageous response prepares the way
for ever more diversity. Because fusion, like so many creative processes, is
violent, Sophia remains close at hand to motivate the protons to persist
despite inherent difficulties.
Encouraged
by the fruitfulness of her initial attempt to foster union, Sophia searches for
more ways to carry out her mission. Protons fuse, atoms form, then simple
molecules. Sophia thrills to see the amazing variety developing as matter responds
to her call for unification. Soon, her creative efforts become pervasive. She
gathers in clumps the gas and dust scattered throughout space and whirls them
in spirals. Eventually, the newly-formed galaxies are ablaze with the
brilliance of star light. Satisfied that stars have learned to produce new
elements, she moves on to the newly-forming planets to begin her next project.
life appears on planet Earth
After years of Sophia’s urging, life appears on planet Earth. Organisms take advantage of their potential for creativity by adapting to their changing environments and evolving into more and more conscious forms. Earth comes alive in a pattern of constant change. The brilliant greens of plant life, the delicate hues of flowers, and the graceful movements of animals are evidence for Sophia that her mission of Creative Union is being fulfilled. However, like the protons that struggle in their innate repulsion for other protons as they participate in the unification process, new life forms often find survival difficult. Crises such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and the bombardment of Earth by asteroids cause incredible changes in Earth’s environment making it difficult for some of them to adapt. However, under Sophia’s loving guidance, the extinction of some species often allows other species to flourish.
The
emergence of human life is a special moment for Sophia. We are able to
recognize her face and respond more fully to her impulses and her love. We
appreciate her handiwork and delight in her beauty. Through the ages she has
been with us as our inspiration and as the driving force of our developing
consciousness.
Sophia is “the fullness of participation in the life of God.”(4) To be aware of her presence, to experience her gracious smile, is to know that we are loved. When we are discouraged, she consoles us. When we encounter her, we are energized. She is always there at our fingertips ready to support us.
(Sophia) is at play in the splendour of a sunset
She is at play in the splendour of a sunset, in the gentle breeze, in the rustling leaves, in the songs of the birds. She shines out from the face of every human being, asking for love and mercy. Once we recognize her, we know that we are blessed. We want to be like her, to be with her, to work on her projects.
(Sophia) delights at the way humans participate more consciously and more creatively in her mission
As we contemplate her loving gaze and feel the pulsations of her creative energy, we realize that we too are called to effect union in whatever circumstances we find ourselves. To ready us for the profound and sometimes difficult work of union, Sophia draws us out of our ego self and into our broken world. She encourages the kind of creativity that will find ways to comfort others. She delights at the way humans participate more consciously and more creatively in her mission. Some respond to the needs of the homeless; others lobby for immigration reform; still others research cures for cancer; and many more care for those who live on the fringes of society. Artists and scientists, social workers and nurses, teachers and political leaders – the possibilities are endless.
As women
religious, we are not alone in our efforts to transform the world. Sophia’s
concern extends to all – from the most exquisite galaxy to the smallest
bacterium, and to each and every person on Earth. Guided and urged forward by
Sophia, we are impelled to respond by embracing all peoples of the world, by
encouraging civil dialogue in the midst of hostility, and by caring for our
beloved Earth. Sophia is particularly pleased with our efforts at
reconciliation. When, like the protons, we are overwhelmed by resistance toward
the other, she remains close to us and urges us forward. She focuses our
activity on her next major task in the evolutionary process—to learn how to
bear the burden of a greater consciousness, how to harness psychic energy, and
how to transform this energy so that all may be one. She continues to draw the
human family into freedom.
Coupling the story of our universe with an understanding of Sophia’s work in the world of matter provides “a way to gain our bearings in the inner world.” (5) We begin to sense the spiritual power alive at every level of the cosmos and to trust its guidance. As we continue to critique the present structure of religious life and to seek new ways to live the Gospel message, we find comfort and inspiration in Sophia’s presence in our lives. At this critical time in the history of religious life, Sophia seems to be asking us to look more deeply at the roots of our call, to rediscover the rediscover the purpose of religious life, to refashion our lives so that they respond more clearly to the needs of our world.
For almost 14 billion years, she has been faithfully accompanying the cosmos as it has been responding to the desire to become “the more” that she has instilled into all of creation.
We can rely on her help as we discern the way. Although some of our congregations may become extinct, others will flourish. In either case, Sophia will always guide us toward what will bring forth greater life. As “the hidden wholeness in all visible things,”(6) she is the constant and loving presence of God at the heart of the world. She is our hope. For almost 14 billion years, she has been faithfully accompanying the cosmos as it has been responding to the desire to become “the more” that she has instilled into all of creation. She will certainly be with us at this moment, to help us to discern our way, and to challenge us just as she continues to challenge the protons in the core of the stars. Her voice will awaken in us the desire and the creativity to move forward. And she will be by our sides as we struggle to respond to the needs of marginalized persons, to the needs of a church in crisis, and to the needs of a broken world. Now, more than ever, we need her inspiration, her support and her energizing presence.
Kathleen Duffy, SSJ, PhD, is
professor emerita of physics at Chestnut Hill College where she directs the Institute for Religion and Science.
Endnotes
Adapted from Kathleen Duffy, “Sophia:
Catalyst for Creative Union and Divine Love,” in Ilia Delio, From Teilhard to Omega (Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis Books, 2013). I became interested in this approach after reading
Christopher Pramuk, Sophia: The Hidden
Christ of Thomas Merton (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2009), especially
Merton’s poem, “Hagai Sophia,” which Pramuk quotes at the end of his book (301-305).
See John Dear’s critique of Pramuk’s book at http://teilhard.com/2013/10/20/stages-of-cosmic-consciousness/ (October 5, 2010)
Patrick Hart, ed. The Literary Essays of Thomas Merton,
New York, New Directions, 1981, p. 345
See particularly Teilhard’s essay,
“The Eternal Feminine” in Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Writings in Time of War trans. Rene Hague, New York, Harper &
Rowe, Publisher, 1965, pp. 191-202 and Merton’s
poem, “Hagai Sophia” in Pramuk, Sophia,
pp. 301-305
Pramuk, Sophia,
xxvi
Mary Conrow Coelho, Awakening Universe, Emerging Personhood: The
Power of Contemplation in an Evolving Universe, Lima, OH, Wyndam Hall
Press, 2002
On his fiftieth birthday, January 31, 1965, unaware that he was entering the final decade of his life, Thomas Merton wakened in his cabin on the grounds of the Abbey of Gethsemani. He wrote of the “fierce cold all night, certainly down to zero,” yet he expresses deep joy at being in his hermitage, where his life is shared with Sophia. He quotes from the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Wisdom: 8: 16:
When I go home, I shall take my ease with her, for nothing is bitter in her company, when life is shared with her there is no pain, nothing but pleasure and joy.
Thomas Merton
Reflecting on this text Merton writes: “But what more do I seek than this silence, this simplicity, this ‘living together with wisdom?’ For me, there is nothing else….I have nothing to justify and nothing to defend: I need only defend this vast simple emptiness from my own self, and the rest is clear….” (p. 14 in “Sophia: The Hidden Christ of Thomas Merton” Christopher Pramuk Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota 2009)
When I first found this quote from Merton, I did a double-take. I had read it earlier in a book I have come to cherish: Rabbi Rami Shapiro’s “The Divine Feminine in Biblical Wisdom Literature” (Skylight Paths Publishing 2005). Shapiro had opened my heart to the Sophia Presence in the Hebrew Scriptures, and now I was finding my own way to sharing my life with Sophia.
Because of Shapiro’s insight into
another passage about Sophia from the Book of Proverbs, I glimpsed the meaning
of Merton’s dream of a young girl whose name was “Proverbs”.
Here is where Wisdom/Sophia or Chochma,
(her Hebrew Name) speaks in Proverbs:
The Lord created Me at the beginning of His work,
the first of His ancient acts.
I was established ages ago, at the beginning of the
beginning, before the earth…
When He established the heavens, I was already there.
When he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
When He made firm the skies above,
When he established the fountains feeding the seas
below…
I was beside Him, the master builder.
I was His daily delight, rejoicing before Him
always.
Rejoicing in His inhabited world, and delighting in
the human race.
(Proverbs 8: 22-31)
Shapiro writes that “Chochma ….is
the ordering principle of creation”:
She
embraces one end of the earth to the other, and She orders all things well. (Wisdom of Solomon 8:11)
To know her, Shapiro adds, is to know the Way of all things and thus to
be able to act in harmony with them. To know the Way of all things and to act
in accord with it is what it means to be wise. To know Wisdom is to become
wise. To become wise is to find happiness and peace:
Her
ways are ways of pleasantness and all Her paths are peace. She is a Tree of
Life to those who lay hold of Her; those who hold Her close are happy. (Proverbs 3: 17-18)
Moreover, writes Shapiro, Wisdom is not to be taken on faith. She is
testable. If you follow Her you will find joy, peace and happiness not at the
end of the journey but as the very stuff of which the journey is made. This is
crucial. The reward for following Wisdom is immediate. The Way to is the Way
of.
Shapiro teaches that the key to awakening that is Wisdom is having
a clear perception of reality. Wisdom does not lead you to this clarity; She is
this clarity….The Way to Wisdom is Wisdom Herself. You do not work your way
toward Her; you take hold of Her from the beginning. As your relationship
deepens, your clarity of seeing improves, but from the beginning you have Her
and She has you.
I
am my Beloved and my Beloved is mine. (Song of Songs 2:16)
Chochma is
not a reluctant guide or a hidden guru, Shapiro writes. She is
not hard to find nor does she require any austere test to prove you are worthy
of Her.
She
stands on the hilltops, on the sidewalks, at the crossroads, at the gateways (Proverbs 8:1-11) and calls
to you to follow Her. Wisdom’s only desire is to teach you to become
wise. Her only frustration is your refusal to listen to Her.
….Toknow Wisdom is to be her lover, and by loving
Her, you become God’s beloved as well.
In our becoming partners,
co-creating with Wisdom, Shapiro writes:
Wisdom will
not tell why things are the way they are, but will show you what they are and
how to live in harmony with them….Working with Wisdom, you learn how…to make
small, subtle changes that effect larger ones. You learn how to cut with the
grain, tack with the wind, swim with the current, and allow the nature of
things to support your efforts. She will not tell you why things are the way
they are, but She will make plain to you what things are and how you deal with
them to your mutual benefit.
In recent weeks, through the eyes of 21st Century theologians, we have been gazing into the mind, heart, and mystical, poetic soul of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Brilliant scientist, creative thinker, man of faith, Teilhard brings into harmony recent discoveries about an evolving universe and his faith in the Christic presence at the heart of it all.
For Teilhard the concept of original sin, committed by our first parents in a lost garden of paradise, was incompatible with the reality of an evolving universe where everything is moving into fullness of being, including God.
So how does Teilhard view the Incarnation, the Word made Flesh that we celebrate each Christmas? If we are not irretrievably sinful and lost, not in need of someone “to save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray…” what are the “tidings of comfort and joy”?
Ilia Delio, our guide through the seas of theology on Teilhard’s ship, writes:
Teilhard began with evolution as the understanding of being and hence of God. What he tried to show is that evolution is not only the universe coming to be but it is God who is coming to be. By this he means that divine love poured into space-time rises in consciousness and eventually erupts in the life of Jesus of Nazareth…
Christ invests himself organically with all of creation
From the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago to the present, God has been creating through the word of loveand incarnating creation in a unity of love. The integral relationship between incarnation and creation is the unfolding of Christ, the Word incarnate, who invests himself organically with all of creation,immersing himself in things, in the heart of matter and thus unifying the world. (“From Teilhard to Omega” Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY 2014 pp. 46-7)
But how would Teilhard himself speak about the mystery of Incarnation? Let’s bend space-time imaginally to place ourselves in a small Jesuit Chapel somewhere in France, just after the Second World War. Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin walks to the pulpit to give the Christmas homily. At first, his words sound like an overture to the symphony we have come to hear:
I shall allow … (a) picture to emerge — at first in apparent opposition to the dreams of the Earth,but in reality to complete and correct them — that of the inexpressible Cosmos of matter and of the new life,the Body of Christ, real and mystical, unity and multiplicity, monad and pleiad.And, like a man who surrenders himself to a succession of different melodies,I shall let the song of my life drift now here, now there — sink down to the depths,rise to the heights above us, turn back to the ether from which all things came,reach out to the more-than-man, and culminate in the incarnate God-man. (1)
Incarnation is a making new…of all the universe’s forces and powers
He pauses, looks directly at us, continues: The Incarnation is a making new, a restoration,of all the universe’s forces and powers; Christ is the Instrument, the Centre, the End, of the whole of animateand material creation; through Him, everything is created, sanctified and vivified.This is the constant and general teaching of St. John and St. Paul (that most “cosmic” of sacred writers),and it has passed into the most solemn formulas of the Liturgy: and yet we repeat it,and generations to come will go on repeating it,without ever being able to grasp or appreciate its profound and mysterious significance,bound up as it is with understanding of the universe.
the Pearl of the Cosmos…the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen and Mother of all things, the true Demeter…
With the origin of all things, there began an advent of recollection and work in the course of whichthe forces of determinism, obediently and lovingly, lent themselves and directed themselves in the preparation of a Fruit that exceeded all hope and yet was awaited. The world’s energies and substancesproduced the glittering gem of matter, the Pearl of the Cosmos, and the link with the incarnate personal Absolute—the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen and Mother of all things, the true Demeter…and when the day of the Virgin came to pass, then the final purpose of the universe, deep-rooted and gratuitous, was suddenly made clear: since the days when the first breath of individualization passed over the expanse of the Supreme Centre here below so that in it could be seen the ripple of the smile of the original monads, all things were moving towards the Child born of Woman.
the Mystical Christ has not reached the peak of his growth
And since Christ was born and ceased to grow, and died, everything has continued in motion because he has not yet attained the fullness of his form. He has not gathered about him the last folds of the garment of flesh and love woven for him by his faithful. The Mystical Christ has not reached the peak of his growth…and it is in the continuation of this engendering that there lies the ultimate driving force behind all created activity…Christ is the term of even the natural evolution of living beings. (2)
We leave the little chapel, our hearts ablaze. Now we also have a task: co-creating,and through our own embodied lives bringing divine love more fully into every aspect of life on our planet.
This could take some time. At the very least, it could take the rest of our lives!
(1) Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Writings in Time of War pp. 15-16
(2) Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in The Future of Man translated from “L’Avenir de l’Homme (1959) by Norman Denny;William Collins Pub. London, Harper & Row Pub. New York, 1964
What Hildegard knew mystically, intuitively, would be
proven scientifically nearly a thousand years after her: the interconnectedness
of all life.
Another mystic, the poet Francis Thompson,
would write in the 19th century:
Thou
canst not stir a flower
Without
troubling of a star
stir a flower…trouble a star
Teilhard de Chardin brought the heart of a mystic, the eyes and sensibilities of a poet, the rigorous training of a scientist to his observations, his intuitions, his deep knowing. Kathleen Duffy, in “Teilhard’s Mysticism” (Orbis Books, Maryknoll New York, 2014) writes that Teilhard’s vague intuition of universal unity became over time a rational and well-defined awareness of a presence…the presence of a radiant center that has all along been alluring the cosmos into deeper and deeper union…(p. 112)
When you and I turn to the sea, a beloved landscape, a
mountain, a forest, a tree, to be nourished by beauty, comforted in loss,
assured that we are at home on this planet, we are experiencing what poets and
mystics experience. Jean Houston would
say we are calling on our inner poet, our inner mystic to enter that moment.
The Hildegards, the Teilhards, the great poets and
mystics go further. Through writing of the experience, they offer us the key to
the garden of delight that is our
birthright as well as theirs.
Listen to Thomas Merton on a rainy night:
In this wilderness I have learned how to sleep again. I am not alien. The trees I know, the night I know, the rain I know. I close my eyes and instantlysink into the whole rainy world of which I am part, and the world goes on with me in it, for I am not alien to it. (“When the Trees Say Nothing”: Thomas Merton Writings on Nature edited by Kathleen Deignan, Sorin Books, Notre Dame IN 2003)
When we hear the
ancient stories, like the English folktale of Mother Moon or the Inuit tale of
Bone Woman, we glimpse what Teilhard saw: the presence of that “radiant
center…alluring the cosmos into deeper and deeper union”.
The ancient tale of the Seal Woman is found in many cultures, wherever there is a cold sea. A wonderful film version, “The Secret of Roan Inish”, is set in Ireland. The version I know best comes from the Inuit of Northern Canada and is told by Clarissa Pinkola Estes in her book, “Women Who Run with the Wolves” (Ballantine Books, New York, 1992)
Perhaps you know
the tale: a lonely man sees a group of beautiful women dancing on a rock in the
moonlight at the edge of the sea. Beside them he sees a pile of sealskins. He
tethers his kayak to the rock, climbs up, stealthily takes and hides one of the
sealskins. When the others have donned their skins to leap joyously back into
the sea, one woman remains alone, weeping. He comes into view, promising that
if she will marry him, he will return her sealskin to her in seven years’ time.
She agrees, having no other choice.
They have a boy
child. As the years pass, Ooruk sees his mother failing, losing her lustrous
colours, her eyesight dimming, her skin drying. She develops a limp. One night
he hears her beg his father to return her sealskin. “I must have what belongs
to me”, she cries. Though it is now the eighth year, the man refuses.
Following the call of an old seal, Ooruk rushes out into the night, finds his mother’s sealskin and brings it to her. She puts it on, breathes into his mouth, and takes him with her as she dives into the deep sea, her homeplace. Ooruk meets his grandfather, the old seal who had called to him in the night. He watches his mother become whole, lithe, beautiful once more. Then mother and grandfather return to the boy to the topside world, leaving him on a rocky ledge in the moonlight. His mother promises: “I shall breathe into your lungs a wind for the singing of your songs”. Ooruk becomes a drummer, a singer and a storyteller. He is the embodiment of his mother’s spirit, her ensouled gift to the earth.
Think about the
Seal Woman, about her longing for her sealskin. She needed it for her return to
the homeplace. She knew that if she did not return there, she would die. It is
so with us as well.
There is a deep
homeplace hidden in the depths of our soul where all that we are is held in
love. We need to return there often, but most of all when our sight darkens,
when we limp rather than dance. We learn to recognize these signs as calls to
home. Then we go. We find our own true centre and allow ourselves to rest in
the embrace of love. We know that this is a matter of life or death to us.
The child whom
the woman returned to the shore was her own spirit, the part of herself she
sends to the outer world as drummer, as dancer, as storyteller, as poet, as
singer, as healer, as soul friend. But to do this, she must keep her own soul
nourished by love in the inner homeplace. It requires of her a balance, a
sacred dance, between the topside and underside worlds of her life.
Where in this story is that radiant presence Teilhard knew ? Not in the fisherman who, within a woman’s psyche, always lurks, waiting for a chance to steal her Soulskin, driving her to overwork, demanding that she give until her soul and spirit are raw. The radiant presence of Love is in the Old One who calls her home when it is time; Love is in the Child within her who hears that call and answers, giving her what she needs to return home, if she will listen and receive. Love is within the Woman herself who cries out, “I must have what belongs to me”.
And yes, the radiant presence of Love is in the Sea, the homeplace, waiting to receive us, body, soul, mind and spirit, into the heart of love.
awakening to the sacred feminine presence in our lives
sophiawakens 