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Seeking the Sophia

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I long for You so much

I follow barefoot Your frozen tracks

That are high in the mountains

That I know are years old.

I long for You so much

I have even begun to travel

Where I have never been before.

(Hafiz The Subject Tonight Is Love trans. Daniel Ladinsky)

Twelve years ago, I began posting on “Sophiawakens.” I felt drawn to make the Sacred Feminine Presence better known, even as She was Herself rising in the hearts of women and men who are longing for Her. My journey has led me through moments of deep joy, though awareness of being held in love, through clear guidance when the path seemed to vanish. There have been times of emptiness, doubt, and darkness when all I could do was cling blindly to memories of light and love, to my deep longing to find Sophia within me.

This morning, I was surprised by an unexpected call: to return to the beginning of my journey, to find memories to offer to you, who may be on a similar journey, seeking Sophia, aware of our need for Her guidance, Her love, Her wisdom as we wander in a time and place like the garden of Briar Rose, overgrown with thorn trees so that no way lies open.

When we set out in search of Sophia, the missing feminine aspect of the Holy, we prepare for a long journey, following tracks that are millennia old. We learn to be adept at time travel, exploring deep dusty caverns of pre-history, unravelling, reweaving, threads of ancient stories.

Sophia is nowhere precisely, yet everywhere subtly. Mythologies of many cultures abound with tales of her presence, her power, her sufferings, her admonishments. Old fairy tales hold glimpses of her that are both tender and terrifying. We will need to look into sacred wells, old ritual sites, ruined temples and sanctuaries. We will carefully examine fragments of poetry, shards of pottery, pieces of drums, tiny perfect feminine figures carved of stone, buried in the depths of the earth.

We are living today in the time of the great recovery. What has been hidden is being revealed to us. Scholars of ancient civilizations are writing of their findings: the traces of a sacred feminine presence within the stories, myths and ritual practices of people long vanished.

The Black Madonna. Chartres Catherdral, France

In A Brief History of The Celts, Peter Berresford Ellis writes of the Great Mother Goddess of the Ancient Celts, revealing the connection between the Celtic Goddess and the great rivers of Ireland, a sacred connection also found in India’s mythology:

“… the Celts believed their origins lay with the mother goddess Danu, ‘divine waters from heaven’. She fell from heaven and her waters created the Danuvius (Danube), having watered the sacred oak tree Bile. From there sprang the pantheon of the gods who are known as the Tuatha de Danaan (Children of Danu) in Irish and the Children of Don in Welsh myths.” (p. 162)

“The story associated with the Danuvius, which is arguably the first great Celtic sacred river, has similarities with myths about the Boyne, from the goddess Boann, and the Shannon, from the goddess Sionan in Ireland. More important, it bears a close resemblance to the Hindu goddess Ganga, deity of the Ganges. Both Celts and Hindus worshipped in the sacred rivers and made votive offerings there. In the Vedic myth of Danu, who exists as a deity in Hindu Mythology as well, the goddess appears in the famous Deluge story called “The Churning of the Ocean.” (p.7)

Celtic writer Jen Delyth writes of the goddess Anu, also known as Danu and Aine: “An ancient figure, venerated under many names, she is known as the womb of life. She is the spark and vitality of life. She is the seed of the sun in our veins. The Great Earth Mother is more ancient than the god of the Celtic Druids. She is the Mother whose breasts are the Paps of Anu in Ireland. Her hair is the wild waves, the golden corn. Her eyes are the shining stars, her belly the round tors or earth barrows from which we are born. Like the cat, the sow, the owl, she eats her young if they are sick or dying. She is the cycle of life, the turning of the seasons.”

In rivers, waves, and corn, in stars and earth barrows, in the very seasons of our land, this sacred presence is embodied, immersed, implanted in the universe, around, above, within us.

I cherish a memory from my own search for Sophia. It is predawn, November 13, 2008, during the journey I made to Egypt with a group led by Jean Houston. We are gathered in the tiny sanctuary sacred to the goddess Isis on the Island of Philae in the Nile River. Jean is reading something about Isis, a series of sacred names. The writing is from “The Golden Ass’’ written by Apuleius, a first or second century Roman, not a Christian. In the story, an unskilled magician named Lucius has accidentally turned himself into a donkey. In despair, he cries out to the Goddess Isis for help.

The Sacred One identifies herself to Lucius with these words:

“I, the natural mother of all life, the mistress of the elements, the first child of time, the supreme divinity…. I, whose single godhead is venerated all over the earth under manifold forms, varying rites, and changing names…. Behold, I am come to you in your calamity. I am come with solace and aid. Away then with tears. Cease to moan. Send sorrow packing. Soon through my providence shall the sun of your salvation rise. Hearken therefore with care unto what I bid. Eternal religion has dedicated to me the day which will be born from the womb of this present darkness.

After that reading in the Isis sanctuary, we were asked to call out all the names by which we have known the Sacred Feminine. I remember hearing voice after voice calling out wonderful names. Many of those names were familiar to me, titles I’d learned as a child, and they referred to Mary. Mystical Rose. Tower of Ivory. Gate of Heaven. I hear now in memory my own voice call out: “Star of the Sea.” I hear Jean’s voice, strong, certain: “Mary in all her forms.”

Our Lady of Guadalupe

As our group emerges from the Sanctuary, our Egyptian guide is waiting, looking distressed, apologetic: “I am sorry. I made a mistake. I never should have allowed your whole group to go inside at the same time. The sanctuary is too small to hold so many.”

Yet we had all found room for joy.

In Women of the Celts, Jean Markale offers an overview of the decline of the Sacred Feminine presence as the Jewish/Christian religions became dominant, but he also hints at how her presence survives: “Within the patriarchal framework (goddesses) were often obscured, tarnished and deformed, and submerged into the depth of the unconscious. But they do still exist, if only in dormant state, and sometimes rise triumphantly to rock the supposedly immovable foundations of masculine society. The triumph of Yahweh and Christ was believed sanctified forever, but from behind them reappears the disturbing and desirable figure of the Virgin Mary with her unexpected names: Our Lady of the Water, Our Lady of the Nettles, Our Lady of the Briars, Our Lady of the Mounds, Our Lady of the Pines. But in spite of the veneration accorded her over the centuries and the public declaration of successive dogmas related to Mary, the authorities of the Christian Church have always made her a secondary character, overshadowed and retiring, a model of what women ought to be. Now the pure and virginal servant of man, the wonderful mother who suffers all heroically, she is no longer the Great Goddess before whom the common herd of men would tremble, but Our Lady of the Night.”

Such an appropriate name for the presence we seek, the One who has so many different names… yet is being rebirthed now in our time, from the “womb of this present darkness”.

The pathways we follow in our search for her may seem arduous, but the starting place is deep within our souls. As Hafiz hints in his poem, the search begins with our longing for her.

(Photo) Anne Kathleen on Philae Island November 13, 2008

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Earth Day 2026

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On this day in late April, the morning sun was shining with comforting brilliance and a promise of warmth here in the Ottawa Valley. After weeks of false starts, followed by wind, rain, and more snow, hope is rising that spring has finally arrived in time for Earth Day. As the pale blue sky darkens into evening, I share with you a treasure found in my Archives, a Prayer Service created for an earlier Earth Day. Here it is for your joy:

earth day prayer serviceDownload
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Advent Three: Becoming Wild Inside

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As we prepare to celebrate the Birth of Jesus, the One whose coming brings Light at the darkest time of the year, Mary is a companion, a guide, a friend who walks with us in the darkness.

Mary has left us no written word. The little we know of her from the Gospels is sketchy at best, her appearances brief, her words cryptic. Yet her influence on Christian spirituality is staggering in its power.

Who is this woman, and how has she risen from a quiet life in the outposts of the Roman Empire to become, as the Church proclaims her, “Queen of Heaven and Earth”?

If you grew up Catholic in the years before the Second Vatican Council, chances are Mary was at the very heart of your faith. You prayed the “Hail Mary” many times daily; you sang hymns to Mary as you walked in May processions carrying flowers to decorate her statue; in every trouble and doubt, in every dark moment of your own life, you turned to her as to a mother whose love for you was unconditional. You probably knew by heart the “Memorare”, a prayer to Mary that says, in part, “Remember…Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help or sought your intercession was left unaided…”

At the call of Pope John 23rd, 2600 Roman Catholic Bishops gathered in Rome for the Second Vatican Council in the mid-1960’s. Believing they were restoring a balance, they invited Mary to step from her throne, and guided her gently to a place among the faithful, the followers of her son, Jesus. The “excesses” of Marian devotion were curbed… and then what happened?

Over the past sixty years since the closing of the Vatican Council, we have seen a burgeoning of interest in the “Sacred Feminine”; a recovery of ancient stories of the Goddess; archaeological finds that create renewed interest in the time when the Sacred One was honoured as a woman; an explosion of writing among theologians, historians, cultural storytellers, seeking to understand the power and presence of “Mary” in the Christian story. I will cite a few here: The Virgin by Geoffrey Ashe; Missing Mary by Charlene Spretnak; Truly Our Sister by Elizabeth Johnson and Untie the Strong Woman by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, a collection of stories honouring Mary as “Our Lady Of Guadalupe,” beloved in Latin America where in the 16th century Mary, in the guise of a Latino woman, appeared to Juan Diego, Today, December 12, the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe is celebrated in Mexico.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Though I am no theologian, I have a consuming interest in the many aspects of this mystery. What I glimpse is this: the human heart longs for a divine mothering presence. Ancient cultures honoured a feminine divine who over millennia was called by many names: Isis in Egypt; Inanna in Sumeria; Ishtar in Babylon; Athena, Hera and Demeter in Greece, Anu or Danu among the ancient Celts; Durga, Kali and Lakshmi in India; for the Kabbalists, Shekinah; for the gnostics, Sophia or Divine Wisdom. Christianity had no “Mother God” to put in the place of the Goddesses whose worship it was determined to eradicate. Geoffrey Ashe’s theory is that Mary’s gradual ascension in Christianity was not an initiative of Church Leadership, but rather a response to the hunger of the early Christians for a sacred feminine presence.

How it came about is less interesting to me than the reality that Mary became for us an opening to a loving feminine sacred presence. Or, put another way, a loving sacred feminine presence responded to the cries of her people when they called her “Mary”, just as that presence had responded over the millennia to other names cried out in love or sorrow or desperate need.

Over these darkening days as we descend to the longest night of the year at the Winter Solstice, Mary will be our companion. We reflect on her pregnancy, her waiting, her uncertainty, the doubts of those who love her, the trust that sustains her “while she opens deeper into the ripple in her womb…” as John O’Donohue has written.

This is profound mystery. For Mary. For each one of us who carries the Holy within us, seeking a place of birth. We walk the dark road, with Mary, in trust.

We walk companioned by one who knows our struggles to maintain our trust in the face of inner doubts and outer calamity. We walk with one who loves us and encourages us until we are ready to welcome “the day which will be born from the womb of this present darkness.”

Where does our story touch Mary’s? Where are the meeting points?

In his poem, “Annunciation”, John O’donohue offers some hints:

Cast from afar before the stones were born

And rain had rinsed the darkness for colour,

The words have waited for the hunger in her

To become the silence where they could form.

The day’s last light frames her by the window,

A young woman with distance in her gaze,

She could never imagine the surprise

That is hovering over her life now.

The sentence awakens like a raven,

Fluttering and dark, opening her heart

To nest the voice that first whispered the earth

From dream into wind, stone, sky and ocean.

She offers to mother the shadow’s child;

Her untouched life becoming wild inside.

Shall we make the offer that is asked of us? Will our hunger “become the silence” where the words of invitation take form? When our hearts open, will they also become a nest for a new birthing of the Holy?

These are questions to ask in our daily contemplative time… From Jean Houston, we have learned that now there is no time for us to modestly refuse any call that smacks of greatness. The urgent needs of our time require a “yes” to the conception, followed by the birthing, of newness.

Here are Jean’s words, reflecting upon the call of Mary, our call

.Just think of the promise, the potential, the divinity in you, which you have probably disowned over and over again because it wasn’t logical, because it didn’t jibe, because it was terribly inconvenient (it always is), because it didn’t fit conventional reality, because… because… because….

What could be more embarrassing than finding yourself pregnant with the Holy Spirit? It’s a very eccentric, inconvenient thing to have happen.

(Jean Houston in Godseed)

Eccentric. Inconvenient. Perhaps. But nonetheless it is our call. Mary’s story gives us the courage to say “yes” without knowing where that “yes” may lead. It is enough to know that certainly our own life will become, like Mary’s, “wild inside”.

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Wisdom for Longest Night, Solstice

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The external darkness of winter is mirrored by internal darkness this year. The fragility of our planet, the depletion of uncounted life-forms, the pollution of lakes, rivers, oceans, soil, even the air we breathe can no longer be ignored. The warnings of scientists about a coming time of disaster have shifted to confirmation that the dark future is already here. We see the effects of the destruction of our home planet with our own eyes and hearts.

In a time of great darkness, we may look for light; we may seek it in denial of the reality, in distractions, in seeking whatever comfort we may find to help us “make it through the night”… and yet there is another way: the way of the Cailleach, the way of Wisdom: we may choose to enter the darkness, to explore it for its hidden gifts, for what it has to teach us. We may learn to know the darkness.

Jan Richardson offers a Blessing for this:

Bless those

Who know the darkness

and do not fear it,

Who carry the light

And are not consumed,

Who prepare the way

and will not abandon it,

Who bless with grace

That does not leave us.

Ancient people came to “know the darkness” with such accuracy that they could predict the time of the longer nights, the earlier dawns of winter solstice when the return of light became visible. We, in our time, have come to understand the darkness has come from an excessive love of light, from a worship of bright intellect over the nurturing of nature, the extremes of using the planet’s resources without the needed balance of wisdom….

The 20th century Jungian writer Helen Luke explains it clearly in her book The Way of Woman:

“…the instinct of the feminine is precisely to use nothing, but simply to give and to receive. This is the nature of the earth – to receive the seed and to nourish the roots– to foster growth in the dark so that it may reach up to the light.

“How are women to recover their reverence for and their joy in this great archetype of which the symbols have always been the earth, the moon, the dark, and the ocean, mother of us all? For thousands of years the necessity of freeing consciousness from the grip of the destructive inertia and from the devouring quality, which are the negative side of the life-giving mother, rightly gave to the emerging spirit of activity and exploration an enormous predominance; but the extremes of this worship of the bright light of the sun have produced in our time an estrangement even in women themselves from the patient nurturing and enduring qualities of the earth, from the reflected beauty of the silver light of the moon in the darkness, from the unknown in the deep sea of the unconscious and from the springs of the water of life. The way back and down to those springs and to the roots of the tree is likewise the way on and up to the spirit of air and fire in the vaults of heaven.” (pp. 15-16)

It is time for humanity to shift from “the extremes of this worship of the bright light of the sun”. Women, as well as men who are not afraid to explore their own feminine side, are called now urgently to do this work, essential for our time, to befriend once more the qualities of earth, moon, sea and springs, to make our way “back and down to those springs and to the roots of the tree.”

Here is a Blessing of Hope from Jan Richardson for Longest Night before the dawn of Winter Solstice December 21st::

All throughout these months
as the shadows
have lengthened,
this blessing has been
gathering itself,
making ready,
preparing for
this night.

It has practiced
walking in the dark,
traveling with
its eyes closed,
feeling its way
by memory
by touch
by the pull of the moon
even as it wanes.

So believe me
when I tell you
this blessing will
reach you
even if you
have not light enough
to read it;
it will find you
even though you cannot
see it coming.

You will know
the moment of its
arriving
by your release
of the breath
you have held
so long;
a loosening
of the clenching
in your hands,
of the clutch
around your heart;
a thinning
of the darkness
that had drawn itself
around you.

This blessing
does not mean
to take the night away
but it knows
its hidden roads,
knows the resting spots
along the path,
knows what it means
to travel
in the company
of a friend.

So when
this blessing comes,
take its hand.
Get up.
Set out on the road
you cannot see.

This is the night
when you can trust
that any direction
you go,
you will be walking
toward the dawn.

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Humanity’s Sacred Mission

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I am sharing with you, dear reader of Sophiawakens, news of a follow up to the event I wrote about in my recent blog, “Awakening to Sophia.”

     
 Embrace the Sacred Mission
Dance with the Planet
Saturday, March 16th, 2024
9am PT, 12pm ET, 5pm CET

with Ervin Laszlo

From Ervin: We are dancing on the planet, but we are not dancing well. We are dancing on the planet, but not with the planet. We treat the planet as a passive backdrop to our dance, a supplier of the air, water, land, and other resources we claim as our possession. We are not treating it as a partner in our evolution.    We thought we could dance above and beyond the domains of life on Earth. This was a mistake, and we are now paying for it. It is time to realize that we can only dance safely and enduringly in partnership with our planet. We must urgently correct our steps and return to the dance our forebears often danced, but we have nearly forgotten.  Dancing with the planet is a dance to which we can return. We have the skills and the knowledge, the technologies and the information. Now we must come up with the will and the commitment. The way for us to achieve coherence is to adapt and cooperate. It is to live in peace and in readiness to join together in coherent ecological and social systems. Coherence creates an environment capable of sustaining all people on the planet in peace and prosperity.    We are cosmic beings endowed with articulate consciousness. We can apprehend our mission, and we can respond to it. We can and now must awaken to the urgent need to adopt the universe’s drive toward integral wholeness as our felt and acknowledged sacred mission.   Add your heart to this global pulse event, register here:
https://bit.ly/GCPulseMarch2024 Awakening to Humanity’s Sacred Mission Session 3 and 4 are now
available on YouTube.
 If you weren’t able to join us live for the Symposium, tune into Day Two sessions: Synergizing for Change and Peace Making, and stay tuned for more sessions to be released on YouTube. 
The entire Symposium broadcast can be viewed at your convenience on UNITY EARTH TV – https://unity.earth/symposium-2024-global-broadcast/Day Two, Session 3: Synergizing for Change
 Day Two, Session 4: Peace Making
Support world-changing work:please give generouslyto Purpose Earth by donating here –  https://www.purposeearth.org/givedonate All of the funds will go to small grass-roots organizations,mostly in the developing world. Ways to Stay Connected:Join the Weekly Call every Wednesday at 6pm EDT / 3pm PDT,
Zoom ID 606 000 1111, http://zoom.us/j/6060001111Join the Mighty Network at https://oneworld.earth?Join our WhatsApp Thread https://chat.whatsapp.com/Fq0zxKqYOGz2mQ96lmT78F Join our Telegram channel https://t.me/unityearth1111
UNITY EARTH Community Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/unityearth/ 
UNITY EARTH TV
https://unity.earth/tv/unity.earth   
shared by Anne Kathleen McLaughlin
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Brigid: Midwife for a Planetary Rebirth

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by Dolores Whelan

Reflecting on the turmoil present in the world today it is clear to all, but those steeped in denial, that all is not well. It seems that something ails us humans; something that causes us to live in ways that disrespect our mother, the living earth, and all our relatives. We ask what is it in us humans that creates such a restless world where there is little sense of belonging, nurture or home and which causes so many of the species with which we share this planet to suffer?

Artwork by Andrea Redmond, an artist living in Donegal, originally from Prince Edward Island, Canada

The exclusion of the Feminine energy in our naming and understanding of the Divine is reflected in a corresponding absence and valuing of feminine energy in all aspects of life in western society. The devaluing and exclusion of the feminine energy over the past centuries has created a distorted story about life which has resulted in a world whose shape and vibration create disharmony.

So how do we find our way back to a more harmonious way of life? If we know what is missing and what ails us, it may be possible for us to make the journey back towards wholeness and health.

In times of great danger and challenges, cultures often seek the wisdom for the journey ahead in the stories and myths that sustained them in an earlier time. However as Poet Nuala Ni Dhomhnail suggests this requires an understanding that “actual myths and stories themselves soar way above any uses to which they may have been put to already and can and must be retranslated by each generation in terms of their own need and thus liberated into a new consciousness.” (1)

At the present time there is a wonderful re-emergence of aspects of ancient spiritual traditions by people all over the world. The reconnection and embodiment of these ancient spiritual traditions, myths and stories has the potential to release the spiritual power needed for us to become agents of transformation within our society.

At this time many people are becoming aware of the wisdom of the feminine. As this happens, the absence of genuine feminine energy present in most institutions, both religious and secular, throughout western culture, becomes obvious. To include the presence of the divine feminine energy in creating a world whose shape is more wholesome requires a fundamental reclaiming of the essential role of the feminine in all aspects of life. In order to create change within the physical world and in our society it is necessary to change the dreams and stories held within the imagination of a society.

My own journey over the past 25years has been primarily within the Celtic spiritual tradition. This tradition has emerged over many millennia and continues to evolve. It includes the wisdom of the megalithic, the pre-Christian Celtic and the Christian Celtic traditions as they met and engaged with each other through the ages. I believe the rekindling of the flames of this tradition, which have lain dormant for many centuries, “like coals under the smooring awaiting a new kindling” holds a key to the recovery of the wisdom needed to create a more sane society.

“God is good and he has a great mother!” a statement sometimes heard in Ireland, reflects an important truth at the heart of the Celtic spiritual tradition, one that honours the presence of the divine feminine and understands that even God emerges out of the feminine energy of being-ness. The Divine Feminine is present at the heart of this spiritual tradition and plays a central role in both Celtic spirituality and Celtic culture. There are many goddesses within Celtic mythology; however Brigid, as both goddess and saint, occupies a central place as representative of the Divine Feminine within Celtic tradition.

Reconnecting with and re-membering the spirit and archetypal energy of Brigid, in both her Goddess and saint manifestations, is an essential task of this renaissance. Brigid, although normally associated with the maiden and mother aspects of feminine energy, is also expressed in the cailleach form, as indicated in the prayer “Molamid Brid an mhaighean; Molamid Brid an mhathair; Molamid Brid an cailleach” (Praise to Brigid, the maiden, the mother, and the crone).

These three different, but related manifestations, the maiden, the mother, and the cailleach, or crone, together create a divine feminine trinity. Each aspect of this trinity occupies a different role within the life, death, and rebirth continuum. The Feminine energy is both the harbinger and the birther of new life and is the destroyer of life that has been spent. It is experienced at the thresholds of life and death and rebirth.

In the past 20 years there has been a new awakening of the importance of Brigid and her place within our lives and our world. Her Feastday at Imbolc in now celebrated in many places in Ireland and all over the world. There is an understanding perhaps it is time for us individually and collectively to recover the qualities that Brigid embodied in her lifetime, marking her as a woman of true spiritual power.

Below: The Shrine of Brigid in Faughart , Ireland , believed to be the birthplace of Brigid of Kildare( Photo, February 1, 2018)

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Solace for Our Bleak Midwinter

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In JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Gandalf has just revealed to Frodo that he must accept responsibility for a ring of power left to him by Bilbo. Gandalf continues, “This is the Master-ring, the One Ring to rule them all. This is the One Ring that (the Dark Lord) lost many ages ago, to the great weakening of his power. He greatly desires it– but he must not get it.”

Frodo sat silent and motionless. Fear seemed to stretch out a vast hand, like a dark cloud rising in the East and looming up to engulf him. “I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. And already, Frodo, our time is beginning to look black.”

Remove the wrappings from Tolkien’s tale. Its heart speaks to us. Fear “like a dark cloud rising in the East” engulfs our planet with a series of climate crises, wars, disasters. We hear ourselves echoing Frodo’s words: “I wish it need not have happened in my time.”

Gandalf’s wisdom also echoes: All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

To decide that will require wisdom as well as courage. Yet we also need a sense of hope, as well as sources of solace…. This I wish to offer especially in one area of our current darkness: the depredation of our planet, Gaia. And for this I turn to poets who, as Teilhard de Chardin has written, also serve us as mystics and philosophers. To find hope in Gaia even in the midst of our suffering, it’s good to remember the words of Kahlil Gibran in The Prophet: When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

The poet Alfred K LaMotte reminds us that even now Gaia has delight to offer us, to sustain us:

YOU ASKED

When you asked,

How can I face

such a dark world?

the answer was all around you.

The wands of pine

in rain-laden breeze answered,

bell-throated, blackbirds

ringing over the wetland

answered, stars

floating on a still pond

answered, dancing

snow of milkweed,

pearl-eyed mushrooms

seeing through midnight

in the forest answered:

This world is not the seat of sorrow.

This world is sunlight

playing in a risen mist

over the fountain of beauty.

The seat of sorrow is your heart

aching, thirsting

for its own illumination.

But the healing is easy.

Turn your gaze around

and see into your source.

You are that fountain, that

refraction of prism’d beauty.

Listen to the raindrop fall,

how it finds its way home,

as fallen things do,

to the hidden spring

under pungent green moss

where it was born.

Even the raindrop answers,

Yes.

Jude Currivan in “The Story of Gaia” describes a mystical moment of beauty and wonder during a solar eclipse:

On August 1, 2008, together with some fellow travelers, I climbed one of the high peaks of mount Huashan, located about 120 kilometers from the city of Xian in China, to witness a total Solar eclipse. Across from me was another of the five summits of this sacred mountain.

With their rocks delving deep into Gaia and their peaks reaching high to the heavens, mountains have held spiritual significance for millennia, inviting pilgrims to undertake journeys of inner and outer discovery and revelation.  Indeed, the Chinese phrase for pilgrimage, h’ao-shan chin-hsiang, means “to offer respect to a mountain.” And from ancient times this particular massif, carved from a single huge block of granite, and the precipitous and dangerous paths to its crests have held especial meaning, offering hard-won opportunities for insight and guidance.

Its five-peaked shape spreads open like the lotus after which it’s named – symbolizing a flower that rises from its roots in mud, through water, to open its blossoms to Sol. Representing purity of heart and mind, the lotus and thus the mountain embodies the sacred seat of Buddha, as attested to by the many shrines and temples adorning its flanks and heights.

After a spectacular cable car ride to near the top of the peak and a steep climb to its crest, we arrived in the late afternoon of a beautiful, warm late-summer day. In the pale blue sky above the mountain, Luna in her fullness was slowly but inexorably extending her shadow over the disk of Sol.

One small cloud was visible in an otherwise clear sky.  But as the eclipse continued to proceed to its few minutes of totality, when Luna completely covered Sol, the arc of their combined path, to my consternation, dipped behind the cloud.

After journeying so far to witness one of the most glorious of cosmic phenomena, it seemed that I was destined for it to be out of sight and only to sense its occurrence.  So, I closed my eyes, aiming to attune with the coming few minutes of totality, when Gaia, Sol, and Luna perfectly aligned.

With my conscious mind having surrendered to whatever I might experience, I had no further expectations. A few moments later, though, I heard clairaudiently a message to “open your eyes.”

When I did, I literally began to shake with emotion and tears began to flow down my face. My gaze took in an amazing scene. Across the valley beneath me and upward to the pointed mountain peak beyond, the disk of Sol was now exactly covered by that of Luna. Fully clear of the small cloud and with no sunlight to reflect off Luna’s face, the total eclipse created a perfect circle of utter blackness against the backdrop of bright sky.

Of itself, this incredible sight is one of the most extraordinary phenomena of our Soular System. Yet, in a further miracle, the eclipse appeared almost impossibly poised: perfectly balanced, exactly and only for its few minutes of totality, on the very tip of the mountain.

This trinity of Sol, Luna, and Gaia experienced uniquely, only at this precise moment and at this exact vantage point, and shared only with my fellow travelers and a few young and local Chinese people was, as yet, the most wonder-full sight of my life.

It was as though the galaxy had sent an emissary to remind me of the vast black hole at its center and even, perhaps, as a sense of connecting to its sentience through the totality of the eclipse.

I watched this miracle in silence, along with the world around us that also seemed spellbound, as, in their cosmic dance, Sol and Luna, majestically sashaying together, slipped behind the peak. Moments later, now hidden from our view, as they silently parted to go their separate ways until their next communion, the sky behind the mountain crest before us exploded into light.

Solar eclipses as seen from Gaia certainly appear like nothing else in our Soular System and may be exceedingly rare or even unique throughout our galaxy and even entire Universe. The striking image of what black holes might look like when seen up close, may be nearest to this celestial phenomenon that occurs with awe-full regularity a few times every year. It’s a vision that on a profound level inspires in me a sense of the “black whole” of no-thingness and yet al-thingness.

Let us set our hearts to find what we are called to do with this, our time. And let us sustain our courage, our joy with the beauty that still exists on Gaia.

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Part Two: Our Journey Towards Radiance

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Teilhard de Chardin (Jesuit 20th c.) This is what I have learnt from my contact with the earth… the diaphany of the divine at the heart of a glowing universe, the divine radiating from the depths of matter aflame.

Vincent Van Gogh’s painting “Starry Night” with an image of the Universe from the James Webb telescope superimposed

Last week I Invited you to consider the dreams you hold for your life as we look together at the unfolding of the Universe through the ten powers described by Cosmologist Brian Swimme.

We saw that the path of the mystics of many faith traditions reveal a surprising harmony with the scientific discoveries made in our time about the evolution of the Universe itself. Like the mystics, the Universe moves through a process that leads towards radiance.

This is our process as well, our story, and our most urgent call of this, our time on the planet.

Through the dark weeks of Samhain, we’ll make a journey into radiance guided by Brian Swimme’s DVD series: “Powers of the Universe.” Like his mentor, Thomas Berry, Brian was inspired by the vision of Teilhard de Chardin. For these weekly reflections, I will be drawing on Jean Houston’s teachings as well as the writings of poets and mystics such as John O’Donohue, Etty Hillesum, Caryll Houselander, Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich and Angela of Foligno.

We’ll begin by looking more closely at Seamlessness, Centration, Allurement and Emergence.

Seamlessness:The universe is bound together in communion, each thing with all the rest. The gravitational bond unites all the galaxies; the electromagnetic interaction binds all the molecules; the genetic information connects all the generations of the ancestral tree of life. (Brian Swimme)

Jean Houston expands onSwimme’s description: All the powers of the universe are seamlessly one, trying to bring forth radiance. These powers can be understood mystically as within ourselves waiting to assist us to bring forth a world that works for everyone.

To illustrate seamlessness, Jean turns to an ancient story from India: A great ruler named Indra asked aritificers to create for him a magnificent web as large as the Universe itself. At every crossing in this web there is a jewel. As each jewel shines its light is reflected in every other jewel. Thus Indra’s Net symbolizes the interconnectedness of all that exists.

Alan Watts offers an image from nature to illustrate the concept of Indra’s Net:“Imagine a multidimensional spider’s web in the early morning covered with dew drops. And every dew drop contains the reflection of all the other dew drops. And, in each reflected dew drop, the reflections of all the other dew drops…. And so ad infinitum. That is the Buddhist conception of the universe in an image.” 

Centration: We are the gathered-in-ness of 13.8 billion years. Brian Swimme teaches that we are the Universe conscious of itself, self-aware of WHO we really are and of all that we are.

Margaret Brennan teaches: 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. When we have come in touch with the deep centre of ourselves/our lives we realize that we are more than what we seem to be, that there’s something deeper in ourselves than meets the eye.

John O’Donohue writes: For millions of years, before you arrived here, the dream of your individuality was carefully prepared. You were sent to a shape of destiny in which you would be able to express the special gift you bring to the world. Sometimes this gift may involve suffering and pain that can neither be accounted for nor explained. There is a unique destiny for each person. Each one of us has something to do here that can be done by no one else. If someone else could fulfill your destiny, then they would be in your place, and you would not be here.

Allurement: As the mystics did, we draw unto ourselves, are lured towards, the love that holds the Universe together; we allure all we require to grow in that love, within the calling, the shape of destiny that is uniquely ours; we ourselves can be principles of allurement.

Jean Houston advises us to have leaky margins, to be able to fall in love with everything. If fears and worries are blocking allurement, bring in an inner guide to care for them, to set you free… be aware of the negative quality of allurement: notice what you draw to yourself.

It is in the depths of your life that you will discover the invisible necessity that has brought you here. When you begin to decipher this, your gift and giftedness come alive. (O’Donohue)

Emergence: the Universe flares forth out of darkness Our lives begin to blossom with gifts that grow through our co-creative love relationship with the Holy; we begin to see what is possible as we open to joy.

Jean Houston teaches: We can learn how to work with the Universe in what is trying to emerge within us. Set up a schedule. Show up at the page, or in the listening or prayer place regularly to signal our intent to be open. We can create internal structures that are ready to receive what wants to emerge in us. Then we drop in an idea that puts us in touch with essence, creates in us a cosmic womb so the universal power can work in us, so that, like Hildegard we become a flowering for the possible, attracting the people and resources that we need.

Your heart quickens and the urgency of living rekindles your creativity. (O’Donohue)

To be continued on November 27, 2023: Part Three: Our Journey towards Radiance

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Sophia at Samhain: The Womb of This Present Darkness

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The call to awaken to the presence of Sophia comes at a time when much of our planet struggles with darkness. Live-streaming news gives us an immediate knowing of disasters, disease, wars, weather-related devastation that can be overwhelming.

Yet the greater the darkness, the greater is our awareness of the need for light, the deeper our appreciation for it, the more compelling our own call to be co-creators of light.

As these shorter days in autumn prepare us for the yearly plunge into winter’s darkness, we are entering into the sacred time of Sophia. Our ancient ancestors, who knew almost nothing of events beyond their immediate homes, knew about the rhythms of the earth, the apparent movements of sun, moon and stars, the cycle of the seasons, with an accuracy of observation that fills us with awe. The early peoples of Ireland were so deeply attuned to the shifting balance of light and darkness that they could build a monument to catch the first rays of sunrise on the winter Solstice. The Newgrange mound in Ireland, predating the Egyptian Pyramids, receives the Solstice light through a tiny aperture above the threshold.

Like the Egyptians and other ancient peoples, the Celts wove their spirituality from the threads of light and darkness that shaped their lives. Their spiritual festivals moved through a seasonal cycle in harmony with the earth’s yearly dance, associating the bright sunlit days with masculine energy, the darker time with contemplative feminine energy. For the Celts, the days we are entering this week, days we name Halloween, All Saints’ and All Souls’, were one festival known as Samhain (Saw’ wane). These three days marked the year’s end with a celebration that served as a time-out before the new year began. 1The bright masculine season with its intense activity of planting, growing, harvesting was over. The quieter days of winter were ahead, 1 “the time of darkness, the realm of the goddess where the feminine energy principle is experienced and the season of non-doing is initiated.” (Dolores Whelan: Ever Ancient, Ever New pp. 98-9) www.doloreswhelan.ie

We in the twenty-first century may still draw on this ancient wisdom to live in harmony with the earth as the Northern Hemisphere of our planet tilts away from the sun. We can welcome this time of darkness as a season renewal when earth and humans rest. Our energy can be gathered inwards to support what is happening deep within the earth and deep within our souls. The energy gathered in this season will be used when the winter has passed and spring has brought new life to the land and the people.

We too can accept the invitation of Samhain to release whatever is not completed at this time, letting go of the light and the activity of sun-time, surrendering ourselves to the restful moon-time, the darkness of holy waiting. Living within the wisdom of the earth’s seasons, we move towards the rebirth of the sun at the winter solstice, embracing a journey of deep surrender. This is Sophia time. Within her sacred cauldron, our lives and our desires for our planet find a place of gestation, a safe darkness where, as with the caterpillar in a chrysalis, the great work of transformation of our souls and of all of life can happen.

Sylvia Shaindel Senensky writes:

We are being called upon by the sorrowing and powerful Dark Feminine to know our own darkness and the profound richness of all dark places, even when they are laden with pain. Through her we know the mystery of existence and the sacredness of the cycles of life. We learn how important the destruction of the old ways is to the rebirth of the new. When she steps into our lives and awakens us, we can be shattered to our core, and we know, as we see the tears streaming down her face, that she too is holding us in her compassionate and loving embrace.

…. She is calling upon us, each in our way to do our inner work, to become her allies, to become the best human beings we know how to be; to allow our creativity, our compassion and our love to flow to ourselves and to all life forms on this planet…. Love attracts love. If we flood our planet with loving and transformative energy, our actions will begin to mirror our feelings. We will come home to ourselves. (Healing and Empowering the Feminine Chiron Publications, Wilmette Illinois 2003)

Let us enjoy this sacred season, this womb-time, as we curl up near the fireside of our hearts. From Sophia’s cauldron, we shall emerge in springtime in an interdependent co-arising with the earth, knowing ourselves renewed in soul, body and spirit.