St Clare of Assisi

pax ora et labora

Patron saint of clairvoyance ('clear seeing') and television, courtesy of Pope Pius XII in 1958, on the premise that when she couldn't attend Mass due to illness back in the 1200's, she witnessed a projection of it on her bedroom wall.
Feast Day is August 11.

Created the Order of Poor Ladies, embracing a life of manual labour and prayer, living in the enclosure of San Damiano, inspired by St. Francis although she fought for the Rule of St Benedict to be applicable for her nuns.

She saw the role of her nuns as important in the stability of the church, even though the Franciscan friars wished to distance themselves from the women. The women saw their union with Francis and his friars as an essential aspect of the identity of the church, which was also closely tied to the identity of Mary, in a similar way that the friars identified themselves with Christ.

A sense of the divine marriage in a spiritual context? Good luck gettin' the guys to agree!

Bodhisattva Vow

THE FOUR GREAT VOWS

Sentient beings are numberless;
I vow to save them.
Desires are inexhaustible;
I vow to put an end to them.
The Dharmas
are boundless;
I vow to master them.
The Buddha Way
is unattainable;
I vow to attain it.

Lectio Divina, reading, thinking, praying

There aren't many resources available for the different forms of Christian meditation. It seems to have been almost overlooked in Christian spiritual practice, although perhaps my observation is skewed - we've had Eastern monastic practices made available to the West, but because Christian convents and monasteries have not been in the same way 'exposed' to the West, we have yet to be privy to the practices of the constituents therein.
So, here's a practice with perspective from the 13th-14th century, an anonymous monk writing spiritual instruction to a presumed acolyte into the order. I hope to have time to write more about 'The Cloud' soon.

Taken from the version of 'The Cloud of Unknowing' available at CCEL:

HERE BEGINNETH THE FIVE AND THIRTIETH CHAPTER

Of three means in the which a contemplative Prentice should be occupied, in reading, thinking, and praying.

NEVERTHELESS, means there be in the which a contemplative prentice should be occupied, the which be these—Lesson, Meditation, and Orison: or else to thine understanding they may be called—Reading, Thinking, and Praying. Of these three thou shalt find written in another book of another man’s work, much better than I can tell thee; and therefore it needeth not here to tell thee of the qualities of them. But this may I tell thee: these three be so coupled together, that unto them that be beginners and profiters—but not to them that be perfect, yea, as it may be here—thinking may not goodly be gotten, without reading or hearing coming before. All is one in manner, reading and hearing: clerks reading on books, and lewd men reading on clerks when they hear them preach the word of God. Nor prayer may not goodly be gotten in beginners and profiters, without thinking coming before. 186

See by the proof. In this same course, God’s word either written or spoken is likened to a mirror. Ghostly, the eyes of thy soul is thy reason; thy conscience is thy visage ghostly. And right as thou seest that if a foul spot be in thy bodily visage, the eyes of the same visage may not see that spot nor wit where it is, without a mirror or a teaching of another than itself; right so it is ghostly, without reading or hearing of God’s word it is impossible to man’s understanding that a soul that is blinded in custom of sin should see the foul spot in his conscience. 187

And so following, when a man seeth in a bodily or ghostly mirror, or wots by other men’s teaching, whereabouts the foul spot is on his visage, either bodily or ghostly; then at first, and not before, he runneth to the well to wash him. If this spot be any special sin, then is this well Holy Church, and this water confession, with the circumstances. If it be but a blind root and a stirring of sin, then is this well merciful God, and this water prayer, with the circumstances. And thus mayest thou see that no thinking may goodly be gotten in beginners and profiters, without reading or hearing coming before: nor praying without thinking.

Our Lady, Help Of Christians

Ecclesiasticus 4:11-18

Wisdom brings up her own sons,
And cares for those who seek her.
Whoever loves her loves life,
those who wait on her early will be filled with happiness.
Whoever holds her close will inherit honour,
And whereever she walks the Lord will bless her.
Those who serve her minister to the Holy One,
and the Lord loves those who love her.
Whoever obeys her judges aright,
and whoever pays attention to her dwells secure.
If he trusts himself to her he inherits her
and his descendants shall remain in possession of her;
for though she takes him at first through winding ways,
bringing fear and faintness on him,
plaguing him with her discipline until she can trust him,
and testing him with her ordeals,
in the end she will lead him back to the straight road,
and reveal her secrets to him.

Subtlety

On the rare and fleeting chance that there's someone else who partakes of this address who'll call me out if I sound like Mad Marie, with respect to the following.......

If you're someone who hangs out occasionally along the avenues of the subtle, does it feel important to you to partake in education with respect to what is going on on this plane, like, at all?

My question that I'm working on is: where does silence have Her place?

There's been a bunch of conversations and experiences I could band together and Dymo-print a label for, reading: 'Various Abuses of the Subtle'.

This includes everything from subtle sexisms, racisms & ageisms, to the validity of emotional abuse, to what can and can't be expected to be treated in psychotherapy and alternative forms of healthcare to some good old fashioned myth-elimination for neurons 'firing together and wiring together' and thereby creating our own realities, or some other form of wonder birthed from 'The Secret' movie genre.

Carl Jung delivered a blessing to Western culture when he conceived the concept of the 'shadow'. In this day and age we're graced with a linguistic space that captures the non-embodied, but ever present, part of our unconscious, habituated responses that are a product of being a human being with a brain. Jung tended to characterise the shadow as crippling, but for my thinking there is a hell of a lot about the shadow that is enabling, too.

With respect to the 'crippled shadow', consciousness-raising becomes valuable when it effects harm minimisation. Advertisers know how to speak to our subconscious psyche through product placement and subliminalities in media. In Western culture, overt forms of the 'isms' encounter social ostracism, but there's still a heck of a lot of interpersonal interaction that could use some clarity birthed through education about subtle means of influence.

There's an awareness to be grown regarding the legitimacy of emotional abuse, for which the scars are never as evident, but the ramifications are just as disabling (in my experience in fact, moreso).

Particularly in Australian society, receiving mental health care no longer needs to be the anxiety-causing loony-bin landing life sentence that it once represented. Again, the relief comes through an educative process about what does and does not happen in therapy, the subtle, mostly mental signs that actually there is a road to relief from suffering that does not have to involve mega-doses of Haldol or a lobotomy.

The 'enabled shadow' has two aspects - firstly, there's a growth in understanding our own individual thought processes to allow ourselves to tune into our inner guidance in a more direct way. This comes through deepening our engagement with our inner cripple AND with our inner hero - a good place to start looking for the inner hero is to look at the people or qualities that we admire, and to think/feel out why this might be the case. Enabling a dialog between these aspects of the self is best enhanced in a place of meditation and contemplation. Enabling a dialog in this way can be scary, serious stuff, well met when it is accompanied by some of that not-so-scary-psychotherapy that I spoke about above. It's never not worth the journey, but it often calls for some resilience in the face of discomfort to get through.

The enabled shadow allows for enhanced efficiency. Which sounds like something only a motor vehicle or a refrigerator should have, but what I mean is that once you become a little clearer on the influences that shape your present thinking and behaviour you can start to choose which ones to pay attention to. You're less likely to be encumbered by a life story that is not a making of your very own. It's called discernment - allowing the whole world to be your advisory board and then choosing your own self-advised path.

Maybe I'm casting my 'subtle' definition net far too widely, and dipping far beyond need into mundane-world examples. My glinty-eyed question becomes thus - if there is a deeper and more encompassing experience to be privy to, and if we can sit comfortably with the notion that the mirror-turned-back-on-the-self till self disappears is, well, the Great Work never to be laid down, is there enough room to turn back around and look at the language (by which I mean dominant discourse) of those that we share our collective buying power with and incorporate the phenomena into the conversation, in this way?

Good heavens, look at that, a rant. I must have some serious study to do.