Empyrean

Empyrean, from the Medieval Latin empyreus, an adaptation of the Ancient Greek, "in or on the fire (pyr)"

Empyrean refers to the highest reaches of heaven, believed by the ancients to be a realm of pure fire or light. In the Chaldaean scheme of the universe, this is the realm of the 'Second Mind' beneath the Intelligible World of Supramundane Light. The Second Mind is the divine power of the Empyrean World, and equates with Briah in the Qabalistic World.

And Suzanne found this picture, and I've needed her words today:

'Noli illegitimi carborundum'

To know my own heart, and carry forth, resolute.

What Is Sleep But A Little Death

I saw a wonderful, sensitively written and acted piece of theatre today and I owe a bundle of thanks to Judy, who sat beside me while I cried.

The Busy World Is Hushed

Sometimes synchronicity hits me like a punch in the stomach (though I did see it coming when I got invited to see this play). Winded, but immensely grateful for the opportunity to see it, it's hit me today on so many levels that I walked, six kilometres, home, to think it through.

The story, about an Episcopalian minister and her gay son, showing each other up in the offset of a man who's father is dying, hit chords within me, not only because part of the premise of the story is the ministers' exposition of the 'Lost Coptic Gospels' (think Nag Hammadi), not only because of the question of whether 'we are only whole while ever we are in relationship', not only because I completely identified with her dilletante son Thomas who refused to place any stakes in the ground but mostly because of her reasoning, her jealousy, of those who get to go to church on Sunday for an hour and get a satisfactory fill of spirit in that small allocation of their time. Those for whom spirit is an exoteric connection, that only happens once a week, at largely the responsibility of someone else (the minister).

I wish. The short answers have never satisfied my hunger to know. And so the chase continues...

So the Vespers prayer from which the title comes goes like this:

May he support us all the day long,
till the shadows lengthen and the evening comes,
and the busy world is hushed
and the fever of life is over and our work is done.
Then in Your mercy Lord
grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest,
and peace at last with you, Amen.

Wicked by Gregory Macguire

I've wanted to post something about this book since it landed in my hands just at the same time as I was exploring the nature of evil across a few different conversations with friends.

The story, written by Gregory Macguire, is a parallel, adult tale of Elphaba, who grows up to become the Wicked Witch of the West, from L Frank Baum's 'The Wizard Of Oz'. There's an oft told family story about me, watching the movie the Wizard Of Oz as a five-year-old, and promptly throwing up at 'I'm melting, I'm melting'. But I digress.

The story does much to explore the nature of non-forgiveness. I want to post a direct quote, so eyes closed if you're wanting to maintain sanctity regarding the inner workings of the story. It's taken from close to the end, pg 381:

"She thought: the Witch with her mirror. Who do we ever see but ourselves, and that's the curse- Dorothy reminds me of myself, at that age, whatever it is.......

....The time in Ovvels. There is the green girl, shy, gawky, and humiliated. To avoid the pain of damp feet, splashing around in clammy leggings made of swampcalf hide and waterproof boots. Mama, pregnant with Shell, huge as a barge. Mama praying nonstop for months that she might at last bring a healthy child into the world. Mama dumping bottles of liquor and pinlobble leaves into the mud.

Nanny tends to little Nessa, papoosing her around in the daily hunt for charfish, needle flowers, and broad bean vines. Nessa can see but she cannot touch: what a curse for a child! (No wonder she believed in things she couldn't see-nothing is provable by touch.) For his atonement, Papa takes the green girl with him on an expedition to the relatives of Turtle Heart, a many branched family living in a nest of huts and walkways suspended in a grove of broad, rotting, suppletrees. The Quadlings, who are more comfortable on their haunches, duck their heads. The smell of raw fish fills their homes, on their skin. They are frightened of the unionist minister, finding them out in their squalid hamlet. I have no firm memory of individuals, but one old matriarch, toothless and proud.

The Quadlings come up, after a period of shyness, not to the minister, but to me, the green girl. She is no longer I, she is too long ago, she is only she, impenetrably mysterious and dense- she stands as Dorothy stood, some inborn courage making her spine straight, her eyes unblinking. Her shoulders back, her hands at her side. Submissive to the stroke of their fingers on her face. Unflinching in the cause of missionary work.

Papa asks for forgiveness of the death of Turtle Heart, maybe some five years earlier. He says it is his fault. He and his wife had both fallen in love with the Quadling glassblower. What can I give you to make up for it, he says. Elphaba the girl thinks he is mad, she thinks they are not listening, they are mesmerised by her weirdness. Please forgive me, he says.

The matriarch alone responds to these words, maybe she is the only one who actually remembers Turtle Heart. She has a look of someone caught out venturing out from beneath a rock. Well, in a people whose moral code is so lax, so little is wrong. For her this encounter is a mysterious, complicated transaction.

She says something like: We don't shrive, we don't shrive, and not for Turtle Heart, no, and she strikes Papa on the face with a reed, cutting him with thin stripes. I was only a witness, I was not really alive then, but I saw: this was when Papa began to lose his way, it dates from this whipping.

I see him as shocked: It doesn't occur that in his conception of moral life that some sins are unforgivable. He blanches, onion white beneath the blood-pearled perforations of her attack. Maybe she has every right to do what she's done, but in Papa's life she's become old Kumbricia.

I see her wilful, proud: Her moral system doesn't allow for forgivess, and she is just as incarcerated as he, but she doesn't know it. She grins, all gums and menace, and rests the reed on her collarbone, where it's fletchling tip falls like a necklace around her own neck.

He points to me, and says - not to me, but to them all - Isn't this punishment enough?

Elphaba the girl does not know how to see her father as a broken man. All she knows is that he has passed his brokenness on to her. Daily his habits of loathing and self-loathing cripple her. Daily she loves him back because she knows no other way.

I see myself there: the girl witness, wide-eyed as Dorothy. Staring at a world too horrible to comprehend, believing, by dint of ignorance and innocence- that beneath this unbreakable contract of guilt and blame there is always an older contract that may bind and release in a more salutary way. A more ancient precedent of ransom, that we may not always be tormented by our shame. Neither Dorothy nor young Elphaba can speak of this, but the belief of it is in both our faces......'

It hurts to read this book. It hurts with 'good is the aberration' and 'How deeply bound by the cords of family anger we all are, though the Witch. None of us breaks free'.

A really, really worthwhile, and multi-layered example of wordcraft.

Imbolc (Candlemas)

Imbolc is a sacred feast of the great Celtic Goddess Brighid. In honor of the growing light (and in honor of the Brighid’s perpetual flame) it is traditional to burn candles to celebrate this feast, particularly silver and white candles. It is customary to make and/ or bless candles to be used for the coming year. On this night, people ask for blessings and insight for the coming year. The insight received may shape the challenges and blessings of the year.

Brighid sounds like a quite a mover and shaker in the 500AD Irish fields.....

Just before Brighid's birth, her mother was sold to a Druid landowner. Brigid remained with her mother till she was old enough to serve her legal owner Dubtach, her father.

She grew up marked by her high spirits and tender heart, and as a child, she heard Saint Patrick preach, instruction that she never forgot. She could not bear to see anyone hungry or cold, and to help them, often gave away things that were Dubtach's. When Dubtach protested, she replied that "Christ dwelt in every creature". Dubtach tried to sell her to the King of Leinster, and while they bargained, she gave a treasured sword of her father's to a leper. Dubtach was about to strike her when Brighid explained she had given the sword to God through the leper, because of its great value. The King, a Christian, forbade Dubtach to strike her, saying "Her merit before God is greater than ours". Dubtach solved this domestic problem by giving Brigid her freedom.

Brighid's aged mother was in charge of her master's dairy. Brighid took charge ,and often gave away the produce. But the dairy prospered under her (hence her patronage of milk maids, dairy workers, cattle, etc.), and the Druid freed Brighid's mother.

Brighid returned to her father, who arranged a marriage for her with a young bard. She refused, and to keep her virginity, went to Bishop Mel, a pupil of Saint Patrick's, and took her first vows. Legend says that she prayed that her beauty be taken from her so no one would seek her hand in marriage; her prayer was granted, and she regained her beauty only after making her vows. Another tale says that when Saint Patrick heard her final vows, he mistakenly used the form for ordaining priests. When told of it he replied, "So be it, my son, she is destined for great things."

Her first convent started with seven nuns. At the invitation of bishops, she started convents all over Ireland. She was a great traveller, especially considering the conditions of the time, which led to her patronage of travellers, sailors, etc. Brighid invented the double monastery, the monastery of Kildare that she ran on the Liffey river being for both monks and nuns.

Seven Point Mind Training

as taught by Choden Rinpoche, at Vajrayana Institute, January 5th & 6th, 2008

1. Preliminaries

Prayer trains our minds, with compassion planted as a seed that ultimately is harvested through all mind realisations. In the same way that water and manure can be added to crops to yield a greater harvest, compassion is the organic growth matter that inspires the deeds of the bodhisattvas. With great compassion harvest continues after Buddhahood is reached, the nectar of compassion is realised in greater peace and joy.

2. Train the Awakening Mind

a) Train the conventional awakening mind

Banish the one to blame for everything,

Meditate on the great kindness of all beings.

Practice a combination of giving and taking.

Giving and taking should be practiced alternately

And you should begin by taking from yourself.

These two should be made to ride on the breath.

Concerning the three objections, the three poisons and three virtues,

The instruction to be followed, in short

Is to be mindful of the practice in general

By taking these words to heart in all activities.

b) Train the ultimate awakening mind

When stability has been attained, hear the secret teaching:

Consider all phenomena as like dreams,

Examine the nature of unborn awareness.

The remedy itself is released in it’s own place

Place the essence of the path on the nature of the basis of all.

In the period between sessions, be a creator of illusions.

3. Transform Adverse Circumstances

When the environment and it’s inhabitants overflow with unwholesomeness,

Transform adverse circumstances into the path of enlightenment.

Apply meditation immediately at every opportunity.

The supreme method is accompanied by the four practices.

Purifying obscurations, accumulating great merit, offering practice to the spirits and offering to the dharma protectors.

4. The Integrated Practice Of A Single Lifetime

In brief, the essence of the instruction is

To train in the five powers

The five powers themselves are Great Vehicles

Precepts on the transference of consciousness

Cultivate these paths of practice.

Determination and motivation, overcoming obstacles to practice, familiarity with extending the self for others, destruction of self cherishing attitudes, devotion through cultivating the habit of prayer.

5. The Measure Of Having Trained The Mind

Integrate all of these teachings into one thought,

Primary importance should be given to the two witnesses

Constantly cultivate only a peaceful mind.

The measure of a trained mind is that it has turned away.

There are five great marks of a trained mind

The trained mind retains control even when distracted.

A great ascetic engaging in lojang, a bodhisattva can bear much hardship for the benefit of other sentient beings, with virtue and freedom from a self cherishing attitude we exhibit great joy and become the ‘bright sun’.

6. The Commitments Of Mind Training

1. Don’t go against the mind training that you have promised to observe,

2. Don’t be reckless in your practice,

3. Don’t be partial, always train in the three general points,

4. Transform your attitude but maintain your natural behaviour,

5. Don’t speak of others incomplete qualities,

6. Don’t concern yourself with the business of others,

7. Train to encounter whichever emotion is the most disturbing,

8. Give up every hope of reward,

9. Avoid poisonous food,

10. Don’t maintain misplaced loyalty,

11. Don’t make sarcastic remarks,

12. Don’t lie in ambush,

13. Don’t strike at the vital point,

14. Don’t burden an ox with the load of a dzo,

15. Don’t abuse the practice,

16. Don’t sprint to win the race,

17. Don’t turn gods into devils,

18. Don’t seek others' misery as a means to happiness.

7. The Precepts of Mind Training

1. Every yoga should be performed as one,

2. All errors are to be amended by one means,

3. There are two activities, at beginning and at end,

4. Whichever occurs, be patient with both,

5. Guard both at the cost of your life,

6. Train in the three difficulties,

7. Seek the three principle causes,

8. Don’t let the three factors weaken,

9. Never be parted from the three possessions,

10. Train consistently without partiality,

11. Value an encompassing and far reaching practice,

12. Train consistently to deal with difficult situations,

13. Don’t rely on other conditions,

14. Engage in the principal practices right now,

15. Don’t apply a wrong understanding,

16. Don’t be sporadic,

17. Practice unflinchingly,

18. Release investigation and analysis,

19. Don’t be boastful,

20. Don’t be short-tempered,

21. Don’t make a short lived attempt,

22. Don’t expect gratitude.

Coda

Max Muller a Catholic intellectual, with a great way of telling the story of the Divine Light Within:

"The gods, having stolen man from his divinity, met in council to discuss where they should hide it. One suggested that it should be carried to the other side of the earth and buried; but it was pointed out that man is a great wanderer, and that he might find the lost treasure on the other side of the earth. Another proposed that it be dropped into the depths of the sea; but the same fear was expressed, that man, in his insatiable curiosity, might dive deep enough to find it even there.

Finally, after a space of silence, the oldest and the wisest of the gods said 'Hide it in man himself, as that is the last place he will ever think to look for it!' And so it was agreed, all seeing at once the subtle and wise strategy. Man did wander all over the earth, for ages, seeking in all places high and low, far and near, before he thought to look within himself for the divinity that he sought. At last, slowly, dimly, he began to realise that what he thought was far off, hidden in the 'pathos of distance' is nearer than the breath that he breathes, even in his own heart."

What is your model of the church?

What is your model of the church? [Dulles] created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Mystical Communion Model Your model of the church is Mystical Communion, which includes both People of God and Body of Christ. The church is essentially people in union with Christ and the Father through the Holy Spirit. Both lay people and clergy are drawn together in a family of faith. This model can exalt the church beyond what is appropriate, but can be supplemented with other models. Mystical Communion Model 84% Servant Model 67% Sacrament model 56% Herald Model 33% Institutional Model 6%