How to describe this gentle work, which seems so simple, yet yields so richly?
A journey; one foot in front of the other. Like setting out on a pilgrimage; there is excitement and anxiety, disappointment and delight, frustration and ecstasy, all curiously woven into a slightly tight coat. I have learnt, now , that I have only to sleep in this new coat a few nights and the discomfort goes away, it stretches like a new pair of shoes, until it is perfectly moulded to my body. And so I keep coming back to this seemingly, oh, so gentle work because it changes me in ways I can’t quite understand.
It appears so very ordinary on the surface; we arrive, a group of people, a mixture of ages and backgrounds. We share a little news.
After a break we begin the journey into the calendar of the year. This setting out on a journey; one foot in front of another. The familiar turns around the wheel of the year. We took paper and pencils and started to draw and to write as Sam talked us through, from Mid-Winter to Mid-Summer and back again. We learnt of Pagan festivals and Christian ones, of where they meet and complement each other. Personally, I delighted in the feasts of Mary, Mary the Virgin; her birth and death, Mary Magdalen around the same time as the Pagan Lughnasadh or harvest. I was warmed to make a connection with the flames of Pentecost in May and the Beltane fires that I am more familiar with. I could feel those eager Disciples of Christ in the upper room, sitting together as the flame of the Holy Spirit poured over and into them. To me it felt ecstatic, exquisite, filled with the sensuality and joy that I have often disassociated from Christianity and attributed to Earth based traditions. Working with the calendar in this joint way helped me to feel into the possibility that early Christianity was originally also an Earth base tradition. That early Christianity followed the wheel of the seasons and the earth, in the same way as the Pagan traditions. It’s just that now it takes some investigation to link the traditions back to the earth; but the parallels do seem to be there.
In the afternoon (after a delicious bring and share lunch) there was an opportunity to do some movement outside beneath the apple tree, make lanterns from glass and leaves and paint, or simply reflect with a walk or reading. This time is in silence and the Pagan rebel in me struggles to be with so many interesting people and not be allowed to talk with them. Or is it ‘the rules’ that I battle with? The silence has an impact on me and I imagine that each of us experiences it in our own way. Afterwards Sam led us in a guided meditation as a prelude to sharing.
The highlight of the day, for me, was the ceremony that we co- created in the afternoon; each one of us invited to make a suggestion – a song, a dance, a poem….as we lit candles to our Beloved Dead, our ancestors , the room was filled with lightly dancing emotion. It seemed to me that our ancestors were warmed by the candles, that they drew in close and listened to our breath, that they sat in near to us like excited children, thrilled to be invited to this party. The candles shimmered. There was an excitement, a tremulous joy in me to be sharing this emotion, this ritual with other human beings. It was allowed and it was true, soft, intimate and beautiful.
Then the room emptied and Sam, Beth, Jan and I were left in the loving embrace of the warm energies generated through the day. With a deep sigh, we sat down with libations of gin and tonic – the gin being a particularly special brew created from foraged botanicals on the Isle of Islay, a hunter-gatherer spirit you could say!
As I left on Sunday evening with my usual feeling of excitement, irritation, frustration and delight all woven into a slightly tight cloak; I took note of my negative feelings and wondered at this strange business of being human. I am familiar with the term ‘healing response’ where some struggle preludes a healing shift in energy. Rationally I know this is a good thing yet the immature rebel in me (is this the ego?) makes a fuss about the tightness of the coat. Moving, moving, on this journey, on this pilgrimage to the heart.
A good night sleep and the new coat is already becoming more comfortable. A new coat for the winter, it needs to be warm and it needs to be strong. The memory of those shimmering candles and the true, soft, intimate beauty will help.
We closed on the Sabbath for the fifth and final day of the year’s exploration of holding sacred space, continued our exploration of the Tree of Life and the Hebrew Bible.
We looked in more depth at the four worlds of Kabbalah summarized here in Sam’s words:
First World – Azilut (english transliteration of Hebrew) often translated as ‘nearness’ (to God) or divine emanation – the world of pure light, universal energy, represented by the colour white.
The unconditioned – awakened or enlightened consciousness. Source.
Often symbolised by the element of fire, the Tree of Life and the first Adam, Adam Kadmon
Associated with the crown (Keter) of the Tree of Life diagram and when this is visualised in the body, with the crown of the head (the awakened crown as depicted in christian art as haloes)
Second World – Beriah, often translated as the world of creation or heaven
spiritual awareness, the world of the archangels (‘birds of the air’)
and archetypal spiritual and subtle energies. Being.
Represented by the colour blue and often symbolised by the element of air. The Tree of Knowledge.
Associated with the heart (Tiferet) of the Tree diagram and the heart centre of the body.
Third World – Yetzirah, often translated as the world of formation
The world of psychological awareness, of psyche and soul (ranging from depths to shallows) self
Associated with the garden of Eden and angelic orders (‘creatures of the water’), the colour purple and
the element of water
The ‘foundation’ (Yesod) of the Tree diagram and the pelvic/sexual centre of the body.
Fourth World – Assiyah, often translated as manifestation
Physical awareness and activity, body
Represented by the colour red and the element of Earth
Associated with the Earth and the ‘garments of skin’ (in Genesis)
The base or ‘kingdom’ (Malkut) of the Tree diagram and the feet
Then we moved into a period of meditation based on the Tree of Life, but drawing these ideas into ourselves and experiencing them in our bodies.
We created our own sacred space as Sam used the words of a beautiful Kabbalistic prayer:
Let us gather together,
draw together.
Let us form a Vessel,
to catch the dew of Heaven……..
As on the previous day, I found myself deeply drawn to the idea of the Garden of the Soul, a place where our pure souls and true selves dwell. Sam’s invitation was to come back to the seed of light deep within our own being and to listen to its Calling……..what is it that I most love? What is it that I want to do? What is the seed that I need to grow in the world? I was reminded of T S Eliot. Towards the end of The Four Quartets, his wonderful and complex spiritual pilgrimage, he writes these words:
With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
We shared our rich experiences and then took a break for a welcome (and very grounding) cup of tea, followed by a second meditation which took us on an ascent through the four worlds. We started with a simple purification ceremony, washing our hands in a bowl of rosewater and then through guided meditation we then inwardly and imaginatively journeyed from our physical bodies and base in Dartington out into the cosmos. Then imagined the depths of physical space becoming the watery depths of the psyche. We imagined meeting inner creatures and swimming up to the mirrored surface of the water to look at ‘ourselves’. Passing through into the airy space of the spirit world above, we walked from the shore into the foothills to meet our inner teacher or guide. If willing we continued to the mountain peaks and into communion with the divine light, before retracing our steps and re-grounding in external reality. (Including lunch!)
In the afternoon we shared our wisdom and insights from the meditation and then move into a session of Contextual Bible Study, looking at the story of Jacob’s ladder (Genesis 28 v 10-22). CBS has many similarities with Christian Lectio Divina and Jewish PARDES (Entering the Orchard), but evolved in South Africa during the apartheid era – a very interesting bit of history worth Googling if you have the time. We read out loud and then considered the text, what caught our attention and how we felt about it. Then we considered what we knew about the historical context, the people and the places and circled back to the text for another in depth look. Finally, we reflected on the question: “How does this speak to our condition today and what can we take into our everyday lives?”. And what a feast we had with just twelve verses of text!
Our day finished with a collaborative silent blessing ritual and we anointed one another with rosewater before pouring the water in the garden as a blessing to the earth.
As this weekend concludes the first year of our journey together, I would like to end by saying that it felt for me like a true beginning. It has taken time for the group to become a community, and it has. It has taken me time personally to whole-heartedly immerse myself in the deep stream of Western spiritual tradition and to rediscover it as something beautiful, intriguing and deeply nourishing. I am finding “something whole inside this mosaic of broken pieces” (Sam’s words) and I cannot wait to continue the journey.
