December 1 - 7: All and Everything: Oneness in Christ
"The Tetragrammaton in The Human Heart" from Jacob Böhme's Libri Apologetici, which he describes: "For we men have one book in common which points to God. Each has it within himself, which is the priceless name of God. Its letters are the flames of God's love, which God out of God's heart in the priceless Name of Jesus has revealed in us. Read these letters in your hearts and spirits and you have books enough. All the writing of the children of God direct you unto that one book, for therein lie all the treasures of wisdom.This book is Christ in you."
Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel.
- Matthew 1:23
"All Truth has to do with knowledge of the teaching given by Christ, and all Good has to do with the love of God and the love of one's neighbor. … What [a man] is or does, he must hold to the Truth he has received and keep it alive in him."
- Maurice Nicoll, The Mark, pp. 33-34
Arising As Embodied Life
We introduced our year with its emphasis on three-centered embodiment with the following opening message:
Shortly before Mr. Gurdjieff died, he taught Rina Hands, one of his young female English students a precise wisdom practice:
"Feel in all the body.
Sense in all the body.
Do often.
"Three aspects from this wise maxim call to our attention:
First, notice that Mr. Gurdjieff does not just say "feel the body" or "sense the body." He says in all. This is most interesting and points to the fact that we have different centers of the body and multiple dimensions of the body.
Second, notice that Mr. Gurdjieff also draws a distinction between feeling and sensing. Why might this be?
And third. This is a practice that one must repeat. Like our daily practice of Centering Prayer, being here in the body, feeling in all and sensing in all the body, must be done often. If we wish to be here in and as these bodies, we must at least do this: feel and sense in all the body.
We will spend much of this year exploring why and how we are invited to feel and sense in all of the body. And to begin our journey we will locate our bodies within the larger scale of the cosmos, knowing that as it is above, so it is below. We will begin our focus on being here as these embodied beings by looking up and raising our awareness into the heavens above and beyond us. And from there we will move our attention toward our lived experience as embodied beings.
And thus, we did so. Here's a brief overview of the territory we explored in 2022:
Part One: Manifested Body
During January-February we began our conversation on life in our body, being here on this planet, locating our human embodied experience in the Great Cosmos. As above, so below. We explored the Ray of Creation and the Side Octave and moved to understand the nature of our human centers, intellectual, emotional and instinctive-moving, and how they can be harmonized and thus, spiritualized as a Microcosmos within the Megalocosmos.
Part Two: Time Body
During March-April we delved into an exploration of our time-body, with particular Work on the body as it relates to our ancestors, lineage, memories, imagination and trauma so to bring the healing light of conscious awareness and divine love into the deep, often unconscious, stream of our time-body.
Part Three: Relating Body
During April-May we explored the ways in which our body and centers are involved in our patterns of relating to others, including topics such as the Law of Three, and its application to reconciliation, communication, conflict resolution, devotion, and relatedness to material possessions.
Part Four: Transforming Body
During June-August we explored the vast and profoundly important subjects of silence, presence, grace and human sexual energies. Then, we moved to some very simple transforming practices related to ordinary noticing, attending, breathing, postures and gestures, eating and creating.
Part Five: Higher Body
During September-October we pondered the possibilities of human development and transformation, including Real I, Man #4, 5, 6 and 7, higher levels of consciousness, theosis, and the second conscious shock.
Part Six: Christic Body
And now, during November-December we conclude our year focusing on being here as fully-embodied beings intent on the possibility of our transformation into the Body of Christ – ourselves becoming part of the Conscious Circle of Humanity, becoming love-incarnate in the oneness of Christ, for the sake of the whole world.
A Look Back and to The Future
In 2005, the Church's annual aim and theme was "Regeneration"; the image, the Tetragrammaton. Now, we know that regeneration occurs through an Octave – an ascending Work Octave, the Octave of Transformation or Regeneration (see email dated October 5, 2022). Included in the 2005 announcement was the following message:
We live in extraordinary times amidst an extraordinary community. The state of sleeping humanity and the world appears increasingly dark, increasingly uncertain. At no time has there been so much … and so little. The ache of the world as it suffers in unconsciousness, chaos, greed, debt, brutality, oppression and destruction is ever about us reflected in the … media, in policies that ignore the plight of many, in stratospheric debt … and everywhere there is the pressure for more and more. In these and in countless other small – and not so small ways – the world presses against us. An awful solemnity is upon the earth, the last vestige of earthly security is gone. [The Quaker Thomas Kelley noted in the 1940s]: It has always been gone. …
But, within us there is another possibility. … It is the real and living possibility of being in the Kingdom of Heaven, even now. … the call for each of us is to move deeper into our hearts, into the Source of Love and live faith-filled lives grounded in Truth. For this we have help – we have our intention and our study and practice – and we have one another. And we have Grace.
This year we continue our journey to move deeper together and to know the Living Word and give birth to something New.
Thus, our wish for regeneration has been there for a long time; this year it bore fruit in new ways of manifestation – indeed, due to the circumstances of our world in these last 2 ½ years, what was a small local highly intentional group is now a worldwide circle of intention, Work and devotion. The principles are the same; the expressions and the community evolving.
May it be that going forward we gain ever-new insights into the meaning of the great allegories, parables, symbols, traditions and teaching of the lineage that has been, is now, and ever shall be and couple it with the evolving understandings of the sciences about our cosmos.
Jacob Böhme, a barely literate 17th century German shoemaker, Thomas Keating, a 20th century American monk, G. I. Gurdjieff, a 19th-20th century Armenian-Russian seeker and mystic, Maurice Nicoll, a 20th century English physician, Bernadette Roberts, a 20th century American ex-nun and grandmother: these are a prominent few in our lineage. Grace always was, is now, and always will be with us.
We conclude with a gift from Mr. Gurdjieff:
December 28, 1948
"My 14-year-old son is the only child at the small gathering in the evening. After dinner, around midnight, Gurdjieff gives advice, 'I wish give real Christmas present. Imagine Christ. Somewhere in space is.' Mr. Gurdjieff forms an oval with both his hands. 'Make contact. Not to center, but to outside, periphery. Draw from there, draw in, I. Settle in you, Am. Do every day. Wish to become Christ. Become. Be.'
"Then the chapters 'My Father' and 'My First Teacher' from Mr. Gurdjieff's second series of writings, Meetings with Remarkable Men, are read. My older son, condensed and shining, is still able to hand out candies around 4:00 in the morning."
Louise Goepfert March, The Gurdjieff Years 1929-1949, p. 107
….
May our Work this year have served to build up the Great Cosmic Accumulator of higher influences for the benefit of ourselves and all worlds.
Amen.
Homework
As our curriculum year draws near to a close, you are invited to ponder throughout Advent and the holiday season:
"What [a man] is or does, he must hold to the Truth he has received and keep it alive in him": What is the Truth you have received this year? How will you keep it alive? The acclaimed theologian, author and priest Ron Rolheiser once remarked: "Falling in love [attracted attention] is the easy part; learning to love [self-observation and non-identification] is the hard part; and living in love [Self-remembering] is the best part." True now and always wherever we are in the spiritual journey.
Scroll through The Journey School glossary: pause at any terms that you may not understand; read slowly; wish to know, to understand, to Be.
Take in Mr. Gurdjieff's "real Christmas present." Practice it. If you have his book Meetings with Remarkable Men, read the chapters "My Father" and "My First Teacher." Savor our Christmas present.
Maurice Nicoll once noted, "The chief preliminary voluntary act – and it needs to be lifelong in its voluntariness – towards the inner spirit, the source and conveyor of meaning, is that of affirmation. Only by this act does all that is outward, external and dead become connected with what is internal and alive. This is the chief of all psychological acts. It is the preliminary and, at the same time, the continually renewable act whereby psychology, in the deepest sense – that is, the science of personal evolution – begins. The final goal, far ahead, is the unity of oneself. … Affirmation is not by argument but by understanding" (The Mark, p. 28). You are invited to craft an affirmation borne of your new understanding to close the Octave of this year.
How am I to serve in "reciprocal maintenance" for all I have received?
Please note our upcoming schedule:
Final 2022 Class, Thursday, December 8th. If you are participating in a Journey Group or a Work Partner relationship, you may wish to have a time of celebratory gratitude in order to close the Octave of your time together. These relationships also come to closure on December 8th.
"The Glorious Impossible," Thursday, December 15th (coming soon: Look for details in the Friday email and on the Church's website). You are invited to attend and have your hearts enlivened.
Registration for 2023 Journey School offerings: Beginning January 2, 2023; last day to register to participate in a Journey Group, a Work Partner relationship, or to be an Oblate: January 29, 2023.
"Introduction to The Journey School" informational class, January 12, 2023, 7:00-8:00 PM CST. Details to come.
December Practice: Opening An Advent Calendar
This Advent, we hearken back to a classic practice that many of us enjoyed in childhood. Aim to purchase an Advent calendar and consciously open or mark each day in the morning hours. Some Advent calendars have chocolate in them behind each calendar day's door. Nevertheless, even an ordinary calendar can be used to consciously begin each day of the Advent journey. Also, consider pairing a daily Advent reader with this moment with the Advent calendar. Say a prayer. Connect with gratitude. Give thanks. Send loving thoughts in prayer to others. Prepare to celebrate the Light of the World, in all its glorious expressions.
Each year The Atlantic publishes its Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar which offers a new breathtaking image of our universe each day until Christmas. You may follow the link for more information.
Attend The Journey School Thursday Class Tonight: All are encouraged and welcome to attend tonight's class for a review of these teachings and, importantly, to produce a container of beings seeking to be more conscious and whose efforts assist one another: 7:00 pm Central Time via Zoom only.
