UNCONQUERED SUN
Yesterday’s post from the Antinous for Everybody blog,
The obscure, mysterious Mother
bears the radiant, obvious Son.
He is glorious in His self-giving,
triumphant sacrifice, but She
is the necessary ground
of His being and of ours.
Contemplative Inquiry
This blog is about contemplative inquiry
Tag: contemplation
December 26, 2014
December 17, 2014
ELAINE KNIGHT – ESOTERIC ART AT I:MAGE
This post is about the esoteric art of my partner Elaine Knight, and in particular her work as artist-in-residence for the I:MAGE 2014 held in October/November this year. Elaine writes:
I want to thank Robert Ansell and FULGUR ESOTERICA for the vision and creation of I:MAGE and the opportunity to be artist in residence during I:MAGE 2014. http://fulgur.co.uk/
I:MAGE 2014 explored what it means to communicate with spirits through art. It sought to glimpse a unifying theme across different esoteric practices. I had been commissioned to produce a talismanic piece for the journal Abraxas and I used my I:MAGE residency to do this.
Here are the words given to me by my some of my fellow travellers with unfamiliar spirits at I:MAGE 2014.
MAGIC MAGIC MAGIC WILL FIRE EVOLVE WHITE FIRE CELEBRATING WOMENS WORK PERSONAL SHINING BLUE OLD COMMUNITY HISTORY COMMUNALITY MODERN OUTPOURING BLUE CAPTIVATING EYEOPENING EXCITING MAGICAL LAYERED CHROMATIC MANIFESTATION BLOT NUMINOUS OTHERNESS ENCHANTING ILLUMINATING CROSSROADS INTRIGUING EXHILARATING TRANSFORMATIONAL PINPOINT SQUARE IMAGINATIVE VISCERAL TRANSCENDANT NORSE FAMILIAR CRENELLATION POTENTIAL DESERT SKULL
48 words.
A mere homeopathic sample from the various throngs of people who attended the I:MAGE event over these two weeks.
9 circles for these words and the central circle contains the I:MAGE bind rune.
The 9 circles are a homage to the nine worlds of Norse mythology.
The spirit of I:MAGE is a wonderful picture taken by Robert Ansell’s co curator Livia Filotico and used with her permission in the the arms of the equal and balanced cross.
I sought to gather and unify in the creation of my talismanic design generated by the event.
The Cross and the Circle.
The nine circles.
Energised from the four directions with the spirit of I:MAGE.
Gifted words to the power of three and one Rune to bind them.
Here is the heiros gamos, spirit and matter combine, each fertilises the other.
Recently I lit five candles to sit and contemplate in the fading light of a midwinter day. This arrangement was an echo of this talisman’s design.
The Concept
http://fulgur.co.uk/image/concept/
My Proposal
Here too is a link to pages 118-119 in the exhibition catalogue which explains a bit about me and what I am doing on this residency.
http://issuu.com/fulguresoterica/docs/image_2014/119?e=6507208/9770393
My dedicated residency websitewww.image2014twus.tumblr.com
My art blog at http://elaineknight.tumblr.com/
December 16, 2014
POEM: WEPWAWET
Another poem from the collection ‘Moon Poets: Six Pagan poets’ published by Moon Books and edited by Trevor Greenfield. This one is by Robin Herne, “educator, poet, storyteller, artist, dog-owner and Druid”, whose passion for mythologies extends beyond the Celtic world to the ancient Greek and (as in this poem) Egyptian cultures. Robert’s public blog can be found at http://roundtheherne.blogspot.co.uk/
The collection as a whole also includes work by Lorna Smithers, Tiffany Chaney, Romany Rivers, Martin Pallot and Beverley Price.
Wepwawet
Awaken in peace
Beloved of the sun.
Awaken in peace
Follower of the moon.
Desert wanderer
Maker of tracks
In the pathless wastes
Grey light in a red land.
The door is bolted to me
Confined within my mind.
Opener of the ways,
Unlock what I cannot.
Let me ride besides you
In the barque of Re,
Worlds open before us.
Danger abounds, my soul yearns!
Howling in the darkness,
I shiver to your hot breath.
Let me be open, let me be open
And live, let me not sleep.
Robin Herne writes: “the Egyptian deity Wepwawet is known as the Opener of the Ways, and stands at the head of the sun god’s ship unlocking the doors that lead into Dwat, the Underworld, as the sun goes down in the west, and opening the doors back into the land of the living as the sun rises in the East. Establishing Egyptian metre is difficult owing to the uncertainty over precisely how words should be pronounced. However, surviving examples of poetry make use of frequently repeated phrases, much like musical refrains.”
December 15, 2014
THE MYSTIC SENSE
In his book on Zen Paganism (1), Tom Swiss has a chapter called The Mystic Sense. He includes Mystic, a poem by D.H. Lawrence.
They call all experiences of the
senses mystic, when the
experience is considered.
So an apple becomes mystic
when I taste in it
the summer and the snows, the
wild welter of earth
and the insistence of the sun.
Swiss notes, “one specific, wonderful deep type of beauty comes … from the perception of a relationship between our immediate subjective experience and the broader world”. He adds that depending on our social conditioning and religious training we may come to conceptualise this in terms like ‘cosmic consciousness’, ‘the presence of the divine’, ‘the perception of emptiness’, a feeling of ‘oneness with the universe’, or of ‘sacredness’ or an experience of ‘no-mind’. They are all expressions of the mystical sense, and we have entered a period in which we can let go of any residual belief that this sense is a rare possession, or the exclusive province of a few spiritual specialists and champions.
The way we make meaning and find a language for such experiences may still be heavily conditioned by culture and still be used to justify the truth of dogmas that have in reality “only provided a filter” and “determined what color glasses” we are wearing when we “behold the Clear Light”. But behold it we do, in many different ways, and “with practice we can develop this sense”. Indeed we can “even manage to perceive the mystical experience from multiple perspectives, to swap the glasses for a couple of different colors”. In this context, Swiss reminds us that “this is one of the goals of ceremonial magic, as practised by occultists and Pagans” and not at all confined to still, meditative states.
- Swiss, Tom (2013) Why Buddha touched the earth: Zen Paganism for the 21st. century Stafford, UK: Megalithica books
December 12, 2014
SWEET AWEN: A POEM
Sweet Awen
sing me a song
of direction
down hills,
over terraces,
past old mills
and factories.
Sing me a song
of poppies and bees
where the bramble
unbridled roams
hedgerows with ease.
Sing me a song
where the first fruits
are born by the light
of a sun who has never
known war.
Sing me a song
where loss no longer
beats like a smith
at her forge
in the summer’s heat.
Sing me the years
that I’ll never meet.
Sweet Awen
sing to me
my impossibilities.
A poet’s take on Awen, in the traditional sense of poetic and vatic inspiration, written by Lorna Smithers who is a poet and Druid based in Lancashire. This poem is from the collection ‘Moon Poets: Six Pagan poets’ published by Moon Books and edited by Trevor Greenfield. The collection also includes work by Robin Herne, Tiffany Chaney, Romany Rivers, Martin Pallot and Beverley Price.
December 11, 2014
AWEN SPACE
I’ve heard it said that attempting to describe actual spiritual practice is folly. It’s like pinning up butterflies for display – you retain the husk whilst losing the flight. But sometimes the endeavour seems worth the risk. I want to talk about the group practice of ‘awen space’ that forms a part of my Druidry.
My local contemplative Druid group met for two hours last Tuesday, 9 December. We connect for two hours in the afternoon on the second Tuesday of every month, except for May and November – a pattern that has now lasted for just over a year. In those months we meet for a full Saturday, sometime after the festivals of Beltane and Samhain. The days offer the advantage of time for a greater variety of practice, the presence of people from outside our local catchment area, and an introductory space for new members. 19 people are now at least provisionally involved, and we have decided to close the group. The Tuesday sessions offer a greater sense of continuity, a more intimate atmosphere, and even greater focus and simplicity. Attendance currently fluctuates between five and nine. This week eight of us were present.
Our usual structure for a two hour session tends to be
- Pre-meeting for greetings and refreshments
- Entry into sacred space through a brief ritual opening
- Group check in
- A period of silent sitting meditation (about 20 minutes)
- A move into the awen field (for about 35-40 minutes)
- Group check-out
- Exit from sacred space
- Farewells
Although our use of ritual is lean and parsimonious, it is a very important part of this process. It is the first step in making our attention intentional, and in turning a domestic hearth into a nemeton. Over time, we have tended to favour putting our personal check-ins and check-outs within the nemeton, since we are entering into sacred relationship as well as sacred space, tuning into each other as part of the practice – not just as a preliminary or warm-up. We use a talking stick process for this, to emphasise the intentional and ritualised aspect of what we are doing.
I think of the awen space as being the most distinctive part of the session. We enter the space through a repeated chanting of awen – how much, or whether we ‘cascade’, depends on our sense of the moment – and then enter silence, consciously together rather than meditating side by side as in the simple sitting meditation that precedes this practice. We may maintain this collective and relational silence or we may choose to sing, chant or say things. In this sense it is an interactive practice albeit a subtle one. It is most powerful when we can hold back from entering into actual dialogue and exchange whilst at the same time moving with the current of communication and relationship which we are generating both through our silence and our utterance. There’s a fine point of balance and tension here. When the awen space is over – it’s over, so it’s not strictly timed. There’s a person whose job it is to lead us both into and out of the space and they make the call. Usually it reflects everyone’s sense of the appropriate ending. We chant awen on our way out of this space as well as into it.
In this context we experience awen, Druidry’s subtle magic, as an energetic field in which we are inspired to be more open and receptive to each other – and at times to find authentic here-and-now language for our felt sense of co-presence and connection within an enlivened space. So it’s something within and between us when we are together, not so much a lightning flash from above. Sometimes our experience completely flows; sometimes it’s more halting. The space gives us a mirror, say rather an echo, of what we bring to it on the day. The physical space matters too – on Tuesday it was a space of wood burner glow and tiny lights in a deepening dusk, and a circle of people working gently together. For me, the feeling-tone and the imagery of this space, lodged in the shifting ever-now of memory, are my key reference point for ‘contemplative Druidry’ as a unique spiritual note. And I am made even more grateful to be able to practice in this way with a group of good companions.
December 4, 2014
TREE AT MY WINDOW PICTURES
The cup I talked about in my previous post was made by Jitka Palmer – website http://www.jitkapalmer.co.uk/
Here are some images of the cup:
December 4, 2014
TREE AT MY WINDOW
Last Saturday I went with my partner Elaine to an art trail in Bristol – a weekend event in which artists open their homes to the public to look at their work, and special street maps are made to help us find our way around. In one of life’s small magic moments, Elaine discovered a tea cup whose imagery really drew her, by a ceramicist (also sculptor and painter) we were visiting, and I bought it for her. It illustrates a poem by Robert Frost – Tree at My Window.
Tree at my window, window tree,
My sash is lowered when night comes on;
But never let there be curtain drawn
Between you and me.
Vague dream-head lifted out of the ground,
And thing next most diffuse to cloud,
Not all of your light tongues talking aloud
Could be profound.
But, tree, I have seen you taken and tossed,
And if you have seen me when I slept,
You have seen me when I was taken and swept
And all but lost.
That day she put our heads together,
Fate had her imagination about her,
Your head so much concerned with outer,
Mine with inner, weather.
December 3, 2014
ROSA DAVIS: A VISION
Rosa Davis is a member of our local contemplative Druid group and a mentor for Bards and Ovates in OBOD (the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids). She is also an artist who works in felt, and she has agreed to let me post one of her images. For our group, the contemplative path very much includes contemplative arts. For many of us it also includes subtle energetics and its poetry.
December 2, 2014
KABIR & BHAKTI: THE ECSTASY OF DEVOTION
A weaver by trade but a poet-singer by calling, Kabir lived in fifteenth century India. His philosophy incorporated various beliefs of both Muslims and Hindus and later became one of the major influences behind Sikhism. Like Rumi, further to the west and generations earlier, he followed a devotional and ecstatic path, and like Rumi he was a bridge builder between traditions. The poem below expresses the spirit in his spirituality.
Have you heard the music that no fingers enter into?
Far inside the house
Entangled music – what is the sense of leaving your house?
Suppose you scrub your ethical skin until it shines,
But inside there is no music,
Then what?
Mohammed’s son pores over words, and points out this
And that,
But if his chest is not soaked with love,
Then what?
The Yogi comes along in his famous orange.
But if inside he is colourless, then what?
Kabir says: Every instant that the sun us risen,
If I stand in the temple, or on a balcony,
In the hot fields, or in a walled garden,
My own Lord is making love with me.
Kabir Ecstatic poems Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1992 (The English translations are free enough for Robert Bly to call them ‘versions by Robert Bly’. There is an earlier set of translations published by MacMillan in New York in 1915 by Rabindranath Tagore assisted by Evelyn Underhill under the title Songs of Kabir – now republished by in the BiblioBazaar Reproduction Series. Whilst I don’t follow Bly in calling the English of the earlier work “useless”, I do find that Bly’s interpretation has more passion and power. The Bly work includes an insightful afterword Kabir and the transcendental Bly by John Stratton Hawley).
Contemplative Inquiry 