Contemplative Inquiry

I was moved yesterday by a post made by Rosamonde Ikshvaku Miller to her Gnostic Sanctuary group.

“God manifesting in any type of flesh suffers from amnesia, but only God can remember God. The human mind only deals with symbols and those may lead to remembrance. We think it is us, but it is the awakened God spark in us that may awaken and “remember” through an act of anamnesis (although somewhat different from Plato’s definition of the word). That spark doesn’t care what names we give that knowledge (gnosis) and what hair-splitting distinctions we use. There is chaos and confusion outside and stillness and clarity in the central aperture of the “eye.” What are we listening to? The outer, with its words and erudition may give us tools of communication with which we may illustrate what we try to convey or distract us, so we forget and continue going in circles chasing our tails.”

In a way this reads rather dryly, and I even had to check Wikipedia for the different meanings of anamnesis*.  Yet I was affected almost to the point of overwhelm, before moving into a calmer period with an undertow of ecstasy.  The triggers were the words about forgetting, remembering and the awakened spark (in me).  I was beyond belief and skepticism alike.  Just very at home.  And I sat with it, this morning, in the nurturing dark.  And I seemed to experience a new centre of gravity, in my sitting.  Words are tricky, as the piece above makes clear.  Yet, for me, they can and do matter – when they truly evoke something that is ready to be called.

*Plato says that in the shock of birth, the soul forgets its previous incarnations and everything it has learned.  Anamnesis is the recovery of knowledge.  In Christian traditions, including Gnostic ones, anamnesis is the memorial aspect of the Eucharist, and of the passion, resurrection and ascension of Christ.