Spirituality | Contemplative Inquiry

Sufism is often referred to as the Way of the Heart. Hazrat Inayat Khan was a Sufi teacher and musician from Gujarat, India, who took his teaching to the West in the early 20th century. His combination of spiritual teaching, philosophy and music was normal in this culture and tradition. In his own life and work, Hazrat Inayat Khan created a Universal Sufi movement independent of its Islamic origins, though always inspired by them. Practitioners from his movement created the Dances for Universal Peace.

The image above is the Ace of Cups from Ayeda Husain’s The Sufi Tarot (1). Ayeda Hussain is a teacher in the Ineyatiyya, a global organisation dedicated to Universal Sufism as taught by Hazrat Inayat Khan. She sees Sufism and Tarot as two systems of healing and transformation that can be valuably brought together. She treats Tarot as a vehicle for spiritual teaching, going so far as to include contemplations and affirmations for each card.

Referring to her Ace of Cups, she says: ‘In Sufi poetry, the cup is the heart that must be emptied before the beloved can pour the Divine nectar into it. Just as a cup that is filled cannot be poured into, neither can a heart filled with limiting impressions. The work of the mystic then, is to clear impressions that clutter and cloud the heart, so that it may be able to receive. As the heart opens, we become aware of new offers and opportunities in both love and spiritual growth’.

I came to The Sufi Tarot by an indirect route. When I began working with my Ceile De (2) beads, I didn’t at first expect to use them for mantra meditation and I looked at a collection of fuinn (sacred chants) as an option for working with the beads. Fuinn tend to be brief and I thought that a single fonn might work for me. They are in Scottish Gaelic and frequently use heart language, as in:

Gun tigeadh, solas nan solas

(Goon tee-guch, sol-us nan sol-us)

Air mo chridhe

(Air mo chree)

This translates into English as Come light of lights, to my heart.

I found this fonn beautiful though somehow not right for my purpose. But the phrase air mo chridhe would not leave me. As soon as I heard it, in the old language, it needed no translation, and I felt I had known it forever.

What I did in my own practice, having decided on the Soham mantra for the beads, was to create a version of the modern Druid peace prayer as a love prayer.

Deep within my innermost being, may I find love.

Silently in the stillness of this space, may I nurture love.

Heartfully, in the wider web of life, my I live in love.

Now using this prayer, I felt the desire for friendly guidance in this work of the heart. I felt prompted to search for ‘Sufi Tarot’, and was surprised when came up immediately. When I received the pack, I was quickly reassured that I had had been given what I asked for. I look forward to this new thread within my contemplative inquiry.

(1) Ayeda Husain The Sufi Tarot Carlsbad, CA; New York, NY; London; Sydney; New Delhi: Hay House, 2022. Art team Nazish Abbas, Hassaan Aftab, Momina Khan

(2) https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2025/01/14

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January 18, 2025

LATE WINTER: REGENERATION

In the picture above, birch catkins are gaining strength. It is a bleak and cold early afternoon. The tree trunks sit in quiet latency. But new life is stirring all the same.

In the wheel of the year, winter is the season both of dying and regeneration. Late winter my be the coldest time of year, but the turn has been made and the days are already lengthening. Imbolc, which once marked the first lambing season of the year for our ancestors, is on its way.

Four years ago (1) I wrote a post in which I described the place of Birch (Beith) in the Irish Ogham alphabet, and its link with new beginnings and the need for careful preparation in any new endeavour. In Northern runic tradition Birch (Beorc, Berkana) is identified with the young Goddess, sexuality and birth, as well as beauty and creativity in general. At the time of writing I was working with a mandala of 16 trees in which Birch was my tree from 1-22 February. It continues to be an important tree in my life.

Now, my emphasis is different. I started by reflecting on a group of birch trees planted just outside our building. I can see them now out of a balcony widow. There are five in this space, somewhat sheltered between two buildings. They are the nearest thing to a grove in this urban setting. They are still young and have only recently reached the second floor level where we live. They seem vulnerable, shallow-rooted. When we have high winds, I expect them to blow down. They bend a long way. But they haven’t broken or fallen yet.

They are our neighbours. Elaine and I walk among them often. They are a good place for her when she re-learns walking after her accident and its complications. She first noticed the catkins and pointed them out to me weeks ago, when they were tiny. The picture above, which I took today, shows how much they have managed to grow in these apparently unpromising winter weeks.

(1) https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2021/02/01/birch-new-beginning/

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January 14, 2025

WORKING WITH BEADS

Recently I wrote about the balanced cross (1), linking it to the paidirean (pahj-urinn) prayer beads of the Ceile De (Culdees), a modern monastic order based in Scotland. This post is about the beads and my work with them. Beads like this were part of the original Ceile De tradition and are known to have been used in the days of Columcille (St. Columba).

There are 150 beads, each about 5 mm wide. They are made of unstained rosewood and were left immersed in rose damask oil for a month. As well as scenting the beads, the oil gives the beads a pinkish colour. A cross hangs from the beads – at heart level when worn as a necklace.

Each Paidirean is ceremonially strung in Scotland by a Ceile De Order member. The process takes two hours and involves prayer, meditation and continuous chanting during the stringing. Then a blessing is spoken over the completed Paidirean which is anointed with water and with oil from a local holy well, used for at least 1500 years. The Paidirean is an object of power as well as beauty.

I am not a member of the Ceile De, and when I acquired the Paidirean they knew that I would work with the beads in my own way. I bring together meditation and prayer. I work with the Soham mantra, with Satish Kumar’s understanding (2) that it means ‘you are, therefore I AM’. Whilst I am mindful to my breath, to the mantra and to the movements of the beads, mindfulness is a means and not the purpose of the practice.

The purpose is to make an offering to Spirit – an offering from one lamp to the light, one wave to the ocean. After some hesitation and experiment, I have adopted the word Spirit, rather than Goddess or God, to address the Divine. It is more universal and inclusive as, for me, befits a panentheist view. In making my offering, I am aware that Soham also works laterally, including relations between all beings within the web of life, just as the Druid prayer speaks of ‘the love of all existences’. Ultimately, we are recognising the divinity in each other.

Spirit is not beyond us in some other realm. It is here, now, and everywhere. When I work with the beads, I am making both an offering and an affirmation.

(1) https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2025/01/04/the-balanced-cross

(2) Satish Kumar You Are therefore I AM: A Declaration of Dependence Totnes: Green Books, 2002

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January 12, 2025

SIGNS OF LIFE IN A WINTER KINGDOM

I am in a place and time of cold beauty. Beside the Gloucester-Sharpness canal, the water margin looks like a scene of suspended animation.

It isn’t true. There are fish in the water, underneath the ice. Trees are preparing for spring, protected by their bark. In the picture below evidence of the sun is seen on a tree trunk and on the thawing waters of the canal.

In woodlands beside the canal, I find an iced up inlet where the surrounding ivy lives up to its evergreen name. This small enclosed spot feels strongly alive, the frozen waters an adornment rather than a contrast.

Returning to the Docks, I notice that the seagulls aren’t acting as the confident, aggressively resourceful selves that I expect. The are neither at work, busily scavenging, or at play, gleefully flying or enjoying the water. They seem a bit bewildered by the thin ice that they are standing on.

On this walk I’m connecting rather than communing. I’m outwardly rather than inwardly focused, oriented to narrative and incident. There are different ways of observing and today I want to connect with the world and feel that I am part of it. I am endlessly fascinated with this small territory and the way it changes as the Wheel turns, and seasons come and go.

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January 9, 2025

BLUE SKY, RETURNING SUN

When I walked out this morning, my fingers felt cold inside their gloves. Visually I enjoyed the interplay of strong light and strong shade. The sky overhead was blue. Without seeing it directly I felt the presence of the sun. When I did find it and stepped into its path I found it dazzling and warm. I hadn’t expected the warmth. When I checked the temperature I noticed that it was rising, though not by much.

This, for me, was the sign that the sun was back after the long Midwinter moment that marks the turn of the year where I live. It helped that we were free of fog, rain and snow. Whatever comes next, Ì can tell myself that I have lived to greet another rising year together with my wife Elaine. A moment to cherish and celebrate.

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December 17, 2024

WINTER SOLSTICE BLESSINGS

Midwinter roses

with understated elegance

Offer their Solstice blessings.

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December 17, 2024

THE SUN SETS ON 2024

It is very close to the turn of the year. The sun is now setting on 2024. The sunset pictures above and below are from 15 December at 4pm, taken from a balcony window. Vivid imagery after long days of sunless grey. It feels weird and alien, almost as if I’m looking out on another planet. 2024 has often felt like that, at times beautiful, at times scary and disorienting, at times a test of endurance.

Looking back at 2024 in a seasonal but non-festive way, I find a hard year with extraordinary moments. Personally, it was dominated by my wife Elaine’s accident in Gran Canaria and her gradual and ongoing recovery. A roller coaster of a year. Currently I feel good about my spiritual inquiry and practice, which I experience as a great blessing. But I do not want to impose any expectations on 2025. Let the new year be what it will.

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December 6, 2024

LIGHTS IN DARKNESS

Stars in a night sky. Candles in a dark room. Cleverly crafted decorations for Yule. These, for me, are ideal images of light in winter. When I came into Druidry, I was moved by the liturgical use of the phrase ‘the illumination of lights’. In a reality of many lights, which can also be a reality of one light and many lamps, the light is not overwhelming.

Darkness makes light bearable when containing a plurality of lights. There is space for freedom here, and likewise space for relationship and connection. This winter, I am not energetically hibernating, as I sometimes do. I find myself going deeply into Innerworld landscapes and connections in a way I have become unused to in recent years. Yet I do not feel alone or self-absorbed. I feel like a little light in a field of lights, each contributing its own individual illumination to the field, whist nested in a nurturing dark. It feels like the right focus for the time of year, and the end of 2024.

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November 27, 2024

FAITH

In my Druid circle, I associate the northern quarter with faith. The quality and context of faith are not defined. They could simply mean faith in the practice and path. My contemplative inquiry overall has tended towards a stance of ‘sacred agnosticism’ (1), in which faith is not emphasised. This has served me in many ways. I have avoided mixing up the idea of ‘faith’ with affiliation to authoritarian movements, mandated beliefs, or the surrender of self-responsibility and personal discernment. I have been alert to the metaphysical group think and consensus collusion that can show up in any spiritual movement (other kinds of movement too). I have done my best to gather and evaluate information skilfully, when developing principles about how to live ethically and gracefully in an increasingly scary world.

And yet … this is not the whole story, or I would feel spiritually malnourished. In recent months I have experienced a strong felt sense of the divine. When I describe myself as ‘living presence in a field of living presence in a more than human world’ – an animist identification – the identification now seems more than animist, though the animism is still there. I pray more congruently to the Goddess as Ancient Mother and talk, less anthropomorphically, about the ‘bubbling source from which I spring’. The Divine is beyond name, form or description – and some people prefer a specialist, capitalised use of rather abstract terms like Consciousness, Awareness, Void, Ground of Being. But the ones from my own practice are the ones that work for me. They come from the intuitive heart and the imagination. To me they offer a deeper knowing, though I am personally cautious about the use of the word gnosis. For me, it can reduce the sense of mystery, banishing the creative role of faith itself.

I have become a provisional panentheist, experiencing intimations of a divine which is everywhere and no-where, and from which we are not separate. This partly reprises work I did in the earlier days of my inquiry using the framework of non-duality. Now I find panentheism a better term than non-duality for affirming both the divine and the world. The earth spirituality in the Druid tradition is in no way compromised by a panentheist perspective. If anything it is enhanced.

(1) See https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2024/02/16/sacred-agnos

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November 15, 2024

PRE-SUNSET: A WALK IN THE PARK

It’s about 3.45 pm on Thursday 14 November. For a few precious days there has been blue sky and a visible sun in my neighbourhood. But the days themselves are short and the sun is already falling in the sky. Its rays are brightly visible and they beautifully catch the leaves – those still on their trees, and those already on the ground. But much of the ground, apart from the carefully tended green lawns, is darker and more shadowy. It feels like a last hurrah of autumn before it gives way to winter.

I enjoy the park and the way that it is laid out. It is highly used and valued, and an important lung for the city. I am glad to have it here in Gloucester. Today is a quiet time, good for contemplation. It is easy to walk to from where I live and a good place to be with the land and the trees. My visits don’t require long periods of time or present much physical challenge. This is good for me at a time when I am unavailable for heroic physical journeys but very open to the magic of what is.

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Contemplative Inquiry

Tag: Spirituality

January 21, 2025

THE WAY OF THE HEART

January 18, 2025

LATE WINTER: REGENERATION

January 14, 2025

WORKING WITH BEADS

January 12, 2025

SIGNS OF LIFE IN A WINTER KINGDOM

January 9, 2025

BLUE SKY, RETURNING SUN

December 17, 2024

WINTER SOLSTICE BLESSINGS

December 17, 2024

THE SUN SETS ON 2024

December 6, 2024

LIGHTS IN DARKNESS

November 27, 2024

FAITH

November 15, 2024

PRE-SUNSET: A WALK IN THE PARK