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1. The author describes the Magician as representing concentration without effort, work turned into play, the yoke that is easy and the burden that is light. Where does grace fit in to this?
2. Why do you think the author links rhythm to eternity? (see page 10). How can rhythm help us to access eternity? How can rhythm be a clue to the dynamics of the spiritual life?
3. Centering Prayer promises to help create harmony between the conscious and unconscious. What other practices are you aware of that offer a similar calibration of mind and heart?
4. If you practice the spiritual exercise of “drinking silence”: Does this exercise help you to move more deeply in silence? Please share any thoughts about how the exercise went for you.
Question 1. The author describes the Magician as representing concentration without effort, work into play, the yoke that is easy and the burden that is light. Where does grace fit in to this?
Page 10-11 (in both forms of book) currently, I am in my fourth decade of my profession. My life was easy the first forty years…then BAM!!! The lessons/challenges came in many forms until the present day. Though I am happy to report life is calmer. The description of expert reminded my of the novice to expert theory/framework.
I was blessed in getting a job that is my dream job in retirement age. The Magician reminds me of the expert. Having worked and practiced my craft for forty years I can factually say I am an expert. My work in fun and easy. While I work with college age students I can relate to almost every challenge they face…so I can easily share tools that I used along my journey. I always said that the only way I have grown/survived (injustice, death of an adult child, divorce and a few other experiences) is due to my resiliency (dissertation topic), humor and the grace of God. Along with those gifts I use Self-reflection as my most effective learning tool, along with wise friends and opportunities like this class.
Probably the last ten years while teaching or coaching a student on an individual basis, ideas will pop into my head that I have never thought of before that moment. Most of the time they are out of the box and they make sense to the situation. For me this is an example of grace and the fact that I have grown, survived and appreciate the present moment are examples of God’s grace even during the times when life was at its worse and I had no idea some of the time where God was in my life. Sometimes I realize grace after the fact.
Magicians are experts…expert enough to I don’t know when they don’t know. Only a wise magician would would know that eh?
Thanks,
Faith4. I have been contemplating silence and quietude. I asked to discern the difference. I received this: silence contains all, it is whole and expansive, dynamic & profound, fully engaged in readiness for clear receptivity & reflection … quietude is inactive, withdrawn, unengaged and necessary in order to heal, it offers solace and is at peace with solitude. Silence is everywhere at once. Quietude is a secret private place within.
I think music is a wonderful analogy here. While I am not an accomplished musician, I’ve known enough musicians that they have a strong sense of being in the flow when performing, and especially when improvising (like jazz or jam rock). Thanks for a helpful way of approaching this.
What is Centering Prayer?
What is the Jesus Prayer?As one who deals with ringing in my ears, I’m having an interesting (and, yes, even fun) time exploring what silence means to me….Definitely not the absence of sound! For today my definition is about silence being a ‘space’ of receptivity – a la what you said, Aida!
Thanks great beginning with today’s meeting.
Wanted to share a quote from early Merton and contrast it with another from a latter Merton (I have to thank my husband Fr. Hugh Grant for pointing this out to me) and its relation to the dangers of the esoteric path thinking themselves above or better than the rest of the exoteric world [notice that the two experience happen near the same corner!]:
“Leaving Gethsemani I was very sad…There is a huge gap between the monastery and the world, and Louisville is a nice enough town but I wasn’t happy to be thrown back into it…There had been a big robbery on Fourth St…I couldn’t figure it out, half the time, whether it was morning or afternoon. The sign “Clown Cigarettes” on, I think, Walnut Street, made me laugh wanly. There was a lot of sun. I didn’t want to see any of the city, or any of the people…It is terrible to want to belong entirely to God, and see nothing round you but the world, and not see God…The world is beautiful with the sunlight, but the objects in the sunlight are not beautiful—they are strange.”
Thomas Merton, The Journals of Thomas Merton, ed. Hart, O.C.S.O., Patrick, Run to the Mountain: The Story of a Vocation (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), 356-357.Then years later:
“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness…the whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream. Not that I question the reality of my vocation, or my monastic life: but the conception of “separation from the world” that we have in the monastery too easily presents itself as complete illusion: the illusion that by making vows we become a different species of being, pseudoangels, “spiritual people,” people of interior life, what have you…The sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. And I suppose my happiness could have taken form in the words: “Thank God, thank God that I am like other people, that I am only a person amongst others.” To think that for sixteen or seventeen years I have been taking seriously this pure illusion that is implicit in so much of our monastic thinking…I have the immense joy of being human, a member off a race in which God’s very self became incarnate. …And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun… ”
Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (New York: Image/Doubleday, 1966), 156-158.I see this humility of the later Merton in what the author of MOTT says on page 6:
“Hermeticists know it well and do not flatter themselves to be better, to believe better, to know better or to be more competent. They do not secretly guard a religion, which to them is appropriate, to replace the existing religions, or a science to replace the current sciences, or arts to replace the fine arts of today or yesterday. That which they possess does not comprise any tangible advantage or objective superiority with regard to religion, science and art; what they possess is only the communal soul of religion, science and art.”1. The author describes the Magician as representing concentration without effort, work turned into play, the yoke that is easy and the burden that is light. Where does grace fit in to this?
This feels very related to Sahaja Samadhi (for those unfamiliar, a natural state of spontaneous effortlessness, considered a high form of realization in many yoga traditions, that trusts the flow of the moment.)
I think of the playful surrender of St Francis to grace, which led him to trust a spontaneous flow. In one story, he was with a small group and they rotated leadership as they walked, taking turns on who would decide where to turn at a crossroads. When it was one nervous friar’s turn to decide, he said to Francis that he didn’t know how to choose. Francis spun him until he was dizzy and fell to the ground. They went in the direction that he fell and their time in the next town was full of magic.
Practically, in the case of the Magician, it seems to have something to do with entering into a relaxed, balance state of trust and flow so that wisdom and wise action can come through us (ie. grace), instead of us contriving it.
and i would add that silence is the prerequisite of this state of relaxed balance, and the ground of it, if it is to go below the layer of discursive thought to the place where Spirit can express through our actions, rather than the limited or self-serving visions of our small self.
Beautiful way of putting it, Aida. Thank you. In my experience, it seems that quietude has a passivity in it, whereas resting in silence, there is an alertness — A coming to meet.
I wanted to respond to the first question, about the role of grace. I think this is a fitting reminder of the importance of humility and the fact that some “achievements” cannot be earned; they must be bestowed. The author addresses this throughout the book, but there is a tendency or temptation to force spiritual insight in service of the ego. It’s actually easier for me to relax and connect with God when I remember that I cannot force or achieve anything of value solely by my own efforts.
I agree that music is a helpful analogy, as is any skill that one can develop through practice. And the amazing paradox is that once a person achieves an expert level at whatever skill, they are able to perform in ways that make it look easy, “like magic.”
As far as where the grace is in that, I’m not quite sure. There’s an interplay between God’s action (grace) and our action that is complicated and sometimes hard to tell the difference between the two. Perhaps the grace to surrender to long hours of practice? Perhaps the grace to have the physical ability or mental acuity to even begin to practice in the first place? The grace of synchronicity that instruments, supplies, teachers, etc. are made available–“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear?” All of the above?
Reflecting on the Magician’s image and the questions on “drinking silence”, rhythm of eternity and Grace…
Last year, I was driving alone to my daughter’s house who lives about 400 miles away, and was meandering through intense driving situations that I would’ve totally been stressed out and tense in the past, however, it was the most enjoyable, stress-free driving experience I’ve ever had. Having read the Letter I, the Magician and contemplating on its image, gave me the language to describe the event. I was experiencing the “silent zone” with the Lord. The communion was so sweet and adoring that I had no desire to listen to any music or audio books. In fact, nothing could have lured me out of the fullness and the beauty of the stillness…I was “drinking silence”. Yet I was fully aware of the traffic and all of my surroundings. My inner gaze was focused in the “spaceless and timeless” divine realm. The task of driving was done with ease by my relaxed body and peaceful mind without any effort or wasted energy. It seems that my breath was in rhythmic dance with the universe. No signs of nervousness, skipping breath or heart palpitation!
That, I believe, was Grace granted to me. Thanks for reading! EsterQ2. Why do you think the author links rhythm to eternity? (see page 10). How can rhythm
help us to access eternity? How can rhythm be a clue to the dynamics of the spiritual
life?The connection to the rhythms of life in monastic communities is the first thing that comes to mind. My brain takes this to the importance of ritual to keep us oriented toward the Divine. This author takes that concept so much deeper than I’ve ever understood it, though, and makes the connection of the rhythms of life to the circulatory and respiratory systems in our actual bodies. So when the author says, “Hermeticists listen to – and now and then hear – the beating of the heart of the spiritual life of humanity”, I infer that the spiritual practices that align us with our own internal systems (heartbeat, breath, etc.) help us “hear” that rhythm in others, individually and collectively. Turning inward and connecting with our own bodies through meditation, breathwork, yoga, prayer therefore helps us *drop into* the flow of eternity and humanity) rather than *transcending outside* of something. Is this what the author means with the distinctions between esoteric and exoteric?
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