Holy Mutuality

Dear friends,  

We are discovering that presence has many flavors. We have touched holy silence, holy indifference and last time we explored holy mutually.  You will recall many of you felt a curious alive soft presence between you. This arose because you stayed with your own experience. This greatly challenges the normal view that mutuality comes from leaving your own experience and relating, identifying with, merging with, rescuing the other. It is indeed a  mystery that presence, being present to your immediate experience, opens up a field of mutuality, of joy, of intimacy with your friend. This reminds us again that the simple power of learning to stay with our embodied experience is the mysterious opening. We also explored that this radical discovery challenges many of our cherished ideas, beliefs about what it means to be close, supportive of loved ones. 

So once again it is so important to recognize that this is a patient practice that we do as faithfully as we can. No superego here. Along the way we discover we are on a journey. First we have tastes of presence and we begin to realize how different presence is from our usual ego state. Then as we continue to be faithful to the practice and the tastes become some more frequent, more available, there comes a time when we realize that this presence is our nature. This can open into a realization that presence is the nature of everything. And then this mystery wants to live in the world as this ever unfolding, ever opening presence, ever creative, ever expressing itself. This is the journey of a lifetime. It may not unfold exactly  in this way because each soul has it's own unique opening. But it is important to realize that this is a journey, not about having big spiritual  experience and that's it. 

But what is for sure is that this  journey begins and ends with practicing presence. As the soul opens and remembers her true origin, her true nature, her divinity, this commitment to patient practice becomes a love, an irresistible call. 

It is hard to imagine, but we are approaching our last session, and winter has arrived. Joe and I would like to hear from you about what next. Does this end or is there a desire for this exploration to continue in some fashion. This work requires a group of around 15-25 people. So we would encourage you this week to spend some time with your journal inquiring into what next for you.  Is there some desire, is there a willingness to come during the depth of winter? What are you drawn to: more meditation, or more of the kind of exploration of the faces of presence? What kind of barriers do you notice to what next.  Is it important for you to be in a group? Is this way of working opening up for you, despite it being difficult at times, or is it not helpful. 

So next time we will spend some time together listening for the individual and collective guidance. 

Then we will turn our attention to holy blackness, holy darkness. This time of deepening night is a very special time of year. And we may miss it for the bustle and stress of the holidays. So we will spend our time exploring this holy black, this holy night and the gifts that it invites us into.