The Hafiz poem reminds me of Thomas Merton in (I think) Seeds of Contemplation:
"The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyse them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity and despair. But it does not matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things; or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed, we are in the midst of it, and it is in the midst of us, for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it to or not. Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance."
Christmas is of course originated in the ancient (and still current) Pagan winter solstice celebration - celebration of Light.
Some examples Winter Solstice celebrations in one way or another are acelebration of the common universal Joy in lIght
Alban Arthan ancient Druid
Amaterasu Shinto Sun Goddess
Chaomos Kalash people of Pakistan
Chronia ancient Greece
Deygan Zoroastrian
Dong Zhi Buddhists in China & Japan
Feast of Saint Lucia Scandinavian St Lucy's Day
Hannukah Jewish Festival of Lights
Hogmanay Scottish with roots in Norse solstice celebrations
Inti Raymi Incans southern hemisphere winter
Junkanoo Bahamas & Jamaica
Makara Sankranti Hindu midwinter festival
Saturnalia sun festival of ancient Rome
Soyal ceremony of Zunis & Hopi
Wren Day from Druid tradition in Ireland & Wales
Yule or Jul observed since Viking Age by Norse & Germanic cultures.
Light means something holy, something Divine. The notion and the sense of holiness or of profundity, and especially the Divine characteristic of Light, is a universal feeling-idea. It is part of all religions. It is part of secular life too. Light is fundamental in human experience and aspiration and meaning.
And, of course all of this or Creation Itself is at root a Light Show.
Christmas trees are an archetypal form of the Tree of Life. And also a symbolic form of the human body Brightened and Illuminated by The Divine Light. The trunk of the tree represents the spinal column, and its many branches symbolize the nerves that branch out to all parts of the body. As a whole, trees are always oriented to the sun, as an act of worship even!
Quite often a finial or large star is placed on the top of the tree. It represents the Divine Light that freely shines down on everyone from above and fills the entire body-mind-complex.
The Christmas tree represents the human nervous system and the esoteric psycho-physical structures that have been associated with the Spiritual Process in all traditions, including the Light that Shines from above.
Santa Claus coming down the chimney also has esoteric associations.
Santa Claus comes down the chimney to the fireplace. Why does he do that?
A long time ago, when houses were sacred places and not just places to live, the fireplace was alike a holy site. The fire was a place to offer your gifts and your prayers to the Divine. Your prayers, or your love of the Divine would rise to the Divine from your heart.
When you let your love go to the Divine, the Spiritual Presence of the Divine comes down the "chimney" or into your spinal column or Tree of Life and potentially opens your heart with the Gift of Happiness.
Santa Claus is like the Radiance of the Divine, or the Divine Spirit-Energy which is pervades and is in charge of the body-mind-complex. It also flies and goes everywhere, and brings Gifts to everyone.
Brilliant…your gift for depth, clarity and light-hearted expression amazes me! May your Christmas be beautiful. Thank you for a restorative, uplifting and profoundly beautiful piece.
Losing Heart is such a classic poignant piece of folk wisdom. A difficult place to be, yet a sure indicator. I’ve worked with Cynthia Bourgeault for years. Would love to see a convo between you two!
While I haven't read the book on the Worlds you mention, it made me reminisce about a guest physics professor I had back in undergraduate school who discussed parallel universes (Parallel Universes: The Search for Other Worlds, Fred Alan Wolf).
You write of ‘this idea of cosmically situated meaning, of the universe winking at us with words or images that speak to us personally with exquisite tenderness and knowingness’. And you ask, ‘So a deeper question, a more courageous one, is to ask what exactly is coinciding when our subjective interiors respond to objective realities as if they were part of the same dance, hearing the same music.’
This is part of what we are exploring in our inquiry with River as sentient and communicative. You write of this as synchronicity, and I wonder if you are familiar with Freya Mathew’s notion of ontopoetics:
‘I use the term, ontopoetics, to provide such a way of acknowledging these experiences, a way of denoting instances of engagement between self and world that are understood as structured not merely by causation but also by meaning, where such meaning emanates not merely from the side of self but from the world’s side as well. Ontopoetics, in other words, is a way of talking about a communicative form of engagement with world, and as such is conceivable only against the backdrop of a view of reality as presence, a presence with a psycho-active dimension of its own and a capacity and inclination to create and share meaning with us.’
And as you write of ‘exquisite tenderness and knowingness’, Freya writes
‘It is as if the veil of the ordinary is drawn aside and a mythic world that exists only for our eyes, pristine and untouched, still dripping with the dew of creation, is vouchsafed to us. There is such intimacy in this revelation, such incomparable largesse in the gift, such breath-taking unexpectedness, we cannot help but surrender to it.’ (quotes at https://peterreason.substack.com/p/ontopoetics-part-1-the-meaning-of)
We give accounts of ontopoetic experiences in Learning How Land Speaks. (peterreason.substack.com)
Thanks Peter. I wasn’t aware of Freya Matthew’s or ontopoetics, but I can see that I need to look into her work. The extracts are strikingly relevant. 🙏
The world does appear to be profoundly stuck and surrendering our egos would be the wise thing to cultivate. In the recent Perspectiva videos it was beautiful to see and hear Rowan Williams, an incredibly humble and wise man.
Thank you, Jonathan. As one of your readers, I feel that I'm part of a forest, and the mycelium is helping forest to thrive. Wishing you a lovely Christmas.
What a dynamic mind and unique heart you have… powerful recognitions of personal and universal pattern convergence, tempered in humility and shared with an earnest genius. You sure you aren’t one of the wise men?
🙏😂 Pretty sure, yes! Though curiously my PhD was on the challenge of researching wisdom, and apparently the wise men were late, which is a trait I’m known for too, so there is some projective identification perhaps…
I love that Hafiz poem, it beautifully captures the Sufi experience even for those of us far from sainthood.. and probably for every sincere long-term spiritual traveller in the heart...
I'm also struck that you begin by looking for a philosophical basis - a product of the mind - and you end by acknowledging that some kind of initial surrender is in order, that is to do with the heart. To which I can only say, a thousand times, yes. The spiritual heart is the overlooked key, the portal to the Divine and to deep connection. It is also the means of perception, direct knowledge and discernment. The mind knows nothing of this. And cannot know of it directly. (And I speak from experience, as someone who used to be in love with the mind!). The mind is still important, as a tool to be used carefully, in the Light reflecting through an open and aligned heart. But this opening and aligning of the heart has to happen first, and it requires a lot of humility, not-knowing, willingness to be perplexed and not force resolution, while the mirror of the heart is polished and the experiential knowledge of the heart gradually accumulates.
In our Sufi order we discourage the reading of metaphysical books until a reasonable amount of experiential knowledge has been acquired, through practices. Otherwise it’s like reading cordon bleu recipe books before you’ve ever eaten any food. Eat the food first, the books won’t give you any nutrition, and you need experience of it to have any idea what the recipes are really referring to! Of course everyone does it anyway, but it's amazing how much your understanding is transformed when you return to a book after a few years of regular meditation!
Synchronicity is a wonderful part of this experiential knowledge, in my understanding it is a normal and essential part of reality that points to the deeper underlying order and integration of everything (as per e.g. David Bohm’s theory of Implicate Order which aligns well with classic spiritual cosmologies such as Ibn Arabi’s). As we travel towards our own integration, we resonate more with and reflect the deeper integration… we experience it both ‘within and without’ as we are fractal / holographic parts of the whole - or microcosm/macrocosm. And on a grounded spiritual path we can hold this naturally and lightly, it is subtle knowledge that assists us, not psychedelic hounding or escape.
But to return to the heart, I believe bringing in the heart is absolutely essential now. As well as spiritual insight and perception, the heart brings compassion, courage, wisdom, deep resilience… we really need these qualities in our work, politics, communities. We need to be able to see with our hearts and lead with them while working much more consciously with our minds.This is not at all the same as being sentimental. This is basically my work right now, finding ways to do this, and to help others to do this…
The Hafiz poem reminds me of Thomas Merton in (I think) Seeds of Contemplation:
"The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyse them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity and despair. But it does not matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things; or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed, we are in the midst of it, and it is in the midst of us, for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it to or not. Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance."
Christmas is of course originated in the ancient (and still current) Pagan winter solstice celebration - celebration of Light.
Some examples Winter Solstice celebrations in one way or another are acelebration of the common universal Joy in lIght
Alban Arthan ancient Druid
Amaterasu Shinto Sun Goddess
Chaomos Kalash people of Pakistan
Chronia ancient Greece
Deygan Zoroastrian
Dong Zhi Buddhists in China & Japan
Feast of Saint Lucia Scandinavian St Lucy's Day
Hannukah Jewish Festival of Lights
Hogmanay Scottish with roots in Norse solstice celebrations
Inti Raymi Incans southern hemisphere winter
Junkanoo Bahamas & Jamaica
Makara Sankranti Hindu midwinter festival
Saturnalia sun festival of ancient Rome
Soyal ceremony of Zunis & Hopi
Wren Day from Druid tradition in Ireland & Wales
Yule or Jul observed since Viking Age by Norse & Germanic cultures.
Light means something holy, something Divine. The notion and the sense of holiness or of profundity, and especially the Divine characteristic of Light, is a universal feeling-idea. It is part of all religions. It is part of secular life too. Light is fundamental in human experience and aspiration and meaning.
And, of course all of this or Creation Itself is at root a Light Show.
Christmas trees are an archetypal form of the Tree of Life. And also a symbolic form of the human body Brightened and Illuminated by The Divine Light. The trunk of the tree represents the spinal column, and its many branches symbolize the nerves that branch out to all parts of the body. As a whole, trees are always oriented to the sun, as an act of worship even!
Quite often a finial or large star is placed on the top of the tree. It represents the Divine Light that freely shines down on everyone from above and fills the entire body-mind-complex.
The Christmas tree represents the human nervous system and the esoteric psycho-physical structures that have been associated with the Spiritual Process in all traditions, including the Light that Shines from above.
Santa Claus coming down the chimney also has esoteric associations.
Santa Claus comes down the chimney to the fireplace. Why does he do that?
A long time ago, when houses were sacred places and not just places to live, the fireplace was alike a holy site. The fire was a place to offer your gifts and your prayers to the Divine. Your prayers, or your love of the Divine would rise to the Divine from your heart.
When you let your love go to the Divine, the Spiritual Presence of the Divine comes down the "chimney" or into your spinal column or Tree of Life and potentially opens your heart with the Gift of Happiness.
Santa Claus is like the Radiance of the Divine, or the Divine Spirit-Energy which is pervades and is in charge of the body-mind-complex. It also flies and goes everywhere, and brings Gifts to everyone.
Brilliant…your gift for depth, clarity and light-hearted expression amazes me! May your Christmas be beautiful. Thank you for a restorative, uplifting and profoundly beautiful piece.
🙏😀🎄
Losing Heart is such a classic poignant piece of folk wisdom. A difficult place to be, yet a sure indicator. I’ve worked with Cynthia Bourgeault for years. Would love to see a convo between you two!
While I haven't read the book on the Worlds you mention, it made me reminisce about a guest physics professor I had back in undergraduate school who discussed parallel universes (Parallel Universes: The Search for Other Worlds, Fred Alan Wolf).
Thank you so much for this; it was very much what I needed to hear this evening.
Jonathan, thank you for this piece
You write of ‘this idea of cosmically situated meaning, of the universe winking at us with words or images that speak to us personally with exquisite tenderness and knowingness’. And you ask, ‘So a deeper question, a more courageous one, is to ask what exactly is coinciding when our subjective interiors respond to objective realities as if they were part of the same dance, hearing the same music.’
This is part of what we are exploring in our inquiry with River as sentient and communicative. You write of this as synchronicity, and I wonder if you are familiar with Freya Mathew’s notion of ontopoetics:
‘I use the term, ontopoetics, to provide such a way of acknowledging these experiences, a way of denoting instances of engagement between self and world that are understood as structured not merely by causation but also by meaning, where such meaning emanates not merely from the side of self but from the world’s side as well. Ontopoetics, in other words, is a way of talking about a communicative form of engagement with world, and as such is conceivable only against the backdrop of a view of reality as presence, a presence with a psycho-active dimension of its own and a capacity and inclination to create and share meaning with us.’
And as you write of ‘exquisite tenderness and knowingness’, Freya writes
‘It is as if the veil of the ordinary is drawn aside and a mythic world that exists only for our eyes, pristine and untouched, still dripping with the dew of creation, is vouchsafed to us. There is such intimacy in this revelation, such incomparable largesse in the gift, such breath-taking unexpectedness, we cannot help but surrender to it.’ (quotes at https://peterreason.substack.com/p/ontopoetics-part-1-the-meaning-of)
We give accounts of ontopoetic experiences in Learning How Land Speaks. (peterreason.substack.com)
Thanks Peter. I wasn’t aware of Freya Matthew’s or ontopoetics, but I can see that I need to look into her work. The extracts are strikingly relevant. 🙏
Mathews one 't'
Beautiful, Jonathan!
Wishing you and your family a wonderful Christmas!
The world does appear to be profoundly stuck and surrendering our egos would be the wise thing to cultivate. In the recent Perspectiva videos it was beautiful to see and hear Rowan Williams, an incredibly humble and wise man.
Thank you, Jonathan. As one of your readers, I feel that I'm part of a forest, and the mycelium is helping forest to thrive. Wishing you a lovely Christmas.
Lovely
Beautiful Jonathan. Thank you.
What a dynamic mind and unique heart you have… powerful recognitions of personal and universal pattern convergence, tempered in humility and shared with an earnest genius. You sure you aren’t one of the wise men?
🙏😂 Pretty sure, yes! Though curiously my PhD was on the challenge of researching wisdom, and apparently the wise men were late, which is a trait I’m known for too, so there is some projective identification perhaps…
I love that Hafiz poem, it beautifully captures the Sufi experience even for those of us far from sainthood.. and probably for every sincere long-term spiritual traveller in the heart...
I'm also struck that you begin by looking for a philosophical basis - a product of the mind - and you end by acknowledging that some kind of initial surrender is in order, that is to do with the heart. To which I can only say, a thousand times, yes. The spiritual heart is the overlooked key, the portal to the Divine and to deep connection. It is also the means of perception, direct knowledge and discernment. The mind knows nothing of this. And cannot know of it directly. (And I speak from experience, as someone who used to be in love with the mind!). The mind is still important, as a tool to be used carefully, in the Light reflecting through an open and aligned heart. But this opening and aligning of the heart has to happen first, and it requires a lot of humility, not-knowing, willingness to be perplexed and not force resolution, while the mirror of the heart is polished and the experiential knowledge of the heart gradually accumulates.
In our Sufi order we discourage the reading of metaphysical books until a reasonable amount of experiential knowledge has been acquired, through practices. Otherwise it’s like reading cordon bleu recipe books before you’ve ever eaten any food. Eat the food first, the books won’t give you any nutrition, and you need experience of it to have any idea what the recipes are really referring to! Of course everyone does it anyway, but it's amazing how much your understanding is transformed when you return to a book after a few years of regular meditation!
Synchronicity is a wonderful part of this experiential knowledge, in my understanding it is a normal and essential part of reality that points to the deeper underlying order and integration of everything (as per e.g. David Bohm’s theory of Implicate Order which aligns well with classic spiritual cosmologies such as Ibn Arabi’s). As we travel towards our own integration, we resonate more with and reflect the deeper integration… we experience it both ‘within and without’ as we are fractal / holographic parts of the whole - or microcosm/macrocosm. And on a grounded spiritual path we can hold this naturally and lightly, it is subtle knowledge that assists us, not psychedelic hounding or escape.
But to return to the heart, I believe bringing in the heart is absolutely essential now. As well as spiritual insight and perception, the heart brings compassion, courage, wisdom, deep resilience… we really need these qualities in our work, politics, communities. We need to be able to see with our hearts and lead with them while working much more consciously with our minds.This is not at all the same as being sentimental. This is basically my work right now, finding ways to do this, and to help others to do this…
Thank you for this essay! What translation of the I-Ching do you use? I liked the phrasing of it.