Michaelmas

Michael is the bad ass of heaven and when it comes to spiritual warfare, he is the one you want on your side aiding in the struggle with the archons and rulers.

He helps you find them, face them and say to them, "I see you now, I know that you're there and with that I give you a name and number". After all, the source of their power is their ability not to be seen.

Here's a link to a gnostic homily of St. Michael defender of gnosis by Rev. Steve Marshall.

The Jhanas, Gnosis and Maps

I've just finished a book on concentration meditation called Practicing the Jhanas by Stephen Snyder and Tina Rasmussen. It gives a pretty thorough map of the Jhana territory and their mastery. The Jhanas are standard meditation states that have been known since long before Buddhism.

One interesting point the book makes is that one should not aim for spiritual attainments including Jhanas. I imagine that applies to gnosis as well. One learns to do the meditation well just as one hopefully does in anything else in life. The jhanas arise naturally on their own.

I have reflected lately on how much striving and efforting I have put into spiritual practice. It is an interesting point of view to aim between striving and complete slacking.

I have also lately begin dis-trusting all spiritual maps. They are all well meant to be sure and maybe have their place at some point on the spiritual adventure. I am finding a lot of disagreements among various seasoned spiritual practitioners across all traditions and am coming to realize there's a lot of work to be done in this area.

My advice to self is to take the recipe book mentality with a grain of salt. It's useful to a point, but one must always be willing to let go of their ideas of how things are supposed to go down. There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes one cannot be aware of and one should know that this is the case and be OK with it too.

The self that does the practice is simply part of the big picture: an important part, but a part nevertheless.

Wisdom of Chief Seattle

Annunciation

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."

"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"

The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.

"I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her.

-From Luke

Archangel Gabriel

In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you."

-from Luke

Montesegur Day

On March 16th 1244 a fire burned at the base of a mountain known as "The Pog"* in the heart of the Languadoc region in Southern France. Around 220 souls were marched into that fire. The fortress here at the top of the mountain was where the Cathars put up their last temporal resistance for their life and their faith - for the right to live and practice a spirituality that for them connected them to their destiny in light, truth, love and gnosis.

For them, to deny this connection was to deny their own souls. For them, it made more sense to face the fires at the feet of unknowing faces and empty eyes then to turn away from the light of the Good God.

I can't imagine what it must have been like. What kind of doubts if any were had by these people of the Languadoc. If the soldiers who carried this out felt anything when they saw the eyes of children as they looked to their mother's and fathers in bewilderment.

What I do know is that they are not forgotten.

* It's interesting to note that the mountain's name "The Pog" and it's similarity to the word "pogrom" which means an organized massacre of an ethnic group. I don't know if this is a coincidence or if the terms are somehow historically connected.

Order of St. Esclarmonde Rule

I'm currently in the process of contemplating the six items in the OSE rule. It recently dawned on me that although I have a poetic sense for what they mean, I could have a more concrete understanding of each of these items and how they can be manifest in my day to day life. I also thought it would be a rewarding exercise to do so.

I also realized how easy it is for the rule to grow dim and sink more and more into the background as the weeks and months go by. With a busy life and laziness with whatever time is leftover it seems easy for this to happen even in spite of the daily practice of prayer and stillness.
I recently printed out the Rule, Vow and Prayer and put it next to my desk at work to keep them more in the foreground

I think that there is a lot to be explored there, a lot that I haven't tapped into yet or even thought about tapping into. I just noticed that each of the six elements of the rule can work with a busy life or a quiet one. It doesn't demand a lifestyle change - "nothing harsh, nothing burdensome"

A link to the rule can be found here:

http://egina2.blogspot.com/2007/03/order-of-saint-esclarmonde.html

Swiss Cheese Derby Car

This morning Jonah awoke to a swiss cheese pinewood derby car. After his bedtime I discovered I massively miscalculated the amount of lead that got poured in. It was a brick. Spent the night drilling several holes through car, lead and all to bring weight to speck. After a morning bondo session the car looks just like it did when he went to bed only lighter.

It is now ready for him to finish sanding and painting today for the race tomorrow. No one else will ever know about the internal weirdness of this car.