Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
It’s time.
April 10, 2021
Mindwalk/1991
Le Mont Saint-Michel
Some captures from the film…
Decisions
c
h
o
i
c
e
s
Consequences
Value thinking
7th generation choices
Systems thinking
Inherent proclivity to transcend
Co-evolution through creativity
S
H
I
V
A
=
L I F E D A N C E
“Life cannot be reduced.”
“Life feels itself.”
✹Qualities
✹Longings
✹Weaknesses
“Shall we go home?”
Yes.
F
R
A
N
C
E
“We are the works of all who came before.”
︶⁀°• •° ⁀︶
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ died April 10th, 1955.
“The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of ℒℴve❥. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”
Barn in France. ♡
Ahimsa.
January 4, 2021Non-Violence.
In thought, language, and behavior.
“We must disrupt harm whenever we encounter it.”
-Yogi & Activist Seane Corn
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Ernest Holmes:
‘New arts, new sciences, new philosophies, better government, and a high civilization wait on our thoughts. The infinite energy of Life, and the possibility of our future evolution, work through our imagination and will. The time is ready the place is where we are now, and it is done unto all as they really believe and act.’
⁀︶
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:
‘Fuse the powers of the sacred heart with the energies of the body, and you can transform everything.’
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2 Corinthians 4:16/The Message:
‘So, we’re not giving up. How could we! Even thought on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where GAIA is making new life, not a day goes by without Her unfolding grace.’
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Rolph Gates & Katrina Kenison:
‘At a Native American gathering in Arizona for the 1999 summer solstice, a Hopi elder said: “There is a river flowing now, very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and suffer greatly. Know that the river has its destination.
The elders say we must push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open and our heads above the water. See who is in there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves, for the moment we do that, our spiritual growth comes to a halt.
The time of the lone wolf is over.
Gather yourselves; banish the work ‘struggle’ from your attitude and vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred way and in celebration. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.’
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The Enlightened Heart, p. 86:
‘With the happiness held in one inch-square heart you can find the whole space between heaven and earth.’
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Hildegard of Bingen:
‘Divinity is in its omniscience and omnipotence like a wheel, a circle, a whole, that can neither be understood, nor divided, nor begun, nor ended.’
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Mark Nepo:
‘Each person is born with an unencumbered spot…free of expectation and regret…free of ambition and embarrassment, free of fear and worry…an umbilical spot of grace where we were each first touched by God, Spirt, Sophia, Gaia.
It is this spot of grace that issues pace. Psychologists call this spot the Psyche, theologians call it the Soul, Jung calls it the Seat of the Unconscious, Hindu masters call it Atman, Buddhists call it Dharma, Rilke calls it Inwardness, Sufis call it Qalb, and Jesus calls it the Center of our Love.
To know this spot of Indwardness is to know who we are, not by surface markers of identity, not by where we work to what we wear how how we like to be addressed, but by feeling our place in relation to the Infinite and by inhabiting it.
This is our lifeline task, for the nature of becoming is a constant filming over of where we’ve been, while nature of being is a constant erosion of what is not essential.
Each of us lives in the midst of this ongoing tension, growing tarnished or covered over, only to be worn back to the incorruptible spot of grace at our core.
When the film is worn through, we have moments of enlightenment, moments of whiteness, moment of satori, as the Zen sages term int, moments of clear loving when inner meets outer, moments of full integrity of being, moments of complete Oneness.
And whether the film is a veil of culture, of memory, of mental or religious training, of trauma or sophistication, the removal of that film and the restoration of that timeless spot of grace is the goal of all therapy and education.
Fr Richard Rohr:
‘The real question is “What does this have to say to me?” Those who are totally converted come to every experience and ask not whether or not they liked it, but what does it have to teach them. “What’s the message or gift in this for me? How is God in this event? Where is God in this suffering?” This is a prayer of unveiling, asking that the cruciform shape of reality be revealed to us within the very shape and circumstances of our own lives.’
One love.
June 4, 2019
Love, the attraction of all things toward all things, is a universal language and underlying energy that keeps showing itself despite our best efforts to resist it. It is so simple that it is hard to teach, yet we all know love when we see it.
After all, there is not a Native, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Islamic, or Christian way of loving. There is not a Methodist, Lutheran, or Orthodox way of running a soup kitchen. There is not a gay or straight way of being faithful, nor a Black or Caucasian way of hoping.
We all know positive flow when we see it, and we all recognize resistance and coldness when we feel it. All the rest are mere labels.
When we are truly “in love,” we move out of our small, individual selves to unite with another, whether in companionship, friendship, marriage, or any other trustful relationship.
For Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955), a French Jesuit priest who trained as a paleontologist and geologist, love is “the very physical structure of the Universe.” That is a very daring statement, especially for a scientist to make. Yet for Teilhard, gravity, atomic bonding, orbits, cycles, photosynthesis, ecosystems, force fields, electromagnetic fields, sexuality, human friendship, animal instinct, and evolution all reveal an energy that is attracting all things and beings to one another, in a movement toward ever greater complexity and diversity—and yet ironically also toward unification at ever deeper levels. This energy is quite simply love under many different forms.
(Please, use another word..energy…flow…Gaia…if it works better for you.)
-Fr. Richard Rohr, Center for Action & Contemplation
[Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, “Sketch of a Personal Universe,” Human Energy, trans. J. M. Cohen (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: 1962), 72.]