The Wisdom Practices
Contemplation,
Attunement &
Compassionate Inquiry.
Contemplation
Contemplation is the heart of the Wisdom Tradition. It’s the practice of opening and surrendering to the immediacy and action of the Living Presence of Spirit.
Contemplation makes us increasingly tender receivers of the outpouring love of the Source of being. This ultimately changes the way we perceive.
In brightening our consciousness and increasing our capacity for bearing love, contemplation is the crucible of personal and collective transformation.
Contemplation is a practice, a gift, and, ultimately, a way of being.
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Surrender ~ yielding into the Presence of Spirit ~ is the heart of contemplation. Surrender isn’t so much an action we choose, as one we allow. Ultimately, it’s a spontaneous response to the impact of the tremendous beauty of Divine Presence, a gift of grace.
We dispose ourselves to surrender by not entering contemplation with an end in mind, renouncing expectation, not because expectation is bad or wrong but because, here, it’s redundant; anticipation of the Presence of Spirit blinds us to the already-hereness of this Presence.
Disposing ourselves to surrender is less like letting go and more like letting be.
Attunement
Attunement involves actively remembering our true nature as participants in the Divine life, in the Presence that is always here, and returning to the simplicity of directly experiencing this Presence.
Attunement practices help us gather our attention and subtlelize our sense-perception so we’re able to feel the resonance of our being with the Source of being, rendering us more receptive to the illumination and guidance of divine intelligence ~ grace.
The practices for attunement that I share with people include somatic meditations, sacred reading (lectio divina), conscious movement, divination, and contemplative art-making.
Each of these practices can help us consciously engage and balance our three centres of intelligence - sensation, emotion, and thought. This increases our inner coherence and configures our attention differently, refining our receptivity to the Divine Presence .
Compassionate
Inquiry
Compassionate inquiry is the process of illuminating and alchemizing our psychoemotional experience by relaxing the knot of our egoic identity ~ our conditioned, habituated patterns ~ so that energy is freed to flow in loving exchange with Spirit.
Compassionate inquiry is not aimed at rejecting or dissolving our egoic identity but recognizing the inherent patterning, vulnerability and suffering of this identity as the raw material of our transformation and the threshold of spiritual realization.
Embracing and attending to our vulnerability and suffering can transform these experiences into fonts of tender love and wisdom.
Compassionate inquiry includes self-witnessing, self-reflection and emotional alchemy (often referred to as emotional processing).
In addition to conscious conversation, I offer guidance in contemplative art-making, authentic movement, and the art of divination as ways of engaging in Compassionate Inquiry.