Stillness abides at the heart of awareness where wisdom beholds the presence of glory in the Name, a womb of infinite ineffability that grounds purification of the heart. Stillness does not waver from the heart of awareness that is awake to the presence of glory. Beyond rational description, pictorial imagination and literal expression, stillness abides where awareness of presence embraces the presence of… Read more »
The wisdom of Saint Antony bears witness that true knowledge of self is knowledge of God, not because he confuses the human self with God but because, in true self-knowledge, the self empties itself of what it knows and centres in God who knows (Antony’s Letters 3 & 4 Chitty SLG 1975 pg 9-13). The Name empties God of himself when… Read more »
The communion of saints is ultimately not a credal belief that invites verbal repetition but a living experience of hallowing communion in the Name, welcoming home saints on earth, as angels are at home in heaven. The Name communicates love and forgiveness, union and blessing that unravel confusion whilst dissolving division, so that through communion, the many awaken to know… Read more »
Orthodox Christian Hesychasm is not a divisive, sectarian phenomenon but the living wisdom of the hallowing Spirit, awake in Christ to the generous grace of the Father of light and glory. Metanoia turns the light of awareness round to awaken to theoria, seeing that sees who sees at centre, illumined vision of uncreated light that unveils the glory of grace. Saint David’s metanoia… Read more »
Rhygyfarch’s Life of Saint David says that it was angelic prophecy, communicated to his father, Sanctus, and to Saint Patrick thirty years before his birth, that spoke of the honeycomb of Saint David’s wisdom, the fish of his abiding in the seas of uncreated light and the stag of his royal dominion over the ancient serpent. In 1836, Rice Rees, in… Read more »
How was it that the wisdom of Saint David was able to include the ancient Shamanic mysteries of the honeycomb, the fish and the stag without collapsing into paganism? How was it that symbols from the ancient wisdom of Druid Britain were embraced by elders like Saint David and the saints, his spiritual offspring, without betraying Christ and the Spirit? Their… Read more »
In his Life of Saint David, written in the late eleventh century, Rhygyfarch drew on older traditions that spoke of three ancient Shamanic symbols in connection with Saint David of Wales, (who is remembered today, March 1st,) namely, the honeycomb, the fish and the stag (Life of Saint David Chapter 1). For Saint David and his monks, the honeycomb was the ancient… Read more »
Wisdom’s glory lies in wisdom’s vision of the glory of grace which beholds God’s energy of glory in everything, and sees the translucence of everything in glory. The language of the New Testament and holy fathers of the Church can be a problem in a very secular age, so elders begin with awareness, with the awareness of awareness, with… Read more »
The union of the mind and the heart in God empties the mind into God in the heart, a grace of union that unveils the ineffability of God’s self-emptying into us and our self-emptying into God. Wisdom and glory are ineffable both divinely and humanly, but ineffability is not nihilism, neither is self-emptying facile fusion, because ineffability is not confusion… Read more »
Sound grace is normative and pours out its wholeness freely to all without exception, but demonic deception seeks to undermine this from within by demonising what is sound, playing on fears of demonic deception in order to confuse what is clear and to misconstrue what is wholesome. But wholesome grace is sound and it is normal for grace to turn… Read more »