Cynthia Bourgealt: from Chapter 4. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene.
The Meaning of Mary Magdalene: Discovering the Woman at the heart of Christianity (2010).
At Light Tree it is becoming
clearer that our collective purpose in taking human form is to learn how to
attune to life through our heart. We are deepening our understanding of how
this takes place, and dedicating our daily experiences to ‘feeling fully’ into
our true nature which is aligned with the heart.
We are developing greater
confidence in our ability to trust our inner guidance to bring us into the
harmonious flow of life. We are constantly astonished and delighted how easily
we are brought to peace when we surrender our attachment to ‘how things should
be’ and experience with open-ness and non-judgement instead.
Christine has been reviewing
some of her paintings to illustrate what happens when we have the courage to
sit with the fear that inevitably arises as we expand and make being
heart-centred a daily practice. If we allow ourselves to journey inward,
deep-seated fears will reveal themselves. From here we can sit patiently until
we are guided to move forward. The support of our friends, family and Mighty
Companions can be very beneficial at this stage.
Our lives give us constant
opportunity to practice noticing what being
open feels like, then being shut down by fear. We can open again, notice
what’s happening, then feel it with fear instead. This process is called
titration. Eventually we start to choose openness and trust more often because
it feels better and leads to greater happiness. By paying close attention, it
becomes clear that our generalized apprehension does not serve us. We are
waking up instead of moving zombie-like and mindlessly through life.
This illustration shows what
happens when we stay open to what is happening around us.
“After painting mostly ‘sweetness and light ’for almost a year I allowed
a little black paint onto my palette. Up to that point I had not included black
or dark red among my chosen colours. It made its way into the painting in the
form of a black spider which had appeared in a dream and at the time,
represented fear.’
Christine painted this picture
during a different phase of her life, and was surprised and pleased
to review it and see how her feelings about the spider had changed. This time
she saw that it appeared as an opening to her heart instead of a symbol of fear.
Her awareness was no longer limited and compressed by the same sensation of
being closed. By taking a
risk and engaging with her mistrust and discomfort she found her way back to
‘sweetness and light’ after all.