As I expected, I am receiving plenty of raised cyber-eyebrows about the third instruction in Pandemic Homework to: radically decrease or discontinue altogether your use of internet technology to support social distancing.Please don’t jump to the conclusion that I am calling for an immediate cold turkey here—more like a gentle challenging of some assumptions we’ve all bought into a bit too automatically, and a phased step-down as we learn to shift to the real network of global intercommunion. I continue to believe that the only authentic “worldwide web” exists in the Imaginal realm: i.e., in that subtler and quantumly more powerful bandwidth of energetic communion which links not only all beings of this planet, but also beings in all realms, including those on the other side of the life/death “divide.” It is from here that we receive our help—and it is here, too, that we give it! It is where our real human contribution to calming the inflamed heart of our planet can be must efficaciously offered. This is in fact the subject of my forthcoming book, Eye of the Heart: A Spiritual Journey into the Imaginal Realm, which ironically would have had its maiden teaching voyage right now at

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I am very grateful to Joseph Azize for his willingness to make five of the Gurdjieff exercises available to us within the cyber confines of our Wisdom School Community. These exercises are powerful tools of healing, cleansing, and clarity, and even when practiced individually or in small groups, they have a power to significantly shift our present planetary atmosphere. They are something you can actually do: to steady yourself and ready yourself for the deeper energetic work that actually connects us and empowers us as a human species to do the alchemical work we were placed on this planet to do. The five exercises I have recommended are all examples of what Gurdjieff calls “transformed contemplation.” For now—and in direct cognizance of the needs of our present global crisis—let me offer a slightly different definition than even Azize gives. “Transformed Contemplation” is contemplation that actually transforms something, both in ourselves and in the world. It is a kind of sacred alchemy, which is to be understood within the context of Gurdjieff’s great vision of “reciprocal feeding,” the exchange of physical/energetic substances between the realms which maintains the whole cosmic ecosystem in a state of dynamic equilibrium. We receive something for

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This post follows quickly on the heels of "Pandemic Homework", Cynthia's previous post and her own "recommendation for inner work during this time of profound planetary readjustment." It is the "fuller explanation" promised in that post, which contains four points of inner and outer work to engage in in these times. This work has been given in the light of this pandemic being more than temporary—rather, "a permanent and collective reset of our collective human conscience (that) will resolve itself only as a few more of us become willing and able to step up to the plate to live a different reality." I am keenly aware of the irony in all this. Here I sit on my prayer cushion in the remote seclusion of Eagle Island, more than twenty-four hours now elapsed since the island’s only other occupant headed ashore for an undisclosed period of time, taking the mailboat with him. It’s me, the eagle, the deer herd, the communion of saints. And nothing much in between. But I did not come out here for social distancing, I came for listening. The way hermits have been doing it for millennia, at the intersection of the worlds, the intersection of the

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Dear Wisdom friends: Here is my own recommendation for inner work during this time of profound planetary readjustment. I will send you a fuller explanation as soon as I can, but the internet system has gone very wonky out here on Eagle Island, and you may need to be patient for my further elucidations of this admittedly countercultural course of action. For those of you who have seen an advance manuscript of my book, this would be a course of action founded on the laws of World 24 (Imaginal) and above, not the laws of World 48 (our earth plane) and below that are presently running the show—futilely, in my estimation. This is not a temporary crisis to “flatten the curve.” This is a permanent and collective reset of our collective human conscience and will resolve itself only as a few more of us become willing and able to step up to the plate to live a different reality. More on that to follow. For now, my “to do” list:  1.  Get Joseph Azize’s new book, Gurdjieff: Mysticism, Contemplation, and Exercises (Oxford University Press, 2020) Work diligently with some of the Gurdjieff exercises here assembled for the first time, particularly:                    

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Wisdom Community, Please note! New dates have been added. For the updated list of Wisdom Meditation zoom links from Monday March 30~Monday April 10 please go to the bottom of this post. There has been an arising among many of us in our Wisdom collective...to FIND A WAY to gather virtually, during this time. This crisis offers us the opportunity to gather prayers and intentions from all around the world. Our technical ability to CONNECT ACROSS THE GLOBE has 'prepared us well' for such a moment as this and RISES TO MEET US as we engage in NEW ways of CONNECTING as a Wisdom community. To that end.... We will be offering a 30 minute collective Wisdom Pause "for Silence and Stillness" on Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the next two weeks. These PAUSES (Virtual Wisdom Practice Opportunities) will be offered twice a day at 10:30am EDT (7:30 am PDT) and 7pm EDT (4:00pm PDT), on M/W/F. Wisdom members of our collective will be leading each sit, with a time for chant, and meditation/stillness in each Zoom gathering. If you have never worked with zoom before, all you need to do is download the free ZOOM App, and then CLICK

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