Many happy returns, have a lovely day, and enjoy your celebration with coffee! Thank you for this exploration of unknowing, which touches slightly on my own tenuously similar experiences.
Happy Birthday. I hope there is cake. As always, I enjoy the way you craft your words, the clarity is very satisfying. I identify as an animist and have, for various reasons, an uncomfortable relationship with Christianity. However, personal experience with different states of consciousness have led me to conclude that permeating the cosmos there is a boundless power of joyous love, surrounding and cradling us, waiting for us to open to it and experience enlightenment (however one wants to define that). It is ultimate, unconditional generosity of creation, present in every sun, bacteria, flower, galaxy and tree; a primal urge to come-into-being, the exuberance of life in all its many manifestations.
Happy birthday! This felt like it spoke directly to me at this stage in my life, particularly as I've put out my back days ago and am now on retreat struggling with it and pondering the timing.
Just joined. Something in the air. I commented yesterday after listening to Martin Shaw at his Beasts and Vines and mentioned publicly for the first time - see for comparison this post of yours - a hands-on in my case small angels experience in a tent in the English Lakes circa 1992/3. I did not draw too many conclusions those years ago, but yesterday acknowledged that the 'message', apart from getting me out of immediate trouble, might have been for me to get on with what I was doing. Still no conclusions even about the Universe or its odd sense of humour. Smile. Raises mug of tea in Birthday Cheer!
Welcome! I had forgotten Iain had a members area and just had a look...
These 'anomalous experiences' are so common, but are generally, and perhaps sometimes safely, kept under a veil. I also still have not come to any conclusions, and concur about the universe's surprising sense of humour. I find it interesting that 4 people today have already contacted me with their own similar experiences. My teacher used to talk about 'uncovering covered-over-ness'. There is some of that going on here, perhaps.
This is such a blessing, Caro. I'll be chewing on this one for a good while:
"Yes, ‘He’. The great Mystery isn’t a man or a woman, obviously. But as ‘She’ is far too familiar to me, as I am a ‘she’ myself, and as ‘They’ is very much a plural or ‘modern gender neutral terminology some of my non-binary friends prefer’ to me, it was not the right word for how I address Divinity. So, however mainstream it may seem, ‘He’ it is. I am finally ok with that."
I like the idea of us chewing over terminology. Like getting a recipe right by tasting it.
Meanwhile, pretty sure The Great Mystery isn't bovvered what I call him / it / them / her. But 'He' feels natural for me now, after a 50 year fight with myself about it. Oh, the irony.
Happy Birthday- May it be your best yet but not your best ever! I had a similar healing experience but with Reiki. A dear friend, but at the time I’d only just met her, is a Reiki practitioner and offered to perform Reiki on my chronic(10 years) shoulder bursitis. I had never heard of it before but was willing to trust her and in the process. It didn’t seem to work right away but later on the ride home I suddenly felt a hot, burning sensation in my shoulder and then suddenly the pain was gone and never returned. I was raised with the RE of English schools and a brief time attending a Methodist church as a child but have considered myself not a Christian. I also have been practicing TaiChi for over a decade now. I love the idea of being an “Unknowist “.
Thank you for sharing this. Today I am receiving a steady flow of similar stories, all from ordinary people, not usually prone to shouting about 'strange events'. So, all very interesting.
'Unknowist' has a ring about it, eh? If not a movement, I could at least start a band...
Caro, thank you for your encouraging words on the novel!
And this was a fascinating and vulnerable essay. My spiritual development is somewhat the reverse of yours, yet with parallels. Although born into an Orthodox family, I preferred new age and eastern-type spiritualities as a youth (and dressed Goth too) (and enjoyed the Cure too), although remained mostly “secular” through the best part of my adult years. Buddhism or neo-versions of it were my only spiritual preference, although I was not especially disciplined in the practice. I always felt allergic (and still do) to the kind of Christian faith experiences/events you described. They just don’t connect with me, although I know they do with some people.
Miraculous events are amazing when they happen, but I think they are better viewed as occasional byproducts of spiritual searching or practice, rather than as a main pursuit. I think the main pursuit (to put it roughly and simplistically) is being groundedly human and real. That's more than enough for any one life.
It's good to hear a bit of your journey here. Life and path are indeed about being present, as you say, groundedly human and real.
Our paths seem similar, in many ways, as I fell into 'Eastern' paths soon after the events I describe, and never once went back to such meetings. The churches I go in now are mainly Saxon, empty (of people) but full of something old and deep.
I recently had an experence of 'uncovering' an old injury, one I had forgotten about myself!
For some years I had gone for massages to help ease a 'tired' back. Typically I went to a local UK Thai style place. They seemed competent and sort of professional, but I generally came away feeling i'd been part of a process, rather than a treatment. Any benefits generally faded after a few days.
Just before 2023 solstice I noticed a clinic nearby offering 'Chi' treatments. Had to give it a go. I was met by a man around my age that looked a bit familiar, it turned out we had been the same Tai Chi summer camps recently. The treatment started fairly normally, but was more physically 'inquisitive' than I had felt recently - in fact more like an Alexander Technique practitioner I had seen in my 20's. He talked to me and explained what he was working on in me; things I had not realised were out of harmony. And then he dropped a revellation!
"Ah, have you been side-swiped in the past?"
The memory came flooding back of me cycling to work one morning and a car coming out from a side road taking me out. Fortunately, not full-on but they stopped so I impacted the side of the bonnet and rolled over it. Nasty scrapes and a mangled bike left behind.
I explained this was about 30-40 years ago. He said yes, he feels the trauma is still there and worked on releasing it (which really didn't take long - maybe 5 minutes?).
The result (which included acupunture treatment at the end) resulted in me being the most integrated I have felt for years, and it's lasted a long time. I'm going to be a repeat visitor, 'cos I guess there are more layers to this onion!
Dear Jed, thanks so much for this. Very good practitioners seem to feel so much held in the fascia as they gently investigate. What a great level of skill and openness that man must have had to perceive those things. Getting oneself out the way, and being truly soft, yet connected, is one of the most generous things you can do with / for a person.
If you'd be willing to share the contact, please reply to my post email, as I am thinking of a dear one who would benefit from this too.
i've always been fond of the theory that Christ himself (per Mark, which reads more like a shamanic encounter than later narratives) wasn't entirely sure where his healing powers came from. attempts to retcon away the Great Mystery and replace it with the One True God may have been politically motivated, rather than maintaining fidelity with the actual human experience. "both/and" stories like yours point the way back to that restoration of context and away from authoritarian monotheism.
(also, finally cracking into "Master," and hoping i can squeeze "The Matter with Things" into my reading list soon!)
Thank you. I had to look up 'retcon', thanks for that term! Both/and is at the heart of TMAHE and TMWT, and is possibly the neatest way of pointing to a story (or a person) holding paradox I have seen. So thanks for that, too.
I can rarely find a true storytelling voice for longer than a paragraph, outside the verbal milieu of a T'ai Chi or art classroom, so it's new for me to write a whole piece this way. I now have even more respect for people who do it with fiction. How to hold it all in your head when you can't just rely on memory?
Good luck with the books. I just finished ch 28 TMWT last night, and am now heading across to The World of Silence by Max Picard, I think recommended by LM Sacasas. It's great so far.
'Maintaining fidelity with the actual human experience' - yes, indeed.
Happy Birthday! I can so relate to the description of your teenage self in that same era. <3
& just today I was pondering how the body responds so well to external stimuli. How sometimes we must do the work to heal inside ourselves but also how healing can be guided so much faster with help from outside (whether spiritual, physical manipulation/intervention, the effect of being in the woods, herbs, medicine.) Perhaps we are not ever whole, alone. My forays into various religions/spiritual groups have shown me that great effect can be from the gathering of intentions. One of the biggest focal points in the world is through Christianity, there is so much power to tap into there. I have sat down to meals with people of religions that I vehemently disapprove of (due to abusive use of power) and viscerally felt loving spirit in their heartfelt prayers.
Thank you Shinehah. And yes to all you say here. Although this was by the far the most obvious physical instance of change for me, the other changes of heart and mind that occurred in life, usually during long years of practice, are actually more central to my day to day life. These were helped along by my teachers and by nature. In the past, have also had great healing from regular counselling and the excellent technique EMDR, as well as straightforward operations in 'ordinary' medicine, so I cast my net of gratitude wide!
This is beautiful. Thank you for giving us such a lovely present on your birthday! I became a paid subscriber so I could comment haha. I too feel challenged to become familiar with “unknowing.” I am perhaps different from you in that I hope to travel through that unknowing and be part of a faith community one day. But for now, the connections I’m making are with people who don’t see a clear path, shall we say. I don’t know, it seems like it’s meant to be this way; like I have to follow the candles not the big bright spotlights. Anyway. I will likely be back with more of a response, for now I just wanted to share gratitude and let you know how deeply moving this piece is.
Making the Extra-ordinary Ordinary, as one of my teachers says. I love that you share your stories of such things, and a belated happy birthday!
I’ve commented before about unexpected encounters with saints during times of stillness. Now I guess I could also be brave enough to mention my encounters with The Christ. I preface the title with ‘The,’ because my experiences have been of The Christ filling my consciousness as a female more than as a male. Immortal beings do all seem to be beyond gender in my experiences, when communing is explored beyond our conditioned expectations. To begin with I was just astonished at the power of internal illumination and the dynamism of spirit and I didn’t know what was happening. I was sitting in a little side chapel in Hereford Cathedral, still tutting about the words of the Apple Tree carol around a mosaic outside, which said something to imply that ordinary trees are worthless. As someone who communes with trees and feels their depth of conscious connection to all things, I had harrumphed off indignantly to sit in a small side chapel in the cathedral.
No sooner had I settled than a vibrant and dynamic flow of energy began to run through me, down through my legs deep into the earth, deeper and darker, then it rebounded up and soared through me into the cathedral. The yin literally birthing the yang. That rising energy illuminated everything inside me and simultaneously took my awareness into what felt like every atom of the fabric of the cathedral, every dusty nook and cranny, then out through the stained glass windows and the doors and stones into the universe beyond. Then it dived back down deeper and deeper into the earth and kept repeating a connection to the Earth that was tangible and strong. It seemed to be showing me how to reconnect the consciousness of the earth and the Pre-Christian energies of the site, to the Christian tradition and through myself, out into the Heavens beyond. There was a weaving and a blending and a re-connecting happening. This profound experience lasted at least 20 minutes until I felt as though my awareness had in some way also been re-woven, darned and given new life with living threads. A reconnecting and recalibrating of time, place and space within my soul. It felt female and I inwardly asked the fast flowing spirit who she was. It replied ‘I am Christa.’
Like yourself, I don’t like to label my spirituality. I don’t fit within Christianity as it’s generally defined, because my experiences go well beyond the accepted and delineated norms, yet, like you ‘I’m not not a Christian.’ I like your words.
I have not yet been to Hereford Cathedral, nor to Gloucester, but I plan to see them both cathedrals and the Mappa Mundi with my sister this year. Warm wishes from the cold south.
Thanks for sharing and Happy Birthday!
Thank you Stephan!
Many happy returns, have a lovely day, and enjoy your celebration with coffee! Thank you for this exploration of unknowing, which touches slightly on my own tenuously similar experiences.
Thankyou Hilary! I would love to hear / read your experiences one day.
Happy Birthday. I hope there is cake. As always, I enjoy the way you craft your words, the clarity is very satisfying. I identify as an animist and have, for various reasons, an uncomfortable relationship with Christianity. However, personal experience with different states of consciousness have led me to conclude that permeating the cosmos there is a boundless power of joyous love, surrounding and cradling us, waiting for us to open to it and experience enlightenment (however one wants to define that). It is ultimate, unconditional generosity of creation, present in every sun, bacteria, flower, galaxy and tree; a primal urge to come-into-being, the exuberance of life in all its many manifestations.
Thank you!
Then you would like the 'panentheism' bit I just read in TMWT ch 28, very much in agreement with what you just wrote, beautifully.
Your words made me mull this over, I can describe my practice as 'mainly Taoist', but I don't think I identify as anything. Maybe an 'unknowingist'!
Cake has been promised for tomorrow. Today I must eat words.
Happy birthday! This felt like it spoke directly to me at this stage in my life, particularly as I've put out my back days ago and am now on retreat struggling with it and pondering the timing.
Thankyou, and, Oh no!
I was just about to email you. Speak shortly. x
Just joined. Something in the air. I commented yesterday after listening to Martin Shaw at his Beasts and Vines and mentioned publicly for the first time - see for comparison this post of yours - a hands-on in my case small angels experience in a tent in the English Lakes circa 1992/3. I did not draw too many conclusions those years ago, but yesterday acknowledged that the 'message', apart from getting me out of immediate trouble, might have been for me to get on with what I was doing. Still no conclusions even about the Universe or its odd sense of humour. Smile. Raises mug of tea in Birthday Cheer!
PS I am concessionary subscribed to Iain McG.
Welcome! I had forgotten Iain had a members area and just had a look...
These 'anomalous experiences' are so common, but are generally, and perhaps sometimes safely, kept under a veil. I also still have not come to any conclusions, and concur about the universe's surprising sense of humour. I find it interesting that 4 people today have already contacted me with their own similar experiences. My teacher used to talk about 'uncovering covered-over-ness'. There is some of that going on here, perhaps.
Raising mug of tea in return.
This is such a blessing, Caro. I'll be chewing on this one for a good while:
"Yes, ‘He’. The great Mystery isn’t a man or a woman, obviously. But as ‘She’ is far too familiar to me, as I am a ‘she’ myself, and as ‘They’ is very much a plural or ‘modern gender neutral terminology some of my non-binary friends prefer’ to me, it was not the right word for how I address Divinity. So, however mainstream it may seem, ‘He’ it is. I am finally ok with that."
Thank you for the nourishment.
I like the idea of us chewing over terminology. Like getting a recipe right by tasting it.
Meanwhile, pretty sure The Great Mystery isn't bovvered what I call him / it / them / her. But 'He' feels natural for me now, after a 50 year fight with myself about it. Oh, the irony.
Happy Birthday- May it be your best yet but not your best ever! I had a similar healing experience but with Reiki. A dear friend, but at the time I’d only just met her, is a Reiki practitioner and offered to perform Reiki on my chronic(10 years) shoulder bursitis. I had never heard of it before but was willing to trust her and in the process. It didn’t seem to work right away but later on the ride home I suddenly felt a hot, burning sensation in my shoulder and then suddenly the pain was gone and never returned. I was raised with the RE of English schools and a brief time attending a Methodist church as a child but have considered myself not a Christian. I also have been practicing TaiChi for over a decade now. I love the idea of being an “Unknowist “.
Thank you for sharing this. Today I am receiving a steady flow of similar stories, all from ordinary people, not usually prone to shouting about 'strange events'. So, all very interesting.
'Unknowist' has a ring about it, eh? If not a movement, I could at least start a band...
Compelling. Beautiful. Soul-stirring. Engaging.
A lovely essay in all the ways.
Thank you!
And of course, Happy Birthday.
Thank you!
Caro, thank you for your encouraging words on the novel!
And this was a fascinating and vulnerable essay. My spiritual development is somewhat the reverse of yours, yet with parallels. Although born into an Orthodox family, I preferred new age and eastern-type spiritualities as a youth (and dressed Goth too) (and enjoyed the Cure too), although remained mostly “secular” through the best part of my adult years. Buddhism or neo-versions of it were my only spiritual preference, although I was not especially disciplined in the practice. I always felt allergic (and still do) to the kind of Christian faith experiences/events you described. They just don’t connect with me, although I know they do with some people.
Miraculous events are amazing when they happen, but I think they are better viewed as occasional byproducts of spiritual searching or practice, rather than as a main pursuit. I think the main pursuit (to put it roughly and simplistically) is being groundedly human and real. That's more than enough for any one life.
And happy birthday! :)
It's good to hear a bit of your journey here. Life and path are indeed about being present, as you say, groundedly human and real.
Our paths seem similar, in many ways, as I fell into 'Eastern' paths soon after the events I describe, and never once went back to such meetings. The churches I go in now are mainly Saxon, empty (of people) but full of something old and deep.
Great writing (as usual!). Happy birthday.
I recently had an experence of 'uncovering' an old injury, one I had forgotten about myself!
For some years I had gone for massages to help ease a 'tired' back. Typically I went to a local UK Thai style place. They seemed competent and sort of professional, but I generally came away feeling i'd been part of a process, rather than a treatment. Any benefits generally faded after a few days.
Just before 2023 solstice I noticed a clinic nearby offering 'Chi' treatments. Had to give it a go. I was met by a man around my age that looked a bit familiar, it turned out we had been the same Tai Chi summer camps recently. The treatment started fairly normally, but was more physically 'inquisitive' than I had felt recently - in fact more like an Alexander Technique practitioner I had seen in my 20's. He talked to me and explained what he was working on in me; things I had not realised were out of harmony. And then he dropped a revellation!
"Ah, have you been side-swiped in the past?"
The memory came flooding back of me cycling to work one morning and a car coming out from a side road taking me out. Fortunately, not full-on but they stopped so I impacted the side of the bonnet and rolled over it. Nasty scrapes and a mangled bike left behind.
I explained this was about 30-40 years ago. He said yes, he feels the trauma is still there and worked on releasing it (which really didn't take long - maybe 5 minutes?).
The result (which included acupunture treatment at the end) resulted in me being the most integrated I have felt for years, and it's lasted a long time. I'm going to be a repeat visitor, 'cos I guess there are more layers to this onion!
Dear Jed, thanks so much for this. Very good practitioners seem to feel so much held in the fascia as they gently investigate. What a great level of skill and openness that man must have had to perceive those things. Getting oneself out the way, and being truly soft, yet connected, is one of the most generous things you can do with / for a person.
If you'd be willing to share the contact, please reply to my post email, as I am thinking of a dear one who would benefit from this too.
Happy Birthday Caroline!
a beautiful story, written beautifully.
i've always been fond of the theory that Christ himself (per Mark, which reads more like a shamanic encounter than later narratives) wasn't entirely sure where his healing powers came from. attempts to retcon away the Great Mystery and replace it with the One True God may have been politically motivated, rather than maintaining fidelity with the actual human experience. "both/and" stories like yours point the way back to that restoration of context and away from authoritarian monotheism.
(also, finally cracking into "Master," and hoping i can squeeze "The Matter with Things" into my reading list soon!)
Thank you. I had to look up 'retcon', thanks for that term! Both/and is at the heart of TMAHE and TMWT, and is possibly the neatest way of pointing to a story (or a person) holding paradox I have seen. So thanks for that, too.
I can rarely find a true storytelling voice for longer than a paragraph, outside the verbal milieu of a T'ai Chi or art classroom, so it's new for me to write a whole piece this way. I now have even more respect for people who do it with fiction. How to hold it all in your head when you can't just rely on memory?
Good luck with the books. I just finished ch 28 TMWT last night, and am now heading across to The World of Silence by Max Picard, I think recommended by LM Sacasas. It's great so far.
'Maintaining fidelity with the actual human experience' - yes, indeed.
Happy Birthday! I can so relate to the description of your teenage self in that same era. <3
& just today I was pondering how the body responds so well to external stimuli. How sometimes we must do the work to heal inside ourselves but also how healing can be guided so much faster with help from outside (whether spiritual, physical manipulation/intervention, the effect of being in the woods, herbs, medicine.) Perhaps we are not ever whole, alone. My forays into various religions/spiritual groups have shown me that great effect can be from the gathering of intentions. One of the biggest focal points in the world is through Christianity, there is so much power to tap into there. I have sat down to meals with people of religions that I vehemently disapprove of (due to abusive use of power) and viscerally felt loving spirit in their heartfelt prayers.
Thank you Shinehah. And yes to all you say here. Although this was by the far the most obvious physical instance of change for me, the other changes of heart and mind that occurred in life, usually during long years of practice, are actually more central to my day to day life. These were helped along by my teachers and by nature. In the past, have also had great healing from regular counselling and the excellent technique EMDR, as well as straightforward operations in 'ordinary' medicine, so I cast my net of gratitude wide!
This is beautiful. Thank you for giving us such a lovely present on your birthday! I became a paid subscriber so I could comment haha. I too feel challenged to become familiar with “unknowing.” I am perhaps different from you in that I hope to travel through that unknowing and be part of a faith community one day. But for now, the connections I’m making are with people who don’t see a clear path, shall we say. I don’t know, it seems like it’s meant to be this way; like I have to follow the candles not the big bright spotlights. Anyway. I will likely be back with more of a response, for now I just wanted to share gratitude and let you know how deeply moving this piece is.
Thank you, and welcome.
I love this. It is a raw yet tender and beautiful sharing from an honest soul. What can one say except thank you, you have inspired us all.
Making the Extra-ordinary Ordinary, as one of my teachers says. I love that you share your stories of such things, and a belated happy birthday!
I’ve commented before about unexpected encounters with saints during times of stillness. Now I guess I could also be brave enough to mention my encounters with The Christ. I preface the title with ‘The,’ because my experiences have been of The Christ filling my consciousness as a female more than as a male. Immortal beings do all seem to be beyond gender in my experiences, when communing is explored beyond our conditioned expectations. To begin with I was just astonished at the power of internal illumination and the dynamism of spirit and I didn’t know what was happening. I was sitting in a little side chapel in Hereford Cathedral, still tutting about the words of the Apple Tree carol around a mosaic outside, which said something to imply that ordinary trees are worthless. As someone who communes with trees and feels their depth of conscious connection to all things, I had harrumphed off indignantly to sit in a small side chapel in the cathedral.
No sooner had I settled than a vibrant and dynamic flow of energy began to run through me, down through my legs deep into the earth, deeper and darker, then it rebounded up and soared through me into the cathedral. The yin literally birthing the yang. That rising energy illuminated everything inside me and simultaneously took my awareness into what felt like every atom of the fabric of the cathedral, every dusty nook and cranny, then out through the stained glass windows and the doors and stones into the universe beyond. Then it dived back down deeper and deeper into the earth and kept repeating a connection to the Earth that was tangible and strong. It seemed to be showing me how to reconnect the consciousness of the earth and the Pre-Christian energies of the site, to the Christian tradition and through myself, out into the Heavens beyond. There was a weaving and a blending and a re-connecting happening. This profound experience lasted at least 20 minutes until I felt as though my awareness had in some way also been re-woven, darned and given new life with living threads. A reconnecting and recalibrating of time, place and space within my soul. It felt female and I inwardly asked the fast flowing spirit who she was. It replied ‘I am Christa.’
Like yourself, I don’t like to label my spirituality. I don’t fit within Christianity as it’s generally defined, because my experiences go well beyond the accepted and delineated norms, yet, like you ‘I’m not not a Christian.’ I like your words.
Thank you for sharing this unique experience.
I have not yet been to Hereford Cathedral, nor to Gloucester, but I plan to see them both cathedrals and the Mappa Mundi with my sister this year. Warm wishes from the cold south.