Solve et Coagule

Given the nature of this post, I find it interesting that it is the 40th since I began this channel of expression. A wandering in the desert that is certainly not over but does indeed reach an interesting milestone today as news came of a shifting partnership with my work in the church the nature of which weaves in and out of this journal and journey mostly behind the scenes. The details are going to again remain behind the scenes, but I did want to register this time as one that may turn out to be pivotal for the road ahead.

This entire year has been one of radical shifts in basic things. Once the dust settles there may indeed be a monastic motivation that can be elicited from transitions. One which is a little ahead of the curve [and nearly got its own post under the title of "Feasting, Fasting and Daily Bread" around the time of the feast of St. Benedict last month; instead got an airing at my small group within our community] is a shift in the way I eat to bring my "daily bread" back into the scope of something worth that title in its original context of the Lord's prayer as well as in the context of manna for which you can only have that which you need. Daily work is also in extensive fluctuation in a move to more appropriately sized quarters couple with the addition of consolidation of two brands. Separate initiatives that have dovetailed and will arrive at a stronger more sustainable whole. July also saw two sets of travel experiences one into the deep roots of family an another into the lofty possibilities of intentionality through with realization that consciousness matters woven into the integration previously fragmented experiences of a city that was too close to home to know on its own.

Since returning from that second trip, all of these fluidities and uncertainties seemed to pile up on themselves making a rough passage of it. With the previously, though vaguely, mentioned news received today I feel that this period of dissolution has reached its final point. After a period of transition through the next nine days, the coagulation phase of what will next become can begin. There is now nothing else left to melt.

The Hermetic adage titling this post has of course its Christian analog in the path of dying and rising. This time immemorial pattern illustrated so brilliantly in the Gospel and in our experience of Jesus guides us through all these changes on personal and collective levels. When we lay down what we know in exchange for perhaps what we know not in the confidence of God's presence with us we follow in his footsteps, even in that moment when we feel forsaken before the confidence returns in knowledge that it is done. As it feel like I have done more often than usual this year, I embrace the Holy Saturday-ness of these next days, in preparation for a new manifestation to be found in a little Easter of its own.