It’s funny, Schuyler. I, almost feeling like a caricature of myself at this point, can’t avoid recalling the quote from the essay on Gebser I shared during the first salon you had hosted (which was a throughly irradiating container). The reason is because the passage continues precisely where I had left off, this time quoting Gebser directly, speaking of grapes and wine as a metaphor for participation in the realm of the dead:
“If the grape harvest was in Autumn, then the grapevines begin to bloom six months later. They have a very short flourishing period, but an uncommonly fine and delicate scent. At the same time, the wine in the cellar begins to ferment and it will only settle again in the barrels and bottles when the flourishing [of the vines] has died away.
The fact that something changes its state or its form from what it once was does not mean that it has disappeared from the world; it is perhaps, as one says, dead; but you see yourself how little this actually means. For everything that hasn’t been born yet or that hasn’t happened yet―thus everything that one in an almost despairing way calls the future―must also be dead.”
Clearly, you have everything you need to illuminate the darkened contents long relegated to the cellar, guiding the fecund contents found there to their fruition 🍇🍷
As you return to your own memories with fresh eyes, seeing now what you hadn’t seen then—could you be helping Katherine to do the same? But, from her position, perhaps she now revisits her past, in some strange sense, also as memories from the future, offered by her friend and companion, much as you tearfully remembered the apartment that, up until then, had been waiting for you.
How might your personal epiphanies inform how Katherine sees her history afresh with the aid of your future eyes?
Alchemical wine, eternally ripening upon long-dead vines of tomorrow?
This is such a bold, beautiful share, Sam. I wrote in my journal yesterday and today about the joy of how this voice being carried is maturing into a velvety Merlot of musicality and that “the blood wine is fermenting in an alchemical flow of Divine Femininity.” (Thank you for allowing me to indulge in that share).
I love how Katherine is continuing to participate in the world through Schulyer’s body and how Schulyer is participating in the world by re-membering Katherine (literarily putting her body back together). It’s hard not to recognize the deep continuity of life through this project and each other ❤️
What does Katherine no longer want to carry and what does she want to pick up, hold and care for?
Your reminder of re-membering being literally a putting the body back together is so poignant to me especially as Katherine's body was so weak by the end. In the dream she is robust and beautiful and vibrant. It felt like she wanted me to remember her that way...know her as that.
Also this question - thank you for it: What does Katherine no longer want to carry and what does she want to pick up, hold and care for? You have sparked my inspiration for tomorrow's post...or sharpened my focus. Thank you for asking. I am tuning into my answer on this and also sharing with KM. Just sitting down to write now...we shall see what she has to say. Tomorrow's chapter is back to France!
So much is becoming clear in this process. Thank you for communing with me and KM and Sam ... somehow it seems to strengthen the field. What do you think it is? The witnessing? The relating? The sharing? The caring? or All of the Above?!
Sam, I can't begin to tell you how this share from the caricature of yourself lifts me up! It buoys me! I feel like she was talking to YOU with this wine metaphor--like KM heard your comment in the book club and thought..."Yes, that's it, Sam!" and then she brought the rest of it in a dream that I shared and that you helped illuminate further. And let's not forget our friend, Gebser, whom I am beginning to adore as the "friend and companion" of my friend, Sam! Everything I know of Gebser, I know THROUGH you. It's so wonderful--to not be alone, to feel guided by the past and the future. To be part of an ongoing story. Together.
Yes - it really did happen in the apartment that day that I cried and I felt our future there. I was standing in the room that would be my daughter's. I would give birth in that apartment (not in a hospital, but at home ... there). My marriage would end there. It was a crucial home for me in this life and I think I did somehow know it that day. I have often wondered if maybe KM had some inkling of me in the future, even then. I have played with the idea of writing myself into her awareness as she is beginning to be written into mine. I haven't decided yet, but tomorrow may bring something like that. There are aspects of her time at the Prieuré that I know I can only imagine because of my own experience with H and because I went there. Yes, this was important...I made a pilgrimage to the old chateau in 2017. I will come to that in the story in due time, but I was there...on that ground. That gives me an idea...
I am quite certain now that she and I are in this together. And the healing of the sacred marriage archetype...what they call the consort relationship in Tantra...is the thing here. THANK YOU for your wisdom. The way you are "getting" this is even beyond me. I feel you holding that field for our unfolding...shamanic work. XO
There are too many synchronicities to name in this post, but all I can say is that we are here with you, sister. The call is being sounded, wounds are being healed, and the sacred waters of blood and body are beginning to flow again
I can FEEL the tension between the truth on this awakening path and the approximations and shortcuts due to H being a Man and comfortable with a Yang Zen method that is good against some sort of self deception.
It's both beautiful and scary because it does bare it's fruits and the work you have produced with the practices are paying off. Also the fact that he can reach out in the evening to follow up and check in in a softer way shows also how he cares... But still in a harsh way.
What an amazing master he would be if he was simply a bit more compassionate and willing to doubt on his method from time to time. Instead he seems to be doing this One size fits all. And I imagine even that might haunt him about. (Here is another student guinea pig, I am gonna give them some reps, I am gonna tell them to suck it all up. If they fall short it's their fault. If they succeed, I am confirmed in my ways... But end up bored). In all cases his Ego gets to blow even larger.
I also totally see how in hindsight, this harsh contrast is ofc a curse and a blessing. And there are not that many good mentors out there, so it's not like you really had a choice.
Aaaah... people and their certainties... Nietzsche said that this was precisely what drove people crazy!
I just want to say that I'm thoroughly enjoying each chapter and while I didn't have time to read this latest until this morning, when I saw the email that it had arrived on Saturday morning I felt happy and eager to get to it when I had some time to enjoy it. Thank you for the weekly treat.
You are most welcome, Kathy! Thank you for letting me know you are enjoying the work! It feels great to receive that support and I can write into it :)
Enter Kathrine, and then... Enter Katherine.
It’s funny, Schuyler. I, almost feeling like a caricature of myself at this point, can’t avoid recalling the quote from the essay on Gebser I shared during the first salon you had hosted (which was a throughly irradiating container). The reason is because the passage continues precisely where I had left off, this time quoting Gebser directly, speaking of grapes and wine as a metaphor for participation in the realm of the dead:
“If the grape harvest was in Autumn, then the grapevines begin to bloom six months later. They have a very short flourishing period, but an uncommonly fine and delicate scent. At the same time, the wine in the cellar begins to ferment and it will only settle again in the barrels and bottles when the flourishing [of the vines] has died away.
The fact that something changes its state or its form from what it once was does not mean that it has disappeared from the world; it is perhaps, as one says, dead; but you see yourself how little this actually means. For everything that hasn’t been born yet or that hasn’t happened yet―thus everything that one in an almost despairing way calls the future―must also be dead.”
Clearly, you have everything you need to illuminate the darkened contents long relegated to the cellar, guiding the fecund contents found there to their fruition 🍇🍷
As you return to your own memories with fresh eyes, seeing now what you hadn’t seen then—could you be helping Katherine to do the same? But, from her position, perhaps she now revisits her past, in some strange sense, also as memories from the future, offered by her friend and companion, much as you tearfully remembered the apartment that, up until then, had been waiting for you.
How might your personal epiphanies inform how Katherine sees her history afresh with the aid of your future eyes?
Alchemical wine, eternally ripening upon long-dead vines of tomorrow?
This is such a bold, beautiful share, Sam. I wrote in my journal yesterday and today about the joy of how this voice being carried is maturing into a velvety Merlot of musicality and that “the blood wine is fermenting in an alchemical flow of Divine Femininity.” (Thank you for allowing me to indulge in that share).
I love how Katherine is continuing to participate in the world through Schulyer’s body and how Schulyer is participating in the world by re-membering Katherine (literarily putting her body back together). It’s hard not to recognize the deep continuity of life through this project and each other ❤️
What does Katherine no longer want to carry and what does she want to pick up, hold and care for?
Dearest Holly,
Your reminder of re-membering being literally a putting the body back together is so poignant to me especially as Katherine's body was so weak by the end. In the dream she is robust and beautiful and vibrant. It felt like she wanted me to remember her that way...know her as that.
Also this question - thank you for it: What does Katherine no longer want to carry and what does she want to pick up, hold and care for? You have sparked my inspiration for tomorrow's post...or sharpened my focus. Thank you for asking. I am tuning into my answer on this and also sharing with KM. Just sitting down to write now...we shall see what she has to say. Tomorrow's chapter is back to France!
So much is becoming clear in this process. Thank you for communing with me and KM and Sam ... somehow it seems to strengthen the field. What do you think it is? The witnessing? The relating? The sharing? The caring? or All of the Above?!
Sam, I can't begin to tell you how this share from the caricature of yourself lifts me up! It buoys me! I feel like she was talking to YOU with this wine metaphor--like KM heard your comment in the book club and thought..."Yes, that's it, Sam!" and then she brought the rest of it in a dream that I shared and that you helped illuminate further. And let's not forget our friend, Gebser, whom I am beginning to adore as the "friend and companion" of my friend, Sam! Everything I know of Gebser, I know THROUGH you. It's so wonderful--to not be alone, to feel guided by the past and the future. To be part of an ongoing story. Together.
Yes - it really did happen in the apartment that day that I cried and I felt our future there. I was standing in the room that would be my daughter's. I would give birth in that apartment (not in a hospital, but at home ... there). My marriage would end there. It was a crucial home for me in this life and I think I did somehow know it that day. I have often wondered if maybe KM had some inkling of me in the future, even then. I have played with the idea of writing myself into her awareness as she is beginning to be written into mine. I haven't decided yet, but tomorrow may bring something like that. There are aspects of her time at the Prieuré that I know I can only imagine because of my own experience with H and because I went there. Yes, this was important...I made a pilgrimage to the old chateau in 2017. I will come to that in the story in due time, but I was there...on that ground. That gives me an idea...
I am quite certain now that she and I are in this together. And the healing of the sacred marriage archetype...what they call the consort relationship in Tantra...is the thing here. THANK YOU for your wisdom. The way you are "getting" this is even beyond me. I feel you holding that field for our unfolding...shamanic work. XO
There are too many synchronicities to name in this post, but all I can say is that we are here with you, sister. The call is being sounded, wounds are being healed, and the sacred waters of blood and body are beginning to flow again
This is truly fascinating.
I can FEEL the tension between the truth on this awakening path and the approximations and shortcuts due to H being a Man and comfortable with a Yang Zen method that is good against some sort of self deception.
It's both beautiful and scary because it does bare it's fruits and the work you have produced with the practices are paying off. Also the fact that he can reach out in the evening to follow up and check in in a softer way shows also how he cares... But still in a harsh way.
What an amazing master he would be if he was simply a bit more compassionate and willing to doubt on his method from time to time. Instead he seems to be doing this One size fits all. And I imagine even that might haunt him about. (Here is another student guinea pig, I am gonna give them some reps, I am gonna tell them to suck it all up. If they fall short it's their fault. If they succeed, I am confirmed in my ways... But end up bored). In all cases his Ego gets to blow even larger.
I also totally see how in hindsight, this harsh contrast is ofc a curse and a blessing. And there are not that many good mentors out there, so it's not like you really had a choice.
Aaaah... people and their certainties... Nietzsche said that this was precisely what drove people crazy!
Dear Schuyler,
I just want to say that I'm thoroughly enjoying each chapter and while I didn't have time to read this latest until this morning, when I saw the email that it had arrived on Saturday morning I felt happy and eager to get to it when I had some time to enjoy it. Thank you for the weekly treat.
You are most welcome, Kathy! Thank you for letting me know you are enjoying the work! It feels great to receive that support and I can write into it :)