Upcoming Event: Gurdjieff & Sexuality
Join me and Layman Pascal on Sunday at 2:30pm Eastern for this fun deep dive into a topic I love and...have written a book about!
Dear Friends,
On Sunday at 2:30p ET, I will join Layman Pascal of Integral Stage at the Philosophy Portal for a stimulating conversation about our favorite Martian mystic and epic esoteric enigma, George Ivanovich Gurdjieff. The topic was proposed by Layman and I jumped at the chance to discuss this aspect of Gurdjieff’s work (“The Work”) and also to talk more broadly about the complexity that can arise where the sacred and the sexual meet.
If you’d like to register to attend the event, you can do that on Layman’s website. The talk is part of a 4-part series and access to the whole series is $69.
Some of you know that I’ve been working on a book called Tenacious Magic. In 2023, I released and wrote (real time) the book serially here on Substack. Since then, I’ve spent a year in heavy editing mode and I’m happy to report the full manuscript is nearly done.
Here is a summary of the book:
"Tenacious Magic" is a genre-bending novel that weaves together the lives of two women across time: the brilliant and tempestuous writer Katherine Mansfield, who spent her final days studying with the mystic G.I. Gurdjieff in 1922, and the author (me), who embarks on a journey of creative and spiritual awakening under the guidance of an enigmatic teacher in New York City a century later.
Through dreams, visions, and past life memories, the author uncovers her deep soul connection with Katherine Mansfield and suspects her teacher, Victor, may be a reincarnation of Gurdjieff. Practicing esoteric exercises, confronting her shadows, and opening to mystical experiences, she remembers her past lives as a temple priestess, oracle, and feminine mystic. Balancing marriage, motherhood, and her growing passion to write, she finds herself irresistibly drawn to her teacher, torn between the domestic and the transcendent, the ordinary and the surreal; meanwhile Mansfield struggles to find immortality before a chronic condition takes her life. Both women must reckon with their part in the dynamics of complex initiatory practices with their teachers when they cross a line into physical intimacy.
Seamlessly blending historical fiction with metaphysical autofiction, "Tenacious Magic" ultimately explores the sacred feminine, the timeless guru-disciple relationship, and the soul's quest for enlightenment across multiple incarnations. The author artfully weaves together vivid scenes from Mansfield's life and final days and her own spiritual odyssey, building to a powerful revelation of healing, wholeness, and liberation. This novel is ultimately an alchemical treatise on the spiritual path for women—a healing of victimhood and suppression. “Tenacious Magic" showcases the interior lives of women who refuse to be confined by the roles and expectations imposed on them.
Layman, bless his heart, was an early reader of my manuscript. I asked him to offer his thoughts as he’s the most brilliant Gurdjieff fan/interpreter I know. His feedback was indispensable and influenced the current draft (including a sex scene which he decreed needed to be much “weirder”). I’ve also been reading and enjoying Layman’s book, Gurdjieff for a Time Between Worlds.
The teacher I worked with in life and describe in my book (“Victor”) was a big Gurdjieffian. He was also, like Gurdjieff, enigmatic and charismatic, a trickster, and strangely unsuited to life on earth. Later, when I learned about the concept of “crazy wisdom,” as popularized by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the Tibetan Tantric teacher, I thought “A ha!” Both Victor and Gurdjieff were always throwing you off your center in order to open you…well, I could say to higher states, but really to open you to…emptiness—using the magician’s trick of misdirection to stop the mind’s propensity to rest in habitual activity and breaking taboos to cut through the numbing comfort of social norms and customs that we take refuge in when we should be taking refuge in the dharma, in truth, in reality.
As Layman says in a chapter called Crazy Wisdom:
[Gurdjieff] did not set himself up in the Eastern manner. There were no halls of devotional worship, no elevated dais of garlands, no beads, no robes. He did not hide from the world like a tenured professor but was a free range explorer who interacted constantly with the general public and associated with people of all ranks, professions, and ethnicities. He took his show on the road. And, especially after his wife’s death, he seemed to both critique the social personality and gain some odd energy by generating hassle in public.
He tended to cause perplexity, vexation and consternation much like Larry David from Curb Your Enthusiasm, Sascha Baron Cohen in Borat, or the Marx Brothers on vacation. Whether this was the result of a perverse element in his character or a stratagem for rapidly exposing the essence of people around him, or perhaps simply a natural result of “being himself” in an abnormal civilization, I’m not sure anyone can know definitively.
This inability to KNOW the root of the action, the impetus, the motivation of these men is at the center of my story also. But, crazy wisdom takes on another layer of perversity when physical intimacy is involved…when the boundaries breeched are intimate and bodily and where the power dynamic is decidedly skewed. Both of the women in my book love their teachers and gain much from the relationship; but neither can be sure whether he is ultimately acting in her best interest. Even though the dais and beads and robes are absent for both Gurdjieff and Victor in my story, the women place the men on a pedestal and romanticize the situation, only to remember (too late) that these men are also, only, human.
One of my favorite conversations to imagine while writing Tenacious Magic, was between Katherine Mansfield and Gurdjieff’s wife, Madame Ostrowska. Katherine has come to Madame to confess that she’s been having an emotional affair with her husband. Madame is completely unsurprised. There is a noble surrender Madame has achieved that she tries to pass on to the eager pupil, Katherine, still so desperate to be special, chosen. I liked using the voice of the wise woman to illuminate the shortcomings of the powerful master. Katherine asks Madame if she cares about the affairs her husband has.
“Why did you come here, Katherine?”
Katherine considers the question completely. They are weaving a circle of trust as only women can. She wants to respect the woman sitting with her by offering the truth, “I came seeking immortality…a life beyond this life.”
Madame nods and smiles faintly, “That makes me happy to hear. I like it when a woman knows what she wants. Did you get what you came for?”
Katherine smiles back, without fear, knowing what is inevitable and imminent, “We’ll see.” The two women sip their tea and stare at the fire. The room is warming and brightening with daylight.
“You asked if I care…” Madame is looking into the fire. Katherine nods.
“I’ve become numb. If I felt every initiation…every affair…it would kill me. In another time, I would have my own lovers, my own temple. But right now, the world belongs to men…and I work in the kitchen. But, I know in my heart my role. That is between me and the goddess: Mother Mary, Sophia, Durga, Isis…I am a queen. Like the queen bee, I keep the hive humming. Like a Queen Mother, I rule, but with Love. The sacrifice I make is worth it. I give my body, heart and soul to this work and to this family.”
Katherine bows her head in the presence of this wisdom out of her reach, but right here under all of their noses, “I’m truly sorry, Julia. I didn’t think.”
Madame laughs, “You can’t think your way through an initiation. Be glad you made it here, my dear. Think of how many do not! The best you can do now is stay clear and stay with yourself. I know you want to think it was special, something sacred you shared with him…It was. I don’t mean to say it wasn't,” she nods, “But, you’re not unique. There have been many before and there will be many after you. The only thing that matters now is how you tend that energy within yourself. Can you create a relationship with the Goddess you now carry? Can you be honest with yourself? Can you avoid the mistake of falling in love? And also not become bitter? He suffers, too. He cannot find peace. He cannot rest. His heart is with his mission, not any one woman.”
Initiations are by nature (by definition?) destabilizing. My book dives deeply into the gifts and shadows of the initiatory path where men and women are involved in the awakening of the Shakti/Kundalini or life force energy. It’s about the initiation of two priestesses—one in a modern context and one in a post-modern context. It’s about what happens when sacred process crosses a line into carnal desire. What I loved about the writing of the book was the chance to illuminate the female mystic’s journey in a man’s world. The deepest relationship in the book in the end is the one the two women share through time—me and Katherine—as we discover that not much has changed in 100 years.
In Other News
I’m thrilled to be co-hosting an event with Peter Limberg of The Stoa for Life Itself’s new manifesto and magazine release, written and curated by Life Itself co-founder Sylvie Barbier. Sylvie has become a friend and sister in the last few weeks and I always adore hanging out with Peter. All are welcome to join us to celebrate the art of the “Second Renaissance.” The event takes place on January 28th at 12 PM Eastern. You can sign up here.
AND…
Every week, I offer a beautiful meditation space on Tuesdays at noon Eastern called Coming Home. It is a special collective meditation space where we spend the first 30 minutes sharing and listening deeply to each other and then 30 minutes weaving our stories into a meditative journey/sit. It’s very special—a modality I have practiced and perfected over the last few years. I invite you to come and experience the healing power of community and heart-opening, guided meditation. You don’t need any special experience. It’s open to all. I find the most advanced meditators get as much out of it as beginners because it meets each participant where they are and we get out of it what we put in collectively. If you’re interested, watch this space for Coming Home emails. I send one out with a link every Monday.
Trying to locate EJ Gold. Seen him around anywhere?