Session Nine 2009

Reading: It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

1. Do you agree with the quote in the chalice lighting – that all change is not growth? What are some of your experiences with changes that seemed like a step backwards instead of forward?

2. Does our experience of spirituality change as we get older? What are some examples of your spiritual outlook that have evolved over your lifetime?

3. How do we approach changes differently if we instigate them as opposed to them being forced on us?

May the light around us guide our footsteps, and hold us fast to the best and most righteous vision that we seek. May the darkness around us nurture our dreams, and give us rest so that we may give ourselves to the work of the world. Let us seek to remember the wholeness of our lives, the weaving of light and shadow in this great and astonishing dance in which we move.

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Any transition serious enough to alter your definition of self will require not just small adjustments in you way of living and thinking but a full-on metamorphosis.

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; from what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.

He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.

If you’re in a bad situation, don’t worry it’ll change. If you’re in a good situation, don’t worry it’ll change.

He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.

As far as inner transformation is concerned, there is nothing you can do about it. Yu cannot transform yourself, and you certainly cannot transform your partner or anybody else. All you can do is create a space for transformation to happen, for grace and love to enter.

The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience…not from our mental resolution to try and form a new life.