Theme: Magicians Reporting for Duty

Week 37: How Safety and the Minotaur dance in paradox of horror and hope

Beautiful Magicians,

I’m in a strange place right now, and I sense most everyone I know and care about is in this same quandary. So I want to acknowledge it, name it, and bring it out into the light—not just for examination, but for welcome.

Two things are true right now. Two radically different, even opposing things. The two things are:

• clear-eyed horror at the collapse of my country and the world.
• sweet swelling of hope. Not mamby-pamby hope. The real thing.

I hold these opposing realities of horror and hope in my hands and in my heart. They are both alive in my body. And in everyone’s. And both are true.

This, my friends, is the definition of paradox. Two opposing things that are true at the same time. And like it or not, we are living in an exasperating time of explosive paradox.

No wonder we are so exhausted and sick. Our bodies are roiling with paradox.

I’ve been talking about paradox for a long time. In the introduction of my book Soul Vows, I said to get the most out of the mystical adventure of finding and living your soul vows, you need to “Make Friends with Paradox.” To open the conversation, I offered a favorite koan from Meister Eckhart: “To be full, you must be empty.” In Soul Vows and in all my books, I often turn to Carl Jung, because that man wrestled with paradox at length, eventually coming to the conclusion that paradox is our most valuable spiritual possession.

So, let’s start there, that this time of radical paradox is a spiritual moment, a moment pregnant with mystical possibility. Could this hard moment even be a gift? Yes, even a gift? A strange one, it’s true, but perhaps a bit like the Matrix, we are asked to make a choice:

• close our eyes, pretend it’s not that bad, or tell ourselves there’s nothing we can do anyway
• open our eyes, see clearly how patriarchy controls and poisons our environment, our cultures, our governments, our religions, our bodies, our beliefs, and our relationships, and take steps to help it collapse

Last week, Rob Brezsny, creator of Freewill Astrology, posted something that stopped me in my tracks. I read it once, twice, then copied it inside a few of my private groups. Here’s the heart of what he wrote. Listen to him dance with the paradox of Horror and Hope.

“America has been invaded and occupied by a hostile oligarchic death cult. Millions of lives are imperiled, the earth is brutalized, and a grotesque parody of faith poisons millions of imaginations.

Despite my horror at the runaway abominations, I am still a passionate devotee of pronoia: the hypothesis that the universe is conspiring to shower us with blessings.

Pronoia is not denial. It’s not naïve optimism. My pronoia is rowdy, muscular, and complicated. It recognizes the grief and the terror, the corruption and the cruelty — and still insists on seeking out the currents of benevolence flowing all around us.

When I rail against the oligarchic death cult, I do so with the conviction that we are also surrounded by multitudes of life celebrations: people and movements devoted to compassion, justice, erotic intelligence, and ecological repair.”

I’ve never heard such gorgeous language for the paradox of the moment, the visceral physicality of the horror unfolding in front of our eyes and the visceral physicality of hope. Real hope is: Rowdy. Muscular. Complicated. Real hope sees the cruelty and still insists on seeking benevolence and celebration.

Rob doesn’t know me and I don’t know Rob, but he just described perfectly the mystical adventures we are going to explore in Praying in the Dark: When People Feel Safe, Patriarchy Falls Apart, a shamanic dance with the Minotaur.

Consider the Minotaur. In him, we encounter paradox at its ripest.

One version of the Minotaur, as told in Greek mythology, is that he is the abomination of abominations. A half-man, half bull monstrosity, he must be locked away in the dark, occasionally tossed bodies of sacrificial children to eat.

But that’s not the only Minotaur. Nor is it the true Minotaur.

The original Minotaur danced joyfully on the walls of Paleolithic caves tens of thousands of years before Greece even existed. I don’t know if Rob Brezsny is friends with the Minotaur, but Rob’s pronoia sure sounds like the real Minotaur to me: rowdy, muscular, insisting on benevolence, and justice. In love with the Earth and with life and with creation.

No one embodies erotic intelligence quite like the Minotaur. He understands and embodies the joy that comes with sovereignty.

Cathy Stevens Pratt, my mystic witch partner and Tony Goncalves, (henceforth to be addressed as Mammuno after his shamanic initiation with the Minotaur) have been deep in the caves with the Minotaur listening intently for how we invite safety into our lives.

Not safety as our patriarchal culture defines it. That kind of safety ends up meaning nothing more than accumulating wealth, health, prestige, power…all the things society says will protect you.

That bubble burst for me years ago when I heard David Whyte, a rowdy pronoia kind of man if ever there was one, say “There is no competency that can protect you from life’s losses.” Got that? Wealth can disappear. Health invariable fades. Prestige, titles, all the things you‘ve been told will somehow keep you above the fray. All of it disappears.

So, what is true safety?

The Minotaur has a lot to help us remember about safety. Not as something to acquire or accumulate, but as the foundation of our personal and collective sovereignty. As the foundation of joy and the basis of real love. But the Minotaur isn’t going to teach like a professor at the front of class. He’s going to invite us into shamanic experiences of safety. We will meet the Minotaur and Safety at the center of the original Paleolithic labyrinth and Safety will begin a dialogue with each one of us. About ourselves.

1. Because the first ripple of safety is finding safety within ourself. We’ll explore that in our first gathering.
2. The next week, we’ll explore the second ripple of safety in our relationships.
3. The third week, safety will ripple out into our work
4. The fourth week, we'll explore how safety ripples out into the world.

Can you see how safety starts with us and then gently ripples out into the world, exerting necessary pressure on our unsafe patriarchal structures.

If you are safe with yourself and safe with your relationships, patriarchal commands and expectations cannot touch you.

This is what it means to be sovereign. Safety first.

We have had a lot of mystical experiences in my intensives in the last few years. But this one feels different. As I asked myself why…how is this prayer intensive on safety with the Minotaur different from all we’ve done before?

I realized the difference is that the entire purpose and format is mystical discoveries.

For example, we will experience:

• Shamanic journeys with the Minotaur back in time and perhaps forward in time
• Morphic memory of the ancestors on the original labyrinth
• Safety, not as an idea or a psychological value, but as a living presence
• Somatic awareness of safety in the body building intuitive discernment
• Praying with Safety, not for safety, that would be a standard-issue patriarchal request; we will be praying with Safety
• Deep soul writing with Safety, initiating a Safety Journal
• Wisdom from the Oracle on safety

It’s a pretty thrilling list!

We open Tuesday, so this is your invitation to join a gathering of mystics willing to stand in the paradox of horror while gently and lovingly pressing the levers of hope.

I’ve long wondered what to call the mystics who come to my intensives. And today, I think I got the answer.

A woman in the NYT Spelling Bee posted a long fun list of what you call groups of animals and birds. She did it because yesterday’s word was chickadee and she wondered what you call a group of chickadees. Answer: a banditry. Isn’t that adorable. That inspired her to look up dozens of creatures. Here are a few fun ones:

a charm of hummingbirds
a regatta of swans
a muster of peacocks
a tiding of magpies
a flamboyance of flamingos

And as I read the list, I asked myself what do we call a gathering of mystics. Ready?

a discovery of mystics  

I love this so much! Of course we are a discovery. We even call all our gatherings, Discovery Gatherings. And naming us a discovery reinforces that there is no teaching in these intensives. Only personal shamanic mystical exploration and discoveries. Plus a discovery of mystics comes to an 88 in numerology. 88 reduces to a 16, the collapsing tower in Tarot. How perfect is that!

So let me amend my invitation:

You are invited to join A Discovery of Mystics, gathering to discover the beauty and power of safety.

Praying in the Dark: When People Feel Safe, Patriarchy Falls Apart opens September 15.

• We have four Live gatherings on Tuesdays at 6:00-7:45 pm Eastern, a time that works well for the Americas and the Pacific Rim
• We have Watch Parties on Thursdays at 1pm Eastern for our friends in Europe and Africa
• To make sure everyone can come to a live discussion cafe, we meet on Sundays at both 1p and 6p
• Plus, for those who wish to pray, we gather every Wednesday at 5p eastern and once a month on Sunday at 1pm to pray The Song of the Morning of the World rosary

Follow the link below for full schedule and details.

 Praying in the Dark--Minotaur

Life is fragile, handle with reverence
as we dance in the paradox of horror and hope

Janet

PS: if you don't want to use paypal, I can send you an invoice, you can use Venmo, you can send me a check (ask for my address), or pay through zelle.

PSS: If you haven't, consider getting the first intensive, Praying in the Dark: How Visionaries Pray in a Time of Collapse. On-Demand at $88. You can watch it at any time. You don't have to finish it before we open.

Questions? Write to me janet@janetconner.com

website: janetconner.com

blog (all newsletters): janetconner.com/blog

facebook: janet conner prayer artist

YouTube: Janet Conner