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- [00:05]
A
Welcome to Contemplify, where we seek to kindle the examined life for contemplatives in the world. I'm your host, Paul Swanson. Today we get to be in conversation with the one and only Beverly Lanzata, a theologian, a contemplative scholar and teacher, the author of numerous groundbreaking books. Her most recent one is a centerpiece of our conversation here today, Birthing a new contemplation in 10 parts. It's a rich and precise invitation to seekers of all stripes who hear the contemplative call ringing in their ears. We talk about via Feminia, mystical activism in a suffering world, dark nights of the soul, and what has become clearer since the last time we spoke. As always, you can visit contemplify.com for the show notes on this episode and learn more about beverly lanzetta@beverlylanzetta.net and folks, this book is coming out this month, so I can't think of a better way to ring in the month of May than by picking up a copy of Birthing a New Mysticism by Beverly Lanzetta. Please join me in raising a glass to my guest today, Beverly Lanzetta. Thank you so much for being here today. I love hanging out with you, talking with you, learning from you, laughing with you. It's a gift to have you as a teacher and a friend. The last time we did a conversation for Contemplify was I was shocked to discover it was five years ago because in some ways it feels like yesterday. But a question I love to ask people who I have back on the podcast is what has become clearer since the last time we spoke for you? Is there anything in your life that's become clear in these past five years?
- [02:04]
B
I guess yes. I think what I would say is what's become clearer is the immense value of letting go, of sinking into silence, of letting the past just wash over us and let the. The self identity and ego be a face and just more and more just sink into that deep blend of beauty and. And what I've been calling lately the meadow of floatly.
- [02:45]
A
Oh, I like that.
- [02:48]
B
Yeah. I mean, just to pick up there. I mean, one thing that was very clear to me, with all the changes going on politically and different administrations and all that's happened in the last five years, along with a number of personal changes in my life, it became really clear to me that I made a decision. And the decision was that I was going to sink deeper, I was going to put my roots even deeper into the divine and into the life of contemplation. And non violence and love that I was. I don't know how to exactly describe it, but like pulling up from that deep well and stabilizing myself even further in that center of beauty and love and what I've been calling, like I said, an open field of glory or a garden of grace and experiencing the newness of letting the past wash behind me that we carry so much of our. Our thoughts, our feelings, our regrets, our, you know, all of the things that go on, whether personally, politically, environmentally, social, justice wise. There's so many things in our lives that cause pain to our hearts. And it became really important for me to. To really let the divine joy seep into me and to use that as a fulcrum around which to guide my life and to share with others. Because in the realm of the divine, it's the love that's eternal. And so how do we live in that place, in the midst of all that's going on around us?
- [05:00]
A
Well, you model that so well, I think, in how you live and what you share with us through your teachings. So it's wonderful to hear that experiential nature of what that's been like for you for these past five years. The journey never ends.
- [05:20]
B
Yeah. And it's very liberating. It's liberating to experience what I called in the book and other places like the Unborn, where we really just let ourselves be renewed in the light of God and trust in that. That pureness is at the center of being because that's what we all really need. We need that so desperately.
- [05:53]
A
Amen. Amen. We need that so desperately. As another way for folks who maybe don't know you or don't know your work. A question that I like to ask, which is a bit goofy, but helps people get a sense of how you became the Beverly Lanzetta of today. If someone were going to teach a class on the formation of Beverly Lanzetta, what would be the three mandatory readings or works that formed you that would definitely be on that syllabus?
- [06:25]
B
You mean not my works, but that formed me, Is that what you're saying?
- [06:30]
A
That's it exactly. And it could change, you know, if I asked you that, probably in 20 minutes it might be different, but whatever comes to mind in the moment.
- [06:41]
B
It's interesting because I can think of books, but I can also think of works of spirit that are not books. Right.
- [06:50]
A
That works too. Yeah.
- [06:53]
B
The work of spirit imbuing my life from a young age with this quest for. For what was real, you know, this passionate Desire to know God and truth and love. And that was so powerful, even as a young child. I didn't have the exact quote words then, as I do now, what I was seeking. But it was definitely the. The work of spirit embedded in my being, calling me to something. And that I kept following that call very intently. And then I would say, like many people, like one of the early actual writings that caught my attention was Thomas Merton. When I was, I guess, in my 20s or sometime, I had come across one of his books where he talks about being a monk, the Contemplative Life. And I went, wait a minute, that's me. But at that point, I'd been married, I had children, and I was like, that's interesting. But that desire, that intention, the language of the person whose life is devoted to God was very, very poignant. It said something to me, it meant something, and it was something I knew I had to pursue because it was defining me in a way that the world could not. From Merton came this whole trajectory of other mystical writers who were, for all intents and purposes, my friends, because who was going to understand a woman who wanted to be a monk but had four children? Who was a monk and had four children.
- [08:52]
A
Yeah.
- [08:54]
B
And also had a life changing series of mystical events. In my late 20s that was another book, another book of the divine that set me on a path that I'm still on today. And so I would say that these various influences of the spiritual, the book of Spirit, the book of the mystics, the book of my inner transformation in an experience of the divine. And so I'll put 3B onto 3, the book of academic theological study of these traditions, which added to and enhanced my intuitive spiritual orientation, let's say that makes sense.
- [09:51]
A
I appreciate the way that you took that question and marked it through these different inputs and seasons and experiences that have continued to flower until this day. It's wonderful.
- [10:09]
B
Just the incredible grace and awe of being able to communicate with these mystics through history and to find people who lived life at the depths that I was living or wanted to live. And what a liberation that was for me to know that in this realm I wasn't alone. And I think that that experience gave me a kind of direction of, since I'd always loved to write and had been writing since I was a child, this sense of joining that community of mystical writers who could share with others what we've been through or what we understood about the divine nature that perhaps would connect other people or make other people feel less alone, because there were those who shared in that understanding.
- [11:16]
A
Yeah. And you've certainly done that for me in my life. And like you said, you've done that through writing. I want to highlight is you're also an artist, a writer of icons. And right before we hopped on here, you sent me your latest. Is it retablo? Am I saying that correctly?
- [11:42]
B
Yeah.
- [11:43]
A
Mother of humility.
- [11:45]
B
Yes.
- [11:47]
A
Can you share a little bit about that? How does that impact your own life in the spirit? Through writing icons and through painting,
- [11:59]
B
I've always felt a draw. I've always been drawn to sacred art. And when I was completing my. My doctorate in theology, I had said to myself, I really. I want to learn how to paint icons. And I had no idea why or why that happened or what. Why I thought that. And so I started to study with Greek and Russian iconographers. And then when I moved to New Mexico, I studied with some of the Santeros in Santa Fe and developed a style of using the original pigments. Everything is original. Paint on wood, paint on with using, creating my own gesso, making powder, making paints from powder pigments, making varnish from pinion SAP, et cetera. And there was something so deeply earthbound and yet profoundly spiritual together, like an incarnation of the interior life of our ever of my life in God that was coming out through my hands onto these board, these wood boards. And it was just a place of prayer and contemplation, a place of joy, of celebration, of bringing the images from the inner life into the outer life. And what I love about the iconographic tradition, I mean, of all different stripes, is there's this notion that perspective is reversed so that the borders around the icon, and most icons do have a border, and many of them have curtains. And these kinds of flourishes around the border are to represent that we're peering into the divine nature. So the icon is pulling us into the divine nature, and the divine has opened the curtains so we can see in. I love that. I love that. That sense that we're giving the gift of using our hands to express this interior life through imagery and a source of prayer and contemplation. And so painting, for me is very contemplative, and it's part of my practice.
- [14:40]
A
Yeah. And they're marvelous. And I hope, folks, go to your website and check out just the bounty that awaits there for these windows, these icons that. That reveal and invite contemplation for. For those who gaze upon them. I would love to turn our attention to your latest book, Birthing a New Consciousness,
- [15:09]
B
Paul. It's called Birthing a New Mysticism.
- [15:11]
A
Oh, I wrote that down wrong. Well, I.
- [15:17]
B
But it is a new kindness.
- [15:21]
A
That's hilarious. Yes. Birthing a New Mysticism.
- [15:25]
B
Thanks.
- [15:27]
A
That's a much better title. As we turn our attention to Birthing a New Mysticism. Your prose is so poetic. And it does the same things that your. Your icon do for me, where it invites me to see through the words, to how spirit is speaking through them. And it's something I've been paid attention to a lot recently as I read what slows me down and absorbs the gaze. So that's not reading to get through it, but reading to awaken, to chew on. Your. Your book does this in spades. And I do love the title and I. I love the word birthing. And that seems to hold a special place for you in this work, a centralizing theme. What special place does the word birthing hold for you?
- [16:27]
B
Well, I wanted to convey. I mean, the whole of this book in a way is. I wanted to convey how profound our embodiment is, our incarnation is, our being in the world is. And how we, each of us, in the depth of our soul, are giving, are bringing forth anew. That we're not static, we're not confined to an identity. We are actually a force of bringing forth life. Every moment, Every moment is a newness. Every moment is a birth. And again, what I started out talking about in the beginning of letting go of the past. It's not just the past of our own personal history, but to me it's the collective past of our. Our history of theology, our history of understanding the divine. Not that that's bad or useless, it's all has value. But birthing is an image of holding in within us and giving life to the new and putting our whole being on the coming forth of the new. So what I was trying to convey in this book is that each of us in the depth of our souls is a microcosm of a new mystical life. And that for me, this new mystical life is a ceiling of the fracture that has divided us from ourselves, has put a dichotomy between sin and grace, or all the. What's the word? I want to use the. The ways in which we diminish our divine humanity. And so to give birth is. Is to realize that we have the. That each moment we are. Have the capacity for a new innocence, for a new actual new shining splendor.
- [18:49]
A
Wow. This capacity for newness and how you invite readers to not only consider it, but to seek to embody it. Birthing A this capacity for newness. And one thing I thought about as I was reading your book, what do people need to do to prepare themselves for this type of birthing?
- [19:19]
B
Well, like everything in the. In the inner life, it requires a lot of deep engagement with the self and deep engagement with. With humility and letting go because it's. It's arduous in its own way. And it's arduous not because it's so miraculous, because that is the grace of it. It's arduous because of all the things we have to let go of or that we're hanging onto. Right. So just as in an actual physical birth, we spend nine months or whatever it is, gestating, and then we have the birth itself, which can be quite arduous or painful. There's some similarity there in our own journey, but I think the spark that sets it going is the hope, is the aspiration, is the wonder of the new birth. And I think that's what I was trying to spark in this book is to remind people over and again that you have this within you, you contain within you this newness. And that in order to follow it or to activate it, as I think you were trying to say, Paul, we need to actually really hear and let it into us that we are. That we have been made in love, we have been made in the divine image that in our souls there is a purity and untouched purity, and that we want to live there and we want to give birth to that. Does that make sense?
- [21:15]
A
Oh, it certainly does. And you used a word early on in that response of humility, which you call the great jewel of the spiritual life, and I love that phrase as a, As a description of humility because that seems to be one of the touchstones, the taproots that you go back to throughout the text of humility as one of the great access points to touch that. That. That purified point and allowing it to exercise the ongoing new birth of you, the person, in this ongoing transformation. How is humility that, as you call it, the great jewel of the spiritual life? Why is that? Why is humility the great jewel of the spiritual life?
- [22:17]
B
One reason is, is that humility is the relinquishing of one's own ego to the divine. It's a recognition of the awe. We come to humility through awe. We experience the awe of a sunset or of a beautiful mountain or, you know, a child being born or a flower. And our identity, our sense of self aggrandizement, slips away. It's like in the Face of this, I am empty, I am open, I am vulnerable, I am without agenda, right. I'm simply present. So humility, in a sense to me always is in response to the in of awe. It's in response to an excessive generosity of being. And that excessive generosity, when we let ourselves experience it sort of wipes away the, our need to cling to identity or cling to achievement or whatever. And so humility is the place in which we can say yes, literally yes to where we're being called.
- [23:51]
A
Wow.
- [23:53]
B
If you think of like the image of the Annunciation in Christianity where the angel comes to Mary and informs her that she's going to bear the divine child. And again, that's a birth image, right? She's going to bear the divine child. And the humility is, comes from her complete surrender to that proclamation that the angel comes and says you shall. And she, she says yes. I think that's that so much of the essence of the spiritual life is saying yes to where we're called, saying yes to this gift of being an open, open to the excessive generosity of the divine that is everywhere. That's what I think of. And so it's a great jewel of the spiritual life to just to ponder, to meditate on, to think about letting oneself go, to efface the ego. And all the things that we think about what's going to happen when we do that are not accurate, you know, like, you know, if we let go of this, we'll, we won't accomplish anything, we'll be nothing, people won't like us or whatever, whatever we think about. Right. But it's not any of that. It's this amazing, true, amazing grace of living free, of living in, in a profound vulnerability to life and being upheld by the presence, the divine presence, by that excessive generosity, by awe and experiencing in our own beings our goodness, our essential goodness in the divine nature, which is we often don't experience because we feel or we've been told so much about error and sin and etc. Etc. But this is a spirituality of excessive hope, of excessive abundance.
- [26:24]
A
Amen to that. You have this marvelous way, this phrase of Via Feminia and as divine source and a spiritual path that eludes excessive rationality and reveals non dual intimacy. And I know we spoke about this before, but this is not a path just for though, just for women. This is a path for everybody.
- [26:53]
B
Right?
- [26:54]
A
How is Via Feminia a breakthrough as a pathway for everybody?
- [27:01]
B
That is a very good question, I think, because for me the Via Feminina speaks to the place I was just describing that it's a path of incarnation and embodiment of forgiveness and freedom. To me, it's a new revelatory landscape. It's a new type of revelation. It's a new insight into the life of the divine. And that new insight into the life of the divine is not only for women. It's not male or female per se, but it's been labeled or called via feminine in my own life because of the way the experience came to me and how it seems so much around this issue of birthing and newness and hope and innocence that it was a call to radical benevolence, radical mercy, radical compassion. And so perhaps in some other time or some other place, it would be named differently. But in my case, this is the phrase that came to me, that was given to me in a mystical life, but yet it's a path that is. Is hopeful for so many people of all. All stripes, of all genders and orientations. And I've noticed lately, and I don't know if you have, Paul, but I've noticed lately that so many of my male friends have told me how much this path of Bea Feminina means to them, that it's evoking something that is necessary, that's needed in our world today, of a call to strength and wisdom and beauty, but that is also gentle, merciful, profoundly nonviolent. And I think that that's the crux of what we're seeing in the world today, is that we're seeing strength coming out of violence and negativity and with. I put strength in quotes, but the image of strength, the idea of power, whereas the incredible power, the incredible strength of. Of being able to forgive, of being able to hold the pain, of being able to suffer and not succumb, of being able to love life with one's totality, even in the midst of the atrocities that we see around us, of being able to bear suffering because we know that our own death is aligned with God. And that's how I see the via Feminina that it's. It's ushering in. It's showing us another way to be in the world, both in our own selves and with each other
- [30:38]
A
has had a huge impact on me in the. The mothering aspect of birthing a new mysticism. And you have this wonderful phrase of. It soothes the jagged edges of consciousness. Like it's strength through softness. And even that. Like, I almost feel like every time I try to talk about. I also have to add the Inverse of like it's strength through presence, it's beyond name it, it's an embodied path to this revelation of spirit. And I so appreciate how, I mean even naming that, the number of men that you know who have been drawn to the Via Feminia, because I think it puts a spotlight on what's been lacking when we talk about strength or spirituality, of what's been highlighted or over highlighted. This is just so encompassing and full, a full invitation of the whole human person for the bearing and healing of the world.
- [31:56]
B
Yes. And you know, Paul, I feel like part of it too is that we have to have the courage to be free, you know, to trust our own interiorities, to trust that we're being called to this place. And so many people experience it, but they don't have the language to name it, but they're feeling it. And so to give our. That's part of what I was trying to say in this book is to give ourselves permission to claim it, to acknowledge it as our own. Not just something out there that that has been talked about in history or some writer has mentioned, but that it's really ours, it belongs to us. And the interpenetration of spirit and matter, the impression of the divine in each of our lives, each day, daily is so profound that that's part of what the path is, is to claim it as our own.
- [33:11]
A
Yes, amen to that. Because as you've spoke about in this book and in your previous work, that there are many of us who feel this call to the desert of the heart, to choose a life of full bodied and spirit and inner transformation. And traditionally it's been, you know, lived out in the monastic cell or cave. But the invitation here is how can we also do that for those of us in family life, for contemplatives in the world, for monks in the world, how have you found attraction and resistance to that from those that you've brought your teaching to?
- [33:57]
B
You mean in terms of the monastery versus the world? Is that what you're saying?
- [34:02]
A
Yeah, like you open up the doors for everyone to see this monk archetype in ourselves. And I think the Via Feminia blows open the doors of what that can look like for those who are not going to live in institutional monasteries, but are going to have their own interior monastery. It's such an attractive idea, I think, for many of us who have this kind of monastic impulse within us. But I'm just curious if you've, how you see that attraction and resistance to those that you, you bring your work To.
- [34:41]
B
Mm. I think this. What you're asking, Paul, goes back to something we talked about in the beginning, which is the. You ask, well, how. What is the arduousness of the path? Or why is. You know, what. There's some of the impediments or whatever. But I think that one of the things, again, is what we is imbued in our minds about history, as if it's either or. Either one is in a monastery or one is in the world. And what. What I'm trying to say is that we have the freedom to. To be completely immersed in the divine anywhere, and that it's intrinsic to the cells of our bodies to be penetrated by divinity. So this idea that. Of course, there's. Let me backtrack a second. Of course there's structural differences in being in a monastery versus being living in a family or having children. But the path itself, the freedom of the path, the capacity of the path is not diminished by either way. It has. In my mind, it's not even dependent on which way. It's so interior to our inner being and so accessible. Once we understand that we have that capacity of innocence in our depth. Is this making sense?
- [36:21]
A
Yes, it is. Yes, it is. It's an inner response from whatever context of life that we're living in to retouch and live from it. A place of that depth of presence, of. I think you even say, like bearing divinity in the soul and burying divinity in the world.
- [36:47]
B
Right, exactly. And there's a grieving that I think people feel, a mourning, a grieving that we don't know how to do it or we're not doing it, or we're always looking over the fence to the grass on the other side and saying, oh, if I only were in a monastery, or when I'm in the monastery, if I only had children or I only had a partner. It's always the absence of what's not there. But it's all there. And I can. Interesting. We're talking about this because I opened up to the section you just mentioned. Bearing, divinity in the soul. And so the word bearing is also, to me, related to the word birthing. Right. Because we are bearing. We're gestating. Right. We're birthing. And so I. I'll just read a few things here.
- [37:44]
A
Yeah, please.
- [37:47]
B
Grasping this gift is not a matter of asceticism or enunciation, though its flourishing includes these trials and more, in its essence, already exists within. We can be nothing less than permeated by divinity each moment. Further, we are not suffused by divinity, by virtue of accomplishment or valor or sainthood. We are deified because we exist, because we are created by, and a manifestation of love itself. This means that the goodness of the world, the gift of our own goodness. And I'll. I'll stop there for a second. How many of us recognize our own goodness, right? The goodness of our living in the divine. The reckon this means that the gift of our own goodness for the honor of being a molecule in the vessel of the holy is our destiny. Each moment, the subatomic particles and cells of our bodies celebrate our grand beginnings radiating from the inside out. Each day we have the choice to transmit divinity. We are emissaries and pilgrims and disciples of the state sacred. We carry the constellation of divinity within us and with us. We are not and never have been estranged. We are beloved, we are embraced. We are held in a temple of silence to feel the subtle daily welling up of living atoms of joy.
- [39:37]
A
Wow. I think I could just sit with those words for the rest of the afternoon and ponder them in my heart and. And seek to let them just seep in The. The invitation there is so great. And there's a thread there that I. I think about where you write, we become what we bear. The more we give ourselves away, the more spirit lives and works through us. And I feel like that dovetails nicely into bearing, takes work. Like there. There's an aspect of effort and attention that follows the awe and humility and the call. And I would love to hear your thoughts on that experience of. Of bearing, of how we bear so that we can give more of ourselves away with the recognition that the more we give away, the more the spirit has a chance to live and work through us.
- [40:48]
B
Yes. I mean, I think. I mean, just going back for a minute to what was I was reading there and right there in. In those little phrases, those sentences, is a. A meditation is like you said, one could meditate on that all day, all week, all one's life, just to allow oneself to feel and experience what it means to be. To have divinity in your very cells and subatomic particles. Right?
- [41:21]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [41:23]
B
And to be emitting that every day into the air. And so the bearing and part of the bearing is living up to that is recognizing how each life, or my life in particular, let's say I want to honor that capacity. I want to honor that I've been given the gift of bearing, of being able to hold in me through my very daily existence, whether I'm baking bread or walking outside this treasure of divinity. Of the holy of love. And it's a treasure. And how do we honor that treasure? It's through every effort we make in every way, every day. And not in a punitive like, oh my gosh, I can't say anything, or I can never tell a joke, or I can never, you know, I can never be off key or whatever like that. But simply that it's an attentiveness. It's very much. I mean, if we think about, you're a father, you have children, I'm a mother. What was that attentiveness when I was pregnant and your wife was pregnant? And each of you in your own way were attentive to this new birth. I mean, you were so attentive. Right? In different ways.
- [43:05]
A
Yes.
- [43:07]
B
Right. She from within herself and you from a partner outside that interior birth. But still birthing and still being so concerned about are we making sure we're not in a bad environment? Are we making sure we're not taking the wrong medicine? These are very practical statements, but that's what the bearing is. It's an incredible attentiveness to the sensitivity of the situation. And. But it's not burdensome. It can feel burdensome. It can seem like, oh my gosh, how can I ever have any fun? But it, it isn't in the same way because we want to be attentive to what we love. And for people bearing a birth, whether it's an actual child or the birth of anything, a piece of art, a poem, a garden, a loving gesture for those who are bearing the burden of the gift. It's also a joy to be that attentive, to be that concerned about how we pass on to others.
- [44:34]
A
You're here. That is a wonderful articulation. And there's ways as I just watch what's happening out in the world where you can witness folks approaching spirituality as like a, a purely self help modality of how can I feel good, how can I be at peace in the world? And I think that there's healthy aspects of that, but truly paying attention to what you love, I feel like it expands the boundaries of what you love. And you know where you write, our job is to repair the world, to spread sparks of divinity, to demonstrate to others how to be truly human. And I feel like that that work of repair brings us into suffering and joy that you, that you just spoke of. How do you engage in the suffering of your own work of, of repair in the world as you spread sparks of divinity?
- [45:44]
B
Yes. Well, I think you know Paul from no, you know from our other conversations, but also from other books I've written, that my entrance, my. I would say the breaking open of my entrance into the mystical life came from an intense series of experiences which started with an intense suffering. And that suffering was an experience of, I would say, the suffering of the world that then moved over hours and hours of an. Of a mystical event into love and joy and wisdom and so forth. But it began with the suffering. And I think that there was, I feel there's an ancient maybe principle or law or something of humanity's encounter with sacrifice and suffering that breaks us open and elicits that divine spark of compassion and compunction for the way we treat each other. And so I feel that bearing suffering, allowing ourselves to feel and express suffering, recognizing that our souls experience suffering, that our souls are attuned to the state of the world even when we're not aware of it or we don't think about it, that this is so critical for our time now in history and so critical to the spiritual path and moves it beyond or expands it, let's say, outside of just self help or feeling good or whatever. Not that those things are bad in themselves, as you say, but the deep life and every life on every level always involves some kind of suffering, whether it's loss or death or just daily injustices, etc. And to embrace that suffering, to let it sink into us, to recognize that our. In our depth, in our own souls, we are attuned to the state of the world. This is also bearing divinity and is part of what will change our world is when we allow ourselves to feel how we are grieving with the state and conditions of life, but not ultimately succumbing to it. Because the expansiveness of the divine is eternal, whereas suffering in itself ultimately seeds into that eternal. And I don't know, I just think it's such a profound understanding that we all need to have and recognize in our own journey so much that we are participating, we, each of us in our death, are participating in the suffering of the world and are bearing it in our souls. And how many times, and you probably know this yourself, Paul, how many times in a spiritual guidance, when I'm sitting with someone who's coming to talk about their inner lives, how they will say, you know, I feel so bad about what we're doing to the earth, I feel so badly about what's going on with war or starvation or all these different things, and beginning to understand that that feeling is in the depth of their being as well their soul Is seeking to heal the suffering of the world. Does this make sense?
- [49:52]
A
It certainly does. Our souls feel so porous in known and unknown ways of what. What sinks in. In your book, you bring this to a term you call mystical activism. And I think this is where I read and bear how this inner work, this welcoming of the birthing of a new mysticism, it needs our so as if dough to help bring what's in our soul out into the world. How do you invite others to consider mystical activism from this deep, soulful place, knowing that there's a inner penetration of the world, of God, of soul constantly at work?
- [50:48]
B
Well, I think, again, I mean, to backtrack a bit. I mean, part of what this new mysticism about is recognizing that what we're going through is not solely personal. And I think that's really important in the history of spirituality for the most part. Which makes sense in terms of the development of consciousness, Particularly in the last, let's say, 2000 years or 3000 years. Spirituality has focused a lot on the person, on the individual. The person's individual growth, their own dark night, their own foibles, their contrition, their sins, their. They're whatever. They're all of that. But I think what's very distinctive about our time and. And I think happening from the ground up, I feel people all over the world are experiencing this, is that it's not only personal, it's social, it's planetary, it's earthly, it's divine. We are experiencing these various levels of spiritual growth and development, various levels of injustice, various levels of suffering, and these are happening simultaneously. When we think about ourselves, we tend to think in. In our own spiritual lives. We almost always think in personal terms, which makes sense, but is not the full picture. So in understanding, what I call this mystical activism is that we are participating in the communal expression of harmony and disharmony, of love and of pain in the world. And that our souls, without us knowing it, oftentimes are seeking to create harmony, to create unity out of disunity. Because that is, the activity of the spirit is to bring wholeness, right? So if one of the statements here in. In the book is under mystical activism. Each day that we breathe, hear birdsong, eat breakfast or look at the sun, our soul assists in restoring harmony. Some people are more intuitively and directly aware of this process. Some experience the mending as pain or suffering. But the soul's divine human cooperation, or what I call a mystical activism, arises from our unitive connection to the energies of creation. We experience the harming of communion and intimacy and receptivity. We are experiencing in our depths the damage to the holy, the wonder of life or the vitality of the earth. And these wounds we often identify as personal, but they're not only personal, they're social, generational, earthly and divine. It is our holy longing to see the world change that compels us to be sacred activists. We suffer violence and seek its cessation. We suffer pain and mourn our lack of love. But when we passionately desire the end of suffering and love our neighbors without consideration of any advantage to us, then we have entered the realm of mystical activism. And I think that last part is really important. Without consideration of our advantage. Right. It's a spontaneous expression of the spirit that's within us, that longs to help and change things, that rises up in the midst of pain and atrocity and calls out to the best in each of us. And it's not for consideration of our advantage. We could see that maybe in what happened in Minneapolis several months ago, where so many people just rose up. Yeah, I feel like it's an important aspect of the spiritual life today is for. For us to recognize how much we are participating, that we are activists in our souls seeking to heal the worms, even as we may not be out on the streets.
- [55:38]
A
Yes, yes. And I think your book speaks to the. As we talked about earlier, the totality of the divine human connection and the phases of moving through to access deeper and deeper that presence for the overflowing love of the world. Like, the more we get out of the way, the more that we are less considered how things will benefit us because spirit is moving so vivaciously through whatever context that we're living in. And our activism shows up, whether we're on the streets of Minneapolis or in our own cities, about how we show up in love and share that generative excess for that inflow and outflow of spirit in the day to day.
- [56:36]
B
Yeah.
- [56:38]
A
And you talk about this doesn't come without, you know, the seasons of impasse or dark nights and how this dark night of the feminine sensitizes the soul towards love. And you name these five effects of the dark night of the feminine. I mean, this is something, again, we could spend a week or a year really chewing on and talking about. For those listening, I want to give them a sense of what the wisdom of the book contains. Can you speak briefly to the dark night, the feminine, and the five effects of that?
- [57:20]
B
Yes, and before I do that, I just wanted to back a second for what we just talked about, which Is to say that in this sense of mystical activism and all that we've been covering so far, that we're really given the choice to fashion our lives in the way that we feel is the most able to contribute. So, for example, I'll just say for myself, from the very beginning, when all this occurred to me so many years ago and my life changed, I knew that I had to give my heart passionately to this path and that I would follow wherever spirit led me, and that I wouldn't deviate from that path, that I would hold it to my heart dearly and surrender myself to it dearly. And I hope that I have lived up to that to the best of my ability. And I think that that's something also that people can take to heart is the idea that they can devote themselves. They can vow themselves to live as close to the. The depth and the edge of this surrender, this humility as they're capable of, and that they will be guided along that path. So I just wanted to put that in there.
- [58:50]
A
Yeah, that's important. That's important. Thank you.
- [58:52]
B
Yeah. Yeah. The dark night of the feminine is that I. I consider it like an additional stage or an advanced stage of the transformation that our souls go through. I'm sure many of you know of the phrase dark night of the soul from John of the Cross. And I came to this phrase in part, in large part, because of working with people in spiritual guidance and understanding that there was another level of transformation that I hadn't seen written about or described. And the way I would just say very briefly, is that it's a stage of. Of a transformation at this, in the soul's most tender and receptive nature. So that it's a deeper vulnerability. It's a deeper letting go. It's a deeper impression in which the soul heals and transforms its sufferings that it sustains from the world. And it also anoints the soul with divine love, which magnifies its capacity to receive beauty and grace. It also opens the soul to deeper reserves of benevolence, compassion, and mercy. It exposes the harm inflicted on the swirling orb of earth. And it puts us into touch with how these violations impress themselves about in our most precious, gentle interiority. So in other words, I'm. Again, I'm moving the image of the dark night of the soul as classically described, let's say, in Christian spirituality, from personal. From the personal into this broader experience of how our souls are afflicted by these violations in all aspects of life, from our gender differences Our racial differences, our planetary violence, and so forth and so on. It's a process of healing these deep oppressions and of taking into account that there is no universal mysticism without healing those violences and indifferences that have segregated people from each other. So once again, it's this expansion of love and compassion for all beings. And that's just a very short idea of what, what happens in that night. But I do list like five signs, let's say, that occur in the dark night of the feminine. And one of them is that that we're never separate from the divine Presence. We're never abandoned. We may feel that, but we aren't. And the presence intensifies in the soul, but it also encourages the soul, gives the, excuse me, the soul the courage to withstand the radical integration and healing that is radiating through its spiritual and physical realms. So in other words, even though we may wish this inner transformation would go away on some very deep level, we know that we don't want it to go away because we know that it's leading us to something that our soul longs for. And so we're never really abandoned in that place, even though we may feel that it's very obscure or hidden. The other thing that happens in the dark night of the feminine is that we're being prepared to be a co creator to participate in the divine nature. The idea of mystical union often is interpreted as a static or final state of being that requires no further participation and no further cooperation on our part. But in this dark night of the feminine, mystical union is an ongoing, dynamic process. As the soul is increasingly made vulnerable in this feminine night, becoming emptier and more humble, more effaced, vulnerable, it is being prepared to be a co creator with the divine. Now, the soul, in addition to being a recipient of mystical insight, is how we tend to think of mysticism. We were in the presence of the divine. We have a passive experience, let's say of overwhelming awe or beauty or love. In this dark night of the feminine, we're also being prepared to be a co creator. We're being prepared to be a site of birthing. We're being prepared to be a site of unification. And therefore we have a certain kind of efficacy or activity of change occurring in our depths. And some of you may have experienced that where you feel like your inner life, your dark night, or those inner changes have led to some form of new vision, new creativity, new understanding. It also. The third thing I have is that it purifies and heals divisions both within and outside of us that prohibit the merciful, gentle, intimate and benevolent from being born and received in the world. And I think that's very, very important that it heals and purifies the divisions in our lives that prohibit the merciful, gentle, intimate, loving and benevolent from being born and received in the world. And that's also part of our bearing and our willingness to perpetuate, to help build the unity of mercy and gentleness, etc. Which is always being ripped away from us. As you can see as going on in the world today, it's a desire to preserve and protect spiritual wisdom for all of the entire community of earthly beings. So again, it's this. It's not again, only passive, it's this participation. And it's a co participation in bringing these attributes into the world. A fourth one is a certain naive and intuitive connectedness with life is branded by the fire of our pain. We now come to a realized intimacy, a realized awareness of the web of relations and how profoundly interdependent all creation is. It is a heroic and brave night when our souls voluntarily turn toward the world to bear the marks of alienation and to heal the ancient fracture in our hearts. Okay, again. That sense of bearing and activity that each day we can go out into the world with friends, with neighbors, with animals, with the nature, and heal the fracture in the world by simply being aware and attuned to radiating the profound awareness of divine closeness. The dark night of the feminine heightens our sensitivity to the utter holiness of creation and instills the desire to realize this divine presence in our lives. And then the fifth one is as painful and as subversive as the dark night of the feminine can be. It is also the supreme experience of love. It is the night of healing that leads to a new life of communion, joy and compassion. It is celebration and that joyous night when our souls are raised to their high potential. And then, let's see, when once the dark night was understood as a deeply personal engagement with the divine. In this time we witness how profoundly the shift from individual to universe connected is taking place. The path of the dark night of the Mother reveals just how embedded we are in the work of healing our souls and those of the entire community of earthly inhabitants.
- [68:16]
A
That's profound. That's so profound. I think about how you live and how you're able to articulate the own transitions and phases and experiences of your life and then bring them back and share them with all of us. It's. You can feel the edge of those experiences as you share these five signposts, because I think it's, it's impossible to articulate that if you haven't gone through it. And there's a profundity to how you've been able to offer that to us who, who know that as we stumble and mumble our way along the journey, that there's these, these. These Karens that we're going to follow and that someone's gone there before and that we can. Like you said, there's that longing that draws us forward, that encourages us to bear what we have to bear, because it's the soul leading us forward, it's the spirit calling us out into seasons of wilderness. And I just think it takes profound courage to be able to speak to maps that haven't been written before and to share them with others. So thank you for that. I always think, you know, I read a lot of books on mysticism and spirituality, but whenever a Beverly Lanzetta book comes out, it's a landmark that is to be examined and meditated on in deep ways. So, yeah, I, I'm becoming speechless because I, I think I'm sitting in my own awe and humility of gratitude for what you offer through this book. And as I, I seek my own birthing, continual birthing through the internal flow and the. What I hope for is external drops of divinity that I can share in the world too. And you've had such a profound effect on my life and will continue to do so through words and conversation and presence. So I, I could talk about this with you all day long. There's so much in this book that I think readers are going to pick up and take deep, whatever the context of their own lives are. So, just from the bottom of my heart, Beverly, thank you so much for your teaching, time and presence.
- [71:03]
B
Thank you, Paul, so much. I mean, it's always such a joy to be together because two hearts are one and we that longing to live in the light, so strong. So I so appreciate you and really and so grateful that I've had time to talk today.
- [71:24]
A
Oh, my pleasure. And the book again, is birthing a new mysticism. I hope everyone picks it up, shares with a friend, studies it, and enters into deep conversation with the divine and with. With kindred hearts. And Beverly, always is the last question just to keep it embodied and earthy and in the everyday. If you were going to pair our conversation with a drink, what would be your drink of choice and why?
- [71:57]
B
You know, I don't. Oh my gosh, compare with a drink. How about sparkling water with a little. What what do I want in that sparkling water? I don't know. Let me see. Mint. I like mint.
- [72:17]
A
Ooh, I like mint.
- [72:18]
B
Sparkling water with mint.
- [72:20]
A
Fresh mint. Nice and earthy. Yeah. Yes. I love that. Well, I look forward to the next time that we can clink a glass of sparkling water with mint.
- [72:32]
B
Yeah, me too.
- [72:34]
A
It's always too long in between.
- [72:37]
B
It is. It surely is.
- [72:45]
A
Good people, thank you for listening to this episode of Contemplify. May it aid you in plumbing the earthy depths of this shared cosmos. Pop over to contemplify.com to find the show notes for this episode episode or sign up for the monthly Contemplify Non Required Reading list. Or sign up for the weekly Contemplative practice Lo Fi and Hushed. If you are enjoying Contemplify, you can rate and review it on your podcast player. It helps fill the cup of contemplative cheer. The theme song of Contemplify is called Langside by Charles Enns and Darian Hovius. Fellow, thanks as always. I'm looking forward to bringing you more musings here and conversations with contemplatives in the world in the near future. Until then, be well.