On questioning belief

“He who does not question his belief falls victim to it.”
Carl Jung

The circle of relationship

I'm currently reading The Shack by WM Paul Young and there's an interesting conversation the protagonist has with Jesus, about the circle of relationship. The idea is that, because the first woman was created out of man and because ever since, all men (including Jesus) have been birthed by women, there is a possibility of a fully equal face-to-face relationship between women and men. There is a circle rather than a hierarchy of creation and relationship.

Pen and ink on paper

Reinstating the feminine

Inspired by something I listened to a while back, Alice Walker's ruminations on the "Feminine," and a lot that has happened since.

Acrylic, oil pastel, colour pencil and ink on cardboard

More evidence, less faith?

Short post on Fishsnorkel suggesting an inverse relationship between evidence and faith.

To summarise:

"Faith and science are mutually exclusive. If you know something because of evidence you don’t need faith anymore, and evidence only increases with time."

God prefers atheists

Found on Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles via twitter:

Christianity & Oppression in Literature: Alice Walker

From Alice Walker's novel, The Temple of My Familiar:

"My father, Samuel, was a missionary also, but by the time we returned to America he had long since lost his faith; not in the spiritual teachings of Jesus, the prophet and human being, but in Christianity as a religion of conquest and domination inflicted on other peoples … We had all begun to see, in Africa – where people worshipped many things, including the roofleaf plant, which they used to cover their houses – that “God” was not a monolith, and not the property of Moses, as we’d been led to think, and not separate from us, or absent from whatever world one inhabited. Once this channel was cleared, so to speak, much that our people had been taught about religion, much that diminished them and kept them in oppression, would naturally fall away. It was so hard for the Africans, in this new religion we brought, to ever feel “God” loved them, for instance; whereas in the traditional religions they practiced they took this more or less for granted."

The 3 Worlds of Consciousness

I'm taking a Raja Yoga Meditation course with the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University. I didn't have any particular expectations and it's turning out to be incredibly useful, enlightening (illuminating the dusty corners of my Self), warming …

This week we talked about the 3 worlds of consciousness: the physical world (manic, destructive, beautiful, noisy, competitive, confusing, inter-connected etc.); the subtle or angelic world (free from the pulls of the physical world – energizing, radiant, innocent, harmonious, love, flow) and; the soul world (a place/dimension/experience/state of mind, heaven, nirvana, home, rejuvenating, restful, safe, peaceful).

The artwork above was inspired by this. The physical world is in the centre. I used black for the soul world and was thinking about how many associate black with evil or death. To accept this myself would be dishonourable to my Self so… Instead, I look at blackness as richness. A mysterious and endless mass. Fullness.

Collage, ink, oil pastel, colour pencil

The mastermind

The following is an excerpt from Jack Canfield's book, The Success Principles. He refers to the book by Napoleon Hill discussed in a previous post about faith and riches.


"If we are in tune with the mastermind – that is, God, the source, the universal power, or whatever term you use for the all-powerful creative life force – we have significantly more positive energy available to us, a power that can be focused on our success. Even the Bible talks about this:

"For where two or three are gathered together in my name,
there I am in the midst of them."
MATTHEW 18:20
(King James Version of the Bible)

"Mastermind," therefore, is both the power that comes to us from each other and the power that comes to us from above."


He is referring to the success principle about having a mastermind group of like-minded, supportive individuals whom you meet with regularly for the purpose of networking, exchanging knowledge, sharing resources and inspiration.

This idea, and the excerpt above, including Matthew, illustrate the idea that doing your true work is a way of accessing/aligning with/tapping into/unveiling God. And that when you do this, the universe, and all in it, conspire with you.