Fundamental Rites
I was up late into the night last night writing, more came to me this morning as I made my way over the mountain road to my office. I knew I didn't have the time today to keep writing more so I made a spider diagram in my notebook, the thoughts come thick and fast. Who would have thought it, that the Rite of Conception would burst through so fervently, almost feverishly. What started as musing on formless and form, deepened into a meditation on purpose, the "why?" of conception, whether we were even formless before, was it not always going to be thus? My notes became spiderwebs the thought processes becoming ravines, models, valleys.
The thoughts were happening too fast to write them all, the bullet points will do for now. Crikey, I could write a whole book just on this fundamental rite itself. What conception has to do with identity, sovereignty, autonomy, will. I have been musing lately about how to create capacity in communities; since everyone is so fucking exhausted we all need community but are too tired to nurture community. "Capacity" it turns out is significantly connected to the Rite of conception, everything to do with it in fact.
The demons were on me, asking me what writing all this is doing to help the world? Goading me with taunts like "if it were really useful more people would sign up... but only one so far... you're out of touch, Al, no one cares about conception..." Big Fuck You demons, even if my one sign up and I go the distance this year and what emerges is such in-depth meditations and inquiries into the Nature of our Fundamental Rites of passage then I will stand up and claim my eccentric throne as someone who was perpetually ahead of the curve and yes, it is fucking hard to market yourself from the head of the curve, I have to convince people first that what I have to "sell" is valuable. Fuck you capitalism and intergenerational poverty for making me pimp my wares on a collapsing social media, again.
Why do I think it is important to deeply understand the Rite of Passage that is conception? Because to meditate on conception is ultimately a meditation on Death. If we know what is dead, if we know what is dying we are watching the unknotting of what was tied at conception. Conception and death are the opposites not birth and death. What we relinquish at death is the Being that is the I Am, the unique You. This is what emerged at conception from the cosmic store cupboard, the recipe made... You. Not someone else, no one else in fact.
Who are you? Why are you here? What made you? And for what purpose? What forces collided, the stars and the soil. The Love, the violence, the indifference of your parents. What seeds did that sow? For what? WHY? Who ARE you really? It's all well and good wafting around saying we're One with the Universe but you are YOU too, for a fucking good reason I reckon. Not just by some happenstance, or accident, or random out-spit of evolution.
How can we hold any Rites of Passage without laying the Foundations down with Conception? It is our first chapter of our life's book.
So... for the Sunday before the New Moon I will have my notes all typed up, fresh and raw, ready to share. You can join me for the Lament of Being, the Rite of Conception as a one-off for £75 or you can sign up for the year of webinars at £49 per month (or £499 if you pay all in one go, 13 for the price of 10).
https://www.derwenroots.wales links for payment are on the homepage
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