Sophia Perennis...

                                                                                   Tasha Tudor

Tasha Tudor, the beloved children's book illustrator, determined to live an 1830's lifestyle, complete with all that it meant: whew! Is that something that you would be up for? Still, for many of us, the idea of simplifying our lives is an appealing thought -- even as we grab for our cellphones and scroll the bargains on Amazon Prime...

Isn't this, though, a simply beautiful photograph?

​Now, as to Sophia Perennis, who is she? Do you suspect that she is a young and fast-rising pop star? You would be both right (and wrong)! But, she is likely also the late Tasha Tudor! For those of you who already possess a mystic bent, you know that I'm just being silly (which I do enjoy!)... Sophia is Greek for wisdom: but not just any sort of ordinary wisdom: but something very special and super-duper unique: Sophia is the Feminine Face of God!

​Perennis is a reference to the Perennial Philosophy, articulated by philosophers Spinoza and Aldous Huxley among others, it goes like this: 1) There is an infinite, changeless reality beneath the world of change; 2) This same reality lies at the core of every human personality; 3) The purpose of life is to discover this reality experientially: that is, to realize the Divine Beloved (Unity) while "here" on earth... 

​Wisdom teaching is (or should be) core to the Christian experience: Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Pelagius, Eriugena, Hildegard, Francis, Dante, Meister Eckhart, Julian of Norwich,  are but a few from among many (and yet, they are so few when considering the broad sweep of Christian history)... Differently, but also similarly, each experienced and taught Christianity as, first of all, a way of love that was indicated by lifestyle and experiential transformation... The Orthodox, perhaps more so than the Catholic / Protestant versions of Christianity, preserved the mystery impulse to grace, beauty, icons, prayer of the heart, and a lifestyle directed to the sublime, the simple, and the humble...

Rumi, Hafiz, and Ibn 'Arabi, from within Islam and the radical wisdom idea of Sufism practiced and taught the to the root of the root implications of prayer: into a transformation of both lifestyle and consciousness. The Divine Unity (Alaha) is the Allness of every within and without: pursued, yearned for, and hungered after by the Sufi (the Jew, the Christian, the Hindu, etc.) The Sufi uses (and lives) as a springboard the Divine Unity and the Invocation of the Divine Name to focus experiential intention... Such a life becomes a practice of the theophanies of Divine Presence: nature (the first and greatest teacher), art, poetry, music, and the passions of loving... 

​We can thank the Krishna Consciousness Movement for advancing further (at least in the West) the spiritual necessity of a cultivated practice of bhakti: loving devotion to, and passion for, the Divine Beloved: music, dance, art, and the chanting of the Divine Name, again, are core to the experience of the Hindu heart and mind... Paramahansa Yogananda, one of the earliest Hindu teachers from India who came to the United States, similarly taught devotion to the Cosmic Beloved as the sure way into a steady transformation of consciousness...

And further uniting these various strands of mystic / sophia perennis is the devotion to the Feminine Face of God. Of note in regards to St. Francis and a core Franciscan contribution to Christian life / mysticism, is devotion to Mary: archetype of the complete identification with the Beloved: "do as he says" implies more than filling jugs with water, but with a lifestyle of identification with the Beatitude Way of Yeshua bar Alaha (Jesus)... Few Christians know of Islam's love for Mary. And fewer still understand the inseparable link between Krishna and Radha... Indeed, they are only correctly referenced as Radha Krishna (the unity of the Sacred Masculine and the Divine Feminine)... Radical Grace  is the implication that it is through the Divine Feminine (Mary) that our consciousness is opened to the sophia perennis, the Wisdom of the Divine... 

Finally, Sophia Perennis is the communal practice of the Beatitudes: if Yeshua said that he was the way, the truth, and the life, it was only in the context of the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes present us with a quantum leap beyond that of "commandment", rules, codes, or laws: they are an invitation to an evolutionary leap into the New Human, the expansion of "normal" consciousness into and across the very threshold of the Christ Consciousness! Sophia Perennis is the love-letter written by the First Thought to every following part and particle of Consciousness: we are supposed to embody the blessedness of Mary's baby, born every moment within every breath, in the beatitude life...