How many people read books the same way I do? First, read through, turning down pages when moved by a passage; then, go back for a second read with a pen or a highlighter; finally, a third read, writing out notes or flagging whatever grabs my eye with a piece of clear tap extending past the page.
Spent time today looking through the spiral-bound book with my notes from Point Zero - creativity without limits. Michelle Cassou's 2001 book moves me as much as when I first read it, however many years ago.
Astonished at how my notes of what she said re: intuition relates to the still on-going discussion about women serving in the ministry of the church of m birth, a concept many church leaders RESIST with every bit of their energy.
Their resistance makes no sense to me. Hey, well-read church leaders - - a passage in your own source material flat-out states that masculine understanding without the perception of the feminine is intellect without wisdom!
Still, reading over my Point Zero notes, it's clear why men who consider a written revelation the end all & be all would be uneasy around feminine perception of their understanding. Revelation isn't found in how many passages you can quote accurately from the Writings, or how many times you've read through the entire canon. Revelation is what happens when you are done your reading, set it aside, move on, let life be life without details. Just be.
Wisdom can't exist without intuition. It's the gateway to perception, just as imagination (which is of the intellect, not the spirit), opens the way to intuition. At this point, I am hopelessly befuddled - does wisdom come before insight, or the reverse? It's been years & years since my first ponder, and am still not sure. I do know that both are a far distance past mere intelligence.
The challenge for the masculine mind is that the key - intuition - has nothing to do with information, with knowing. Horror of horrors, intuition blossoms from UNknowledge, is NONverbal, falling-through-the-sky-without-a-net living.
Not a lot of the ministers I know would feel comfy with that.
Living from intuition rather than knowledges means voluntarily losing any sense of control. Not handing it over, which presupposes it exists in the first place. An aware version of empty. No there there. A perenially empty canvas.
People get intimidated by a blank canvas. And the ministers of my acquaintance, at least in my church, are by-the-book sort of guys. Emptying themselves of all previous everything is not a route I see them choosing.
Michelle wrote something which could make people who pride themselves on all they've learned through the ages run screaming from the room. "Intuition has its own intelligence." It can't be learned, only welcomed if when how it shows up.
The masculine tendency for loving knowledge has an essential part in our becoming wise. It opens the way for the next level of work, which rests in the heart rather than the mind. From that point, we experience intuition, perception, insight & wisdom (or the reverse). A fascinating thing about that final last piece, the emergence of wisdom & insight ~ it's has nothing to do with the masculine mind nor the feminine heart; it is of spirit.
Intelligence calls out to know more. Intuition calls us to be alive. Put the two together - wisdom & insight.
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