[Oe List ...] Mystery School

[LAURELCG@aol.com]

Colleagues

I'm forwarding the following from Jim Garrison, the president of Wisdom 
University (formerly the University of Creation Spirituality.  It came on my e-mail 
list immediately following Jim Wiegel's question about the meaning of the 
last 20 years, and, to me, seemed almost like an answer.  The return of the 
Divine Feminine is a large part of what has happened.  And so many people have 
illumined altered states of consciousness, it always surprises me when I meet 
someone who might not know about The Other World.

Blessings to all on this first night of winter,
Jann McGuire

Dear Friends,

 

At long last and after many conversations with many wonderful and diverse

people, I have finalized the initial draft of the New Chartres School, to be

held in Chartres July 8-12, 2006.  The description will change many times

before we are finished, as the event expands and the program develops, but

it is now ready for your perusal on this wintry solstice day. You will find

it attached.

 

There are several points that I would highlight about the New Chartres

School:

 

   The idea was born out of the pilgrimage to the Mary Magdalene and Black

Madonna sites, in which I participated.  I had never been to Chartres and

had absolutely no idea about the mystery school that built the cathedral nor

indeed very much about the cathedral itself.  The idea of the New Chartres

School was something that was given to Andrew Harvey and me as a gift from a

source not our own.  It came to us as more of an illumination, even a

command, and within the context of several very powerful encounters with the

divine feminine. You may recall that I started my tenure on the feast Day of

St. Bridget and that the pilgrimage was my way of dedicating my service to

the feminine, specifically to Mary Magdalene and the Black Madonna. I did

this with the active support of Andrew and Apela Colorado, the two teachers

who guided the pilgrimage. The New Chartres School is, for me, the next

unfoldment in this process, so I submit it to all of you with both deep

reverence to the mysteries of the divine feminine and in the hope that it

will provide a unifying rite of passage for our university.

 

  We offer the New Chartres School therefore as a way of building community.

I believe the New Chartres School can provide all of us with an initiatory

process that will bring students, alumni, teachers and the larger community

together. It is being designed to provide us with an opportunity for deep

learning in one of the most sacred sites in all the world, and it will allow

us to delve more deeply than we have thus far into the mysteries at the

heart of the wisdom traditions we established the university to explore.

 

   Having said that, the New Chartres School will be structured like any

other Intensive, only it will be for seven days rather than five.  The

credits will remain the same: four.  The price will also remain the same:

$1600 for credit and $800 for audit.  There is good magic, I believe, in

designing a seven stage initiatory process so that it is comprised of seven

Intensives, each lasting for seven days.  The other difference is that they

will build on each other, starting with the most basic, the Grammatica, and

ending with the most elevated, the Astronomica.  Each Intensive will

represent a different fractal of the Liberal Arts, moving from lower to

higher.  At this point we do not see the School as perpetual. I believe

there is power in doing something like this only once.  So each Intensive

will be unique, each will build on the previous ones, and the School will

not be repeated.  While we encourage a commitment for all seven, people can

make their own decisions and come when they can.  You can come for the first

one and then skip a couple and return for the last ones. The decision is up

to you.

 

   Finally, let me address costs.  As mentioned, the tuition and audits will

be the same. This leaves travel and accommodation expenses.  These are

roughly the equivalent of flying from the east to the west coast of the

United States, and staying in modest hotels.  If you book early, airfare to

Paris can be phenomenally inexpensive. Chartres is only an hour away by

train, which you can get from the airport.  We have booked the entire

seminary-cum-hotel that was used for the original mystery school a thousand

years ago.  It is austere but not ascetic, just perfect for a mystery

school. About 70 very inexpensive rooms are available, some with three beds,

some with two.  The few single rooms will be reserved for the teachers. The

first ones registering will be able to stay at the seminary, called the St.

Yves, the rest will have to stay in hotels, many of which are very close to

the cathedral. Chartres is a very small town and has hosted pilgrims for

several thousand years, so there should be no problem with accommodations.

 

Everything you need to know will be on the website at

http://www.wisdomuniversity.org/

 

Allow me to close with a vision of possibility.  The central fact about

Chartres is that it was built by a mystery school. Our question today is

whether we can emulate those great masters of the past. Can we come together

with such dedication and clarity that we architect something of similar

beauty and holiness, not necessarily in brick and mortar as they did, but

something that could still withstand the test of time, as a sacred moment in

which, under all sorts of duress and hardship, a few sacred activists came

together and created an act of imagination that transformed their world.

 

It may not be our fate to accomplish something of this magnitude, but it is

a possibility worth considering.  In the end, it may be what we attempt

rather than what we attain that expresses our true character.

 

May the Spirit of the Solstice bless our offerings,

 

Jim