Each week, a new topic is pulled randomly from the vessel of ideas on the altar in the center of the circle. Anyone can put any thought into the vessel, written on a slip of paper. And the end of each session, the topic for next week is discovered by the fingers reaching blindly into the jar. Last Sunday the discovery was:

 

INQUIRE

     Look-see and discover, beneath the surface, beyond the superficial, deep, over the river and through the woods, past the story and under the image. I like to glimpse the apparatus there, under. Smell the scents, feel the movement, hear the texture. No matter how engineered the surface is, no matter how storied the stories that guide my feelings and trust, there is Truth, in the Heart.

     INQUIRE, I tell myself, interior quest, look inside, what lies there, what living dance of influences, under the carefully constructed prosthetic and design. There IS a real face under the mask, or stack of masks. Deeper, deeper.  Perhaps beneath layers of layers of magicians misdirection, or innocent shyness, or both. I remember the love that motivates Cyrano de Bergerac to hide one truth so that another can be seen. But in the end, the truth revealed, before it's too late, seems always best for health.

     Big public stories, especially the emotional ones, with good guys and bad guys, are always decorated to direct the feelings and beliefs of the audience to where the producer wants it to go. We in the audience are used to joining in with the movie adventure, the performance flash. This habit of joining with the crowd is so comfortable that it is rather easy for the producers to get what they want from us. For better or for worse.

     For us it is easiest to forget that we are being led, and feel the safety of the theater walls, and righteousness with our (perceived) neighbors.

     For me though the joy of patterns and puzzles, the artist methods, the twinkle in her eye, inspires me to do my best to remember to INQUIRE.

The Circle Is Open!

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Seven Daughs