An Inner Ethic

Semipalmated Sandpipers, Hudson River, September 2108.

September 24.

Attempting to digest life as it arrives.

I’m not sure we appreciate just how much of life needs to be lived quite simply, inwardly, awaiting the arrival of life itself, from within. It’s a quiet place; a stillness that receives. All of my outwardness settles down into a gravity that has the capacity to resist its distractions.

It’s late September, and at this time of year the Sorrow always begins to flow into Being more powerfully. Time to digest the results and fruits of one’s labors; and time, also, to attempt to comprehend the essential failures, over the course of a lifetime, to meet the inner ethical demands of one’s life.

There’s a deep remorse that enters being from below—and it enters from below, even though it is a higher energy sent by a higher power than me. God can enter the house through the basement, it turns out, just as easily as He can enter through the roof. I forget this; yet God dwells with ease in all of this house I call Being. His Divine Radiance is not limited to the heavens; or, rather, it is within our inner heavens that His radiance shines most brightly, and most unexpectedly.

As a result of this Presence, there’s an inner ethic that slowly grows within Being; and it is a rooted thing, apart from myself, an ethic that draws its intelligence not just from the clouds and the sun and the rain of heaven—which are real— but from the very soil of Being itself. It penetrates; it permeates, it informs. There’s no real love present in me without the foundation of this inner ethic.

Warmly,

Lee

Announcing the publication of 

The Reconstruction of the Soul

The Reconstruction of the Soul is a wide-ranging investigation of symbolism in High and Late Medieval art. It includes detailed analyses of the Unicorn Tapestries at the Cluny Museum and the Cloisters in New York, as well as detailed examinations of the mysterious, erotic and bizarre symbolism in The Cathedral of St. Lazare in Autun.

Along the way, it traces the roots of Western esoteric art from Babylon to ancient Greece, revealing traditions that are still alive today, some 3000 or more years later.

The material is illustrated with photographs taken by the author on location in France and New York, as well as source material from various museums.

It will appeal to anyone interested in the symbolic transmission of the world's Western esoteric heritage.

All funds from your purchase of this book will go to support the translation of important historical documents related to the Gurdjieff tradition.

The author is currently at work on a second volume which will explore even earlier (!) influences on esoteric art and practice. Anticipated publication of this follow-up work will be late 2019.

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.