 Dear Friends,
Since our youth we’ve always tried to take into account the fact that, what we normally take for ‘knowledge’, is not real knowledge at all; the fact that, even within the boundary of our skin, never mind beyond it, we do not have the capacity to really know what exactly we are perceiving. As the age-old saying goes: ‘The highest knowledge is that we know nothing.’ The best the human mind can do, is to form working hypotheses, models of what is going on, and those models will be useful only in so far as they enable us to find coherence and meaning in what we perceive, and to form accurate expectations about the way things will work or behave. We may have several models of the same thing, just as scientists may choose to view light as waves or particles, depending on which model best fits the set of circumstances they are examining.
In much of our everyday lives, however, (and you can see this in the media as well), we tend to talk, think and act as if the models and hypotheses we have formed about reality are the reality itself. That’s when arguments start, inside our heads as well as outside, about what’s true and what isn’t! How silly, when you think about it! Of course more than one hypothesis or belief system can be useful and valid. It just depends on the angle you are looking from at the time..... and who is doing the looking!
So here at Cygnus we are happy to entertain all sorts of hypotheses about life, the universe and everything – even ones that seem to conflict with each other. After all, they are not reality itself, just different windows to look at it through. That’s why we tend to be rather lightly attached to beliefs, and to the words in which beliefs are expressed, and to judge them more by observing the practical results they have in our lives, rather than trying to come to some final conclusion about whether they are true or false.
There is one belief or hypothesis about life that we have found to be of incalculable practical value. It has proved resilient enough to remain with us throughout even the darkest nights of the soul (and believe us, we have had several!), when the ground of belief seems to have been taken right away from under our feet. What is it? Well, this: that we are surrounded at all times by helping, supporting, uplifting energies / forces / beings / angels (choose the word you like best, or another if you prefer!) that will constantly ensure that ‘all is well, and all shall be well’, whatever mire we might currently be wading through. The more we offer ourselves in service to this ‘helping energy’, extended unconditionally to all of life, the more our receptivity to it seems to intensify. We find that one of the practical results of trusting and endeavouring to serve this ‘hidden help’ is that we are in a space where synchronicity is an almost daily experience. Indeed, we have come to regard it as a matter of course, rather than an occasional wonderful surprise. So, though we might complain about life’s setbacks just as anyone would, we are always confident beyond any shadow of doubt that the end result will be good. Experience has upheld this particular hypothesis time and time again!
That’s why we so much loved this incredibly beautiful poem, sent in by a Cygnus reader and written by a friend of hers, whose pen-name is Walton of Beer:
Beneath the Everlasting Canopy of Love
do all these dwell
whose feet are upon the Hills and
Mountains of the Heavens:
their ways are the ways of Angels,
and in their journeyings within
the Heavens and upon the Earth,
the risen Saints do companion them.
The Eternal One doth overshadow them
with the perennial blessing of His Love:
it ever flows unto and around them
as the Golden Rain of Heaven.
With joy do these live in the atmosphere
of His radiance: they walk in the Truth
and its Light upon the Everlasting Ground
of the Wisdom of His Love.
For He is the Everlasting One:
in His Presence do all these attend
to hear the sweet Counsels of His Wisdom
concerning the embodiment of His Love.
We hope these words connect you as strongly as they did us with a real experience of protection and love.
With our heartfelt wishes for a 2003 full of blessings, and much love from all of us.
Geoff, Ann, Martyn, Jackie, Jacqueline, Eileen, Sarah, Lynette, Regina, Irina, Penny, Belinda, Catherine, Richard, Brian, Will, Alison, Mary, Derek, Eddie, Louisa, Jon, Sam & Pat
Text & photographs © Cygnus Books 20-Jan-2003
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