It was in 2006 that I took the Part One training activating a wonderful and intense desire to teach the Enneagram. Along with it was a pivotal lecture that Russ gave talking about what Mr. Gurdjieff had warned of. That we were heading towards a time of great turmoil when the structures and belief systems that have, in a sense, guided us forward, would come to an end. And that a new impetus, consciousness, needed to be awakened to move into a new and more humane paradigm for life on planet earth. It is thirteen years later and indeed, a chaos of seismic proportions has arrived, and not even the most optimistic Type Seven can leapfrog this attention-getting, life-changing, planet-changing circumstance that we are sitting in the midst of. It is not business as usual. Mr. Gurdjieff expressly talked about his Work whose mission it was to inspire enough human beings to take on the task of becoming conscious, that is, awake in all three centers, such that their capacity to work for the good of human beings, and to alleviate their suffering, was alive and well. The Enneagram is one of the tools Gurdjieff brought to us with the hope that we would learn to use it to make a deeper connection with humanity, and find clearly our particular work in bringing this new paradigm of transformation into Being. It is in service to this hope and wish that I dedicate this website such that ideas, practices, and experiences that you seek to transform your life become available.
That said, the joy and optimism of the Type Seven are essential for this journey. As the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu say, if you lose contact with joy, you lose contact with intuitive vision and possibilities that you would ordinarily not imagine. Getting heavy and dark is surely not the pathway, so if you are lucky like me, you have a number of Type Sevens in your life to pull you out of the swamp of endarkened hopelessness and up into the real possibilities that will show themselves when the time is right. So we can be of good heart and good cheer, remembering that the darkest hour is just before the dawn.
Dr. Clarrisa Pinkola Estes has written a powerful essay called Do Not Lose Heart, We Were Made for These Times. http://www.dailygood.org/story/1538/do-not-lose-heart-we-were-made-for-these-times/ I highly recommend it as an extraordinary encouragement for the times ahead.
Many blessings to all of you,
Michael
