Ripples and Rumbles: Being and the Cloud of Unknowing

The Series

Subversion. The dictionary definition is “to turn from below.” At Big Waves, we yearn to turn things …the things that are getting in the way of collective liberation. We work with organizations pursuing that vision, and we focus on the turning. We think about subversion, and we think of “below” as places that are hidden, unspoken, taken for granted, and invisible. Inside ourselves, and in our relationships.

Last year we talked about this in a series of public, recorded conversations we called Ripples and Rumbles. We talked about queerness, power, conflict, and reconciliation. We’ve been thinking about those conversations, and how so many of us sense there is a different leap we can make, a hidden path we can find, beyond all of the big hearted and heavy lifting so many are already joined in. One of the explorations we are most energized by is an exploration of knowing, not knowing, and its realms. What kinds of knowing are prioritized and reproduced, and what kinds are ignored or silenced? How are our efforts to transform affected by this? 

We are exploring this with others again, in a series of public and recorded conversations that we are calling Ripples and Rumbles: Subverting Knowing. It is a five part series, setting the stage first with the story of knowledge as we understand it today, and then considering less dominant forms of knowledge: outsiderness, edge work, disorientation, imagination, and sensual and embodied knowing. We will close with a step back from knowing, to being.

The Fifth Conversation: 

"Being and the Cloud of Unknowing"

We close this Ripples & Rumbles series broadening out from knowing, to being. We’ll talk with Dr. Sue Mehrtens about the numinous, the transcendent, the mysterious, and the ecstatic. Dr. Mehrtens is the founder of the Jungian Centre of the Spiritual Sciences. Quoting some of her thinking which led us to invite this conversation: “The Unknown is real, and we have to face this and be okay with not knowing. Using a term mystics employ, we must appreciate the “cloud of unknowing” and face the fact that we are not in control here, that Nature knows best and that our society would function far more efficiently if we followed Nature’s ways.

Born and raised in the suburbs of New York City, Sue Mehrtens has been a teacher for over 50 years. She earned a Ph.D. in Medieval Studies at Yale University, and taught a variety of subjects for the next ten years before a transformative personal experience led her to the work of Carl Jung and a second Master’s degree in transpersonal counseling. She is the founder of The Jungian Center of the Spiritual Sciences, and maintains a private practice in archetypal astrology and dream work with students around the world. Sue is author, co-author or editor of books including The Fourth Wave: Business in the 21st Century; Intuitive Imagery: A Resource at Work, Revisioning Science: Essays toward a New Knowledge Base for Our Culture, and How to Survive and Thrive in the Coming Earth Changes.

Join Brook and Sue for this fifth and final conversation in the Big Waves series Ripples and Rumbles: Subverting Knowing.

Link to join will be emailed to registrants in the week of the conversation.