These words are from Giordano Bruno’s Heroic Frenzies:

Through bitter sweetness and delightful pain, I fall to the center and am drawn up toward the sky; necessity constrains me while the good leads me on; fate draws me in to the abyss, while counsel uplifts me; desire spurs me on, while fear bridles me; care burns me and keeps me long in peril.

What straight or devious path will give me peace, and free me from discord, if the one rejects me so, and the other invites me?

The ascent takes place in the soul by the vigor and impulse of the wings, which are the intellect and the will. It is by these faculties that the soul naturally turns and fixes its gaze toward God as upon the sovereign good and primary truth, the absolute goodness and beauty; just as every natural thing has a regressive impulse toward its own origin, and a progressive impulse toward its own end and perfection, as Empedocles had well explained, to whose opinion I think Nolan refers in the following octave:

It happens that the sun returns to its point of departure, and its diffusive light returns to its source; and what belongs to the earth falls back to the earth; and the rivers issuing from the sea flow again to the sea, and desires aspire to the place from which they have drawn their life and breath. In the same way, born from my goddess, my every thought to my goddess must return…

It has always amazed me how many relevant “road signs” exist in our literature.  Just there, sitting in the open waiting to be recognized!  Filtered through our own perspectives, their meanings change given the experience and enlightenment of the observer.  It seems to me that almost everything I read has a remembrance, a moral, or seems to point me on my way.

So back to Giordano, I have always known his work. His words sing to me.  His writings were resurrected in to the mainstream when Deborah Harkness used the line “Desire urges me on, as fear bridles me,” in A Discovery of Witches. She stated in her book, “…it explains everything that happens in the world, doesn’t it?” I am inclined to agree. It is interesting to consider, does Trinity Energy Progression or other spiritual practices increase our ability to recognize these signs in the literature and other places?  Do these practices cause us to desire less….. or do they change what it is we desire?  I am undecided. But words have always resonated with me, sometimes given me a voice when I felt I didn’t have one. For me they can transcend me, just as Trinity does.  When my nephew died (I was enrolled in the Trinity practitioners class at the time), Giordano’s words came back to me and sang in my head. And because of Angela’s recent Living the Shift Google Hangout on Accepting and Embracing Transition and Death, I found myself once again seeking out my old friend. I decided to share these words, in case they resonate with someone else. If we keep our minds open, we realize the “road signs” are everywhere.

Then again, it IS all illusion… but that is a discussion for another time…

Richele Thompson
Trinity Energy Progression Facilitator