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A Gathering of the Art of the Second Renaissance

Some gatherings are organised around an agenda, others follow the field - Oracular Practice, Rituals, and collective presencing enquired into the themes of Source, Money, Power and Shadows.

Sylvie Barbier, Amanda Zamparo and Cheryl Hsu

42 min read

Essay · 42 min read

Over the course of the week in July 2026, Cheryl Hsu, Sylvie Shiwei Barbier and Amanda Zamparo gathered together to explore how to embody the Art of the Second Renaissance. There was no specific agenda but a vision of letting our oracular bodies come together and sense into what wanted to emerge.

We slowly became a vessel for a series of living inquiries around Source, Money, Power, Eros, and Shadows. Through collective presencing, ritual, conversation, silence, and shared daily life, we learned to listen—to each other, to the land, the children, our partners, our ancestors, and to the subtle movements of the field itself. We were birthing together a new world and that required us to be comfortable sitting with not-knowing. Out of that, beautiful gifts emerge:

By the end of the week, we understood that the true artifact of our gathering was the cultivation of a field of trust, activation of our oracular bodies, listening deeply as to what wanted to emerge in which creativity, abundance, generosity, vulnerability, responsibility, darkness and beauty could coexist.

Arriving in the Field of the Art of the Second Renaissance - Day 0

After a year and a half of inhabiting the same digital room, we finally stepped into the same physical one.

There was an immediate joy in being together—faces no longer framed by screens. Yet beneath the excitement was another movement: a quiet readjustment. We had learned to be a four-person constellation that included Schuyler Brown, and now we found ourselves relearning our shape in the space her absence had left.

As we settled into one another’s presence, Cheryl, Sylvie, and Amanda began sensing into what wanted to become the guiding theme of the week. Rather than determining it intellectually, we listened for the questions already alive among us. One thread that quickly surfaced was the relationship between Source, Power, and Money—a living inquiry that Amanda and Cheryl had already been exploring, and one that seemed to invite the Art of the Second Renaissance field into its unfolding.

The day became about arriving with one another, discovering how a group remembers itself while becoming something new.

Opening the Vessel to unconditional love and creating a space for vulnerability - Day 1Learning to Belong

We began the morning with a check-in at the local café in Sigoulès, joined by Rufus and Xavier (Sylvie’s and Cheryl’s partner respectively). It felt like a gentle threshold between our everyday lives and the work that was about to begin.

From there we arrived at Le Félix, allowing the land to become our first teacher. We wandered through the space in silence, listening to what each place seemed to be saying before sharing what had touched us. Amanda was drawn to a fallen tree, sensing something in its quiet completion. Sylvie found herself with the cracked earth, while Cheryl was met by the abundance of ripening fruit. The landscape seemed to mirror different aspects of the inner terrain we had each brought with us.

As we opened the gathering, Sylvie placed a simple yet far-reaching question: “How does being part of the Second Renaissance collective contribute to your work and your path?” Cheryl spoke of her work with the Sourcekeepers Guild, while Amanda shared her devotion to lineage healing and her desire to learn from Sylvie. The question did not ask for definitions so much as reveal the living threads that had brought each of us here.

In the afternoon, our attention turned toward the pattern of people-pleasing. Cheryl offered Sylvie an unexpected invitation: permission to project onto her whatever needed to be seen. It opened a doorway into something deeper. Sylvie was welcomed not only in her light, but also in her darkness—in her anger, her intensity, and the parts of herself that had often felt too much. As unconditional acceptance entered the space, a long-held tension between Cheryl and Sylvie softened into a new level of intimacy. Cheryl was moved to tears as her care and love for this spiritual friendship were fully seen and received.

Alongside this, we continued strengthening the practice of collective presencing, remembering to speak to and from the middle rather than to one another. The conversation also wandered into the terrain of sexuality and the archetype of the Sacred Whore. In a gesture that was both playful and generous, Sylvie shared her collection of kinky outfits, offering them not simply as costumes but as resources for exploration.

As evening came, we widened the circle to include the men more fully in the process. Together, we traced our personal and ancestral relationships with money, uncovering stories of inheritance, fear, longing, and possibility. The field deepened as vulnerability became the common language. Rufus, too, found a place from which he could speak honestly, held by a palpable atmosphere of care and protection.

Toward the end of the evening, Amanda asked Rufus, “Do you feel satisfied with anything you have created?” His answer—no—hung in the room with surprising weight. It opened a shared inquiry into the delicate balance between ambition and grandiosity, and contentment, gratitude, and the quiet experience of enoughness.

Some of the questions that emerged were a sense of:

The Consecration of Eros opening the Altar of Abundancia - Day 2

The questions of Money, Power, and Source continued to unfold as we deepened our practice of collective presencing. Rather than seeking answers, we listened for what was quietly asking to emerge through us.

At one point, Cheryl offered a question into the middle:

“What is the most beautiful expression of economia-ing that wants to be expressed through the Art of the Second Renaissance?”

The question was answered not with words but with an act. Cheryl placed one thousand dollars into the collective pot for the Art of the Second Renaissance, and Sylvie immediately matched her offering. In a matter of moments, the field had shifted. What had been a conversation became a shared commitment. The collective now held $2,000—not simply as funding, but as an expression of trust, devotion, and belief in what wanted to be created together.

In the afternoon, we turned toward ritual.

Sylvie and Cheryl prepared a bathing and cleansing ceremony for Amanda in honour of the Sacred Whore. Rose water was made, the space was carefully tended, and Amanda was invited into a ritual of reconsecration of the Sacred Whore—one that sought not to erase history, but to remember the holiness of the body, of desire, and of Eros itself.

The ritual concluded with the reading of the Prayer for the Reconsecration of Eros, invoking healing for all the places where sexuality has been wounded, exploited, or separated from the sacred, and calling for love, desire, and the body to once again become expressions of life in service to creation.

Throughout the day, another insight quietly revealed itself. Sylvie began to sense more deeply the significance of Cheryl’s work—not simply as a practice around money, but as a kind of cleansing and liberation of money itself. It carried the intuition that money could be restored to the sacred: released from fear, shame, and placed once again in service of life, beauty, and the common good, much as offerings have long served in spiritual traditions.

In the evening, Cheryl prepared dinner for all of us, grounding the day in the simple nourishment of sharing a meal together. After the children were asleep, we gathered once more with Rufus and Xavier for an evening check-in, weaving them further into the unfolding process. The day closed with a quiet sense that something had begun to move.

Integrating children into spiritual work; slowing down and descending - Day 3

We began the morning with a collective presencing that included the children. The question we placed into the middle was:

“What is the harmony between family, art, and spirituality?”

Their presence subtly transformed the field. Rather than distracting from the process, the children became part of it—a living theatre of relationship. Through their play, curiosity, cries, movements and conflict, they reminded us that life itself was participating in our inquiry. The boundaries between spiritual practice and everyday life became more porous.

As the day progressed, another current entered the field.

The intensity of the summer heat seemed to awaken an immense grief within Sylvie. Sylvie asked Cheryl and Amanda if they would simply hold space while she read a prayer that had come through her. All three women were approaching the coming of their moon, lending an additional depth and sensitivity to the field.

The prayer became a vessel for a grief that felt far larger than any one individual. It spoke from the perspective of the more-than-human world, of victims and perpetrators, of forests, animals, children, soldiers, ancestors, and the Earth itself. Rather than separating innocence from guilt, it dissolved the boundaries between them, giving voice to the profound interdependence of all life. This first prayer would later become the seed of The ritual for Transmuting the Perpetrator.

In response, Amanda shared Thunder, Perfect Mind, an ancient Gnostic poem whose paradoxical voice resonated deeply with what had emerged. It felt as though another lineage had entered the room, echoing the same mystery through a different language.

Without maybe being fully conscious of it, we had begun to descend.

What if prayer is the moment we allow the world’s voice to move through us?

Listening to where Money Wishes to Flow - Calling in Abundancia - Day 4

The morning began with Sylvie inviting Cheryl to guide our collective presencing around Money. Cheryl called in the presence of Abundancia, asking Amanda to stand beside her in support. Together they prepared a small altar, creating a space in which money could be approached as a living participant in the conversation.

Into the middle, Amanda and Cheryl offered two questions:

We sat together in silence, we listened.

What gradually emerged felt good in our body. The money seemed to want to flow toward Schuyler Brown. Although she was not physically with us, she remained part of the wider field of the collective. For more than a decade, she had been devoted to writing a book whose purpose resonated deeply with the mission of the Art of the Second Renaissance. Throughout the previous year and a half, our conversations had repeatedly returned to the question of how creators of a new cultural paradigm might be genuinely resourced. Offering the money to Schuyler felt less like making a donation and more like recognizing where lifeforce wanted to move.

There was also something quietly powerful about women choosing to resource another woman, freed from the patriarchy. We wanted the gift to arrive without expectation or condition—a blessing offered in trust, honouring Schuyler’s discernment and the path she was already walking.

As we continued listening, another impulse became clear. We felt called to dedicate €500 toward caring for ourselves during the gathering, while also expressing our gratitude to Rufus and Xavier, whose loving care for the children had created the conditions that made this work possible. Sacred economy-ing, we realized, was not only about funding visionary projects. It was equally about tending the relationships, bodies, and unseen forms of care that allow such work to exist.

The summer heat remained intense, inviting us to slow our pace. In the afternoon, we travelled to Bergerac to meet Valérie Duvauchelle, a member of the Life Itself collective and lead of the praxis ecology. It felt like another reminder that this work unfolds through a wider web of friendships, collaborations, and shared vocations.

Becoming a Source - Day 5

We began the morning with our now familiar check-in with Rufus and Xavier, sharing what had emerged over the previous day and the decisions that had been made around the collective pot.

As we reflected together, Sylvie spoke more fully into her relationship as Source with Life Itself and the Second Renaissance.

There was a quiet sense of ownership, a willingness to stand in the light and be seen as a source and no longer be afraid of the danger that comes with leadership. This was also influenced as the group had chosen the Work with Source as a common reading material the previous days.

From this conversation, another image emerged into the field: the prophecy of Lover Earth.

It arose from a simple human longing: to be held. As we stayed with the question, something shifted. Perhaps the Earth is the only one vast enough to hold us. And perhaps the invitation of this time is no longer to relate to the Earth only as Mother, endlessly giving of herself, but as Lover; a relationship of reciprocity, intimacy, and mutual devotion. Mother Earth has already given everything she has. To enter into relationship now asks something different of us: to become small enough to receive, vulnerable enough to listen, and mature enough to love in return.

The morning also brought grounding questions from Xavier and Rufus—questions that invited the vision to take practical form.

We had spent several days listening for where money wanted to flow, but their questions revealed another side of sacred economing: not only how resources are shared, but how they are generated. Vision and stewardship, generosity and sustainability, needed to grow together.

Amanda sensed another principle quietly taking shape. There is already abundance in the world—an excess that exists in many places, waiting to circulate. Sacred economing may not begin with creating more wealth, but with helping what is already abundant to move where it can nourish more life.

During the morning, Rufus shared from a place of tenderness, and Amanda offered simply to hold him. It was a reminder that care itself had become one of the collective’s most important practices.

Later that afternoon, Cheryl returned from a call with the Guild carrying grief. We welcomed her into the circle, holding space for what was moving through her. As we listened together, there was a growing recognition that she was being invited to step more fully into her role as a source—to trust the authority that comes from deep listening and faithful service to what wishes to emerge.

The day ended with a clearer understanding that becoming a source is both a gift and a responsibility: to steward life, resources, and relationships in ways that allow more life to flourish.

The Blessing of Abundancia - Day 6

The morning began with a simple yet meaningful act of coherence. As we revisited the gift we had discerned for Schuyler, Amanda offered an additional $55 so that the final amount would become $1,555. The numbers 555 held particular meaning for Amanda as an invitation for change and transformation. The number itself felt complete, carrying a symbolic resonance that reflected the care with which the offering had come into being.

In the afternoon, we gathered for an Abundancia ritual.

Sylvie stepped into the role receiving the ritual on behalf of the Art of the Second Renaissance as source.

Later in the evening, across the ocean, Schuyler joined us to receive the blessing of Abundancia. Together, we offered her the $1,555—not as payment, investment, or obligation, but as an unconditional act of love, recognition and trust in her, in her work and path and wanting to give a blessing for what the book she is bringing into the world.

One by one, we spoke our blessings and wishes for her. The offering was not simply financial. It carried our recognition of her years of devotion, our gratitude to her as a big sister and for her place within the wider constellation of the collective, and our shared desire to help resource a new cultural story.

What had begun earlier in the week as an inquiry into sacred economing had now taken tangible form. Money had become a blessing, a prayer, and a gesture of faith.

Later, Schuyler responded with a written reflection that deeply moved us. She spoke of a lifetime spent healing her relationship with money, of learning resilience and generosity despite financial uncertainty, and of the profound relief she felt in receiving an unexpected gift from three women she regarded as spiritual sisters. She recognized the offering as an expression of sacred sisterhood—one aligned with the very heart of Tenacious Magic, her book exploring the restoration of women’s spiritual authority, creativity, and mutual resourcing.

Her words reminded us that abundance is not merely the circulation of money, but the circulation of trust, recognition, and blessing. They affirmed something we had sensed throughout the week: when women consciously resource one another without attachment or expectation, they participate in restoring an ancient lineage of reciprocity that allows new worlds to be born.

As the day drew to a close, another movement quietly announced itself. Sylvie voiced a desire to source a new ritual—one that would turn toward the shadow and the perpetrator. It felt as though the week was opening another threshold, carrying the work beyond abundance alone and into the places where healing would ask us to meet what is most difficult to love.

Embodying the Shadows - Day 7

We devoted the day to preparing the ritual that had begun to call us at the end of the previous evening. The world of Shadow is a theme that Sylvie has held close to her heart and she felt deeply called to activate ritual around it.

We worked with the text based on the prayer that emerged the days before, reflected on the structure of the ritual, and asked what artifacts wanted to be used during the ritual. As we listened, each of us recognized an archetypal role we felt called to embody.

Cheryl stepped toward the Griever.

Sylvie accepted the invitation to become the Perpetrator.

Amanda chose to embody the Innocent.

These were not characters to perform but living archetypes through which we hoped something larger could speak. We gathered clothing and symbolic objects, allowing each element to support the ritual’s unfolding. We also discerned where it should take place. We considered both Le Félix and the farmhouse, ultimately settling on the back garden at the Farmhouse—a simple, intimate space that could hold both the ritual itself and those witnessing from afar.

That evening, we entered the ritual performance together.

What had begun days earlier as conversations around sacred economing, grief, and responsibility found expression through embodied ritual. The questions were no longer spoken only in words; they were carried through voice, gesture, silence, and presence.

The enactment of that ritual felt more like a form of sacred theater, an acting of the archetypes. It was a first experimentation, a chance to explore the archetypes, story and their embodiment in living performance

Throughout the week, Amanda had suggested that as we all had our moon, we could do a blood offering to the earth to stop the wars. This action was adopted as a final action to complete the ritual of the perpetrator.

What had become apparent was that our capacity to explore at this depth had required time and the work together to enter attunement with each other, the field and our collective body. We could only start exploring this type of ritual because trust, vulnerability, generosity, grief, and blessing had gradually become embodied. The ritual simply made visible what had been quietly taking shape among us and through us.

Calling in the Prayer to transmute the Perpetrator - Day 8

On our final morning, we returned to Le Félix to bring the week to a close. Together, we reflected on what had emerged and what wished to continue beyond the gathering.

Sylvie expressed a wish to write a report that could share the journey more widely, Amanda felt called to interview Sylvie about the origins of the Second Renaissance and the deeper intention behind the work. It became clear that the artifact of the week would not be a single object, but a constellation of offerings carrying the work outward.

Later that afternoon, we gathered with a simple intention: to make a new recording of The Perpetrator text.

What followed surprised all of us.

Rather than documenting the ritual, we found ourselves reinvoking and entering it once again. As the words were spoken, they seemed to regain their own life. Sylvie again entered the voice of the Perpetrator, but this time with greater freedom and depth. The text revealed something that had not been fully visible before: the perpetrator first appeared not as a monster, but as an innocent child, long before becoming capable of causing harm.

“ I am the janitor cleaning the toilets in a private school, where no one knows my name.

I’m the school boy who has lost hope in humanity.

I am the orphaned child in Gaza, my body torn apart.
I am the IDF soldier who flies the drone and detonates the bomb.

I am the pedophile who rapes a child.

I am the child who smiles at the moon.
I feel all the pain in the world, because I am the world.

***I bleed.*The world bleeds.I am sad. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

There is so much pain in my body, because I am pain itself, made manifest.

Hear my scream. You cannot ignore me.

Shadow, shadow, you who were once innocent and have now become the perpetrator come, come. Let us hear your voice” - Text from the ritual for Transmuting the Perpetrator by Sylvie Barbier

As the ritual unfolded, Cheryl was overtaken by an immense wave of grief. Through her came a grief that seemed to belong not only to herself, but to countless mothers, countless losses, countless generations. Between sobs she repeated, “There is so much blood. There is so much blood.”

Earlier in the text, the Perpetrator had spoken:

“Oh Griever, let me witness the consequences of my actions. Share with me your rage. Share with me your pain.”

Now those words have become real. The Perpetrator was no longer speaking into emptiness but receiving the unbearable weight of what had been done. Something shifted in the relationship between these archetypes. The encounter was no longer about accusation or defence, but about witnessing, responsibility, and the possibility of transformation.

As Cheryl gradually returned, Sylvie remained present beside her, gently helping her find her way back. In that moment, another teaching surfaced—one Schuyler had often shared: only take people as deep as you know how to accompany them back. The responsibility of entering darkness is inseparable from the responsibility of guiding others safely through it.

Looking back, the archetype of the Perpetrator seemed to undergo its own transformation. The one who had embodied destruction was now called to become a guide, someone capable of entering darkness without becoming consumed by it.

When the intensity had passed, Cheryl felt called to water. She returned to the tree where the ritual had taken place the day before, seeking a quiet moment of grounding.

An Invitation Before Listening

This recording holds an intimate and intense moment from our ritual practice. It includes an activation of the perpetrator archetype, as well as a moment of profound emotional release. We share it in the spirit of transformation, with the hope that witnessing this ritual might support the recognition and transmutation of these archetypes within ourselves.

Please choose consciously whether you wish to enter this experience. If you do, we invite you to listen somewhere quiet and undisturbed, with headphones, and without others listening inadvertently. Approach the recording as you might enter a dojo or a temple: with presence, respect, and an awareness that you are being invited into the deep intimacy of a field that was created between us.

You are always free to pause, stop, or choose not to listen.

Listen to the recording on the original post →

After listening to it, you may feel called to also go to water and practice a cleansing ritual.

Later that afternoon, we all went together to the Dordogne River near the Life Itself Riverside Hub. Immersing ourselves in the cool water of the fountain, we allowed the week to come to rest, carrying with us not only its questions, but also the deep trust that had been forged by walking through them together.

What transforms a perpetrator into a protector?

Beyond the Gathering

Although the formal week had come to an end, our time together continued to unfold in different forms.

Amanda, Aletheya, Ateyan, Sylvie and her mother, joined the Plum Village Family Retreat, while Rufus travelled to Wales to participate in Emergent Dialogue. Cheryl and Xavier spent time visiting Xavier’s brother before later joining Marcelo at the Plum Village Family Retreat. Meanwhile, Amanda and Sylvie immersed themselves in a week of Ritual Art and shadow work with Kay and Issy.

Though our paths briefly diverged, they remained deeply intertwined. We continued living in community, discovering that the most meaningful rituals were often the simplest ones. Evenings frequently ended around a shared dinner table, followed by quiet moments together as Amanda, Ateyan, and Sylvie watched Avatar: The Last Airbender. These small, repeated gestures gradually became part of the fabric of our shared life.

Later, we used some of the remaining 500 USD from the collective pot to celebrate and care for ourselves—sharing meals together in gratitude for all that had unfolded. Sylvie created hand-illustrated cards for each person, small gifts carrying the memory of the month together and the unique qualities each had brought into the field.

And perhaps the most enduring creation was the quiet emergence of a village, a culture that was being held by sisters, where care, creativity, friendship, and everyday life became inseparable.

Appendix

Prayer for the Reconsecration of Eros by Sylvie Barbier

Holy Source of Love,

Breathe within the body, flame it with desire

Offer this prayer, for the healing of all pain and violence

woven through the realms of sex, love, and eroticism.

Where the temple of love has been desecrated,

where bodies have been exploited,

where innocence has been betrayed —

may there be restoration.

We ask forgiveness

for the ways we have shamed desire,

for the ways we have severed sex from the sacred,

for the forgetting that the body is holy ground.

I hold in my heart

all those harmed by trafficking, coercion, and abuse.

May justice rise.

May protection surround them.

May dignity be restored.

Inanna, ancient Queen of Heaven and Earth,

Goddess of love, sacred sexuality, and fertility -

you who know descent and resurrection,

teach us that sex is a cosmic power,

a force of life, not domination.

Aphrodite, radiant one,

Goddess of beauty, magnetism, and sovereign desire -

restore to us our erotic sovereignty.

Illuminate us with sexual wisdom.

Awaken agency where there has been shame.

Eros, primordial pulse of creation —

enter us as clarity, not chaos.

Move through us as devotion, not destruction.

May your fire be guided by consciousness

and placed in service of life.

Protect this body as a temple.

Protect all bodies as temples.

I honor the divinity within us —

within our flesh,

within our longing,

within our love.

May sex return to its altar.

May love return to its holiness.

May Eros serve creation.

Thunder, Perfect Mind from the Gnostic society library - Translated by George W. MacRae

I was sent forth from the power,

and I have come to those who reflect upon me,

and I have been found among those who seek after me.

Look upon me, you who reflect upon me,

and you hearers, hear me.

You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves.

And do not banish me from your sight.

And do not make your voice hate me, nor your hearing.

Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard!

Do not be ignorant of me.

For I am the first and the last.

I am the honored one and the scorned one.

I am the whore and the holy one.

I am the wife and the virgin.

I am <the mother> and the daughter.

I am the members of my mother.

I am the barren one

and many are her sons.

I am she whose wedding is great,

and I have not taken a husband.

I am the midwife and she who does not bear.

I am the solace of my labor pains.

I am the bride and the bridegroom,

and it is my husband who begot me.

I am the mother of my father

and the sister of my husband

and he is my offspring.

I am the slave of him who prepared me.

I am the ruler of my offspring.

But he is the one who begot me before the time on a birthday.

And he is my offspring in (due) time,

and my power is from him.

I am the staff of his power in his youth,

and he is the rod of my old age.

And whatever he wills happens to me.

I am the silence that is incomprehensible

and the idea whose remembrance is frequent.

I am the voice whose sound is manifold

and the word whose appearance is multiple.

I am the utterance of my name.

Why, you who hate me, do you love me,

and hate those who love me?

You who deny me, confess me,

and you who confess me, deny me.

You who tell the truth about me, lie about me,

and you who have lied about me, tell the truth about me.

You who know me, be ignorant of me,

and those who have not known me, let them know me.

For I am knowledge and ignorance.

I am shame and boldness.

I am shameless; I am ashamed.

I am strength and I am fear.

I am war and peace.

Give heed to me.

I am the one who is disgraced and the great one.

Give heed to my poverty and my wealth.

Do not be arrogant to me when I am cast out upon the earth,

and you will find me in those that are to come.

And do not look upon me on the dung-heap

nor go and leave me cast out,

and you will find me in the kingdoms.

And do not look upon me when I am cast out among those who

are disgraced and in the least places,

nor laugh at me.

And do not cast me out among those who are slain in violence.

But I, I am compassionate and I am cruel.

Be on your guard!

Do not hate my obedience

and do not love my self-control.

In my weakness, do not forsake me,

and do not be afraid of my power.

For why do you despise my fear

and curse my pride?

But I am she who exists in all fears

and strength in trembling.

I am she who is weak,

and I am well in a pleasant place.

I am senseless and I am wise.

Why have you hated me in your counsels?

For I shall be silent among those who are silent,

and I shall appear and speak,

Why then have you hated me, you Greeks?

Because I am a barbarian among the barbarians?

For I am the wisdom of the Greeks

and the knowledge of the barbarians.

I am the judgement of the Greeks and of the barbarians.

I am the one whose image is great in Egypt

and the one who has no image among the barbarians.

I am the one who has been hated everywhere

and who has been loved everywhere.

I am the one whom they call Life,

and you have called Death.

I am the one whom they call Law,

and you have called Lawlessness.

I am the one whom you have pursued,

and I am the one whom you have seized.

I am the one whom you have scattered,

and you have gathered me together.

I am the one before whom you have been ashamed,

and you have been shameless to me.

I am she who does not keep festival,

and I am she whose festivals are many.

I, I am godless,

and I am the one whose God is great.

I am the one whom you have reflected upon,

and you have scorned me.

I am unlearned,

and they learn from me.

I am the one that you have despised,

and you reflect upon me.

I am the one whom you have hidden from,

and you appear to me.

But whenever you hide yourselves,

I myself will appear.

For whenever you appear,

I myself will hide from you.

Those who have […] to it […] senselessly […].

Take me [… understanding] from grief.

and take me to yourselves from understanding and grief.

And take me to yourselves from places that are ugly and in ruin,

and rob from those which are good even though in ugliness.

Out of shame, take me to yourselves shamelessly;

and out of shamelessness and shame,

upbraid my members in yourselves.

And come forward to me, you who know me

and you who know my members,

and establish the great ones among the small first creatures.

Come forward to childhood,

and do not despise it because it is small and it is little.

And do not turn away greatnesses in some parts from the smallnesses,

for the smallnesses are known from the greatnesses.

Why do you curse me and honor me?

You have wounded and you have had mercy.

Do not separate me from the first ones whom you have known.

And do not cast anyone out nor turn anyone away

[…] turn you away and [… know] him not.

[…].

What is mine […].

I know the first ones and those after them know me.

But I am the mind of […] and the rest of […].

I am the knowledge of my inquiry,

and the finding of those who seek after me,

and the command of those who ask of me,

and the power of the powers in my knowledge

of the angels, who have been sent at my word,

and of gods in their seasons by my counsel,

and of spirits of every man who exists with me,

and of women who dwell within me.

I am the one who is honored, and who is praised,

and who is despised scornfully.

I am peace,

and war has come because of me.

And I am an alien and a citizen.

I am the substance and the one who has no substance.

Those who are without association with me are ignorant of me,

and those who are in my substance are the ones who know me.

Those who are close to me have been ignorant of me,

and those who are far away from me are the ones who have known me.

On the day when I am close to you, you are far away from me,

and on the day when I am far away from you, I am close to you.

[I am …] within.

[I am …] of the natures.

I am […] of the creation of the spirits.

[…] request of the souls.

I am control and the uncontrollable.

I am the union and the dissolution.

I am the abiding and I am the dissolution.

I am the one below,

and they come up to me.

I am the judgment and the acquittal.

I, I am sinless,

and the root of sin derives from me.

I am lust in (outward) appearance,

and interior self-control exists within me.

I am the hearing which is attainable to everyone

and the speech which cannot be grasped.

I am a mute who does not speak,

and great is my multitude of words.

Hear me in gentleness, and learn of me in roughness.

I am she who cries out,

and I am cast forth upon the face of the earth.

I prepare the bread and my mind within.

I am the knowledge of my name.

I am the one who cries out,

and I listen.

I appear and […] walk in […] seal of my […].

I am […] the defense […].

I am the one who is called Truth

and iniquity […].

You honor me […] and you whisper against me.

You who are vanquished, judge them (who vanquish you)

before they give judgment against you,

because the judge and partiality exist in you.

If you are condemned by this one, who will acquit you?

Or, if you are acquitted by him, who will be able to detain you?

For what is inside of you is what is outside of you,

and the one who fashions you on the outside

is the one who shaped the inside of you.

And what you see outside of you, you see inside of you;

it is visible and it is your garment.

Hear me, you hearers

and learn of my words, you who know me.

I am the hearing that is attainable to everything;

I am the speech that cannot be grasped.

I am the name of the sound

and the sound of the name.

I am the sign of the letter

and the designation of the division.

And I […].

(3 lines missing)

[…] light […].

[…] hearers […] to you

[…] the great power.

And […] will not move the name.

[…] to the one who created me.

And I will speak his name.

Look then at his words

and all the writings which have been completed.

Give heed then, you hearers

and you also, the angels and those who have been sent,

and you spirits who have arisen from the dead.

For I am the one who alone exists,

and I have no one who will judge me.

For many are the pleasant forms which exist in numerous sins,

and incontinencies,

and disgraceful passions,

and fleeting pleasures,

which (men) embrace until they become sober

and go up to their resting place.

And they will find me there,

and they will live,

and they will not die again.

Text by schuyler

Abundancia

Long ago, I became resourceful–

a finder of money in the couch cushions,

a keeper of quarters,

a connoisseur of value,

a thrift shopper.

I destroyed the habit of unconscious spending

and eliminated every frivolous desire,

almost every luxury from my way of life.

I learned to live on an alms bowl and called myself monastic,

I lived on a wing and a prayer, and called it courageous.

The anxiety that once lived in my body

has been integrated.

I no longer quake at zeros.

I’ve alchemized the shame of generational poverty

and cultivated community in fallow fields.

I can ask for help and I’ve even learned

to receive with my head held high.

All of this could only be done without money.

I count all of these as invaluable gifts

Markers of growth and a testament to my resilience

But none of it, “the work of healing the money wound,”

ever yielded enough to pay the rent.

It made me stronger, more compassionate, and less afraid

But it did not make me money.

There’s no giving up in me anymore,

But that doesn’t mean there’s no despair.

I’ve been suffering under the weight of with expenses–

like a tidal wave, building towards breaking

on the shore of my health, my heart, my home.

Every one of them is a necessity.

I’d reached a breaking point when your offer came:

Will you receive $1,555 from Abundancia,to (re)source Tenacious Magic?

I lay in bed and felt relief flood my system

like water through parched earth.

That this nectar comes from now, from you three women,

makes more sense than I know how to hold.

It’s a more beautiful form of resourcing than I dared to imagine.

I didn’t expect it. The element of surprise alone is glorious.

The three of you, generous and aligned,

Open-hearted and open-handed.

My spiritual friends, my sisters,

my co-conspirators in the art of the second renaissance!

It feels like the sun on my face after numerous dark nights of the soul.

I am a child again, free from the burden of money, of earning.

Open to a new relationship with a goddess I’ve not yet known:

Abundancia.

As for Tenacious Magic,

the book is ultimately about sacred sisterhood in creation:

about the healing of the money-sex-power wounds on the planet

and the restoration of the spiritual authority of women.

Women helping women to realize their full potential

and express themselves as weavers–

through time and space

through civilizations rising and falling

through the ages.

With our art and self-expression–our bodies, hands, hearts, and desire,

we change the course of history

we create new worlds

we rewrite our personal destinies and the fate of the Earth.

No less than this.

I receive this money as a gift on behalf of the lineage of Isis and Inanna,

Athena and Artemis,

Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene,

the Stone People of the British Isles who persist without a namepriestesses of all times,

and the veiled ones in the night sky who wear the robes of the old, old

gods.

I even receive it on behalf of other world times.

Wherever my soul has traveled or will travel next, this spirit will flow.

I receive this money and pray for its expansion.

I pray that the blessing of Abundancia fills this book with light

and transmits her power to the world.

I pray that I learn to dance with her and become a favorite of hers.

I pray that the power you have gifted here is amplified

and felt by every woman who is touched by this book.

May they feel the generosity of spirit, and the flow of resources open in

their own life.

I hope that no woman is in a state of need for long.

I pray all women get to blossom into fullness.

I pray that all women receive what they need to feel at home and tell

their story,

and do the work their soul came to do.

May no woman leave this plane with unfinished business due to

financial constraints.

That is my prayer.

–Written on July 8, 2026 as a response to the Women of the Second

Renaissance and their generous endowment for my book, Tenacious

Magic.

Ritual to transmute the perpetrator written and designed by Sylvie Barbier

Opening

Shadow, shadow, as the night fall darkness comes.

Shadow, shadow, because there is light there is shadow.

Shadow, shadow, let me see you and embrace you.

This is the ritual to integrate the shadows.

Chorus

I am the fallen tree upon the earth.

I am the ivy slowly suffocating the oak.
I am the mosquito feeding upon your blood.

I am the hand that slaps the mostiko dead.

I am the deer eating the baby oak.

I am the hunter who shoots the deer.
I am the dying sunflower beneath a burning summer sky.
I am the chicken dying in an intensive farm.

I am the whale who has lost her calves.
I am the shark caught in the industrial fishing, my body hauled from the ocean.

I am the baby bird who jumped before I was ready to reach the water.

I am the dried-up spring, smelling of rot from the fish that died within me.

I am the cracked earth, thirsting for rain.

I am the dried fields, waiting in fear for the next wildfire.

I’m the fireman watching the sacred temples of woodland rise into flame.

I am an indigenous woman, rediscovering my ancestors ancient wisdom, filling the gaps for all that has been lost

I am the white man who no longer knows his place in the world.

I am the Black mother burying her son, killed by the police.

I am the Ukrainian soldier scared for his life longing to return home embraced by my lover.
I am the fisherman who has not seen his children for years.

I am the janitor cleaning the toilets in a private school, where no one knows my name.

I’m the school boy who has lost hope in humanity.

I am the orphaned child in Gaza, my body torn apart.
I am the IDF soldier who flies the drone and detonates the bomb.

I am the pedophile who rapes a child.

I am the child who smiles at the moon.
I feel all the pain in the world, because I am the world.

I bleed.The world bleeds.OFFERING OF THE BLOODI am sad. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

There is so much pain in my body, because I am pain itself, made manifest.

Hear my scream. You cannot ignore me.

Invocation of the perpetrator

Shadow, shadow, you who were once innocent and have now become the perpetrator come, come. Let us hear your voice.

The perpetrator:

I am sad. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

Mama. Mama. Mama.

I am sorry.

Baby…

I am sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

Chorus

Is this pain truly necessary?

I pray for balance to be restored.
I pray for joy.

Please protect our children, our sons, our daughters.

Please protect all of Life.

Protect the Earth, the soil, the birds, the insects, the lizard, the fox, the whale, the woodland, the oak tree, the deer, the ivy, the moskito, the rose, the sunflower, the chicken, the field, the rivers, the oceans, the sharks, the children, the elder.

We are the innocent and we are the perpetrators.We are the witness and we are the mourner

Protect us

Protect our homes.

We give you our blood,

so that the wars may end.

I am every being. I am every action. I am the whole.

First published in the Seeds of a Second Renaissance newsletter on 9 September 2026. Read the original.

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