The Purpose of The Congregation of the Present Heart (CPH) is to gather and celebrate in honor of the Earth and to provide opportunities for personal growth through ritual and shared spiritual experience.
Mission
The Mission of The Congregation of the Present Heart (CPH) is to provide opportunities for personal growth and spiritual development practicing foundational values of kindness, respect, presence, and reverence for the Earth, to celebrate diversity and recognize the uniqueness of each being inviting all to participate and engage in the process, and to offer comfort and support to those in need.
Taking refuge in the Present Heart
The Awakened Heart is our shared humanity – the pulsing,
raw, passionate, true center of who we are. It is both vulnerable and
courageous. Strong and tender. There are ganglial structures in the heart very
similar to those in the brain. The Heart Knows. It can hold both the achingly
painful and ecstatically blissful. It is the seat of our joy and holds the wisdom
our minds forget.
Presence is now – this moment and all it encompasses –
without attachment to any outcome. We can, in any moment, take refuge in
presence regardless of external circumstances. Being present gives us access to
more resource. The present moment is the moment of choice. The moment ripe with
potentiality – where all probabilities reside – where a new ending to the story
can begin to be written.
In the Congregation of the Present Heart, we recite the prayer:
“All is Pure and Present
And has always been so.
To this realization I commit myself,
Pure and Total Presence”
As translated by Sam Webster https://hermetic.com/webster/pagan-dharma2
“All have experienced suffering and therefore are deserving of
compassion.”
Compassion is the soft and accepting awareness of our
humanity, our frailties, our shortcomings, our losses – suffering – and that
this is an experience, a bond, that we each share with all other beings.
The practice of Compassion is a powerful ally strong enough to release us
from our Suffering, to accept the unacceptable, forgive the unforgivable, love
the unlovable. In doing so, we have access to our full humanity without
needing to numb or shut down or harden. It is a powerful practice to soften
into compassion and allow the flow of life to guide us. This is especially true
when compassion practiced towards ourselves.