I recently came across a book called How to Read A Book.
It talks about the 4 levels of reading comprehension - the first being elementary and the last being mastery.
Mastery involves repetition.
It involves comparing what you read to other writings on the topic, contending with the author in the margins, understanding other viewpoints…
Then developing your own opinion on the matter.
As a member of this Book Club, you are on the path to creative mastery.
You could even call it self mastery.
Depending on when you joined, you’re familiar with:
- The Artist’s Way, where you rediscovered your creativity
- The War of Art, where you broke through creative resistance
- The Way of Integrity, where you aligned your creativity with your true self
You have opinions on what does and doesn’t spark your creativity.
Now, with The Four Agreements, you’re uncovering limiting beliefs in order to experience creative freedom.
As you read over the next 10 weeks, I invite you to pose a question.
What do you want to know that’s not been answered in your previous readings?
Approach this book in pursuit of those answers.
Then, decide what you’ll do with them.
That’s where your transformation lives.
Are you living in a dream? Or in heaven?
When I read the introduction to the The Four Agreements, I filled the margins with reference notes from our last book, The Way of Integrity.
The first parallel was the metaphor of the dreamer.
The second was the creation of heaven on earth.
In the intro, the Toltec medicine man awakens from his sleep and realizes:
“Everything in existence is a manifestation of the one living being we call God. Everything is God…Human perception is merely light perceiving light…and the world of illusion, the Dream, is just like smoke which doesn’t allow us to see what we really are.” - pg. xvii
Doesn’t that remind you of the scene where Dante reaches enlightenment?
(It’s my favorite part of The Way of Integrity. Page 251. )
Dante meets Beatrice in the Garden of Eden where she commands him to drop the fear and shame that make him “speak like the one who dreams.”
Then her angelic sidekicks take Dante to the River Lethe and dunk him twice.
The first dunk erases his memory of all wrong doings. The second dunk makes it so he only remembers every he did right.
At that point, he emerges from the river and crosses into Paradise.
To me, that’s what it means to see who you really are.
When you see who you really are, you have faith.
And when you have faith, you take creative action.
You believe in yourself.
You’re focused on what The Four Agreements calls the light.
Your attention is fixed on the light you want to perceive.
That’s how you wake up from a dream and create heaven on earth.
Try This Between Now and Our First In-Person Meeting
There’s one passage of The Four Agreements that I read 3-4 times over.
“So he called the stars ‘tonal’ and the light between the stars the ‘nagual’, and he knew that what created the harmony and space between the two is Life or Intent.” - pg. xvi
On my last read through, these words stuck out: “the light between”.
Many of us are in transition, navigating the light between.
Between treasures.
Between loves.
Between missions.
As you navigate, you might find it helpful to revisit an exercise from Week 2 of The Artist’s Way.
It’s called the Life Pie.
And it’s a clear way to see the relationship between your Life and your Intent.
What is physical and what is spiritual.
The tonal and the nagual.
Take out a piece of paper and draw your life pie this week.
Rate your satisfaction in each area between 1 (low) and 10 (high). Then place a dot on each spoke. When you connect the dots, you’ll notice a shape.
That’s a snapshot of life as you perceive it now.
Is there one small shift you can make that might change its shape?
Consider what that shift could be. Then, tuck this pie away for the next 10 weeks.
We’ll revisit it at the end of our reading.
I bet you’ll be looking at a shape that feels less like a dream and more like heaven.
-Annabel
