The Magic Third Eye

Steven Mead

Steven serves UU Santa Fe as Consulting Lifespan Learning Director

When our kids were growing up there was a children’s movie where the father ran a novelty and magic shop.  One of his gags was that he was always slapping his forehead and exclaiming “My magic third eye!”  And, removing his hand there is was, pasted to his head.  How cool is that I thought.  So, it was with a sense of fun a few Sundays ago when I finally pasted a magic third eye to my forehead, camouflaging a rather obvious bandage.  (I’m all better, thanks for asking).

I was right.  It was cool.  Everyone should have a Magic Third Eye.  I later joked with Jim Kramer we should hand them out to everyone on Magic Third Eye Sunday, have everybody stick them on and then have everyone turn around so he can get a group picture.  Ah, well, it’s how I think.  Everyone needs a magic Third Eye.

Those of you who know me well know that I am no ambassador of magical or superstitious thinking.  I happen to like reason and rationality.  A lot.  But woe to us if we think that is all we need to move through our life.  For a certainty, there are times in our lives when what we know—via our intellect, cognition, our rationality—do not help us at all.  It’s a hard sell for Unitarians—intuition, emotion, insight.  It’s hard because our society prizes what we know so highly—we go to school for it, make our livelihoods and our reputations with it.

The Third Eye is more than simple fun—dharmic and Taoist practices have developed this concept for centuries (no, New Agers didn’t just “discover” the Third Eye!).  My point is this, as beloved as our rationality it is, it is not enough to sustain you on your journey.  What we do at UU Santa Fe honors then augments our already highly developed intellect with spiritual insight and practices to make your life whole and complete.   Try them out.

• Lifelong Learning
• Spirituality Groups (aka Small Groups)
• Social Action Teams

​See you in church.

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​“Third-eye is a gift from life. It’s the gift you receive when you travel the long path of both your external and internal reality towards the self.”―Roshan Sharma