Where does wisdom rise from?
Hallooooo!
How are things for you?
Really.
If you'd like---
Pause.
Take a moment to check in with yourself.
Thoughts, feelings, sensations.
What's the temperature of your inner life?
If it feels comfortable, acknowledge whatever is alive in this moment.
Such a simple yet profound practice of presencing ourselves.
And---
I’ve been living by the Siletz River much of the 2023 summer.
Drought and wildly wet water quietude ---
and being immersed and sitting with and talking to, and praying for, and delighting in, and grieving ---
frogs, and beaver, water bugs, crawdads, great blue herons, kingfishers,
schools of tiny fish, and the occasional leap of a big one,
the dappled light, the rippling and almost now
--- soundlessness ---
as scott creek, that was rushing in june, is trickling in august.
And I’ve been wondering and pondering about wisdom and where it rises from, and Who --- Who through?
Wisdom
This is an invitation to join me---Flirt with the edges and leap into the brambles of wondering!
In these times, listening for wisdom seems more essential that data, facts or attachment to knowledge from the modern human perspective.
And where in the heck does wisdom rise from?
How do we listen for wisdom?
What would our great great grandchildren want us to be listening to now?
How do we recognize wisdom for what it is regardless of where or who it spills through?
My lived experience of wisdom is that it isn't attached to age or class or education or political party or race or gender or job or title or assets, or ability to be productive. Or to being a human.
I have heard what moves me as wisdom, from many children under the age of 10. Which brings me soooo much joy and delight! ---- And from a few ancient Ponderosa's and Wind through Cottonwoods and sometimes moving water.
So, what about the wisdom of the animate Sun and Moon, of the Oceans, Rivers and all waters?
What about the wisdom of Spruce and Redwoods, Maple and Birch, Mycelium and Fungi and Corn, Squash and Beans?
And Hummingbirds (read The Hummingbirds Gift by Sy Montgomery), and Crows, and the stealthy Fox, and Turtles and Owls and Beavers! And all the other animated beings!!
Holy Moly right?
And if time really isn’t linear and we are souls in human bodies, why would wisdom be connected to how many years you’ve existed in this particular body? (not to say that it can't come through with many years on the planet, of course it can!)
When wisdom sounds and rings the bell that keeps on ringing though this body ---
It seems to rise from the heart field
from an intuitive sometimes even instinctive fluid and still place,
from the seat of the soul,
from the center of the center,
from a quality of presence,
from a rootedness and rising,
from a weaving of attention and intention,
from an ancient place that resides in all and everything---
And carries tendrils of innocence and humility along with.
Have we relegated wisdom primarily to being a human trait?
fII so how has that impacted where we are today?
What kind of world is possible when we can see, feel, and respond to the wisdom of the more than human world?
Who might we become if we acknowledged wisdom was not necessarily connected to knowledge or years on the planet, or education, or age, or the left side of the brain? That it rises in the spaces in between or as Leonard Cohen says "There is a crack in everything it's how the light gets in."
Perhaps we need to dedicate more attention to the cracks, maybe some of that light is wisdom?
Play with these questions if they call to your heart!
Bring one to a picnic, a walk with a friend, a phone call, a day at the beach, or a writing or dancing or singing practice, or sitting beside a dear friend as you watch a sunrise or set.
Let me know what rises!
Love and care to you,
Carol
I loved this documentary on Ladakh