What is wisdom?
Is it knowledge that results from our accumulated experiences, or is it something more?
If wisdom was only based on accumulated experiences, growing older and having learned or experienced a great deal would automatically make you wise. But even children can say things that are wise. So what is the difference between being knowledgeable or experienced and being wise?
When I hear someone speak words of wisdom, they might or might not have a breadth of experience behind them. They might or might not have a reservoir of knowledge they are drawing from, because wisdom isn’t calculated or even figured out. Wisdom seems to come from the depth of a person’s being. Wisdom comes from an inner stillness where the greater truths live.
Wisdom occurs in those moments when someone spontaneously says something they can’t believe they knew to say. It comes when someone pauses and reflects within before answering a question. We recognize it when someone knows the perfect question to ask us.
When we have listened into the stillness and unknown, wisdom arises. True wisdom guides us to speak about the insights that are coming to us or not to speak, to ask or not to ask, and if we do speak to say only what is necessary and no more. Wisdom comes out of the stillness, where we exist beyond the perceptions of our human egos and limited definitions. This stillness is the essence of the Sacred Feminine. This is where we meet the unknown and open ourselves to its gifts. This is where we trust in insights far beyond what our rational minds might put together.
The Sacred Feminine or yin, the still pregnant womb of all potentials, is the source of some of the greatest wisdom that I have ever experienced. When a woman or man speaks from insights that have emerged from this stillness, their words tend to linger in your heart and mind. Wisdom has a way of touching your life for many years because the power of its truth continues to invite you to break through perceived limits and to explore your perspectives and beliefs more deeply.
When you give yourself permission to not know the answer, not be wise, not have any idea what you or anyone else should think or do, you have begun a journey into wisdom. Wisdom demands surrender. It demands not knowing.
How else can you enter the realm of limitless possibilities, and emerge with what exactly what you or another truly needs to hear (or not hear in that moment)?
It requires courage to allow wisdom to flow through from what you do not yet know, rather than control its output. This state in which you access what is not yet known, is the domain of the Sacred Feminine. The next time you consider something you have heard that seems wise to you, may I suggest you see if you can sense its source? Did it come from experience? Or did it come from a well of truth far beyond everyday perceptions?
