What The World Needs Now Is Wisdom

What the World Needs Now Is Wisdom

Sophia/Wisdom

There was once a king in Israel named Solomon, a son of King David, the shepherd boy who slew a giant, and Bathsheba, the beautiful one who stole a king’s heart. After David died, his son Solomon became king of Israel.

The first thing Solomon did after he was crowned was to go to the sanctuary of Gibeon, a holy place where the Hebrew god, Yahweh, spoke to a seeker in dreams.

And that night, Yahweh came to Solomon in a dream and said:

“Ask of me what you will and I will grant it to you.”

And in the dream, Solomon said: “You showed great mercy and kindness to my father David while he was king, for he loved you. And now you have shown him even greater love by letting his son sit on his throne after his death.”

“You, O Lord, have now made me king over a great people, and I feel like a little child. How can I rule over them if I don’t know how?”

“Therefore, I ask you for an understanding heart to judge your people, so I can discern between good and bad. I ask you for the Wisdom to judge your people and be a good king.”

Now you might ask “what is Wisdom?” Why would a king ask for Wisdom above power or glory or victory in the field of battle? But Solomon knew what he was asking for.

With you [God] is Sophia [Lady Wisdom], she who knows your works, she who was present when you made the world; she understands what is pleasing in your eyes and what agrees with your commandments. (Wisdom 9:9)

And Yahweh was pleased with Solomon for asking for this gift. And Yahweh said: “Because you have asked for Wisdom and have not asked for a long life for yourself, or riches, or power over your enemies, but instead seek Wisdom, I will give you what you ask for. I will give you a wise and understanding heart. And no one before or after you will be remembered as you are – the wise king.”

And then Yahweh added: “And I will give you the things you have not asked me for, both riches and honor, and there will be no other king like you in all your days. Just promise that you will walk in my ways, and keep my commandments as your father David did, and I will give you a long life.”

Then Solomon awoke, and remembered his dream. And went back to Jerusalem and stood before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord and gave thanks.

What would you ask for if your God promised you anything you wanted? Who would pick Wisdom, as Solomon did, when offered that miraculous gift? How many of our leaders have asked for a wise and understanding heart above all else? Isn't Wisdom exactly what we need now to deal with this world-wide pandemic and economic crisis?

Do we ask for Wisdom as we sit home, watching Netflix and playing games?Perhaps we don’t ask for Wisdom because we don’t feel the burden of responsibility that Solomon felt for his people. But if we don’t take responsibility for ourselves and our world, who will? Freedom implies responsibility.

Will we ask to be the Wise King, the Wise Teacher/ the Wise Queen and Wise Priestess? Don't you think this is necessary now? Each of us holds a part of these archetypes. The King or Queen archetype within us means taking responsibility for the people and the type of society we live in. Teacher and Priestess archetypes engender within us growth and awareness of many realities.

If there was ever a time in our human history when we need Wisdom, it is now. We are living in extraordinary times, a moment of supreme destiny where the human race can and must participate consciously in our own evolution. This evolution is both personal and collective, opening us to new capacities for co-creation and offering us new possibilities for cultural transformation. For the cultural paradigm that we live in is dying, but it is not going gracefully. We need a new way to understand our world and our place in it. And then we have to create a new and more viable way of living here on our beautiful planet, Earth.

It’s true we live in chaotic and changing times, and so people live in fear – not only fear of COV-19 but of war, disease, poverty, death, violence and the unknown. People have been content to remain unconscious of the damage done to our environment, but we are already living with the results of these misguided policies. This virus comes from Mother Earth's wounded biosphere. It is Her response to our irresponsibility.

But to allow ourselves to fall into more unconsciousness and despair is unimaginative and lazy. We have been given the supreme gift of free will and so our choices do matter. What if, by choosing to follow Lady Wisdom’s call, we learn to turn our god-like creative imagination to transforming our society and re-creating the world rather than going back to business as usual, with our machines polluting the Earth, our wars creating record numbers of refugees and our conspicuous consumption going over the top? Do we really need more junk from Amazon?

With all our innovation and creativity, we do have it in our power to create a ‘heaven on earth’ if we choose. It seems we might only have this small window of time to begin this process. Westerners are the ones holding the power now. Our patriarchal paradigm that shaped our worldview and brought us to this crisis point does not want to transfer its power to the children who will have to live in the future world. While the world has stopped to deal with this pandemic, we each need to imagine what we really want the world to do and be when we all come back from our self-isolation.

We who are living in these most interesting times have a challenge before us – will we be strong enough and committed enough to change our habits and use our free will to create peace and plenty here on this beautiful Earth of ours? Or will we continue to allow the death and destruction that is rampant in our present world to rage on until we are all lost. Each of us holds the world in our hands through our choices. It is time to take responsibility for those choices and evolve into a greater vision of who we might become.

If we choose to take up our responsibility to all of life, then we absolutely have to be ‘wise as serpents and harmless as doves’ (Matthew 10:16). Unfortunately, the mystics who wrote about Wisdom say that although Lady Wisdom cries out in the streets for people to come to her so she can give us her gifts, most people ignore her. Could it be because Wisdom is always imagined as feminine? 

 

Wisdom comes from our feminine right brain – our imagination, our intuition and our emotional intelligence. Since all of us have access to both brains, let's start using them instead of falling back into our reptilian brain of fight or flight.

Wisdom comes to us when we trust our body soul, our intuition, our gut feelings, our imaginations and then use our masculine left brain logic to decide what we need to do. And always, we have to take our values and virtues into consideration. It's interesting that we call it the 'corona -virus' – corona implies the crown chakra, the place where we connect to our Higher Self and spiritual guidance as well as Crone – the crown of feminine being and wisdom.

I would imagine that this means we have to re-connect with our higher selves to understand what this moment in time wants from us. We can discover messages in the books we read, the movies we watch, the inspiration that comes from being out in Nature. But most especially from our dreams and our meditation and our shamanic journeys.

I watched Frozen II the other night. It was all about change. The little snowman. Olaf, said something in the beginning of the movie about change. Change mocks us with her beauty. I love that! We say we want to change because we see the beauty and necessity in it. The need for it. And yet, are we changing our habits or just waiting to get back to them? Is change mocking us or are we willing to embrace her beauty?

Taurus crescent Moon with Venus above

The other night, the Taurus crescent Moon hung in the western sky with Venus shining brightly above her. Orion the Hunter rose up behind them, seeking his quarry. This Taurus Moon opens us to the Earth's imagination and with Venus, the Evening Star, they both embody the Wisdom of the Earth. Taurus embodies the Spirit of Aries' primal fire.

The Moon and Venus embody what we need now to survive and thrive during this crucial time in our history, this time of conscious evolution. The Taurus crescent Moon invites us to envision what we want in this Aries lunar cycle. Venus in Taurus embodies our need to feel safe and secure, healthy and creative, compassionate and passionate. They're working together to help us imagine a new Earth and to help each of us create our own unique life and beliefs.

When we come out of this, will our world go back to the same old, same old ways? Or will people demand and create different ways to do work and school, travel and leisure, creativity and life. Will we as a culture open ourselves to the many dimensions of reality beyond the physical? Can we look behind the veils that separate us and notice how connected we are on different levels – not just the material.

I think Saturn's journey through Aquarius until the beginning of July will help us open up spaces we've keep hidden from ourselves. And with Mars' entry into Aquarius on Monday March 30^th and conjunction with Saturn on Tuesday March 31^st, we might see a hint of what is coming in the future when Jupiter and Saturn meet on December 21, 2020 to begin a new cycle of cultural change, a new model of being that helps us participate and prosper in the collective.

There have been 4 cycles that have ended and begun while in the sign of Capricorn these past months. New cycles of how society and the individual work. The big one was on January 12, 2020 when Saturn and Pluto combined to destroy (Pluto) old social structures (Saturn) that no longer work. But also, out of the ashes will come rebirth (Pluto) of new forms and structures of society. Then Mars and Pluto meet up on March 23, 2020 to begin real work on things. On April 4, 2020 Jupiter and Pluto will met up, starting a new cycle of expansion – of death and/or rebirth.

All three of these cycles end and began at 23-26* Capricorn. Everyone will feel the effects but for anyone with planets at these degrees, especially in Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn, who will be doubly energized for transformation.

As our regular reality is ripped away, this is the moment to look at our lives symbolically. If we can imagine ourselves on the hero's journey, we're at the moment where the hero/ine encounters the darkness, the danger, the initiation. We have a collective responsibility (Saturn in Aquarius) to work on our own darkness, our wounds, our unconsciousness until we get it. Things are going to bubble up for us – as we are stuck in small places. Don't waste this hard time – this is the darkness where the new seed has to grow in.

This is a lesson about evolving our souls. It is a moment for conscious evolution.

So look for the blessings of our self-isolation. We've all been given a chance to meditate on what we want to do and where we want to put our energies, individual energies which make up the larger collective. It's a perfect time to really transform our society. We're experiencing a breakdown. Why not turn it into a breakthrough?

Selections from Wisdom's Daughters:  How Women Will Change the World by Cathy Pagano.