OPENING

The Feminine Eros

This is a book about wisdom. In it I discuss the cultivation of various practices that can help the reader to develop wisdom in both the theoretical and practice sense. But even more, this is a book about a spiritual revolution and a new cycle of wisdom in the current and future age as grounded in a deep alchemy of a united masculine feminine trinity. A wisdom saying captures the tripart symbolism of this union: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:20). And what is the name in which we gather? Sophia, Wisdom, the living presence of spirit and life, the third aspect, bringing the gift of communion to those who gather in her name. This is a wisdom that is fully embodied in real human relations, in our relations to the natural world, to other species, to every creature of land and air and sea. It is also about our relationships with the subtle worlds, to the unseen sources of personal, communal, and world empowerment. This is a book about peace and understanding that cannot be contained as a particular system of thought or a rigid structure of ideas or beliefs. This living, subtle Wisdom, as a rebirth of ancient knowledge in contemporary forms, is an uncontainable ocean that cannot be captured by any one human perspective. The glass or cup of containment inevitably overflows, as it should. What is required is a willingness to surrender and to receive, in her name, the gift of inspiration, in partnership with those we love.

This Wisdom, this Sacred Name, this Mystery, is something much more than a concept or idea; it is about living Presence, the deep unitary field that gives coherence and form to each life and living thing. The archetype of this Wisdom is found in multiple goddess forms, in the Sophianic teachings of the Hermetic tradition, in the female-male mysteries of Demeter, Persephone, and Hades. The core archetype spans the bridge between the sacred directions of east, west, north, and south—from the primordial traditions of the East, China (Guanyin as a unitary symbol of male-female) and Japan (Amaterasu and Susanoto, brother-sister), to Egypt and the ancient Middle East (Isis and Osiris, Innana and Dimuzi, Ishtar and Marduk), to the northern Hyperborean traditions of the Nordic and Celtic traditions (Freya and Freyr, Cerridwen and Cernunnos), south to India (Brahma and Sarasvati, Ram and Sita), in Tibetan Buddhism (Jestsun Dolma and Phagme Nyingthig), and in Euro- American West, Sophia and Christ. As a partnered archetype, it is a relational Wisdom, reflecting an intimacy of connection and mutual care. However, these ancient archetypes are not the concern of this work, though I certainly honor them all. What I am offering is not a historical account of traditional relations and influences but a synthesis of how these great archetypal forms have become distilled into the alchemical forms of contemporary spiritual world awakening. In spirit, I honor these ancient archetypes as partnered birth mothers of an ongoing, emergent spirituality.

Today, we stand on the threshold of a transformation that will encompass many generations to come; we hold the possibility of a global consciousness, an awakening to World Soul, that cannot be contained in any particular or explicit image. Like the ocean poured into a cup, the potential for spiritual transformation overflows the limited context of individual conceptualization. We cannot contain the ocean; rather, we must learn the art of merging, of complete saturation and interpenetration, for rebirth as partnered individuals and as diverse collectives that allow for the rediscovery of our hidden potentials. This is a Wisdom process; it is not an explicit teaching, not a framework that wants to contain the possibilities of Wisdom’s self-awakening but an invitation, a call for partnership and participatory embodiment, a solicitation for commitment to creative discovery. This call, a call of the heart, of the soul, of the deep desire for meaning and fulfillment, comes not from the mind or emotions, but from inner beingness, from the deepest elements of our aspiration to become, to self-surpass, to go beyond the limits of the known into the unknown, into Wisdom that reveals, uncovers, and makes whole the fractured hearts of our shared humanity.

We are not complete because we have not yet reached the state of inner balance where we can abandon our desire for explicit meanings in order to receive a deeper guidance that does not serve our personal longings for immediate insight or social recognition. What we seek, in terms of Wisdom’s gift, is a new attitude toward knowledge. We are challenged to give up our assessment that knowledge is quantifiable, that learning it is a matter of absorbing, assimilating, integrating the many facts, data streams, and possibilities of information. We are asked to take on a new reticence, a genuine humility in the face of possible learning, that accepts limitation and yet accepts the responsibility of staying open to what may become in order to discover new beingness, a realness that cannot be predicted or predetermined. Wisdom, in this sense, is revelatory and spontaneous, an overflowing creativity, a metaphysics of discovery, not a known content, not a plan, a prediction, a cosmic event, or a marked threshold—it is much more than any of these. Such Wisdom, as a forthcoming of the alchemical union, is a philosophia, a “shared loving wisdom” that reveals the possible in the creative context of the actual, that shapes our intentions into a leading point; such Wisdom must be trusted, accepted, embodied, and lived to become real.

Wisdom does not abandon her children but nourishes them to grow beyond adolescence and immaturity into a grounded, centered way of life that fully honors the Wisdom teachings of others and that recognizes the many forms and possibilities of Wisdom. The individual challenge is to embody Wisdom as a way of life that is whole and loving, healthy and heart-centered, stable and yet creative. If we debate with one another to sharpen our understanding, to find the limits of our own commitments, to seek insights that are self-surpassing, then we serve Wisdom well. But when we attempt to impose, deny, castigate, and belittle others because they do not think as we think, nor act as we might act, then we rend the fabric of Wisdom’s veil, a veil that should not be lifted but revered.

The face of unknown Wisdom is hidden by the veil, in the depths of an infinite potential that no series of images can exhaust; yet, the face of Wisdom is our own face, the face of a beloved other, a child, an animal, a friend. Every face is a face of Wisdom that beckons us to recognize that hidden face, the veiled potential, the face infused by Wisdom in each person, often hidden beneath pain, sorrow, and regret. What Wisdom encourages in us is something more than tolerance or patience; our task is to make peace, all the way down to the roots, to disentangle the origins of bias, hatred, racism, bigotry, arrogance, and violent actions meant to oppress, terrify, and control the lives of others. We are called to this task of disentanglement first within our own lives, then with family and friends, with community and motivated others, then with those willing to listen and to act; to model within the emerging World Soul a truly liberated, luminous face.

The practice of Wisdom is not easy, but not impossible either; it is within reach of every person who can find a way to live that does not impose on others a controlling or blind will, however well intentioned. Practice is born out of discovery, not through the mere repetition of form, but out of a living intensity of insights that leads to reformation and reconstruction. For this Wisdom to be sustained, it must find roots, clear and disentangled, in the soil of each place, in the world, in the human heart, in a lived context of trust and collaboration. The embodiment of Wisdom is inseparable from the health and well-being of the world, from the preservation of species, lands, climates, ecological zones, and the full honoring of diversity and difference that does no harm. Wisdom begins where you are right now—your home, family, friends, work or local environment—and it grows where you plant your roots, in the things you cultivate as prime importance. The fruit of Wisdom is not forbidden, it is a free and accessible knowledge, but it has roots and a reach that far exceeds any one vision.