Deepening Wisdom through Desert and Forest: A Virtual Wisdom Program

Through weekly recordings and optional Friday Zoom groups, this program will run from late Summer, 2021, until just before Thanksgiving, 2021. By journeying through desert and forest, the Wisdom transformation can be deepened and Wisdom can be further integrated. This program will conclude with an introduction to Wisdom Mentoring.

Over the past years I have been working to help Wisdom practitioners more deeply integrate their Wisdom learnings and understandings. Beyond readings and E-courses, Wisdom practitioners, I find, are eager to learn how to embody their learnings and actually then live out of them. For me, this has included placing community, both as a central operating concept and as a lived experience, into the heart of the Wisdom transformation. Thus, in these programs I have worked to create a container of community within which participants can articulate their own Wisdom voices and listen deeply to the Wisdom voices of others. In this, then, I have been working to bring to the Wisdom lineage stream an articulation and a living-out of what I call, “the Wisdom way of loving” through Wisdom’s deeper integration.

The locus of this work is necessarily at the juncture of the horizontal and the vertical. While our lives and our work might be directed toward and influenced by other realms, we cannot escape the fundamental reality that we must show up fully in our own lives, just as they are. That does not mean stepping over the messiness and contradiction of our material lives in order to engage exclusively in interrealmic work. Rather it means living directly and fully in and through the exigencies of everyday life. At the same time, however, we are deeply informed and directed by the assistance of other realms and worlds. Human life seems to require a constant fiddling with the dials of these two dimensions in order that we are tuning in to the fullness of life.

What usually is not quite so directly considered, however, is, in and beyond these general understandings, the specific question of how—concretely—we negotiate and then integrate the Wisdom transformation. While this implies a mode of being and awareness, it also suggests a sense of agency because it includes choice, action, and a sense of empowerment. Rather than the usual more philosophical treatise, then, I intend for all of my programs to be eminently pragmatic and practical.

While, when possible, I have wanted to my work with the liturgical seasons, this particular time of the year brings us to Ordinary Time. Thus, I will use journeying through the desert and the forest as both metaphors and realities to carry the teachings of this program.

As in past programs, I will continue to use the means and methods that seem to work so well—recordings to carry the exploration and the teaching as well as Zoom groups to deepen the integration of the material and to develop a context of community and support for this work.

Because of the varied levels of time and opportunity on the part of participants, I encourage people to participate in this program at their own speed. Stretching over this three-month period, there will be one recording posted each week. These will routinely be about 45 minutes in length. But these will continue to be available beyond the season’s conclusion.

Again, I will utilize the Friday Zoom groups to deepen integration and to foster community. Meeting on Fridays at 9 am (Eastern) or 3 pm (Eastern), these gatherings are completely optional and will commence on Friday, August 6. Usually we will spend most of the hour in small breakout groups of three, addressing specific reflection questions. Participation is always welcomed, but consistent attendance is not required.

I have found the use of audio recordings to convey the teachings to be far more effective than the usual E-course format. There seems to be something about the vibratory resonance that calls forth the heart and the body, and not just the intellectual mind. Music is utilized not to sentimentalize the experience, but to deepen the vibratory intensity.

All of the orienting information and recordings will be available on a password protected page on my website for your continued access. This provides a container for our work that will provide safety and respect.

Fee. This program is by donation. If you would like, I encourage you to donate at the end of the program. Rather than regarding this as a “fee” or “price” for the program “up front,” I would much prefer your donation be part of your response to its entirety and come at its conclusion. This program is my gift to you; your donation could represent your gift back to me. Donation instructions can be found on the signup page.

Sign Up. Go to my website (https://www.williamredfield.com/program/deepening-wisdom-through-desert-and-forest) and fill out the brief form on the homepage. I will send you the link and password. If you have any questions or concerns, please E-mail me directly (bill@williamredfield.com).

Love, Bill