“There is a deep and pristinely clear “something” in each one of us, regardless of the outer circumstances of our lives, that has the capacity to recognize Wisdom when we meet it, and it is the nature of Wisdom teaching to call this “something” forth.”

The above quote from Cynthia’s Wisdom Way of Knowing articulates my relationship with Wisdom that began with a surprising encounter seven years ago. One late night, while camping lakeside in British Columbia’s interior, I heard a feminine voice whisper my name. The whisper awakened me from my sleep, yet, I am only now beginning to understand how asleep I truly have been. While I had previously read many of Cynthia’s books and devoured every page, I kept her teachings on the Wisdom tradition at a distance. I concluded the kenotic path I read about in Wisdom Jesus was for the spiritually mature, or people committed to full-time monastic life. I preferred to hide behind my ego story that I was too young, and life’s responsibilities consumed my capacity for the Wisdom path.  In the fall of 2023, when I received an invitation to register for the Holding our Planet Wisdom School, something within me responded with an immediate yes. I had no idea what was saying yes to, and admittedly, I was a bit terrified, but I listened to the deeper “something” within. 

Attending Holding our Planet in May 2024 marked the beginning of waking up to Wisdom. While I fumbled around on the movement’s floor, and listened to teachings on Gebser, Teilhard and Gurdjieff for the first time, I sensed a deep aliveness flowing through my being. As I continue to learn, the Wisdom path is not the latest self-improvement project that feeds my ego needs and preferences. Wisdom practices are a radical wake up in consciousness as I bump up against the constrictions of everyday life, and surrender to the indwelling presence of the Great I am. As Cynthia teaches, it is through the hard edges we experience on this planet that creates the conditions for Divine love to manifest. 

This past year, saying yes to Wisdom included a weekly practice circle with Heather Ruce. This small community committed to the Wisdom path has become a sacred tether in my life. Through the exercises guided by Heather, and weekly support of the circle, I am learning to become more rooted in a Greater Self, and gaining deeper awareness of the atmosphere I exist within. My aim this year has been working with trust. When I am grounded within my deeper Self, the natural flow outwardly is an atmosphere of trust, regardless of external circumstances. As I work with the exercises throughout the week, even small moments of re-membering throughout the day, I sense a qualitative difference in the energy of trust. When I react mechanically out of my smaller self, trust feels conditional, constricted, and dependent on outer relationships. When I am rooted in my deeper Self, trust is free, abundant, and detached from whatever may be occurring in my life. I can feel deeply, including hurt and fear, yet I am slowly learning to let go of my ego story, and become more conscious of the Great I am within.

One Wisdom practice Heather guided us through, and one that I am beginning to integrate more deeply in daily life is nurturing a conscious relationship between first and second body. During the exercise, it was deeply moving to notice my second body acknowledging first body with “I trust you” and first body responding, “I know.” As we later shared our experience with each other, one person in the circle noted how beautiful it would be if we practiced the same kind of exchange in all our relationships. Her words were deeply inspirational and I imagined the tender exchange of my second body relating with another’s second body in that in-between energetic field beyond language. I decided to experiment with the practice over the next few weeks in my own relationships. 

The past two years my aging parents have needed increasing care. My mother has early dementia and my father’s health is in steady decline. Both relationships have been a source of pain, and for most of my adult life, I protected myself with emotional distance. As I work with the Wisdom practices, and learn to live more rooted in my deeper Self, I notice a softening of love and trust in my heart towards my parents, specifically my father. Nothing has changed outwardly in our relationship, yet, in some deeper way, I notice a difference in our energy exchange. There are moments when I sense my second body’s compassion for my father that does not react to his fear and frustrations, but holds a peaceful container for both of us. Perhaps my father’s own second body has become more alive in him as he faces the end of his time on earth? As my mother’s cognition continues to decline, there is hope I can continue to lovingly relate with her, second body to second body. 

There is something clear and pristine in each one of us that recognizes Wisdom when we meet it. I recently shared in the practice circle that, at times, the Wisdom path feels like learning how to skate as a child. My hands desperately cling to the training bar that gives an illusion of safety from falling, yet limits my capacity to skate freely on my own! The more I loosen the grip of my protective shell (my ego story, my mechanical reactivity), the more I taste the exhilarating freedom of skating on my own, including the painful falls. Perhaps each messy moment and fall in my day to day life are sacred opportunities to re-member something more. 

Author: Kellie Brown is a spiritual director from the West Coast of British Columbia and provides spiritual care for a non-profit engaged in dismantling systemic barriers for youth. Kellie has a Masters in Theology, yet now seeks an informal education directly from the land she calls home; on the beautiful territory of the Sinixt and Interior Salish people. With children now living in other cities, Kellie and her spouse Rory devote their energy into creating a retreat space at their home on Christina Lake, BC. Their passion is to invite others to form a loving reciprocal relationship with the earth, and experience the Divine in all.  

A few days ago, I parked at the flower shop, and before stepping out of my car, I filled my arms with all the things I needed to carry in. I was determined to take only one trip!

I managed to open the door while juggling my container of butter chicken, bag of naan bread, purse, and water bottle even while switching out my sunglasses for my regular glasses by putting one pair between my teeth. As I walked up to the front counter, one of my staff asked me a question which required me to look at my phone to answer.

I pulled my phone out of my purse, which was strapped over my head and doing so bumped my glasses out of my mouth onto the floor. I turned to try to catch my glasses as if I was Spider-Man, but bumped a box full of rubber bands onto the floor, as if I was human.

Without trying to set anything down, I squatted down to pick up my glasses and clean up the rubber bands. But I only got so far down into the squat before my left hip gave a little tweak and I sat down hard on the floor.

I wasn’t injured! But as I was going down, I realized what I had done. I realized how far from myself I was, how asleep!  And I started to laugh! I laughed as I awkwardly and almost in slow motion ended up lying on my back on the floor, surrounded by rubber bands, butter chicken, naan bread, my purse and sunglasses. I laughed so hard I cried, and felt my back on the cool linoleum, and my tears warm on my cheeks. Slowly coming back to my body.

My staff thought I must be going crazy, and was worried I was hurt, but pretty soon they were laughing too.  Don’t we all do this sometimes?! Fill our arms and our heads with an unrealistic load. And when we are forced by reality to set it all down, I hope we can all laugh at ourselves.

Author: Laura is a homeschool mother of four, living in Manitoba, Canada.  She owns and manages Earth Buds Florist with her best friend.  Between home and the flower shop she is grateful for abundant opportunities to practice what she’s learning in Wisdom work.  Part of her current practice is learning not to take herself so seriously. 

Image by Audrey Helen Weber

Collective metîs

More notes from our adventures in collective intelligence

Once a year we hold a work period to explore Collective Intelligence. This gathering directly engages the idea that a group can coordinate energetically to become a receiver for higher intelligence. There is this idea that “the community is the new guru” and we’re pushing it as far as we can. By decentralizing the power structure of information flow from “talking head at the front” we move toward a spontaneously emergent wisdom shared by the whole Body.

In terms of metis (a term I will be posting more about soon), I have no doubt that as our collective skillful means increase and cohere, the possibility of decisive, instantaneous group understanding (and action!) increases as well. One signal of this is when a group receives a unified message through individually varied media. Just such a thing happened at our 2025 gathering when the wisdom of Thresholds continued to emerge from seemingly unrelated activities and teachings. Another signal of this increased possibility is the observable phenomenon of individual participants risking more than they normally would – stepping out with increasing boldness into uncharted seas. That happened this year.

Our in-person, Collective Intelligence work period relies heavily on a few basic inversions.

One is the front post—the person opening, talking, delegating roles, holding and shaping. We could call it the post of “the Responsible.” Typically this post is occupied by a single person, or sometimes two, across a given retreat…people get quiet when that person walks into the room. So instead we ask participants to take turns fully occupying that post. We let the post become very fluid, a flow of people constantly taking it up and laying it down. It is emphasized that the whole body share in a sincere willingness to fully join, and commit to what any one “Responsible” may bring.

Another inversion is from my body to larger Body, returning continually throughout the gathering to the fact that “I am a Part of a greater Whole.” This is something like group-remembering rather than simply self-remembering. The Larger Body is formed by individual parts and everyone brings something unique. Each has a different view and every one of those is relevant to forming the Body. No part “thinks of himself more highly than he ought.” No part decides in advance that they have less to offer. Every part constitutively belongs to the Body.

A third inversion is the schedule. People quite like having a printed schedule in advance of in-person retreats, stating exact times by which they can then plan their personal phone and Zoom calls. This is an attitude fostered by guru culture, evidenced by the fact that people will skip any and all scheduled activities, but never the guru. So to mess with the schedule, we put up a white board with a lot of empty slots and unspecified times. The empty slots are there for people to write their own names in – this is where they will take up the teaching post for a time.

The breaking-up of rigidity is marvelous to watch unfold. The so-called “responsibles” swap slots because their outdoor activity wants better weather; half-hours are horse-traded, careful planning is jettisoned last-minute in favor of a sudden, more cohering possibility… A typical afternoon schedule as written on the white board:

• 11:30 : Lunch prep team to kitchen
• Lunch — when it’s ready
• Clean-up: All
• After that: Rest / Silence
• 2:30 Elective: ______________
• Break: 30 minutes
• After that: Elective: _______________
• After that: Dinner prep team to kitchen
• Dinner — when it’s ready.

How to know which elective I can skip?

The laughter when someone asks why dinner is late.

No one part more important than the rest. So hard to resist the urge to assign other people elevated value based on externals or to more tightly grip the hours that I am in the Responsible post. So rewarding to smile in equality, Working Together as a single body.

There’s every reason to practice such a thing, because we are on a search together. Olga de Hartmann said,“There is only one important thing — to actually develop our possibilities. We should not be content with anything else or anything less.” So we take her dare, and the dauntless spirit I encounter in groups tackling this grand possibility head-on, is exhilarating. We are learning from our pilot endeavors, and we’re nearing the time to explore these uncharted waters with bigger vessels, larger groups. For those who go down to the sea in ships to do business upon great waters will see the works of the Lord, and Her wonders in the deep.

Author: Andrew Breitenberg, you can read more from Andrew’s Substack here.

I have a sense to share something. I recoil a bit at doing this, for fear of seeming narcissistic, or even just bringing attention to myself. But if it helps anyone else on this path, I will throw it out there. I feel the great nudge — or little “ping” — to let the fingers fly over the keyboard and see what comes out.

#1: I was doing a ‘quick run’ before picking up my three daughters from school one day. I had a tight time limit. I was running on a trail when suddenly I saw a dark, shimmering, shining glisten in the grass. I froze, foot in midair practically. I took some fearful steps back, realizing it was a big, fat, black snake — long as can be — all the way across the trail. I tried to go around it on one side but it was full of briars. I went the other way and sure enough there was another, even bigger black snake curled up on that side. More fear washed over me. I was trapped on all sides and not able to move forward. The panic of having to pick up my kids on time was potent! I tried to find a very long stick I could use to tickle its tail and help it move along, but she/he was frozen just as much as I was, and there was no stick to be grabbed.

I took a deep breath. I relaxed my posture. I totally surrendered my agenda and let go of the kid pick-up time. The instant that I truly got there and released my panic and fear — I kid you not — the big, beautiful black snake slithered right on along. The path opened. I laughed, continued to run, and made it to my kids’ pick-up time.

#2: This happens to me almost daily now. I am not exaggerating. There are many times when I need to be somewhere — like picking up the kids from school, or getting to the hospital where I work — and I need to be ‘on time.’ I do the house rush-around and find myself in the car. In the car, I let go of time requirements. I tell myself, and believe: I am in the car now. I will get there when I do, and I will not hurry or rush — because that feels terrible and doesn’t help. I do not even look at the clock, because at this point it serves no purpose; I will arrive at some point. Then I try to drop into my relaxed, meditative, “chanty” state — three-centered awareness state, whatever you want to call it — and I arrive where I am going. Here is the trippy part: when I arrive, I am NEVER late, and sometimes am even five minutes early. It is like a time warp occurs. I find it so interesting and SO fun to play with. I am in awe and wonder every time it happens, which is becoming the norm.

#3: Similarly with daily chores and tasks. I kid you not, there are about 50 literal tasks I must accomplish most days — for our children, my husband, myself, work, friends, church, the garden, the cars, the hamster, the dog, the hermit crabs, the bees, etc. When I am in checklist mode, getting stuff done, I get flustered, frustrated, and very overwhelmed. My brain fries and I break down in tears. Every single time. The list is just too long and impossible to accomplish in full while also being patient and present with my daughters and husband. When I do not make a list, and I truly, deeply trust that all the important stuff will get done, I do not get overwhelmed. I do not get tired. Everything gets done beautifully and without struggle. It’s like I just let go and let something — God, mercy, the conscious circle, x — carry me along and move me where I need to go. I interact with people and let some other force move through me. It just goes. And it gets done. Yes, I still have my freak-out moments — then I cry, welcome the freak-out, and talk it out with my loved ones. But it is all in the letting go, the surrendered state and trust. I have been really focusing on trusting — truly trusting — this whole wisdom process, God. When I do that, it all really does flow. And to be fair, I have lowered some standards. I try to strike the balance between a comfortable, clean, neat home and everything being “perfectly” in order all of the time. The kids’ rooms are slightly unorganized, there are laundry piles and plenty of dog hair and dust. But I ask myself often: what is really important?

#4: Another example — at work. When I need to make a phone call to a patient who is having a problem, or I need to schedule a patient for a PET scan and I know the schedule is booked out eight weeks but the patient really needs it much sooner and the doctor is adamant they get scheduled — I ground myself. I tap into the open state, the chanty state, the World 24 state, the imaginal realm, or a three-centered state, etc. And the phone call goes better than I ever could have planned. For example, the PET scan just happens to have an opening on the perfect date at the perfect time, or the patient on the phone has already had the conflict resolved. It really boggles my mind, makes me laugh, and puts me in a state of awe. It is different than just ‘being a good listener.’ I try to be open, grounded, and heart-centered, and let that radiate out. I don’t know — I cannot put it into words. I try not to be attached to a particular outcome. I literally say to myself, in my mind, I am here and I am giving [patient’s name] all of my attention.

#5: Adrienne and Karena, both age four. They both found the same rock at the same time and both thought it was theirs. Before wisdom work, these moments — when each kid truly believes she is the “correct” one — used to cause me a good amount of unease. I didn’t know who found the rock first. Who is correct? How do I fix this problem without an upset, mad kid in the end, or without encouraging one kid to “be nice and share”? With wisdom work, it seems to mend itself so effortlessly. In that moment with Adrienne and Karena, I kneeled down to be at their level, tried to turn on my three-centered awareness state, looked them each in the eyes, and asked them to tell me their side of the story. I asked them: what do you think we should do about it? Then I paused and let there be some silence for a few beats or more. And then, in that moment, Karena says, “You can have it,” and heads off to the slide. When I see or feel conflict, it’s a reminder to check in with my being and be very diligent about entering a three-centered awareness state. I try to let the conflict be a cue.

I share all this not because I have it figured out, but because I am in it, just like you. Moment by moment, staying open, and aware that something new is being born in me, in all of us. And, I am not able to do this all the time, I will be very clear about that, but when I am able to do it, I am amazed and delighted.

Author Mallory Heller: I work as a nurse with pregnant people. I am raising three daughters with Channing and our dog Moksha.

I have and wear many hats, perhaps too many: husband, father of three young boys, attorney, Wisdom student and circle facilitator, member of the recovery community, Benedictine Oblate, youth coach, wannabe urban farmer-poet, reggae dance party extraordinaire etc. If we are a multitude, and we are, each of my “I’s” has a hat.  Sometimes the hat wears me, sometimes I wear the hat. 

There are times when I feel a bit like the Mad Hatter, mercurial and spun about by the chaos of the outside world and my internal reactions to it, a slave to conditioning, to external forces, and instinctual drives. 

Work in this Wisdom lineage, has helped me find a different kind of hat, what Rumi calls “a cap to wear in both worlds.”  I can wear this cap on the earth plane and in the imaginal realm, or in Ray of Creation terms, world 48 and 24.  This Wisdom cap, has allowed me to see my “Mad Hatter” manifestations from a different place, without judgement (or less judgment) and attuned to sensation in the body.  It provides greater access to Conscience and teaches me to discern and skillfully wield the sword of yes and no.

*Some of my hats. Note the hat in the middle with a 24 and lighting bolt going connecting the higher and lower. This was a random “imaginal gift”, the 24 refers to mile 24 of the Twin Cities Marathon, but to me it is world 24.  

We are living in a restless, destabilizing and disturbing time. There is great risk, and great opportunity.  In this Wisdom work, I have learned that in the restlessness and disturbance there is a capacity for something more, for Wonder, Sovereignty, Rest and ultimately Hope. See Logion 2, Gospel of Thomas. 

Some of my most vivid memories as a child are of an overwhelming sense that the world would end in my lifetime. I sought and seek to prepare myself. I have come to understand that what I was sensing and feeling as a child was not the end of the world per se, but a new arising, that would come through and bring about a great upheaval on the planet and in my being. 

This Wisdom work has helped me see and understand that for a new heaven, a new earth, a new consciousness and for my own sacred individuality to come into being it requires a lawful but painful process of dying and rebirth on all levels, in all worlds, and in all times.  A daunting task, but this Wisdom work teaches the practical art/science needed for transformation and provides real help along the path.  

The upheaval I sensed as a child has borne itself out in my life and in our world in more ways that I can name here. This Wisdom work is helping to navigate in the moment, teaching that in the upheaval there is something sacred that becomes available that I can take into my being and give back.  I could list an endless stream of examples but below is a quick and dirty “field report”, from that field that Rumi writes about.  

Field Report:

* 2020 – 21 An intensification continues.  

– COVID and the Cave. We are cooped up by COVID. Working from my dark, cold basement.  It is like the Cave of St. George’s Dragon . . . A deep depression sets in, fear and rage too. A dark night of sorts. Centering Prayer and recovery meetings via zoom provide sustenance.

– The Twin Cities burn, but WE are not consumed. We watch a man’s life extinguished as the collective knee of our disorder is coldly pressed to his neck. How many black and brown bodies must be sacrificed on the so called altar of American freedom? “How long shall they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look?”  My belly and my city Burn! There is smoke in the yard from the burning buildings blocks away. There are constant gun shots, it feels like the edge of a war zone. We all sleep in one bed that night (and still often do). I shoved the dresser in front of the bedroom door and kept the old deer hunting rifle at the ready. There are 100 fully armed national guard troops stationed in the parking lot of the rec center kitty corner from our house. Amidst that chaos there is something more that holds and sustains us. There is sobriety. We are burned but not consumed.

– Lion eats man. A summer of tremendous violence. A young man is shot in the head on my block, other shootouts on my street.  My young sons learn to distinguish between the sound of fireworks and gunshots. There is a sense of deep and timeless solidarity that feeds us. This ain’t nothing new, it’s just a taste of what many have lived and do live with, but there is deep sadness at watching the human condition, my condition, as it is when “lion eats man”. . . we were created for more than this.

– The Eye of the Heart & Experiments with Cosmic Dialysis. A clear impression. I am listening to The Eye of the Heart audiobook, receiving an introduction to the Ray of the Creation and hearing Cynthia’s call for “all hands on deck,” while walking past National Guard troops with machine guns and armored vehicles guarding the Capital in St. Paul as I walk to work. My former ways of action and activism seem less potent.  They are still there, but I sense something more is needed I begin to experiment with a walking form of Cosmic Dialysis (Tonglen) in my Neighborhood. 

  *2022 – 24 – “Welcome to the Wisdom Community”- On the Ground Wisdom Schools

– A taste. I attend a mini-Wisdom School in Texas.  How can I leave home to do this work with a wife and small kids?  Perhaps I can bring it to Minnesota? I begin to experiment and coordinate small retreats locally. Help comes. Essence friends are found.

– A banquet feast. I sneak into my first Wisdom School at Claymont. I am new, I am nervous, but I feel at home. This is no cult. There is good food and good humans here.  First time with Movements – they are prayer and medicine like I have rarely ever tasted before. Cynthia tells me, “Welcome to the Wisdom Community.” I leave with my body and heart on fire with sensation.  When I get home, I tell my kids it was like Hogwarts . . . for misfit mystics. I long to return but know that my work is mostly local and at home for now.

–A local Wisdom Circle is born. I set out to find a local group. I trust my gnosis and help comes. Spirit directs me to reach out to some apparent strangers and almost immediately we begin working together as a Wisdom Circle. We are like the blind leading the blind, but our desire is pure, we receive higher help from the Wisdom Community and Beyond.  We weave a Web, or the Web weaves itself into us. I am gifted with the opportunity to attend additional Wisdom Schools; I bring back what I can. 

*2025 – 2026 – Warming Minnesota

– ICE descends on the Twin Cities. We have been hit hard before, but this is something different. There is more terror in the atmosphere. It is toxic. It takes tremendous Work to transmute the fear and rage, to stay sober.  We practice eating negative emotions and emanating something of a finer quality. We do what we can to help those who are targeted based on their skin color and accent, which include my wife and sons, we feed, we comfort, we march, we pray, and we watch. 

–Imaginal Assistance from the Wisdom Community.  We received a surge of imaginal assistance. The Wisdom Community at the winter gathering at Claymont has our back. We feel it, we know it. Like Gurdjieff “warming” Paris during the Nazi Occupation, the Wisdom Community worked to warm Minnesota from all corners of the country and Beyond.  It is a miracle that only two people are killed. I watch as many white people wrestle for the first time with the prospect of unchecked state violence being arbitrarily wielded against white bodies in America. The veil is lifted. The emperor wears no clothes. Perhaps it is true that “modern civilization is based on violence and slavery and fine words”, a hard pill to swallow for many that have not been under its thumb before. 

–Whether I live or die. I wrestle with my response to the “surge” and turn to Howard Thurman’s, Jesus and the Disinherited, “[T]here are somethings that are worse than death. To deny one’s own integrity in the presence of the human challenge is one of those things . . . “until that center of [“not being killed”] is shifted, nothing real can happen.”  . . .  I hear Cynthia’s call, “all hands are needed on deck,” “whether I live or die I am the Lords” and “I am in the Ray of Creation and the Ray of Creation is in me.” 

–Grateful. I am grateful for this Work and this Wisdom Community making it accessible. There is now something growing in me and in our local group that is capable of truly remaining sober in this time and discerning how and when to act, with Metis and impartiality. There is a growing trust, a growing courage, a growing power and presence, that is not mine or ours alone, it is the Web, it is the Communion of Saints, the Conscious Circle of Humanity, it is Conscience itself, it is, Lord, Have Mercy, it is Grace.   

I take refuge in this field Mercy “beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing”, and I wish to grow in being and understanding so that I may be a bridge, to skillfully wear the cap given to me to wear in at least two of the worlds (but I can confirm it also travels to world 96 and below).

Author: Daniel Marx, Obl. OSB, is a husband, father, attorney, Wisdom student and active in the Recovery Community. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with his wife and three young sons where he co-facilitates a local Wisdom Circle working with the Christian Wisdom lineage of Cynthia Bourgeault. He also has a deep experiential reverence for the ancient Wisdom lineages of Africa and the Americas, including Egypt, the Maya, and the Seven Council Fires of the Dakota, Lakota and Nakota.