Wisdom Keeping as Practice

When I use the words, “Wisdom Keeping” to describe what I offer to the world, it is not because I am saying I myself am a wisdom keeper who should be looked up to. It is not because I have some kind of authority or special knowledge that others don’t have.

Instead, I mean it as an active practice, an ongoing inquiry into what it means to curate the meaning of our lived experiences. Wisdom Keeping is not something we ever fully arrive at, but instead, something that we study, track, and walk alongside.

It is to uphold meaning-making as a vital force for wholeness. It is to embrace long-term considerations above short-term, to know that we don’t know, to make friends with the mystery of it all.

When I say, “Wisdom Keeping”, it’s an invitation. It’s an invitation for you to speak about what you learned in your darkest hour, and how you can offer it now as a sacred teaching.

When I say, “Wisdom Keeping”, it’s a recognition that you (and you, and you, and you, and all of us gathered here) have the capacity to hold immense, complex truths that have the power to enlighten and transform. It's a recognition that our life experiences are sacred teachers, and that we only learn by metabolizing them within ourselves.

When I say, “Wisdom Keeping”, it’s me displaying raw vulnerability as I reach out to you for courage, compassion, and witnessing.

While we have not all endured the same things, we all have this commonality of capacity to practice wisdom keeping.

What does it mean to you?