I’ve never actually heard anyone give a good definition of wisdom that doesn't involve restraint. (Iain McGilchrist)
I am very fortunate. My mother trusted herself. More importantly, she trusted Life. Therefore, she was able to impart this gift of trust onto me.
My parents were immigrants and this meant that once a year my mother would need to fly back home to care for her own mother. These trips away meant we were separated for many weeks.
When I was young, I would become anxious, afraid that something might happen to her while we were apart. However, my mother had this wonderful ability to put me at ease. She would say, “Claudia, I know it is safe to get on that plane, I just do. And if I get a sense that it’s not safe, then I won’t.”
Whether she believed in premonition is besides the point. What she was pointing to would turn out to be far more profound for me. She was embodying a way of relating to Life which was bidirectional and which I would later understand through spiritual direction to be mutual. What she was pointing to is the unified field of the Sacred.
Sacred is how the world is when we are falling in love. (John Vervaeke)
Daniel Schmatchenberger (DS), Iain McGilchrist (IM)and John Vervaeke (JV) recently had a very important conversation entitled The Psychological Drivers of the Metacrisis. I urge you to listen to it. The central theme revolves around the interaction between the left and right hemispheres of the brain, symbolically represented in the fable of the “master” and his “emissary”. The left hemisphere is associated with a narrow, goal-oriented focus and abstraction, while the right hemisphere is linked to a holistic, interconnected perception of the world. These differences in hemispheric function are dedicated to different modes of attention. In other words, our evolutionary development requires the need for precise, targeted attention (the left hemisphere) and broad, open, sustained attention (right hemisphere) (IM).
Unfortunately, our targeted attention has gotten the best of us. We have grown to believe that the more we know about the details of reality, using the mechanism of our left hemisphere, the more we will achieve power. Power, we believe, is what makes us happy. However, the opposite is actually true. Because everything happens out of the coming together into complex wholes, as is described in Gestalt Theory, the whole cannot be accounted for by the sum of the parts. Our favoring the left hemisphere means we have lost track of the importance of the whole which the right hemisphere experiences as Presence. It is through Presence that our ability to cohere around shared values and collective purpose arises which, unlike power, is where true contentment actually arises (IM).
When we are actually open to the beauty of reality, there's a sense of awe and gratitude and humility that comes of that. (Daniel Schmatchenberger)
Meaning in life comes from three domains: our sense of belonging to a group of others to share a common vision and set of values, our relationship to the natural world in all its complexity and beauty, and our connection to a realm of something beyond us. Game theory explains how we have strayed away from these important elements that give life meaning (JV). More specifically, competitive dynamics favor short-term power acquisition based on personal interests at the expense of long-term restraint for the collective good. This is how we find ourselves in the crises we are currently in (DS). What we need instead is to turn our attention to a reality beyond the narrow focus of our egos and find value beyond ourselves (IM)).
The good news is that mammals for been doing this for millennia and some of the most successful have been human mothers. Paradoxically, overall subjective well-being goes way down for those who become parents, yet we keep having children (JV).
Why?
Because attending to someone other than ourselves gives life value. By having a direct connection to another human being, parents, and we mothers in particular, not only form a connection to our child but also to something greater than ourselves. This is a great relief from our usual, self-referential way of perceiving the world (JV). This interconnectedness is love and love is the Ground of Being (IM).
I don’t want to violate something I am intimate with. (Daniel Schmatchenberger)
Like a human mother, the Ground of Being is responsive. She does not force relating. Instead, she patiently waits. This is from where the wisdom of restraint arises. As she holds us, we eventually wake up and begin to hold her. Then we realize that she needs us as much as we need her. We help bring Being into existence and in doing so, Being knows herself through us. In this way, we recognize the Sacred as intimate and where there is intimacy, there is reverence.
I understand that by using the pronoun “she” and the noun “mother” I may unsettle some readers. I am willing to take this risk because what we seem to need now, more than ever, is a new orientation, one radically different than the one we currently have. The world’s religions have played this function of collective orientation and most of them have centered around a male godhead for a very long time. Instead, I am suggesting we shift attention towards the feminine because the essence of this new orientation just may lie in the very bodies who bore and nurtured us. This doesn’t mean that differentiation isn’t vitally important. On the contrary, targeted focus has been and will continue to be a necessary part of our evolutionary process.
However, we are entering into a new era where a broader focus is necessary, a responsiveness born from Presence. I believe the female body, with her capacity for the motherhood, holds these qualities - present, abiding, and patient. More importantly, she embodies mutuality because in her body she holds a grounding wisdom so necessary to bring life forth and keep life going. Let us turn our attention to her and bring her to the foreground of our awareness because in her body, I believe, she holds wisdom, a grounding wisdom so necessary for the times we are in. And let us not stop here.
This philosophical turn requires the masculine inherent in the male body too, because within him he holds the capacity of fatherhood and with it the essence of differentiation from which targeted attention comes forth. You see, the gift that the father brings is that he is inherently separate from his child on account of not having given birth to the child. By being able to stand apart, he is discerning yet protective which the child needs in order to be brought into direct relationship with Reality. In other words, without division there can be no re-union, no falling in love.
When we recognize the distinctions in female and male biology, understanding their essential roles in reproduction and child-rearing, we also observe that these differences correspond to fundamental properties of being. Similar to nature, they complement each other, not just biologically but also in psychological, emotional, and spiritual dimensions. This is where human beings are different from other mammals. We are able to imagine. In doing so, we find that our identity is shaped by much more than our biology. This is important because it makes it possible to shift our individual and collective orientation from what has been left-hemispheric dominant, male-informed, targeted attention to more a balanced right-hemispheric leaning, female-informed, broad attention, without losing our inherent sense of who we are.
So let me leave you with an invitation:
Imagine a world in which the Sacred is personal, intimate, steadfast and kind. She is always present and never demanding. All you need to do is slow down, turn to her, and listen.
She always responds.
If you do not hear her, then you are not listening well enough. This is where patience comes in, hers as well as yours.
What would it take to cultivate this kind of patience, this kind of trust in yourself and more importantly, in her? Who would you look towards to model this tender yet faithful approach to Life?
Find those people who inspire these attributes in you. They exist. Many of them are wise, mature, female-bodied and they just may hold the grounding wisdom we so desperately need.
I think may be it’s time to return to the wisdom of an old ancient era in which the divine feminine was known, felt, embodied and embraced.
https://www.thecollector.com/divine-feminine-ancient-art/#