What is Wisdom? Where Can it be Found? Ken O’Keefe and Michael Meade

What is Wisdom? Where Can it be Found?

It is such a blessing to have magnificent teachers! Two of them I fantasize having an intense conversation for the world to overhear happen to be Irish (American), which can’t be – given Ireland’s history – a true coincidence. Michael Meade, mythologist, so beloved for all he brings, and Ken O’Keefe, a former Marine, for all he embodies in the present moment. Check out the daring of his thought on They’re Done! Checkmate – We Win! Ken O’Keefe’s Solution! YouTube. Also his profanity, which is a kind of poetry in itself. – AW

Amidst the rush and confusion of modern life something old and wise is trying to catch up with us. When the trouble becomes so profound that no amount of knowledge can provide a solution, it is wisdom that must be found. Whereas simple knowledge tends to divide things, genuine wisdom tends to make meaningful unity possible. Wisdom involves hidden unities and uncommon knowledge.

Wisdom is always valuable because it remains hard to find. Unlike information that can never really add up to much and unlike knowledge that can become overly bright, wisdom combines darkness and light. The problem with wisdom is that, like gold, finding it involves a descent into dark places. Wisdom can reveal the light hidden in dark times; but it requires that we face the darkness in ourselves. Wisdom involves a necessary descent into the depths of life, for that alone can produce “lived knowledge” and a unified vision. Wisdom and true freedom are found where we submit to the way our souls are intended to go and surrender to the mysterious ways we are each intended to grow.

“The word wisdom draws upon two old roots: one carries the sense of guidance, while the other refers to a lyric or a song. Wisdom involves knowing enough about life to be able to guide others towards the knowledge and experiences they most need.”

But, wisdom first requires learning the rhythm and song in one’s own heart and soul. The inner wisdom of one’s life shapes the path that must be followed; but it is also carries a song-line that runs all the way through.

Fate keeps troubling the soul and even endangering the world until people accept that some deep truths must be faced. Wisdom involves the dark knowledge of the intricacies and entanglements of fate as well as the surprising threads that reveal where destiny is hiding. The deep self within us harbors the core imagination that drove our soul to life to begin with. In that sense, the exact knowledge so often sought in the outer world can be found dwelling within the soul all along.

The same questions have always hung in the air, just as the condition of the world has always hung in the balance between the fate and destiny born within each soul. It is the same question that the divine asks at the end of each life’s unique adventure: In the midst of all the confusion in the great marketplace of life, did you live the life seeded in your soul to begin with? In the twists of fate that entangled you in life did you find the thread of destiny intended for you? Did you become weird enough and finally wise enough to become the self you have always been inside?

– Michael Meade