Emerging wisdom

It’s the early morning train out of town. I sit and watch the even earlier arriving into town as I leave. I cross the river, with its pink-tint buildings and pink-tint bridge. Or so I write. And it’s not true.  My imagining would like that, and parts of the sky have a tint, over the water, but the buildings are crisply almost themselves and most of the bridge is hidden beneath the train.  The true bit is that I cross the river and know I have ended and begun. That casual, liminal brightening that is river. Will you wake or will you sleep?

Where best to do the work of the imaginal, the liminal? Sleeping, awake, neither, both?  Wisdom, like science, emerges in the conversation between noticing what is and sensing what is not yet or what could be. Betty Sue Flowers, in Presence, drew attention so succinctly to something I aspire to foster through the work I do: ‘leaders of the future will need to be deeply committed to serving that which is seeking to emerge.’ I’m passionate about what’s seeking to emerge. And, now temporarily home educating my children, very curious about when the great trammeling begins. Or the great inspiring. What is seeking to emerge that we individually and collectively need to serve better?

I’m guest editing a forthcoming AMED journal at the moment. My topic is wisdom. Let’s see where we get to.  I’m sure that in the past I would have been quite happy with the title ‘editor’, especially in my previous career of publishing -- at something of a pace. Now, what I’m doing seems slower: inviting, gathering, reflecting, asking, curating. Curating, I think that might be it.  Wisdom needs curating, not editing?