A Winter Gathering of Wild Wisdom School 4
For the first gathering of Wild Wisdom 4, we met at Jan’s home in East Devon in the damp greyness of winter.
Our day began with some welcome silence and a heart-based meditation and Sam introduced us to the three-fold wisdom way of ethike (outer and inner ethics), physike (contemplation of nature, engagement with and enquiry into the material world) and enoptike (meditative union with the divine).
We remembered our absent companions, and then we opened our Wisdom Pot and shared some seasonal reflections and stories about ourselves. We each welcomed our own blessing of the season: robins, starlit nights, the waiting of Advent, poetry, the evergreens, stone-pine cones, the telos of decay, fruits, seeds, renewal.
We spoke of feeling unsettled and learning to accept that feeling, and of the importance of paying attention to the mundane; the importance, too, of relationship – from immediate family to wider family, and this wild and wise group. We acknowledged and grieved for what we had built and loved and lost and wondered at the ancient skills of navigation at sea by the stars. We talked too of the pandemic and how it is challenging our concepts of individualism, communalism and libertarianism, and the call to different ways of being…. how the love of the land can change us, and how physicality can lead us into the abstract.
We affirmed the transformational power of listening, of quietly and lovingly witnessing one another’s profound feelings: joy, grief, anger, helplessness, and pain. The Wisdom Pot welcomes everything. The speaking and listening changes things just as the bitterness of cider apples is necessary for good cider, fermenting into something better.
After a break, Sam told the story of The Handless Maiden and we shared our responses to the telling of this enigmatic tale. There were many themes that caught our attention but perhaps the one that we all found most intriguing was the shadow man with the fire reflected in his eyes. The necessary bitterness? The catalyst for transformation?
After a wonderful bring and share lunch of warming soups, bread, hummus, delicious nut roast and a sumptuous apple crumble, we went into quiet time. Some went for a 
meditative walk, others read. I am always struck by the magic of free time and silence when it happens in community, the magic of knowing that the spaciousness is shared, that we are being held, and that we are somehow together even as we wander in our different directions.
As we gathered once again for our final reflections, I realised how much we had journeyed with the three-fold wisdom way during the day. Our Wisdom Pot included inner and outer ethics, our relationship with nature and the material world and perhaps, in the silence and meditative times there were even glimpses of enoptike, unique and personal for each of us.
I am deeply grateful for the experiences of the day, and for the group, and look forward to our next day of love, sharing and community.
(Journal post written by Jan)
