Heather Plett: Where is wisdom?

Heather Plett calls herself a 'midwife to your stories, wisdom and courage' and that is just what she is. Whenever I read her stories, my own come bubbling to the surface to be revisited, re-imagined and often, re-written. By sharing her journey, Heather illuminates the path of joy and heartbreak that all women must walk. Her beautifully crafted work is woven with deep wisdom; and she writes with great courage as she faces difficult experience with a heart shot through with light.For me, Heather's is the wisdom of honestly shared experience, from one fiercely loving (yet tender) heart to another.I am pleased and proud to introduce her to you:* * *The Birth of WisdomWhere is wisdom to be found? Is it on the mountain-top where the guru sits waiting for seekers to crawl up the rugged path to sit at his feet? Is it in church, where the priest doles out little morsels of it along with the communion bread? Is it in a university classroom, where a professor holds it tightly to her chest and only gives out what she thinks you can handle?It may be in those places, once in awhile. But more often than not, it’s much more obscure than that, and much more difficult to pin down. More often than not it shows up in the most surprising places you can imagine. Wisdom is a whirling dervish of a dancer who refuses to dance in the same place every day. For me, Wisdom showed up in a hospital room.Ten years ago, I spent three weeks in a hospital room, holding my son in my womb and praying that he would make his way safely into a breathing world when it was his time.During those three weeks, wisdom showed up in fierce, beautiful and unpredictable ways. Wisdom came through the door on the legs of my dear friends. Wisdom showed up while I sat staring at an ultrasound screen with my doctor/guru. Wisdom appeared in the middle of the night, embodied in a spiritual presence that sat by my bed and wrestled with me before it would comfort me. Wisdom fluttered past my window on the wings of a butterfly. Wisdom even appeared in the middle of a frightening psychotic episode when everyone feared I had lost my mind.During those three weeks, I learned that wisdom can be beautiful and gentle, but it can also be terrifying and fierce. And when it comes, it requires a lot of us. It requires courage, commitment, and surrender. It also requires that we abandon the past with all its comfort and safety, and take up the new with all its fear and uncertainty.The hardest lesson to learn was that wisdom also arrives on the wings of death. At the end of those three weeks, my son’s life ended in my womb, and I gave birth to death. That’s not the end of the story, though, because in giving birth to death, I also gave birth to wisdom - hard won and painful wisdom, but wisdom nonetheless.I’m writing a memoir about those three weeks in the hospital and how they changed me, and recently I wrote these words: "Wisdom won’t be tied up in neat little boxes to be reached for and plucked as we walk methodically down perfectly manicured linear paths. Wisdom comes to us in spirals. In whirlwinds. In whispers. At gravesides. On labyrinth paths. Wisdom appears in a heart that is ready for it. A heart that is still. A heart that listens. A heart that waits." Wisdom is a tricky dancer and some days I’d rather live in ignorance. Many days I’d rather not carry around the wisdom mantle that was birthed with my son’s death. But wisdom doesn’t leave us with many choices. Wisdom chooses us and we must follow in the dance.In the ten years since my son died, there’s been a new truth emerging for me, and that is that wisdom has both a masculine and a feminine form. Masculine wisdom is the wisdom that takes action, gets things done, wins wars, and plans strategies. It’s rational, direct, practical and assertive.Feminine wisdom, on the other hand, invites us to create art, connect with Mother Earth, build relationships, and gather in circles. It is creative, intuitive, feeling, and visionary.We all have access to both feminine and masculine wisdom, though our genders often determine which one resides more prominently in us. We have access to both, but our patriarchal cultures have elevated the status of masculine wisdom and silenced the voice of feminine wisdom. It’s silenced the voice of feminine wisdom both in women and in men. It’s silenced it so long that we have come dangerously close to our own self-destruction, choosing consumption over sustainability, battle over justice, strategies over art, and winning at all costs over community-building and compassion.Ironically (and beautifully), though I have three living daughters, it was my stillborn son who awakened the feminine wisdom in me. I didn’t recognize it at first, but since his death, I have been on a quest for Sophia - the embodiment of feminine wisdom and feminine divine. I’ve walked many labyrinths, sat in numerous circles with other women, gone on retreats of all kinds, done yoga and various other body explorations - all in search of the wisdom that has always been there, in my body, in my mind, and in my soul.Here’s one another piece from my book:It’s not that I’ve replaced my understanding of a masculine God with an entirely feminine one, it’s just that I’ve learned that there are many ways for the Divine to be present in the world and in my life. The feminine spiritual energy that can be experienced through labyrinths or body work is different from the masculine energy of logic or ration or debate or even language. I think that’s one of the reasons why we mostly read about God in masculine form. The feminine form is much more difficult to put into words, much more mysterious, and much harder to fit into a box. It is also harder to trust because it dances with mystery. It must be experienced in a visceral, spiral, embodied, non-linear, non-rational way, and that presents a danger that many of us would rather avoid. Yes, it takes courage to choose wisdom. It takes courage to seek the feminine when all we’ve been shown is the masculine. It takes courage to proclaim “Enough! I cannot stand by in silence any longer! I choose Wisdom in ALL its forms!”But when we choose it - when we pick up the mantle and step forward into a new way of seeing - we are changed, and the world is changed with us.* * *Heather Plett is a writer, speaker, teacher and all around creative thinker. On her blog, www.sophialeadership.com, she invites people to imagine what can happen for the world if we all learn to trust our feminine wisdom more and let it impact the way we live, lead, teach, and interact with each other. She recently released a free e-book called "Sophia Rises: Changing the World through Feminine Wisdom", and she is working on a memoir about the personal spiritual transformation that started with the birth of her stillborn son.(If you have not yet downloaded your free copy of Heather's beautiful e-book, "Sophia Rises: Changing the World through Feminine Wisdom," I whole heartedly recommend that you do. You will find it on her website, through the link just above.)* * *This post is part of The spring "Wisdom Series," a 13-day blog series featuring some of the wisest women I know: 13 posts, each written from the particular 'wisdom' of its author. The theme for this series is Awakening.