"The faery queen of wisdom lived
With the sun-room of a tree;
From there she saw the wide, wide world,
But no fool could her beauty see."
___Scots Gaelic folk story (trans. CM)
This story tells of a faery queen who invited all the women of the world to visit her so that she might give them wisdom. Some declined, thinking themselves wise enough already, while others came in order to be seen and admired. When the guests had assembled, the faery queen went among them with a blue limpet shell containing the essence of wisdom. Those guests who were there for the wrong reasons refused to drink, but those women who sought the wisdom within their own hearts drank gladly, each receiving a portion of wisdom until there was nothing left in the shell.
The wisdom that is already within each of us often needs only a small catalyst to develop, as long as we are open and receptive to wisdom when we meet it elsewhere. the unwritten wisdom of the heart abides within us as our motherwit, the wisdom of the body that we inherit from our ancestors. That wisdom is in the process of developing all the time as new information and experiences are brought into contact with it. We often mistakenly assume that wisdom must come from without, but external wisdom cannot develop within ourselves until our own wisdom meets and assimilates it in a practical way.
Valuing our own wisdom is hard in a world that offers so many expert opinions wherever we turn. often easier to defer to professionals than to regard our own views on a subject. Only when we have been to the limits of our own wisdom can we find the humility and receptivity to increase it.
"Where are the limits of your knowledge? How many of your opinions are really your own, rather than adopted from others?"
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]
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