Daily Signet

Image by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

The Greeks held that philo-sophia—the love of Sophia, wisdom—begins in wonderment. One of the greatest wonderments is that “understanding everything,” having it all figured out, can be a big roadblock to wisdom. It seems correct to have personified wisdom as a woman, Sophia. Wisdom is living knowledge, earthy, blood-rich knowledge—the knowledge of the womb, and when personified as the Hindu Goddess, Kali—the knowledge of the tomb, as well. To wonder, you need a capacity for bafflement or an ability to imagine a world as other than it commonly and good-sensibly appears. You can’t be close-minded and filled with wonder, both. Only when you stand empty of answers, can you be filled with hope. Only the receptive can give birth.

Teri Martin

On This Day…

James Baldwin born in New York City, 1924, died 1987 in Paris: writer, social critic
Works: “Go Tell It On The Mountain”, “Another Country”, “Notes of a Native So”
Quotes: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
“Love does not begin and end in the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is growing up.”