Sophia's Children

Many of us wonder how we might not just face the challenges presenting us today, personally and collectively, but also envision and co-create a more heart-centered paradigm.

Really liberating and expressing our Divine potential, you might say. Joyfully.

It’s in there, itchin’ to get out.

In some sacred teachings and ancient wisdom traditions, we’ve heard that it takes both a change of mind and foremost, a change of heart.

In the story of Sophia, Holy Wisdom, and interpretations of the teachings of some of the ancient Mystery Schools, human beings were endowed with certain Divine gifts through which we might unfold and express our Divine potential.

The gifts of the Feminine, we might say, if we’re talking the right-brain, heart-wisdom-centered, body-wisdom honoring ways of old that have been long suppressed.

The Sophia story also tells us of certain impediments to consciously recognizing and using our Divine gifts — the ways these gifts get co-opted, so we end up chasing ultimately unsatisfying simulations rather than the truly satisfying real thing.

Some years ago, my brother in Sophia, John Lamb Lash, joined me on the Feminine Mojo Show for several conversations about the Sophia Mysteries. Lash is a scholar, mystic, and expert on the Sophia myth and Mystery teachings, and the author of Not in His Image: Gnostic Vision, Sacred Ecology, and the Future of Belief.

As I look back over years since — and it’s been quite a wild, crazy-holy-Grace kind of ride, I’ll tell ya — I notice that I’ve had clues of these gifts bubbling up through dreams, visions, guidance during the ‘liminal’ or in-between times … like when you’re just coming out of sleep, for instance.

This, in itself, amazes me: How the Wisdom finds Her way to us; when we seek Sophia, knowingly or not, and Sophia meets us.

Sometimes — at least for me — it’s much more like receiving puzzle pieces, one at a time, and watching to see what emerges. Or at other times, like sensing one’s way through the fog.

These are among the uncommon skills — that are so essential now: Pattern-tracking. Sense-making. Associative thinking and seeing, or ‘connecting the dots’.

Understanding the clues and guidance, and then putting into practice…that takes, well, lots of experimentation and practice. It’s a living into it kind of Mystery.

And Wisdom’s timeline is often pretty different from my own. Hardly the path of instant gratification for those of us who are impatient for quick answers, or quick changes.

Sophia, in the Way of Wisdom, guides us step by step, helping us to live into the questions and experience and understanding of the answers. That’s the essence of gnosis.

This includes answers or guidance about the gifts with which we’ve been endowed by Sophia, Holy Wisdom.

It’s like living a ‘real time’ treasure hunt, an adventurous, and very much alive, game of creative inquiry. The fierce edges of life, as the vision-poets David Whyte and the late John O’Donohue called it.

So what are these Divine gifts we’ve been given?

Here’s a summary, drawn from my Feminine Mojo Show conversation with John, which mirrored back the guidance and insight that’s bubbled up through my own initiation or transformation process.

That process of awakening and remembering –– Transformative Experiences — reflects some of the Divine gifts in an of itself. See if you recognize them yourself.

Divine Intelligence (nous) — a macro-gift, if you will — includes five elements:

Metanoia: The ability to ‘renew your mind’ – to go beyond the limits of your current thinking.

Dianoia: Inspired dialogue that sparks new insight and understanding.

Epinoia: Luminous imagination, used consciously.

Ennoia: Conscious intention – the ability to direct or focus our Divine intelligence.

Enthymesis: Heartful desire. What is your true heart’s desire? That’s the key question.

As we know now, from so many different sources, these are powerful gifts.

Often, we use them in some way every day, but usually in a form dictated or ‘co-opted’ by culture.

We’re told what to think and how; we’re told what we want, and what we should (and should not) desire; we’re even told what we feel (or should and should not feel), usually to reinforce the madness of patriarchal, consumer-oriented culture.

Through the wisdom of the Mystery teachings and the Sophia story we may learn to see these gifts anew, and in recognizing and reclaiming their power, use them more heartfully and consciously to both be and co-create the change we seek.

I’ve shared many other explorations and musings on this Way and these gifts, here at Sophia’s children, in my former Feminine Mojo Mystery School, and in the intuitive, Feminina-stirring Sophiastrology readings, so take a look and participate in the journey.

(Find both in the Special Offerings of Now listing.)

(P.S. You’ll find Sophia, the asteroid, in your chart, too … one more purpose clue.)

Big Love,

Jamie

See also: Reclaiming Wisdom: Medusa, Metis, Mehda