What if we invested in wisdom cultivation like we do in cities and infrastructure—Creating the wisdom infrastructure and commons that can provide lifelong holistic learning?
So aligned with my work over the past two decades, developing the building blocks capable of supporting this practically. for example, our FairShares Commons company transcends and includes the benefits of all ownership models and delivers the full agency needed for autopeoisis! Looking forward to talking more about joining forces
Thank you for this important and beautiful articulation of the problem and the solution. I feel you moving towards hope and possibility. I want to join you in this effort.
I am a woman who is deeply engaged in experiments and efforts to remember the original ways of women's wisdom cultivation and stewardship. For years, I’ve been practicing with women, gathering and "downloading" (from the heavens. gods, and the future) and "uploading" (from earth and each other) wisdom and innovation for world creation/birthing. Many women and sisters have been in this process, mostly without “pay” or “renumeration” or any kind of financial support and nourishment. We DO IT because it feels obvious and also much of the time because we can’t NOT do it. It feels essential to the return of a balanced world and ecosystem.
There is something virtuous in this "service" AND there is a fatal flaw. I will speak for myself, but I think I speak for many--after years of giving myself to the arrival of the new earth, I find myself struggling to pay basic bills.
I think this malady of not requesting and inviting material resources for essential wisdom work in a world that pretty much requires individuals to have capital/material resources to survive (right now anyway) is short-sighted. One day we will live post-capital again, but it’s going to be a while by the looks of it. In the meantime, this is a step in the right direction for the community of people who DO prize wisdom and LOVE to begin organizing TOGETHER to attract FUEL, a.k.a. money.
I know many who are thinking about this movement of MONEY towards what is SACRED. I’ve been calling it a grand money-laundering operation because right now our money is so loaded with darkness and heavy karma. The money itself is poison, carrying the energetic signature of a million deceits and violent acts. We have to transmute the money at a fundamental level in order to “feed” and “nourish” better projects for the planet. (That’s the alchemist in me.)
This is not merely a mental exercise. This is not a matter of intellectual persuasion. This is not about convincing people with money to invest because it “makes sense.” This move towards funding and building a REAL wisdom commons requires a quantum leap from the head to the heart. It is going to be about people who are currently holding the capital releasing it, liberating it and giving it IN SPITE of themselves, WHEN it DOESN”T make sense, because it FEELS right, and because this is the only way we will all survive. Unconditional giving = unconditional love. We have to re-imagine what the movement of capital FEELS like for the giver and the receiver before we can do this.
We have to have MUCH more transparency around money at all levels—systemically and interpersonally
We have to reimagine investing, not as a material exercise, but an energetic one (tantra of money)
Release the idea of ROI
Examine the entitlement people with money have
Hold people in the anxiety of parting with resources
Learn to receive fully and without obstructions
Deal with scarcity wounds which are real and the collective wound of unworthiness (which often sends us looking for validation in jobs, careers, financial success markers etc)
Find better ways to collectively manage and use resources
Cultivate discernment around what actually needs funding now — defer to those with a direct connection to the sacred and source; find higher guidance and follow it! Be inspired.
Recognize that service is the highest form of prayer right now
Support people to do services that are essential to our survival now
Put ALL material resources in service to the sacred, put the sacred at the center - gradually, as we can, until it’s done
And that's just for starters ;)
I am excited to find our way together. Let’s do this.
I'm intellectually aligned on the shape of the problem you're defining and appreciate your articulation of it — synthesizing ideas from a wide base of learning.
I'm less clear, though, on what you're suggesting vis-a-vis wisdom infrastructure. The nodes are clearly important (the new schools, products, places, etc.), but I'm struggling to understand what kinds of infrastructure would actually support them or their interconnection.
For instance, the historical examples you gave (monasteries, schools, hubs, universities) seem like important nodes, but I don't understand if/how infrastructure supported their flourishing in ways that apply today.
Is this mostly about investing in them? Or are there specific connective elements you envision? What kind of tangible infrastructure would help these wisdom-cultivating spaces thrive as an ecosystem rather than isolated experiments?
(Asking out of genuine curiosity -- eager to follow along.)
Great question. The short answer is yes, there is a need for more resources, financial capital and other, for this space in general. the longer answer is that a lot of the connective tissue will become apparent as this space grows. Some of it more social in nature, but I don’t know exactly what it will look like. One thing I am certain of though, there will be an infrastructure, and I am excited to help build and find out what that looks like exactly :)
Essentially what needs to be funded is syntropy itself, emergence per se — we can't quantify or circumscribe ahead of time what direction it will take, and the compulsion to do so is itself the illness we are contending with...
The key piece is the Mystery — individual and collective renewal through death of the self-structure and resurrection through emergence from the universal field of intelligence. This isn't an abstraction or an ethic and can't be simulated; it's the sole and ancient antidote to the entropy of fixed structures. It is the source of gnosis which then takes form as wisdom. And it's actually an integral part of human development, despite its rarity in modern civilization.
Also, I touch on part of the technological dimension of these themes in the short essay I just wrote:
Well said—you highlight key elements. We’re facing a widespread suppression of certain faculties, particularly participatory and perspectival. The challenge of education reform, especially in communication, is that much of the necessary learning for adults is actually unlearning in order to allow a natural contextual intelligence to emerge.
this has a foundational flaw, the idea that education systems were ever put in place to help human beings learnanything. they absolutely were not never have been.
This is such a great summary and articulation of many of the challenges I've been pondering lately.
I'm curious if you have a thesis on what's the best starting point for laying this foundation / architecture? Does it start with more funders, more education (around what real wisdom is)?
Thank you you for the kind words. I actually think it’s already happening in terms of the amount of projects that are around. What’s missing now are more funders. There are a couple of people that are doing great work on the capital side, but their capacity is stretched. So it’s a mix of getting more projects capital ready, and at the same time scaling the capital side (both for and not for profit)
I think wisdom is an emergent property of life experiences and learning (education?). As such it has a life of its own independent of design.
The best sources of wisdom in my life has been biology (life sciences) and indigenous peoples. The vulnerability of interdependence.
Sometimes reflected in systems thinking.
The true measure of wisdom is not “what to do when” but more often what “not” to do.
Beautifully described by Barry Lopez:
Walking across the tundra, meeting the stare of a lemming, or coming on the tracks of a wolverine, it would be the frailty of our wisdom that would confound me. The pattern of our exploitation of the Arctic, our increasing utilization of its natural resources, our very desire to "put it to use," is clear. What is it that is missing, or tentative, in us, I would wonder, to make me so uncomfortable walking out here in a region of chirping birds, distant caribou, and redoubtable lemmings? It is restraint.
Very true, and indeed a more subtle aspect to it. I think of it as implicit in each other. Knowing what to do and what not to do, as that is exactly the type wisdom that is needed. Thank you for the beautiful quote, very apt.
Have you studied how people nowadays have arrived at their different ways of being(i.e. what factors triggered and facilitated their transformation) and does it align with your (excellent and thorough)proposals?
Thank you for the kind words—that’s a great question (and possibly THE question to figure out in all of this). While I have some answers, I have even more questions still. Reforming education depends on understanding how people arrive at their ways of being. Transformation emerges from the interplay of inner experiences (insight, crisis, practice) and outer conditions (education, community, ecology, economy). This is why I call this inquiry ecologies of wisdom—change is rarely driven by a single factor but rather by an interplay of forces, although there are usually shocks that triggers a phase transition to a different state of being.
I agree, it was mid to later life crisis for myself that triggered the start of my changes and ongoing growth. I suspect that this might be a common way but im glad there are people like yourself who are looking at ways to possibly avoid doing things the hard way.
Edit: im curious if your work has revealed whether more often than not people’s journey of transformation includes or ends up at a connection or belief in the divine/God(that’s where my journey is leading me)
So aligned with my work over the past two decades, developing the building blocks capable of supporting this practically. for example, our FairShares Commons company transcends and includes the benefits of all ownership models and delivers the full agency needed for autopeoisis! Looking forward to talking more about joining forces
Yes let's connect - I think we strongly overlap in our perspective and devotion to this process. Working via intentionalsociety.org secondrenaissance.net limicon2025.com and related venture-builder
Amazing, great to see so much work on the very critical field building front. Looking forward to learning more.
Thank you for this important and beautiful articulation of the problem and the solution. I feel you moving towards hope and possibility. I want to join you in this effort.
I am a woman who is deeply engaged in experiments and efforts to remember the original ways of women's wisdom cultivation and stewardship. For years, I’ve been practicing with women, gathering and "downloading" (from the heavens. gods, and the future) and "uploading" (from earth and each other) wisdom and innovation for world creation/birthing. Many women and sisters have been in this process, mostly without “pay” or “renumeration” or any kind of financial support and nourishment. We DO IT because it feels obvious and also much of the time because we can’t NOT do it. It feels essential to the return of a balanced world and ecosystem.
There is something virtuous in this "service" AND there is a fatal flaw. I will speak for myself, but I think I speak for many--after years of giving myself to the arrival of the new earth, I find myself struggling to pay basic bills.
I think this malady of not requesting and inviting material resources for essential wisdom work in a world that pretty much requires individuals to have capital/material resources to survive (right now anyway) is short-sighted. One day we will live post-capital again, but it’s going to be a while by the looks of it. In the meantime, this is a step in the right direction for the community of people who DO prize wisdom and LOVE to begin organizing TOGETHER to attract FUEL, a.k.a. money.
I know many who are thinking about this movement of MONEY towards what is SACRED. I’ve been calling it a grand money-laundering operation because right now our money is so loaded with darkness and heavy karma. The money itself is poison, carrying the energetic signature of a million deceits and violent acts. We have to transmute the money at a fundamental level in order to “feed” and “nourish” better projects for the planet. (That’s the alchemist in me.)
This is not merely a mental exercise. This is not a matter of intellectual persuasion. This is not about convincing people with money to invest because it “makes sense.” This move towards funding and building a REAL wisdom commons requires a quantum leap from the head to the heart. It is going to be about people who are currently holding the capital releasing it, liberating it and giving it IN SPITE of themselves, WHEN it DOESN”T make sense, because it FEELS right, and because this is the only way we will all survive. Unconditional giving = unconditional love. We have to re-imagine what the movement of capital FEELS like for the giver and the receiver before we can do this.
We have to have MUCH more transparency around money at all levels—systemically and interpersonally
We have to reimagine investing, not as a material exercise, but an energetic one (tantra of money)
Release the idea of ROI
Examine the entitlement people with money have
Hold people in the anxiety of parting with resources
Learn to receive fully and without obstructions
Deal with scarcity wounds which are real and the collective wound of unworthiness (which often sends us looking for validation in jobs, careers, financial success markers etc)
Find better ways to collectively manage and use resources
Cultivate discernment around what actually needs funding now — defer to those with a direct connection to the sacred and source; find higher guidance and follow it! Be inspired.
Recognize that service is the highest form of prayer right now
Support people to do services that are essential to our survival now
Put ALL material resources in service to the sacred, put the sacred at the center - gradually, as we can, until it’s done
And that's just for starters ;)
I am excited to find our way together. Let’s do this.
I'm intellectually aligned on the shape of the problem you're defining and appreciate your articulation of it — synthesizing ideas from a wide base of learning.
I'm less clear, though, on what you're suggesting vis-a-vis wisdom infrastructure. The nodes are clearly important (the new schools, products, places, etc.), but I'm struggling to understand what kinds of infrastructure would actually support them or their interconnection.
For instance, the historical examples you gave (monasteries, schools, hubs, universities) seem like important nodes, but I don't understand if/how infrastructure supported their flourishing in ways that apply today.
Is this mostly about investing in them? Or are there specific connective elements you envision? What kind of tangible infrastructure would help these wisdom-cultivating spaces thrive as an ecosystem rather than isolated experiments?
(Asking out of genuine curiosity -- eager to follow along.)
Great question. The short answer is yes, there is a need for more resources, financial capital and other, for this space in general. the longer answer is that a lot of the connective tissue will become apparent as this space grows. Some of it more social in nature, but I don’t know exactly what it will look like. One thing I am certain of though, there will be an infrastructure, and I am excited to help build and find out what that looks like exactly :)
Love it, and appreciate the candor. Aligned around both the uncertainty and ambition too!
Thanks for this, many lucid articulations here.
Essentially what needs to be funded is syntropy itself, emergence per se — we can't quantify or circumscribe ahead of time what direction it will take, and the compulsion to do so is itself the illness we are contending with...
The key piece is the Mystery — individual and collective renewal through death of the self-structure and resurrection through emergence from the universal field of intelligence. This isn't an abstraction or an ethic and can't be simulated; it's the sole and ancient antidote to the entropy of fixed structures. It is the source of gnosis which then takes form as wisdom. And it's actually an integral part of human development, despite its rarity in modern civilization.
Also, I touch on part of the technological dimension of these themes in the short essay I just wrote:
https://open.substack.com/pub/freelyfreely/p/birds-over-babel
Well said—you highlight key elements. We’re facing a widespread suppression of certain faculties, particularly participatory and perspectival. The challenge of education reform, especially in communication, is that much of the necessary learning for adults is actually unlearning in order to allow a natural contextual intelligence to emerge.
this has a foundational flaw, the idea that education systems were ever put in place to help human beings learnanything. they absolutely were not never have been.
This is such a great summary and articulation of many of the challenges I've been pondering lately.
I'm curious if you have a thesis on what's the best starting point for laying this foundation / architecture? Does it start with more funders, more education (around what real wisdom is)?
Thank you you for the kind words. I actually think it’s already happening in terms of the amount of projects that are around. What’s missing now are more funders. There are a couple of people that are doing great work on the capital side, but their capacity is stretched. So it’s a mix of getting more projects capital ready, and at the same time scaling the capital side (both for and not for profit)
Lots to consider. Thank you.
A couple of thoughts:
I think wisdom is an emergent property of life experiences and learning (education?). As such it has a life of its own independent of design.
The best sources of wisdom in my life has been biology (life sciences) and indigenous peoples. The vulnerability of interdependence.
Sometimes reflected in systems thinking.
The true measure of wisdom is not “what to do when” but more often what “not” to do.
Beautifully described by Barry Lopez:
Walking across the tundra, meeting the stare of a lemming, or coming on the tracks of a wolverine, it would be the frailty of our wisdom that would confound me. The pattern of our exploitation of the Arctic, our increasing utilization of its natural resources, our very desire to "put it to use," is clear. What is it that is missing, or tentative, in us, I would wonder, to make me so uncomfortable walking out here in a region of chirping birds, distant caribou, and redoubtable lemmings? It is restraint.
Barry Lopez, “Arctic Dreams”
Very true, and indeed a more subtle aspect to it. I think of it as implicit in each other. Knowing what to do and what not to do, as that is exactly the type wisdom that is needed. Thank you for the beautiful quote, very apt.
This is so deeply aligned with what we're exploring - innovation ecosystems that cultivate wellbeing of people and place.
We'd love to connect and find ways to weave our explorations here.
Here's our latest post https://interform.substack.com/p/patterns-for-accelerating-systemic
Have you studied how people nowadays have arrived at their different ways of being(i.e. what factors triggered and facilitated their transformation) and does it align with your (excellent and thorough)proposals?
Thank you for the kind words—that’s a great question (and possibly THE question to figure out in all of this). While I have some answers, I have even more questions still. Reforming education depends on understanding how people arrive at their ways of being. Transformation emerges from the interplay of inner experiences (insight, crisis, practice) and outer conditions (education, community, ecology, economy). This is why I call this inquiry ecologies of wisdom—change is rarely driven by a single factor but rather by an interplay of forces, although there are usually shocks that triggers a phase transition to a different state of being.
I agree, it was mid to later life crisis for myself that triggered the start of my changes and ongoing growth. I suspect that this might be a common way but im glad there are people like yourself who are looking at ways to possibly avoid doing things the hard way.
Edit: im curious if your work has revealed whether more often than not people’s journey of transformation includes or ends up at a connection or belief in the divine/God(that’s where my journey is leading me)