by Amy Sander Montanez
The following article is a continuation of a previous post, “Knowledge and Wisdom.”
In the domain of the three feminine archetypes, maiden, mother, and crone, the crone is the purveyor of wisdom. Crones know what is best and what must be done. Crones listen to their intuition, listen to their guts, and integrate that intuition into wise choices and actions. Sometimes we see the beginnings of the crone archetype in young children who appear wise before their time. “She’s an old soul,” we sometimes say when a child shows glimpses of crone wisdom.
In the masculine archetypes, wisdom belongs to the Good King. The Good King has knowledge, yes, but accompanies that knowledge with a sense of what is good for everyone, good for the kingdom, good for the future. The Wise Crone and the Good King have the big picture in mind; they have breadth and depth of perspective and much life under their belts.
In the realm of the physical body, the center of the forehead is commonly associated with wisdom. In Hindu cultures people wear a bindi to mark the “third eye” or the place of inner knowing. In ancient Jewish Kabbalistic thought, the human body is a sacred text, and the center of the forehead is again associated with wisdom.
“Happy are those who meditate on wisdom, who reflect in their heart on her ways and ponder her secrets.” Ecclesiasticus 14: 20-21
Sometimes we think of wisdom as inner knowing, and that knowing can be found in our guts. Thanks to science we now know that our enteric nervous system, which includes the digestive tract and is often referred to as the “second brain”, holds one hundred million neurons and thirty specific neurotransmitters. Ninety-five percent of our body’s serotonin is located in the bowels. No wonder we have “gut instincts”! In Psalm 51:6 the psalmist requests, “Show me wisdom in my inner being.’ In our inner most being, in our guts, we have wisdom.
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