Below is a story I wrote over twenty years ago.

Visit to the Sage                                                                                           931222

"I want to be wise," I said.

"Why?" he asked.

"So I can know everything."

"Why?"

"So I can be important."

"Why?"

"So I can be...powerful!"

"Why?"

"So...so I can...so I can be popular?"

"Why?"

"I don't know," I shrugged.

"Come back when you know."

"What?"

"Wisdom begins with knowing the answer to why."
"But I may never know."

He paused and smiled and said "That is wisdom."  And then he turned and said "come with me."

I followed him further into the forest than I've ever gone before.  Nothing was familiar.  Finally we came to a great tree, larger than I've ever seen before. 

"What is this place?" I asked.

"This is where I come for wisdom."

He pointed at a lump on the trunk of the tree which had a dark hole in the middle and said, "Reach in there as far as you can."

"Why?"

"To find wisdom."

I looked at the dark hole and said "Can't I find it somewhere else?"

"Only in the hole.  Reach in."

"I don't want to."

"Why not?"

"What's in the hole?"

"I don't know."

"You've never reached in there and now you expect me to?"

"I have reached in, many times."

"I thought you said you didn't know what's in there."

"I don't."

"If you've reached in, then you should know what's there."

"Not this time."

"Does it change?"

"Always."

"What changes?"

"You and I."

"I don't think I want wisdom anymore."

"You do, you're just afraid.  I am too, now reach in there."

I reached in with my fingers pulled in tightly to my hand.  My eyes were closed and my face felt tense.  I reached as far as I could, but felt nothing.  I opened my eyes.  And then very slowly I opened my hand, one finger at a time. 

"What do you feel?"

"Nothing."

"There's never nothing.  You must not be reaching far enough.  Reach further."

"My arm can't go any further."

"Not with your arm, with your self."

"My self?"

"Your soul, spirit, mind, all of you.  Reach in with a prayer."

"A prayer?"

"Not words, but feelings, urges, pains, joys.  Reach with all that you are."

I closed my eyes again and spread out my fingers.  And then I  felt dizzy and warm and terror and comfort.  I pulled my hand out quickly and fell on the ground and looked at my fingers.

"What was that?"

The holy man laughed at me and said "I don't know, what do you think it was?"

"It didn't feel like wisdom."

"Perhaps not yet."

"When will I find wisdom?"

"Someday you'll reach in there and pull out your hand.  It will be covered with blood.  It will be your blood.  You'll find a deep wound that will never heal.  It will sometimes bleed slowly and sometimes bleed profusely, and your inner strength will pour out.  The drops of blood will fertilize the soil of your soul.  And the seed of change will begin to grow—at first unnoticably and then more and more until you feel it tear you apart.  And with that you will be reborn."

"And I'll have wisdom?"

"No.  You'll never have wisdom, but wisdom may have you."

© 1994, Stephen R. Carl