Wise Women of New York is a social, cultural and literary movement, offering those from all disciplines and all ways of knowing, an invitation to explore and express a deeper truth of the world through a contemplative lens. Through this form of expression, the intention is to evolve our public discourse and consciousness, seeing everything with new eyes, and re-aligning our-selves with the world.

What does it mean to experience the world contemplatively?

Contemplation is the art of being awake, of being deeply attuned to reality in the present moment. As the Jesuit Walter Burghardt writes: It is a “long loving look at the real.” This mode of looking requires thought, inquiry, an aware engagement and deep noticing. It is engaging from a new way of being in the world, harnessing ones “contemplative intelligence.”

This contemplative intelligence is an authentic mode of knowing; a tapping into a deeper source that opens ourselves up to see the world from the position of a far-reaching inclusiveness, recognizing the interdependence among us all that binds us together. In this togetherness, the way to live resonant, evolving and compassionate lives is in understanding our relationship to the world through the experiences of “another.” This “open and present” stance is the antidote to our current discourse that often creates a sense of separateness and estrangement from one another, the human condition and the deeper intelligence.