By Samantha Bluhm. When my son was 8-years-old, we decided to to turn off the television and spend the hour before bedtime journaling and reading together. We each had a journal and our own box of colored pencils.

In our journals we could doodle or draw, practice printing, write stories, scribble, tape or paste quotes or pictures. The journal was our place for processing our ideas or thoughts.

The ONLY rule we had was there was no judgment, no mistakes. Whatever we put in our journal was perfect and meant to be. We promised each other we would appreciate, accept and forgive ourselves.

The blast of warm air and sweetness hits me as I grab at the biscuit tray and bring it swiftly from oven to stove top, nimbly avoiding the grasping fingers of the eager audience.  Chocolaty bits ooze out of the pimpled faces of the sweet treats and little ones clutch at my legs. 

A wisdom journey is a bit like pregnancy. If we pretend for the sake of the analogy that pregnancy is a non-gender specific phenomenon. You were born to it. Once it has been seeded, wisdom grows quietly inside us without too much indication at first of the miraculous potential unfolding within. The it flutters and we know it is there for sure, that it is strong and it is growing. Eventually it will stretch us beyond what we imagined was possible. It will grow at its own pace, without anything much needed from us, until it is ready to be born into the world - to touch our relationships, our work and our sense of meaning and purpose.