What is School of Sophia?
What is wisdom? Is it in the trees and the water? Is it in the mind or in the heart? Is it to know or not to know? Does it have a place in society - or must we turn against society to be wise? Did ancient and indigenous peoples have wisdom (or do they have it still) and if so, how can others learn from it today?
To answer these questions, the School of Sophia delves into a wide range of wonderful materials from our literary and spiritual heritages: from mysterious ancient myths to spellbinding modern novels, from sacred texts to astonishing works of drama, from philosophy, religion and spirituality through to literature and poetry.
Inspired by the ancient Wisdom Schools, the School of Sophia gathers for weekly seminars to contemplate, reflect, study and dialogue. The love of wisdom, we believe, is our common human heritage, and our courses are open to all of those who are moved to pursue these vital questions.
No skills or previous experience are necessary – other than commitment and enthusiasm! - and all students from all walks are life are warmly welcome.
How the Seminars Work
To learn wisdom is to be a participant at a feast. Wisdom is the food of the whole of our being and the nourishment of the whole of our minds, a delicious kind of knowledge made not to be acquired but savoured and shared. Our seminars are grounded in the premise that wisdom is a real presence that underwrites and makes intelligible all human expression and relationships. It is not the ‘result’ of an act of study but becomes present in and through the act itself and is shared by the community which practices it. Wisdom is not the exclusive possession of the expert, the specialist or the ideologue: it is the common tongue, the common food and the common ground of all.
Weekly seminars, called Lectio Seminars, will take place both on-line and regularly in person. There will also be regular additional sessions, the Contemplatio Seminars, to which guest speakers will be invited, and which will develop particular aspects and themes of our reading.
Lectio Seminars
The Lectio Seminar begins with an introductory lecture and proceeds to a meditative deep reading and creative dialogue. This contemplative form of reading is respectfully inspired by the monastic practice of lectio divina. Since wisdom is ‘delicious’, our approach will be that of the lectio: that is, tasting, savouring and ‘digesting’ the sources in dialogical contemplation rather than reducing them to propositional material fit for a disinterested enquiry. Our approach will therefore be participatory, interpretive and convivial.
Contemplatio Seminars
These seminars will include special guests - thinkers, teachers and artists - and are an opportunity to discuss our weekly readings in the light of greater current issues, to approach our complementary text in various creative ways, and to engage in communal and convivial dialogue grounded in openness and friendship to wisdom.