The road to Wisdom:
Manifesting the sacred towards justice

The Living Commons Collective Magazine, n. 3, September 2025

“It took her seven years of skeptical fits and starts to feel the power of that early revelation which was given in that place called London; and it would take her even longer to come to have faith in it, to know that her answers needed to come from a source different than the ones she had mastered in books; to begin to feel the difference between knowledge and wisdom—one could save you in the kingdom of the dead, the other gave you only temporary status in the kingdom of the living… To know that with careful focused attention and contemplative service, the Divine would be made manifest. The answer to many things lay in her hands, in her very own hands.” — Kitsimba in Pedagogies of Crossing, by M. Jacqui Alexander

The sacred is at once ours-mine. It refuses to differentiate, to separate, to distinguish. It encourages us to learn to listen so that we can follow our own path, our journey, our dharma. To express that which we have come to, we have chosen to, we have set out to, manifest. This issue of the Living Commons Magazine wishes to explore the role wisdom and the sacred have had and continue to have for individuals, collectives, and peoples across the globe. From the teachings of Thich Nhat Han and Sister Chan Khong, Kitsimba, Kehinde, and David Kopenawa, Queen Nanny of the Maroons and Ram Dass, among countless others, this issue asks and invites the following (but not limiting) questions: How can wisdom influence knowledge so that the latter becomes in tune with the human and more-than-human worlds? What is the role of the sacred in the struggle for justice? How are remembering, honoring, memory, and collective works interrelated? What does the sacred allow for the self in terms of healing, recovering, and re-establishing one’s inner fortitude?