Abstract
This chapter explores the genesis of my search in a ‘moment of being’, which resonates with certain pursuits of wisdom which privilege Sophia’s link to aspects of the divine. The chapter explores the distinction between the framing of time as chronos and kairos, and links with Virginia Woolf’s ‘moments of being’, and with James Joyce’s ‘epiphanies’ by way of discussing certain of modernism’s tenets and preoccupations; and the limits, or otherwise, of language’s function as signpost, signifier or embodiment of our ways of narrating our lifeworlds. The second part of the chapter explains my use of autoethnography as both method and methodological underpinning to the whole, and it is written by way of exposition and encouragement to those researchers who may be new to this field.
Silence
We opened the gates of silence
and from a child’s mute innocence
set out on a journey of words
reaching towards the stillness
of the other shore
We let the words guide us
through the complexities of the world
holding onto their bodies, time-bound,
until our skins grew old,
the words tired
and somehow inadequate
Then one day
we let them fall away
letter by letter
like pieces of old skin
and with one hand touching the shore of wisdom
we reconsidered silence
(Pavlina Morgan, 2014); Copyright by Pavlina Morgan
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Fraser, W. (2018). Epiphanies, Ontologies and Epistemologies. In: Seeking Wisdom in Adult Teaching and Learning. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56295-1_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56295-1_4
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