Most cultures acknowledge the truth that adults have a child within.

You can see it when adults forget themselves in laughter or play and become lighthearted.

Indigenous cultures also acknowledged that every human has a child inside.

They differed from us in that they also knew the other side of this truth: that every child has an ancient inside.

Children are physically under-developed and vulnerable. They need adult protection and help and they know little of the adult world of ideas and duties.

That doesn’t mean they know nothing.

Anyone who has gazed into the eyes of a new baby and had that small person coo back and try to respond, knows this.

Anyone who has heard the absolute clarity and wisdom of the one year old, “I don’t like Aunty X. She’s mean!” knows this.

Anyone who has tolerated the insightful, “But Why? Why is it like that?” of the three year old, knows this.

There is an elder in each child.  It would serve us well to understand that children have wisdom also.

This week a wise 7 year old said to me,

“Katie can I just ask you one question?”

“Sure!” I said confidently.

Here’s her question,

“What is it like to be you?”

What an amazing question.

Like most adults I answered too glibly but her question brought me back to deeper waters in the hours and days that followed. What WAS it like to be me? How would I explain that to someone?

All humans carry a child within AND a wise elder but adults are so conditioned they often can’t hear either voice.

The child is a gift.

The child is still a mainly unconditioned human.

This means they live primarily in direct connection with what they see and experience as real.

The direct connection to life, rather than what they have been told about life or experienced in the past (much of Adult consciousness), gives them direct connection to truth and to other ways of seeing.

We would do well to listen to them. They often have pearls and rubies spilling from their mouths…solutions, truths and insights….

…Understandings that we could hunt for a thousand days in the adult world and never find.

Let’s not dismiss wisdom just becomes out of a child.

Be alert for the ancient who dwells within children. You may be lucky enough to have one talk to you today.

Photocredits: (in order) c. Depositphotos: oksun70; dpaint; joruba75; halfpoint; IlianaMihaleva.