Ed Kriege

It could be said that Wisdom Bridge began construction in the early 1970s. My name is Ed Kriege, and I'm the founder of Wisdom Bridge Creative Life & Lifework Strategies. In 1973 I had graduated from college and was pursuing a career as a professional musician. My life was unfolding according to plan when, subsequent to a profound consciousness-expanding experience, I began to undergo a series of psychological experiences for which I had no prior context.

This psychological state lasted for approximately twelve months — what I would later classify as my "dark night of the soul" — and within that timeframe every aspect of my life was subject to examination. In retrospect I can say that, for me, this period was absolutely essential for preparing the field for its new crop.

Armed with some "fingers pointing at the moon" — books recommended by a close friend — I began absorbing as much knowledge as I could, and found much of it deeply resonated with what I was experiencing. My thirst to know and experience more led me to a spiritual master and an eight-year apprenticeship in a monastic environment dedicated to deepening spiritual realization through compassion, service and meditation — a practice I continue to this day.

Subsequently, through a series of serendipitous events, I joined a small startup company developing software for the new Macintosh platform. Together with a talented team we created the first object-oriented relational database for this revolutionary computer. Over twenty years we grew this organization into the world's largest provider of Enterprise Content Management software. Following that chapter, I founded Global Cents, a specialized software development & consulting company, for which I was CEO for ten years.

For a more entertaining rendition of my journey, I invite you to read my memoir, Connecting the Dots — memories and musings of a small-town baby boomer, in four acts.

The integration of these life phases hasn't been easy. There have been many difficult struggles with synthesizing the dichotomies — for example, the "inward" of a spiritual practice with the "outward" of a career in business. But precisely because of these challenges I have had to work through many seeming contradictions to arrive at a personal consensus. It is this process of integration of our various parts into a whole that makes Wisdom Bridge such a rewarding, and exciting, endeavor.

My work in Wisdom Bridge is to synthesize knowledge and experience gathered from the arts, spiritual psychology and business, and form a broad base of resources available to the challenges facing creative individuals & organizations today.