'Unknowing': toward another pattern of knowing in nursing

Knowing is wonderful, but it is just a guiding means. Unknowing is a condition of openness. This unknowing in the intersubjective space of two people or people of two cultures allows others to be. This art of unknowing may enable a nurse to understand, with empathy, the actual essence of the meaning an experience has for a patient. This pattern of unknowing focused herein on the intersubjective whole between patient and nurse is applicable as well to learning in a more formal sense. To be open to learning one needs to posture oneself in a position of unknowing to hear a colleague, a teacher, a student. To provide and find openness is to be able to say, "I never thought about it that way," and at once experience the wonderment of coming upon an "unknown."