Dangerous Wisdom

Writer Derrick Jensen joins us to discuss politics, ecology, and philosophy.

Is trauma real? In what sense? These questions don't in any way deny the real suffering of people diagnosed with trauma. Instead, they ask how we might take a broader and deeper look at trauma, in order to heal and transcend it. How can we do better in reducing the emergence of traumatizing experiences, and how can we do better in supporting ourselves and other in healing from these experiences, and opening up new possibilities for evolutionary learning?In her book Spacious Minds, anthropologist and clinical psychologist Sara E. Lewis invites us to see that resilience is not a mere absence of suffering. Sara's research reveals how those who cope most gracefully may indeed experience deep pain and loss. Looking at the Tibetan diaspora, she challenges perspectives that liken resilience to the hardiness of physical materials, suggesting people should "bounce back" from adversity. More broadly, this ethnography calls into question the tendency to use trauma as an organizing principle for all studies of conflict where suffering is understood as an individual problem rooted in psychiatric illness.Beyond simply articulating the ways that Tibetan categories of distress are different from biomedical ones, Spacious Minds shows how Tibetan Buddhism frames new possibilities for understanding resilience. Here, the social and religious landscape encourages those exposed to violence to see past events as impermanent and illusory, where debriefing, working-through, or processing past events only solidifies suffering and may even cause illness. Resilience in Dharamsala is understood as sems pa chen po, a vast and spacious mind that does not fixate on individual problems, but rather uses suffering as an opportunity to generate compassion for others in the endless cycle of samsara. A big mind view helps to see suffering in life as ordinary. And yet, an intriguing paradox occurs. As Lewis deftly demonstrates, Tibetans in exile have learned that human rights campaigns are predicated on the creation and circulation of the trauma narrative; in this way, Tibetan activists utilize foreign trauma discourse, not for psychological healing, but as a political device and act of agency.Sara Lewis, PhD, LCSW is co-founder and Director of Training and Research at Naropa University's Center for Psychedelic Studies. Sara earned her PhD at Columbia University in medical anthropology and public health; her research sits at the intersection of religion, culture and healing with an emphasis on non-ordinary states. As a Fulbright scholar, she conducted long term ethnographic research in India, culminating in her book, Spacious Minds: Trauma and Resilience in Tibetan Buddhism, which investigates how Buddhist concepts of mind shape traumatic memory and pathways to resilience. As a contemplative psychotherapist, she specializes in intergenerational trauma and healing through Somatic Experiencing and psychedelic-assisted therapy.

The dominant cultural worldview is based upon extraction and exploitation practices that have brought us to the precipice of social, environmental, and climate collapse. Braiding poetic storytelling, climate justice and deep cultural analyses, and the collective knowledge of Earth-centered cultures, The Story is in Our Bones opens a portal to restoration and justice beyond the end of a world in crisis.Author, activist, and changemaker Osprey Orielle Lake weaves together ecological, mythical, political, and cultural understandings and shares her experiences working with global leaders, systems-thinkers, climate justice activists, and Indigenous Peoples. She seeks to summon a new way of being and thinking in the Anthropocene, which includes transforming the interlocking crises of colonialism, racism, patriarchy, capitalism, and ecocide, to build thriving Earth communities for all.Lake calls forth historical memory of who we are in the Earth's lineage to bring into being the world we keenly long for, at the delicate threshold of great peril or great promise.For anyone grieving our collective loss and wanting to take action, The Story is in Our Bones is a vital guide to remaking our world. This hopeful, engaging, and creatively lyrical work reminds readers that another world is possible, and provides a desperately needed antidote to the pervasive despair of our time.Osprey Orielle Lake is the founder and executive director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN). She works internationally with grassroots, BIPOC and Indigenous leaders, policymakers, and diverse coalitions to build climate justice, resilient communities, and a just transition. She sits on the executive committee for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and on the steering committee for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. Osprey's writing about climate justice, relationships with nature, women in leadership, and other topics has been featured in The Guardian, Earth Island Journal, The Ecologist, Ms. Magazine and other publications. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area on Coast Miwok lands.To learn more, go to: https://ospreyoriellelake.earth www.wecaninternational.org

A super special episode with the magical yogini Drukmo Gyal, a sonic shaman and practitioner of Vajrayana Buddhism who bridges Tibetan traditions and global healing. Born into a family of Ngakpas in the culturally rich Amdo region of Tibet, Drukmo Gyal's life has been steeped in the practices of mantra and meditation from a young age. Growing up in a diverse community in Rebgong, she was immersed in an environment where spiritual practices were a daily ritual.Her journey in traditional healing began with studies in Tibetan medicine in Amdo, after which she furthered her expertise by working for Sorig Khang Estonia (EATTM) and studying under Dr. Nida Chenatsang, a renowned Tibetan physician and lineage holder of the Yuthok Nyingthig - the spiritual healing tradition of Tibetan Medicine.Combining her passion for singing with her knowledge of Tibetan medicine, she has sought to create healing concerts that nurture the body, speech, and mind. She has collaborated with musicians worldwide, producing five albums of Tibetan Healing Mantras and Prayers, and she has shared her work in over 30 countries through concerts, lectures, and courses.Drukmo Gyal also serves as an international teacher and guide for Sorig Khang International and as the lead organizer of SKY Estonia. Their team is committed to establishing a Tibetan Medicine Healing & Education Centre in Estonia to bring this ancient wisdom to the Baltic states and Finland, focusing on learning, healing, and cultural exchange.https://www.drukmogyal.com/

An essential aspect of philosophy or LoveWisdom: How do we move forward in our lives? Maybe you have some problem or challenge in your personal life, or in your professional life. Or maybe you can sense the general stuckness of humanity, and maybe you even take that to be your own stuckness. Given all the confusion of the world, all the fear and uncertainty within our own soul and in the soul of the world, how can we find genuinely creative and beautiful ways to cultivate our lives forward, and cultivate the life of the world forward at the same time?It turns out we can only move forward in the most vitalizing and liberating ways if we also move backward at the same time. It's an aspect of one of the basic paradoxes of LoveWisdom, and we're going to explore it in today's episode.

The Artefact: Holographic Habits and Healing, Part 1We inquire into the nature of habit and freedom, the meaning of life, and how we can do our jobs and live together while feeling good in our mind, heart, and body, and feeling good about ourselves, about how we are living and loving.

Dialogue with a spiritual visionary. Cynthia Jurs experienced that almost comical spiritual archetypal pattern of meeting a wise old yogi in a mountain cave. She thought long and hard about what to ask him. His reply sent her on a remarkable spiritual pilgrimage.In this very special episode of Dangerous Wisdom, Cynthia shares her incredible journey, which she documents in her book, Summoned by the Earth: Becoming a Holy Vessel for Healing Our World. This is one of my favorite guests!Cynthia Jurs received Dharmacharya transmission from Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh to become a teacher in his Order of Interbeing in 1994. In 2018, she was made an honorary lama in the Vajrayana tradition of Tibetan Buddhism in recognition of her thirty years of pilgrimage into diverse communities and ecosystems around the world to carry out the Earth Treasure Vase Global Healing Practice. Today Cynthia is forging a new path of dharma in service to Gaia that is deeply rooted in the feminine, honoring indigenous cultures, and devoted to collective awakening. Cynthia leads meditations, retreats, courses, and pilgrimages to support the emergence of a global community of engaged and embodied sacred activists. You can find her teachings and connect with her global community at: www.GaiaMandala.netand learn about her book at: www.summonedbytheearth.org

Video version here: https://youtu.be/FtDBx1IBkoAA spiritual pioneer, Phyllis Curott is an attorney, writer and one of America's first public Witches. Her international best-selling memoir Book of Shadows, 5 other books and groundbreaking Witches' Wisdom Tarot have been published in 14 languages, making her the most widely published Wiccan author in the world. An outspoken advocate in the courts and media, she handled or consulted on groundbreaking cases securing the legal rights of Witches, including cases of child custody, religious assembly, organization, expression, and free speech. Phyllis was named one of The Ten Gutsiest Women of the Year by Jane Magazine and inducted into the Martin Luther King, Jr. Collegium of Clergy and Scholars. She received the 2018 Service to Humanity Award from the One Spirit Interfaith Seminary and the 2020 Person of the Year Award from Kindred Spirit. Phyllis is a Trustee of the Parliament of the World's Religions, serving as Vice Chair of the 2015 Parliament, and Program Chair for the historic 2021 Parliament blessed by Pope Francis, and the 2023 Parliament with its theme of religious responsibility to resist the growing scourge of fascism. New York Magazine has called her teaching on Witchcraft the culture's “next big idea” and Time Magazine has published her as one of America's leading thinkers. Her You-Tube series on Wicca has almost 3 million views. Phyllis is teaching online and working on her next book on the embodied spiritual wisdom of Mother Earth, Nature's “secret magic” and why the world needs its Witches. Website: https://www.phylliscurott.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/phylliscurottInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/phylliscurott/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/PhyllisCurottWitchcrafting

The secret of entering the Way of the Wolf, the Way of the Wild, the Way of the Soul; a celebration of the Gospel of Mountains and Wolves; and a path to creating a vitalizing civilization, based on a nonduality of Nature and Culture.

What is the truth that human credulity covers over, and what is the truth that the wild honesty of wolves seeks to reveal?

We consider wolves as a spiritual keystone species. We have considered the horse as a spiritual keystone species, and we can learn a lot from both Wolf and Horse as archetypal currents in the soul. Wolf is part of the mandala of the Dangerous Wisdom curriculum. In light of recent events in Wyoming and more broadly, this contemplation on the spirit of Wolf seems important and overdue. Includes reflections on the books, The Philosopher and the Wolf (by Mark Rowlands), Beyond Words (by Carl Safnia), and the books on the Yellowstone wolves by Rick McIntyre, which start with The Rise of Wolf 8.https://dangerouswisdom.org/

Our best science and philosophy suggest very clearly that we don't know what thinking IS. If large ecologies are mind, what is thinking? If mountains think better than most human beings, how can we learn to think like a mountain?

One of Sophia's owls of wisdom made friends with a delightful and insightful human, the author and ecologist Carl Safina. If you enjoyed My Octopus Teacher, you will love hearing about Carl Safina's fabulous feathered friend, Alfie. Carl's book, Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe, is a wonderful work of philosophy and ecology, and I think you'll enjoy this dialogue as much as I did. It was a great pleasure to speak with him.Carl Safina's lyrical non-fiction writing explores how humans are changing the living world, and what the changes mean for non-human beings and for us all. His work fuses scientific understanding, emotional connection, and a moral call to action. His writing has won a MacArthur “genius” prize; Pew, Guggenheim, and National Science Foundation Fellowships; book awards from Lannan, Orion, and the National Academies; and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals. He grew up raising pigeons, training hawks and owls, and spending as many days and nights in the woods and on the water as he could. Safina is now the first Endowed Professor for Nature and Humanity at Stony Brook University and is founding president of the not-for-profit Safina Center. He hosted the PBS series Saving the Ocean, which can be viewed free at PBS.org. His writing appears in The New York Times, TIME, The Guardian, Audubon, Yale e360, and National Geographic, and on the Web at Huffington Post, CNN.com, Medium, and elsewhere. Safina is the author of ten books including the classic Song for the Blue Ocean, as well as New York Times Bestseller Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel. His most recent books are, Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace and Alfie & Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe. He lives on Long Island, New York, with his wife Patricia and their dogs and feathered friends.Find out more at https://www.carlsafina.org/

Dr. Tawni Tidwell is an exceptional—and exceptionally interesting—person. She is the first person from the dominant culture to go through the whole Tibetan medical curriculum and earn a Tibetan medical degree. She also has a Ph.D. in bio-cultural anthropology. And her impressive experience and insight go beyond even this already remarkable education. We discuss her education and some aspects of Tibetan medicine. This is one of my favorite dialogues with one of my most favorite guests, and I look forward to having Tawni-la back to inquire further into the nature of health, healing, and liberation.

What is it to think like a mountain? How is it that many of our decisions go wrong, sometimes producing negative side-effects?You might remember hearing about a hole in the ozone layer that appeared last century. No one intended to create that hole. But we did it.We didn't intend to put mercury in our brains and lead in our bones. A recent study tested 62 samples of human placenta and found microplastics in every single one of them.How do things go wrong on personal and planetary scales? And how can we do better?

Lars Chittka is the author of the book The Mind of a Bee and Professor of Sensory and Behavioural Ecology at Queen Mary College of the University of London. He is also the founder of the Research Centre for Psychology at Queen Mary. He is known for his work on the evolution of sensory systems and cognition using insect-flower interactions as a model system. Chittka has made fundamental contributions to our understanding of animal cognition and its impact on evolutionary fitness studying bumblebees and honeybees.I often say that human beings have lost the sense of the mindedness all around us—that we exist fully embedded in mind. In this episode we cultivate an appreciation of the remarkable mind of a bee.

The Mind of Nature and the Nature of Mind Part 2 in an Introduction to Ecological Thinking—A Wisdom-Based ApproachWhat is the nature of mind? What is the mind of Nature? We inquire into some radical and revolutionary aspects of mind and ecological thinking.

What is ecological thinking? Why does it matter? A contemplation for everyone—a series of contemplations for everyone. It's an incredibly important series, because the idea of ecological thinking as we will approach it relates to the basic question of why we have so many problems in our world, and how we can resolve them, and it relates to the nature of mind and the mind of Nature, and how we realize our highest potentials. In other words, it's about what we are.

The biggest bite of knowledge fruit humanity has taken in the past millennium or two has to do with complex systems—the very stuff of life. Neil Theise has written an excellent, accessible introduction to complex systems, and we discuss the basic elements.Neil Theise is a professor of pathology at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Through his scientific research, he has been a pioneer of adult stem cell plasticity and the anatomy of the human interstitium. Dr. Theise's studies in complexity theory have led to interdisciplinary collaborations in fields such as integrative medicine, consciousness studies, and science-religion dialogue. He is a senior student of Zen Buddhism at the Village Zendo in NYC. His most recent book is, Notes on Complexity: A Scientific Theory of Connection, Consciousness, and Being.

Bob Thurman, known in the academic circles as Professor Robert A.F. Thurman, is a talented popularizer of the Buddha's teachings and the first Westerner Tibetan Buddhist monk ordained by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.A charismatic speaker and author of many books on Tibet, Buddhism, art, politics and culture, Bob was named by The New York Times the leading American expert on Tibetan Buddhism, and was awarded the prestigious Padma Shri Award in 2020, for his help in recovering India's ancient Buddhist heritage. Time Magazine chose him as one of the 25 most influential Americans in 1997, describing him as a “larger than life scholar-activist destined to convey the Dharma, the precious teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha, from Asia to America.”Bob served as the Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies in the Department of Religion at Columbia University for 30 years, until 2020. A very popular professor, students always felt his classes were “life-changing”. Bob is the founder and active president of Tibet House US, a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Tibetan culture, and of the American Institute of Buddhist Studies, a non-profit affiliated with the Center for Buddhist Studies at Columbia University and dedicated to the publication of translations of important artistic and scientific Tibetan treatises.His own search for enlightenment began while he was a university student at Harvard. After an accident in which he lost the use of an eye, Bob left school on a spiritual quest throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He found his way to India, where he first saw His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 1962. After learning Tibetan and studying Buddhism, Bob became a Tibetan Buddhist monk and the first Westerner to be ordained by the Dalai Lama. Some years later, however, he offered up his robes when he realized he could be more effective in the American equivalent of a monastery: the university, returning to Harvard to finish his PhD.As part of his long-term commitment to the Tibetan cause, at the request of H.H. the Dalai Lama, Bob co-founded Tibet House US in 1987 with Tenzin Tethong, Richard Gere, and Philip Glass, a nonprofit organization based in New York City and dedicated to the preservation and renaissance of Tibetan culture.Inspired by his longtime good friend the Dalai Lama, Bob takes us along with him into an expanded vision of the world through the prism of Tibetan Buddhism. He shares with us the sense of refuge in the Dharma, which unfailingly helps us clear away the shrouds of fear and confusion, sustains us with the cheerfulness of an enriched present, and opens a door to a path of realistic hope for a peaceful, kind, and wise future. Learn more:https://bobthurman.com/https://menla.org/https://thus.org/https://wisdomexperience.org/treasury-buddhist-sciences/

How can we practice with Earth? How can we think with Earth? Can we allow our thinking and our practice of life to become undomesticated, wild, and indigenous again? In this dialogue, Tetsuzen Jason Wirth, philosopher in the academy and Zen priest, joins us to discuss Dogen, Gary Snyder, and the possibilities for a practice of the wild that can heal self and world in mutuality.

If Nature is super, if superness belongs to the very character of the Cosmos, then our attempts to exclude the super and the "impossible" may contribute in fundamental ways to the mess we find ourselves in (politically, economically, spiritually, and of course ecologically). We may claim that we want to exclude the impossible because we insist on excluding "superstition" and "woo," but in fact we may discover that we have thereby excluded the superness that belongs to the nature of Nature, and thus created and perpetuated confusion about what we are and what reality is.Jeffrey J. Kripal, a delightful and insightful scholar of religion, joins us to discuss these matters, especially in relation to his new book, The Superhumanities: Historical Precedents, Moral Objections, New Realities. This is a fun yet sober discussion of exciting yet sobering ideas, data, and experience, shifting our perspective from "the supernatural" to the Superness of Nature , the Super Natural.You can learn more about Jeff here: https://jeffreyjkripal.com/

On the Winter Solstice of 2023, U.S. President Biden will sign a law that could move our entire planet a step closer to global transformation--or not. It's up to us. But the law will require the disclosure of UFO/UAP and alien encounter information held as some of the deepest secrets of the U.S. government. What does this mean for us? It may surprise you to learn that even the Vatican has formally acknowledged the existence of advanced life outside our solar system, and the need to come together to discuss the implications for us in terms of our religious, spiritual, philosophical, and political ideas and practices. How might we have to change in order to integrate the reality of extraterrestrial life? And what happens when we find out those beings seem more advanced not only technologically, but also in some sense more advanced in terms of consciousness itself?Daniel Sheehan joins us to discuss these questions and to go over the legislation. He's an insider. Danny is a Harvard-trained lawyer who has argued high-profile cases such as the Greensboro Massacre, the Silkwood case, the Three-Mile Island case, and even appeared before the Supreme Court in the famous Pentagon Papers case. As part of his work at the Romero Institute, he works with the New Paradigm Institute, to help empower all of us for a post-contact reality.https://newparadigmproject.org/https://www.danielpsheehan.com/

Where do we find Sophia's wild garden of awakening and love? We're it. And we can see that garden in every direction, if we look with awakening eyes, eyes of love, eyes of wisdom, eyes of beauty. And we need to cultivate that garden, with "Acts of Restorative Kindness". We find references to Sophia as a presence in the Earth, a presence in soil and soul. She calls to us to attend to Her, and to all Her sacred beings.In this episode, we enjoy a deep dialogue with Mary Reynolds, emissary of Sophia, and botanical bodhisattva of magic and grace—one of my favorite guests! She helps us reflect on the living loving world as our path of wisdom and wonder, and invites us to become the Ark of Being through Acts of Restorative Kindness.Mary Reynolds is a reformed international landscape designer who launched her career by achieving a gold medal for garden design at the Chelsea flower show in London in 2002, the story of which was made into a 2016 movie called “Dare to be Wild”. Bestselling author of The Garden Awakening, and We are the ARK, she is an occasional television presenter and the founder of the global movement “We are the ARK”. She's not the worst cook and she likes to campaign against evil corporate/political efforts to cull us all off with pesticides, herbicides, GMO's, greenwashing, and fossil fuel craziness. Her aim in life is to restore the Earth's native plant and creature communities (her clothing of choice), and remind people that our role here on this beautiful home of ours is one of guardian, not gardener. Find out more:www.marymary.iewww.wearetheark.org

Our need for wholeness has revealed itself clearly in many ways, and one of them relates to trauma. And, that puts us in dangerous wisdom territory, because talking about trauma can provoke anxiety and confusion. How can we relate most skillfully to the experiences we consider traumatic, and to our lives and our world as we metabolize those experiences?

We live in a fragmented culture. That means our attempts at holism, including any supposed holism of body and mind, could involve significant fragmentation and ignorance. We need holism and vision in order to make sure our practices of embodiment heal self and world at the same time.

Instead of becoming more “embodied,” we, in some crucial sense, need to become more . . . ecologied, encosmosed, and liberated into the mysteries of interwovenness, liberated into sacredness and wonder. If “embodied” signifies getting “into” our “body,” it misses our true need in a variety of ways.For a free pdf of practices to help facilitate ecosensual awareness and a more ecological embodiment, visit the Dangerous Wisdom website:https://dangerouswisdom.org/practices-of-a-sacred-place

Embodiment and somatics are big business. But do our practices of embodiment and somatics subtly maintain the duality between mind and body, Nature and culture, human and the larger community of life? And do we lose track of the fact that what we refer to as "my body" is usually an abstraction?In the worst case scenario, “embodiment” becomes another form of spiritual materialism, in which we bypass the more serious demands of a philosophical life with rationalizations so perfect they sound like the voice of liberation. An expansive (skillful and realistic) vision can help us to liberate mind and body (mind and Nature), and let the magic that can flow through them begin to find us again.

Embodiment and somatics are big business. We need to recover our balance and our sanity, and heal our wounding in relation to embodiment. How can we do it in a way that minimizes spiritual materialism and prevents all these practices from becoming part of the self-help catastrophe and the continued elaboration of the pattern of insanity? Reflecting on some common errors of embodiment and how we can transcend them might give us some much needed nourishment.

Jay Tompt joins us for some economic reflections in the spirit of E.F. Schumacher. As part of our dialogue, Jay shares an inspiring idea you can put top use in your own community, to germinate sprouts of wisdom, love, and beauty: The One-Day Incubator.Jay is a co-founder of the Totnes REconomy Centre, a lecturer for Regenerative Economics at Schumacher College, an associate lecturer in economics at Plymouth University as well as a regular teacher on our post-graduate economics programmes. He co-developed the Transition Network REconomy Project's Local Economic Blueprint course and handbook, co-founded the REconomy Centre, and developed the Local Entrepreneur Forum model.https://campus.dartington.org/schumacher-college/https://www.dartington.org/https://reconomycentre.org/author/jtompt/

What happens when two philosophers and a neuroscientist walk into a podcast? They talk about things they wish more people knew. If people only knew how magical the world is, they might take better care of it, and relate to it with a greater sense of reverence and wonder. It's not that our reverence and wonder should depend on the existence of woo-woo phenomena, but that nature's superness is palpable in every direction if we would only slow down, brush the cobwebs of dogmatism away, and relax into the mind of Nature and the nature of mind. Mystery and magic abound.Two of my favorite people return to talk about that magic and mystery. Mona Sobhani and Sharon Hewitt Rawlette each joined us earlier in the year, and now they have come together to create a larger ecology of mind and swap stories about the superness of Nature.Sharon Hewitt Rawlette is a philosopher and interdisciplinary researcher specializing in anomalous phenomena and their implications for our understanding of consciousness. She earned her PhD from New York University in 2008, studying under Thomas Nagel, and taught at Brandeis University before leaving academia for an independent writing career. She currently serves on the advisory board of the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies and is a supporting researcher for the International Centre for Reincarnation Research. Her books include The Source and Significance of Coincidences, Beyond Death, and The Feeling of Value. sharonrawlette.com Mona Sobhani is a cognitive neuroscientist, author and entrepreneur. A former research scientist at the University of Southern California, she holds a doctorate in neuroscience from the University of Southern California and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Vanderbilt University with the MacArthur Foundation Law and Neuroscience Project. She is the author of Proof of Spiritual Phenomena: A Neuroscientist's Discovery of the Ineffable Mysteries of the Universe. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, VOX, and other media outlets. She lives in Los Angeles.To support Mona's neuroscience of consciousness symposium go to https://www.gofundme.com/f/donate-to-science-spirituality-consciousness-event

Dangerous Wisdom with a friend from the Emerald Isle. Take a journey to Ireland without leaving home, and take a leap into the sacred wells of wisdom, wonder, and magic.Join us as we contemplate the power of place and the places of our empowerment. The delightful and insightful Manchán Magan and I read and reflect on passages from his book and other sources of wisdom, inviting you into your own practice of sacred place.In addition to reading Manchán's beautiful book, you can get some extra, free support on reconnecting to the land using the link below for a free download of "Practices of a Sacred Place," from the Wisdom-Based Teaching, Learning, and Evolution handbook. The wisdom traditions can offer us beautiful guidance on how to begin to reconnect with the mind of Nature and the nature of mind, and this set of practices provides an excellent foundation:https://dangerouswisdom.org/practices-of-a-sacred-placeAbout our guest:Manchán Magan has written books on his travels in Africa, India and South America. He writes occasionally for The Irish Times, and presents the Almanac of Ireland podcast for RTÉ. He has made dozens of documentaries on issues of world culture for TG4, RTÉ, & Travel Channel. His books include Thirty-Two Words for Field; Listen to the Land Speak; Tree Dogs, Banshee Fingers and Other Words For Nature; and Wolf-Men and Water Hounds. With Antic-Ham, he's collaborated on two art books for Redfoxpress. https://www.manchan.com/And if you're listening close to the time this episode was released, Manchán's making bread and butter :https://www.manchan.com/arán---im

Kate Rudd joins us to talk about a short and highly accessible chapter from the classic book seeking to integrate economics and wisdom: Small Is Beautiful, by E.F. Schumacher. In honor of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Small Is Beautiful, Dangerous Wisdom will host a series of dialogues with faculty and alumni of Schumacher College.Schumacher's book is exceptionally relevant today, as we have continued the pattern of insanity he sought to question, and his insights and suggestions still offer us the possibility to arrive at better ways of knowing and being, better ways of organizing our culture, and better ways of relating with each other and the larger world. Kate joins us to discuss the chapter on scale, and to discuss her own work in regenerative economics.Kate is a multilingual research consultant, facilitator and writer working at the intersection of inner development, social innovation and transformational change. She supports organisations contributing to social and ecological regeneration to catalyse transformative change through insight, strategy and communication.She holds and MA in Regenerative Economics with Distinction from Schumacher College and first-class undergraduate degrees in Applied Languages, Economics, and Law from universities in France, Spain and the UK.At present Kate is:· Collaborating with the UNDP's Conscious Food Systems Alliance as a Local Food Systems Leadership Consultant. · Conducting her own academic research at the intersection of food systems transformation and the inner dimensions of transformative change.· Engaged in business incubation projects and content creation projects for several grassroots orgs promoting regenerative agriculture in Africa and Latin America. Here's a link to Kate's research: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DIVaeZu8BjPVBbDK4lveTq0YTlKO5-Au/view

Mona Sobhani joins us to discuss her book, Proof of Spiritual Phenomena: A Neuroscientist's Discovery of the Ineffable Mysteries of the Universe. Mona is a cognitive neuroscientist, author and entrepreneur. A former research scientist at the University of Southern California, she holds a doctorate in neuroscience from the University of Southern California and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Vanderbilt University with the MacArthur Foundation Law and Neuroscience Project. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, VOX, and other media outlets. She lives in Los Angeles.

The nature and scale of ecological degradation can provoke empathy distress that devolves into depression, despair, anxiety, antipathy, avoidance, and outright denial. But ecological awareness and ecological education can help us to see how much power we have when we become attuned to spiritual and ecological realities. We can actually help to heal the world—each and every one of us, wherever we live.Imagine a national park bigger than Yosemite, bigger than Yellowstone, bigger than the Grand Canyon. Imagine a national park bigger than all three of those combined. Now imagine a national park bigger than those three combined with the addition of the Adirondacks, the Grand Tetons, the Great Smoky Mountains, Denali, Olympic, and Sequoia—bigger than all of those put together!Imagine all the wild beings doing the work they do to further the conditions of life, all the work they do to make your life and my life possible. Imagine those beings thriving, and imagine humans thriving more in the process.Finally, imagine that this park can become a reality—and that reality depends on you. It doesn't depend on you in some burdensome, terrible way. You don't have to give yourself a spiritual or physical hernia. Rather, it depends on things you can do at your own scale, something enjoyable and rewarding. And something done in the key of wonder, something that can open up the ecology of your own mind.This describes Doug Tallamy's project, detailed in his book, Nature's Best Hope. This is a good news kind of book, and it can dispel our feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness, replacing them with beauty, wonder, wildness, and mutual empowerment.Doug is the T. A. Baker Professor of Agriculture in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, where he has authored 112 research publications and has taught insect related courses for over four decades. His principle research goal involves arriving at a better understanding of the many ways insects interact with plants, and how these interactions create diversity in animal communities.Doug's books include Bringing Nature Home, The Living Landscape (co-authored with Rick Darke), The Nature of Oaks (winner of the American Horticultural Society's 2022 book award), and Nature's Best Hope (a New York Times Best Seller). In 2021 he cofounded Homegrown National Park with Michelle Alfandari (HomegrownNationalPark.org). https://www.homegrownnationalpark.org/

Derrick Jensen's new book is called, Marijuana: A Love Story. It details his wild romance with this oft misunderstood plant teacher and medicine, and how the dream the Marijuana once offered people (a version of "the American Dream") became ruined by the corporatized capitalistic system. From the book description: "In state after state, the wealth-building capacity of this extraordinary plant is now concentrating into the control of the already rich. From seed to smoke, legalization is eroding the lives and livelihoods of the people it was supposed to help: the patients, growers, trimmers, "mules," and activists who created the colorful and committed culture that is now under threat.We can end the war on weed without turning it into a war on small family growers-but it will depend on how much pressure we are willing to apply to force law makers to serve local communities rather than corporate interests. Marijuana: A Love Story is a report from the front, a reminder of how and why we fell in love with this plant, a cautionary tale of corporate power, and a call to once more "Free the Sacred Herb."'Derrick Jensen is the author of more than twenty-five books, including Bright Green Lies, A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, and Endgame. He is also a teacher, activist, and small farmer, and was named the poet-philosopher of the ecological movement by Democracy Now! In 2008, he was chosen as one of Utne Reader's 50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World and won the Eric Hoffer Award. He is a cofounder of the organization Deep Green Resistance. Jensen has written for the New York Times Magazine, Audubon Magazine, and The Sun, and was a columnist at Orion Magazine. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Eastern Washington University and a BS degree in mineral engineering physics from the Colorado School of Mines, and has taught creative writing at Eastern Washington University and Pelican Bay State Prison. He lives in Northern California on a property frequented by bears.

A magnificent swindle attempts to keep us from realizing true peace and happiness. How can we overcome it? We must begin by seeing through it, with the help of Lewis Mumford, Walter Kaufmann, C.G. Jung, Kurt Vonnegut, and others. We consider addiction, domestication, distraction, and the material bribe we all must keep ratifying in order for the pattern of insanity to perpetuate itself. We can stop ratifying it here and now.

Picking up our contemplation on the feedback loop of Mind and Nature, we enter into insights and suggestions from Nietzsche and the poet-philosopher-farmer Wendell Berry. These thinkers help us to face some troubling questions:What are we not likely, or not able, to become conscious of, simply by living in the dominant culture?What does the culture make likely as our experience?What does it make likely as our world?The general answer to the latter question seems to be something degraded, limited, limiting.The philosophy of the dominant culture encourages the practice and realization of the very things that cut us off from our fuller potentials, and philosophers in the university do little to teach students how to transform. The cultivation of states of anger, greed, aggression, and deceit go altogether with conquest, and this leads to the total breakdown of more empowered and empowering forms of awareness.We in the dominant culture live in a context that encourages the invisibility of these other forms of awareness, discourages their cultivation, and then encourages and even insists upon their dissolution if they were to somehow arise. How can we transform all of this, for the benefit of the whole community of life?

We arise embedded in mind, with mind in every direction. Human beings in the dominant culture seem to miss the mindedness all around them.The “modern” human walks around with “ideas” “in” their head. This localization of mind remains untenable on scientific grounds, and does not fit with most of the spiritual/philosophical traditions we have inherited. Nature is already Minded. Because of this, we need to mind Nature—that is, attend to Nature, and also allow Nature's mindedness to spontaneously presence itself in/through/as us and our World.We likewise need to allow Nature to mind us. That will mean liberating ourselves into the nonduality of Nature and Culture—liberating ourselves into larger ecologies of mind. We can't really let Nature care for us, guide us, teach us, and even liberate us if we maintain a false duality between Nature and culture.Engage with your philosophical self by checking out part two on The Others and the Interwovenness of Earth and Soul. These two contemplations belong to a larger mandala revealing pathways to better ways of knowing and being, living and loving.

It's something the self-help-industrial complex covers over, turning our sincere search for healing and success into the self-help catastrophe. What does our soul really want? How can we get on a path of sanity and sacredness, a path of true healing and happiness? Wisdom can help us find our way---but first we have to see things as they are, which means seeing our deepest, darkest, dirtiest secret.

In honor of Interdependence Day, celebrating the total interwovenness of all things, we speak with Sharon Hewitt Rawlette, a philosopher specializing in the anomalous.Sharon Hewitt Rawlette is a philosopher and interdisciplinary researcher specializing in anomalous phenomena and their implications for our understanding of consciousness. She earned her PhD from New York University in 2008, studying under Thomas Nagel, and taught at Brandeis University before leaving academia for an independent writing career.She currently serves on the advisory board of the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies and is a supporting researcher for the International Centre for Reincarnation Research. Her books include The Source and Significance of Coincidences, Beyond Death, and The Feeling of Value.Sharon Hewitt Rawlette, PhDsharonrawlette.com Author of:Psychology Today blog Mysteries of ConsciousnessBICS award-winning essay Beyond Death: The Best Evidence for the Survival of Human ConsciousnessThe Source and Significance of Coincidences: A Hard Look at the Astonishing EvidenceThe Feeling of Value: Moral Realism Grounded in Phenomenal ConsciousnessThe Supreme Victory of the Heart: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Synchronicity

If you struggle with getting enough sleep, you aren't alone. Keep in mind: six hours or less per night on an ongoing basis seems about as bad as getting zero for two days straight.As much as 41% of adults in the U.S. report short sleep, and as much as 84% of high school students report short sleep. Worse yet, 50-70 million U.S. citizens (perhaps more) qualify for a formal diagnosis of sleep disorder, ranging from insomnia to sleep apnea.All of this should create a sense of urgent compassion for ourselves, each other, and the world. That has to do in part with the many mental and physical ailments connected with sleep disruption. Not getting enough quality sleep AND dream seems to go together with a concerning list of illnesses, including cognitive decline.Moreover, a lack of quality sleep and dream can limit our skill and our potential in life, leaving us less capable to take skillful, creative, wise, compassionate, and beautiful action in our lives, on behalf of our own wellbeing and also on behalf of the whole community of life. Sleep and dream go fully together with our life and our world, and the problems we see in our own life and world thus go together with the crisis of sleep and dream we now face.The present dialogue goes together with the dialogue with psychologist and dream tender Dr. Leslie Ellis, released as Episode 44. If you missed that one, I encourage you to check it out.In the present episode, Dr. Rubin Naiman joins us to contemplate the dangerous wisdom of sleep and dreams, reflecting on some of the things we need to begin to open to and keep in mind if we want to allow the power of sleep and dreams help us to heal self and world at the same time. But the episode begins with some reflections on Hermes from your friendly neighborhood soul doctor. Hermes is, after all, a guide of souls, a lord of dreams, and a magician with the capacity to carry lead us into the realm of sleep and dream. Then we move into a delightful dialogue that I think you will enjoy. You can find Rubin's bio and contact info below. Rubin Naiman, PhD, FAASM, is a psychologist, author, Fellow in the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and clinical assistant professor of medicine at the University of Arizona's Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine where he has taught seminars on sleep and dreams to physicians for twenty-five years. Rubin pioneered the development of integrative approaches to sleep and dreams, integrating scientific with depth psychological, transpersonal, and spiritual perspectives. He has taught and consulted about sleep and dream matters in a dozen countries around the globe.Over the years, his work has included training doctoral psychology students, dreamwork with hospice patients and survivors, and establishing and directing sleep and dream health programs for Canyon Ranch and Miraval Resorts. Rubin has also served as a creativity consultant for the entertainment industry, which included travel with a world-renowned rock band for two years.Rubin is the author of numerous consumer and professional works on sleep and dreams including Healing Night: The Science and Spirit of Sleeping, Dreaming and Awakening, Hush: A Book of Bedtime Contemplations, Healthy Sleep, an audio program co-authored with Andrew Weil.More recently, he published a seminal paper in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences entitled, Dreamless: The Silent Epidemic of REM Sleep Loss as well as Oxford University Press Medical text chapters entitled, Dream Medicine and The Future of Sleep Medicine.In his spare time, Rubin is an avid hiker and amateur photographer. He has about seven grand kids and believes that children and dogs offer the greatest hope for the betterment of our planet.Rubin Naiman, PhD, FAASMDirector, NewMoon Sleep, LLCClinical Assistant Professor of Medicine Andrew Weil Center for Integrative...

We begin with a story, and thread all the way through the meaning of enlightenment, and the need to receive initiation into the mysteries of life, follow a path of joy, cultivate reverence for wisdom and wildness, and truly realize the inconceivable interwovenness of all things.

Love is a trainable skill, and luck is an inevitable ingredient in our lives. Our current science challenges the notion of the sovereign individual, the importance of love, and the need for a paradigm shift. The Harvard Study of Adult Development goes together with other data to invite us to question the nature and the role of love, luck, and the true wealth of nations. The Harvard Study also supports the need for a new kind of science.

In this episode we rewrite the headlines: Massive Harvard Study Reveals the True Wealth of Nations. What is the true wealth of nations? Isn't it gross domestic product?And if nations are comprised of people, what is our true wealth?We're thinking through the true wealth of nations in relation to our last contemplation. At that time, we considered the famous Grant Study, more formally known as the Harvard Study of Adult Development. If you haven't heard about the study, it's worth listening to that other contemplation of it first.The present contemplation considers the paradigm shift we would need in order to make sense of the Harvard study—a revolution in our science and society, all in relation to the Gospel of Love that our science and our wisdom traditions now agree on.

It's an impressive study, the longest scientific study of adult development, conducted across decades (it started in 1938). Referred to as the Grant Study or the Harvard Study of Adult Development, this famous research program has gotten several rounds of press.But the press coverage seems to miss something incredibly vital and far-reaching in this study. Even the books have failed to make it clear. In a way, we could suggest the lead researchers of the study missed this finding—didn't notice it, didn't fully grok it, or didn't understand how crucial it is.This unstated finding is the most important finding about happiness and a meaningful and fulfilling life that we have.

A contemplation of healing, wholeness, the challenges of suffering, and the paradoxes of success. We consider some of the essential questions: In what sense is life a self-healing truth? What is the nature of health and healing? What is the nature of sickness—our cultural sickness and our own mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical sickness? What is the role of nondoing in our healing and in our life?

In our culture, we have placed a set of habitual notions about time on top of the soul's instincts and intuitions about rhythm and temporality. The physicist David Bohm said that, “. . . every thought assumes time. Whether we discuss thought or anything else, we always take time for granted. And we take for granted the notion that everything exists in time. We don't take for granted that time is an abstraction and a representation, but we take for granted that time is of the essence—reality—and that everything is existing in time, including thought.” What if we have some very unskillful notions about time? What if the evolution of our culture depends on shifting our relationship with time?

Leslie Ellis, Ph.D.,RCCAuthor, A Clinician's Guide to Dream Therapyhttps://drleslieellis.comA delicious discussion of the importance of dreams and some of the basics of how to approach them. Dr. Ellis wrote a book called, A Clinician's Guide to Dream Therapy that provides a highly accessible, yet insightful education on the nature of dreams and how to work with them. By offering a unified model, Dr. Ellis makes it possible for all of us (clinicians and non-clinicians) to begin to understand the importance of dreams, and to begin to work with them so as to receive the profound gifts they can bring to our own life and the life of the world we share.Dr. Leslie Ellis is a leading expert in the use of experiential and somatic approaches in psychotherapy, in particular for working with dreams and nightmares. She is the author of A Clinician's Guide to Dream Therapy, has a PhD in Clinical Psychology and worked as a therapist in private practice in Vancouver, BC for more than 25 years.She is a certifying coordinator and former president of The International Focusing Institute, and incorporates this gentle yet profound method of internal inquiry into her method of engaging with dreams. Leslie now offers dream study programs online, certifying clinicians in her unique method of embodied experiential dreamwork. She also teaches with the Jung Platform and the Polyvagal Institute.Find out more: https://drleslieellis.com

A little singing and swearing, to help us arrive at our awesome presence.Humus, humility, homo sapiens, and Om share a common root, and considering their interwovenness can help us to touch our basic dignity. In this contemplation, the first to have both swearing and singing, we look at some elements of the dominant culture's way of living that indicate how Nature has gotten pushed into the shadow. We consider the architectural manifestos of Hundertwasser, the memories of Jung, and the teachings of world philosophers who seek to help us find our awesome presence, even in the most mundane or seemingly profane activities of life.

Jung made at least two incredible discoveries. He wrote about one of them, and we discussed it in our first episode in this series. The other discovery appears nowhere in his writings, but it may have been his greatest by far.In this contemplation of the shadow we ask some questions, take a kind of inventory, that can help us detect the presence of the shadow so that we could begin to bring light to its contents. But first we consider some of what we need to have in place in order to work skillfully with our unconscious, including a sense of the soul or psyche that transcends even Jung's vision.As part of our contemplation, we consider an artefact related to Jung that many people haven't heard about, but which we should take time to consider. This is an episode you don't want to miss, as it brings us to the place where philosophy, psychology, and spirituality (including ecology and a sense of the Cosmic and the mysterious) come together.