Emergent Potential – The Sickness is Medicine
In session five we turn from an inquiry into the causes of suffering to an inquiry into the path that ends suffering. We open to the curious potential of climate change to heal our delusions and set us in Right Relationship with all other being. We can ground ourselves in wisdom, very new and very old, that illuminates our sacred place in the universe, our deep interdependence with Earth’s biosphere and the emergent power of each of us, in our unique response to the cries of the world, to enact healing. We might see the unification of our diverse struggles through the lens of systems theory and environmental justice. The development of a positive, “transformationalist” identity that understands its location in the landscape of privilege and employs it for justice is in itself a powerful new story.
NOTE: This session’s recording is especially long at 2 hours by itself, without time for the one breakout session and includes a 45 minute conversation with series hosts Thanissara and Kristin Barker on the “Darkness in the Womb.” For those coordinating groups, you might want folks to listen to at least part of those recordings ahead of your gathering.
Session Leaders
Rev angel Kyodo williams is a teacher, author, activist, master trainer and leader. She is the author of Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living With Fearlessness and Grace. Williams is the Spiritual Director of the meditation-based newDharma Community and founder of the Center for Transformative Change in Berkeley, California[3] and is also credited with developing fearlessMeditation, fearlessYoga and Warrior Spirit Training. More at the Center for Transformative Change.
Tiokasin Ghosthorse is from the Cheyenne River Lakota (Sioux) Nation of South Dakota and the bands of Itazipco/Mnicoujou and Oglala. He is the host of First Voices Indigenous Radio on WBAI NY – Pacifica Radio. Tiokasin has been described as “a spiritual agitator, natural rights organizer, Indigenous thinking process educator and a community activator.” One reviewer called him “a cultural resonator in the key of life.”
Session Resources
Homework to prepare for this session:
- If you haven’t already, listen to the interview with DaRa Williams from session 4
- White environmental folks in the US especially need to be aware of the impact of cultural appropriation, sensitively explored in Wanting to be Indian: When Spiritual Searching Turns to Cultural Theft (PDF)
- Article: Winona LaDuke In the Time of the Sacred Places (also in the collection Spiritual Ecology)
Session audio recording: (1:57)
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- 0:00–8:15: Introduction to session 5 — Thanissara
- 8:16–22:02: Deconstructing our view — Rev. angel
- 22:03–41:34: Language and perspective — Tiokasin
- 41:35–34:54: The scramble for “me” and in that separate — Rev. angel
- 46:03–48:08: Breakout session 1
- How is that I hold on, keeping myself from letting go into trust of Mother Earth. Where in my own life can I take spiritual risk?
- 48:09–58:32: Harvest → Self-definition, hierarchy and objectifying our world — Tiokasin
- 58:32–1:07:00: Origins of domination — Rev. angel
- 1:07:01–1:20:20: Harvest → Questioning disconnection and the Expanding Mysteriousing — Tiokasin
- 1:20:20–1:26:55: The koan of questioning our thinking language — Rev. angel
- 1:26:56–1:50:46: 2016 Science and Policy Update — Lou
- 1:50:47–1:54:15: Closing — Kristin, Thanissara
- 1:54:16–1:57:15: Dedication of Merit — Thanissara
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Session Transcript (original 2015 version): [download id=”4396″] (PDF)
Optional Follow-Up Resources:
- Pledge: Standing with Standing Rock : Solidarity for the Water Protectors
- Radio Program: First Voices Indigenous Radio hosted By: Tiokasin Ghosthorse – WBAI.org/archives, after “Display” choose “First Voices Indigenous Radio” and then “Go”
- Website: Center for Transformative Change
- Poem:“How to Write the Great American Indian Novel” by Sherman Alexie. A humorous and necessarily disturbing description of white mythology regarding American Indian culture.
- Video: Dr. Michael Yellow Bird: Decolonizing the Mind
- Book: The Smell of Rain on Dust by Martin Prechtel. Martin was interviewed by Tiokasin for the First Indigenous Voices Radio broadcast on September 10, 2015
- Website: Idle No More
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