Dangerous Wisdom

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 1

We 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.net

and learn about her book at: www.summonedbytheearth.org

Video version here: https://youtu.be/FtDBx1IBkoA

A 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/phylliscurott

Instagram: 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/