Existential Tetherball

Hi friends! In episode five, Gordon & Rachel welcome their friend BK. The conversation explores the concept of pilgrimage as a transformative journey. Together, the group dives into the meaning of pilgrimage by exploring and sharing experiences, learnings, and the archetypes associated with pilgrimage. Also discussed: the distinction between structured/un and intentional/un pilgrimages, the sacredness of pilgrimage and the meaning of sacred. Through storytelling, BK, Gordon, and Rachel also touch on the call and magnestism of pilgrimage as well as pilgrimage as a form of ritual, containment, and integration. In short, you can expect delightful stories, curiosity, and a wonderful group jam sesh highlighting the profound impact of pilgrimage on personal growth and transformation.

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction to Pilgrimage
• 12:06 Archetypes of Pilgrimage
• 18:01 Structured, Unstructured, Intentional, Unintentional Pilgrimages
• 26:02 Personal Pilgrimage Experiences
• 35:04 Pilgrimage as Rituation and Containment
• 42:09 Growth and New Abilities
• 52:07 The Pilgrim's Journey

Episode FOUR - can you believe it? (We can't.)

This episode focuses on story, narrative, and "awen" (the flow of creative inspiration), featuring Laura Hope-Gill (https://laurahopegill.com/). (FYI: Laura and Gordon both live in Asheville and have collaborated on a number of interesting creative projects.)

Together, Laura, Gordon, and Rachel jump into the wilderness of meaning related to story: living reality as a living story, and the transformative power of narrative and storytelling. As they journey together, they touch on "awen" (defined as creative flow, of Gaelic/Celtic orgins) and its significance in shaping our experiences of the inner world and of story. As they continue, the conversation explores sovereignty in one's relationship with story and the internalized narrator's identity and role in storytelling.

Little hops abound as we explore the dynamics and complexities of self and narrative/narration and "the inner narrator/s," (as well as TBI experiences, and the mysteries of 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald'). Laura shares pandemic project related to enlightment and notes that "achieving enlightment" as patriarchal and Rachel goes on to get ealthy individuation and the inner wilds, and the little hop and narrative medicine. Themes of narrative medicine, creative-imaginational intelligence, information and "exformation," as well as the inner wilds and the existential vagus nerve round out their collaborative jam.

Takeaways

• Stories as indicative of our relationship with our inner worlds, inner wilds
• Living reality as story, story as living reality
• Who's narrating? (Control, meta-identity, inclusion, and flow)
• The transformative power of storytelling
• Narrative Medicine and creative intelligence
• The "Little Hop"

Chapters

• 00:00 Story: Wavelengths & Channels
• 19:07 Awen: The Creative Flow
• 30:03 Sovereignty in Relationship with Story
• 36:19 Encountering the Inner Narrator
• 46:25 The Little Hop and Narrative Medicine
  
  

Our THIRD episode of Existential Tetherball is our FIRST episode with a guest! We're so stoked to have Bee Mayhew (https://missnomer.substack.com/) join us on an expansive co-exploration of "humanity."

To start, we dive into foundational definitions of humanity, taking the time to parse subject from judgment/imbued definitions of value. Bee also tells us a really funny story about getting hit in the face with a tetherball when she was a kid.

Rachel, Bee, and Gordon go on to discuss: sense of self, meta-identity of self and self as interrelatedness, as well as interrelateness beyond the "individual" – humanity as a collective of humans, humaning (in what context/s)?

From there, Bee introduces concepts of ecology and stigmergy, nodding to bees and ants and their intelligent collective coordination.

The triad riffs.

From there, it gets weirder (and more awesome?) as Rachel applies the idea of stigmergy to the ecosystemic self (and through time). Gordon then goes on to connect this idea to the internalized collective unconscious.

We all take a breath and laugh about how to spell "metric shitton." (Shitonne?)

And there's more: dynamic living systems, stewardship of aliveness, and core values as human yet unique in their meaning and context – pragmatic to explore together, no? ::winkyfaceemoji::

Allegiance to aliveness, stigmergy (collective coordination), and community emerge as key takeaways. The conversation delves into the concept of ethical social intelligence and its impact on humanity, exploring healthy individuation and the reimagining of societal systems through a paradigm that honors the influenced-influencing process.

The conversation concludes with a focus on giving a shit, self-attunement, reciprocity, and connections as essential elements of a thriving society.

Takeaways

• Fundamental Question: Who are We?
• Morality and Collective Self Concept
• Allegiance to Aliveness
• Stigmergy and Collective Coordination
• Ethical Social Intelligence
• Healthy Individuation for Healthy Collective (nod to Neurodiversity)

Chapters

• 00:00 Interrelatedness and Self-Understanding
• 19:03 The Internal Collective Unconscious and Dynamic Systems
• 24:16 Stewardship of Aliveness and Core Values
• 29:25 Ethical Social Intelligence
• 40:08 Reimagining Societal Systems
• 51:45 Community Resilience and Reciprocity
  
  The video Bee mentions in this episode: https://substack.com/@sequencebycosmos/note/c-197456719?r=4n4qq

Episode 2! In this episode, Gordon and Rachel dive into the squish and form that is the subject matter of this entire series – EXISTENTIAL. (So this episode is entirely meta-existential, tbh).

They start at the intersections of neurodiversity/neurodivergence and existential, exploring the relationship between academic philosophers, embodied subjective experiences, and fundamental questions of existence. They also dive into frameworks of intelligence and living processing (meaning-making), touching on the relationship between direct experience, symbolism and language, and structure/certainty. Along the way, they drive by and nod to uncertainty, safety, and identity, as well as expectations of others related to questioning and existential inquiry.

That's not all, though! They talk about existential health and the importance of auto-exploration of meaning, developing awareness practices, uncertainty tolerance, and the exploration of one's own "emotional interface." Bringing up the end of the convo is a jam on co-creating mutual understanding as necessary skillset, and the invitation to explore meaning via regular "existential hygine" for better relationships – self with self and self with others.

(Just a few) takeaways

• Neurodiversity paradigm and neurodivergence in relationship to existential intelligence and healthy
• The embodied subjective experience
• The exploration of existential questions as a fundamental aspect of the human experience
• Existential hygiene is the process of updating the operating system and its contents

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction to Neurodiversity and Existentialism
• 07:02 Exploring Meaning and Subjectivity
• 15:04 Fundamental Questions of Existence
• 22:48 Uncertainty, Safety, and Identity
• 51:02 Existential Hygiene

In this, our very first full episode of EXISTENTIAL TETHERBALL, Gordon and Rachel explore the concepts of neurodiversity and neurodivergence. They explore neurodiversity as a biological truism, a philosophy, a methodology, and a lens through which to understand human intelligence and unseen diversity.

Together, they explore a living, full-body definition of intelligence, and speak to the importance of contextualizing neurodivergence through the neurodiversity paradigm. Exploring simultaneous sameness, difference, and distinction at the meta level, they offer a practical way to go beyond dualisitic and power over ways of seeing, understanding, relating with ourselves and each other. Rachel and Gordon also explore going beyond reductionism: – the medical model in relationship to the neurodiversity paradigm, self-acceptance and liberation at the identity and relational levels, the lived experience of neurodivergent people, inner and outer authority, and healthy individuation for a healthy ecology.

Takeaways

• Neurodiversity as a philosophy and methodology
• Full-body intelligence
• Living definition of intelligence
• Neurodivergence as a living expression of uncommon human processing and intelligence
• The liberation offered by the neurodiversity paradigm
• Gordon and Rachel are pretty awesome