Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Sobonfu Some – Part 2: The Gifts of Intimacy, Relationship and Appreciation as Evolution’s Essence
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Sobonfu Some – Part 2: The Gifts of Intimacy, Relationship and Appreciation as Evolution’s Essence
Appreciations:
“Thank you Duncan for all the ways that you are enabling people to share their wisdom, and also for holding the torch for everybody to know how to find their way, and for just having a golden heart. I just so appreciate you. It is always so great to talk to you and to see the bright light you always shine on so many different subject matters. So thank you.” - Sobonfu Some
“For all that you’ve done Sobonfu I just want to honor you and just thank you. It’s been such a pleasure just to get to know you. And what I really appreciate about you is your ability to feel the depth of all of this range of challenges and sorrow and isolation, and as you put it loneliness and boredom, that are part of our world and yet find this beautiful sunny brilliance of spirit and humor especially to share with the world as you have.” - Duncan Campbell
“Living Dialogues are transformative! The very best "interviews" you will ever hear. Duncan Campbell, a world-class 'interviewer,' is sufficiently fascinating and well educated himself that he would make a good subject for an interview. His talent is to first, choose the great thinkers with whom to dialogue. He is then able to somehow not only 'see' the brilliance in each one, but to bring that out in his fantastic dialogues, which are more like a cosmic dance than an interview. Blessings are the result of experiencing the Living Dialogues. I highly recommend them. Five Stars!” - May 12, 2008, Sunshiny from Clarksville, Arkansas
Episode Description:
You can listen to and see the description of Part 1 of this 3-Part Dialogue on Program 55 on this site.
In this Part 2, Sobonfu and I dialogue about the foundational role of intimacy, relationships and appreciation in extending and bringing to fruition the initiations we spoke about in Part 1, and finding and living our purpose and how our name has a meaning. This also includes a fascinating and playful dialogue on the cross-cultural understanding of age from Sobonfu’s tradition, illuminating how to access a perception at once wise and childlike that sees and appreciates each new situation appropriately in its essence without judgmentalism. Black Elk, Brooke Medicine Eagle, Angeles Arrien, Henry Miller, Lao Tzu, and others find their way into these shared stories and perceptions.
Other programs you will find of immediate interest on these themes are the Dialogues I have had with Michael Meade (Programs 48-51), Angeles Arrien (Program 52), and Coleman Barks (Programs 53-54).
Here are some excerpts from this Part 2:
Duncan: In our prior dialogue we talked about your life and how you came here from the Dagara tribe in West Africa, landing originally in the middle of winter in Detroit, Michigan and the ways in which in that particular initiation you discovered the absence of community when you had to make a life directly here in a strange country and one really quite far removed from the intimacy of the small village life rich in ritual and wisdom of the old ways that you had come from in Africa. And since arriving here many years ago in 1991 you have not only learned English but you've shared the wisdom and beauty of your own experience and initiation and all of its challenges and ups and downs of initiation in several books, including one entitled "The Spirit of Intimacy: Ancient Teachings in the Ways of Relationships".
And in that book, given my own calling to dialogue and evolution, I was inspired by your focus on relationships. Because I think it’s a bridge to the deeper sense of community that you teach about and bring forth in your work…..the very multi-faceted deep way that you have talked about relationship as being part of a core of the human experience and one that you have found as Alice Walker put it, somewhat "broken" here in the West when you arrived.
Sobonfu: Right……Relationship really basically is something, its just like air that everybody needs. It’s just something that we all crave whether we are out in the street or somewhere in our private office or even being in the monastery. We all long to be loved, to be seen, to be valued…..acceptance is what we are looking for. When we are accepted we feel a part of something bigger. We feel doorways opening to us that we didn't know existed before. So the road to intimacy in my tradition not only include people, the environment you are in, but also Sprit, the Divine. Because no true intimacy can be without the present sense and the blessing of the Divine.
So as a result intimacy becomes like the foundation stone for each human being to step on, on which the relationship is going to be created. So for me, when I talk about intimacy, when I talk about my relationship, I am always look for what is the bigger purpose for me to encounter this person. What is Spirit wanting me to do here and so forth. However as much as the human ego would like it to be about us, it is not about us. It’s about something higher. It’s about trying to bring a gift out into the world. and that's why we encounter new people. Even if it’s a brief moment or a long-term relationship they all have their purpose. So for me, relationship, spirit, community, all go hand in hand because you cannot uphold a relationship all by yourself. You need the support of community and you need the support of Spirit and so forth.
Duncan: And one of the things I am think of as you are speaking Sobonfu is that in traditional societies all over the world from time in memorial there has been the recognition of the need for the human being to first leave the community in a kind of initiation of aloneness to see certain kinds of visions or images which reveal to the individual what their unique gift is in the world; their unique mission we might say. Before they then come back to be able to share that as a part of the piece of the larger puzzle of the community. And we think in modern times of Black Elk (as recounted in Black Elk Speaks) in his vision quest and his wonderful saying when he came back from his own alone time separated from he community and had his great vision he came back and said: "I understood more than I saw. And I saw more than I can say. And what I can say is that I saw the hoop of my people and the hoops of all peoples surrounding the central mountain, Mt. Harney” (that happens to be the sacred mountain in his particular geographic location of South Dakota in the United States). And then he said as Joseph Campbell put it the all important addendum: “but the central mountain is everywhere”.
And in that statement we see that this journey that human beings have made from time immemorial from the collective embrace of the womb of the mother, the womb of the family, the womb of the community out into a lonely journey of let us say adolescent initiation into the deeper mysteries of the world. And then the coming back into community, in maturity, and being able to embody one could say the sacred marriage of the inner masculine and the inner feminine and then to make a living marriage and to create new life so that the community of beings can continue in the great universal drama. Human and planetary evolution is something that has an inner structure that is similar everywhere in the world. And as each one of us tells his or her story about how they have gone through that great timeless initiation we add to each others storehouse of understanding and acceptance. And oddly enough it is often a gift of hearing someone else's story that allows each of us to accept ourselves more deeply than we have before.
Sobonfu: Right. Absolutely. I think those are the stories that are important because the circle is not always there for people to share their story. So in meeting somebody new and in them sharing their story, in us sharing our story, we have already created a bridge that is safe for each on of us to walk on. And also for us to be able to open and to share what is that gift is that we are bringing. That is what is so beautiful in this time when it’s possible for people to basically be able to travel everywhere, to meet new people and to share their story. And every single time that they have shared with somebody and they have also listened and received this story of the other person something new is born out of them. A new level of their gift begins to shine again. And that is that beauty that we are all searching for in sharing our own story.
Duncan: And that is precisely what we all do, in our mutual roles as host, deep listeners, and guests, when we gather together here from all parts of the globe in Living Dialogues.
After you listen to this Dialogue, I invite you to both explore and make possible further interesting material on Living Dialogues by clicking on the Episode Detail button at the top left of this program description, and by taking less than 5 minutes to click on and fill out the Listener Survey there (or click on the Listener Survey icon to the left of this column).
SUBSCRIBE HERE FOR FREE TO LIVING DIALOGUES AND IN THE COMING WEEKS HEAR DUNCAN CAMPELL’S DIALOGUES WITH OTHER GROUND-BREAKING TRANSFORMATIONAL THINKERS LISTED ON THE WEBSITE WWW.LIVINGDIALOGUES.COM. TO LISTEN TO PREVIOUS RELATED DIALOGUES ON THIS SITE, SCROLL DOWN ON THE LIVING DIALOGUES SHOW PAGE HERE -- OR CLICK ON THE NAME OF A GUEST ON THE LIST AT THE RIGHT -- TO HEAR DUNCAN’S DIALOGUES WITH DR. ANDREW WEIL, BRIAN WEISS, COLEMAN BARKS, RUPERT SHELDRAKE, LARRY DOSSEY, JUDY COLLINS, MARIANNE WILLIAMSON, MATTHEW FOX, JOSEPH CHILTON PEARCE, DEEPAK CHOPRA, BYRON KATIE AND STEPHEN MITCHELL, CAROLINE MYSS, GANGAJI, VINE DELORIA, JR., MICHAEL DOWD (THE UNIVERSE STORY OF THOMAS BERRY AND BRIAN SWIMME), STEVE MCINTOSH, FRANCES MOORE LAPPE, STANISLAV GROF, RICHARD TARNAS, MARC BEKOFF AND JANE GOODALL, RICHARD MOSS, PAUL HAWKEN, PAUL RAY, JOSEPH ELLIS, DUANE ELGIN, LYNNE MCTAGGART, ECKHART TOLLE, MICHAEL MEADE, ANGELES ARRIEN AND OTHER EVOLUTIONARY THINKERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD.
The best way to reach me is through my website: www.livingdialogues.com. Many thanks again for your attentive deep listening in helping co-create this program. All the best, Duncan.
View all episodes
By Duncan CampbellAppreciations:
“Thank you Duncan for all the ways that you are enabling people to share their wisdom, and also for holding the torch for everybody to know how to find their way, and for just having a golden heart. I just so appreciate you. It is always so great to talk to you and to see the bright light you always shine on so many different subject matters. So thank you.” - Sobonfu Some
“For all that you’ve done Sobonfu I just want to honor you and just thank you. It’s been such a pleasure just to get to know you. And what I really appreciate about you is your ability to feel the depth of all of this range of challenges and sorrow and isolation, and as you put it loneliness and boredom, that are part of our world and yet find this beautiful sunny brilliance of spirit and humor especially to share with the world as you have.” - Duncan Campbell
“Living Dialogues are transformative! The very best "interviews" you will ever hear. Duncan Campbell, a world-class 'interviewer,' is sufficiently fascinating and well educated himself that he would make a good subject for an interview. His talent is to first, choose the great thinkers with whom to dialogue. He is then able to somehow not only 'see' the brilliance in each one, but to bring that out in his fantastic dialogues, which are more like a cosmic dance than an interview. Blessings are the result of experiencing the Living Dialogues. I highly recommend them. Five Stars!” - May 12, 2008, Sunshiny from Clarksville, Arkansas
Episode Description:
You can listen to and see the description of Part 1 of this 3-Part Dialogue on Program 55 on this site.
In this Part 2, Sobonfu and I dialogue about the foundational role of intimacy, relationships and appreciation in extending and bringing to fruition the initiations we spoke about in Part 1, and finding and living our purpose and how our name has a meaning. This also includes a fascinating and playful dialogue on the cross-cultural understanding of age from Sobonfu’s tradition, illuminating how to access a perception at once wise and childlike that sees and appreciates each new situation appropriately in its essence without judgmentalism. Black Elk, Brooke Medicine Eagle, Angeles Arrien, Henry Miller, Lao Tzu, and others find their way into these shared stories and perceptions.
Other programs you will find of immediate interest on these themes are the Dialogues I have had with Michael Meade (Programs 48-51), Angeles Arrien (Program 52), and Coleman Barks (Programs 53-54).
Here are some excerpts from this Part 2:
Duncan: In our prior dialogue we talked about your life and how you came here from the Dagara tribe in West Africa, landing originally in the middle of winter in Detroit, Michigan and the ways in which in that particular initiation you discovered the absence of community when you had to make a life directly here in a strange country and one really quite far removed from the intimacy of the small village life rich in ritual and wisdom of the old ways that you had come from in Africa. And since arriving here many years ago in 1991 you have not only learned English but you've shared the wisdom and beauty of your own experience and initiation and all of its challenges and ups and downs of initiation in several books, including one entitled "The Spirit of Intimacy: Ancient Teachings in the Ways of Relationships".
And in that book, given my own calling to dialogue and evolution, I was inspired by your focus on relationships. Because I think it’s a bridge to the deeper sense of community that you teach about and bring forth in your work…..the very multi-faceted deep way that you have talked about relationship as being part of a core of the human experience and one that you have found as Alice Walker put it, somewhat "broken" here in the West when you arrived.
Sobonfu: Right……Relationship really basically is something, its just like air that everybody needs. It’s just something that we all crave whether we are out in the street or somewhere in our private office or even being in the monastery. We all long to be loved, to be seen, to be valued…..acceptance is what we are looking for. When we are accepted we feel a part of something bigger. We feel doorways opening to us that we didn't know existed before. So the road to intimacy in my tradition not only include people, the environment you are in, but also Sprit, the Divine. Because no true intimacy can be without the present sense and the blessing of the Divine.
So as a result intimacy becomes like the foundation stone for each human being to step on, on which the relationship is going to be created. So for me, when I talk about intimacy, when I talk about my relationship, I am always look for what is the bigger purpose for me to encounter this person. What is Spirit wanting me to do here and so forth. However as much as the human ego would like it to be about us, it is not about us. It’s about something higher. It’s about trying to bring a gift out into the world. and that's why we encounter new people. Even if it’s a brief moment or a long-term relationship they all have their purpose. So for me, relationship, spirit, community, all go hand in hand because you cannot uphold a relationship all by yourself. You need the support of community and you need the support of Spirit and so forth.
Duncan: And one of the things I am think of as you are speaking Sobonfu is that in traditional societies all over the world from time in memorial there has been the recognition of the need for the human being to first leave the community in a kind of initiation of aloneness to see certain kinds of visions or images which reveal to the individual what their unique gift is in the world; their unique mission we might say. Before they then come back to be able to share that as a part of the piece of the larger puzzle of the community. And we think in modern times of Black Elk (as recounted in Black Elk Speaks) in his vision quest and his wonderful saying when he came back from his own alone time separated from he community and had his great vision he came back and said: "I understood more than I saw. And I saw more than I can say. And what I can say is that I saw the hoop of my people and the hoops of all peoples surrounding the central mountain, Mt. Harney” (that happens to be the sacred mountain in his particular geographic location of South Dakota in the United States). And then he said as Joseph Campbell put it the all important addendum: “but the central mountain is everywhere”.
And in that statement we see that this journey that human beings have made from time immemorial from the collective embrace of the womb of the mother, the womb of the family, the womb of the community out into a lonely journey of let us say adolescent initiation into the deeper mysteries of the world. And then the coming back into community, in maturity, and being able to embody one could say the sacred marriage of the inner masculine and the inner feminine and then to make a living marriage and to create new life so that the community of beings can continue in the great universal drama. Human and planetary evolution is something that has an inner structure that is similar everywhere in the world. And as each one of us tells his or her story about how they have gone through that great timeless initiation we add to each others storehouse of understanding and acceptance. And oddly enough it is often a gift of hearing someone else's story that allows each of us to accept ourselves more deeply than we have before.
Sobonfu: Right. Absolutely. I think those are the stories that are important because the circle is not always there for people to share their story. So in meeting somebody new and in them sharing their story, in us sharing our story, we have already created a bridge that is safe for each on of us to walk on. And also for us to be able to open and to share what is that gift is that we are bringing. That is what is so beautiful in this time when it’s possible for people to basically be able to travel everywhere, to meet new people and to share their story. And every single time that they have shared with somebody and they have also listened and received this story of the other person something new is born out of them. A new level of their gift begins to shine again. And that is that beauty that we are all searching for in sharing our own story.
Duncan: And that is precisely what we all do, in our mutual roles as host, deep listeners, and guests, when we gather together here from all parts of the globe in Living Dialogues.
After you listen to this Dialogue, I invite you to both explore and make possible further interesting material on Living Dialogues by clicking on the Episode Detail button at the top left of this program description, and by taking less than 5 minutes to click on and fill out the Listener Survey there (or click on the Listener Survey icon to the left of this column).
SUBSCRIBE HERE FOR FREE TO LIVING DIALOGUES AND IN THE COMING WEEKS HEAR DUNCAN CAMPELL’S DIALOGUES WITH OTHER GROUND-BREAKING TRANSFORMATIONAL THINKERS LISTED ON THE WEBSITE WWW.LIVINGDIALOGUES.COM. TO LISTEN TO PREVIOUS RELATED DIALOGUES ON THIS SITE, SCROLL DOWN ON THE LIVING DIALOGUES SHOW PAGE HERE -- OR CLICK ON THE NAME OF A GUEST ON THE LIST AT THE RIGHT -- TO HEAR DUNCAN’S DIALOGUES WITH DR. ANDREW WEIL, BRIAN WEISS, COLEMAN BARKS, RUPERT SHELDRAKE, LARRY DOSSEY, JUDY COLLINS, MARIANNE WILLIAMSON, MATTHEW FOX, JOSEPH CHILTON PEARCE, DEEPAK CHOPRA, BYRON KATIE AND STEPHEN MITCHELL, CAROLINE MYSS, GANGAJI, VINE DELORIA, JR., MICHAEL DOWD (THE UNIVERSE STORY OF THOMAS BERRY AND BRIAN SWIMME), STEVE MCINTOSH, FRANCES MOORE LAPPE, STANISLAV GROF, RICHARD TARNAS, MARC BEKOFF AND JANE GOODALL, RICHARD MOSS, PAUL HAWKEN, PAUL RAY, JOSEPH ELLIS, DUANE ELGIN, LYNNE MCTAGGART, ECKHART TOLLE, MICHAEL MEADE, ANGELES ARRIEN AND OTHER EVOLUTIONARY THINKERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD.
The best way to reach me is through my website: www.livingdialogues.com. Many thanks again for your attentive deep listening in helping co-create this program. All the best, Duncan.