Cafe

Buy From Art.com

Around the Web, Around the World

"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

What is Shadow Work?

What is Shadow Work, really? Psychologically speaking the Shadow is an unconscious aspect of one's personality that the conscious ego judges, fears or rejects to the degree that it does not identify the Shadow as part of the itself. Shadow work implies not only a shift of consciousness or insight, but also the transformation of the relationship that is dominated by judgment and fear. When people talk about doing shadow work they are largely talking about gaining insight through noticing shadow behaviors. "But shadow behaviors are not the Shadow itself self," explains host and shaman, Christina Pratt. "The focus is on a symptom and not the source. This means the sincere work of transformation results largely in a spiritual bypass. This relieves the conscious ego, which will not need to change after all, and leaves the Shadow Self largely intact, to undermine our conscious efforts and lay out a seductive path of self-destruction yet again."

Tuesday, March 25, 2014 at 11:00 AM Pacific

Log on to Listen
Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
Questions? Comments? Call: 1-512-772-1938

All episodes are now available in the iTunes Podcast Library.

Cafe

Around the Web, Around the World

"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Adults in a Culture of Children with Sparrow Hart

What will it take for men and women to return from their respective circles, respective retreats on the mountain, and respective "Wisdom Schools" and begin to seriously work together to create a world our descendants will be happy and proud to inherit? Join us this week when Sparrow Hart, author of Letters to the River-A Guide to a Dream Worth Living, joins host and shaman, Christina Pratt to explore how we move from a culture of adult children focused on "me" and materialism, and gender wars into a culture of adults who are passionate about the gifts they have to give, committed to something larger than their self, and longing to come together to create a better world. Sparrow, a father and author, leads Vision Quests year round, is the founder of Circles of Air, Circles of Stone, creator of the Mythic Warrior Training, and founder of the annual Men's Wisdom Council at the Rowe Conference Center.

This week's guest:
Sparrow Hart

Founder of Circles of Air, Circles of Stone, Sparrow Hart undertook his first wilderness rite of passage in 1971, a five-month solo pilgrimage in the Cascades and Canadian Rockies, and enacted his first vision quest in 1980. Sparrow has been leading 6-8 vision quests per year in Vermont and the American Southwest since 1987 and the completion of his training at the School of Lost Borders with Steven Foster and Meredith Little, authors of "The Book of the Vision Quest".

He is a father, writer, creator of the Mythic Warrior Training, founder of the annual Men's Wisdom Council at the Rowe Conference Center, and a frequent workshop leader around the country. His work is firmly in the tradition of "joining Earth and Sky;" bringing spiritual life out of the heavens and into the nitty-gritty issues we face daily, and affirming the sacredness of the emotional, imaginative, and sensual landscapes we travel on our individual soul journeys. He is the author of "Letters to the River: A Guide to a Dream Worth Living".

Hart's work comes out of his own experience. His personal journey includes a wide range of shamanic practices; apprenticeship with the Native American teacher, Sun Bear; dream exploration; the twelve steps; psychodrama, inner child work, and a long immersion in the Toltec and Castaneda tradition. He aspires to be a simple human being, a man on his journey, a person of the earth; and he's recognized as having a unique ability to make the ancient teachings of the connectedness of all life relevant to our modern and personal worlds.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014 at 11:00 AM Pacific

Log on to Listen
Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
Questions? Comments? Call: 1-512-772-1938

All episodes are now available in the iTunes Podcast Library.

Bill Maher on Noah and his Genocidal God

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

I like Bill Maher. His New Atheist views less so. I think his views on religion are often under-informed and facile. That said, I find little to disagree with in his latest anti-religious rant. It is a little frightening that so many in the US take Biblical myths literally. Maher claims that 60% of Americans believe Noah's Ark is a true story. I assume this isn't in the sense that it is reflective of similar catastrophe myths found around the globe or that it probably derives very directly from the Sumerian legend of Utnapishtim.

The statistic Maher cites most likely comes from a 2004 ABC poll. That same study found that literal belief is strongest among evangelical Christians, much as one would expect. But this is always the problem with New Atheist arguments. They focus on their direct nemeses, those as dogmatic in their views as they themselves are. And, in fairness, there really is no arguing that literal belief in this story poisons our thinking for the central reason Maher states. This Old Testament god they worship is a genocidal maniac. Belief in such a god sets the stage for all manner of cruelty and consciously or unconsciously justifies atrocities.

Joseph Campbell has said much the same and I have cited the following more than once. Maher just says it funnier.

[The Bible is] the most over-advertised book in the world. It's very pretentious to claim it to be the word of God, or accept it as such and perpetuate this tribal mythology, justifying all kinds of violence to people who are not members of the tribe.

The thing I see about the Bible that's unfortunate is that it's a tribally circumscribed mythology. It deals with a certain people at a certain time. The Christians magnified it to include them. It then turns this society against all others, whereas the condition of the world today is that this particular society that's presented in the Bible isn't even the most important. This thing is like a dead weight. It's pulling us back because it belongs to an earlier period. We can't break loose and move into a modern theology.

One of the great promises of mythology is, with what social group do you identify? How about the planet? To say that the members of this particular social group are the elite of God's world is a good way to keep that group together, but look at the consequences! I think that what might be called the sanctified chauvinism of the Bible is one of the curses of the planet today.

Cafe

Around the Web, Around the World

"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Life and Death: Authenticity in Shamanism

Those who engage in life and live it to its fullest, die many, many small deaths. When we live fully, learning, healing, and expressing who we truly are then the person we have been is regularly outmoded by our growth. Death is necessary if we are to move authentically in the world. Nowhere is this more important than in our shamanic practice and our choice of shamans to help us. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores our misconceptions of what makes shamanism "real." Authenticity in shamanism requires the sacrifice of contemporary sense of entitlement. Authenticity requires sacrifice of the old mind and ideas of individuality and separation for the greater awareness of the interconnectivity of all things. Authenticity requires sacrifice of the old heart and feelings of selfish, need-based love for selfless surrender to the calling to serve the people and the planet and the times we live in.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014 at 11:00 AM Pacific

Log on to Listen
Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
Questions? Comments? Call: 1-512-772-1938

All episodes are now available in the iTunes Podcast Library.

Anthony Peake on Philip K. Dick and the Nature of Reality

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Note to self: Read more Anthony Peake and Philip K. Dick.

Sometimes I think the only way to tell the truth is to write SF and Fantasy. This is a fascinating interview... more of an Anthony Peake monologue with a few interruptions, really, and all the more excellent for it. Recommended.

Pope Francis Sex Abuse FAIL

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Pope Francis has delighted many, myself included, as the kinder, gentler pontiff. But I've said from the outset that when it comes to Catholic leadership the sex abuse crisis is where the rubber meets the road. So when His Holiness addressed the crisis with the same tired rap we've been hearing from Church apologists for years, he brought predictable disappointment and outrage.

When challenged in an interview about his less than proactive response to the crisis, his reaction was to rest on the laurels of all the progress the Church has made. And in a second thoroughly typical reply he deflected criticism of the Catholic Church by making vague statements about how badly everybody else has handled the issue.

“The Catholic Church is perhaps the only public institution that moved with transparency and responsibility,” the pope continued, arguing that most abuse occurs in the home or other community environments. “No one else did as much. And yet, the church is the only one being attacked.”

Does the Catholic Church train its clerics in self-righteous blame throwing?

I suppose if fighting one costly legal battle after another to protect files, cataloging decades of complicated schemes to protect pedophile priests, can be called "transparency," the Catholic Church could be called transparent. I just don't think most people define it that way.

Rhode Island Legionaries to Face Lawsuit

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

A lawsuit against the Rhode Island chapter of the Legion of Christ will proceed. A previous lawsuit, discussed here, here, and here, was dismissed on the basis that the plaintiff lacked legal standing to bring the suit. That case is on appeal. As discussed Mary Lou Dauray's lawsuit inspired reporters to seek and win a treasure trove of documents pertaining to the Legion of Christ. They revealed the organization's long history of concealing its founder's many abuses and its pattern of extracting large sums of money from its devotees.

Enter Paul Chu whose father also willed a sizable donation to the Rhode Island Legion.

A federal judge in Rhode Island has agreed to let a lawsuit move forward against the Roman Catholic religious order the Legion of Christ, turning down an attempt by the disgraced order to end the lawsuit brought over a late Yale University professor's $1 million bequest.

. . .

It's the second lawsuit making its way through the courts in Rhode Island that raises questions about how the Legion secured large donations from elderly supporters. The other is in state court and involves around $60 million left by a wealthy widow. It was dismissed because the judge found the woman's niece did not have standing to sue, but a state Supreme Court appeal is pending.

In the federal lawsuit, Chu, the son of retired mechanical engineering professor James Boa-Teh Chu, says his father was wrongly coerced, defrauded and deceived into signing over $1 million to $2 million to the Legion before he died in 2009. He says his father, who lived in East Providence, R.I., was led to believe the Legion's founder, the late Rev. Marcial Maciel, was a saint, even as the Vatican was investigating serious sexual abuse allegations about him.

Cafe

Buy From Art.com

Around the Web, Around the World

"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Visions and Illusions: Authenticity in Shamanism

Are your visions just illusions? Are your dreams really just fantasies? How do we know that our connection with spirit is authentic? Regardless of type of altered state, whether waking or dreaming, light or deep, induced by rhythm or sacred plants, ultimately it will have to be made intelligible through the mind. And the contemporary mind is filled to over-flowing with many things, mostly all entirely not shamanic. The contemporary, Western-trained mind is not prepared for authentic shamanic experience. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores what makes shamanism of any kind "authentic" and how we cultivate the connection with the invisible world necessary for the accurate interpretation of the information found there. Authenticity in shamanism is more than a set of skills with an academic pedigree or a bloodline or being one of the chosen messengers of Aya. Authenticity in shamanism requires sacrifice of self.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014 at 11:00 AM Pacific

Log on to Listen
Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
Questions? Comments? Call: 1-512-772-1938

All episodes are now available in the iTunes Podcast Library.

Sexy Jesus, Pt. II: The Gallery

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Well, it took years, a Portuguese sex symbol, and a trending hashtag, but they finally got there. The major media has noticed the strange tendency to portray Jesus as the sexy white guy he almost definitely wasn't. Well, he might have been sexy. We don't really know. But white, not so much.

Son of God has been doing big box office as the striking Diogo Morgado reprises his role from The Bible. But strangely it seems the first time the press has seriously entertained the question: Why is Jesus so sexy?

It's something I've been asking for quite some time. Why is Jesus always hot? He was kind to prostitutes and adultresses, so the story goes, but never had sex with any of them. He never had sex at all. Any suggestion that he may have sends the Vatican into a full-blown tizz.

There is something deeply disturbing about these endless portrayals of Jesus as a very handsome -- and emotionally available -- but asexual man. Yet, Jesus has been dead sexy down through the ages.