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This episode introduces the roles of the essential qualities of skillful means, development, applying skillful means to development, intentional practice, seeking broader and deeper perspectives, the power and paradox of silence, truth, and love.
Continuing our discussion of cultural givens, we look at Thomas Merton’s 1967 language: “…the anonymous authority of the collectivity…” and Ken Wilber’s “…the [modern] structure itself that is speaking through him—this vast intersubjective network is speaking through him.” We ignore our cultural givens at our own risk, again, not that everything given is wrong, but that some of what is given needs to be updated, revised or let go.
Cultural givens, in the broadest meaning of the word “cultural,” give us our earliest vision of the world in which we live. Sometimes they’re accurate, sometimes they’re inaccurate, and they are always partial. It’s our job, often beginning in adolescence, to challenge what we’re given and see how it holds up against our direct experience of life.
The nine elements of American Shadow referred to in the book.
What Shadow is (and is not) as it’s referred to in the book.
How ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ are used in the book, and intros to five significant histories that are examples of America’s collective national Shadow.
Reggie takes a deeper dive into how the word “healing” is used throughout the book.
First in a series, in this video Reggie unpacks the language in the book’s title and subtitle.
Reggie, Kent, and King in conversation about Healing America’s Narratives.
Healing America's Narratives 