61 - Jamaica Stevens (On Crisis, Rebirth, Transformation)

This week’s guest is the inspirational badass Jamaica Stevens, key organizer for the Reinhabiting the Village project and Lucid University, and this show’s first pregnant guest (at the time of recording). We dive immediately into the deep end of our half-finished collective birthing process and how to navigate the difficult transition we’re all going through… http://www.jamaicastevens.com/ http://reinhabitingthevillage.com/jamaica-stevens/https://www.facebook.com/LucidUniversity/ We Discuss: • The collective ass-kicking and humbling and veil-lifting that’s upon us• Can America break up with itself and stay friends?• What is “the global village” in an age as splintered as ours?• Cooperative leadership and transcending the hero’s journey with its emphasis on individual growth and development• How to let go of a dream or vision when it’s time to let it die• How to process the grief of our ancestors, of our alienation and loss of place and undigested trauma• Grief as a teacher and a healer• Being born and reborn, again and again and again• How initiation needs both witness and community• Why we need elders for our rites of passage• How to get out of anthopocentric thinking about wisdom and connect to the vast majority of wisdom in the non-human world - looking to nature and asking it to teach us• Getting out of the mental attitude that we will understand the paradox…and BECOMING the paradox• The Epoch of the Steward and The Epoch of the Sage• Become what you already are Quotes: “Birth is not pretty. It’s not rainbows and unicorns. It’s ecstatic and one of the most profound experiences, but it’s also right there at the edge of life and death…there’s something so primal and cosmic at the same time about it, it will transform you.” “Only when we start embracing the responsibility of self and true accountability, to get into the shadow of our own beauty and tragedy and really get into our woundedness and limitation, and get into our healing on a personal level, and then start to work that on an interpersonal and community level, and learn better skills and tools for navigating conflict instead of avoiding conflict…” “Stop, drop, and roll, people. Put the fire out. Bring a little water. Go slow. Breathe deep. Own your shit. See another and find the connection of this incredible humanity that we all share.” “They’re going to look at me and say, ‘When the world was burning, what did you do? Did you keep planting trees? Did you learn to wield well your resources? Did you give up on us? Did you give up on your future and the potential for other generations to learn from the tragedies that we’ve created as humanity? Did you wizen up and face that so you don’t keep handing trauma down to the next generation? Did you become conscious?” “We ARE vulnerable. Interdependence is non-negotiable. And actually, your heart is liberated when you finally surrender to feeling.” “Our resistance actually creates more trauma than our learning to surrender.” “If we humble ourselves we might be able to soften and become pliable enough to find our way through this pressure point. You can’t stop it…how do you embrace it? How do you get on board with this rite of passage that we’re having and leverage it to make the most mighty moves you can?” “There’s no such thing as a brand new fresh beginning that isn’t in context or related to that which has been – and yet, we cannot go into uncharted territory trying to use a map from that which we’ve already mapped, thinking that that’s somehow going to guide us into something we’ve never experienced before.” “Looking only to the past will not get us into our future, but if we avoid looking to the past, our future will be riddled with the same mistakes.” “Would you plant trees that you’ll never eat the fruit of?” Get bonus content on PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/futurefossils. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit michaelgarfield.substack.com/subscribe