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Circle For Original Thinking
Hosted by Glenn Aparicio Parry
Welcome to Circle for Original Thinking, America’s electronic talking circle for visionary thinkers, an open forum for fresh ideas and timeless wisdom applied to today’s political and ecological challenges. Each week we bring together creative thinkers from a variety of different traditions, asking the hard questions on the important issues of the day: political polarization, climate change, virulent viruses, and other symptoms of humanity being out of balance with the natural world. Our goal is to create a new and improved version of E Pluribus Unum, from the many to the one—and this time not leave anybody out. Join us as we embark on this quest.
The World is As You Dream it with Bill Pfeiffer and John Perkins
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We live in an era when nearly every governor, state congressperson, or mayor supports maximum economic growth.
It doesn’t matter what party you are from – or whether you support lower taxes or more social programs. Economic growth covers up all sins. Increasingly, it does not matter what country you are from. Economic growth is promoted as the way forward, the way to becoming more prosperous, the way to becoming a more “developed” nation. But economic growth is not the answer. In the words of Oren Lyons, we are acting like jockeys, whipping our horses to go faster and faster, unaware that the finish line is a brick wall.
How do we get people to understand: We cannot grow infinitely on a finite planet. How do we get people to understand that without fertile soil, clean air and water, all life is endangered, including human life. When will we remember that humans are made of light, air, water, and earth – that what we do to the elements we do to ourselves?
Why has the Western developed world – ever since the industrial revolution – been relentlessly pursuing progress? Why do we put our short-term economic goals first while ignoring the despoilation of the planet? It is not out of malice. It is not entirely out of fear, racism, or greed. It is more that we don’t know a different way. We had a dream – a belief that increased goods and services made for a higher standard of living – and that was all that mattered. We have been chasing that dream ever since. In our dream, we don’t count our blessings. What we have now is insufficient. We want more – the more the better, and the faster we get there and the more convenient the better.
Fortunately, my two honored guests know this is not the only way to live. They have met people who have another dream and it has changed the way they live. All over the world, Indigenous peoples carry a dream that sees all of creation as our relatives – a dream that respects the right of everything to exist. A dream that sees a way to live life differently, a way to perceive differently, a way to look at the world in a joyful, ecstatic manner – a way to be fully alive!
What will it take to change our dream? How do we dance and sing a new reality into being? Join us as we delve into this with John Perkins and Bill Pfeiffer.
BIOS
Bill Pfeiffer aka “Sky Otter” is the founder of Sacred Earth Network (SEN) which continues to implement leading edge visions for over 25 years. In that time, Bill has made Russia a second home having traveled there 44 times assisting the environmental and indigenous movements through SEN. This has given him a rare cross-cultural perspective. He has also led hundreds of spiritual ecology workshops, including men’s and breath work. He has 25 years of experience in Re-evaluation Counseling and Vipassana meditation, and has undergone extensive training with Siberian shamans. Bill has partnered with and designed experiential workshops with Joanna Macy, John Perkins, Llyn Roberts, Cathy Pedevillano, and John Seed. He has also spent much time in the US Southwest learning about Native medicine ways and the crucial importance of the petroglyphs and pictographs. His book, “Wild Earth, Wild Soul: A Manual for an Ecstatic Culture” has been met with high acclaim. I’ve read the book and reviewed it for Amazon. The first 50 pages alone are an important summary of Western civilization and what needs to change. John Perkins, a kindred spirit, wrote the Foreword.
John Perkins began his career as a “Chief Economist” at a major international consulting firm, advising the World Bank, United Nations, IMF, U.S. Treasury Department, Fortune 500 corporations, and countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. He worked directly with heads of state and CEOs of major companies.
He wrote about all this in his first book with the provocative title “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” – one of the most eye-opening true stories you can ever read to find out how the world really operates, and of John’s role in creating that, which he came to regret.
The book was on the NY times best seller list for 73 weeks. John has lectured at Harvard, Oxford, and more than 50 other universities around the world. He has been featured on ABC, NBC, CNN, NPR, A&E, the History Channel, Time, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Der Spiegel, and many other publications, as well as in numerous documentaries including “The End of Poverty?”, “Zeitgeist Addendum”, and “Apology of an Economic Hit Man”.
John was was moved to be a founder and board member of Dream Change and The Pachamama Alliance, tremendous nonprofit organizations devoted to establishing a world that future generations will want to inherit. It is this work that has led to special recognition = such as the Lennon Ono Grant for Peace, and Rainforest Action Network Challenging Business As Usual Award.
Economic Hit Man and his other books: “New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”, “Touching the Jaguar – The World is As You Dream It”, “Psychonavaigation”, “Spirit of the Shuar”, and “Secret History of the American Empire” have sold more than two million copies.
Touching the Jaguar (2020) tells the story of John’s journey from Amazonian shaman to economic hit man and then social/environmental activist. The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2016), a follow-up to the classic New York Times bestseller, brings the story of economic hit men and jackal assassins up to date and chillingly home to the U.S. It goes on to provide practical strategies for each of us to transform the failing global death economy into a regenerative life economy.
Our host, Glenn Aparicio Parry, PhD, of Basque, Aragon Spanish, and Jewish descent, is the author of Original Politics: Making America Sacred Again (SelectBooks, 2020) and the Nautilus award-winning Original Thinking: A Radical Revisioning of Time, Humanity, and Nature (North Atlantic Books, 2015). Parry is an educator, ecopsychologist, and political philosopher whose passion is to reform thinking and society into a coherent, cohesive, whole. The founder and past president of the SEED Institute, Parry is currently the director of a grass-roots think tank, the Circle for Original Thinking and is debuting this podcast series of the same name in conjunction with Ecology Prime. He has lived in northern New Mexico since 1994. www.originalpolitics.us