#208

How do we move ourselves - individually and collectively - from the broken Trauma Culture of our times, to the Initiation Culture that will allow us to step forward, healed and whole?
Alnoor Ladha is a friend of the podcast. We spoke to him way back in Episode #56 (Four Arrows Flying) and that podcast has remained one of my all-time favourites. So when I heard that he had co-written a book - PostCapitalist Philanthropy: Healing Wealth in the time of Collapse - with Lynn Murphy, it was the perfect opening to invite him - and Lynn - onto the podcast.
Because this groundbreaking, inspiring, insightful book is going to be one of those you'll want to read over and over again. As you'll hear in the podcast, it's grounded in the understanding that we hold our realities in our bodies, that we have been born into a trauma culture, even as we yearn for the our birthright and our legacy as inheritors of initiation cultures, with all the connections to ourselves, each other and the web of life this implies.
At a deeper level, what Lynn and Alnoor offer is the understanding that we are spiritual beings - mystical beings - first and foremost, and that if we can find the humility and the willingness to change, if we can bring ourselves to the web of life full open, and asking for help, the Animate Earth responds.
On a surface level, ittakes us on a journey from the history of wealth accumulation to the current logic of late-stage capitalism to the lived possibilities for other ways of knowing, sensing and being that can usher in life-centric models. These “ontological shifts” are at the heart of the text with their core message that, creating emerging realities is not simply about how we redistribute wealth or “fight power”, but rather, how we perceive and embody our actions in relationship to this dynamic, animate world.
Vandana Shiva says of the book, "Ladha and Murphy walk us through the deep logics of neoliberalism, the foundations of globalisation and the ideology of corporate free trade … the authors dissect philanthrocapitalism. And they indicate the possibilities of reclaiming the true economies of the gift, of solidarity, of caring and sharing. For now, I invite you to please read on as if Life depends on it."
Biographies:
Lynn Murphy is a strategic advisor for foundations and NGOs working in the geopolitical South. She was a senior fellow and program officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation where she focused on international education and global development. She resigned as a”‘conscientious objector” to neocolonial philanthropy. She holds an MA and PhD in international comparative education from Stanford University. She is also a certified Laban/Bartenieff movement analyst.
Listen to the full episode here or find out more and read the transcript at accidentalgods...

[@jacquesvincelette6692]

Do the era of trauma and the era of non-trauma co-exist and overlap or are they sequential?