00:03:18.920And I know that this can bring in different answers depending on who you are.
00:03:23.060For instance, a friend and inspiration of mine, Lila June, daughter of Danae, Cheyenne and European lineages, and a student of global cycles of violence and the destruction of cyclical relationships between human beings and nature, and then as well as the celebrated book Caliban and the Witch by Sylvia Friederike, they speak about how capitalism arose as an outgrowth to the trauma or madness of the genocidal witch hunts of European women.
00:03:49.920There also exists a breadth of literature tying the origins of capitalism to the Neolithic
00:03:55.260Revolution and the advent of social hierarchy, private property, and the accumulation of
00:04:28.640And definitely raise some big, big questions there.
00:04:32.200And I do think it's a good place to begin just by looking at this patterning instinct
00:04:36.700itself, which is this instinct that we humans have to pattern meaning into the world.
00:04:44.860And it's something, it's an instinct we share with other mammals, but we humans have it to a far greater degree.
00:04:51.720And it's the instinct that allows a little infant when she's born to learn language.
00:04:58.040For example, nobody tells her, hey, you know, you should listen to these words and make sense of them.
00:05:02.600But her patterning instinct patterns meaning into all the sounds and movements she feels around her until she begins to learn the language of her culture.
00:05:09.840And way back when, when humans, when modern humans first evolved and we started to develop language ourselves, this patterning instinct kind of drove us to look at the universe around the stars and all the stuff happening in nature around and to try to pattern some sense of meaning into it all.
00:05:30.920And that's what led to early myths. And every culture we've ever known throughout history has always needed to make some kind of meaning, pattern meaning into the world around us.
00:05:44.180And what's so important about that is that the patterns of meaning that different cultures have created from time immemorial have led to what their values are and ultimately led to what they've done and has shaped history and taken us to the present day.
00:05:58.940i'm wondering if you could touch on the significant phase transitions that led western
00:06:06.380thought to where it is now the emergence of the prefrontal cortex the neolithic revolution
00:06:11.820the scientific revolution and then the most recent global corporate takeover
00:06:16.580yes right exactly and it is very much this kind of layering just as you're as you're touching on
00:06:23.480I'll give just a really sort of high-level sense of how those layers happened, and then maybe we can sort of go deeper into whichever ones, you know, seem the most sort of the most important to look at.
00:06:36.140But so we first evolved this development of this prefrontal cortex, which is more involved in humans than any other mammals again, and that's really where the patterning instinct is kind of mediated, as they say in neuroscientists, say, in our brain.
00:06:51.920That's what led to language, which was probably the first major step in us becoming who we are today.
00:06:59.160Really, we then spent 95 percent of our history, our ancestors, as nomadic hunter-gatherers.
00:07:07.300And in each different sort of layer of meaning we put in the world, we created what I call root metaphors.
00:07:15.000and those metaphors essentially like where all the different ways in which we sort of make sense
00:07:20.040the kind of ramifications come from so the hunter-gatherers of our ancestors really saw
00:07:27.560nature as like a giving parent they just saw the universe as sort of like a big mother and father
00:07:33.420and all the creatures around them were spirits like part of the same family and that all changed
00:07:40.180very very drastically with the rise of agriculture which began about 12 000 years ago
00:07:46.540and it wasn't even so much the agriculture itself but what they call sedentism like humans
00:07:52.160settling in one place that led to things like rise in hierarchy in possessions and in the very
00:07:59.280notion of wealth and inequality and that's also most likely i'm pretty much convinced certainly
00:08:05.700where the patriarchy began at the same place so that's um that was maybe the single biggest step
00:08:13.580in all of human history that's uh emotions of agriculture and then i see other layers i see
00:08:19.000from that like big um civilizations arose all around the world but there was something very
00:08:25.860particular that happened about 2500 years ago in ancient greece that led to a more dualistic way
00:08:33.080of looking at things, which I see as a kind of seeds of everything that's happened in European
00:08:38.560culture and now global culture since then. And I'll just kind of jump forward and say that it
00:08:43.260was really the next big step that I see was the scientific revolution that happened in Europe in
00:08:49.280the 17th century. I think that is where we need to take a really close look, because some of the
00:08:54.920ideas that came from that, looking at like nature as a machine and the idea of conquering nature,
00:09:00.480really sowed the foundations for modern capitalism, which in itself we see kind of evolving in its
00:09:07.840thoughts in the 18th and 19th century, but then takes this huge leap in modern American history,
00:09:14.900starting about 100 years ago, the beginning of the 20th century. We see this whole kind of
00:09:19.980another transition shift to this sort of global corporate destruction of the natural world
00:09:26.880that we see around us happening right now.
00:09:30.540You detail that all cultures are underpinned by root metaphors
00:09:35.420that shape how people view and act in the world.
00:09:39.180While Western civilization's root metaphor became the conquest of nature,
00:09:44.480traditional Eastern cultures and indigenous cultures worldwide
00:09:47.460were framed upon more harmonious root metaphors.
00:09:51.760So could you elaborate on how root metaphors have come to function so strongly in human societies and how all root metaphors are inevitably inconclusive, given the vast complexity of the universe and the limitations of our human patterning?
00:10:10.500a way to get the sense of how every metaphor sort of includes some things and leaves other things
00:10:17.500out is just to think about what a pattern is in itself like when we apply our patterning instinct
00:10:23.680to anything what we basically do with a pattern like think of how we look at constellations in
00:10:28.380the night sky or whatever we include some points some sort of data points in that pattern and then
00:10:35.220we exclude others and that's what a pattern is it's including some things making them more relevant
00:10:40.200and then excluding others, we then begin to not even notice they're there because we're so focused
00:10:45.380on what our patterns show us. And that's what we do basically anytime we sort of use these core
00:10:51.060metaphors to make sense of the world. So for example, when we went into agriculture, that was
00:10:58.580this very hierarchical society then that people started to live in. And so then when they made
00:11:02.980sense of the universe and they sort of created this kind of root metaphor of the universe,
00:11:07.960and they sort of modeled their own lives on that and they started to see the universe as a hierarchy
00:11:12.940of the gods so everything became hierarchical and you had to do things like sacrifice to these gods
00:11:18.560just the same way that they might have had to pay taxes to the chief who had control over them
00:11:23.560and so those are the sort of things that happen so every time you have a root metaphor it begins to
00:11:29.160like have logical connections and steps which affect your behavior probably this most important
00:11:36.740metaphor that happened is that we look at the contrast between Western and traditional thoughts
00:11:42.500is when the ancient Greeks saw the universe as being this kind of split universe of a some sort
00:11:49.820of perfect dimension out there in the heavens that was unchanging and a world down here the
00:11:56.260physical world that was polluted and was always changing you couldn't trust and they saw humans
00:12:01.740as being split too they saw like this kind of a soul that was eternal that was our divinity that
00:12:07.360connected us with the perfection of the universe and our bodies which were also polluted and the
00:12:12.980soul was almost like entombed in the body and that was so different from any other way in which
00:12:19.800cultures viewed the humans and nature up until then so for example in traditional china you see
00:12:27.540a very different way of making sense of the world developing.
00:12:31.200They developed this root metaphor that was more like a harmonic web of life.
00:12:36.540So you will know, like if you're walking in the forest and you see a web, you know that
00:12:41.600just the slightest drop of water or a leaf just touching it will create this reverberation
00:12:50.500And the Chinese saw life itself like that.
00:12:53.440They saw the whole universe and the heavens, earth and humans as being connected like that.
00:12:59.540So if you see the universe like that, then it means that you need to be incredibly reverent and careful about every step you take because you know it's going to have these reverberations all around you.
00:13:12.100Whereas if you see basically nature as being kind of separate from humanity and the world as not being sacred because sacredness is up there in the heavens, then you have a very different view to how you treat the natural world.
00:13:26.100And that's the root metaphor that led to the Western way of thinking.
00:13:31.800Thinking about human history can be such a mind warp.0.71
00:13:37.200you know europe wasn't always so dominant and violent there was a time before the witch hunts0.70
00:13:44.780that that i like to believe in at least and it leads me to think back to the celebrated book
00:13:51.320the chalice and the blade by ryan eisler which traces back to incursions of violence you know
00:13:58.460and diminutive uh nomadic tribes bringing chaotic transformation to the egalitarian peaceful life
00:14:05.340giving communities of the Mediterranean, some which lasted into the Bronze Age. So how and
00:14:12.540when do you think violence and domination became so pervasive in the once diverse earth based
00:14:20.760cultures of Europe? I see kind of two phases to this. I do think that everywhere that agriculture
00:14:29.380developed, you do see a shift towards some form of a patriarchy. There are some exceptions to that.
00:14:37.420And just like Rianne talks about in her book, the very earliest cultures in agrarian cultures0.99
00:14:45.340were more matriarchal than they became. But I do think that we have to recognize that almost
00:14:52.560everywhere where people settled and the agricultural civilizations developed,
00:14:57.420they were pretty patriarchal and they were hierarchical and there was some level of violence
00:15:04.360but it went to a whole other level with exactly what Rian Trace is like there was this group
00:15:10.660of basically marauders they were known as the proto-Indo-Europeans and these were people who
00:15:18.120lived about probably six seven thousand years ago and it's most likely they were north of the
00:15:25.560Caspian Sea. And they were the first people to learn how to basically tame horses. And sort of
00:15:33.740all of a sudden, this whole new, like sort of military technology developed where they were
00:15:38.660able to sort of attack people using their horses. And they were also the first pastoralists.
00:15:43.900They began to sort of grow these massive sort of herds of early cows. And their whole culture
00:15:51.500It was based on this kind of pastoral set of values.
00:15:55.000And this was a very, very extreme sort of patriarchal dualistic view of looking at things.
00:16:01.120They were very focused on brothers guarding their herds together because if your wealth is all in these herds and other people attack your herd, you can lose everything overnight.
00:16:13.400So the sort of warrior mentality got to be really strong.
00:16:16.680And what's so fascinating is that they're called Proto-Indo-Europeans because nobody knows exactly for certain where they were.
00:16:24.560But you can trace languages from all different European languages and even Indian languages like Sanskrit.
00:16:31.200You can trace back to this group of people, which is why we kind of figure we're pretty sure as to where they were and when they were.
00:16:38.560And their languages themselves are very kind of dualistic.
00:16:42.280So an example I love to look at is they've got this kind of this word that is the root word for what we now use as words like right, which is also the word for rex or like regal, which is also the word for like raj you see in India.
00:17:00.280And there's this notion that sort of might is right, you know, that your sort of right hand is your strong hand. And there was this whole sort of right left dualism that they developed.
00:17:10.540And when they came to Europe, they really did change the whole cultural quality of European communities at that time.
00:17:19.460They basically – they conquered everywhere they went because they had these horse technologies.0.92
00:17:24.260They essentially destroyed the cultures that were there.0.93
00:17:27.180And even though genetically the people stayed the same group of people, the culture that took over and the language that took over came from these kind of violent, patriarchal, dualistic group of people.
00:17:42.700And that's where I think we see the modern worldview really emerging from.
00:17:46.740the world's full of people and they're all related to me i've got several million relatives in every
00:17:53.260country we are all descendants and extended family all the plants and the animals and all
00:18:00.120humanity a brother to the birds and a cousin to the trees i'm an uncle to the oceans and the
00:18:06.840fishes in the seas since we're all related i have got no enemies from the greedy politicians to the
00:18:13.760Every piece of this world is a part of the whole. Everything that I see is connected to me.
00:18:29.220What I give you is a gift to me too. It's all one life all the way through.
00:18:41.560the concept of we to go keeps popping up in my head and i've spoken about we to go on the show
00:18:51.060before but to refresh the audience's memory the we to go is this cannibalistic spirit within
00:18:58.300mythologies of indigenous nations algonquin ojibwe etc of northeast north america that
00:19:06.220quote, delude their host into believing that cannibalizing the life force of others is a
00:19:13.220logical and morally upright way to live, end quote. It's also, quote, raising the self-serving
00:19:18.840ego to supremacy, end quote. So many now consider that we to go as a mind virus in our collective
00:19:28.240psychology. And I find the word virus so fitting for the patterning of dominant culture. So I'm
00:19:36.520wondering, does the concept of we to go resonate with your work? It does, you know, it really does.
00:19:43.220And we could probably go all the way back to even before humans actually evolved as modern humans
00:19:52.840to look at this kind of drive towards the sort of male violence, because essentially it's almost
00:19:59.460always coming from the male gender, this sort of drive for like violent domination. And this is
00:20:07.260something I think is so important is that, you know, oftentimes we're told that humans themselves
00:20:12.380are selfish or violent, and that's just the way it is. And so we need society to kind of control
00:20:19.880these drives, et cetera. But you know what I find so interesting is that what makes humans unique
00:20:25.600and different from other primates is that, in fact, other primates are more structured along
00:20:32.720these lines, with the exception of the bonobos, which are really interesting, and themselves.
00:20:37.960But other primates are more structured along these lines of this kind of alpha male who really tries
00:20:42.580to dominate. But when humans first emerged as humans in these hunter-gatherer bands,
00:20:48.140even millions of years ago like pre-humans and it was our ability to be together to actually
00:20:55.440connect up with each other in community that really made us unique and it was the thing that
00:21:01.720values and ideas like compassion and empathy and and really what's known as shared intentionality
00:21:09.720working together acting together as a group that really made us who we are as humans and i think
00:21:16.320when we look at week to go is this concept it's almost like this really ancient primeval drive
00:21:22.260that um is there as i said mostly in males to dominate and conquer and to destroy that harmony
00:21:31.300that's there whereas what actually really makes us human is this alternative this this opposite
00:21:37.820kind of drive to really be together in community and connection with nature and with others and
00:21:44.320And that's how hunter-gatherer bands, 95% of human history, they were amazingly egalitarian, very much sort of avoided violence as a kind of last resort in just the most extreme situations.
00:22:00.000So I think there's a lot to learn from that.
00:22:03.900And I've had a few people on the show talk about We To Go, Alnurlada, Ariel, Durange, and it really seems like this sickness that has taken over.
00:22:18.280And what is the cure for We To Go is the big question.
00:24:23.040Like just in recent times, the acceptance of same-sex marriage has gone from being another thing that was unthinkable to being pretty much widely accepted in most advanced societies.
00:24:34.400So all of these things feel like positive.
00:24:37.100But what's so fascinating and I think really important to look at is that none of those social changes actually changes this power, this stranglehold that global corporate capitalism has over our society.
00:24:52.860So think of sort of right and left in these kind of social battles or whatever over the generations.
00:25:00.800But because I think the thing to understand is that corporate – the whole corporate system, corporate America has no value other than increasing shareholder value for its shareholders.
00:25:13.260Basically monetizing the natural world and monetizing human behavior and turning it into profits for its shareholders.
00:25:20.020And because it has no other value, it's really like a sociopath. So like a sociopath, in order to do what he wants to do, doesn't actually have like, you know, oh, I'm going to do this is right and that's wrong.
00:25:36.520He'll take anything and manipulate it to his own end in order to accomplish whatever he wants, even if it involves killing people or whatever, as long as he can get away with it.
00:25:45.480He has no values other than whatever it is that drives him.
00:25:49.160And similarly, we see that with corporate America.0.96
00:25:51.720So if women get more empowered in a society, corporate America is fine with that as long as it can turn it into more ways to make money.0.98
00:26:02.760And similarly, with any kind of social change that happens, in corporate America, it's all about turning everything into money making.
00:26:12.420And that's what's so terrifying is that what we have to do is take the kind of power, the kind of grassroots empowerment that we've seen and that we see in things like the hashtag Me Too movement right now, which I think is fabulously transforming norms even as we speak.
00:26:30.560But we need to take that and apply that to the corporate world. We somehow have to get people to recognize that the system that has now taken total dominance of the world, that drives even like countries' governments are so subservient to this kind of corporate power.
00:26:49.700And that's what has to change if we are going to actually get the world to move to some place that is sustainable, that can allow for human flourishing.
00:27:00.640But I think that's the important thing to recognize is that there are no values in corporate America other than maximizing shareholder value.
00:27:10.200And that's the thing that we have to fight against.
00:27:17.220And I see how this desire for the bottom line, the financial bottom line, and this never-ending growth infiltrates all areas of this dominant Western culture, even when it's things that seem to be socially beneficial, like the nonprofit industrial complex, the restoration industrial complex.
00:27:44.340It seeps into our psyche so that even when we're trying to do, quote, good things, it has made its way, this we to go, this virus has made its way into all these sectors of our lives.
00:27:59.400Yeah, I think that's right. And so we can almost see we to go as being the this kind of core virus, this cognitive virus at the core of the capitalist notion of that maximizing shareholder value is this kind of end in itself.
00:28:13.240Something I find so ironic, you know, you read a lot nowadays, often some of the great sort of scientists and technological thinkers at the time talk about the risk of artificial intelligence taking over, you know, the risk of AI, and this is an existential risk for humanity.
00:28:30.580and oftentimes they'll talk about this idea that to explain why it's such a risk they say well you
00:28:36.660know supposing you could um develop this artificial intelligence and tell it that what you're meant
00:28:42.600to do is just make paper clips you know it uses all this intelligence to turn the whole of the earth
00:28:48.240and all of human activity into one gigantic paper clip manufacturing facility and you know in the
00:28:54.000end it'll just kill every human just so it can make more paper clips from their resources and
00:28:58.560that's the danger and what they're missing is we've created that artificial intelligence already
00:29:04.280a few hundred years ago when we started this notion of the legal corporation if you think of
00:29:10.180it optimizing shareholder value is really nothing other than a gigantic paperclip manufacturing
00:29:15.380facility it's a it's this power ultimately this kind of cognitive virus is way to go virus is
00:29:22.060like looking at the whole of the natural world as a resource for just continuing to increase
00:29:29.560shareholder value for profits. And that's the only thing that it's about. If we recognize that,
00:29:37.040then what's logical is we have to get to the root of that. We have to actually try to push for
00:29:42.940things that are barely even talked about nowadays and that actually control that at its root. We
00:29:48.920have to do things like push for changing the laws of corporations, make it illegal essentially for
00:29:55.180a corporation to just maximize shareholder value, unless they're also doing what's called a triple
00:30:01.080bottom line, you know, looking at optimizing for the planet and the community. And, you know,
00:30:07.360corporations should have to basically get their charters renewed every five or 10 years. And
00:30:12.520there should be like a group of citizens who make the judgment as to whether they're really
00:30:16.820optimizing for all three of those things like that's the kind of thing that can actually shift
00:30:21.560but you know we barely even see talk about those kind of ideas because you know partly because of
00:30:26.880course the same corporations also control the media so they control what people hear which
00:30:32.300is a part of the problem absolutely it's definitely a part of the problem the news that we actually
00:30:38.660hear the co-optation of our information whether that's through the television or through social
00:30:44.960media, it has been controlled. And it makes sense for the powers that be to control us through those
00:30:53.580means. The other thing I wanted to, or what's been kind of brewing in my head is that there seems to
00:31:01.480be certain fixtures that continue to severely numb us into the destructive patterning of modern
00:31:09.680times like money you know what we've been talking about and how it became synonymous with value or
00:31:16.180the emergence of the clock which was essential for us to begin to place monetary values on our
00:31:23.440labor and then money is detrimental on so many levels because it binds us to this linearity and
00:31:31.000a narrow perception of time robbing us of a true appreciation for the value in our work and our
00:31:38.600life itself and then we're constantly stuck in the past or the future without a genuine appreciation
00:31:45.160for either and now that we have technology narrowing us even further you know talking
00:31:50.880about social media and and the internet and something like that and so we have this money
00:31:56.440time and technology that all remind us of the feedback loops between culture livelihood and
00:32:03.200genetics that you write about in the patterning instinct yeah so i just on a more basic level
00:32:09.240you describe such feedback loops and i want to quote you from the book quote because cooking
00:32:15.140frees up more energy from food for our bodies to digest new generations relied increasingly on
00:32:22.820cooked food leading eventually to physiological changes that caused their descendants to depend
00:32:30.300on cooking in much of the same way spiders depend on their webs much later in history when cattle
00:32:36.940were first domesticated a few lucky people had genes that allowed them to drink milk as adults
00:32:42.660known as lactose tolerance with the extra nutrition available to them they flourished
00:32:49.260leaving more offspring until their genes spread through virtually the entire population of europe
00:32:54.940end quote. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on money, fixation on linear time, or technology
00:33:01.820altering the genetic code of humanity. Yes, what we see, like you say, in these kind of feedback
00:33:09.360loops, is that when a new idea takes hold, that idea can then affect who's successful and who's
00:33:20.000unsuccessful and if the people who were successful in that community um base their success on that
00:33:25.700idea that idea becomes dominant before you know it it's sort of it's it's taken over and so you
00:33:31.520know you see that when um agriculture first emerged and the more aggressive societies would
00:33:37.000go conquer the others and sort of and dominate them but you see that in the west so much in
00:33:42.320this kind of notion of the mechanization of nature and to your point um here's here's the feedback
00:33:48.480Like when people see nature as something that doesn't have any intrinsic sanctity and just use it for whatever resource you can, if you have a society that rewards that by allowing you to, you know, sell more and make more, then you become the most successful and then people want to follow what you're doing.
00:34:11.520And so before you know it, those who are still looking at some of the deeper intrinsic sacredness of nature become sort of viewed as failures.
00:34:23.800And that's the way that Western European thinking developed into this whole sort of notion of global success.
00:34:29.620And money plays a part in that in the sense that just as a means of exchange, even tens of thousands of years ago, people were using sort of things like beads or anything as just a way of kind of sharing things together and, you know, actually trading with each other.
00:34:49.280But where money got to be so extreme is when it actually got to be transformed just in the last hundred or so years as something completely separate from any physical, tangible quality.
00:35:03.640So it became just this concept that Greg created through debt.
00:35:07.700And it's another of these feedback loops in that once you create money out of debt, you need to basically keep growing your economy in order to pay back the debt.
00:35:17.480So it's like this thing that continues to move at a faster and faster growth rate that's never-ending.
00:35:26.080And that's where – and it's not just that we have these corporations with their corporate roles that are looking to just sort of maximize shareholder value by essentially monetizing the earth.
00:35:38.300But the very economy needs this growth in what they call gross domestic products, which essentially just is the measurement of how quickly they're turning the earth into the monetized economy.
00:35:50.940It has to grow at a faster and faster rate just to stand still, just in order to pay back the debt.
00:35:57.140And then, of course, companies get valued as a multiple of the amount of earnings they are showing each year.
00:36:04.840So they have to keep growing in order to keep their shareholder value.
00:36:08.300So the whole thing is this positive feedback loop where one thing keeps adding to the rate
00:36:14.860So we get faster and faster growth rates from bigger and bigger global economy to the point
00:36:21.060that now it's considered the bankers and equity analysts and people out there are figuring
00:36:26.580out, I think we're going to be looking at a tripling of this rate of consumption of
00:36:32.360the earth by the middle of this century.
00:36:34.600So in just a few decades, we're looking at how much we're destroying the earth right now, how much we're losing the rainforests, how much we're increasing global climate breakdown, et cetera.
00:36:46.400We're looking at triple that by mid-century.
00:36:50.200So, you know, where is this going to go?
00:36:57.920And those of us who are looking at this and are just horrified by where we see things heading.
00:37:02.620It is absolutely horrifying where things are heading. Just thinking about the Tongass National Forest with less than 2% or 1% even of old growth forests left globally, and our taxpayer dollars are being used to cut the remaining old growth in this country.
00:37:22.460It's absolutely horrifying and disgusting. And I've actually heard you reference how the concept of ecosystem services, which is part of this definition, this language that allows us as a civilization to continue these horrifying actions and how this concept is...
00:37:52.440the framework of cultural evolution. I think that's so important that even people in the
00:37:59.720environmental movement, or at least some of them who look at what's going on, get this notion,
00:38:05.520well, okay, we see this runaway power of this corporate capitalist mentality. Well, if we need
00:38:11.740to, we need to talk to these people on their terms. So they come up with this notion of ecosystem
00:38:16.120services, which is essentially to say, look, don't destroy all of nature, because look at the value
00:38:21.240it does for us. So, you know, and these wetlands here, you know, we can value them based on this
00:38:26.440and that and look at the hundreds of millions of dollars they're worth, or this coral reef,
00:38:31.160you know, that's off the shore here in this resort area. Look how valuable that is. But of course,
00:38:37.340that can instantly be turned around because somebody else can come along then and say,
00:38:42.140okay, so this coral reef, let's say that's worth, you know, $200 million. Great. But if we build
00:38:47.440this resort on this beach we could make 500 million so obviously screw the coral reef let's0.77
00:38:52.540just build the resort so by trying to appeal to the capitalist power structure on their own values
00:39:00.240of money what they're basically doing is essentially saying that everything in nature is for sale
00:39:05.840as true um pristine nature gets to be rarer and rarer based on the whole sort of uh economics
00:39:13.220of supply and demand, it just makes it even more valuable to sell them off. So just look,
00:39:19.920for example, at the wildlife in Africa that is being driven to extinction. And that's something
00:39:26.140that just drives me just crazy with pain to see what's going on. And so again, when you look at
00:39:32.420this thing from this ecosystem services point of view, and you try to do things like say, well,
00:39:37.560we should put a price on ivory, just allow some amount of hunting to be done so that
00:39:44.920we need to sort of manage it in that way. Of course, what happens is the fewer elephants there
00:39:51.420are, the more valuable the ivory is. So the more valuable it is to go and kill off the last elephant.0.96
00:39:56.480So it's this kind of self-defeating approach. And that's where I think for those of us who
00:40:02.340recognize this. What's so important is to come from our core, to look at what is truly valuable
00:40:08.900in our lives. And when we get engaged, when we come look at what we're going to do to try to
00:40:16.480shift things, to really come from our sense of what's true intrinsic value is driving us rather
00:40:23.700than try to sort of translate it into terms that this kind of monetized economy can relate to.
00:40:30.080And I do think that's where our hope arises. And quite frankly, Ayana, because the thing is, our intrinsic values are really good. And we care about community. We care about the earth. That's just part of being human.
00:40:47.480And to the extent that we can encourage people to appeal to what they know in their heart and soul is right, that's, I think, the most dangerous, subversive thing that can happen to this whole corporate system is for people to actually feel into what's right and say, I'm not going to take this crap anymore because this doesn't feel right to me.
00:41:08.620i so agree that if we were able to tap into our feeling sense our emotion our intuition our
00:41:19.400instinct our heart you know however we want to say it or whatever words we want to use to describe
00:41:27.620this connection i think we would expand the way that we relate to the world and it seems that
00:41:36.740perhaps another way that the dominant culture has disconnected itself from the interconnectedness
00:41:43.180of the biosphere is by focusing pretty much solely on the brain as the only organ of perception
00:41:49.880and I think it's just so vital to remember that our hearts and gut are also sensory organs home
00:41:58.720to the neural networks and it reminds me of the Stephen Herod Buhner episode and his teachings
00:42:05.780on plant intelligence have included how the heart is where one communicates with plants from and
00:42:13.280when i interviewed him he shared words of an indigenous elder who told him that you have to
00:42:18.420wake up twice in the morning you have to wake up your mind and then you also have to wake up your
00:42:24.340heart or feeling senses just they've been silenced by the noise of brain logic and this brings me to
00:42:32.760how you trace the patterning instinct back to the development of the prefrontal cortex region of
00:42:39.800the brain and humans. So I guess I'm wondering, is the patterning instinct exclusive to the brain's
00:42:47.300realm of perception? And if so, practices that sharpen and expand one's heart feeling senses,
00:42:55.800you know, practices that open one's door of perception, if you will, could perhaps
00:43:00.880de-pattern the patterning instinct? Yes, I hear you on that. You know,
00:43:07.300it's so interesting. Really, what happened is in the Western way of thinking, again,
00:43:12.800starting with the ancient Greeks, they took one aspect of this patterning instinct,
00:43:17.640our ability to come up with reasoning and sort of intellectual ability, and they looked at that
00:43:25.880as divinity. Basically, they looked at that mind-body split, and they said, that's the soul,
00:43:30.240That's the mind. And that's what's divine. And the rest of the whole body is is like polluted is this bad thing. But we see that so different in other cultures. And what I find so fascinating is if you look at traditional Chinese culture, the word in Chinese for mind is actually heart.
00:43:50.660So the word is shin, which is literally translated as heart, but that's what actually the Chinese refer to as mind.
00:43:59.380So oftentimes people will just translate that as heart slash mind.
00:44:02.920So imagine if you had a culture which starts off with this notion that your mind is there, is beating in the center of your body.
00:44:11.080And how different that makes you understand everything.
00:44:14.140So, you know, when your emotions make your heart beat faster, that's your mind actually relating.
00:44:20.960So there is no split between mind and body and in that whole way of thinking.
00:44:26.600And that's and of course, we see that all through indigenous cultures, just like you're referring to.
00:44:30.980And what gets me quite excited, oftentimes feel a sense of hope out there, is that we even see in modern scientific findings the same recognition of our connectedness.
00:44:45.140So in systems sciences, whether we can look at it in terms of complexity theory or systems biology or, you know, these sciences that are very rigorous and analytical, the rest of it.
00:44:58.400But what they discover is the same thing, is that actually we are all connected.
00:45:04.180And actually there is no distinction between heart and mind.
00:45:07.720And in fact, just like you were talking about, our neural networks, the heart itself has its own neural intelligence.
00:45:15.860And in fact, what I call animate intelligence is there everywhere in nature, just like you're referring to in plant intelligence and in the intelligence of like trees.
00:45:29.120You know, you were talking with Peter just a few weeks ago, like how trees connect with each other in community through their roots.
00:45:35.400And throughout the universe of the natural world, we see this alternative intelligences and we see everything connecting up.
00:45:44.700And what I find really exciting is this notion that through modern systems understanding of the science, we can recognize how ecosystems work.
00:45:54.520And we recognize that the true insight and wisdom of traditional wisdom is actually right there in our modern scientific understanding.
00:46:02.980And we just need to surpass this kind of outmoded, reductionist way of looking at the world that has become dominant in our culture, but is no longer, really has no validity, no matter which way you look at it.
00:46:18.500So once we begin to dissect our patterning, we can begin to shift how we make meaning and relationship to the world and with one another.
00:46:29.240So I'd love to hear real tangible ways in which we can embrace your findings.
00:46:36.320Yes, I think a core part of it is to realize that that patterning instinct is not just
00:46:42.440something that creates our ability to reason and this mind-body split, but it also allows
00:46:47.740us to integrate, to integrate the ways in which we pattern meaning with our embodied
00:46:55.720So to give you a sense of just how that can apply, that can apply in our own personal practices.
00:47:02.580So, for example, maybe I would imagine a lot of listeners would have some kind of meditation practice.
00:47:11.480But even meditation practices can sometimes fall prey to this kind of mind-body split where you sort of feel, oh, I've got – my mind is sort of connecting with my body.
00:47:21.760But that's still based on this kind of split.
00:47:23.600But, you know, some wonderful traditional Chinese practices like qigong or tai chi, for example, are these kind of energy practices which allow us to really recognize our embodied existence.
00:47:38.560and you can actually develop meditation practices of really feeling ourselves not just as a mind
00:47:45.600recognizing it has a body but as a body being intelligent a body and being part of our organism
00:47:52.180of what essentially a mind body organism and through that kind of practice we can look at
00:47:58.360our connections with the world not just using our minds to connect but really feeling ourselves
00:48:03.620connected. We can do that in dance when we're connecting with others in community. And we can
00:48:09.500do that in our deep, deep connections with the natural world. So it's those deeper embodied
00:48:14.800connections with ourselves, with others, with nature, that we can use as the source, the
00:48:20.860foundation for our engagement in the world and for our activities and for the things that we do to
00:48:26.300try to change things. Because when we're coming from that kind of place and somebody starts
00:48:31.200talking about you know and nature is ecosystem services we say what the hell are you talking
00:48:37.160about this is not this is not the reality that i know no it is not the reality that i know it's not
00:48:44.080the reality that i feel ecosystem services i remember going into a few conferences this last
00:48:50.260year that were about carbon sequestration and the future of environmentalism and climate change and
00:48:57.460And I remember feeling so empty and sad and protective over these lands that were spoken
00:49:06.320about as if they weren't alive, as if they didn't have value in and of themselves, but
00:49:13.140they only had value based off the services that they provided for humans.
00:49:18.680And it was a really big challenge for me to be able to be in that space with openness
00:49:24.880and love for people that were feeling so dominant over the land, but also wanting to
00:49:34.100have an openness because I don't think that we're necessarily going to get very far if we keep
00:49:40.080alienating each other, even from people that we don't necessarily agree with. So it was a really
00:49:46.420good lesson for me. I think that's so true. And I think especially there are some people that maybe
00:49:53.780we're so far from in terms of their approach to life and their politics that we we can you know
00:50:01.220you can expend too much energy just even trying to reach those people but oftentimes the kind of
00:50:06.380people who talk about things like ecosystem services are people who do come from a core
00:50:11.880sense of caring and wanting to put some sort of break on what's going on but it's as if they've
00:50:17.580been co-opted they've been sort of bewitched by the sense of what they can do to try to you know
00:50:23.160speak to that dominant power. And I think that what's so important is to reach to that deeper
00:50:28.500place and find that point, that compassionate point of shared caring for the earth, and then
00:50:34.860try to bring those people with us to recognize that what is really, if they really touch into
00:50:42.100their deepest values, that might lead them to actually look at different ways of relating to
00:50:48.020some of these things. And I feel that we so have to do that because, you know, what I don't think
00:50:55.460any of us can afford is to let this sense of the power of this kind of dominant
00:51:02.940mainstream culture lead us to despair. While there seems to be so many things moving in the
00:51:11.120wrong direction, we also need to take hope from this recognition that we're all embedded together
00:51:17.080in this thing. And a lot of the ways in which complex systems change happens in what I call,
00:51:22.860what's called like a non-linear way. And it's really quite amazing how things can change when
00:51:28.760we stay with our truest feelings and communicate that together with each other. And that's where
00:51:35.360I think we absolutely have to look at the devastation going on. We have to feel into the
00:51:40.900sense of despair. And I must confess, I feel that so much, it's hard for me sometimes to sort of
00:51:47.180pull myself out of it. But from that place, we have to recognize that, you know, as long as
00:51:53.060there's life, there's this possibility of redirection. And every one of us is engaged
00:51:58.260in this kind of web of life, this web of meaning, as I call it. And so the recognition of that
00:52:04.460destruction is so painful. There is this sense of hope I get that everything we do, like this kind
00:52:10.140of conversation we're having today, or the kind of conversations that we can have with each other
00:52:14.560in meaningful ways, that those can really make a difference even when we're not seeing it. So,
00:52:21.360you know, I love to think of the analogy of like the mycelial network, the fungal network of tree
00:52:27.920roots that are moving together, acting together, even when we don't see them. And similarly,
00:52:34.800And even though the headlines we read about every day looks so destructive and we see the bad things going on, but at the same time, there is millions of us connecting up, sharing these values, sharing this outrage.
00:52:48.380And that ultimately can make this incredible impact in where our future can go as long as we're ready to really live according to our true values, our true feelings.
00:53:01.200Thank you for bringing up truth telling and compassion and how we can share our deepest feelings and our deepest relational connections with one another, but in a way that the other can hear it and know that it's a challenging road when we've been separated from one another and from the earth for so long.
00:53:27.580And now we're at this apex moment of climate change and extinction and social destruction and political destruction.
00:53:38.060And to be able to come together in this really heightened moment and listen deeply and share when the time is right.
00:53:46.040It's the way forward, but it's not easy.
00:53:48.600So I thank you so much for bringing up that eloquent point.
00:53:53.100And you often use these examples of the early development of human language when describing the patterning instinct.
00:54:00.960And I wonder, when other life forms are learning language, is it not the patterning instinct that propels their learning?
00:54:10.640You know, for instance, when wolf pups learn to make meaning from the sounds of the ravens their pack has a mutualistic relationship with.