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Ep 112  |  Samantha Sweetwater

Samantha Sweetwater: “Life at the Center”

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TGS112 Samantha Sweetwater The Great Simplification

Show Summary

On this episode, thought leader and ceremonial guide Samantha Sweetwater joins Nate to share her journey through mysticism and guiding others through their own unique spiritual paths. Strengthening relationality is a critical component for fostering deeper connections to nature – including fellow humans – and subsequently creating more cooperative, peaceful societies. Within a culture which predominantly values linear processes, Samantha’s work has centered around finding a balance between convergent thinking and the relational intelligence we’ve neglected. What can we learn from the various indigenous cultures who understand their entanglement with the land? Is it possible for future societies to value a more balanced development across the spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical aspects of its people? How can we – as individuals – nurture the subjective, intersubjective, and objective within ourselves to create more holistic sensemaking within a complex world?

About Samantha Sweetwater

Samantha Sweetwater is a writer, soul mentor, strategic partner and deeply loved ceremonial guide. She has facilitated transformational experiences in diverse communities, cultures and industries on five continents for over 30 years. Her work bridges spirituality, science, psychedelics, indigenous wisdom, transpersonal psychology, embodiment and deep ecology. She leads experiences and conversations about our relationship with the earth, spirituality and systemic change that transform the way we think about what it means to be human. Samantha is the founder and director of One Life Circle, a plant medicine ministry tending our intimacy with and belonging to Life. She also advises companies and organizations in the areas of technology, health, materials economy and psychedelics. As the former founder of Dancing Freedom and Peacebody Japan, she pioneered the conscious dance movement—facilitating tens of thousands of people and training hundreds of facilitators to seed communities around the globe. She holds an MA in Wisdom Studies and a BA in Social Theory and the Dance with a minor in Legal Philosophy. She has been initiated by indigenous teachers in Africa, South America and the US. 

Her first book, True Human: Reimagining Ourselves at the End of Our World, will be available Fall Equinox 2024.

In French, we have a motto that says that a simple drawing is often better than a long explanation. Jean-Marc Jancovici Carbone 4 President

That’s very understandable because with left atmosphere thinking, one of the problems is that you see everything as a series of problems that must have solutions. Iain McGilchrist Neuroscientist and Philosopher

We can’t have hundreds and hundreds of real relationships that are healthy because that requires time and effort and full attention and awareness of being in real relationship and conversation with the other human. Nate Hagens Director of ISEOF

This is the crux of the whole problem. Individual parts of nature are more valuable than the biocomplexity of nature. Thomas Crowther Founder Restor

Show Notes & Links to Learn More

00:00 – Samantha Sweetwater works + info

06:40 – Mysticism

08:50 – Wide Boundary Analysis

09:23 – John Michael Greer

10:23 – Subjective, intersubjective, and objectivity

Additional Reference: Intersubjectivity

13:59 – Sensemaking

14:59 – Peaceful societies have better unity and diversity preserving mechanisms

15:47 – Correlation between abundance and peace

16:21 – Post conventional moral development

16:37 – Spiral dynamics/meta-modernism

17:13 – Multi-polar traps

Additional Resource: Multipolar Traps | Conversational Leadership

17:41 – Masculine/feminine

18:33 – Peak Oil

19:52 – Iain McGilchrist + TGS Episode

20:15 – Relational Intelligence, femininity

Additional References: Jane Fonda: Why women are at the forefront of climate solutions, Gender and Gender Role Differences in Self- and Other-Estimates of Multiple Intelligences, My Journey With Riane Eisler: The Future of Partnership in a Conflicted World

22:24 – Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus

22:48 – Left brain/Right brain

25:09 – Lisa Feldman Barret

27:01 – Original Instructions

29:58 – Where humans migrated out of Africa a major extinction occurred

30:38 – Marvin Harris, Cultural Materialism – Anthropology

36:32 – Thomas Huebl, Healing Collective Trauma

37:20 – Bioregional Regeneration Movement

37:53 – Nora Bateson + TGS Episode

47:17 – Pew poll on religiosity and spirituality in the U.S.

47:29 – US roots in Judeo-Christianity

54:17 – Game Theory

54:49 – MLK Jr. and the universe bending towards justice

59:22 – Trophic Cascades, Everything Is Connected – George Monbiot

1:02:29 – Daniel Schmachtenberger, TGS Episode on AI

1:03:48 – Circular Packaging Economy, A New Earth Project

1:11:41 – Peace is proportional to the number of reciprocal relationships in a society

1:12:47 – Frankly on The Behavioral Stack

1:17:29 – Analogy of the organism to a machine and how they’re different

1:19:08 – Paperclip maximizer problem

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