learning to look at our shadow: on the shamanic part
We're having a debate about our future, in case ya hadn't noticed.
Yup, we're still figuring out how to engage folks on the salient issues, yet the debate is in full flower.
So say Paul Hawken and Bill McKibben in a marvelous interview with Jon Lebkowsky (via worldchanging).
And, Lebkowsky asserts, the tone of voice used by these two guys has something to do with their success.
"Both have unique and perhaps even healing voices", says Lebkowsky. "I'd call Bill's tone in 'Deep Economy' 'engaged neighborly,' and Paul's in 'Blessed Unrest,' 'inexorably graceful'."
So, Lebkowsky wants to know, if language and communication media determine how we relate to each other in community to a large extent:
- How do we change the way we talk to foster trust, connectedness and sustainability?
- How do you see your own communications within the mass media information age contentious soundbite frenzy that surrounds us?
- Do you have recommendations for activists and green organizations regarding communication and fostering this full-flowering debate?
Replies Hawken, there's no need for "raising one's voice" or "strong-arming people by your knowledge".
Instead, says Hawken, we need "an embedded patience" so that we draw the listener in and "honor their intelligence and learning curve".
"It is not about being "right" but about "creating a means for the culture to look at its shadow", says Hawken.
"This is almost shamanic work in my opinion."
Adds McKibben, "the most important conversations go on in the context of taking real action -- of doing, in our case, the political organizing work that needs to get done. As you start to do it, much gets clearer."
Solid advice, no?
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