Dangerous Wisdom

nikos patedakis

A podcast for wild souls who want to live with open eyes and an enlivened heart. The world needs dangerous wisdom, and our education system functions primarily to keep us away from it—to stop us from taking the journey into the mystery and magic of the world. Because of this, we have achieved a catastrophic level of confusion, anxiety, and ignorance—with boatloads of tame wisdom, false wisdom, and self-help nonsense that only adds to the challenges we face. The path of wisdom—the path of wonder—deals with how things really work, and how we can become skillful and successful. Following it leads beyond concepts to a wonderstanding that can heal us, and empower us to help the world, realize our hidden potential, and experience the profound meaningfulness of life. In this podcast, we turn toward the dangerous stuff, the wild stuff, and confront the need to handle authentic wisdom with skill and grace, making sure the medicine doesn’t become another poison. If you want an inspiring space to explore the big and sometimes scary questions, a space that opens up into insights that can change your life and the world we share, join us. Find out more at https://dangerouswisdom.org/ read less
Society & CultureSociety & Culture

Episodes

The Story Is in Our Bones - How Worldviews and Ecological Justice Can Remake Our World - Dialogue with Osprey Orielle Lake
Jul 24 2024
The Story Is in Our Bones - How Worldviews and Ecological Justice Can Remake Our World - Dialogue with Osprey Orielle Lake
The dominant cultural worldview is based upon extraction and exploitation practices that have brought us to the precipice of social, environmental, and climate collapse. Braiding poetic storytelling, climate justice and deep cultural analyses, and the collective knowledge of Earth-centered cultures, The Story is in Our Bones opens a portal to restoration and justice beyond the end of a world in crisis.Author, activist, and changemaker Osprey Orielle Lake weaves together ecological, mythical, political, and cultural understandings and shares her experiences working with global leaders, systems-thinkers, climate justice activists, and Indigenous Peoples. She seeks to summon a new way of being and thinking in the Anthropocene, which includes transforming the interlocking crises of colonialism, racism, patriarchy, capitalism, and ecocide, to build thriving Earth communities for all.Lake calls forth historical memory of who we are in the Earth's lineage to bring into being the world we keenly long for, at the delicate threshold of great peril or great promise.For anyone grieving our collective loss and wanting to take action, The Story is in Our Bones is a vital guide to remaking our world. This hopeful, engaging, and creatively lyrical work reminds readers that another world is possible, and provides a desperately needed antidote to the pervasive despair of our time.Osprey Orielle Lake is the founder and executive director of the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN). She works internationally with grassroots, BIPOC and Indigenous leaders, policymakers, and diverse coalitions to build climate justice, resilient communities, and a just transition. She sits on the executive committee for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and on the steering committee for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. Osprey’s writing about climate justice, relationships with nature, women in leadership, and other topics has been featured in The Guardian, Earth Island Journal, The Ecologist, Ms. Magazine and other publications. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area on Coast Miwok lands.To learn more, go to: https://ospreyoriellelake.earth www.wecaninternational.org
Soothing Sounds, Timeless Wisdom - Drukmlo Gyal, the Victorious Dragon Woman of Mantra and Song
Jul 12 2024
Soothing Sounds, Timeless Wisdom - Drukmlo Gyal, the Victorious Dragon Woman of Mantra and Song
A super special episode with the magical yogini Drukmo Gyal, a sonic shaman and practitioner of Vajrayana Buddhism who bridges Tibetan traditions and global healing. Born into a family of Ngakpas in the culturally rich Amdo region of Tibet, Drukmo Gyal's life has been steeped in the practices of mantra and meditation from a young age. Growing up in a diverse community in Rebgong, she was immersed in an environment where spiritual practices were a daily ritual.Her journey in traditional healing began with studies in Tibetan medicine in Amdo, after which she furthered her expertise by working for Sorig Khang Estonia (EATTM) and studying under Dr. Nida Chenatsang, a renowned Tibetan physician and lineage holder of the Yuthok Nyingthig - the spiritual healing tradition of Tibetan Medicine.Combining her passion for singing with her knowledge of Tibetan medicine, she has sought to create healing concerts that nurture the body, speech, and mind. She has collaborated with musicians worldwide, producing five albums of Tibetan Healing Mantras and Prayers, and she has shared her work in over 30 countries through concerts, lectures, and courses.Drukmo Gyal also serves as an international teacher and guide for Sorig Khang International and as the lead organizer of SKY Estonia. Their team is committed to establishing a Tibetan Medicine Healing & Education Centre in Estonia to bring this ancient wisdom to the Baltic states and Finland, focusing on learning, healing, and cultural exchange.https://www.drukmogyal.com/
Dangerous Witches - Dialogue with Phyllis Curott - Priestess and Spiritual Pioneer
May 4 2024
Dangerous Witches - Dialogue with Phyllis Curott - Priestess and Spiritual Pioneer
Video version here: https://youtu.be/FtDBx1IBkoAA spiritual pioneer, Phyllis Curott is an attorney, writer and one of America’s first public Witches. Her international best-selling memoir Book of Shadows, 5 other books and groundbreaking Witches’ Wisdom Tarot have been published in 14 languages, making her the most widely published Wiccan author in the world. An outspoken advocate in the courts and media, she handled or consulted on groundbreaking cases securing the legal rights of Witches, including cases of child custody, religious assembly, organization, expression, and free speech. Phyllis was named one of The Ten Gutsiest Women of the Year by Jane Magazine and inducted into the Martin Luther King, Jr. Collegium of Clergy and Scholars. She received the 2018 Service to Humanity Award from the One Spirit Interfaith Seminary and the 2020 Person of the Year Award from Kindred Spirit. Phyllis is a Trustee of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, serving as Vice Chair of the 2015 Parliament, and Program Chair for the historic 2021 Parliament blessed by Pope Francis, and the 2023 Parliament with its theme of religious responsibility to resist the growing scourge of fascism. New York Magazine has called her teaching on Witchcraft the culture’s “next big idea” and Time Magazine has published her as one of America’s leading thinkers. Her You-Tube series on Wicca has almost 3 million views. Phyllis is teaching online and working on her next book on the embodied spiritual wisdom of Mother Earth, Nature’s “secret magic” and why the world needs its Witches. Website: https://www.phylliscurott.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/phylliscurottInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/phylliscurott/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/PhyllisCurottWitchcrafting
What Owls Know, What Humans Believe - Dialogue with Carl Safina, author of Alfie and Me
Mar 28 2024
What Owls Know, What Humans Believe - Dialogue with Carl Safina, author of Alfie and Me
One of Sophia's owls of wisdom made friends with a delightful and insightful human, the author and ecologist Carl Safina. If you enjoyed My Octopus Teacher, you will love hearing about Carl Safina's fabulous feathered friend, Alfie. Carl's book, Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe, is a wonderful work of philosophy and ecology, and I think you'll enjoy this dialogue as much as I did. It was a great pleasure to speak with him.Carl Safina’s lyrical non-fiction writing explores how humans are changing the living world, and what the changes mean for non-human beings and for us all. His work fuses scientific understanding, emotional connection, and a moral call to action. His writing has won a MacArthur “genius” prize; Pew, Guggenheim, and National Science Foundation Fellowships; book awards from Lannan, Orion, and the National Academies; and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals. He grew up raising pigeons, training hawks and owls, and spending as many days and nights in the woods and on the water as he could. Safina is now the first Endowed Professor for Nature and Humanity at Stony Brook University and is founding president of the not-for-profit Safina Center. He hosted the PBS series Saving the Ocean, which can be viewed free at PBS.org. His writing appears in The New York Times, TIME, The Guardian, Audubon, Yale e360, and National Geographic, and on the Web at Huffington Post, CNN.com, Medium, and elsewhere. Safina is the author of ten books including the classic Song for the Blue Ocean, as well as New York Times Bestseller, Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel. His most recent books are, Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace, and Alfie & Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe. He lives on Long Island, New York, with his wife Patricia and their dogs and feathered friends.Find out more at https://www.carlsafina.org/For photos of Alfie:https://www.instagram.com/meetalfietheowl/ https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61551548969047
Rock Star of LoveWisdom - Bob Thurman on Bliss, Buddhas, and Having More Fun
Jan 26 2024
Rock Star of LoveWisdom - Bob Thurman on Bliss, Buddhas, and Having More Fun
Bob Thurman, known in the academic circles as Professor Robert A.F. Thurman, is a talented popularizer of the Buddha’s teachings and the first Westerner Tibetan Buddhist monk ordained by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.A charismatic speaker and author of many books on Tibet, Buddhism, art, politics and culture, Bob was named by The New York Times the leading American expert on Tibetan Buddhism, and was awarded the prestigious Padma Shri Award in 2020, for his help in recovering India’s ancient Buddhist heritage. Time Magazine chose him as one of the 25 most influential Americans in 1997, describing him as a “larger than life scholar-activist destined to convey the Dharma, the precious teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha, from Asia to America.”Bob served as the Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies in the Department of Religion at Columbia University for 30 years, until 2020. A very popular professor, students always felt his classes were “life-changing”. Bob is the founder and active president of Tibet House US, a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Tibetan culture, and of the American Institute of Buddhist Studies, a non-profit affiliated with the Center for Buddhist Studies at Columbia University and dedicated to the publication of translations of important artistic and scientific Tibetan treatises.His own search for enlightenment began while he was a university student at Harvard. After an accident in which he lost the use of an eye, Bob left school on a spiritual quest throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He found his way to India, where he first saw His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 1962. After learning Tibetan and studying Buddhism, Bob became a Tibetan Buddhist monk and the first Westerner to be ordained by the Dalai Lama. Some years later, however, he offered up his robes when he realized he could be more effective in the American equivalent of a monastery: the university, returning to Harvard to finish his PhD.As part of his long-term commitment to the Tibetan cause, at the request of H.H. the Dalai Lama, Bob co-founded Tibet House US in 1987 with Tenzin Tethong, Richard Gere, and Philip Glass, a nonprofit organization based in New York City and dedicated to the preservation and renaissance of Tibetan culture.Inspired by his longtime good friend the Dalai Lama, Bob takes us along with him into an expanded vision of the world through the prism of Tibetan Buddhism. He shares with us the sense of refuge in the Dharma, which unfailingly helps us clear away the shrouds of fear and confusion, sustains us with the cheerfulness of an enriched present, and opens a door to a path of realistic hope for a peaceful, kind, and wise future. Learn more:https://bobthurman.com/https://menla.org/https://thus.org/https://wisdomexperience.org/treasury-buddhist-sciences/