Join us under the stars for Helping Friendly Book Club #28 on June 5th (‘Two Six Eve’) at The Wild Detectives in the Bishop Arts District. We will be discussing “The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge” by Jeremy Narby, and we will also be voting on our next three books to read. Come contemplate the Mystery and help steer the ship by casting your vote and letting your voice be heard. RSVP
Helping Friendly Book Club #28
“The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge” by Jeremy Narby
June 5th, 2018 at 8:15PM
The Wild Detectives
Thank you to everyone who has already sent in suggestions for the Book Ballot. Below I will put what we have on the list so far so we can discuss them amongst ourselves before we vote on June 5th. Your input is encouraged! We’ve asked 'Pallas Athena' to be our Helping Friendly Patroness and we’re highlighting female authors this time around, and if you have any additional nominations please post them in here or email them to connect@helpingfriendly.com
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“During this investigation, I became familiar with certain limits of the rational gaze. It tends to fragment reality and to exclude complementarity and the association of contraries from it's field of vision...The rational approach starts from the idea that everything is explainable and that mystery is in some sense the enemy. This means that it prefers pejorative, and even wrong, answers to admitting its own lack of understanding... Wisdom requires not only the investigation of many things, but contemplation of the mystery.” - Jeremy Narby
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The Art of Traveling Light
One of the first big decisions you face when you embark on the Quest to discover the lost Secrets to Eternal Joy and Never Ending Splendor (#SEJNES) is what to take with you, and what to leave behind. When you go on a ‘Hero’s Journey’, there are only so many presuppositions about the truth you can start with, and only so many you can hold onto at any one given moment of time. You also have to assume that you’re going to be discovering new ideas along the way, and in order to make room for those ideas, you’re going to have to let some of your old ideas go. Imagine this process being something similar to the way a lobster molts, or a snake sheds its skin…
The absolute sovereignty of the “rational gaze” is one presupposition the Western Mind finds especially difficult to loosen its grip on.
Fortunately for us, we’ve already learned that the ‘map is not the territory’ and we’ve been developing our capacity to use language ‘like a thorn to remove a thorn’ for sometime now. We already know that our ‘Identity is like a Mosaic’, and in order to remain supple and travel well- we have to keep our Identity lubricated. ‘Wet things don’t pop bubbles.’
Jeremy Narby is a master at this and he takes us with him on his own first person adventure of discovery in “The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge”. He offers us a window into his own rational thinking process as he grapples with trying to reconcile the inexplicable (from a western perspective) reality of South American shamanistic knowledge, with the inherent limitations of the fractured rational gaze.
A vital sense of Wonder is profoundly important on the Quest for SEJNES, and this book gives us a great deal to wonder about. This book offers the serious seeker a paradigm shift, a “paradoxical passage to the Otherworld”, and a paradigm shift is also akin to shedding your philosophical skin I would say.
- What are the limits of the ‘Rational Gaze’?
- Where does Knowledge come from?
- Where does Knowledge exist in the universe before it's discovered? After it's discovered?
- By what method(s) can it be discovered?
- What presuppositions about the Truth do we make without realizing it?
- Have you ever seen the fluorescent snakes?
- What strikes you as a mystery worth contemplating?
- Have you ever had any experience with a Shaman?
- What do you think about the “Panspermia” theory?
- Does this book touch on any of the broader themes in our Quest for SEJNES?
And so on and so forth…
Join us June 5th when we collectively “defocalize” the programming of our rational gaze and re-examine our presuppositions about the inherent Intelligence of Nature.
Yes there will be a #CosmicDoorPrize, and yes first timers are welcome, so come for the #mentalpollination and stay for the #brainhoney. Let's shed our skin for the summer.
As ever,
@hfbclub
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Book Nominations for June 2018: Where should we search for the SEJNES next? (We will vote for 3 at this meeting)
“Wheels of Life: A User’s Guide to the Chakra System” by Anodea Judith
“Women who Run With Wolves” by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
“Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature” by Connie Zweig
“All About Love” by Bell Hooks
“Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain Your Brain to Boost Your Serotonin, Dopamine, Oxytocin, & Endorphin Levels” by Loretta Graziano Breuning
“Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” by Annie Dillard
“Milk and Honey” by Rupi Kaur (Poetry)
“Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley
“A History of God” by Karen Armstrong
“On Glory Roads: A Pilgrims Book about Pilgrimage” by Eleanor Munro