(Conversation recorded on November 6th, 2023)
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.
Watch on YouTube
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
