The Boundaries of the Unthinkable are Wavering - Charles Eisenstein

The old stories that have guided our recent ancestors are falling apart, and we live in a time of great upheaval and division as we grope for a new guiding mythology. Yet enfolded into this chaos are the seeds of deep and revolutionary change. Charles Eisenstein has a knack for expressing the thoughts and feelings that many of us born to these times have had but never articulated, and a brilliant capacity for elucidating a way forward.

IN THE INTRO:

• Following your curiosity & finding lifelong teachers

IN THE INTERVIEW:

• None of us fit in to the boxes our culture makes for us, and the story we’ve been handed down is no longer resonant
• Transitioning between paradigms, as the boundaries of the unthinkable begin to waver
• The initiation into love that is the environmental crisis
• A radical reframing of the climate debate (I so needed to hear this)
• Appreciating the complex physiology of the organs and tissues of the living earth, and realizing that we cannot reduce that complexity to the one metric of carbon emissions and offsets- “We can cut carbon emissions to zero, and the planet will still die of organ failure if we continue to degrade its organs”
• What we lose when we look at herbs, ecosystems, and anything/everything through a reductionist lense
• Bringing nuance and empathy back into our highly polarized culture, where folks are both sides (of any issue) are impervious to ever being wrong
• Holding our enemies in reverence (just channel Mr. Rogers)
• The legacy trauma of living in this culture, and how to minimize its impact on future generations
• What the germ theory of disease gets wrong, and why our inner ecosystems often play a larger role in our illness than the outer pathogens that get all the blame
• A new perspective on autoimmunity, self, and the story of separation
• Shifting the war paradigm by which we often approach health
• Sacred economics: living in The Gift paradigm within our capitalist culture, and why Charles’ online courses are donation based
• The individual as a holographic map of the universe unfolding
• When you hold a question long enough, it will always bear a result

IN THE OUTRO:

• Human hubris and the unforeseen consequences of thinking we can outsmart the vital life force (nature/evolution)
• How challenges to the immune system both initiate children into their next level of unfolding and prevent later chronic disease
• The polarization in the vaccine conversation, cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias, and exploring what it would take for me to change my mind on the issue
• A short exploration of and some resources for learning more about the harmful consequences of praise, rewards, and punishments when raising kids

LINKS:

• CharlesEisenstein.org
• Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!)
• My website MythicMedicine.love
• Some of Charles’ related essays: Reuniting the Self: Autoimmunity, Obesity, and the Ecology of Health, We Are Unlimited Potential: A Talk with Joseph Chilton Pearce, In a Rhino, Everything
• Alfie Kohn’s website
• Article- Praise Not
• Take our fun quiz Which Healing Herb Matches Your Energy?
• Medicine Stories Facebook group
• Mythic Medicine on Instagram
• Music by Mariee Siou (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)