26th Annual International Conference: Shamanism and the 21st Century
26t Shamanism Conference:
Shamanism in the 21st Century
When...
Santa Sabina Center, San Rafael, California
Saturday, September 5, 9:00 am to
Monday, September 7, 4:00 pm
Labor Day Weekend
In order to attend the conference you must register ahead of time... to do this click here.
Shamanism & the Evolution of Consciousness
Zayin Neumann, M.A.
1:10 pm, Monday 7th
Do you believe in evolution?
and Shamanism...
or Buddhism...
maybe Christianity...
is one more evolved than other...
These are not easy questions, but they are essential to the zeitgeist of our time... at the 2009 conference entitled Shamanism in the 21st Century I will be speaking to the mystery of how to hold evolution in one hand and the respect for all the wisdoms found on the this body of Earth on the other....
Here is a more technical abstract of the paper I will be presenting on Monday the 7th....
The term evolution is all too often associated with a linear developmental line. Such an evolution, even when it attempts to include, does not honor the full wisdom of shamanism, indigenous peoples, or the more-than-human world. On the other side, indigenous wisdom with its cyclical understanding of time cannot fully account for the insights offered by evolution. The former suggests we have gained great wisdom as we have individuated from Nature, while the latter warns us we have disassociated from Nature and are dangerously out of balance. In order for shamanism to flourish in the 21st century it must honor both of these ways of knowing. One key to the conversation lies within a renewed understanding of evolution, one that can account for both linear and cyclical time, while not getting lost in either one. Within this paper we will look to work of Jean Gebser and Alfred North Whitehead as they point the way towards an atemporal evolution of organism propagated by Creativity.