Glenn Aparicio Parry, PhD, is author of Original Thinking: A Radical Revisioning of Time, Humanity, and Nature. He is the founder and director of the Circle for Original Thinking, a think tank based in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Here he describes an epiphany associated with his participation tending the sacred fire during a Navajo ceremony. This experience awakened in him a deeper understanding of the depth of our connectedness with nature. He maintains that the human subconscious, itself, can be thought of as nature working through us. He notes that in the Blackfoot language there is no word for “I” or “ego”. He discusses the role of prayer as a component of indigenous ecopsychology, emphasizing “our reconnection with what has always been there, with what has always been the source of our consciousness.” He describes how this sense of connection has become lost in our modern educational system with its emphasis on specialization.
(Recorded on November 14, 2015)
Published on November 20, 2015