Tag: Nature

EPS 48: Free Will, Luck, and Psychopaths- Guest Diana Hsieh

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Spark My Muse releases two audio episodes per week. 
WEDNESDAYS are SOUL SCHOOL episodes ( power-packed short episodes for everyday life. )

FRIDAYS are conversational interview style episodes with guests from a wide variety of backgrounds on interesting topics to get you thinking.

Today we are talking about control: Free will, luck (chance), and the power of nature versus nurture in how things in life turn out for us when it comes to these sorts of things. If you enjoy the show, share it with someone, or write a review on iTunes!

Today’s guest is Diana Hsieh, PhD in Philosophy, University of Colorado, Boulder

© Mark Stevens 2010
© Mark Stevens 2010

SHOW NOTES

MIN 6:30

Aristotle’s Ethics

What control in life entails.

MIN 8:00

The power to do something or not do something.

The conditions for moral responsibility and the knowledge of what we are doing.

MIN 10

Psychopaths and DNA. Nature, nurture, and moral responsibility.

James Fallon. Smithsonian Magazine article.

MIN 12:30

Environmental conditions and choice.

Maybe nature and nurture is a false dichotomy.

Blaming people who are raised in tough circumstances and keeping people accountable for their choices too because they know the consequences.

MIN 16:30

Common sense view that you reach an age where you know better.

MIN 18

Self knowledge is powerful. We all have tendencies we have to overcome.

MIN 19

In character building it help when we understand what we have control over and what we don’t.

Know what alternatives there are.

MIN 22

In defense of praise and blame. (How we can improve and be morally responsible.)

MIN 23

Make progress as best as you can.

MIN 24

Is morality relative? Whose morality is right?* (see my note below)

MIN 26

Looking at the practical effects of morality.

Value-based morality.

MIN 28

philosophyinaction.com

philosophyinaction.com/moralluck

*my note: This line of inquiry poses something interesting about a common worldview (though largely an unconscious one) in American culture and it is a discourse quite popular in some circles also about “culturally relative morality” vs. morality sourced and referenced in a Creator who is objectively good and perfect. C.S. Lewis reflects on this in his book “Mere Christianity”. If you are interested in commenting about this in any way, you can do so at the FACEBOOK group PAGE here.

 

EPS 27: No Squeezing Chickens–A rhythm for creating your best work

 

 

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The LIVE, interactive discussion with Andi already happened. (It was awesome!)

We got to talk about her work with race relations and it was fascinating.

Take a peek or access it now, right here.

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SHOWNOTES

INTRO to EPS 27
Andi Cumbo-Floyd found that farm life taught her about the divine whispers that ignite creativity. Now, she invites writers for workshops full of rest and fellowship. She welcomes and nurtures weary pilgrims to her beautiful rural retreat space so they can create in a safe and life-giving way.
AndiCumboFloyd

 

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SHOWNOTES with links:

MNIUTE – 1:00-11:00 (intro)

Note-worthy links:

• The Contemplative Writer Facebook group

• The Slaves Have Names (Andi’s book about race relations and growing up on a former plantation.)

• Andi’s book about writing.

MNIUTE – 10:30

Monks don’t withdraw from the world to hide. They withdraw to pray and prayer is action. (Thomas Merton)

11:30

Storing up our reserves to be more powerful in the world as an agent for healing and change.

12:00God's Whisper Farm

On Andi’s writing retreat space called God Whisper Farms. Building the farm and fixing it up. Meeting her husband and getting goats and chickens and then relocating the farm to a place with 15 acres.

13:30

Mennonite Tradition. Pastor Jesse Johnson…God whispered (a.k.a. “still small voice”)

18:00

Upcoming residency for writers and artists to have a refuge and respite.

Andisgoats

19:00

Soul care

19:30

God’s Whisper Manifesto lays out the 10 principles for the farm.

20:40

Working with new writers. Goal-setting, the craft of writing, and connect with other writers.

22:00

Her advice for those who are stuck creatively:

Building silence into the day.

(Art comes from a stiller place.)

Kicking starting the process with poetry or lectio divinia.

Listening for your true voice and practicing the hearing needed for when that voice speaks.

24:00

Expectations and other things that block us from our true artistic voice.

Quieting the other voices that haven’t been helpful.

Not “shoulding” and thinking of “oughts”.

26:00

Henri Nouwen “What if God takes delight in the things that you take delight in?”

27:00

Anxiety-producing questions that make us feeling like we aren’t where we should be.

There is no writer’s block, only fear stops us.

28:00

The Wounded Healer – Henri Nouwen

28:30

Privacy and a nurturing environment to create.

30:30

Knowing we are good and we are loved.

31:00

The universality in creation that finds a home in others.

32:00

Andy’s background in faith and spirituality.

Her parents’ advise for attending a church, “Go where the community is the best.”

34:00

A winding spiritual journey: 3 Baptisms and ending up Anabaptist.

36:30

The breakdown of denominational labels.

38:00

Social Justice (apart from government solutions) and the Peace Tradition in the Anabaptist sphere.

Old order Mennonite

39:30

The Love Feast (and some churches do foot washing as a sacrament.)

40:30

(Lisa) Assembly church background.

41:30

Sabbath Rest and visiting friends and family.

43:00

How we stop knowing people at church. The rebellious potluck.

44:00

No assumption of guaranteed entertainment and 2 hours to relax and eat.

45:00

House churches and nurturing environments.

45:30

Her website: andilit.com

Quilt of Souls

47:10

The Coal Regions of the East and Yuengling Brewery

48:30

Breeding Goats and making soap and gathering eggs.

49:40

Nature will not be rushed.

50:00

You can’t squeeze chickens to get eggs when you want them. They are the boss.

Don’t forget to join in for the LIVE interactive discussion of this episode the same day its’ released (Tuesday).
VIEW UPCOMING topics and subscribe to join any one you can in HERE. 

Episode 19 – A Reflection on the nature of Suffering

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I hope you get something helpful from this short episode. There are no typical shownotes this time.

As you hear this essay in verse, may it bring you some solace and comfort if you are in some kind of suffering, grief, or pain at this time.

 

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Episode 5 – The god of Wine and re-thinking the nature of creative process

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Shownotes

Episode 5 – The god of Wine and re-thinking the nature of creative process

dionysus

Today’s episode is about the Greek god of Wine and rethinking our ideas about the process of creation, and a better understanding the notion of “creative genius”:

 

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wine segment

What the Greeks thought about wine is reflected in the god of wine that they worshiped. (I don’t recommend worshiping the god of wine, or any god except the benevolent Creator.)

• Dionysus was the Greek god of wine and grape harvest

• The only god to have a mortal parent. Born from Zues’ thigh. That’s because his mother burnt to a crisp when Zues showed himself to her in his glory. Whoops.

Symposium means “drinking together”.

Additional note: These originally-small gatherings were for upper class men and with carefully imposed rules about consumption. They occured for leisure and thoughtful discussion.

• I will be offering a symposium-stlyle web-event where we will all have a glass of wine at the same time and discus a topic–possibly in July. Only patrons will get to come. This is your invitation. :)

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• Most of the great Greek plays were initially written to be performed at the Spring feast of Dionysus. . . .when the buds of grape leaves start to open. It was a most sacred festival.

• Dionysus was a patron of the arts!

For Greeks, Dionysus was credited with creating wine and spreading the art of viticulture (the horticulture of grapes).

• He had a dual nature; on one hand, he brought joy and divine ecstasy; or he would bring madness, brutal and blinding rage–a good depiction of the dual nature of wine.

• He was brought back to life…like grape vines that undergo brutal pruning and look dead, but then burst back to life.

• Blood and red wine are often linked for the ancients.

(Blood gives the body life, wine has powerful bodily effects.)

And now to spark your muse!

——

• Nikolai Berdyeav

“All the products of a man’s genius may be temporal and corruptible, but the creative fire itself is eternal, and everything temporal ought to be consumed in it. It is the tragedy of creativeness that it was eternity and the eternal, but produces the temporal, and builds up the culture which is in time and a part of history. The creative act is an escape from the power of time and ascent to the divine…”

Today we’re thinking of the creative process as re-imagined and being “divinely co-operative”.

We (commonly) think of genius as applied to us in a personal way like a characteristic. A natural capacity, but the Greeks seem to have a much healthier view of what the process of creation is truly like…

• For the Greeks …divinity is always present.

• A genius = an unseen guardian, or custodial and protecting spirit…who gives a human inspiration: For the Greek, we each have one. (It’s not us; but it will help us.)

Three reasons why depersonalizing our part in the creative process is helpful:

1. Failure is not personal

2. Success shouldn’t cause arrogance

3. Patience and giving up control (not forcing it) will reinvorgate your creativity

What do you think?

Is the creative process a “divine cooperation”?

 

In the next episode we will cover “the proper rites of friendship”  and skinny on “wine spritzers”. 

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