Getting to the roots of injustice through radical mindfulness with Dr James Rowe

079 The roots of inequality and exploitation run far deeper than the machinations of privileged elites and would be dictators.  Behind the insatiable quest for power and control hides an unexamined primal fear that defies a political solution. Death is the great equalizer.  History is defined by world leaders and political activists consumed by the struggle to defy the truth of impermanence by any means, including engaging in horrendous acts of violence.  When the world is literally on fire spending time on the meditation cushion facing our existential issues can seem indulgent. However, without cultural rituals and ways of relating to death we risk becoming a version of the oppressor or tyrant we claim to be fighting.

In this conversation with Dr James Rowe, author of Radical Mindfulness: Why transforming the fear of death is politically vital, we discuss the enduring will to supremacy and why the fear of death is the ultimate upstream cause of so many personal and political conflicts.  We also discuss how mind/body practices like meditation can help us metabolize existential fear, making us more effective and compassionate change makers.

Photo by Photo by Chris on Unsplash

Music used in this episode by atlasaudio on Pixabay

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Transcript

Welcome And The Core Claim

Silas Rose 0:00

Welcome to another episode of Awake in Relationship. My name is Silas Rose. I suspect many people in my audience might consider themselves change makers. Like me, they probably care deeply about the planet and what seems like an escalation of injustice and human suffering on a scale that we haven't seen in a long time. Why is it despite an abundance of education, resources, and personal freedoms, the dark specter of supremacy is making a return? There is, of course, many competing political theories that attempt to explain bad human behavior. But my next guess suggests we have to look deeper to the truth of impermanence and the fear of death. The fear is often expressed in relationships of dominance and control. It doesn't matter if you're the POTUS or a frontline activist. The unexamined fear of death drives the will to supremacy. It's a radical thought. Which is why I invited Dr. James Rome, the author of Radical Mindfulness. Why transforming the fear of death is politically vital on to the sshow. A an academic, a professor of environmental studies at the university, a Victoria and longtime practitioner of mindfulness meditation. James straddles two very different worlds and approaches to change making. In this conversation, we talk about the role of mind-body practices and rituals like meditation to help us transform existential fear and reconnect to a greater sense of power and goodness to heal our world. If you have been enjoying the content here of Awake in Relationship, I really appreciate it if you can take a moment and leave a quick review. Also, don't forget to hit subscribe and if you've already done this, thank you so much. Now on to my conversation with Dr. James Row e

Why Bad Behaviour Persists

Silas Rose 2:53

So you re an enviromental studies prof at the University of Victoria.

Jame Rowe 3:06

Yes.

Silas Rose 3:07

Why write a book about radical mindfulness?

James Rowe 3:11

Um yeah, so for me the sort of genesis of the book is in a long-standing question that I've sat with, which is why the why the persistence of shitty human behavior throughout history? You know, like why uh why does racism remain uh such an ongoing challenge? Why do patriarchal social relations remain such an ongoing challenge? You know, the the witch burnings are hundreds of years ago, and yet here we have abortion rights getting rolled back in the United in the United States. Um, you know, London, England had a pollution problem in the like 1200, 1300s from soft coal. And you know, here we are now uh globally with uh a pollution problem with climate change threatening the sort of balance of of civilization itself. And so there's kind of this ongoing or persistence to uh injustice or dominative social relations along multiple axes of race, class, gender, species. And so the sort of question is like, why? Like why does this keep happening? And and sort of one of the premises that I've been working with is that maybe it keeps happening because despite the really powerful social movements that have arisen to address these different challenges, maybe we haven't been targeting all the different drivers of bad human behavior. Like we've been getting some of them, but maybe we've been missing some. And so this book is an effort to uh engage in radical analysis, which basically just means to get to the root of something, you know, to get down to what is ultimately compelling or driving it. And it turns out that uh there's multiple thinkers and in fact entire religions that have uh Buddhism being the one I'm thinking of, that have uh sort of centered the role of existential fear and and um and and sort of challenges with uncertainty and impermanence as something that can compel bad human behavior. And and the sort of basic argument being that it's really easy for us to feel small in the face of this big world that will one day gobble us up and to want to compensate for that feeling of smallness by imposing ourselves on other beings, whether they be human or non-human. And that that basic dynamic is one that's gonna just keep happening if we don't address, uh, if we don't address some of those, address some of those fears. And so uh so this book was an effort to kind of answer that question that I've been sitting with for all these years. And then, you know, I'm not like many people have answered the question already. Uh, and what this book does that's original, I guess, is that it gathers together all the different ways that thinkers from different traditions have have asked us to think about existential fear as a really important driver, root driver of bad human uh behavior. And so the book collects them all together into one place and and allows readers uh to kind of really sit with this explanation or this answer and see if it's one that resonates for them. It definitely does for me. It's one that I see alive in my own body that when I'm feeling afraid, that's when I'm usually my worst self and most likely to try to impose myself on others in in different ways. And all the subtle ways that we do, this doesn't have to be just clear domination, it could be just the idea that I want my choice of restaurant tonight to be the restaurant that we're going to choose, you know. Uh so there's all kinds of ways that this sort of what I call a will to supremacy uh can uh can show up, sometimes you know, pretty innocuous and sometimes quite damaging. Uh, and so, anyways, that's the that's the genesis of the book. Um, try to answer that question and and in so doing, bring together all the different thinkers that I think have offered this really important explanation that ultimately hasn't received the attention that I think it should it should in this part of the world, in the sort of Euro-American uh part of the world, which ultimately is a very death-denying culture, so it makes sense that it's not really willing to want to look at the role of accidental fear in shaping human behavior.

Fear Shows Up As Control

Silas Rose 7:09

So, yeah, you come to this question from two very unique perspectives, or I would say worlds. You know, one is the the in your role as in academia, the the life and the mind, and the other is really from the the perspective of a practitioner uh a mindfulness meditation. I wonder if you ever find that these two ways of knowing are in conflict.

James Rowe 7:38

Yeah, it's a it's a good question. Uh less less than I would think, and less than others might think as well. And and part of it's because of the the sort of um secular mindfulness revolution that that's been happening over the last 15 years or so that's uh that despite its its limitations, which we can get into if we want, uh it has really opened up a lot of space around uh the sort of positive role of mindfulness, particularly for mental health. And so at this point in time, like I teach a class on mindfulness and social change, and it was it was the easiest class I've ever had approved. Uh, and it fills up every year, and and administrators love it because it makes them money. Uh, but it's a desired class because people understand that these practices are beneficial for them. And and um, and there's growing, of course, scientific research on on uh the mental health and physical health benefits of different mind-body practices. And so there's actually lots of ways that that some of my work uh fits quite snugly within an academic context. I think a couple of ways some tensions show up is that the academic world is very much a world of striving and of trying to uh again pursue one's own will to supremacy to get cited the most and to be the most famous author or whatever else. And so so needing to sort of watch uh both my own ego at work and also the way that you know some of the institutional incentives are such that they really encourage egotistical or egoistic behavior. And so then I'm just having to watch the ways in which I'm internalizing some of those logics within the institution and ways that I can resist them while still keeping my job. Uh, and so there are some tensions there. Um, the last thing I'll say is actually maybe more interesting, which is that there's ways that Buddhism, especially uh what David McMahon calls Buddhist modernism, which is kind of the way Buddhism has shown up in the Euro-American world, there's ways that it fits quite snugly with a kind of materialistic outlook where, and by materialistic, I don't mean um focused on accruing material wealth, but I just mean not really attentive to maybe matters of spirit and more focused in on observable phenomena. And so, you know, meditation as it's often taught, especially in secular contexts, is asking us to work with subtle bodily energies as a way of either improving our mental health or from my perspective to actually address some of our core fears and to redirect some of those subtle bodily energies such that we're not coming at the world from a place of fear, but we're actually coming at it from a place of acceptance and comfort, which then allows for more for more generosity. But all of that is none of that is really pushing against a kind of uh scientific materialist outlook. Like it's it's not really observable because we can't observe those subtle bodily energies necessarily below a microscope, but we can interview people, we can observe behavior after they've engaged in some of these mind-body practices. And so there's ways that it sort of fits. An

Mindfulness In Academia And Its Limits

James Rowe 10:42

experience I've had lately that we can maybe get into or not, uh, is this incredibly intense spiritual experience a few years back uh using psychedelic medicine and really experiencing viscerally uh spirit, you know, like the spirit of ancestors, uh, the spirit of like my ancestors, but also like animal ancestors, uh, the liveliness of the more than human world and the spirit that animates all of life, like really just getting to encounter that. And and that particular spiritual encounter for me is one that I cannot reconcile easily with a scientific materialist worldview. And so I'm still sitting with how to um how to kind of bring that intense spiritual encounter that I had into some of my academic work where there is some tensions perhaps when you start talking about matters of spirit. Um you can start losing people in an academic context in the current moment. In a way that if you start talking about mindfulness, you don't, because it's observable, if there's lots of scientific evidence to support it. Uh, and so that's one interesting tension that I'm currently sitting with.

Spirit, Psychedelics, And Worldviews

Silas Rose 11:50

Yeah, I can see that. So, yeah, we live in materialistic capitalist culture that is very in denial of the reality of death . I wonder if we can be a little bit more sort of specific around the through line between that fear and a lot of the events that are happening in the world right now, either socially or ecologically, saying the war in Gaza or Iran or even the addictions crisis.

James Rowe 12:23

Yeah, I think that there's just so many ways of of applying uh this analysis. You know, uh so one of the thinkers I engage in the book is Martin Luther King Jr., who has this beautiful sermon. It was actually the last sermon that he gave before he himself was assassinated by white supremacists, but it's called the Drum Major Instinct. And he talks about how all of us uh have this uh sort of will to be out front, this will to be at the front of the parade, as he as he puts it. Um he himself doesn't make the link between existential fear and this will to supremacy. He thinks it's just sort of biologically woven into us, and our job is to just redirect our drum major instinct towards uh good pursuits, you know, so to become a drum major for justice is which is what he sought, uh which he tried to do. Um, you know, from my perspective, I think that it's not biologically baked in and that we can that we can transform it, and that's important that we that we try. But I think if we just look at you know any of those things that you've just mentioned, we can kind of see at its core a will to supremacy, you know, whether it's a will to American supremacy uh vis-a-vis the different incursions that um that Trump's government had sought to make, whether it's in Venezuela, saber rattling with Greenland, uh uh actual incursions in into Iran. Uh and so that American supremacy is very much uh alive in those dynamics. Likewise, a Russian supremacy is alive in in uh the invasion of Ukraine. Uh, and and in certain ways, even the sort of counter-response or the counter-nationalism, whether it's Canadian nationalism or Iranian nationalism, has its own kind of will to supremacy. Now, it's easier to decide perhaps with depending on how one views these conflicts, uh, but um but we always have to be careful that our kind of counter-will to supremacy isn't itself just going to become another dominative uh form of supremacy seeking down the road. And so that's something we always have to be attentive to. But but the sort of the basic argument is that, again, it's very easy for us humans to feel very small in the face of this existential condition that will one day gobble us up. The two bookends of our lives, our birth and our death, are things we don't have much control over. And so it makes sense that we sort of try to seek control. And if we don't have cultural resources to help us cope with our existential fears, whether that's practices like meditation, whether that's indigenous ceremony or ritual or other earth-honoring traditions that I think have historically helped humans come to terms with their finite existence and actually come to love it and see it as basically good, to use uh a phrase that both you and I are familiar with from the Shambhala Buddhist context, uh, or the perfection of creation to speak to uh some phrasings used by uh different indigenous peoples. Um, if we don't have those resources to help us transform some of our fears, then it's easy for them to aggregate within our organism and shape uh a will to supremacy that then itself can get kind of collectivized as we work with others that can then become a pursuit of national supremacy or a pursuit of male supremacy or a pursuit of white supremacy. And my argument isn't that that um existential fear is the only thing behind these dynamics. Of course, the world is a very complex place and there's other drivers afoot as well. But this is a really powerful one that hasn't been, I don't think, attended to enough within the Euro-American uh world. And if we don't address these root drivers, then we're just gonna keep pouring kind of endless fuel onto the fire with these burgeoning wills to supremacy that even as we say pursue policy change or legal change or get a ceasefire here or ceasefire there, it's just like a game of whack-a-ole because uh this fuel load is still there uh because these fundamental fears haven't been addressed. Maybe just last thing I'll say, just because it's you know, economy brings things down to a scale that's that's um more easily digested for all of us because we're all individuals, but you just look like it, look at a figure like Donald Trump. Like he's just like a perfect embodiment or personification of this argument. Like he's a known germaphobe. Uh, he's he's a has accidental fear around his own mortality. Uh, he's literally trying to pursue actual immortality with his whitened teeth, his tan skin, his crazy quaff, blonde quaff at 78. Uh, and and there's also his sort of performances of vitality and strength, whether it's you know his enjoyment of ultimate fighting championship or WWE wrestling or whatever else. But then he also is consistently pursuing symbolic immortality, trying to throw his name on anything he can find, a building, planes, stakes, sneakers, bibles, uh, whatever. Uh, he wants his name to sort of be up in lights forever. Like he's seeking a kind of permanence to cope with some of his own existential fears. And and so, like he himself, uh, this incredibly destructive uh figure, is kind of a uh a case in point of this argument where if we don't address some of these fears and anxieties, uh we we become monsters, actually. And he's like he's like a worst-case scenario. And then and again, in his case as well, there's complexities in terms of his upbringing. You can do a whole psychoanalytic reading of his relationship with his father, but but I do think that um these existential fears can play a really important role

Supremacy Politics And Symbolic Immortality

Silas Rose 17:46

Do you think it's something unique to Western culture?

James Rowe 17:51

Um, yeah, that's a good question. I think that it's not necessarily unique. I think that um I do I would argue, I'd make a sort of strong provocative argument, perhaps, that that we're all of us, um, all us humans are susceptible to feeling existential fear and then compensating for that fear uh through aggrandizing behavior. It's just that some cultures, I think, have recognized that and they've recognized that danger, and they've crafted cultural technologies to try to mitigate that danger. Again, we have a whole world religion in Buddhism that uh through meditation and different contemplated practices and and and with the Sangha and other wisdom practices, trying to kind of curtail some of those fears. And it's the same with different uh indigenous cultures as well, where there's there's you know well-known practices for for transforming some of these fears. And and um, I think what's unique about Euro-American culture is that it's sort of very actively turned away from its own earth-honoring traditions within its own history, uh, and and it's it's buried them, basically. And and so most people in this culture are walking around without the resources to cope with these really fundamental fears and anxieties. I think that's that's one reason why I turned to Buddhism and why so many people have turned to Buddhism in this part of the world is that we don't have other resources. We don't have our own, we've lost contact with our own earth-honoring traditions due to colonialism internal to Europe before it got exported to other parts of the world, you know, and so uh and so we're disconnected from the ancestral traditions that would have helped us make sense of this earth that we're on. Uh, and so I think that's why the Euro-American uh sort of West is as neurotic as it is, is it's it's disconnected from the uh the ancestral practices that historically would have helped people integrate and cope with this with this existence.

Silas Rose 19:51

Yeah, I really believe that that sense of disconnection from uh sacred outlook. Yes. Is really the the original sin.

James Rowe 20:00

Yes, yes, exactly. Yeah, exactly. That severance from um from uh exactly from being uh having a deep, rich connection with uh with the more than human and having the ability to love it, uh to love this earth and to love this life despite the fact that it ends and to not and to not uh uh w walk forward with tremendous fear and resentment that then turns into all kinds of neurotic behavior that actually ends up killing the earth. Like we are like it's I'm not I'm not even being dramatic. Like that's what's happening, you know, like our our inability to love an earth that's shaped by dynamics of impermanence, like impermanence are integral to the ecological process. Like the earth is this fundamentally generous place, but it ultimately requires death to to nourish the soil for new life. That's the cycle of generosity that all of us benefit from. But the fact that we resist it, fight it, means that we're fighting the earth itself, which means that we're we're we're we're killing it, and in so doing, killing ourselves, because we ourselves are not disconnected from uh we're fundamentally connected. That's the that's the matter that we're hiding from.

Death Denial And Lost Traditions

Silas Rose 21:08

So the challenge of writing a book drawing that link, that connection between existential fear and uh and supremacy is that the people that most need to read this book probably won't, and definitely thinking of a certain global leader that you just mentioned. Maybe if we included a happy meal. He might read it. But how are people in he activist a community receive your ideas?

James Rowe 21:39

Yeah, I think it's a really good point, and and and it's a point that I've heard before of of of precisely that, that the people who most probably would benefit from this analysis are the least likely to read it. I did write the book with that understanding, and and I sort of the the sort of theory of change that I name in the book is that you know, if if we within Progressive social movements can kind of get our own shit together and can metabolize our own existential fears and move forward with more generosity towards each other and towards potential allies, that we will become more effective in the work that we're doing. And social movements have long prefigured the social relations that we want to see out in the broader world. And so the kind of hope that I have is that if more sort of progressive, lefty people can do their own work, metabolize their own fears, and become more effective agents for change, it's going to make social movements more magnetizing towards others. And it's also going to, again, pre-figure those social relations that we want to see put out into the broader world. And so the kind of point is to actually start inward, first not just inward in terms of with ourselves, but with our own sort of progressive activist communities and do some of our own transformative work as a precondition to, again, becoming better at shaping the structural dynamics that we're wanting to change. And, you know, there is no shortage of work that needs to happen. Like if you spend any time in activist communities, what I name like this will to supremacy, it's everywhere. Like it's not just our opponents who are animated by this. It's our fellow activists who think that their particular analysis is right or that their particular tactic is the best one. And that if you don't say the right words, uh, you know, you're an idiot, and and they enjoy uh letting you know that you're an idiot because it makes them feel uh makes them feel good. And in many respects, what's sort of named call-out culture is its own form of a will to supremacy at work. And so there's very much work that needs to happen internally within within social movements. And and so to answer your question, like, yeah, I would say that it's uh the the argument has been um welcomed because I think that most people uh most people I'm I'm in connection with anyways, like recognize that that we have our own problems within progressive social movements and that and that dealing with those will make us more effective. And so that's kind of why the book is targeted in that direction, because I under I I recognize that um that some of our opponents who uh could probably use the analysis even more, uh they're not gonna read it right now, you know. And so we need to do our own work, get our own shit together, and then be better at um at sort of forcing the issue with our opponents. So

Inner Work That Strengthens Movements

Silas Rose 24:35

I'm just thinking about younger Silas back in my twenties when I was haughty activist. You know, I might have thought it to be somewhat indulgent to spend a bunch of time on a meditation cushion working on my existential fear. How how would you respond to that critique?

James Rowe 24:56

Yeah, yeah, I think I think that's a fair question and fair concern. There's this um parable that um I don't even know actually if I reference it in the book, but I I use it in my teaching all the time that I really like that kind of answers this question for me, anyways. And this very simple parable of like you just imagine this village uh uh with uh this river running next to it, and there's this woman working in the fields uh next to the river, and she hears these one day she's out there working and she hears these cries from the river. She goes down and sees that there's some children struggling to stay afloat uh in the river. And so she goes in and pulls these kids to safety. But as she's doing so, she sees that more kids, you know, are continuing to come down the river. And so she calls out to her fellow villagers. They form this human chain, they're pulling these kids out of the river all afternoon. Uh, and then sort of finally, three hours in, two of the villagers break away and start sort of moving upstream. And the rest of the villagers yell after them, like, what are you doing? Like, how can you possibly leave? We've got this vital work of bringing the kids to safety. And they're like, Yes, yes, yes, we do keep doing that, but we're gonna go upstream and find out who's throwing the damn kids in the river in the first place so that we don't have to spend the rest of our lives in this human chain bailing kids out of the river. And so that kind of points to the importance of locating these upstream causes. And if one of the upstream causes of shitty human behavior, including our own, is existential fear, then uh then we need practices to metabolize that fear. And sitting on a meditation cushion is one of them. It's not the only one. There's the other practices you can use, you know. Uh, and so um, but it does point to the value and importance of spending time uh metabolizing one's own fears because it means that you're actually gonna be showing up for the world in a much more open, less defensive, and more generous way. And you're also gonna be, you're gonna be more effective relationally with your fellow activists, you're gonna be more effective relationally with those who you're maybe trying to magnetize into the work and movement that you're that you're engaged in. And so it might seem indulgent, but if existential fear actually plays the vital role that I argue it does in shaping shitty human behavior, then the work is that work on the cushion is is vital. Like it's not, it's not just an indulgence, it's actually central to the social change uh mission. Like it's you're addressing that upstream, that upstream cause. And so that would be the kind of argument I would I would make is that um, you know, as long as you're kind of linking that work, if we stick with the parable, like you've got some people going upstream and you've got others pulling the kids out of the river. You can kind of think of that internally within one person as well, that some of your time is spent on the cushion and some of your time is spent doing um different kinds of social justice work, addressing some of those immediate problems that uh that we all that we all face. Again, whether it's the addiction crisis or gender-based violence, like pick your poison. Unfortunately, there's so many damn terrible things that are happening on a regular basis that need our that need our attention. So that would be kind of my my answer.

Silas Rose 28:02

Is there actually a point though when that kind of inward gaze does become indulgent?

James Rowe 28:09

Yeah, yeah, I think it can. And um, yeah, I have I have some colleagues of mine um who recently wrote a book on uh doomsday uh bunkers in the in the US. And but they make this really interesting argument that sort of broadens it out that you know it's not just these wackos with their doomsday bunkers, but there's a kind of generalized bunkerization, they call it, that many of us are involved in right now, where we're kind of hiding from the uh challenges of the world. And so whether it's turning on your Netflix maybe more than you should, uh, or maybe even meditating more than you should, uh, because you're uh you're kind of hiding from the challenges. And it's really easy right now to feel uh disempowered, to feel dispirited. I know that these are feelings that run through my organism on a regular basis. I'm not immune to it at all. It's easy to feel quite a bit of despair and hopelessness right now. And it makes sense to maybe reduce one's focus down to the self where you actually feel like you might have some control. You know, like how am I gonna control this crazy person, Donald Trump, south of the border? I can't. Um, but I can at least, you know, maybe control some of my own reactions in the world with my meditation practice. And so there's there's this kind of a, or likewise at the gym, like spending extra more time at the gym, shaping your body or whatever. There's all kinds of ways that um these practices that in themselves are fine and actually really healthy and good can turn a bit neurotic uh if they are uh a kind of navel gazy effort to simply kind of buffer the self uh as a way of um feeling like you have control again, uh in a way that you don't in this broader uh world that we're engaging in. And so I think it's a risk factor that we have to be watching. And it's a question I'm asking myself all the time, too, of like, am I have I flipped too far uh into some of these different um self-care uh practices? Am I too disconnected uh from political uh from political change? And there's no there's no perfect answer. I think it's I think the question that you asked is is just important for us to be sitting with uh as we move forward so that we can kind of calibrate and and check ourselves and recognize that we might be feeling some dispiritedness that is actually compelling us to bunkerize, whether it's through meditation, the gym, or or whatever else. Politics

When Self Care Turns Into Hiding

Silas Rose 30:41

Politics on the left and the right have become increasingly polarized and I would say denialistic in your in the research for this book. I wonder if you came across examples of change makers and communities that are integrating mind-body practices and ritual ceremony ways of reconnecting Sacredness as a way to kind of soften the anger and hatred that's has infused our politics.

James Rowe 31:17

Yeah, well, there are um you know definitely more and more organizations that are turning to these kinds of practices to sort of improve their work. And so um, you know, groups like Generative Somatics in the San Francisco Bay Area or um Movement Strategy Center as well. So so there are groups doing this, but uh to be perfectly honest, uh this tendency has not grown as much as I would have hoped over the last decade that I was researching, um researching this this book. And so uh we need more, I think, of of of communities, activist communities and spiritual communities that are that are modeling this. You know, I've I've never been, for example, to Plum Village. I know others who who have and and hold that up as a as a powerful example, although I've also heard about replicated uh dominated relations within that community, as it happens in in many communities as well. So there is no perfect, there's no perfect. I think I think that's also important for us to acknowledge is that there is no perfect. Um humans, us humans are are um always sort of struggling to be our best, but uh but often missing the mark, and and and we shouldn't give up on ourselves just because of that. And so that's important. But I'll maybe point to just one example because it's one that's fresh in my in my mind. I

Ceremony, Healing Leadership, And Hope

James Rowe 32:38

mentioned that um that medic psychedelic medicine journey I did a couple years back, and I was led by this gentleman named Ruben George, who's this uh indigenous um activist uh from Vancouver, a slay-letoth from traditional slaylet territory. In fact, Silas, you and I were at uh an event years back uh uh protesting the Transmountain pipeline that Ruben was speaking at. And so he he sort of um made his name in national politics, um, kind of leading the Slay Latooth fight against uh this large pipeline that was going to bring uh oil, uh tar sands oil from Alberta to the coast here. Um but uh since COVID, like he himself turned to uh psychedelic medicine as a way of relating to his own traumas and to engage in some of his own healing practice. And and it's not the only healing modality he uses. He's also a sundance chief and so leads that very potent ceremony uh and also leads uh weekly sweats uh as well. But he's someone who I sort of hold as a role model right now because he really does seek to pursue or bring sacred outlook into the everyday. Like he wants ceremony and ritual to be just really integrated into everyday life. And and he's someone who's done a tremendous amount of healing. And if you read his, he's got a beautiful memoir uh called It Stops Here that that listeners can go and check out. And I highly recommend it. It's just a beautiful book that that documents like the ways that his people and himself have experienced apocalypse uh many times. Uh and despite that destruction and and um and challenge, uh he still wants to wake up every day and try to make the world better for not only his community, but for all people. Like he really, he really thinks that uh that settlers, for example, need to heal uh their own wounds if we're gonna have any kind of genuine like reconciliation, uh any kind of reconciliation worth worth uh fighting for here on these lands. And so he's committed to working with anybody who uh is willing to do that work. And so um he doesn't have a kind of I guess uh antagonistic or dualistic outlook. Like he's willing to work with anybody. Like obviously, if if people are are uh making mischief for for him and his people and the people he cares about, he's not gonna work with them. But um but uh you know he he's a very open person and and um and it's very inspiring uh to see again someone who's been through like just like incredible life challenges and yet is totally optimistic and uh without rancor and um and wanting to just help and heal people of all of all kinds and all shape and all size. Uh and so just a real beautiful soul. And and um and so sort of sort of him and the communities that he's creating through his his work are are kind of a local example that I find uh really inspiring. And and again, encourage listeners to check out uh his book, It Stops Here. It's just it's just a really uh gorgeous read that um is just brimming with hopefulness and and and spiritedness, uh, which is such an antidote to the hopelessness and dispiritedness that is so easy to feel in this in this time. And you know, we've got climate apocalypse and and uh uh sort of war type apocalypses that we're watching around the world right now. And so to sort of see someone whose people have in have lived through apocalypse and and be wanting to wake up every day and fight for a better future is very inspiring.

Silas Rose 36:19

I'll put a link uh to that book in the show notes for sure. I I personally really so admire First Nations culture and how they've approached , these systemic apocalyptic harms uh and still maintained uh a sense of love and connection and vision.

James Rowe 36:43

Yeah, and I'll just yeah, I'll just you know say again, like it's it's it's moving to watch. Like um, you know, he doesn't for instance, like he loves working with people from all religious traditions, Christians, whatever, and he's not not trying to uh not trying to um what's the word I'm looking for when you try to convert? He's not trying to convert people to a different outlook, but um he just wants to find that common ground of sacredness and and and love and spirit and and to pursue collective healing. Like the and and and so it's it's beautiful to watch someone who who has experienced tremendous amount of harm um sort of turn towards just wanting everybody to heal as the antidote.

Silas Rose 37:23

So

Transforming Fear Into Loving Power

Silas Rose 37:24

to close this conversation, James, um what did writing this book uh change in you around your understanding of mortality and human nature and your own relationship to power?

James Rowe 37:37

Yeah, no, it's a good question. And and you know, the there's ways that this book is of course very personal and that you know I myself have recognized within my own organism how again uh when I'm feeling fearful and defensive uh is when I'm kind of my worst self. And and that kind of will to supremacy shows up in my own in my own behavior in all kinds of different ways, sometimes again, innocuous of wanting to be the one who wins that round of Mario Kart. Uh or you know, more more challenging around sort of pursuing egotistical behavior that can actually put other people down. And so um, and so I've watched that show up in my own body and be really kind of uncomfortable, of course, when it when it when it does. Um, and both through um the kind of meditative meditative practices that I talk about in the book, and then also through again that that medicine journey with Ruben, and actually there's really good research on how meditation and psychedelic medicine journeys work really well together because the meditation kind of quiets one's fear and allows one to really sink into the medicine more um more effectively. But but um, but it was interesting in that you know, the journey that I keep returning to. Like it was one of the first times in my life that I conscious life where like zero fear was in my or like I was completely fearless. Like it gave you a taste of enlightened energy, you know, for for a couple of hours. And it was interesting to watch that what happened when fear vacated my body was just overwhelming love for life and for my ancestors and for those all around me, and and just this desire to radiate that love uh outwards. And so uh and so that sort of showed for me, anyways, that when we are able to metabolize and turn down the fear within us, we're gonna be able to step forward uh with more love and with power, but the right kind of power, you know, the power that's not uh trying to put other people down, but it's the power that's that's seeking to uh lift people, lift people up. And so, you know, I I this is obviously a self-serving point to make, but I think the analysis is correct in the book. And and uh and I feel like I've tasted that within my own organism through both uh a long-term meditative practice and then and then some more recent intense uh spiritual experiences with psychedelic, uh, with psychedelic medicine that um that can kind of accelerate one's um, you know, it gives you a new baseline that you don't get to live in, um uh, but at least it sort of shows you what you can strive towards uh with your contemplative practice that you're that you that you have, whatever it might, whatever it might be. And so again, I think the more that we can kind of quell our internal fears and transform defensiveness into openness, then the more we're gonna be able to move forward with with love and the power that comes from that comes from that.

Where To Find The Work

Silas Rose 40:37

Thank you so much, James, for this this conversation. Uh lots to think about. Yeah, my pleasure. How can people learn more about the book and and your work?

James Rowe 40:48

Um yeah, well they can uh maybe just look up my name and and um uh uvic uh where I teach and then you know and then the internet does its thing and delivers them uh some things they can look at if they like.

Silas Rose 41:03

Thanks, James.

James Rowe 41:03

Awesome, thanks.

Silas Rose 41:06

If you want to learn more about James, uh guyscamer.com or check on the show notes and wickenrelation.com on some tag and and YouTube and sometimes Instagram and let me know what you think about the show and especially if you have ideas for future episodes or guests. If you made it this far into the episode. Dear listener, thank you for tuning in. Until next time for staying connected.com.