“One of the most important discriminations we can make … is the difference between things that beckon to us and things that call from our souls.”
— Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Dear Friends,
One of my favorite podcasts is The Emerald by Joshua Schrei … if you have not listened, I strongly encourage the episode on AI.
He and I spoke yesterday, and we are holding a free community session with Josh you can sign up for on The Mythic Landscape October 18th.
One of the pieces we spoke about is the need for initiation in our world today, and that the algorithms of our times do just the opposite: they give us what we want.
Any time you click a story or ad or video, it tracks that, and knows, “Give them more of this.”
If the topic is a conspiracy theory, the system registers, “give them more stories about that.” These algorithms determine what news, videos, and posts we view in a day.
Yet initiatory experiences are just the opposite: we get what we need. It is not the pleasant that guides, it is the journey through what can be unpleasant, and also freeing.
Today, have we chosen the pleasant over the profound, the easy over the difficult but worthy?
We look at our phones to see the latest news, the latest post, the latest piece of mind candy to keep us entertained, but is it guiding us toward the journey we took birth for … or are we just clicking away our limited heartbeats?
“Life will give you whatever experience that is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness,” says Eckhart Tolle, but the real question is, “Are we listening? Or are we too busy focusing on all the things that distract us?”
So as you make your way today, see if you can notice when you use your phone to distract, to take you out of a moment, take you away from a feeling of boredom or discomfort, and can we see these as a doorway, an invitation, to a deeper awareness?
In Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ words, what beckons you, what do you feel you should do … and what are the things that “call from our souls?”
May we all move through the initiations and teachings that present themselves with open eyes and open hearts, listening to the deeper call.
OFFERINGS: JOIN US for our donation-based series The Journey of Money here. Come explore your relationship to money! And see new speakers for the Wisdom & AI Summit Oct 29th - 30th here. With leaders from OpenAI, Google, MSFT, and more.
Blessings,
YESSSSSS. And I feel that this removes all variety from our life. This is why I started reading more paper books again, bought a record player (and started buying records that I love and ones I thought just had great album art) so that I could unplug from the algorithm.
I love this, Soren, especially your point about how initiations lead us into what we need versus what we think we want. So poignant. I've spent the past few years experimenting with guiding men (mostly business owners) through initiations and rites of passage and it's been a powerful way of learning and recalibrating. I can't wait to listen to this podcast.