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| Dolphin
Relationship Aquarium Interview
with Jean Houston THINKING ALLOWED
MISHLOVE: Well, what you're saying is that we have access to all of the knowledge that's been accumulated in all of the cultures throughout the history of humanity. HOUSTON: And sufficient crisis and complexity and radical need to make use of this knowledge, which we did not have to do when we were just men and women in search of subsistence, or living within tribal or nation states. MISHLOVE: Isn't there also a backlash going on? HOUSTON: Of course there is. I mean, whenever you are on the verge of so much more, people say, "Oooohhh, uummm, I don't think so. No, no, back to basics. Back to fundamentalist fortresses of truth." Back to sanctifying of mediocrity. And also the incredible yearning for a pattern that makes sense, and we are in a time in which literally all systems are in transition. Everything has shaken down into chaos. Everything is breaking down -- standard-brand governments, politics, economics, religions, relationships. And we are probably in the greatest shaking up in human history. And so what we are seeing is the sunset effect --you know, the sun gets brighter and blazes out before it goes down -- the sunset effect of all the traditional ways of knowing, seeing, being -- and a rising of fundamentalism. But I don't think that's going to last very long, because the world is simply too complex. I've often said we're educated for a much earlier era, not for the immense complexity of who and what we are in human history. And people are discovering that the need, the yearning, that I find literally all over the world, to become what we can be -- and that's one of the main reasons why we find myth rising all over the world, because myth gives us the kind of coding, in the story of ourselves writ large, as the hero and heroine of a thousand faces. It gives us access to a much larger story, and all of us are on the verge of becoming citizens in a universe larger than our aspiration and much more complex than all our dreams. Myths are rising
everywhere. I remember last year I was MISHLOVE: In the center of the village. HOUSTON: In the center of the village, and so you see people coming in with their water buffalo and leaving them, and taking the water jugs off their head and sitting down around the set. And I was sitting next to an older lady, and she was watching the story of poor Sita, just beleaguered and not being able to do anything for herself, and she said, "Oh, I don't like this story of Sita. She is too weak, she is too passive." I said, "Oh? What do you mean? It's a beautiful, elaborate story." "No, you see, my name is Sita, and my husband's name is Rama -- very common in India. And my husband is a lazy bum and I do most of the work, and we've got to show that. We've got to change the story, change the story to see how strong women are today." And she was actually talking about how the myth had to grow. Well, after this beautiful, beautiful story, guess what followed it all over India on television? Dynasty! I was incredibly embarrassed. MISHLOVE: But it's a story about strong women. HOUSTON: Yes. She
said, "Oh sister, why are you so embarrassed? Don't
you realize it is the same story?" I said,
"Well, how do you mean?" "You've got the
MISHLOVE: Interesting. Well, you have traveled all over the world, Jean. You've probably put on as many miles as anybody I know. HOUSTON: Whoever lived, practically, at this point. MISHLOVE: You are called in as a consultant by many different governments. HOUSTON: Governments and human development agencies, the United Nations. MISHLOVE: Heads of state occasionally. HOUSTON: Yes, oh yes. More than occasionally. MISHLOVE: You're spreading the gospel of human potential everywhere. HOUSTON: Well, I work in a different way, though, you see. What I will do is I'll go and I'll live in a culture for a period of time. And I don't mean the Bombay Hilton, either, you know; I mean, I will live in huts with the peasants and with the people of the land, and I will get to know many different strata of the society and get a sense of what is trying to happen. I'll give a lot of
speeches too, you know, and then I'll hold a seminar,
often with the leaders or the evocateurs of the
And I'll integrate a great many physical, mental, psychological, and spiritual processes and exercises that are key to the story, but are also keyed to the releasing of the potentials of the culture -- what can education in Taiwan be? What can a new social ethic in South Africa be? -- using these coded stories that often contain the multiple levels of what can happen. And it seems to work, and people then continue with this kind of work and take it and change the schools and the hospitals and the social systems. MISHLOVE: There's a great paradox, though, of you, the American woman, coming in and giving, in effect, their culture back to them. HOUSTON: I agree, and
I don't know why it works, but it does. And also I don't
look like them, you see, because I'm nearly six feet
tall, and often they're rather small people. No, it's
being a woman that is an advantage, because I don't come
in telling them what to do. I come in as a deep listener,
and also as a student. I've spent a lot of time learning
as much about their culture, so I am as full of questions
for them as they are for me. So it really is
interdependent and is a mutual sharing. End Part Two of Three
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