Original Thinking: A Radical Revisioning of Time, Humanity, and Nature

by Glenn Aparicio Parry, James O'Dea (Foreword by)

Overview

In Original Thinking, Glenn Aparicio Parry delves into the evolution of Western thought to recover the living roots of wisdom that can correct the imbalances in our modern worldview. Inspired by groundbreaking dialogues that the author organized between Native American elders and leading-edge Western scientists to explore the underlying principles of the cosmos, this book offers a radical revisioning of how we think. Asking questions such as, Is it possible to come up with an original thought?, What does it mean to be human?, and How has our thinking created our world today?, Parry challenges us to consider many of our most basic assumptions. To think originally—as in thinking new thoughts that have never been thought or said before—is according to Parry, largely an illusion. So, too, is the idea of linear human progress. Most of us have traveled far from our ancestral lands, and in so doing, lost connection with place, the origin of our consciousness.

Original Thinking offers a radical revisioning of how we think and what it means to be human. It invites us to reintegrate our hearts with our heads and to expand our self-imposed narrowing of consciousness. In doing so we reconnect with the living, original source—nature and her interconnected elements and cycles—and embrace the communion of old and new, rational and intuitive, and masculine and feminine. Ultimately, Parry shows us how to create the tapestry of truly original thinking and to restore thought as a blessing, as a whole and complete transmission from Spirit.

Contents
PART ONE (ORIGIN): Is it possible to come up with an original thought?
Chapter 1. Original Thought, Time, and the Unfolding of Consciousness
Chapter 2. Looking Backward to Go Forward
Chapter 3. Wheels Within Wheels
Chapter 4. It's About Time

PART TWO (DEPARTURE): What does it mean to be human? 
Chapter 5. Purpose, Potential, and Responsibility of Being Human
Chapter 6. Rational Thought and Human Identity
Chapter 7. Re-thinking Language
Chapter 8. Beyond Rationality
Chapter 9. A Tale of Two Directions

PART THREE (RETURN): How has our thinking created the world today,
and what is emerging?
Chapter 10. The Essence of Thought
Chapter 11. To Make Thought Whole Again
Chapter 12. To Think Without Separation
Chapter 13. Re-Thinking the "Dismal Science"
Chapter 14. Toward An Original Economics

PART FOUR (RENEWAL): Can education promote the renewal of original thinking? 
Chapter 15. Education as Renewal 
Chapter 16. Childhood and Education
Chapter 17. Higher Education 
Chapter 18. A New (and Ancient) Vision 
Chapter 19. A Vision for Higher Education

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781583948903
Publisher:	North Atlantic Books
Publication date:	04/14/2015
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

GLENN APARICIO PARRY, PhD, also given the name Kizhe Naabe (Ojibwe for Kind-Hearted Man), is a writer, educator, international speaker, entrepreneur, and visionary whose lifelong passion is to reform thinking and education into a coherent, cohesive whole. The founder and past president of the SEED Institute, Parry is currently the president of the think tank The Circle for Original Thinking. He earned his BA in Psychology from Allegheny College and went on to earn both his MA in East-West Psychology and his PhD in Humanities with a concentration in Transformative Learning from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Parry organized and participated in the groundbreaking Language of Spirit Conferences from 1999-2011 that brought together Native and Western scientists in dialogue, moderated by Leroy Little Bear. He is a member of the Institute of Noetic Sciences and the Theosophical Society as part of a lifelong interest in bridging the arts and sciences. An avid outdoorsman, he now makes his home in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with his wife Tomoko, dog Sunrise, and cat Haru (Japanese for spring).

Table of Contents

Foreword James O'Dea xi

Preface xv

Introduction xxi

Part 1 Origin: Is It Possible to Come Up with an Original Thought? 1

Chapter 1 Original Thought, Time, and the Unfolding of Consciousness 3

Chapter 2 Looking Backward to Go Forward 17

Chapter 3 Wheels within Wheels 27

Chapter 4 It's About Time 45

Part 2 Departure: What Does It Mean to Be Human? 55

Chapter 5 Purpose, Potential, and Responsibility of Being Human in the World 61

Chapter 6 Rational Thought and Human Identity 71

Chapter 7 Rethinking Language 91

Chapter 8 Beyond Rationality 111

Chapter 9 A Tale of Two Directions 125

Part 3 Return: How Has Our Thinking Created the World Today, and What Is Now Emerging? 135

Chapter 10 The Essence of Thought 141

Chapter 11 To Make Thought Whole Again 155

Chapter 12 To Think without Separation 163

Chapter 13 Rethinking the "Dismal Science" 175

Chapter 14 Toward an Original Economics 185

Part 4 Renewal: Can Education Promote the Renewal of Original Thinking? 205

Chapter 15 Education as Renewal 211

Chapter 16 Childhood and Education 217

Chapter 17 Higher Education 227

Chapter 18 A New (and Ancient) Vision 235

Chapter 19 A Vision for Original Thinking 249

Notes 269

Index 287

Acknowledgments 299

Circle for Original Thinking 305

About the Author 307

Editorial Reviews

"[Parry] talks to readers about slowing the thought process, about the vibrational web of thought where the past never completely disappears, and about the mysterious power which was contained in the thoughts of ancient time. He asks us to consider the consequences of our perception of time and the idea of separateness. He suggests that stress is a healthy part of life and that thinking in circles is more constructive than thinking in straight lines. This might sound like very heavy reading, but please know that Parry writes about these complex ideas with the creativity he is encouraging us to seek out in our own lives." —ANNA JEDRZIEWSKI, Retailing Insight

"Packed with deep truths and timeless wisdom."—Gregg Braden, author of Deep Truth

“Parry’s book is perhaps the bravest and the most effective means to reeducate ourselves to the luminous life of the undivided consciousness. If widely read, this potent work can have the most profound consequences in restoring us to the soul of the world and the world of soulful, natural living.”—Jean Houston, author of A Passion for the Possible
 
“One of the more upfront, truthful accounts I have read. It speaks to the truth of what actually happened, and is still happening today.”—Jerry Honawa, Hopi elder
 
“We have arrived at a critical time for the human race, one that calls for something radically new. Original Thinking is such a book, one that maps out an exciting new path for us to take together.”—F. David Peat, author of Blackfoot Physics
 
“Parry reminds us humans that it is within our capacity to recover our relationship with Nature and all her Beings. We must act now.”—Grandmother Flordemayo (Mayan), member of International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers
 
“Original Thinking invites you to re-experience your own ground of being and your relationship to Cosmos not as an informational retrieval process but as a profound journey of discovery.”—James O’Dea, author of The Conscious Activist and former president of the Institute of Noetic Sciences

“Parry has deftly removed egotistical consciousness from its putative mastery of things and reinserted it integrally back into nature, and in doing so everything—thought, time, space, humanity—comes to look different, more radiant, at once older and newer. [This] is even more than a prescription for restoring the world.… In the pages of Original Thinking the world is already healthy once more.”—Jeffrey Paine, author of Re-Enchantment
 
“For over a decade, Glenn Aparicio Parry has been convening a unique gathering of minds, bringing a distinguished array of indigenous wisdom keepers together with western scientists—not to hold forth in front of an audience but simply to be in rich dialogue with one another, listening, learning, discovering fresh ways of thinking and understanding our aching world.”—David Abram, author of The Spell of the Sensuous
 
“The heart of Parry’s journey taps the living pulse of sacred, deep dialogue and calls upon the reader to become an awakened, ‘original’ reader, entering a sacred rite of passage toward the whole Self, heart and soul.”—Ashok Gangadean, PhD, author of Awakening the Global Mind
 
“Parry’s gift is to bring out the core essence of humanity, love, and prayer as well as our infinite connection to nature.“—Harlan McKosato (Sac and Fox), former host of Native America Calling
 
“Original Thinking is a call for humanity to return to our original purpose in the cosmos. Asking the most basic questions, Parry challenges us to set aside conventional thinking and ponder life’s firsts as blessings for which to be thankful—the first thought, the first awareness, the first consciousness, the beginning of the cosmos—in order to reeducate our minds, become one with nature as a state of being, and achieve wholeness through Spirit as our source.”—Phillip H. Duran (Tigua) author of The Condor and the Eagle
 
“Read this book and be liberated from the selfish, greedy, egotistic, and separatist thinking that is currently dominating and destroying our planet. Learn how to return to the origin of thought which brings us back into synchronization with Nature. It isn’t hard. Parry provides excellent instructions.” —Carole Hart, producer and director of For the Next Seven Generations: 13 Indigenous Grandmothers Weaving a World that Works
 
“A brave and bold book that draws upon the power of ancient wisdom, ways of being in the world still rooted to a vibrant sense of the ‘whole’—the whole of nature, the whole of humanity, the whole of time. Here is a book that we actually need to read, for our sake and the sake of life on this planet. For those willing to risk thinking their way toward viable and necessary alternatives to the dominant pressures of globalized capitalism, for those aware of the drastic consequences of our ignorance of the spiritual in favor of a selfish materialism, this book is not simply a treasure. It may be the one guide we need to begin to sort out how we might yet save ourselves.”—Mark S. Burrows, coauthor of Minding the Spirit
 
“Original Thinking has to do with the movement between civilizations, between cultures, between languages, between worlds. It has to do with overcoming boundaries, crossing borders not only geographically—but also psychologically and spiritually—in communication, in thinking, and in identity. It means that one is never finished, that one is always journeying onward. That one is always ready for the next experience.”—Mona Polacca, (Havasupai/Hopi/Tewa), member of International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers
 
“There is a lot of rich terrain to explore in the ‘third space’ opened by the decade-long dialogue between indigenous elders and scientists that inspired this work. As one of the long-time participants who was personally transformed, I am delighted by how the book distills some of the wisdom and burning questions that were forged in our historic dialogues. And I am even more heartened by Parry's ability to translate that wisdom into practical solutions and actions.”—Matthew C. Bronson, PhD, coeditor of So What? Now What? The Anthropology of Consciousness Responds to a World in Crisis
 
“Reading Original Thinking felt like being stirred and mixed and rocked in a cradle between my left brain and my right brain. And I do suspect that there was an interconnecting subtle weaving process stitching together an even more supple fabric within my whole brain. And that this fabric that re-wove me into it re-wove me into the original memory of Wholeness of all of Creation.”—Victoria Hanchin, author of The Seer and The Sayer
 

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