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Aaron Neal's avatar

Jordan, you've done it again. This is such an empowering and loving way to walk throught this beautiful/crazy/wonderful/intense world we are living in right now and it resonates so beautifully with my heart and soul.

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Jordan Bates's avatar

So glad to hear this one deeply resonated, Aaron. Good to hear from you, brother. Much Love and many blessings for a wonderful new year ❤️‍🔥🙏🏼

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Mike McElroy's avatar

Hi Jordan. An excellent piece on what grounded spirituality can be. I come out of a literary criticism background. You might be interested in Lionel Trilling's book Beyond Culture where he writes about the tradition of "adversary culture" that exists in the arts especially since the Romantic revolution in the 19th century - culture that creates a stream of antagonistic reaction to mainstream culture. And the pitfalls that can entail. As you say in your piece it's okay to be normal. In our spiritual investigations. Too much of spiritual pursuit these days seems to want to ascend and dismiss the world as "mere illusion" as you put it. Are you familiar with Ken Wilber's works? He emphasizes the importance of immanence and not just transcendence.

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Jordan Bates's avatar

Thanks for the breadcrumbs Mike — and for appreciating the piece! That means a lot to me 🙏🏼 Yes I am familiar with Wilber — I haven’t dove too deep into his stuff but I appreciate what I know of his work, his take on Spiral Dynamics-type developmental stuff, and his model of Waking Up / Cleaning Up / Growing Up / Showing Up. Take care 🙏🏼💙

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Mike McElroy's avatar

Wilber's latest book Finding Radical Wholeness outlines Waking/Cleaning/Growing/Showing/Opening up and it's only four hundred and fourty pages as opposed to his The Religion of Tomorrow which covers the ups too but is twice as long. Again great job on painting what a grounded spirituality looks like. It's important we stay grounded in these times. All the best.

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marybeth eldred's avatar

Constantly

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Jordan Bates's avatar

Care to elaborate? 🙂

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