Consciously Evolving Language, with Lisa Maroski

Dialogue & Workshop Series starts September 8th

Metapsychosis is pleased to invite our readers to a special series of conversations and virtual workshops with author Lisa Maroski, whose work in fiction, drama, poetry, and philosophy explores ways of bringing higher and subtler dimensions into the language we speak (and write with) in order to more adequately face the complex challenges of our time.

Please register below to participate in these events, which will be conducted over Zoom video conference and then archived on the website for open access. Each session and workshop will be accompanied by a dedicated discussion topic in our forum at Infinite Conversations, where all are welcome to participate. When you register below, you will also receive an invite to join the forum group connected to this series.

What These Sessions Cover

Overall, I suggest that a major paradigm shift is occurring, at the end of which we will likely see ourselves as humans and our role on planet earth from a new perspective. That new perspective involves, among other things, a deep understanding of our already-always connectedness and from that creating a “container” to hold polarities in yourself and in the world. In order for this shift to fully happen, however, we might need to make conscious changes to the structure of our language. This course will reveal the way the structure of our language affects the way we participate in life. From there we will engage imaginatively to playfully evolve language.

This offering consists of 8 bi-weekly discussion sessions and 4 workshop sessions, which will occur after each 2 discussion sessions (see the schedule below). For each discussion session, I will provide some reading from my book currently in development entitled Consciously Evolving Language. For those of you who want some background material or further reading, I will provide that as well, but it will be optional. The workshop sessions will not require any additional reading/viewing. In those, we will apply or embody important concepts covered in the reading. If materials are necessary (e.g., colored markers, paper and tape), you will be notified, and we will keep those to a minimum.

What to Expect

We expect you to have done the reading ahead of time so that we can have lively discussions. We hope you will come with questions.

Schedule

Sept 8: Session 1

Examine the categories “separate” and “connected” (boundaries); assumptions we don’t know we have; Whorf’s hypothesis and Jakobson’s extension; wholeness (what makes something “whole”?); things and processes.

Readings: Consciously Evolving Language [CEL] Introduction, Chapters 1-4

Sept 22: Session 2

Ego boundaries (what keeps them in place, how to drop them); subjects and objects (linguistically and ontologically); individuation; what predication tells us about our “reality”

Readings: CEL Chapters 5-7; Guy Deutscher article, section from Stealing Fire

Sept 24: Workshop 1

Seeing your blind spots. Exercises to help you identify your own unquestioned assumptions.

Oct 6: Session 3

Speaking about oneness vs. speaking from oneness; local and global perspectives;

Readings: CEL Chapters 8-10; Steve Rosen article, excerpt from Everything Flows

Oct 20: Session 4

What does it mean to consciously co-create; space as an unquestioned assumption.

Readings: CEL Chapters 11-13; Steve Rosen on “spatiosubobjectivity,” Levinas, Otherwise Than Being

Oct 22: Workshop 2

Mobial and Kleinian perspectives; polarity management

Nov 3: Session 5

Structure vs. content; paradigm shifts as shifts of category structure; consider language as being like space

Readings: CEL Chapters 14-15; excerpt from A Pattern Language, Donella Meadows Places to Intervene in a System

Nov 17: Session 6

Implicit and explicit metaphor; creating new implicit metaphors; giving new meaning to cognitive and emotional dissonance;

Readings: CEL Chapters 16-17

Nov 19: Workshop 3

Playing with language, watch excerpt from Conlanging: The Art of Crafting Tongues

Dec 1: Session 7

The layers that keep language resilient, or why it’s not easy to change language consciously; the usefulness of paradox to show how to speak from wholeness

Readings: CEL Chapter 18, i.e., the article it references in Cosmos and History

Dec 15: Session 8

What does it take to “create” new language? the role of technology; the role of spirituality; what comes after “peak ego”? Where do I/you/we go from here?

Readings: CEL Chapters 19-20

Dec 17: Workshop 4

Perspective taking

Seed Questions

What kind of assumptions about the world are codified in the structure of our language?
What new implicit metaphors would help bring about a paradigm shift?
Is paradox taboo in our culture? If you think so, what is necessary to break that taboo?
Have we reached “peak ego”?
Are we ready to alter our animacy categories? How might our experience of life change if we did?
Have you ever had a peak experience, spiritual awakening, or any other type of loss of boundary between yourself and the world? What might it be like to speak from that experience, not just about it?

Context, Backstory, and Related Topics

The One That Is Both, by Lisa Maroski
Does Your Language Shape How You Think? by Guy Deutscher
Rebel Wisdom videos on sensemaking, especially those with Daniel Schmachtenberger
Cosmos Café: Transforming Language to Transform the World, with Lisa Maroski (recorded 6 March 2018)

Organizer:

Lisa Maroski

Start Date: 8 Sep 2020

End Date: 17 Dec 2020

Archived Events

Examine the categories “separate” and “connected” (boundaries); assumptions we don’t know we have; Whorf’s hypothesis and Jakobsen’s extension; wholeness (what makes something “whole”?); things and processes.