Radical Wholeness geht frontal auf ein Handicap ein, das tief in unserer Kultur verankert ist – und so auch in jedem von uns; eine Behinderung, die unsere Art zu leben beeinflusst. Unsere Kultur ist sozusagen völlig blind. Wir spüren nicht das Selbst als Ganzes oder das Geschenk als Ganzes. Wir wissen nicht, was es bedeutet, mit unserem ganzen Sein zu denken, bei jemandem mit unserem ganzen Sein anwesend zu sein oder von ihm zu sprechen.
The Embodied Present and the Ordinary Grace of Being
Das alles würde nicht viel ausmachen, außer, dass Ganzheit die Natur der Realität ist: Alles wirkt sich auf alles aus, alles stützt sich auf alles. Die Realität ist ein nahtloses Ganzes. Ganzheitlich blind zu sein, bedeutet schlicht und einfach, der Realität gegenüber blind zu sein.
Die Auswirkungen unserer Ganzheitsblindheit sind um uns herum sichtbar. Wir leben in unseren Köpfen, getrennt von der Intelligenz des Körpers, im Widerspruch zur Realität der natürlichen Welt und zur Realität unserer wahren Natur. Nicht nur das, sondern auch die Qualitäten, die wir uns am meisten in unserem Leben sehnen – Qualitäten wie Herzensruhe, Anmut, Weite und Harmonie – sind Qualitäten, die zur Ganzheit gehören. Sie können nicht direkt erreicht werden; wir können sie nur erleben, wenn wir uns der Ganzheit der Gegenwart anschließen.
In Radical Wholeness dokumentiert Philip, wie unsere Kultur systematisch unsere Fähigkeit desensibilisiert, das Ganze zu spüren – ein Gefühl, das er Holosapience nennt – und betrachtet den Schaden, den diese Behinderung unserem persönlichen Leben und dem Planeten zufügt. Aber er zeigt auch, dass jeder von uns unausweichlich ganz ist; es ist nicht möglich, aus der Ganzheit der Realität herauszutreten. So legt er einfache, praktische Mittel dar, um die Spaltungen und Abschottungen in uns aufzulösen, die uns zu unserer lebenden Erfahrung der Ganzheit desensibilisieren.
Radical Wholeness ist ein Benutzerhandbuch für die Initiierung einer persönlichen Revolution. Indem du den Weg aus dem Kopf findest und dich mit der Intelligenz deines Körpers wiedervereinigst, kannst du dich in einer Ganzheit des Seins erden, die die Harmonien nicht nur deines Lebens, sondern auch unserer wachen Welt fühlt und unterstützt.
“Radical Wholeness is a practical blueprint for embodying information in the service of human welfare and survival. Our future depends on the vision Philip Shepherd powerfully and eloquently presents.”
—Larry Dossey, MD, Author of One Mind
“If you long to reconnect with your deeper self, other living beings, and the Earth, you must read this book.”
—Carolyn Baker, PhD, Author of Love in the Age of Ecological Apocalypse
“If there was ever a time for this book—this is it! Read it. Breathe it in. Let it change how you see and live and love your life and the world.”
—Oriah “Mountain Dreamer” House, Author of The Invitation
Advance Praise for Radical Wholeness
“Philip Shepherd shakes up our way of looking at ourselves and the world. He challenges the way we were taught to think, and offers us something that could radically change how we live. Reading Radical Wholeness offers us real hope, the kind of hope that sees a way out of the quagmire of living in a unsustainable way in our own lives and our shared world. If there was ever a time for this book—this is it! Read it. Breathe it in. Let it change how you see and live and love your life and the world.”
—Oriah “Mountain Dreamer” House, Author of The Invitation
“With words of shimmering clarity, Philip Shepherd blows the door between body and mind off its hinges. Calling us with rigor, sensitivity, wisdom and imagination towards a future grounded in resurrected human capacities of awareness, he shows not only why but also how to develop those capacities, awakening intelligence we didn’t know we had. Radical Wholeness is sorely needed and sweet-tasting medicine for a fragmented world.”
—Amnon Buchbinder, Author of Biology of Story, Professor of Screenwriting, York University
“When Philip Shepherd asked me to look at his new manuscript, I was unprepared for the extraordinary experience that awaited me—within minutes I literally couldn’t put his book down. Radical Wholeness was not just talking about, but was literally speaking to—and invoking—a deeper, more whole and healed part of myself. While I was reading, I had the overwhelming feeling that it is as if this book is a multi-vitamin and mineral supplement—real medicine—secreted by the universe itself to help us heal our collective insanity. I can’t recommend Radical Wholeness highly enough.”
—Paul Levy, Author of Dispelling Wetiko: Breaking the Curse of Evil
“Radical Wholeness is a profound, ground-opening, stunning book—a true masterpiece. Philip illuminates the madness of our Western culture and entices the reader to drop into the wholeness that is always here with a powerful/urgent/gentle invitation to live from it. The radical wholeness that Philip embodies, in my experience, is the goal of all therapy and spiritual practice. This is one of the most profound books I have read in 25 years of practice and I will be recommending it to all my peers and clients.”
—Natalie Lascelles, Integral psychotherapist and Mindfulness coach
“Radical Wholeness is an important book. It’s a ‘deep dive’ into understanding our somatic experience of being and provides a path back to wholeness. And for students of the Enneagram, this is a book not to be missed. You’ll be amazed and delighted by how what Philip reveals so exquisitely adds to the exploration of the three centers of intelligence.”
—Curt Micka, President of the International Enneagram Association (The opinions expressed here are not an endorsement by the IEA.)
“Philip Shepherd is a force of nature. Fully embodied and present in the world, he stands outside the most fundamental bias of Western culture and offers us nothing less than a new center to live from. In his hands, wholeness is no longer just an idea or a goal to strive for; it becomes a visceral experience, and one that can be accessed at will through brilliantly simple practices. Here you will find both the vision and the means to come home to your own wholeness. This luminous book is clearly a lifework. Don’t miss it. It will transform you.”
—Morgan Farley, PhD, Author of Name Yourself Feast
“This wonderful book written with tremendous clarity and profound wisdom should be in the library or backpack of every spiritual seeker. Its advice on embodiment is the best around and the practices Philip has evolved are matchlessly effective.”
—Andrew Harvey, Author of The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism
“This very wise book shows why it is impossible and ultimately suicidal to attempt to secede from nature, as our culture has tried to do through denying our oneness and wholeness with the world. We are nature, and there is no ‘out there’ that exists independently from our consciousness, our knowing. As Max Planck, the founder of quantum physics, put it, ‘We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness’—for consciousness, he said, is ‘fundamental.’ But do not think Radical Wholeness is merely a philosophical treatise. It is a practical blueprint for embodying information in the service of human welfare and survival. Our future depends on the vision Philip Shepherd powerfully and eloquently presents in Radical Wholeness.”
—Larry Dossey, MD, Author of One Mind: How Our Individual Mind Is Part of a Greater Consciousness and Why It Matters
“In Radical Wholeness, Philip has given us an insight into what it really means to be human, and it could very well challenge our fundamental assumptions around this. Radical Wholeness is a profoundly personal message with truly global ramifications, written at a time of great need.”
—Michael Anderson, CEO, Mediaworks, NZ
“Philip Shepherd has gifted us a book that reframes our basic understanding of getting the most out of body intelligence. It rearranges the familiar top-down authorship from cerebral brain to body and restores body presence to a borderless merging of intelligence that includes inside/outside and sensory awareness. Ingest this book and let it ruminate throughout your daily dance. Take Philip’s experiences to heart and practice the exercises he shares with us to reclaim our inheritance as fully functional breathing sensing alive awake beings.”
—Vinn Arjuna Martí, Designer of Soul Motion®, a conscious dance practice.
“As a social ecologist I highly recommend this book as a valuable guide to a new way of being whole in our fragmented world.”
—Ben-Zion Weiss, PhD, Author of The Creativity Revolution: Steps to an Ecology of Culture
“This is the best book I have read on embodiment, I cannot recommend it highly enough.”
—Jill Angelo, author Sacred Space: Turning Your Home into a Sanctuary
“In a culture as broken and fragmented as ours, this book is painfully overdue. Going beyond outdated notions of ‘holistic,’ Philip Shepherd has captured the essence of individual embodiment and its inextricable connection with everyone and everything. What our world desperately needs now are not more smart homo sapiens, but fully present and embodied holo sapiens who feel and live in grounded inter-relatedness. In this book, Shepherd has provided us with an extraordinary tool kit that tenderly and skillfully integrates mind, body, and soul with all life in the universe. If you long to reconnect with your deeper self, other living beings, and the Earth, you must read this book.”
—Carolyn Baker, PhD, Co-author with Andrew Harvey of Return to Joy and author of Love in the Age of Ecological Apocalypse: Cultivating the Relationships We Need to Thrive
