These transformations left him wary of the adult world. A spring-fed creek nearby was turned into an underground storm sewer. Born in 1953, he grew up in a suburb of Toronto, Canada, on the fringe of wilderness and farmers’ fields - and then watched as nature was flattened and paved to make room for more houses. The insights Shepherd shares in his book emerged from his own life. Only by leaving the “tyrant’s castle” of our heads and entering into a profoundly embodied relationship with the mystery and beauty of the world will we successfully turn our planetary crisis into an “initiation.” We have reached a point, Shepherd tells us, where the cranial brain’s efforts to solve our problems are the problem. He argues that we, as a culture and as individuals, have become walled off in our heads, losing touch with the intelligence of our bodies. Whether giving a deep reading to an academic article on the implications of brain transplants or parsing the work of the early Greek philosophers, Shepherd reminds us that all human endeavors are modes of encounter with the world, rooted in one or both of our brains. Weaving threads from disciplines that are normally treated as separate, his book treats art, religion, and science as facets of a single story. The fact that the second brain has been discovered, forgotten, and rediscovered by medicine three times in the past century suggests how complicated our relationship with our bodily intelligence is.Īlthough Shepherd feels that his claims are consistent with scientific findings, his primary concerns are cultural and philosophical, and his primary frame is not medical but mythic. If the cranial brain believes itself surrounded by a knowable world that can be controlled, the brain in our belly is in touch with the world’s mystery. Scientists recognize the web of neurons lining the gastrointestinal tract as an independent brain, and a new field of medicine - neurogastroenterology - has been created to study it.Īccording to Shepherd, there is a good reason that we talk about “gut instinct.” If cranial thinking sets us apart from the world, the thinking in the belly joins us to it. New Self, New World explores the implications of the little-known fact that we have two brains: in addition to the familiar cranial brain in the head, there is a “second brain” in the gut. It wasn’t until more than a year later, when illness suddenly gave me ample reading time, that I took Shepherd’s book off the shelf and began to turn the pages. I had become skeptical of such unified-field theories, which seem to constitute a retreat from the world’s problems under the guise of trying to solve them. I’ve read plenty of books about “everything.” Each of them diagnoses the ailment of living and proposes a single cure. I bought a copy more out of loyalty than appetite. Good luck getting that published, I thought.īut it did get published three years later, in the fall of 2010, as New Self, New World: Recovering Our Senses in the Twenty-First Century. But, he explained, it had become about much more than acting. He was just finishing a book he’d been working on for eight years, originally titled The Way of the Actor. He was amused to learn that I had written a book called The Way of the Screenwriter. Bake in the oven for 45 minutes or until golden and piping hot.I MET Philip Shepherd when I cast him in a film I was directing. Top with the mashed potato (you can pipe this if you want to be cheffy), then sprinkle with the cheese. Spoon the meat mixture into a 2 litre ovenproof dish or 6 x 300ml individual ovenproof dishes.Using a masher or potato ricer, thoroughly mash the potatoes, then mix in the butter and season to taste. Drain in a colander, then return to the pan and set over a gentle heat to remove any excess moisture. Cook the potatoes in a large pan of boiling salted water, covered with a lid, for 15 minutes or until soft.
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