Philip Shepherd - Radical Wholeness: The Embodied Present and the Ordinary Grace of Being

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 bookthis is it! Read it. Breathe it in. Let it change how you see and live and love your life and the world.

O RIAH M OUNTAIN D REAMER H OUSE , 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 didnt know we had. Radical Wholeness is sorely needed and sweet-tasting medicine for a fragmented world.

A MNON B UCHBINDER , 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 mewithin minutes I literally couldnt put his book down. Radical Wholeness was not just talking about, but was literally speaking toand invokinga 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 supplementreal medicinesecreted by the universe itself to help us heal our collective insanity. I cant recommend Radical Wholeness highly enough.

P AUL L EVY , Author of Dispelling Wetiko: Breaking the Curse of Evil

Radical Wholeness is a profound, ground-opening, stunning booka 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.

N ATALIE L ASCELLES , Integral psychotherapist and Mindfulness coach

Radical Wholeness is an important book. Its 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. Youll be amazed and delighted by how what Philip reveals so exquisitely adds to the exploration of the three centers of intelligence.

C URT M ICKA , 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. Dont miss it. It will transform you.

M ORGAN F ARLEY , 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.

A NDREW H ARVEY , 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 consciousnessfor 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.

L ARRY D OSSEY , 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.

M ICHAEL A NDERSON , 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 Philips experiences to heart and practice the exercises he shares with us to reclaim our inheritance as fully functional breathing sensing alive awake beings.

V INN A RJUNA M ART , 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.

B EN- Z ION W EISS , PhD, Author of The Creativity Revolution: Steps to an Ecology of Culture

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.

C AROLYN B AKER , 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

PHILIP SHEPHERD

Foreword by Jeff Brown

Author of Soulshaping

North Atlantic Books

Berkeley, California

Copyright 2017 by Philip Shepherd. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

Published by

North Atlantic Books

Berkeley, California

Cover art by Claire Humphreys, A Northern Light

Cover design by Allyson Woodrooffe

Author photograph by Allyson Woodrooffe

Radical Wholeness: The Embodied Present and the Ordinary Grace of Being