Welcome And The Podcast Mission

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to my podcast, Slay Your Dragons with Compassion, which I'm doing in conjunction with John and Sandra Wilson of Online Events and my wonderful technician Owen Santiago. And we've we've done a lot of podcasts, and they're very we're getting some very interesting stories. And basically the theme of these podcasts is how people have had adversity in their life, which we all have. And what they've done to overcome it. And sometimes it's quite extraordinary the way that people have come through something that you think would absolutely lay them low and they've come through with something else. So I'm very happy to welcome today an old friend Jonathan Dawson. As you can see, we're in my living room. And um and uh we're we're gonna talk a little bit about his his life and the various features of his life. But Jonathan, can you tell us briefly what was your your your working life? You had quite an illustrious working life. Tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

So um probably the first decade of my of my working life was in Africa, um, partly living in particularly West Africa and Gaia in particular. Um, but working in about a dozen countries across Africa uh in development projects. Um I then um moved to FinTorn and um became the coordinator of the global, the European branch of the global ecovillage network, the global organization. Um, and then um 12, 13 years ago, I was invited by Schumacher College to create and lead uh their master's program in economics. And now I'm discovering

Jonathan’s Work From Africa To Academia

SPEAKER_01 1:41

life beyond uh formal work.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

It's interesting, and often what happens when we've we've had formal work that has defined us, yes, it can be quite a challenge and adversity of itself to just sort of go, what do I do with my life? Well, you live in a a beautiful community, which I know quite well, which is quite near here.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Um, but what do you do with your life now?

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Um what do I do with my life? Um it's a mix of um uh we've got big gardens, as you know, up in in Bowden with the community where I'm able to thankfully have have a place I can go to every day to work, not that I go every day, but it it's there.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Um so you can work on the land. You can work on the land, yeah. And and that in in itself is uh prevalent as well.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Really struggle. Yes. Um and I continue to do self-teaching. So um I teach in various even Oshumaka College itself, it's not yet officially defunct, but it's certainly operating on a much smaller scale than the previous one. Uh and I no longer work there. So but I do occasionally teach weekends um or sessions and with the various networks that I'm still associated with.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

And uh was economics a passion for you?

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Um yes, but it's economics, Jane, but not as we know it. In other words, it's economics as if people and planet mattered. So it's got nothing to do with the pink pages of newspapers. It's much more, in fact, a branch of moral philosophy than of mathematics.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

So the fundamental core question is is not assuming that economic growth translates into societal well-being, but rather questioning that assumption and then finding that we're actually much more down, much more interesting species um that derive satisfaction and well-being from many things that have nothing to do with the markets. So the core question or core inquiry is how do we live well on the planet with so many other species in a way that is equitable and allows us to touch.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Oh, it's very normal.

Economics As If Life Matters

SPEAKER_00 3:41

No, of course. Oh, that's good. And um obviously this is a really big question. And do you feel optimistic about humanity's future? Because you are you've been ever cutting edge at some levels.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Um I don't know who it is who I'm like gathering quotes. One of the courts in my place to a country member who's who's this this war came from originally, but I'm uh a pessimist of the intellect and a and an optimist of the horse.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Oh, that's lovely. I like that. So I'll I'll I'll nick that one. Yes, yeah. That's great. And I think there there is a need for an optimism. I know when I I worked for Green Pizza for a while, and I know this is back in the 1970s, and I remember Alan Forms, one of the directors, saying, I reckon we've got two years left, the way things are going. And it wasn't like that. It was that things had been terrible. But somehow, as a species, we managed to find our way and come through.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

I think I think a a better metaphor would be that we we've simply we've artificially prolonged the growth phase through fossil fuels, the availability of fossil fuels, and it's enabled us rather than in a more natural cyclical pattern of expansion and reduction and contraction, that it's enabled us to artificially extend the growth phase, meaning that when the hush does come down, it comes down in flames, the whole thing comes down. Because it's totally interconnected. Yeah, yeah. So just because we've managed to to uh somehow escape the Holocaust so far, I wouldn't assume that that necessarily means we're going to continue to do so.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Yes. It's uh funny I'll just say we're looking at adversity in the world, which is all around us, and and and obviously sort of our our future doesn't look that bright at the moment, although, as you say, you're an optimist of the heart. Um but let's look at you personally and take a look at at some of some of what you've been through. I think one of the first things I I remember seeing you was seeing about you was how you've struggled with with ill health. And uh you you seem to be in much, much better shape now than when I when we first met. But tell us a little bit about the the um the the the challenges you've had around your health.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

So I six years ago I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Parkinson's disease and also with heart and resiliencia, uh, which came as a total shock because I've I've always been very fit athletics uh an athlete. Um so I was really totally unprepared

Pessimism Of Intellect And Hope

SPEAKER_01 6:10

for um I remember being up in the community and really trudging, trudging, like taking 30 minutes to do a walk that would normally take five. And a friend up in the community saying, Wow, you're doing lots of walking meditation these days. Right. No walking meditation. And that was that was a shock. Um, because as I say,

Parkinson’s Diagnosis And Inner Resources

SPEAKER_01 6:35

like among my siblings, I'm the one who's been super healthy, good diet, um physically really really strong.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

And living in beautiful surroundings, pretty sure healthy surroundings as well, growing organic vegetables and and and but you know, then we never know what uh landmine is in our path.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

And so here was a landmine in your path, and what did that do to you and how did you manage it?

SPEAKER_01 7:17

I mean I think I I I um it's hard to know because there isn't a control group. It's just my experience and how it could have been otherwise.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Um but I think I've done enough work on in the Buddhist tradition on equanimity and and and I mean first of all, I'm I'm celebrating the the miracle of simply of consciousness, of just waking in the morning and opening the eyes and it being this wonderful. I mean, somehow um I don't want to give an answer to trite, but and it's but but so I'm I'm gonna excavate this a little bit more. Um can't I just dig like I didn't really have a choice?

SPEAKER_00 7:59

I think that's the thing, but I think that's that's far from trite is that when we don't have a choice, yeah, we have to unravel resources we didn't know we'd had. And I think you know, when I wrote my book, Stone You're Dragons with Combassion, yeah, about the suicide of my daughter. Yes, uh, what I saw was that I actually had some resources already in place, and then I had to activate them. And it sounds very similar there that you you had some resources and then you had to deal with the fact that you were late pretty I mean you were you were you're in a totally different state now than than you were, yeah, but you were pretty much falling apart physically.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Yeah, so and it's after that point in one sees how much intellectual or how much rather how much emotional credit you have in the bank. Um and um maybe I can say that um that the generally my Parkinson's disease is very the symptoms are very mild. However, they can involve me mid-sentence realizing that I've forgotten what the sentence again. Um so I'm I'm pausing partly for reflection, partly because I'm kind of going, what's the question again? Um so it affects you mentally as well as physically. Much more mentally than physically. Cognitive thing, actually. So I it's kind of confusing because I I I'm passionate about my work I always have been, and so I do accept invitations to give public talks or to to be a resource person in some capacity. And sometimes that's fine. Sometimes I'm there, and that um it's barely noticeable. In fact, it's really not noticeable to the people in the room. Other times are just after the government say I'm all over the place. So it's kind of confusing because I'm then still receiving invitations to be there. And generally it's okay, and I think it's maybe it sounds one of the answers to your question is that one of the reasons it's okay is that I begin by saying Agatha Parkinson's disease. That's very good. Yeah, moving beyond shame, embarrassment, and just going, This is Yeah, I was having a conversation with someone yesterday about public and and private personas.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

And there's something about I used to put on a lot of lectures at St. James's Church, alternatives. And um you would see the people who were embodying their truth, yeah, and the people who had their spiel worked out that they they knew their act, and it was very slick, yeah, but it didn't touch you at a hard level. So I think to go in and say I've got Parkinson's is already saying there's a vulnerability about me, but I'm still I'm still standing.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Yeah, yeah. And and nor am I embarrassed. It's like, why would I be embarrassed for having a condition? Yes. Um although although it I mean i i i'm making sound as a dangerous and make it sound as if I simply stepped into this persona and there was a period, this period still were where I have a certain embarrassment. Uh so there's some groups, some events here that I've spoken at were really all over the place. And I mean it was that initially my reaction was what embarrassmental channel.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

So it's not as if it was I simply clicked a button.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Well, you're used to being something of an intellectual giant. You you had you had, you know, a very, very good, profound knowledge of the world and its workings and and the the style of economics we've spoken about as well. Takes a lot of thinking. Yes, yes. And then to go from that to being handstrung effectively, and then how do you deal with it? And how do you not let yourself get depressed? And you probably would have got depressed with it, but but it's how do you come through the depression of it?

SPEAKER_01 12:00

No, I've got to it's got to be something more than that.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Um I think what I'm looking at is is is is the the naming of the specific resources, i.e., you've named Buddhist practice. You've named medit well, you haven't named meditation practice, you mess involved with Buddhist practice. Yes. Um, but there's also what supported you guys um and uh what what surrounded you? What was what was with you?

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean the fact that for 24 for the last 25 years I've lived in intentional communities, and so I'm used to there being to be living in a media where taking down the mask and and one has permission much more, well not totally, but much more um like the um I I had other significant bumps in the world of my my own growth and my flotation of grief. Um and um there were periods in the community here where I've spent the last 15 years where I come in in a sharing um maybe like a circle sharing space and spend the hour weeping all like for an hour and not being okay, and people called,

Vulnerability, Grief And Community Support

SPEAKER_01 13:16

yeah. And I mean, not drawing attention to your you know, just um, yeah, Jonathan's McCormick weeping in the institute. And I think that that's uh normalizing that level of of permission really.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

That's interesting because there's two two things that come to mind around around that. One is that I I um did some work with um Randas, who was a wonderful spiritual teacher. And he did a meditation for there were 40 of us who were all therapists on a five-day retreat with him. And he did a meditation on grief, and it was very deep and profound, and half the room were on the floor weeping. And I was sitting there in my smugness. I'm all right. And they said, Um and then he said, and for those of you who can't find your grief, that's your grief as well. So what I'm hearing is that you've found your grief and you've expressed it, and there've been studies done um at the University of Berkeley, which say that that tears carry debris out of the body. So you are actually honoring your own state.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

And it may just be a metaphor and it may be more than a metaphor, but whatever it's it's kind of obviously true.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

Yeah. But thank you, Ruggles, for saying that. Well, yeah. It got me. And it got the rest of us who were sort of who weren't able to access that. So you talked you you also mentioned that you've had other adversities, and I know that that you you you you had um uh you had two children and um you haven't seen them for quite a long time. But tell us a bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

Yeah. Um so I had I became a father of nate. I mean, always I've always adored children and and um have been really important to me. There's a lot of children in my my sibling blood family. Um, and um had two kids with a woman who I didn't really know, certainly didn't know anything like well enough for that can be a sensible thing to happen. We're all gonna show it sensible. Yeah, we don't control control over these things. Um and um she is Australian and um we went to on on a trip where where she buried her dad, funeral service

Separation From His Children

SPEAKER_01 15:29

with her dad, and revealed that she wasn't gonna come back. Um and um and I I mean really after that for a number of it was still residue is still in my system, but uh there was a period immediately after which which really was the deepest grief I would I've ever would ever have. Um and um I really I I had a choice and I think it's one of those rare occasions where actually in the moment I had a choice of do I become a a curmudgeonly litiginous you know, spending my life fighting for what is mine or can I find a way of releasing that and and walking the path of manhood that does not involve being violent um it's a big thing and and I and I'm feeling it now as you as you as I'm talking to you it's like a death. And I mean what what's what's what's interesting is that having uh having made that decision more or less consciously and more or less yeah, more or less consciously um uh to some degree when people have come to me in more recent years and said, How are the kids? And I realize that actually haven't thought about them for weeks and months. Um and that really I've taken a path that that um that that doesn't have them in it. Or I've created paths, I've I've created a scenario in my life is one in which they're really not in it. And periodically, like for example, I was playing with Richard, we were talking about Richard Eckersley, who you've done uh one of these sessions with um, he's got gorgeous kids, and I was up there against it, spent hours just playing with the kids and having the ball. Um, and and at the end of the day, it was feeling heart opened and ouch, both. So in those haven't put it to bed.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

So you manage it, but it doesn't go away. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And um yeah, I'm just reminded, I'm often asked the question by people, how many children have you got? And uh and I it depends who's asking the question. Sometimes I say I had three and I've got two. Yeah. Um, but sometimes I'll say two because I don't want to open that up with who's asking me.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

And and I similarly, well, when I mean when the question comes up, we start talking about kids, and and either I kind of exit stage left and just feels not to have got a conversation, not and not to be put in the position of because I don't want to tell the whole story all the time. Um and so sometimes I could none because I just I just sometimes they're early 20s because which would be normal that I could just say early 20s and and um I mean they've not they're 15 or 15. Um but but I I give an answer that can close off the conversation. Sometimes I say the whole thing and the whole thing comes out. So my kids move from being very young to kind of nine three.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Yeah. But do you do you do you feel like you want to get in touch with them or or do you know what what what happens for you? Um it's I mean, I would like to get in touch with them.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Their mother is I have no way of communicating with them, she's completely closed. So you don't even know where they are? Uh I know where they are. Yeah. Um but I I like one of the in Birmingham, I mean I would build it up in the door, but they're in New South Wales for God's sake. And um and my m um part of my reaction to date has been I could stand up from my recipe because I've been wronged here. But the the the the fundamental question is what is best for the kids? And really, is it best for the kids that I that we have a trans a trans global uh relationship with with with them seeing me very infrequently and me not having any resources in Australia to be able to host them. So it's one of those we're we're uh m managing the uh the the the the the scenario over which I've got very it feels like I've got very few cards.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

And I've just I've chosen to um yeah, I've chosen to to live the life that I've lived that I'm living and I'm very open to the hope to the hope, possibility, probability that they will at some stage walk into the life. Because um like in terms of this question what is best for the kids, what it really strikes me when I talk to parents of all sorts in terms of the relationship with with their children, it's like kids need to know who their daddies. Yeah. And at the minute they don't. And so I I really want to put that to us.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

And then there's always a possibility that that the kids have been poisoned about you by the mother. I don't know what what under what circumstances that I was in.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Uh she certainly wouldn't sing my praises. Right. Yes. So it's hard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's one of those things where that's that's how it is, and how can I how can I live with that in a way that is respectful and and and useful kind.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

I think one of the things that I'm I'm grateful for and didn't realise what a big blessing it was, is that when I split up with my with my wife when we got divorced, she never ever poisoned the children against me. And so we have a good relationship, and I have a good relationship with my ex-wife as well.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

But mother of Melissa's mother and I had a very trauma traumatic and tempestuous relationship. And I remember Melissa saying to me, son, this is really painful. She she came out of Skyros where I teach sometimes in Greece. And she said, she spent quite a bit of time with me. She said, you know, I always thought you were a tosser. And I thought, Oh my God, that's what I've been portrayed as. That's what I've come across as. And there was nothing I could I always felt if I didn't want to challenge her mum and go, um, look, come on, we we're we're parents. This is the for the best for Melissa. If we're we're in we're in sync. We weren't in sync. So um I'm grateful to my ex-wife that we were in sync around our children. Yeah. So yeah, that can I see how hard that is. Yeah. So other other places of adversity that you've been through in in your in your life?

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Well, the the most the the most powerful one actually we haven't even touched yet. That's fair. Yeah. Um and because it's been a it's been a slow creeper, and that's being a boarding school survivor. So Taylor was um sent off to boarding school. And um uh I mean really horrendous stuff. It was like probably the last year, the last couple of years of the boarding school as concentration camp, you know, brutality that people would be in prison today if they did today what they did then to stay the papers. Um and and when I say it's kind of a slow, it's it's script up only slowly. A bit of context there is that there is an organization called Boarding School, it's not Boarding School

Boarding School Trauma And The Word Rupture

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Survivors, but it's something like it's Nick Duffle was the Border School Survivors, um so uh I went into therapy early 30s and have been in In and Out for most of the rest of my life. Um and had done enough work with um had done enough work on the subject that had the impression that yeah, it's pretty much done. And six months or so ago, there was um there's a guy who's making a film uh about Bonus Gospel Fathers and uh he he showed the film here in the Civic Hall and Tugness. Uh and I went and after he showed the film, we broke into groups of three and and to share our experience. And that was yeah, this feels like the SPs. Like I've been I've done this, like I've I've been over this for a number of years. And honestly, it doesn't really feel like but uh and then the following weekend in London, their annual conference of this little school of program and I decided to come and and and it became clear to me during that day that whoa, this is still very loud for me. And the one thing, the one new thing I got from the day was interesting enough from a guy who um a guy who had been through the boarding school system after change in the in the in the the ethic of the regime. So there wasn't physical brutality of relatively little, there wasn't bullying. And he the word he used to describe his experience was Rutan. Really powerful word. It really it hit me because it made me realize that um that with my blood family, uh my birth family, um so my brothers who didn't go to school or they only went to the bowling school for a very short period. I was the only one who went for the duration, are embedded somehow within their old friends and sort of history of being with people in my home place. I don't have that at all.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

It's like when I when my mum, the last member of Generation Four died last year, my mum died last year. And so since then, I I mean I I don't really have a reason to go back. Um, but when I when I have that over the years, it's been clear that my brothers have networks, connections, histories, and I don't do that at all. And I've spent a whole life living, so I I've lived in Italy, I've lived in France, I speak both languages, I've lived in Africa, and have always seen this as being positive. Like I I got out of the horrible little stink pool that is rural Ireland and had this wonderful um opening to the rest of my life, which has been very yeah, very widely traveled. Um and I came away from this going, ouch, um, seeing that that in a sense it was a real privilege to be able to have the this global exposure, but on the other hand, it was an important reason why I chose this path was the pain of rupture from my blood bubbling.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

Yeah. I think what what often happens when we we're in very adverse situations um is that we find a way to almost suppress it from uh our memory. Yes. And um, I've just been reading um the book by Michael Moritz called Auslander, uh, where he's Auslander. And they were basically German Jews who managed his parents to German Jews, he managed to get out within days of the time where they would have been trapped, but the rest of his family was slaughtered and murdered. And when he asked his mother about the journey, she couldn't remember any of it.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:05

And so we shut down on these things that are incredibly painful.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

Well, let me let me just share the this um a beautiful moment um where I was working with a therapist and we were talking about rolling through stuff again, and she and she said, just give me one instance, just describe in detail one particular instance there's with you. And I I I recounted the story in a very well-tone way. And this is what the therapist is a woman who was quite senior in the um Friends of the Western Police Order. Uh very gentle. Sometimes I have to listen in close to hear what she was saying. And she said, How, how, like, what do you just the story you've just told me, Jonathan? How do you how are you feeling? And I said, I don't know what I'm thinking. And she just went, It makes me fucking furious. Wow. I was gentle, and I just went, Fuck hell. Um, and then and then she came in on the killer question for I'm an author. So, Killer question is okay. So imagine a 10-year-old boy came in and gave you that story. What how would you respond? Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

And like that just opened doors wild for me. Yes, yeah. It sounds like you had good set sources of support for life as well. Especially, I think, I mean, one of the things you've done is that you've lived an intentional community for a lot of your life. Yeah, and I think you've actually created chosen family, or you've created supportive environments because you didn't have one. Yeah. And and I'm sure your parents thought they were sending you to the best possible place, yeah, whereas they were sending you into hell. So we're coming towards the end of our of our dialogue, and it's been really lovely, fascinating talking to you as well. But the question I always ask at the end is what's the particular dragon you've had to slay in order to be who you are? What's the thing you've had to the hurdle you've had to overcome?

SPEAKER_01 29:01

Making the decision to kids are worth.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

That's uh that's a big one. I heard it's sort of, you know, that's like it's a part of you that has come to terms with another part of you that's clearly where it's it's brief. And I have the same thing, and I understand that around Balism, it's like sometimes I think I'm I'm really all right. But mostly if I didn't tea, the pain's there. And so you've made that decision, and it's probably a wise decision given the enormousity

The Dragon He Names And Closing

SPEAKER_00 29:31

of the uh and it's not a decision forever.

SPEAKER_02 29:34

That's it's a decision for the last 13, 14 years. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

So a rich a rich life uh with with plenty of um of of uh of quite bitter spices in there as well, but ultimately um you've you've come through and and retained a lot of your humanity and and decency as well.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

I think um just one one last little sure is um and I think this links here to the this is probably more than anything else a result of the Buddhist flavor work is not taking not taking it too seriously, not like not taking it too personally, like just noticing that there's stuff happening um and um yeah that's probably it.

SPEAKER_02 30:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

So yeah, not getting caught in the in the drama of the life of your life.

SPEAKER_02 30:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

And uh and not seeing that. I used to think that there was some horrible god up there who was with a man with a beard on a throne raining down um anger and and and punishment on us. And of course, when we have adversity, we've got an opportunity to grow and change as well. Thank you very much, John.