Shift Movement

The Winter of Wellness 2013

The Shift Network

Host: Edward Mills

Interview: Marianne Williamson

(If you can read past the next two paragraphs, I just may have something to say!)

It is interesting to me that Marianne Williamson is the first interview in this year’s Winter of Wellness Summit. She was one of the first speakers in last year’s Summer of Peace opening conference ( Voices for Peace ). I was so moved by her speech, and the subsequent discussions, that I wrote in a forum topic ( Summer of Peace 2012 Reflections and Comments ) that I started in the relevant discussion group ( Summer of Peace 2012 Collaboration Group ) at The Shift Movement part of The Shift Network about what I considered to be a central matter of contention amongst some of the speakers at that conference. Whew!

So, is this comment a continuation of that discussion? Yes and No! I suppose that it is in at least a basic sense. But, this can also be viewed as a completely distinct comment.

Overall, I was very impressed with Edward’s interview of Marianne Williamson! I was often “hanging on every word,” as they say. Marianne definitely knows her stuff and seamlessly delivers, even in the unpredictable interview format. No wonder she is so respected among her Spiritual peers!

With all of that said, I do not want to fawn over her or comprehensively summarize her points, but to consider some larger issues. But first, some specific impressions (and the quoted material, while believed to be closely accurate, may not be 100% accurate).

Early in the interview, Marianne talked about people getting “tripped up when we think we do know what it should look like,” in terms of our intentions and expectations of various outcomes in life. After talking about the general exceptions known as  ”Universal Truths,” she repeated the idea and added, “And the truth of the matter, is the natural ecosystem of nature is one in which things are driven by a natural intelligence that is on the inside.”

Soon she continued to explain that we humans can “choose to say no to the otherwise harmonious patterns of nature that would wish to move through us. And one of the ways, actually, that we interrupt the flow of the otherwise perfect and the perfectly harmonious patterns of nature moving through us, is by thinking we do know what it should look like…”

This (apparently) central idea of Marianne’s is amazing! Once again, it seems to be quite controversial in Personal Development and similar circles (as does her ideas on wealth in the Peace Movement). It seems to have less in common with the “intention-setting” and “goal-making” (or is it “intention-making” and “goal-setting?”) crowd, and more in common with old-time (and not so old-time) Christianity. Further indications of this can be found in Marianne’s recommended (prayerful) intention of, “May God’s Will Be Done!”

I thought that this comment would also go another way, but who am I to interrupt the flow of nature?!

Warren Freedlund