Episode 85 - Joseph M. Marshall III guest – Part 1 – Contemporary Leadership Lessons from Crazy Horse Hero’s Journey
Episode Description:
“For human evolution to continue, the conversation must deepen.” – Margaret Mead
Joseph Campbell on the contemporary relevance to each of us anywhere on the planet of knowing and appreciating Heroes’ Journeys from different cultures (all of which are part of our human heritage), from the Introduction to the third edition of his “The Hero With a Thousand Faces”:
“There are of course differences between the numerous mythologies and religions of mankind, but this is a book about similarities. And once these mythologies of human and collective development, focused on the hero, are understood, the differences will be found to be much less great than is popularly and politically supposed.
My hope is that a comparative elucidation of these mythological stories, some of which have endured for thousands of years, may contribute to those forces that are working in the present world for unification, not in the name of some Ecclesiastical or political empire, but in the sense of human mutual understanding. As we are told in the ancient Vedas from India: Truth is one; the sages speak of it by many names.”
“My name is Joseph Marshall, and I'm the author of “The Lakota Way”, and most recently “The Power of Four: Leadership Lessons of Crazy Horse”, and I've enjoyed this session with Duncan Campbell because it's more than an interview show; it's an opportunity to share insights with someone else who has views of the world, views of our culture and to examine more deeply the common things that bind us together, no matter who we are, and share insights from the past as well as the present, I appreciate that.
And it all reminds me of Crazy Horse being in dialogue with his own community, with his own family, with his own people. No matter whatever the opportunity, or the time was good or bad, he was always talking with people one on one, sharing his insights and listening to other people, to their insights. Because he was a young man and he listened to his Elders and so he was having those dialogues all of his life, and all these dialogues that he had were really part of who he was as a leader. He was embodying the values that he had, certainly as a Lakota person. But he had the traits of humility and generosity as a leader as well. And dialogues are important, and that was important to him and it's absolutely important to all of us who want to be or have an opinion about leaders and being a leader; having a dialogue is critically necessary to all of us.” – Joseph M. Marshall III
As I said in the description of my prior dialogue with Stanislav Grof in Episode 83-84, which I entitled: Barack Obama and Our 21st Century Collective Heroes’ Journey:
“This new template contains all the elements of the traditional Hero's Journey archetype across cultures so well described by Joseph Campbell in mid-20th century in his classic "The Hero With a Thousand Faces" -- but goes further in uniting the best of the indigenous rites of passage and the modern mind's conceptual breakthroughs into a new collaborative midwifing I describe as our 21st century collective Heroes' Journey. While remaining responsible to show up on our own horse, we effectively “ride into the dark part of the forest” together on our larger Grail quest.”
"We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth….and we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself....For the world has changed, and we must change with it." -- Barack Obama Inaugural Address, January 20, 2009
In this 2-part Dialogue with Lakota historian, storyteller, craftsman, and educator Joseph M. Marshall III, we explore the universal heritage of the Hero’s Journey of Crazy Horse as an exemplary indigenous leader in the bridge period in mid-nineteenth century America when the Euroamerican culture battled the Native American culture. Our contemporary culture contains both influences as part of the American heritage – but the modern culture has until recently told this history from the distorted point of view of the “victor”, ignoring the traits of integrity, accountability, and generosity cultivated in tribal, village life as quaintly irrelevant to the culture of transnational corporate greed, commercialization, militarization, and endemic political lying and self-seeking that have come – until just these past few months – to be accepted as givens of our contemporary anonymous urban industrial culture.
This dialogue is in some ways reminiscent of the early work of unification by writers such as Native American Ohiyesa (Charles Alexander Eastman) in “The Soul of an Indian”, and shows in this huge moment of 21st century transition how the very indigenous values that characterized Crazy Horse have relevance and can be reflected in our modern contemporary political transformations.
As Joseph Marshall says in his introductory comments above – consonant with Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address -- dialogue plays a central role in this new “third consciousness” of unification going beyond prior polarizations and cultural limitations. And as I say continuously on Living Dialogues:
“Dialogue is the Language of Evolutionary Transformation”™.
Contact me if you like at www.livingdialogues.com. Visit my blog at Duncan.personallifemedia.com. ”. (For more, including information on the Engaged Elder Wisdom Dialogue Series on my website www.livingdialogues.com, click on Episode Detail to the left above and go to Transcript section.)
Among others, programs you will find of interest on these themes are my Dialogues on this site with Vine DeLoria, Jr., Michael Meade, Sobonfu Some, Ted Sorensen, David Boren, David Mendell, Deborah Tannen, Angeles Arrien, and Joseph Ellis, among others [click on their name(s) in green on right hand column of the Living Dialogues Home Page on this site].
After you listen to this Dialogue, I invite you to both explore and make possible further interesting material on Living Dialogues by taking less than 5 minutes to click on and fill out the Listener Survey. My thanks and appreciation for your participation.
Transcript
Transcript
“Duncan Campbell, I heard about your podcast a few months ago, and have been deeply listening to all the dialogues with your fantastic friends/guests. Your words, ideas, and wisdom are truly inspirational. You have evoked a new appetite for knowledge in me that I hope to share with a starving younger generation. Thank you for doing what you do, and creating a unique space, void of boundaries and classification. A breath of fresh air! Much love and respect.” – Amit Kapadiya
In furtherance of creating and maintaining the planetary dialogues now required in the 21st century, I featured a special series of dialogues with myself and other elders in the weeks leading up to and including the 2008 Olympics hosted by China and the U.S. 2008 elections. Those dialogues can be listened to separately on this site or as gathered as a series on my website www.livingdialogues.com under the collective title “Engaged Elder Wisdom Dialogues”. They address various specific political aspects of our planetary crisis, with its dangers and opportunities for creating and sustaining a visionary and evolutionary shift. (We remember that the Chinese character for “crisis” is often described as meaning both “danger” when visioned from a fear perspective, and “opportunity” when visioned from a wisdom perspective.)
In all my Living Dialogues from their inception I talk in various ways about the call to generate dialogues across generational, ethnic, gender, and national boundaries -- building bridges of understanding and wisdom in the cooperative spirit and reaching out -- required by our 21st century realities, and the essential roles that we all are called to play in our evolution for it to take place.
This is the time for renewed dialogue, for visionary and inspiring discourse producing practical and innovative ways of living and sharing together, to engage our own elder wisdom and youthful inspiration, and in so doing to experience and exemplify that “Dialogue is the Language of Evolutionary Transformation”™.
And that is what we all do, in our mutual roles as host, deep listeners, and guests, when we gather together here from all parts of the globe in Living Dialogues.
SUBSCRIBE HERE FOR FREE TO LIVING DIALOGUES AND IN THE COMING WEEKS HEAR DUNCAN CAMPELL’S DIALOGUES WITH OTHER GROUND-BREAKING TRANSFORMATIONAL THINKERS LISTED ON THE WEBSITE WWW.LIVINGDIALOGUES.COM. TO LISTEN TO PREVIOUS RELATED DIALOGUES ON THIS SITE, SCROLL DOWN ON THE LIVING DIALOGUES SHOW PAGE HERE -- OR CLICK ON THE NAME OF A GUEST ON THE LIST AT THE RIGHT -- TO HEAR DUNCAN’S DIALOGUES WITH DR. ANDREW WEIL, BRIAN WEISS, COLEMAN BARKS, RUPERT SHELDRAKE, LARRY DOSSEY, JUDY COLLINS, MARIANNE WILLIAMSON, MATTHEW FOX, JOSEPH CHILTON PEARCE, DEEPAK CHOPRA, BYRON KATIE AND STEPHEN MITCHELL, CAROLINE MYSS, GANGAJI, VINE DELORIA, JR., MICHAEL DOWD (THE UNIVERSE STORY OF THOMAS BERRY AND BRIAN SWIMME), STEVE MCINTOSH, FRANCES MOORE LAPPE, STANISLAV GROF, RICHARD TARNAS, MARC BEKOFF AND JANE GOODALL, RICHARD MOSS, PAUL HAWKEN, PAUL RAY, JOSEPH ELLIS, DUANE ELGIN, LYNNE MCTAGGART, ECKHART TOLLE, MICHAEL MEADE, ANGELES ARRIEN, SOBONFU SOME. TED SORENSEN, ROBERT THURMAN, DAVID MARANISS, DAVID BOREN, GEORGE LAKOFF, TOM HAYDEN, JAY INSLEE, BRACKEN HENDRICKS, BOB GOUGH, VAN JONES, BARBARA MARX HUBBARD, LESTER BROWN, DAVID MENDELL, DEBORAH TANNEN, JOHN GRAY, ARI BERK, SUSAN JACOBY, AND OTHER EVOLUTIONARY THINKERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD.
The best way to reach me is through my website: www.livingdialogues.com. Many thanks again for your attentive deep listening in helping co-create this program.
All the best, Duncan.
P.S. As a way of further acknowledging and appreciating your part in these dialogues, and since I cannot personally answer all of them, I have begun to publish from time to time in these pages some of the appreciations received from you.
Announcer: This program is brought to you by PersonalLifeMedia.com.
Joseph Marshall: My name is Joseph Marshall and I’m the author of “The Lakota Way” and most recently, “The Power of Four: Leadership Lessons of Crazy Horse.” And I’ve endured this session with Duncan Campbell because there really is – it’s more than just an interview show, it’s an opportunity to share insights with someone else who has views of the world, views of our culture and to examine more deeply the common things that bind us together no matter who we are and share insights from the past as well as the present. I appreciate that.
And, it all reminds me of Crazy Horse being in dialogue with his own community, with his own family, with his own people. No matter what the opportunity or the time was good or bad, he was always talking with people one on one, sharing his insights and listening to other people, to their insights because he was a young man and he listened to his elders. And so, he was having those dialogues all of his life.
And all these dialogues that he had was really part of who he was as a leader. He was embodying the values that he had, certainly as a Lakota person, but he had the traits and the values he had as a leader as well.
And dialogues are important, in that sense, it was important to him and it is absolutely important to all of us who want to be – or have an opinion about leaders and being a leader, having a dialogue is critically necessary to all of us.
[musical interlude]
Duncan Campbell: From time immemorial, beginning with indigenous councils and ancient wisdom traditions, through the work of western visionaries such as Plato, Galileo and quantum physicist David Bohm, mutually participatory dialogue has been seen as the key to evolving and transforming consciousness, evoking a flow of meaning – a dia (flow), of logos (meaning) – beyond what any one individual can bring through alone. So join us now, as together with you, the active deep listener, we evoke and engage in ‘Living Dialogues.”
Welcome to the program. I’m your host, Duncan Campbell and I’m delighted today to have as my guest for this program, Joseph M. Marshall, III, author of numerous books, including most recently, “Leadership Lessons of Crazy Horse: The Power of Four,” know yourself, know your friends, know the enemy, lead the way.
Joseph Marshall was born on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota and raised by his maternal grandparents. He is an historian, educator, motivational speaker and Lakota craftsman. And he has worked as both technical advisor and actor in television movies, including the award-winning, “Into the West.”
He is also a recipient of the Wyoming Humanities Award. His books have been translated into seven languages and include “Keep Going,” “The Journey of Crazy Horse,” “The Lakota Way,” as well as four collections of essays and short stories.
So, Joseph, what a treat and a pleasure to have you here on the program.
Joseph Marshall: Good morning, Duncan. It’s good to be with you.
Duncan Campbell: And one of the things we’re going to do today in our program, which is subtitled “The Contemporary Relevance of the Leadership Lessons from Crazy Horse,” is we’re going to concentrate on how, for instance, the newly-elected President of the United States, Barack Obama, resembles, in so many ways, Crazy Horse in his own life story.
And I’ll begin this way, I will say that, in the beginning of your book, you point out that Crazy Horse is known to most people, publically, as a very brave warrior and for his exploits on the battlefield…
Joseph Marshall: Right.
Duncan Campbell: …the most famous one, of course being, The Battle of the Little Big Horn, in which the Native American warriors, led by Crazy Horse among others but primarily by Crazy Horse, defeated General Custer. So, his reputation has been one of a man of conflict, a man of war, a warrior, a brave warrior, a battlefield commander and so on.
And yet, the way he led is very different from what sometimes has come down to us in the popular imagination. Not only that, but we have the situation where, as you put it and I’m quoting now from the first chapter of your book, you say:
“Crazy Horse’s reputation and success as a leader also came from his ability to stay calm under the most difficult circumstances. Given the fact that he could prove his mettle in difficult circumstances, he had what it took to face the tough decisions of every day life.
The second major factor is that every Lakota village, in pre-reservation days, was a small town and, hence, the people knew intimately the family background and character of each new generation. And it was, therefore, not surprising to most people that young Crazy Horse demonstrated a sincere concern for the welfare of others.
His parents had taught him these values and, while his battlefield exploits drew the attention and loyalty of other fighting men and the focus of non-Indian historians, it was his quiet nature and compassion and equanimity that endeared him to everyone else.
In the Lakota social structure, the number of leaders was not as important as the qualities a leader possessed. ‘One man with good character is better than ten with none’, as one Lakota elder put it. Most important was the depth of their character.” End of quote.
And that is the first chapter of your book and I think we’re going to see a remarkable set of circumstances here, given that President Obama has written two books, two autobiographies, including, “Dreams from My Father,” and “The Audacity of Hope,” in which he has introduced himself very intimately in terms of his own, as you put it here in your book, “background and character” to the nation and the world.
And so, we really, in a sense, know him much more intimately as a public than we have known any of our presidents in our lifetime. And, I think this is maybe the key to why this generation and this leader really are primed to be examples of the kind of leadership that Crazy Horse exemplified.
So – and, now, embarking on that discussion and dialogue, I’d like to invite you, Joseph, to begin by talking a little bit about your own background and the kind of values you were taught in your own life and how you came to your life work as an historian and a writer and, particularly, then about your specialization, we might say, or focus on Crazy Horse.
Joseph Marshall: Oh sure, thank you, Duncan.
For full transcript, please contact Duncan Campbell