Part Two with Renaissance Man Philip Shepherd

The course of Philip Shepherd’s life has been shaped by questions. As a teenager he cycled alone through Europe, the Middle East, Iran and India before flying on to Japan to study classical Noh theatre there. Since then he has designed and built several houses; co-founded and written for an arts magazine, Onion; co-founded and directed an interdisciplinary theatre company; taught numerous workshops to help people discover increased presence and creativity; written two internationally-produced plays and a documentary for CBC television; trained in Butoh dance and toured Canada with a show; edited a book of art criticism, The Compleat Art Critic; acted in several feature films opposite such talents as Mandy Patinkin and Delroy Lindo (Strange Justice) and Jon Voight (Jasper Texas); earned a reputation as a corporate coach, helping business leaders hone their presentation skills; and played lead roles in theatre productions in Toronto, New York, Chicago, London and Hong Kong. He is currently a faculty member of The Institute for Sacred Activism, which is based in Chicago. Over the past 10,000 years our culture has developed a story of what it means to be human. That story remains largely invisible to us, because it establishes what we accept as 'normal', and blends into the landscape. We have arrived at a point in history, though, at which it has become imperative to understand that story, because not only has it outgrown its usefulness in interpreting reality for us, it sows anxiety into our daily lives, compromises the scope of our human experience, stunts our thinking, dissociates us from our own bodies, and disrupts our relationship with the natural world. "New Self, New World" exposes the particulars of that story, traces the roots of its inception to the Neolithic Revolution, and pinpoints the way we live in our heads as the most evident and damaging expression of it. For further information visit http://www.philipshepherd.com