Occupation:
Community leader
Interviewer:
Berry Liberman
Location:
Los Angeles
Date:
February 2023
Arriving in New York at the age of 15 from Guyana, Orland Bishop studied medicine as a young man, enamoured of science and its mysteries. Conscious from a young age of layers of awareness and the construction of the ego, his life steered towards spiritual inquiry and practice. Today, Orland is many things: as founder of Shade Tree Multicultural Foundation, he engages in peace work with Los Angeles gangs and he also works with social healing, youth initiation projects and research into esoteric and indigenous cosmologies.
Orland cautions that the modern world is one of winners and losers. This is problematic, he says, because “Even if you win, you feel alone in the victory.” Instead, Orland suggests that our will must be mediated by our community, the self understood in its context as belonging to our collective humanity, not in competition with. These are big, painful propositions for a society increasingly unable to make sense of things together.
I have found, time and again, that the people doing the deepest, most profound work on repairing our world, understanding our moral universe and shaping our pro-social future have a spiritual or higher-consciousness seeking practice and longing. It would seem that, religion aside, we do better when we stay curious and in awe, with less focus on command and control of our world. Orland speaks about the will, how it is something to relinquish. He suggests we should learn how we can be of service and let that guide our decisions.
I struggle with all of this as I feel the stress and sadness of our crumbling context and wish to shape a viable path forward for future generations. Speaking with wisdom keepers like Orland reminds me that there are depths to our capacity we rarely explore in our world ruled by iPhones and relentless schedules. Being in his presence opens up deep time.
As a practicing mystic, Orland Bishop invites reflection on the power of our will - for wanting more over being of
