Brian Schlaak

Brian grew up an Army brat, living around the world and in the U.S. until he was 13. His peripatetic childhood included a year in the late 60s attending a segregated school in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, a hasty exit from east Berlin just prior to the building of the wall, and a passage in Buenos Aires when the recently unexiled Juan Peron threatened to kill every American in Argentina. 

He has hung aluminum siding in Fairbanks, Alaska, washed dishes in the Sierras, guided white water rafting trips, bartended, worked as a paralegal, flew planes in the Navy, and spent three years in South America as a Peace Corps volunteer.

His resume also boasts a forty-year career in education as a teacher, school administrator, and now, for the non-profit Daraja Academy which offers a tuition-free boarding school education to the poorest young women in Kenya.

Brian has been a seeker throughout his life, and as he passed through middle age, the seeking turned inward, away from the outward explorations of his youth. This led to a deep study of shamanism, after which he realized he’d been having shamanic experiences his entire life--from potent dreams with animal guides to altered interludes in nature. He is now preparing to enter into another period of shamanic education and practice, ever-curious about where it will take him.

 During our talk, Brian talked about how impactful and uncommon it was to feel seen as a young man, his life of service, and the thread of cynicism that’s leading him into deeper inquiry. 

Brian’s path into shamanism has been through The Foundation of Shamanic Studies. LINK

He also mentioned a word I’d never heard before. This is a somewhat rare and exciting event for me! If you’re curious, you can find out more about mishigas here: LINK

Brian also mentioned a couple of books in our time together:

The World’s Religions by Huston Smith LINK

Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking by Susan Cain LINK

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

That helped sort of edify a worldview that I think I held already. Um, and that there's wisdom available everywhere, and you don't have to be special to access it, and there is no hierarchy. You know, it's it's available for all of us. And I like the egalitarian democratic nature of that as well. Like we all have access to wisdom and and spiritual support.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

I think we're in for a treat today because we have as our guest Brian Schlack. Hi, Brian.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Hi, how's it going?

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Good, good.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

How are you? I'm excited to talk with you today.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Good, good. Well, I don't usually read people. I ask for people to, you know, kind of give me their background and their bio. And I don't usually read it because I like to come into the conversation and use the interview as a way to get to know people. I feel like it's a little bit fresher that way. But for some reason, I decided this morning to read through everything that you sent me. And I feel like you are the perfect example of the kind of individual that this podcast is actually designed to explore. And that is allegedly ordinary people living extraordinary lives. And I feel like if I had run into you in a line of a coffee shop, I would never guess that your professional and personal background is so rich and um illustrious and um strange and wonderful. And how um you have this kind of combination of being both highly successful and also deeply, deeply committed to service, which I feel like is kind of a rare combination. So I'm plus just love your company. So um, for those people, obviously nobody knows how we met, and I like to talk about that a little bit. So we haven't known each other that long in person, although you are married to one of my good friends who in the past has been a um a subject of the Alive and Kicking podcast, uh, Thea Sullivan, who also participates in our um What We've Learned So Far podcast. And so I've I've known you only through her perspective and got to meet you recently. And um, yeah, I just loved being in your company. And so this is gonna be a fun conversation.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Entirely mutual, Kay. Like I'm really excited. So and I really enjoyed hanging out with you too. So thank you for thank you for asking me.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Yeah, yeah. I'm so happy you're here. Okay, so we're gonna dive in, and I happen to know from the very few stories that you have told um that you grew up with what I'm going to call a small uh but dynamic cast of characters, aka your family.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

So let's talk a little bit about that early formative uh family life that you had.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Oh, okay. I mean, you know, really interesting because uh, you know, how often do you get to actually reflect on this kind of stuff? Uh my dad was a career army officer. Uh, and so I came up as an army brat in the Vietnam era uh in in you know a lot of different parts of the United States, a handful of times abroad. We moved every year until I started high school. So it was 13, 13 moves between birth in in Bamberg, Germany, and and my dad's retirement in DC. So it was kind of a crazy, crazy upbringing. Um, he was a sort of an incandescent, burned hot kind of human being who I think, you know, he liked uh war and military and was, you know, he was kind of a deep, deep pool. There, you know, both my folks are gone now. Um, you know, both powerful personalities. Uh, you know, my mom was a force uh to be reckoned with uh intellectually and just in terms of her presence, strong, uh, dynamic, really powerful woman. When my kid was born, what I said was is being loved by my mother was like standing next to a blast furnace, like it would almost melt you, which is such a gift. Um, and when my kid was born, a lot of that heat shifted to the kid. And it was a a relief for me because it's an intense experience, and B, I was just so you know, happy that my kid was going to receive the power of that. So both really strong personalities, really, really different from each other. Um, you know, my dad with his army thing, my mother was the most politically liberal person I've ever encountered, like uh, you know, a socialist probably, and an atheist. And my dad was a church-going guy, and you know, but they they managed to stick it out, I think, mostly through my dad's absences, uh, until he retired from the military. And once they had to live together for extended periods, they parted ways. And she was a lawyer and went on her own her own trajectory. Uh, just a couple of interesting things because we lived, I was born in Germany in 61. Uh, the Berlin Wall went up, and my dad was sent to the front lines because the Russians had sent a I think it was somewhere close to a million troops, uh, to ensure that that all went the way they wanted it to go. Uh, and uh, you know, the this is apocryphal, but from my mom who was prone to exaggerate, but they said to the families, get in your cars and drive west. So we did. Uh, you know, and that was sort of the opener. Um, I lived in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and when I was in fourth grade, my dad was in grad school at the University of Alabama, and I went to a segregated school uh because they wouldn't integrate, so they had cut off the federal funding. There were 56 kids in my fourth grade class, and we were sitting on bookshelves. And I probably had the best teacher I've ever had, uh, Mrs. Spruel back in the day. Um, just little stories from back then. Uh, and then I did early middle school in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Um, my dad was an attaché at the embassy down there, and uh Juan Perón came back from exile in the little window that we were there. Uh, and he'd been sent off by the military, I think, and came back into power and said he was gonna kill every American in our Argentina. I just remember it because it was so boys playing army, I think. But all these families who lived in our neighborhood came to our house, and the women and kids went upstairs, and the dads sat downstairs with M6 M16s all night, and nothing transpired. But it's sort of a flavor of that window in time, like the 60s were their own creation, and then being a sort of a military family in the midst of all that. It was a colorful, colorful upbringing.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's so much to unpack there in terms of you know, its influence on you and your your trajectory, but um, it seems like with, you know, I've talked to other people who come from military families, and of course, the moving frequently has all of its own challenges, which I think we're, you know, probably familiar with by now. But um, you also had this extremely I just I use the word dynamic because that's how it how it feels to me. Um that you know, you had to find your roots in your family, I'm guessing, because there's no physical rooting. So, how did that inform who you became?

SPEAKER_00 8:17

You know, our it was kind of a triad. It was my mother, my brother and I. My brother's six years younger than me. She had trouble conceiving um and carrying a baby to term after I was born in military medicine at the time, just said keep go, go back and just keep trying. And it was, I think it was a very trying period for my for my mom, um, which, you know, in retrospect, I it's hard to imagine how profound that may have been for her. She had a stillbirth, like some pretty intense stuff. And then they adopted my brother when I was turning seven. Um, but that, you know, I would say it was my mother, my brother, and I who were the nucleus of that. My dad was off, you know, he was two years in Vietnam uh fighting. Um, and then in the attache stuff, he was just gone a lot of the time uh until uh he retired. So um it was formative. Uh, you know, my brother still lives really close by. Uh my mom was over a lot when uh particularly after my kid was born. So that was our little safety net. I think on the the upside of that was, you know, you learn that the world is a broad, interesting, varied, sometimes scary place. You learn how to integrate, you know. I was probably a little chameleon-like as a kid, you know, and then the downside is his rootedness, is never I've just never been very good at it. Uh, you know, I we've even The and I over the course of our adult life have moved a lot of times, and I get restless and people say, Where are you from? And I have sort of a pat answer, but I don't really know that answer. Um, it's I think it's a little bit of a mishmash of Midwestern parents and uh a California sort of late high you know high school college, most of my professional life in California, but I don't have that rooted sense of place, which has you know been a blessing and a little bit of a challenge.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Yeah.

unknown 10:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Is isn't it interesting that uh when you meet new people, the one of the top questions is where are you from?

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

You know, it's like how is that relevant? Like how does that but I guess it I guess it is because when I think about you, I think of you as being a Midwesterner. And you know, because I'm from the Midwest and I know like I know I'm so familiar with that curve, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

And um, but there's also something very California about you.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

So tell us a little bit about your life in California and you know, your college years and yeah, no, you know, what a what a trip. I just by way of transition. So we were living in Arlington, Virginia when my dad retired from the military and I loved it there. My grandparents were there, and and um, you know, my parent, we had moved every year, and my my parents were like, one more, we're moving to California. And I said, I'm not going. I was 13. And uh my dad, with a different year of parenting, was like, we'll figure it out, you know. And so I found a friend of mine, Jimmy Leach, uh, who I just reconnected with this year, who said, Yeah, you can come live with me and my family. Um, and I did. So they my parents left in August and I stayed with them until the end of October. You know, I think the rationale at the time was to stay through football season. And then my mom called and was like, that that's enough. And uh to California we came, but I it was begrudging for me. I love it now, uh, you know, particularly in the current zeitgeist. Like, you know, Sam Thea and I lived in San Francisco for a long time, 20 years, you know, and what I loved about that town is you could walk out of your house in a skirt and nothing else as me, and nobody would say a peep to you all day. Like it's you just be you, which I think is an interesting counterbalance with some of that Midwestern formation, yeah, you know. And I know you and I talked about this briefly, but you know, I probably have you know three best friends of the world, and all of them have Midwestern parents, so I think there is some sort of resonance that you can feel. And I don't know whether it's culture or values or but you know, I felt it with you also. It's like there's a there's an unspoken set of sort of behaviors and rules that have sort of come with an upbringing in that geography. And the California one is quite different, actually. Um, it's been really fun, but probably because of those formative years with my folks, I think that value system probably has taken priority for for me in terms of whatever that ethos is, if you're from those places.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

So you talked a little bit about your parents being of different ends of the spectrum spiritually, and I'm wondering how that played out in the home.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Was there conflict over that, or did it just fall into a natural rhythm? And how are you, what were you expected to participate in?

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Or not? Yeah, it's an interesting question. You know, I I was baptized, so you know, I think culturally my parents were sort of Presbyterian, they were sort of Calvinist in their formation, and a lot of those, uh, you know, not in terms of sort of industry, get up early, work hard, uh, don't complain. Uh, you know, Thea is culturally Catholic. And we've had a lot of interesting conversations through time about the dis the differences there. Like Catholic have their own Michigas, but they're free to sort of complain. And in my household, that was not really done. Like, take care of your business, keep your mouth shut. Um, you know, uh, sort of justifying being well-to-do, I think, was part of that, sort of rationalizing wealth through hard work and diligence. And uh, you know, there was much less conversation about people with less. Like, I would go to the we went to a very liberal Catholic church in San Francisco for a while where you know, homeless people would jug the communion wine, and two-thirds of the congregation were gay. A third, probably. But um, and I loved it there, you know, like it was wild and wacky, but it was much freer and more joyful in a certain way than sort of my more puritanical upbringing. You know, my mom was a very unconvincing atheist. Um, she and all her siblings claimed atheism, and my mom would cry in church. Like, you know, there was some some cognitive dissonance there, I think, for her. And my dad went every Sunday his whole life and was not a you know a well-behaved man, you know, really in any way, shape, or form. So you can interpret that as you will. But you know, he sort of ran wild on the earth, and um, but church was grounding for him. And I'm sure some of that was war, like he saw a lot of things that would be really, really hard to see, which he didn't really talk about. But you know, two years sort of in the jungles in Vietnam, I think, you know, brought him as close to God as you could get. The way when he was uh close to death, I said, if you had to do it all over again, would you do the same thing? And he said, Yeah, which I found really interesting. I said, So you go back to Vietnam again, and he said, Yeah. And I asked him why, and he said, It's the most alive I've ever felt.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

You know.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Oh, yes. I mean, that is what they say, you know. You hear that about um combat bets coming back, and there's no comparison, you know, life seems flat without that kind of um action, you know.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Well, yeah, I think that's right. And he ended up going into the lumber business when he came out into civilian life, and I always think he thought it was kind of stupid. Um, you know, like he couldn't really get the point of it. Uh, and probably that impacted us because it wasn't like it was a secret that he didn't place a lot of value on money or that kind of status, like he just wasn't very interested in that. And neither was my mother, actually. She was sort of whatever, that might be that Midwestern slant. But don't get too big for your britches.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

So it it seems like there was this sort of undercurrent of some spiritual essence, different ways of um needing it, different ways of addressing it. Were you in your earlier years aware of any kind of spiritual moving through you?

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Yes. Um in retrospect, uh, you know, sort of I was aware of these Satori sort of transcendent breakthroughs that we all get blessed with periodically, where whatever the stars align and the portals open, and you almost feel like you can you can see sort of what uh the point of the enterprise is, just little quick flashes of you know, um, for sure. Uh I had a an interesting moment when I was in ninth grade, and there was a girl I liked who was going to, I forget what they call it, uh uh way they called it soul time then. So it was sort of a a Christian youth group, uh, and there was a camp. And the camp was supposed to be really fun. And this girl I liked was going to the camp. And I asked my mom if I could go to the camp. And she's like, You want to go to Christian camp? And I'm like, Well, you know, yeah, yeah, we'll learn it. She didn't might be didn't feel right saying no. So she's like, sure. Um, but you know, that was because it had been so peripatetic and we'd moved so much, like it was, you know, there was a lot of conversation with these sort of young ministers about these kind of questions. And I I had a little transformative experience up there because I felt um seen in a certain way uh by those guys that help helped me, you know. I I think it was sort of early awareness of service and which felt compelling to me. So um yeah, it played a little bit of a role. I didn't I found the church part dissonant because it was a kind of an affluent town and a lot of guys in gray suits feeling pretty important, and I just didn't feel that much. But the the conversations about sort of spirit and service and what is this, what is the point of the enterprise, why are we here? Um, I think those questions pre-existed that and it gave me a frame to think about what what are we doing here? Like I don't think working hard to get more stuff is probably the answer.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Was it their uh their uh their act of service themselves, their example that you that that was striking to you or or something?

SPEAKER_00 19:33

Well, it it's that's an interesting question because it's gonna segue into what I'm gonna ask you later. It was um they were interested in my 14-year-old story, which that was novel for for me, like to tell us a little bit about. And they empathized in the right places and sort of acknowledged in the right places in a really sort of powerful way. It's sort of the the power of being seen, which I think is what well, we'll ask that later, but it's what you're doing. People who ask questions that are personal and profound in nature and actually are interested in the answer, doesn't happen very often, actually.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Um, and I think it's because I feel like every conversation I have is like that.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

That's because that's what you're here doing, right? To me.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Yeah, it's what I'm gonna ask you about later. But it's it's profoundly unusual in in my experience. Most people want to talk about themselves. Um and sometimes it's polite interest. There are uh lots and lots of exceptions. Like I'm not sort of painting with a broad brush, but but genuine interest in other people and their experiences isn't all that common in my experience.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

I wonder if it's more common for young boys slash men than it is for women, because I just spoke with a guest yesterday and he said the exact same thing that his um that his sort of awakening had to do with someone actually taking interest in him for the first time. Yeah, same almost the exact same thing. Yeah, and and I what I said to him was how impactful these small offerings of attention and awareness can actually be in a person's life because especially now because you know we're so distracted by from awareness by everything. I you know, I see like moms in walking their babies in strollers with and they're on the phone. I've been thinking, I'm so glad I didn't have a phone then, because I probably would have been doing the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Multitasking, of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

You know, multitasking. Like I'm I'm all about getting shit done, excuse me.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:55

No, but um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Yeah. Well, I think your gender question is really a One because women do this for each other much more you know commonly than than men do. And it there's a lot of you know, I've I've watched my parents' generation, then my generation after divorce, and I don't want to again stereotype too much. Women tend to do okay, and the men don't, like they tend not to stay by themselves. Like it's a I've seen some of my friends go through it, it's like a panicky. Like I gotta get, you know, and they wouldn't say it because it sort of imbues that conversation with too much dependence.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

But the reality is that dependence is is there, and we rely on a certain kind of communication with our partners for those of us in heterosexual relationships, right? And you know, women are just they're better at it. You know, this is coming, you know, we'll we'll get there eventually, but sort of where my spiritual philosophical thinking is in the moment. Like um, like men, men need to evolve.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Um, you know, and and it needs to happen reasonably quickly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Yes, please.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Yeah. Well, it's almost I mean, I'll just sort of say it, but it's we need um 75 generations of matriarchal leadership to try to bring this thing back. Like I'm worried about the species, and I don't want to get too dramatic, but you you can't men keep creating woolly mammoths to fight, you know, and I think it's probably evolutionary. And I think if we could relinquish power to women, like traditional worldly power, there's all this capacity in men that is just not tapped. Like there are a lot of there are men who do, but as a general rule, it almost feels like we're making war to justify our own existences as men, because we're not quite sure what to do, you know. Like women, you know, you make a life in your body, and then you produce the life, and then your body makes the food to sustain the life, you know, and it's pretty, you know, when you really step back from that, it's a pretty astonishing reality, you know, and we don't we don't do that, and we have a role to play, and all that's fine. I'm not trying to demean men, I just think there's another use for what we don't know what we're capable of outside of trying to maintain this sort of patriarchal power. Yeah, and I think for our species to do what it needs to do, like that, there needs to be a pretty profound shift.

SPEAKER_01 24:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

Well, something something that you said sort of like perked up my ears a little bit. And you you use the words spiritual, philosophical, like almost like they were one word. And I feel like um that is like part of perhaps this male safety valve into spirituality, if they can combine it with philosophy, then you know, like maybe that's a gateway drug. I don't know. But um, like because I think there many men are afraid, and I can relate to this because I also was afraid to fully embrace the idea of spirituality in terms of being a spirit, having a human experience. And I think it's even tougher for men. So can you um kind of take us through your path a little bit and how your spirituality sort of blossomed from do you still consider it a spiritual uh philosophical yeah?

SPEAKER_00 25:55

And I'm I'm I'm cool with going there. Like it's an interesting. So I tended to have most of my which I don't think is unusual, a lot of my uh, you know, sort of openings happened in nature. Like it just it was a it was a precipitating experience for me. Um, you know, and that got me to thinking about sort of the nature of things and what's alive and what has consciousness and what does and I don't want to over overintellectualize it. Um, but nature could lift me out of my Michigas, right? Um early. You know, I I was going through a rough patch. My best friend died of cancer when I was 20. And um that changed my trajectory, but I went to a pretty dark, anxious place for a little window of time because I wasn't really dealing with it. And the way I got out of it, I went on a whitewater rafting trip and it sucked me back into the moment. Um, and I was like, oh, okay. Like it was tactile and sensual and uh, you know, uh enervating, like it inner it gave energy and and um excitement. And I was like, okay, so there's a way forward through this, you know, that can help pull you out of what you're perceiving to be your the the smallness or sort of mortality or the the littleness of the world. And I held that, you know, whatever my 20s were, I did a lot of stuff in my 20s, trying to keep, I think probably trying to keep the demons at bay a little bit. Um, and I had had this precipitating factor, it's like it's finite, like my best friend just died at 20, right? Time's limited, you don't know. So I kind of did everything I could think of, probably good and bad, for 10 10 years or so. Um, you know, and it was really growth-inducing and really interesting. Um, and then early in the and I'd relationship, so I whatever, I did a sit in the peace corps, and that was sort of the end of that um that wild window. Uh, and I got pretty, you know, the way I conceptualized it, there are these concentric circles of self, you know, and uh the center circle is uh who we perceive ourselves to be. And I was a handful of concentric circles away from that behaviorally by the end of that experience. And I started going to therapy, psychotherapy, you know, sort of one-on-one traditional psychotherapy, to try to find my way back um to where I had where I thought my center was, right? And Thea and I had started, and she was on a very powerful spiritual patch that was very present. Um, she was a really good influence on me because she brought me into an experience in San Francisco that I didn't know existed, all kinds of interesting explorations there, as you might imagine. Um so she sort of was like a guide for me to bring me, you know, out and into a different kind of reality there. We went to a fundraiser at a place called Spirit Rock, which was a Zen meditation center uh in Marine County, uh north of San Francisco. And um the guest speaker was uh a guy named Michael Harner, who had done, he was an anthropologist, um, perfectly trained anthropologist who had done all this research on shamanism globally. And uh he didn't, you know, he wasn't a salesman, you know, he wasn't trying to sell a package. And really the bulk of his thing was sort of talking a little bit about shamanism, and then he took us all on a shamanic journey, you know, like sort of a guided visualization with some, you know, he had studied shamanism all over the world. It's the oldest spiritual form on the planet. Everybody is descended from shamans, it doesn't matter who you are of what you've become, like that's how things started. Yeah, they call it animism, and anyway. So we did this journey, and in the journey, a bear bit my head off, crushed it like a grape, and then licked out the neck cavity. And I was like, What the fuck? Excuse my language, you know, and we come back from the journey and he has this big smile on his face, and he said, Did anybody get decapitated? And I was like, you know, what the hell was that? And he's like, That's good, that's a good sign, you know. And then I I was sort of hooked, and then I so anyway, I've been in 20 years or so of that kind of exploration, though I don't pretend to be an expert in that stuff, but that's sort of everything's alive, like the trees are alive and the rocks are alive, and they're not less conscious or more conscious than us. I don't believe in humans as the top of a pyramid in any way, shape, or form. Like we're part of a web, a fabric of life, all of which has consciousness and all of which is animated and alive, and we're just part of that ethos. And I don't think you know uh other beings owe us things like cows don't owe us food. Like anyway, so it changed that helped sort of edify a worldview that I think I held already. Um, and that there's wisdom available everywhere, and you don't have to be special to access it, and there is no hierarchy, you know, it's it's available for all of us, and I like the egalitarian democratic nature of that as well. Like we all have access to wisdom and and spiritual support.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

Wow. So my first question um that came to me was is this awareness that there's a there's equal consciousness in all living things? I'm assuming living things. Um uh is that was that a humbling um experience or a or a lifting experience? Was that a did that make you feel more comfortable or less comfortable?

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Well, it's been a a little bit of a through line. I worked in Alaska for a little while in my 20s, and the most interesting thing about being in Alaska is how small you are. You know, you're walking around in the middle of Denali National Park and you're like, I'm a speck, you know? And so this stuff has always fascinated me. I just read a piece. Uh, this is a long way around to answer your question, but I just read um a piece where they took the the most, it's not the Hubble, it's the most recent version of the Deep Field telescope. That's the one. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

My son works on the James Webb.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

Oh, God bless him. That is some of my favorite stuff, man. So interesting. Yeah. So they aimed it uh at the darkest part of the sky that they could perceive from there. It was 124 millionth of the sphere of the sky. And they said the size of the field was the equivalent of holding a grain of sand at arm's length. And they just, and then they did that deep field picture just to see what they would see in that small a piece of space. And there were 5,500 galaxies in that tiny little grain of sand comprised of billions of stars each. And that stuff, for whatever reason, makes me really happy. And I don't know what that's about, uh, you know. Um, so I mean, the upshot of it is like I like feeling like I'm in my place. Um I find that comforting. Uh, I for whatever reason. Uh, you know, and if you go into the woods, like the woods are aware, they're awake, they're there, there's all kinds of wisdom there. Go swim in the ocean, swim in a beautiful lake. Like you're having an experience that isn't just your experience, like you're communing, I I think, um, with these environments there and even cities. I love cities. Yeah, I was just in New York for a wedding, and I love New York, but that has its own energy that isn't just the people, like there's something going there. Uh, and whatever, maybe it's sort of the synergy of all that, but but um yeah, so I I love that feeling of a smallness and also connectedness. So I think both are true.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

Yeah, you're you're um diving into a little question that I had for you later. Um interesting. So I want to get back to the um the exploration of shamanism because it's I've never had anybody on the show who um is from, I don't even want to say it's not a tradition, it's something else. And that's part of why I need you to help me understand a little bit what it is that we're talking about when we're talking about shamanism.

SPEAKER_00 34:57

So I'll give you the take of, you know, uh, there's a lot of sort of perspective on this, and I am not an expert. So I that just to own that up front. Um the shamanistic belief system, I think A is that everything is alive and has consciousness. Uh, you know, all of the natural world, everything that we're interacting with, rocks, like all of it is alive. It's part of this living field. Um, they believe that all of us, every individual, has uh, you know, helpful and healing spirits uh in two different locations. So we occupy a space called middle world, um, where we do our day-to-day sort of business. Um and, you know, there's sort of the vagaries of morality and behavior and all of that stuff happens in middle world. Uh when you learn how to journey, which they, you know, the practice I follow is through the foundation of shamanic studies, is through what they call sonic driving. So they do it, they found a drum beat that is a certain rate of beats per minute that will help alter your consciousness. And then you're trained a technique by which to access upper world and lower world, and in that belief system, you're transcending a barrier which you pass through very consciously out of middle world into an upper world where there is no uh sort of vagaries of morality or questioning. Everybody in upper world is a helpful or healing spirit, and everybody in lower world is also a help for a healing spirit, and you have to get a little bit out of the Christian sort of overlay of up and down. Um, you know, lower world tends to be uh more animal spirits, and upper world tends to be other kinds of spirits. I think, you know, in some parlance, like angels are up there, guardian angels are up there, but that you can go, and once you've sort of mastered that technique of going either to upper world or lower world, you can go with questions or ask for healings or ask for healings for other people if they've given you permission to ask. Um, you know, uh like Thea accesses guidance from who she calls her her guides, right? And in my you know, sort of uh cosmology, uh, that would be, you know, probably spirits in in upper or lower world who give you like a broader perspective uh and wisdom that we all have access to. So I'll go with questions about work or about my kid, where they more often than not tell me to mind my own business. They're like your kid's business is your kid's business, but it's what I worry about. It tends to be about service. The focus for the foundation in any case is that we're here to serve the world in that form. Um, and that there's, you know, there's real power there. Uh that's a little more esoteric. Um, you know, and that's that's sort of the duty. So it's not a self-serving, egocentric. It's sort of the opposite of that. Yeah. And the other thing I liked about it, and then I'll let it go, is, you know, my there was a woman named Amanda Folger who I she won't care if I talk about her. She was the first real teacher I had. And it's sort of anti-woo-woo, if that makes sense, which is, you know, California has an array of of um, you know, you can get as woo-woo as you want in our great state. Uh, but I like the practicality of it. And they're not interested. Uh, you know, there's a there's an ethos sometimes where it's like competitive yoga, who can do more yoga or who meditates longer. Like we apply all these weird human principles to these spiritual practices, and it's anti-all of that. We're not interested in your sexy story about what you saw in upper world, like it's a pragmatic, uh practical, you know, accessible spiritual form.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

I was listening to a podcast the other day, and the guest was referring to somebody else who said that Westerners should not meditate because um in the western mind, meditation is for their own peace of mind, their own journey. And in the eastern way of meditating, a person is meditating for the betterment of the of the world. Um so it sounds like there's a similar vein there.

SPEAKER_00 39:35

Well, and you get, you know, you get both because part of it is you, you know, when you're in upper world on a journey, like you feel empowered, like you feel like it's like energy. You know, you you can energy there there's means by which to sort of energize yourself. But the thought is you're not energizing yourself for you, you're energizing yourself to sort of do your work in the world. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

So can you kind of take us through a journey that was particularly impactful if we're not crossing any boundaries there? Um, you know, something you know, so that we can understand how it works and what it what the value is to the individual.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

Yeah, uh, you know, I anymore, you know, I journey on anything. I did a I did a um a workshop uh called Death and Dying, which is you begin your journey from the moment of your death and you just sort of see what happens. Um you know, I had a cousin who just passed uh just recently. And so for me, and I think everybody's there is no dogma about what these places look like, like it's in your own experience. But I there is a place in lower world for me, which again is outside of middle world, where dead people go um to sort of they're dancing in a circle around a fire that's being overseen by this old sort of rabbinical looking man. Um I mean, he probably looks like Jesus would have looked had Jesus gotten old. Like he's uh he looks like an old Middle Eastern guy. Um, and people are kind of dancing themselves back into joy before they go and start processing what their life was about, right? You're before you go sort of go to your life review. Um, you know, and my cousin, I have a cousin who just passed from cancer. He was in his 50s and you know, sad, but I wanted a journey to sort of see if he was there and and see how that was. Um, and so I went to Lower World and he was, he was in the circle, and then sitting on the hillside, um sort of watching him, you know, and waiting happily, benevolently, were my grandpa, my dad, and my dad's twin brother, who was his dad.

SPEAKER_02 42:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 42:03

And just kind of waiting for him to get back to that equilibrium place spiritually where they could, you know, sort of take him on to what was next, you know, and they smile and they were, you know, it's like it's not this reverential thing, like they're kind of giving each other shit, which is what they did in life, you know. Their spirits were still them, yeah. Yeah, and they were, you know, they hadn't been waiting for him, you know, as he sort of struggled to his cancer. So it's that sort of thing. Like, and I came back from that journey feeling great. I'm like, those guys got it, you know, like they're gonna catch him, you know, and and help him through, just like they did for each other, I'm sure. So there's an example.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

Yeah, that's beautiful. I feel like we need one of those joy ceremonies in real life. I know, you know, like yeah, let's get in a circle and dance uh before we sit down and talk about what's really going on. Right, no, right.

SPEAKER_00 43:00

It's sort of come to a good place of sort of equilibrium and peace before you start thinking about what it all meant or means. I totally agree with that.

SPEAKER_01 43:10

Yeah. Wow, yeah, that's very valuable. And it would be it's so instruct, it would be so instructive in an interpersonal relationship as well. You know, just sort of like what are we outside of this problem that we're we're we're facing? Just a little review, you know, just a little like here's a little reminder. A little reminder, yes, outside of the heat. Let's get into it later. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

So in this practice, I mean, obviously you have a drum, right?

SPEAKER_00 43:39

I do.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

And is this something that you do like? Do you have a space um that where you do this practice, or do you go out into nature somewhere?

SPEAKER_00 43:51

I'm assuming it's both, or well, this is a great, that's a great question because I also lived a pretty, you know, I have friends who Just unabashed, like they're on the beach banging the drum, journeying away. And I had kind of a square life too. Like you know, so I was whatever a headmaster, and whatever, had kind of a square career too. So I and this is work for me, like I'm working on this. Is it was kind of a bifurcated experience for me, and you know, I would go off on these week-long trainings, and I would call it a spiritual professional development, you know, on the square side to sort of and whatever. I worked at a spiritual school, but you know, to sort of figure out how to code something that would feel okay to that side, so I could go learn what I needed to learn.

SPEAKER_02 44:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

And, you know, inevitably, multiple times through the course of these many years and lots of weeks of togetherness with groups of people, everybody's like, So when are you gonna, you know, come out? Right. And uh, you know, right after I left, actually it was after, I think I wrote an article for the their publication about my introductory experiences and what a gift it's been. The guy had passed away, the founder, um, and what a global spiritual construct that was. And that was sort of my coming out party, but I'm still shy about it. Like I'm very I'm a private person anyway, uh for the most part. And you know, I still do it, you know, in secret. Uh ironically, you know, my kid moved out. So Thea's always been pretty good about setting up a space in our house for her work and her practice, and and you know, she feels very powerful and entitled in that regard in a really good way. Like, I need a place to do my work that's not your place and not our place, like it's it's my place. And uh, you know, I'm sitting in here now, like this is my first crack at having a space that isn't at work, and it you know, it's been really freaking interesting because I can feel the potentiality of it, like I don't know what the potential is yet, but um, yeah, I can feel the potentiality of that, and there's growth for me in this regard, like coming out with my I guess we're doing it now, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:24

Yeah, coming out party, yeah, really. Your debutante ball, right?

SPEAKER_00 46:30

You know, and I'm on boards and whatever. Like it's sort of funny, you know. Um, but you know, there's no way for a long time I felt like I couldn't afford, like I was we were raising a kid, and uh we had all the like you know, sort of grown-up responsibilities, but now I I kind of don't give a shit as much about that. So it this is exactly where I am developmentally, is sort of going farther out in a you know, a way that isn't a secret.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

Yeah, yeah. I I can relate to that so much. I because I mean I still live in bifurcation myself a lot of the times, um, especially with like certain people. Um I don't I don't talk about it, I'm not asked about it. Um you know, so I there is a little bit of a closet going on there. Um and I I think that one of the things that's pressing that forward is that we the times are changing, you know, like that kind of behavior from someone in your position, I'm sure would not have been tolerated. Like it would have raised a lot of fear and questions and doubts and all of that. And so now we're moving into this space where you know it is more spiritually diverse and those practices are becoming a little more mainstream, like sound healing and meditations and um all of that. And so it's like part of us is rooted in the old world and part of us, like our heart really wants to be in the in the in the new space, but how do you get there? It's like this really the bridge is covered with rocks and pointy objects, and it's like uh I don't know, you know, like no, right, exactly right.

SPEAKER_00 48:21

And how many of those rocks and pointy objects are we just making up in our hands? Right, like totally right.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

Yeah, like it's it's it's like assuming that everybody really cares about what Brian's doing, you know, when they're really just concerned about what they're doing.

SPEAKER_00 48:35

Of course, nobody's paying attention. I used to tell this to kids all the time, like whatever I ran high schools for most of my career. It's like all the time you're spending thinking about how people are perceiving you, all of you are doing the same thing and nobody is perceiving anyone, particularly in high school. You know what I mean? Like what you perceive, what you think is being noticed once you get out of sort of that middle school conformity mentality. But it you know, it's just and then it sort of sticks in a certain way. The kid, there's a great book, I think it's called The World's Religions. Houston Smith wrote it, but he sort of takes the pure essence of each of the major faiths and describes it. And the Hindus called the phase that I'm coming out of the householder phase, you know, and you're raising your family, you're doing your work, and you're buying your house and you're doing your thing, and then they, you know, in its ideal design, you leave for a window of time and come back as a different person. Um, so and then you can begin your spiritual exploration. And are you know, I just turned, I'm turning 65 here in a couple of weeks. You know, the this last however many years it's going to be are for that. Like that's what it's for. And you have to make this conscious schism um to be able to make that transition. But there's a symbolic leaving and coming back, and you're no longer that, and we don't have that, right? And I watch a lot of men, you know, uh probably women too, sort of fail retirement because it's like if I don't have this defining quality of work or career or whatever that status was, then what am I and who am I? And why what's my even my purpose? And it's scary. You know, it's a scary thing to say, I'm gonna let I'm gonna let that part go, right?

SPEAKER_01 50:29

Yeah, I'm not there yet. No, obviously. Still working, still working on it, still in your crisp shirts.

SPEAKER_00 50:38

Exactly right, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 50:41

Are you gonna be like wearing fringe and leather?

SPEAKER_00 50:45

Yeah, I live in the right town, let me tell you.

SPEAKER_01 50:48

Yeah, yes, you do, you do.

SPEAKER_00 50:51

I think you've stayed.

SPEAKER_01 50:52

So I guess that I was gonna ask you what your next um step is, and I guess that that would more of that, I suppose. Sounds like that's kind of the plan. But I there's this um one of the things that's really striking me about this shamanism is that there it doesn't seem like there is any place to get to. Like there's no, you know, you're not seeking any sort of levels of attainment. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:24

Yeah. No, I I agree. I agree with that.

SPEAKER_01 51:27

So what is what is the motivating factor?

SPEAKER_00 51:29

What is the desire? That's an interesting question. I need to transcend like what I'm working on, if that's the question. Um you know, be it from a lot uh what this is whatever, definitely coming out of the closet. I'm a little cynical about humans. And, you know, this is what I'm trying to work through. And I don't know whether it's reincarnation based, like I just had a lot of hard experiences, what what precipitated that, but I don't have I have a lot of faith in the natural world, I have a lot of faith in however we want to conceptualize God. I don't have a lot of faith in humans to do the right thing, and it's holding me back. Like I it's a level of it's not a trusting, open approach to existence on the planet. Like Thea has a much more optimistic, hopeful perspective on humanity than than I do. And you know, she sometimes feels like it's you know optimistic to the point of naivete, and and she's sort of working, you know, life will deal you some stuff, as you we can all attest. You're gonna get your teeth kicked down your throat a bunch of times. I need because I know better than to be cynical about it or to assume bad intent. You know what I mean? I'm just I'm more suspicious than I need to be about my fellow humans. Um, so that that's an area of growth for me. Um, and I've seen a lot of beautiful, you know. Any more, it's like the thing that's helping me transcend is like art in all forms is like the best of us, in my opinion. Like, like that, it's an expression that just opens, I don't, I can't articulate this yet, but it opens a doorway forward to see the beauty of humanity for me, right? Like as people, and I'm I do this too, like we're so insecure or afraid of death or something that we sort of try to insulate ourselves with either stuff or uh cushions or or whatever to try to protect us from the reality of our existence, which is pretty you know, it's pretty tenuous if if you really, but if you can sort of embrace that tenuousness, I feel like then the flower opens, you know, because you're not protecting yourself from things that are inevitable and you don't have any control over anyway.

SPEAKER_01 54:09

Yeah. I'm trying to figure out why your attitude toward humanity matters at all.

SPEAKER_00 54:17

Uh, that's a great question. Because I think it takes me in terms of my own head, psychology, whatever, it brings me out of a more open, loving way of being in the world. Like it brings me into uh for me, the manifestation is fight. It brings me into a a fight. And that you know, and that's not I'm looking for fights that aren't there. Um, I'm willing to fight when there it isn't necessary. Uh part of that is probably moving every year for 13 years. Like it I had to fight a lot.

SPEAKER_01 54:53

Yeah, one of the things we didn't mention is that you actually were the military, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 54:58

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:59

I mean, that's that is the the training of your father and and yourself. It's like, you know, vigilance and distrust.

SPEAKER_00 55:09

Yeah, I think I think that's right. Um, and what whatever would precipitated that, I I I don't, you know, I don't have a good handle on, but but um yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:20

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 55:22

But where there's work to be done.

SPEAKER_01 55:23

I love that your um, well, I guess this is true for all of us, but I love that your next assignment, so to speak, is to learn how to um love and accept your fellow man, considering that I mean you're part of the species, so it can't be a hundred.

SPEAKER_00 55:41

You're damn right. I did a great journey on that, Kay. Just if you could, because I journeyed on this question the last time I was in one of these big workshops, and I'll tell it quickly because I know time is short. But uh in the dr in the journey, I'm floating down a river, and there are thousands and thousands of people sitting in a field, uh cross-legged, and all different types, colors, genders, like the world, it's a representative of all the people. And I climb out of the river on the other side of the river, and there's a space over with the crowd, right? An open space, and I'm like, I know it's my space, and they're like, You're one of them. Like, go sit with them.

SPEAKER_01 56:29

Wow, that's really powerful. Is that great? That's really good. That's really good. I love that for you.

SPEAKER_00 56:37

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it was good. It was good, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:42

Oh, that's great. Thank you so much for sharing all of that. I I didn't know I know almost nothing about shamanism. So um, it's interesting, it's very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 56:51

It's a cool one, yeah. Yeah, you're actually like it for anybody's exploration, just as information.

SPEAKER_01 56:57

Yeah, and then we'll we'll um put some links in the notes about people if people want to explore a little bit further. But let's switch over to the lightning run. Okay. So I have some questions for you.

SPEAKER_02 57:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 57:09

The first one is if you could invent anything, what would it be?

SPEAKER_00 57:16

Wow. I think that in the short term, I would like all of us to have the ability to move through time and space with some semblance of uh instantaneousness. So that if I could go see my cousin before he passed, you know, because his wife called me and there's no way I'm getting there in time. Uh you know. So I think in the short term uh, you know, the ability to to move through time and space sort of instantly would be and whatever future past, uh whatever. But yeah, yeah, a transporter of sorts.

SPEAKER_01 57:55

Yeah. That's so that's really interesting because I've often thought of you know this question of like by location or trans trans teleportation and all that. And but I've never been able to come up with a pelling a compelling reason why I would need that power. So it's like, okay, I could go to Venus, but you know, I'm like, do I need to do you know, right?

SPEAKER_00 58:17

Yeah, how important is this? Yeah, a lot of this is just circuit. It's like we were talking about the Great Lakes. You know, I would love to go back in time and see that.

SPEAKER_01 58:25

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 58:28

I would love to see Jesus or see Buddha talking to a crowd.

SPEAKER_01 58:30

Like, how cool that would be very that would be you, I I don't know why none of these things occurred to me, but those are really awesome. Really awesome. Okay, number two, and this is the one I was alluding to earlier. Do you believe you are eternal? And if so, what does that feel like and how does it shift your thinking and behavior?

SPEAKER_00 58:52

Yeah, I definitely think my soul is eternal, uh, and the energy of my being is eternal. Um I don't know that it stands as an individual throughout eternity, but I think that some form of that energy or soul goes on and on and on and on forever. I don't think it's always a person. I, you know, I think there's a I don't think it's always a physical thing. Like it could be any number of different things. Um and the way I think that worldview impacts my life is that I think it's a more um humane way to think about life. I like I'm gonna get some chances to figure things out, you know. It's not a like one and done feels nonsensical to me.

SPEAKER_02 59:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:42

You know, you did bad, down you go, you know, like thank you for your own. Yeah, that's right. It's like I was barely here, you know. I mean, humans, yeah, whatever. It's another one of these things that made me happy, but it's sort of if the earth was 24 hours old, we've only been around for 17 minutes, you know?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:01

Like we're not that big a deal. So I like thinking that makes me feel better.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:06

Yeah. You know, it's interesting that um when when posed with this type of question, most people think automatically of what would I be in matter? When matter it takes it's first of all, it isn't even real, it's like it's space, right? Held together somehow by a mysterious force. So they're almost it's it's like in the vastness of the universe, as you spoke of earlier, it's so much more likely that you would be something non-physical, so much, so much more likely. Right. The fact that you are in physical being is probably one of the most rare occurrences in eternity.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:48

Totally, right? Totally right, and probably it's whatever for whatever learning that we're here to sort of constellate in that physical form. And then you read about these sort of near-death experiences, and people are so relieved when they tr transcend the body. It's like, yeah, thank god, like and depressed when they have to come back, and depressed when they have to come back because of the limitations of that physical form.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:12

I don't I won't I won't be sad if I don't come back.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:18

Um neither will my wife. You guys are gonna be buddies up there, yeah. I yeah, I like the earth, but I can't can't figure out what to do about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:26

Okay, um, what was your favorite band when you were 16?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:30

So probably between two, and this is gonna betray my age and window, but it was probably some combination of The Grateful Dead and Little Feet.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:40

Okay, yeah, I like Little Feet too.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:42

Let's see, yeah, thank you. Me too.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:43

We're the same era, yeah. Yeah. Do you prefer uh small gatherings or big parties and why?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:51

Uh so I'm an extrovert. Um so I like a little as I gotten older, I think I've drifted more I, you know, for sort of thinking about that Myers-Briggs thing. Um but I like a little hub now and then. When I was young, I liked it a lot. Um, you know, and whatever. I don't I don't drink or do stuff anymore. But back in my partying days, there was nothing I liked better than a big free-for-all on a Friday night. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah. Um, I like the intimacy better now. Like I tend to have dinner with my friends like one-on-one, which is you know, and I I really get a lot out of those exchanges now, but 30 years ago, that would have felt really boring to me.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:36

Yeah. My last question for you is this is good too. What do you feel hopeful about? We know it is not.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:45

Yeah, no, but that's I mean, it feels to me from 10,000 feet, like I'm hopeful about the fact that this is all purposeful. Like all even all the crap that's happening with our chucklehead president, sorry, conservative listeners, but you know, um it's all purposeful, like it's all moving towards something for us. We don't need to understand it. I feel that same way about our individual lives. Like, I I have a sense for maybe what my purpose is, but I'm sure there's a lot more going on that I'm aware of in terms of what I came to do and learn. And I feel that way about sort of the broader scope as well, is that it's not random and it's not haphazard. And all of these experiences as hard as they may, and I'm not trying to justify hardship because I think a lot of hard things happen, they're horrible, but that there is a purposefulness to things, like it almost feels you know, like institutions are shaking right now, like they're really interesting, right? And it's gonna be really scary for a lot of people, but there's purposefulness to that, and I think there's an evolution. That's my hopeful side is that you know, there's there these things are gonna fall apart so something better can come. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:07

I I feel like I used to have when I was younger, I used to have a more um a greater desire to for that moment when I'm going to understand everything that has happened and my role in the for big and small in all of it. And as I age, I am less interested.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:30

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:31

Way less interested. I don't even think there's anything that I really want to know. I think it's like I've had enough, I've had enough information. No, that's not it. I feel like I really am looking forward to that eternal just being, that sense of exhale and peace and unconditional love and right joy. And yeah, that's what I'm looking for. I don't need any explanations.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:59

You and Theater speak in such similar languages. That's really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:04

Because that's that's that's right. And it's not complicated for her.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:09

And it doesn't sound like it is for you either. Like you know that it's real that and that that is something that you're gonna get.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:15

That's great.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:16

Yeah, I hope, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:17

Um, did you bring a question for me today?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:20

Yeah, and it's we've alluded to it a bunch of times. So, you know, the last time when you were here with us in OHI, you were going to a workshop um to watch other people have the experience that the workshop was providing, but you had already had it for yourself and didn't feel the need to have that experience again for you. And I just found that so interesting because you were just there to sort of witness it's what you're doing with this podcast. Like it's a really pretty selfless and I I I I I don't want you to feel uncomfortable, but it's a lot of interest in others that I think might be more unusual than you think it is. And I'm curious what you know what precipitates that? Like where where is this sort of like it's a generosity of interest, and maybe it's a gift, like whatever that is, but where does that come up from for you? Like your whole podcast is grounded around this same concept, which is other people, you giving other people the space to talk about themselves, right? And it's just an inch I find it an interesting sort of call. I'm curious about your own perspective on your like your perspective on what you're doing with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:49

Well, I I feel like I've had the good fortune of knowing exactly uh where my lane is and what my mission is. Because I do know what my lane is, I'm not tempted to make it become grandiose because I haven't witnessed that grandiosity actually serves anybody, including the person themselves. So um, you know, I first of all, that mission, that that calling is that I'm standing at the precipice of great change, like all of us are. But but I have a little lantern and I have a little cooler full of drinks, and my job is to stand at the bridge and do what I can to help people at that particular juncture. It's so it's like it's a it's an enormous point in people's lives. It's like this waking up journey, this this like inner the potential for this inner explosion and expansion. It's like right there, you know, you can almost sense it in someone. It's usually they come to that moment with trauma or great insecurity, great fear, um, you know, great sorrow, great trouble. And so it was like my desire to sh give examples of one, how unique that journey is to each of us, and to show how what the journey leads to. So I'm I'm wanting to provide examples of yes, it feels like breakdown, it feels like disaster, and on the other side of that is what you're referring to is the great, you know, is purpose. It's um it's greater peace of mind, it's greater whatever, you know, better, better. I feel like everything that I'm trying to do is feeding into that very specific purpose. And I I um I just don't feel tempted to try and make it bigger or better or well, better, yes, of course. I want to become better, but um more important or to you know, have it mean anything more than the little lantern, you know, like I feel like that's that's there's beauty in that. And I also feel like I've come to believe that if it's true that we are all sparks of the divine, and the divine is has created you for the perspective of you, I want to see in that in that too. You know, I wanna I really want to know. Like, I feel like when I'm sitting in front of people, it's like sitting in front of God. It's like what what did God want to learn when he created Brian? You know, like and that's a and you know, this kind of dialogue is a way to understand that. And I think that what what um I've done enough um self-reflection and self-inquiry that I don't need for somebody else to know what's going on here. If they're if you're interested, fine, but I don't feel the need to talk about it because I've done so much of it, like ad nauseum. So it's kind of boring to me. It's not boring, but it's not of interest to me. It's not as interesting as getting to know, you know, what's really going on with other people.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:39

It's really generous, okay. Well, thank you. Super cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:43

Yeah. Well, I I I think we could go on for a very long time. Yeah, maybe we'll bring you back at some point. But um, for now, I just want to thank you for being so open and willing to talk about this. I love having men on the podcast because I I feel like it's so important. And uh so thank you for serving in that way.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:06

Uh my pleasure. It was really an honor, and I really enjoyed it. So thank you for having me.