The Dandelion Effect

"Best of Season One" Episode

October 15, 2021 Season 1 Episode 23
The Dandelion Effect
"Best of Season One" Episode
Show Notes Transcript

This is the "Best Of Season One” episode, a taster to hear pieces of all 22 episodes and invite you to go back and visit the ones that you missed over the last year. 

The Dandelion Effect Podcast is a gentle reminder that inspiring and extraordinary people are out there doing good in the world. These conversations explore a range of topics including post traumatic growth and healing, music therapy, food systems and soil, refugee resettlement, mental health and suicide prevention, nonviolent communication, transgender healthcare, cultural preservation and so much more.

Please enjoy the different voices you hear and the stories that are told. Many of the people interviewed hold workshops and retreats during the summer at the Feathered Pipe Ranch and you can find links to their respective websites in their episode show notes for continued engagement with these teachers, healers, shamans, therapists and otherwise amazing humans.

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Andy Vantrease (00:00:17):

Welcome to the Dandelion Effect podcast, a space for organic conversation about the magic of living, a connected life. Just like the natural world around us, we are all linked through an intricate web, a never ending ripple that spans across the globe. Here we explore the ideas that our guests carry through the world, remember who and what inspired them along the way, and uncover the seeds that help them blossom into their unique version of this human experience. This podcast is a production of the Feathered Pipe Foundation, whose mission is to help people find their direction through access to programs and experiences that support healing, education, community, and empowerment.

(00:01:05):

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Dandelion Effect podcast. I'm your host, Andy Vantrease, and today I'm recording this from Bozeman, Montana, the first week of October. And believe it or not, we have snow outside about seven inches in town, and much more up in the mountains. This season at the Feathered Pipe Ranch. Just ended one week ago. And what perfect timing to close out the summer without a huge snowstorm on our guests. We really cut it close this year, but everything worked out nicely. Today, we are bringing you a very special episode. I've put together a 75 minute mashup that highlights bits of each conversation that we aired during season one, a best of season one episode, if you will, to carry you through to the next season and act as a taster to hear pieces of all 22 episodes and invite you to go back and visit the ones that you missed over the year.

(00:01:55):

The Dandelion Effect podcast is a gentle reminder that inspiring and extraordinary people are out there doing good in the world. These conversations explore a range of topics, including post-traumatic growth and healing, music therapy, food systems and soil, refugee resettlement, mental health and suicide prevention, nonviolent communication, transgender healthcare, and so much more. Many of the people interviewed hold workshops and retreats during the summer at the Feathered Pipe Ranch, and you can find links to their respective websites in the show notes for continued engagement with these teachers, healers, shaman's, therapists, and otherwise amazing humans. Without further ado, I present to you the best of season one mashup, episode one, Dr. Daniel Libby of the Veteran's Yoga Project.

Dr. Daniel Libby (00:02:42):

I think speaking from a personal place, I got my healing at the Ranch, because it held me, because I was, I was seen, and I was heard for who I was. And I was offered unconditional positive regard. There was something about there, like all the, you know, the kids that work there, the people that came through there. It’s just, just the…people are who you are. And there’s this interest in knowing who you are, and allowing people to be who they are. And in my experience, and again, I’m a clinical psychologist, and so if I do psychotherapy work, even as a yoga teacher, what I really learned is that people have the innate capacity to heal. Right? And just as, like, my poor niece just broke her arm I just found out. And, but what’s gonna happen in this picture, she’s got a cast on her arm. And what’s gonna happen is her arms gonna heal.

(00:03:39):

The doctors aren’t going to heal her arm. The arm is going to heal itself. They’re just going to put a brace on it to make sure that the conditions are right for healing. And just as the body heals itself. Right? Or my daughter falls and scrapes her knee, and it heals itself. What I learned at the Ranch and what I’ve seen through the work that I do is that the mind and the Spirit are just like the body, and they are pre-programmed for spontaneous healing. Right? We are, we are designed to heal. And just like the body, just like that arm has to be casted, and you have to have…Right? She has to have the right nutrients in your body, and you know, be well hydrated and all that stuff. If you create the conditions, the body heals itself. And I think that healing work is about, you know, or being a quote healer is really just about holding space and giving people the space to be who they are, so that their own self healing mechanisms can kick in. Right?

(00:04:35):

So can you create the just like creating a brace for the arm, can we create that brace for that safe place for somebody’s emotions and their spirit, so that their emotions and spirit and mind can do the work that needs to be done for healing. And I think that’s what I learned at the Ranch. That’s what I saw is that, you know, people go away for a week and you have this, you know, this week uninterrupted where you’re out of your normal life. You get fed three amazing meals a day. You’re surrounded by, you know, amazing, fascinating people. You’re learning, you know, contents that’s applicable to your life and that it’s all about healing. All of those are conditions. Right? You’re creating the conditions. Right, where now, right, from a nervous system perspective, your nervous system feels like it’s such in such a safe place. Like I am totally okay here. I’m totally held. It’s okay for me just to be who I am and to go through what I have to go through and move through whatever traumas or stresses or stuff that I have to move through so that I can heal and transform.

Andy Vantrease (00:05:40):

Episode two with Sarah Bergakker, founder of Mosley.

Sarah Bergakker (00:05:45):

My personal journey started in health care when I was quite young. I took my first nursing boards when I was 18 years old. I knew very early on that I wanted to end up in health care, and started the prerequisites for nursing school while I was in high school. That meant that I found myself standing as a nurse in the trauma room in the emergency department when I was 19 years old, very typical of people in health care, very type A, very goal-oriented. And so, I had done the didactic, the book work to be there. But I found myself standing in the trauma room without having the tools to process emotionally what I was seeing so early in my career and at a fairly young age. Now, I’m at a point in my life where I can bring that awareness to it and bring those words to it, but I didn’t know that that’s what I was going through.

(00:06:59):

The saying, “There’s no crying in baseball,” we would say, “Well, there’s no crying in the emergency department.” And the reality is there’s plenty of crying. It’s just behind the doors.

Andy Vantrease (00:06:59):

<laugh>. Yeah.

Sarah Bergakker (00:07:01):

And so I came up through health care and then also was in a formative time of my life where the tougher you appeared, the more rewarded you were. And I started in emergency medicine and then transferred to an even busier trauma center. So then I was in my young 20s, working, you know, weekend, night shifts, seeing some pretty intense things. And I figured out that if I would hum “Mary had a little lamb,” like under my breath during super intense traumas when they would first come into the trauma bay, and it’s all hands on deck, and it’s kind of this flurry of activity, that somehow that helped me. And now, looking back, I was doing this very, like primitive form of just trying to ground myself, right?

Andy Vantrease (00:07:49):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Sarah Bergakker (00:07:51):

I still remember the night I was working in the ER, they had pulled me out of the pediatric ER to cover the adult ER, and they were like, there’s, you know, yet another trauma coming in. I believe it was violent in nature. And I just felt so angry towards that person, this person that was coming in, in this very compromised state in desperate need of help. And that experience is not foreign to ER nurses. There’s some pretty dark, sarcastic, coping humor that actually comes out of that. And for me, I remember feeling afraid and, and feeling like, I can’t be here anymore. That’s not who I want to be. And at the time, I didn’t have the tools to know that if I had wanted to, I could have stayed there, giving that type of care, but changed who I was as a person.

Andy Vantrease (00:08:48):

Episode three with food writer Allison Radecki.

Allison Radecki (00:08:53):

The thing that’s most interesting to me now, in this weird kind of limbo, is seeing how food is being talked about, coming up in conversation in so many ways, especially with people who might say, “I never thought about that.” This time where our entire country in the world has had to stop, and slow down. And it’s slowed down so much whether it’s your own life, whether it’s the fact that you’re not able to leave the house as you used to, depending on where you live, slowing you down to realize that wow, for the first time I saw empty shelves in the supermarket. Yeah, there was, it was impossible to find flour for a while around here. To find people who are who had to cook because restaurants were closed, and if you were going to find a way to have food in your house…People I know who I never spoke with about food or cooking were like, “Allison, beans, beans, tell me about beans, dried beans, canned…What do I do with that? We’re buying tons of beans because you know there’s, you can’t get food.”

(00:10:34):

But it also got people to think, “Why is the food not there on the shelf? If the produce isn’t there, where’s it coming from? What do you mean, things are slowed down? Why would that matter? What? Wait, the cucumbers are not coming from here? Like where are they traveling from?” People who are either growing and cooking and teaching at the same time, they were primed to respond to what happened in the world. And they kind of went with the flow. I think about, there’s a woman named Leah Penniman. She’s a co-director of a farm called Soulfire Farm.

Andy Vantrease (00:10:34):

Oh! I’ve heard of this.

Allison Radecki (00:10:36):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Oh my gosh, yes! And she also just wrote a book called Farming While Black. She not only became a farmer because she and her partner in their kids lived outside of Albany, New York, and found themselves in a food desert, where they could not get access to fresh food.

(00:10:54):

And looking into that, and realizing, why is this happening? If you’re looking at that, you have to look at systemic things such as racism and access to land, that are baked into the distribution of land and food. And she not only became a farmer, but is teaching people how to farm, and also now has a CSA that is feeding many families in our community. So it’s not only growing, it’s teaching, it’s giving access and sharing with your community. I find that that’s what is exciting to me. It’s not, it’s not just about people saying like, “Can you make sourdough? Take, give me a recipe.” It’s people stopping, and trying to do it for themselves, and realizing how much time it might take to make a starter, and how much patience you might need. My next door neighbor, she texted me, she texted me saying, “Do you know a good sourdough starter recipe?”

(00:12:05):

I said, “I know someone who does.” And I, you know, connected her with a friend. And then maybe a week later, a beautiful loaf of bread came by my front door.

Andy Vantrease (00:12:05):

Yeah.

Allison Radecki (00:12:06):

So I think that there’s also this idea of generosity, generosity, and knowledge. Generosity is also sharing what you have. It creates a bigger circle that encompasses more people. And then you can make that, that circle even wider. So I am excited for the possibility of transformation, and sharing that exists right now, because we have to look at food in a different way. Or we are some people think, actually have to think about it, after not thinking about it, because we might be in a country, or a town or community where you never had to think about how you were going to find fresh food. Or how hard it is to make, you know, transform food into something delicious. Or how easy. Maybe you found that you liked it. That’s what’s exciting to me – the communication that’s happening around food.

Andy Vantrease (00:13:01):

Episode four, with Baxter Bell and Melina Maza.

Melina Meza (00:13:05):

If we think of Ayurveda as the health science, the sister science to yoga, one of the definitions of Ayurveda is life science. And one of the definitions I really love these days is the art of living. And so what it’s trying to do is keep us in relationship to nature, wherever you live. And to learn how to read nature, for when to potentially make changes in your life based on what’s happening out in the external environment around you. And so if there are changes going on around you externally in nature, that we’re most likely going to be affected by some way, because we are connected to nature. But this is the perspective from someone, you know, studying Ayurveda. So what’s valuable then is nature isn’t always the same. There’s, it’s constantly changing, and so are we. So how to learn to accept change, whether it’s seasonal basis, or daily basis, or hourly basis, to acknowledge, oh, my energy is different from the morning to the afternoon to the evening, or my energy might be different from summer to winter.

(00:14:18):

We have different cravings based on the amount of light, for example, that we have within a day. So for those of us when we’re in summertime, and we have these really long days, you know, it’s interesting to point to what’s going on in nature around you. And there’s tons of no food growing in that season, where the days are really long, and we’re really productive and active. And so there’s like lots of food to feed us and nourish us, these quick carbs, that we would have to get through a really long day. And then the opposite would be in winter, when we’re in these really short days. And there is not that much light, there’s not that much food that grows in winter in a lot of places. And so you know, we’ve picked the food. We’ve harvested the food. And now we have food that needs to be cooked, that we’ve stored. And now that brings us close to the fire, which keeps us warm, which is helpful when it’s cold outside. And so you know, in nature, it’s always producing what we need to stay healthy for that particular season.

Andy Vantrease (00:15:27):

Episode five, with Matt Kuntz of NAMI Montana.

Matt Kuntz (00:15:31):

NAMI Montana does focus on legislation a lot, because so much of our mental health system is tied to our federal funding and where the treatment comes from. So, and with with veterans, I think if if you’re not doing it at the Department of Defense, or the VA, you are missing the boat. And you get to that through legislation or through participating with Congress. And so I was fortunate enough to be chosen to be on the COVER Commission, which where we analyzed veterans mental health treatment systems and and outside of the VA, and then reported back to the President and Congress. And we turned that report in last February. It was an 18-month work. And I really was happy with what came out of it. We, we traveled around the country. We talked to veterans. We talked to amazing researchers and came up with big things and small things, a lot of it examination of alternative practices and guidelines on Tai Chi and yoga, and creating a path for them to be used.

(00:16:44):

And the VA had been doing some of that, but one of the things that we found out was, was the research wasn’t keeping up with the practice. You do have to be doing the research on these thing to make sure you’re offering things that work. And even if the modality works, what if it’s not in the way that you’re doing it? We found with a COVER Commission, the research wasn’t keeping up with with what was going on out in the field. So we came up with some guidance to work on that. And that transferred directly into the Commander John Scott Hannon Act, which was signed into law in October.

Andy Vantrease (00:17:25):

Amazing.

Matt Kuntz (00:17:26):

Yeah, it was it was really cool. I think, inarguably biggest veterans suicide prevention legislation on the federal level, in the past decade. A lot of work and really a cool bipartisan effort. I know people are rightly frustrated with the state of partisanship in this country. But that bill went through Congress, through the House and the Senate, without a single no vote.

Andy Vantrease (00:17:26):

Wow!

Matt Kuntz (00:17:26):

Nobody voted against that bill, both parties. And it was a contentious bill. I mean, suicide research and prevention, people view it different ways. And some of this stuff took years to get to the point where, where we were ready to roll. And it was cool. The bill was named after my friend, Commander John Scott Hannon, his family’s place lies right next to the Feathered Pipe Ranch, his nephew worked for the Feather Pipe this summer for a little bit.

Andy Vantrease (00:18:29):

Episode six with Matthew Marsolek of the Drum Brothers.

Matthew Marsolek (00:18:34):

You know, this touches on music therapy. It's such a multidimensional field. And what I mean by that is there's a psychological aspect of music, right? So, you know, you were mentioning, you know, some of those songs that just drop you to your knees. Amazing Grace, or for many of us, think of the songs when you're 17 and 18.

Andy Vantrease (00:18:56):

Oh Yeah.

Matthew Marsolek (00:19:43):

Oh, my god, yes, the songs that are just like, like, I remember when I heard Fleetwood Mac “Rumors” album, in the Helena Valley before the Eclipse, whatever that was 20 years ago, or something more than that, Oh, my gosh, I’m dating myself, I think it was 30 years ago. And I remember hearing those songs for the first time. I remember the room I was in. I remember what the weather was, like. You know, and it just impactful music. We all have that. It has such deep psychological and cultural power. And if you’re using music in a ritual context, or a therapeutic context, we really need to take that into consideration. Well, then there’s the physiological power, and something called psycho-acoustics. So how sounds affect the brain, how sounds affect the body.

(00:19:43):

If I wanted to do a grieving ritual, and I’m kind of pulling aside the veil here of some of the group work I do. But it’s really important that folks know some of the dynamics behind it, because everyone can make their own rituals. These are tools that we can use to activate these moments of our lives, activate and process and transform the feelings we have around grief, for example. And transformation is a critical thing here. Good ritual really has at its core, this idea of transmutation and transformation. It’s like I offer something into this ritual. And then through the ritual that, that which I’ve offered, is now transmitted or changed. A simple metaphor is a vessel of water on the stove, and the vessel is containing the water, and I add heat to that vessel, and what is inside is transformed. And so this is what happens with a grief ritual. When I’m offering music, one thing I’ll do is create music that has a sustained thought. And the amazing thing about music is you can sustain a feeling, you can sustain an energy.

(00:21:30):

So it’s not as fatiguing for the group, just to sit there in silence and have each person do a part of the ritual. When there is music present, suddenly there’s a way to draw in and draw out with your attention and with your emotion, as you feel engaged, or as you feel you need to quiet and back up a little bit. And the music offers all this strata for us to participate. Right?

(00:22:57):

So I’m going to play this triplet rhythm for you. Because I’m going back to this idea of energy, right? I’m going to sustain the rhythm a little bit. And then after a little bit of time, I’m going to start to just let some energy out. And just some solo, right, but notice the feeling of energy coming through the drum. <hand-drum playing> Oh, baby, every time I pick up my drum, I just feel invited. <hand-drum playing> Inside this, all the way down <hand-drum playing>…is a pulsation from that heartbeat..

Andy Vantrease (00:23:33):

Episode seven with Karma Tensum of the Tibetan Children's Education Foundation.

Karma Tensum (00:23:39):

I believe that, as a global community, whatever we are, we have slowly built on all the traditional wisdoms. So I, for example, living here in Montana, I’ve come across Native American communities, I’ve been fortunate to visit the reservations, explore similarities of our thoughts, and our spiritual beliefs. And at the core, it is striking to see that there are so many similarities. So, Andy, I truly believe that modern science, and you know, please don’t get me wrong, I am a massive fan of technology, anything that alleviate human suffering, anything that, you know, gets rid of disease and hunger is positive. So I have nothing against science, technology. Somehow, because of who I am, and all my own life experiences, prompt me to say that if we can balance, modern science and technology, with traditional wisdom, of all different peoples of the world, we have the potential to create a more harmonious world. Another way of saying it is something that His Holiness the Dalai Lama has often taught us. And that is, that while we are training the mind, you know, educating ourselves in science and technology, and making these progresses that propelled the Industrial Revolution, at the same time, I think it is possible for us to educate our heart, and teach the children, these universal values of love, compassion, respect for all the traditions. I truly believe that if we do that, we are at a better place.

Andy Vantrease (00:25:46):

Episode eight with Aimee Ryan on nonviolent communication,

Aimee Ryan (00:25:52):

What’s often called OFNR is the sort of cacophonic version of an acronym is so observations, feelings, needs and requests. Those are the bold pillars that we might start to put our attention on. So observations, and the distinction being instead of looking at evaluations or judgments, we might start to notice and pick up on observations. Like what actually happened? What did somebody really say or do? And that’s not to say that evaluations and judgments are wrong or bad. It’s just that we don’t necessarily want to, when we’re noticing, [that] we have evaluations or judgments, we don’t want to stop there. It’s a great thing to notice. I have them all the time. And I don’t know any humans who don’t. But we just don’t want to, first of all unnecessarily believe them, or stop our inquiry process. It’s like, okay, so there’s some evaluations, there’s some judgments. And that can be a lead into what, what has actually been said.

(00:26:50):

What? And the reason that that helps is because in sharing with somebody, or even in sharing with ourselves, that the observation starts to make things really concrete. From there. Based on that observation, what do we notice are the feelings that are coming up? That includes body sensations. And I think that that’s more and more especially as more neuroscience and interpersonal neurobiology in different fields start to tell us, you know, what the yogi’s have known for centuries, is that the body sensations hold incredible amounts of information. And just the mere act of tuning into them can help us regulate. So just letting ourselves know, oh, when I noticed that, I actually feel a little bit of tightening in my jaw. I noticed my heart races a little bit. My stomach is a little clenched. You don’t have to say it out loud, it might be a split second that you notice those things.

(00:27:46):

And the more often you do it, the better you get. And that, those moments are moments of emotional self-regulation.

Andy Vantrease (00:27:52):

Yeah.

Aimee Ryan (00:27:52):

And then the beauty of it as we start to co-regulate with others in the space, whether they know it or not. And then once we sort of have this information of like, okay, I’ve noticed that my jaw is tight, and something’s here. And I’m feeling like, what’s the emotion, what’s the texture of this moment. It might be frustration, and it might be awkwardness, or I feel a little bit crunchy and irritable. The more nuanced we get, the more regulated we become, and more information we can start to take in. So they’re pointing us towards these universal human needs. Because I notice I’m cranky and irritable. It’s a sign that I’m not getting something that I really value. That might be connection, might be a sense of being understood or heard, might be acknowledgement.

(00:29:36):

You know, there’s a whole host of them. And there are lots of lists online as we build our vocabulary. You know, it’s like learning a new language. Sometimes it’s like, oh, yeah, what are my needs. And at first, I just, anybody starting to dabble, I really encourage finding those lists. And they come in all different languages and shapes and sizes. And just to help build that vocabulary. And then that last one, the request is okay, now that I have this information about how I’m feeling and what it is I’m needing, what action might I want to take myself? Or what might I invite somebody else into with me, that might make my life more wonderful, or their life more wonderful, or this moment more wonderful in some way. And, you know, request, being different than a demand…You know, there’s these key distinctions in, in nonviolent communication. In that, there’s really a surrender to the possibility of a no, that a no might come back.

(00:29:38):

And within that, there’s actually creative possibility, because that person is letting me know that my request, there’s some part of it that doesn’t meet their needs. And so we get to be in this dance together. Doesn’t have to be a conversation stopper. It’s just, if we allow it, [will] evoke more curiosity of okay, well, then what would work. And so that, you know, that’s a form that some people find really helpful and valuable to rely on. And I say, in trainings and in other spaces, like and throw it out the window, if it’s too wordy, and just start to put your attention on what matters to you, and what matters to others. If there’s nothing else you do. Just start to listen again to your own inner chatter, and the external chatter around you, and be listening, like what are the qualities of life that this person might be longing for moment to moment?

Andy Vantrease (00:30:27):

Episode nine, with Cho Cho Lwin on revolutionary love

Cho Cho Lwin (00:31:09):

Bo Bo, he was such a…yeah, my sweetheart and he allowed me to do everything that I wanted to do since day one. He supported me in many ways. Yes, I wanted my freedom, but I also love for very, very much. And I did not believe in an arranged marriage. I don’t want to be a person who were told to do things. And I wanted to contribute something into an a ??? or in the life together, Bo Bo was able to come to United States, as legal immigrant. Also we did it together. So every step since then, we did it things together.

(00:31:10):

After our first daughter was a year or so old, I got my very first job as a bar hostess at the very first international hotel in Mandalay. My working hours was very late hours. You know, sometimes we had to walk, walk until midnight, or after midnight. And I remember, you know, how in Myanmar, that traditional norms and belief of, well, if you see a woman after midnight, that she will not be a good woman.

(00:31:49):

It is a loose character is only the woman who has a loose character can stay up until midnight or odd hours. I was earning a lot of good money. And my husband was at that time studying as an engineering student. I wanted to support and I wanted to get some income. So I walked there and happily, and it was a good paying job. But one day my mom told me that I should quit my job because a few women from our community [were] concerned about what I’m doing. They thought that I was a prostitute. I earning money on that. So my mom that maybe you should quit the job. Because I don’t want to be seen as a mother of loose character by my community. And I was, “What?’ Told my mom that, “No, I will not quit my job. This is my job. I like it. And no matter how other people think I like it, and they support my family.”

Andy Vantrease (00:32:54):

And it's not what other people think at all.

Cho Cho Lwin (00:32:56):

No, yeah, exactly! Yeah. And my mom was, you know, she felt so sad about the whole thing. Even a few of our relatives, they came to our house whispering to my mom, that she should convince me to quit my job. So my mom felt that she wasn’t a good mother because she won’t able to convince me as usual. And from there, I just built up my career as a travel consultant. And this is how I met VJ and John P Anderson from Missoula. And from there, I become a country director of Studer Trust, a nonprofit organization. And I strongly believe that education can change one person life. In the, this is also is the very reason that me and my husband, we moved to United States, here as a legal immigrant.

Andy Vantrease (00:34:07):

Episode 10 with Chris Cappy of pilot consulting.

Chris Cappy (00:35:12):

Medicine has to do with physical and emotional and mental health. Your health comes first, and your emotional life and your support, relationships, family and friends. Money is enough to enjoy this life, on your own terms. And that can vary depending upon who you’re talking to a lot. But the difference between having enough money to be in this life and not enough money is huge. It’s a big gap. And the other thing about good healthy businesses is they make money so that they can do things not just to fund themselves, but to find other causes and other charitable kinds of things.

(00:35:12):

You know, we have a part of our business that it’s about contribution and giving back for the last, man since I was 40, 28 years. That’s why you do this, you know why, I was all about not for profit, and those greedy people. At least that’s what the lens I thought I had was. And by going into it, I realized no, no, this is people trying to live their lives into their best. The meaning part is the one that I find underneath the hood of all of these people. And some achieve it and some don’t. That’s where David Brooks is talking about. Meaning is what juices you. What gets you up in the morning? Why are you here? You know, I’m here to help people in their companies to be and do better. That’s a mission for me, that’s meaningful to me. I hope something that said here in this Dandelion Effect hits somebody ears and somehow they get it, you know, in a different way. You never know.

(00:35:51):

The mission and the meaning, there’s so much research on this ties in with health. People that live longer, know and have a reason about why they’re here. And the funny thing is you can’t look up the god in the sky to figure this out. Somehow it happens within you. Muktananda, that teacher used to say God dwells within you, as you. See God in others. Welcome others with love and respect. It’s an inside out kind of orientation, to discover, and to live into the questions. And this is what Campbell was talking about, to me early on. Whatever it was that came into you, and that part about what’s meaningful, that gives you energy, that’s a very important thing to figure out and to find out.

Andy Vantrease (00:36:42):

Episode 11 with functional medicine practitioner, Dr. Joseph Lamb.

Dr. Joseph Lamb (00:36:47):

We’ve been trying to define wellness, in kind of five fields at the moment — the cognitive component, the emotional component, the physical component, and then that metabolic component. You know, physical being what you can see with the human eye, and metabolic kind of being the part that you can’t see with the human eye, the microscopic versus the macroscopic. And when we we start with those four, and we realized very quickly, that behavioral needed to be at it, because the behaviors that we undertake, are the expressions of where we are. And I think at the highest of levels, when, when our spirit resonates through, our behaviors are very clear. And, and that that’s where we find the joy. And I think that’s where we also find the ability to be of service to somebody else. I really think that service piece is a really important part of showing up in the world.

(00:38:02):

You know, so much of our modern society defines our life, as Do I have enough? Am I happy enough? Do I have what the other person has? And I think it makes us good consumers. But I don’t think it necessarily makes us good people in the world. When I was in school, I remember probably learning this in eighth grade, a sacrament was defined as the outward expression of an inward grace. And in many ways, I think behaviors are the outward expression of everything going on within us. And I think that spiritual part really speaks to how that behavior resonates with us and with the world. Changing society in a meaningful way, but doing it first by changing ourselves and improving our health.

Andy Vantrease (00:39:05):

Episode 12 with Brant Secunda shaman and founder of Dance of the Deer Foundation.

Brant Secunda (00:39:11):

Well, for one thing, it was living there at the village, being there with Don Jose. And getting up every day and telling your dreams to the fire, and connecting with the light of what the Huichols call “Grandfather Fire.” You know, to go to his cornfield, for example with him, or to go and gather firewood. You know, simple things like this. I remember one story I like to share is he said, “Come on down to my cornfield, Grandson, and I’ll teach you something about shamanism.” And I thought, “Finally!” Because just living there seemed like a very mundane experience at first. So I thought, “Finally, now I’m going to get something deep and profound.” So we went down to the cornfield, and he gave me a machete. He says, “Here, cut the brush down here. And I’m going to plant blue corn here and red corn on this other hillside.”

(00:40:25):

And I started to cut down the brush, you know, but it was difficult for me. I had never cleared a mountain. And I went over finally to him and said, “Grandfather, I have a blister on my hand.” And he acted like he, you know, that really bothered him. And he was joking around, and I put the machete down. And he goes, “Well, you’ve been here now for a few hours, Earth has been talking to you all day. Did you hear anything?” And of course, you know, I said, “No.” And he goes, “Aah!” He picked up the machete, he goes, “Well, you missed your big Sharman lesson. Back to work.”

Andy Vantrease (00:41:10):

<laugh>

Brant Secunda (00:41:12):

So that was his way of teaching me. And I see that very clearly now. And so that was how a lot of my apprenticeship went, just being with Don Jose and living with him, sharing the life.

Andy Vantrease (00:41:31):

Episode 13 with poet Gary Lemons.

Gary Lemons (00:41:37):

Why this was so hard was because I had watched my father, even as a young man, make incredible sacrifices to hold our family together. When there was no mother around to help him. He worked two and sometimes three jobs while going to night school to get a better job, which he eventually did. You know, the sacrifices he made to keep us together are extraordinary. It was hard for me to to step away from him because of our grave philosophical differences. But I had to also to be true to myself. So when this all happened, the 60s and, and this movement into civil liberties. I supported civil rights issues, as well as opposing the Vietnam War. and he’s World War Two veteran, and both of those were an anathema to him. I just left. I said to myself, “Okay, that’s it. We’re done.”

(00:42:32):

And he said the same thing. He said, “Okay, I don’t, I essentially disown you.” I will say oldest son. And, and so we went our separate ways. He did what he did. He, he had an a daughter with my stepmom, and they raise all of my siblings, and they went their ways. And, and I didn’t know much about what was going on. Once in a while my next closest brother, who was my dearest friend, most of my life, and who did go to Vietnam would tell me things about what was going on. But that’s the only source of information I had go years without hearing about it.Gary Lemons 45:35 And then I was at home, just like 35 years later, pick up the phone and I say, “Hello.” And he says, “Gary, this is your father.” And I go, “What?” And he goes, “Yeah, I want to apologize for my part and everything that went wrong when we were together. And I’m really sorry. And I hope you can forgive me.”

(00:43:35):

And I was so stunned. I didn’t know what to say. I said, “Well, yeah, sure, Dad.” You know, and I became a little kid again, almost. And and then he just said, “Okay, well, that’s what I wanted to say.” And he’s kind of abrupt that way on the phone anyway. And so he just hung up. I went, “Wow.” I turned to my partner at the time. And I told them what happened. And they knew the whole story. And they went, “Whoa, that’s, that’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard. I can’t believe he did that. Wonder what it went on.” And so then four days later, I get a knock on the door.

(00:44:07):

He lives in DC. I live in Port Townsend. It’s like, over 4000 miles apart, and I open the door. It’s my dad. I’m just blown away and go, “Dad, what are you doing here?” And he looks at me. And he says, “You know, it was a cop out for me to say that over the phone to you. I have to say this to you in person.” And he apologized again for his part and what went wrong. And you know, I just like burst into spontaneous tears. I couldn’t believe it. And then I said, “Well, come on in, come on, Dad.” And he goes, “No, no, I don’t I don’t want to impose on you. And I didn’t want to make this a social visit. I just wanted to make sure that I looked at you when I said it.” And then he got back in the car and drove 4000 miles back to DC.

(00:44:07):

And ever since then, my heart has healed from those wounds, some self-inflicted in some inflicted by by the situation and including by him. But forgiveness, just like, it was this amazing freedom that he gave me to do the self-processing that allowed me to let go of all of these years of anger and pain and the need to keep him away from me just disappeared.

Andy Vantrease (00:45:40):

Episode 14 with Jungian analyst and feminist author, Dr. Jean Shinoda Bolen.

Dr. Jean Shinoda Bolen (00:45:46):

There’s something about the sense of of calling that when somebody unexpectedly, I mean, the zigs and zags, right? When I think of my own zigs and zags, or curves, and I think about the journey is very much like the labyrinth, not the Seven Cycle Labyrinth that you see in the western United States. I mean, there’s been like a labyrinth carved into the Anasazi ruins in Colorado, New Mexico, which is different than the labyrinth at ??? Cathedral. On a big labyrinth, you enter it, and you feel as in life, that you’re on a straight line, you think or you know, you have a sense that, well, you’re on the path and you’re going along, and it’s going to be, you know, it’s just headed in the right direction. And then there is a sudden curve, and it’s that moment of “big oops.” It’s like, is this a dead end?

Andy Vantrease (00:46:46):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

Dr. Jean Shinoda Bolen (00:48:05):

What next? And then you find yourself continuing on that path. And then I think in the ??? Cathedral, there’s something like 22 major, big turns. It’s whenever you think life is smooth, and then “Whoa. It’s not smooth. Big change. Now what?” And those “now whats” are the key points in my own life, where I did not expect that whatever happened, would happen. And then adapting to the change, and feeling the loss and feeling lost momentarily, and then trusting that the path will continue to open up. And so this liminal time when we are in a time in which you can’t go back. The shutdown began in March. And I had just come back from my last big conference in 2020, which was the women economic forum or WEF in Cairo, Egypt. And so I come back from Egypt in March, I scheduled, I’m scheduled to see patients in my office.

(00:48:06):

I’m in my office one day, when there’s the official shutdown. And sheltering in place was now the new way of being. So I’ve been sheltered in place ever since, meaning that I’ve been doing all my, my analytic psychiatric practice, and all my meetings and conferences on zoom. And it has felt as if I have been doing and calling it the ‘dandelion effect’. I say what I’m saying in the moment, it’s like blowing dandelion seeds out over internet winds, trusting synchronicity, that it will, if there’s anything that I’m saying, that will mean something to somebody who tuned in either accidentally or on purpose, and got the words that help define something in themselves, that supports them to do what is truly meaningful for them, even though nobody in their immediate environment supports that. Because time and time again, you can be born into a family, where they don’t get what [is] your innate talent.

(00:49:22):

You want to be a musician. You can’t be a musician. You want to be a business person. Nobody in our family as a business person. And so whatever it is, that was unacceptable to the family, or to the culture or to the gender. You know, “Girls don’t do that.” Or, “Boys don’t do that.” Or, “You can’t do that.” “Nobody in our family has ever done that,” blah, blah, blah. Then what happens is that our natural talent then is suppressed and you adapt to what the family wants you to be. And if you’re fairly good at it, you manage. But now in this time of pandemic, and sheltering in place, and having maybe probably being out of work, or whatever you are doing at home, this is a time when you actually can be in touch with that which got squashed growing up, but it’s your natural talent. And this is a possibility in this year plus of of liminal time between what was and, we can’t go back to it, and what next is not yet clear. It is during this liminal time that is actually possible to remember, in your dreams, in your memories, the kinds of things that you really had a natural talent for, that you really loved to do at one time in your life and how you got discouraged. You can bring it back into your life.

Andy Vantrease (00:51:00):

Episode 15 with Lauren Walker of Energy Medicine Yoga.

Lauren Walker (00:51:05):

You know, you said something really interesting there, you know, the body just keeps going on, and it just wants to keep you alive. And that is actually true. And you actually have an energy system in the body. It’s called Triple Warmer, and it has many, many roles in the body, but its primary role is to keep you alive. What happens when you have some kind of experience, if you don’t deal with that experience, you can compartmentalize it in the mind, so you can keep on especially if it was harrowing, right? And you can’t deal with it in the moment, right? Or maybe even your feeling is that you can’t deal with it ever. But you don’t want to deal with it. It’s too ugly to look at. It’s too scary to look at. It’s too everything to look at. So you compartmentalize it in the mind, but it also still goes somewhere in the body.

(00:51:58):

And Triple Warmer also maintains your habit fields. And so if you’ve had an experience that’s knocked you off your center, but you’re still alive, that’s going to stick, that’s going to stay, and you’re going to stay now in this new whatever normal you’ve gotten to. You survive this. Even if it’s just stress, I mean, just stress that’s one of the biggest, you know, killers in our in our world right now. But you survive your stressful experience. And this is now your new normal. And you’re not back to your really clarifying center line, that balance plays, that homeostasis. You’re kind of knocked off that but you’re still doing okay. I think about it, like if a log falls into a river, right? And then the river is forced to carve a new channel so that it can keep going downstream by going around the log now.

(00:52:54):

And that’s what happens to us energetically. So the log, that’s your trauma, and it’s fallen into the river. That’s your life. And now the water pass too, that’s the flow of your life. Now it has to change the path. And it carves a new groove. And now that’s the new channel of your life. And that new channel might not include all the things that were in that original channel, your dreams, your hopes, what it you know what, just the work that you were doing in the world. But now you’re in this new channel, and you actually have an energy system that holds this new channel. It’s not invested in you clearing that trauma and going back to your original channel, it’s just you’re alive. And that’s all it’s invested in doing. So you really do need to learn how to basically take the log out of the river. And you’re not ever going back.

(00:53:40):

You're going forward into the calm, into the peace, into the joy of your life, into the ability to maybe you’re now having to recreate new dreams because this trauma might have been such that the dreams that you had before aren’t available to you anymore. So you have to find new dreams. But all of that has to take place after the energy of that trauma is resolved. And you have systems in your body that resist that. So it’s really important to work with these energy systems so that you can overcome and get out of that field of trauma and come into the field of magic.

Andy Vantrease (00:54:22):

Episode 16, Native American flute performer and composer R. Carlos Nakai.

R. Carlos Nakai (00:54:46):

I said, well, I don’t know everything, but I do know what I know about myself and I encourage others to learn about themselves. And she said, well show people that, because in the United States, we all think in lockstep. I said, yeah, we have a $24 novel call American History. We all subscribe to a bigger novel, um, that we called a Holy Bible. I said, but it was written by a number of different people and they all that had their dream. But we’ve taken it and we’ve turned it into this is the only thing that works. And you go, no, it doesn’t. Because the people who teach at the Feathered Pipe also teach a way, which is quite important. How to get in touch with your soul, how to get in touch with your body, how to realize that breathing in and out of air isn’t just an automatic manual thing, but it’s a healing process.

(00:55:37):

And understanding and learning how to be in that, in that sensibility. You know, you can heal yourselves. You don’t have to go and find some drug or some combination of drugs to make yourself well, it’s un inside of us. All of us. We’re our own healer, but we have to learn how to go into our very being rather than looking outside of ourselves. Cuz there’s nothing outside of us. You know, it’s all inside of us. We were born to make a difference in the world, but we were also born to be of service to others. And so we carry tools. We were born carrying tools. When we came out of that doorway of our mothers, we had a little tool bag that we brought with us. This is what I’m going to do in this world. And it’s an adventure. It would become everything we say to ourselves, I wanna go back and I’m going to do this because it’ll be fun to do and it’ll help people. So we continue our journey through time in that manner.

Andy Vantrease (00:56:50):

Episode 17, gender affirmation surgeon Dr. Sidhbh Gallagher.

Dr. Sidhbh Gallagher (00:56:55):

Well, for sure. I mean, the one that comes to mind, I just brought her up, is the, the 74 year old who, um, was transitioning a signed male at birth, identifies as female, and had identified for 70 years as a female, but had suppressed it and run away from it. Because honestly, you know, back in the day it was not even safe, you know, to transition. So nevermind accepted or anything else. So that patient, she’d lived very successful life as a man, had gotten married, had kids, and then it was the death of a parent in their, gosh, they were in their late sixties, I think, when their parent passed away. And that really opened their eyes. And as she expressed it to me, she couldn’t fathom dying as a man. So even though her kids initially had some trouble with it, thankfully they all came around and were extremely supportive to her.

(00:57:45):

But she didn’t want that man’s name on her gravestone. You know, there’s definitely not one true story, you know, and you can’t, like if we were saying earlier, you don’t wanna make assumptions that, oh, you’re trans, so there, you’re gonna do the surgery of the hormones. Right? I mean, that’s really offensive. It’s, it’s like I said, it’s like saying to me, oh, you’re a woman, so you wanna get married to a man of kids. Right. You know, it’s like just offensive, you know, don’t do that. But I do oftentimes hear these stories of folks who have felt this way for so long. And so you can imagine then at the, you know, in her late sixties, she medically transitioned, then surgically transition at 74, this girl had a new lease in life, you know? And so it is just, you know, fabulous to see it.

(00:58:22):

And another story was a girl from Indiana who was a firefighter, had a great career, was like very well respected amongst her peers when she was living as a man, as a firefighter, and had been awarded many times for bravery, but then subsequently transitioned. And, you know, it was a little bit sad because even though her family were very accepting at the time, you know, when we did her surgery, certainly her former colleagues couldn’t understand it. I couldn’t really accept and kind of felt like duped a little bit. Sometimes that happens, you know, that, that she was somehow tricking them all along, you know, that, uh, you know, yeah. So that’s it. Like, sometimes, you know, not being truthful or something, sometimes that’s how people feel, but of course, you know, it wasn’t safe for her to come out.

(00:58:22):

But one of the things she told me, which I was stuck in my mind was she would say, honey, the bravery I had to have to be my true self to change my name, to go on these hormones is so much greater. Any day of the week, I’d run into a board building that’s nothing. So all the things is very interesting to me. All the things that like society had awarded her for, why she was so well respected, you know, she’s like, honey, that’s absolutely nothing compared to these high heels in here today.

Andy Vantrease (00:59:40):

Episode 18 with Jim Barngrover of timeless natural foods.

Jim Barngrover (00:59:46):

Biggest lesson would be treat the soil well. It will treat you well. It will sustain life forms that enrich all. And there’s so many young aspiring people coming into farming. The average age of the people we work with or have worked with this last couple of years is probably in the early forties, as opposed to the average age of the US farmer is in the upper fifties. There’s so many bright young people that are coming back or starting a new, but it’s not an easy thing to do with the capital outlays and such. But there is a bright future in working with the land, the soil, and food for people. So many emerging markets and businesses that are looking for individual sourced products. If you’re aspiring to do food production, look to local organizations that are involved in it. Look at your land grant university.

(01:00:52):

Some of ’em are excellent. Many other colleges, including the University of Montana, have great programs in nutrition and soils and others, other things related to organic agriculture. So I think the market is going to drive that. The more we find out about our food, where it comes from and what the benefits are of food that’s produced regeneratively organically, the more demand there’s going to be and the less demand for inferior quality food that’s highly processed, that is grown with chemical inputs exploiting people, and the the resources. There’s probably never been a better time. There’s so many programs that have come about now that, that, uh, you can plug into.

Andy Vantrease (01:00:52):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Jim Barngrover (01:00:52):

Bottom line is that if people buy good food instead of inferior food, that will change so many things in terms of policies, healthcare, quality of life, quality of resources, contamination pollution, carbon footprint, carbon sequestration, wildlife habitat, cleaning up waterways, cleaning up oceans, being conscious of what you put in your body. Those are all related, and that’s what I’m hopeful and believe the public is really awakening to how we need to fundamentally change the way that we’re consuming resources, the way that we’re investing in food production and supporting each other.

Andy Vantrease (01:02:33):

Episode 19, with Howard Binkow of the, We Do Listen Foundation

Howard Binkow (01:02:39):

Listening is in part obedience because to a child, a child needs to learn to do what the adults are telling ’em for safety purposes. So it’s an important message to give children, but it’s also in addition to that, it’s trying one’s best to understand what the other person is saying before you have to say what you have to say. Paying attention is part and connected with listening, but not the same. Paying attention is being present, which is currently my biggest lesson. Okay? It was listening and now it’s being more present. Being present means that I know what’s happening around me in addition to understanding what somebody is communicating. So that very subtle difference, and those two ingredients make for better listening. That’s the two ingredients that this boy here didn’t learn until I was 60.

Andy Vantrease (01:02:39):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Howard Binkow (01:02:39):

That’s why it was such a startling thing to listen to the Stephen Covey tape.

Andy Vantrease (01:03:43):

How has your life changed since you have become a student of listening and, and been practicing these skills?

Howard Binkow (01:03:52):

I get along better with others. I get in less trouble. I learn more. And, um, it’s become my vocation, my advocation, my goal. I don’t know if anybody can listen all the time while and they’re waking up. Cause you can’t do it. It’s way too much work. I’ve been with a lot of gurus and higher beings and nobody listens all the time. You can’t do it.

Andy Vantrease (01:04:13):

Episode 20, with Bhakti yoga teacher and musician, Nat Kendall.

Nat Kendall (01:04:19):

The self-loathing, the self berating, the internal judgments, the internal criticism. Those stories that we concoct in our minds occupy for most of us way too much bandwidth. And we spend a lot of time in that realm. I’m not willing to do that anymore. Quite frankly, what I had, that taste of death, you just inevitably stop doing some of that stuff because it’s pointless. All those dramas, all those stories that we tell ourselves that we’re this, we’re not that, or we compare ourselves to someone else, is such a detriment for what wants to flow through us in the next moment when we are holding onto what is already happened has already come and gone yesterday and yester-you, when we’re holding onto that, then the next moment wants to come through us.(00:50:21):But it is filtered by that. This was a huge teaching in the yoga realm are samskaras, are habitual patterns of mind thought.

(01:05:33):

And when we start to unwind and roll those back, then we get presented with the moment to start every day as a brand new day and just say, perfect. Move on. Let’s go chop wood and carry water. You know, I don’t wanna live my life as a constant self-improvement project. I did that for a while and it occupies a lot. And when you can just spontaneously say, I’m done doing that, because I am perfect. I am intrinsic harmony with the universe right now. Me, adorably flawed in all the right ways, but perfectly me. When you can enter into that realm, God, it’s so liberating. That’s the moksha that is the liberation. And it, it’s not easy, but every single day you can start to take little micro moments to say, that story doesn’t belong here anymore. That story doesn’t serve me anymore.

Andy Vantrease (01:05:33):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

Nat Kendall (01:05:33):

That story prevents me from being who I really want to be in the next moment. And they’re micro moments and these brains are way too just finicky fickle. This is the practice of yoga to start to work with these, the minds and change some of the stories that we’ve written in there. And I hope that this week here presents us opportunities, all of us to reimagine, to revise and to rewrite and to reconsider how we show up with ourself. You’re taking a beautiful first step by saying, I would like to have a week in nature to practice yoga and take care of myself. I cannot emphasize enough self care and self love.

Andy Vantrease (01:07:42):

Episode 21 with the mayor of Helena, Montana, Wilmont Collins.

Wilmot Collins (01:07:48):

We landed in Helena and they had all this banners up at the airport terminal, welcome home Wilmot. And I mean, it was just crazy. I stayed on the plane and I was the last to get off. And then I got off. Then I walked into the terminal and I don’t know what happened, but the first site I caught was my wife with the baby.

Andy Vantrease (01:07:48):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

Wilmot Collins (01:07:48):

She was holding the baby up in her arm.

Andy Vantrease (01:07:48):

Mm-hmm.<affirmative>

Wilmot Collins (01:07:48):

And then I saw her put Jamie, I daughter down. And she said, "There’s Daddy. Go to Daddy." And Jamie started walking towards me. So I stopped because she didn’t know me. I didn’t know who, I didn’t want to startle her. Yeah. So I stopped and, and then for some odd reason she started to run towards me. And so I just ran towards her. I just pick up a and just fell on my knees and just bawling and crying.

Andy Vantrease (01:08:55):

Oh gosh.

Wilmot Collins (01:08:56):

Yeah. And then I thought she was going to be, you know, crying, but she helped me so tight

Andy Vantrease (01:09:06):

<laugh>,

Wilmot Collins (01:09:10):

I just started yelling. Mad, mad. And um, I met everybody, you know, I went around and met all the people that went there to meet me. And we went to the Knoxs home and we lived there for another six months before we got accepted into Steward Homes, the low income housing in Helena. And we stayed there until we got on our feet.

Andy Vantrease (01:09:44):

Episode 22 with India Supera, the founder of the Feathered Pipe Ranch.

India Supera (01:10:28):

Yeah, I can see extreme, shear gratitude for everyone I’ve ever known. And for them knowing me and me knowing them. And sometimes I feel pretty poor because I don’t have money like other people my age, I never did a retirement or anything. But then I think, okay, this is a person who can choose to live in three different houses, not poor when you have a place to stay.

Andy Vantrease (01:10:28):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

India Supera (01:10:28):

I see my life as a love fest. The whole thing as a giant love fest. And like I said in the letter, it’s, it just seems like all my karma is catching up. But looking back, I really, I don’t have a single person. I know someone who’s mad at me, but I can’t figure out why. And I don’t know if I should call them, but I probably will call them. But, um, I don’t have anybody that I’m angry with or ever have been angry with for any length of time.

Andy Vantrease (01:10:28):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

India Supera (01:10:29):

I don’t have anger as well. I haven’t talked to that person for 15 years and now I’m dying. I wonder. I don’t have anything like that. I have nothing. I mean, my one regret is that when I was like 13, I stole a bottle of fingernail polish on a dare from the store.

Andy Vantrease (01:10:29):

<laugh>

India Supera (01:10:29):

I mean, but I’ve always known truthfully what isn’t, isn’t yours, isn’t yours, you know, it was something bigger for me than just taking a bottle of nail polish. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I mean, everything I’ve ever can think of doing, like having an ice cream cone at SaveOn and my sister, you know, and our girlfriend and walking with a delicious ice cream and a California sun.

(01:11:09):

I look back and I look at my life and I think the only thing I’ve ever prepared for was to die. And everything else was just serendipity, running the ranch, you know, going to Sai Baba.

Andy Vantrease (01:11:09):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

India Supera (01:11:09):

Well all of those things helped me because of people we studied with were all people that thought about things like dying and stuff like that. But looking back, like I said, I wouldn’t change the thing. I wouldn’t, there’s just nothing.

Andy Vantrease (01:11:36):

Do you have any thoughts or any advice or words for like next generation?

India Supera (01:11:43):

Don’t try to stuff college in and then your job and then decide at 45 have a crisis. You know, if you finish your college or not, because you can always finish it when you get back from your travel.

Andy Vantrease (01:11:43):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

India Supera (01:11:43):

You can travel, you can meet people, it can direct you in your career. It can do all kinds of wonderful things. Um, no sense to wait. And the thing is that if you wait, and this is really solid advice, people don’t believe me. If you wait even to the fifties, which is everybody pretty strong in their fifties, it’s not the same as, you know, throwing your suitcase on a train, jumping out, hiking 26 kilometers just cuz you want. So I’m saying don’t be afraid to try fail. It doesn’t matter. I mean, that’s another reason to travel first. Cause it doesn’t make a difference when you have kids in college and all of, and your business so, but,

Andy Vantrease (01:11:43):

And you have ties and you have people to take care of.

(01:11:43):

Mm mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So I, they do all the traveling, all the adventure, all the vision making. And then when you come back and get old, you can go to retreats like the Feathered Pipe Ranch that remind you of your problems.

Andy Vantrease (01:12:58):

Yeah. <laugh>

(01:13:11):

That's a wrap. The best of Season one Mashup is complete. I don't know about you, but hearing gems from all 22 episodes totally lit me up and reminded me what an incredible community we have here at the Feathered Pipe. Folks who have graced our center with their love and kindness, then gone off into the world to follow their hearts and really make a difference. Sometimes I sit back and think about what my favorite conversations were, but it's impossible to choose. Each guest gifted me with the honor of listening to their stories, laughing with them, crying with them, and allowing me to share these experiences with the public. In my opinion, there's no greater healing than what happens when you connect one to one with another person and give each other the space to tell your truth, to be witnessed and heard as you both explore the universal questions of life.

(01:13:57):

Who am I? Why am I here? Where do I belong? What is my purpose? I'd like to thank the podcast guests for showing up wholeheartedly and open and to you, our listeners, for supporting us with your words of encouragement, feedback, donations, and those who became so inspired by these conversations that you signed up for a retreat and met us in person this summer. It's truly a symbiotic relationship that we have going on here. And to bring it full circle and meet on the land that brings us all together was very special.

(01:14:27):

A special thank you to Matthew Marsolek and the Drum Brothers, whose music you hear at the beginning and end of this podcast, as well as Dr. Jean Shinoda Bolen, who first turned us on to the phenomenon of the Dandelion Effect and how ideas move through the world.

This podcast is a production of the Feathered Pipe Foundation, a 501c3 dedicated to healing, education, community and empowerment. If you’d like to help support this project, please visit FeatheredPipe.com/gratitude or leave a review on Apple podcasts and share with your friends. Be sure to tune in to our next episode in two weeks. We cannot wait to share another amazing conversation with you. Until then, have a beautiful day.