Ep.113 Meeting the Gaze of a Wild Being with Eleanor O’Hanlon

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Hello, hello, hello, everyone.

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Welcome back to another episode of Reconnect With Plant Wisdom.

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It’s me, Tigrill

a Gardenia.

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I am so looking forward to having you hear this conversation.

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So complete one of those inic- inexplicable synchronicities led me to Eleanor O’Hanlon who is a writer, a conservationist.

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She is a human being with a deep passion w- uh, for the natural world, for that sort of inner and spiritual dimension of the relationship with wild animals and wild plants and basically wild nature within yourself as well as outside of herself.

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You know, she has so much to share about that connection that happens when you truly see other kin.

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As

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I don’t even know the right words, because it’s one of those experiences that doesn’t have words.

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The best I can do is say listen to the episode, because this is a amazing journey that she’s had of close encounters with whales, with wolves, with polar bears, with brown bears, with wild horses, with so many beings, and nothing I could say will ever explain what she so beautifully shares with you through her energy and her words.

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So you’re in for a real treat.

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This is Episode 113: Meeting the Gaze of A Wild Being.

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Welcome to Reconnect With Plant Wisdom.

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I’m your host, Tigiriya Gardenia, nature-inspired mentor, certified life coach, and the founder of the Naturally Conscious Community.

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For over a decade, I’ve been known as a world ambassador for plant advocacy, working closely with plants to share their practical wisdom to help you consciously embody the elements of life that nourish your evolution.

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In this podcast, I delve into ancient and modern knowledge from biology to spirituality about the wondrous ways of plants.

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Together, we’ll explore how ecosystem thinking helps you overcome limiting beliefs, understand the true nature of relationships, and live an authentic, impactful life.

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Eleanor, you have been a pure discovery, because the truth of the matter is that I actually, like, met you through your husband who I’m taking a class with which I’m loving completely con- reconnecting to my Kabbalistic roots and my, you know, this- the- and the Hebrew letters in a completely different way.

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Mm-hmm.

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And then I discover after I have already done what, like 8 classes with him- Yeah.

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that that it’s like, yeah, but wait, it’s my wife that is the person that is connected to nature.

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And I was like, “Excuse me?”

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So please before we start getting into a conversation that I know is going to be beautiful and deep and wide and so moving, tell everybody who is Eleanor O’Hanlon.

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Oh.

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Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that my entire life I have been a lover of the natural world, and, um, and mm- that’s something that goes right back to childhood, you know, back to being, uh, a child in the west of Ireland growing up on a farm, growing up with animals in the presence of some, uh, some, you know, beautiful awareness of the presence in nature.

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I just

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I was born into that, and, um, and I think there’s a part of you in childhood that is actually carrying that light, and then you spend as an adult, you know, you spend so much time trying to find a way to be that light in the world that we inhabit.

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And- and that’s not an easy, an easy task, you know.

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Um, so a lover of nature, and I would say especially wild nature.

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In other words, the free-living, self-determining aspect of the natural world, um, that embodiment of the coherent intelligence of all life, and they- I go to the wild animals, the wild plants, the wild places to learn, you know, to be taught, and to be reawakened to that vast intelligence.

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Yeah.

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I- mm.

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I love the peacefulness that you exude as you say that.

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Mm.

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Like

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And I feel like that

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Lately I’ve been having these conversations with people, and we’re talking about everything from times of Atlantis and Lemuria- Mm-hmm.

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and we’ve been talking also in class with- Mm-hmm.

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you your husband and you about, you know, how the letters sort of touch us and in- and enter into who we are to help us really see the world around us.

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Mm.

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And I feel like that piece that humanity keeps missing that n- is, is the fact that the more we separate out from kin, the more we separate out from the natural world, the more we stop identifying ourselves as beings of nature- Hm.

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the more chaotic and hectic and depressive and frenetic our world becomes.

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Mm.

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And so I- I find this all over the place with all the people that really not- are not connecting with their mind but are just like- Mm-hmm.

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have remembered and reawakened to the fact that they’re beings of nature.

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I find that there’s this peace.

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It could still come with lots of enthusiasm like mine comes- Yeah.

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but it’s still peace.

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Like there’s this trust in the world, and- and I’d love to hear more about kind of

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’cause you’ve done some pretty amazing things- Mm-hmm.

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as this.

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I mean, you’ve- you’ve worked-

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if I remember cor- with Greenpeace, like you’ve done- you’ve used this.

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You’ve

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Let me fo- let me say it a better way.

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You’ve followed your connection- Mm-hmm.

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into many different paths.

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Talk to us about one, like sh-

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give me just one of them.

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Just one?

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Gosh, you know, it’s part of my soul lives in the north, right, in the High North- Mm-hmm.

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in the Arctic, and, and I go back even to childhood again, you know.

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I had, we had dogs at home and, and I had as an 8, 9yearold child, I had this, like, feeling that, “You know, they should be pulling things, right?”

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“They’re supposed to be act-” And I even tried to make, you know, traces, you know, the actual leather harness and to-

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make them pull something because in my mind I, I was fascinated by the North.

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And so the first time, and it was in Russia, I was working in Russia and, um, oh, for about 10 years actually, I started going in the early ’90s and then, um, up until, yeah, about 15 years actually, up until about 2004, I went there regularly, um, because I was, uh, connected with, um, a whole network of, um, of really quite extraordinary Russian biologists.

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So the first time that I saw the tundra, I felt this sense of joy that I couldn’t understand, you know, why do I feel this spaciousness and expansiveness of being that is bringing me so much joy?

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And that journey, which became, um, an expedition, 2 expeditions actually, around the northeastern s- um, corner of, um, Arctic Siberia on the Bering Strait.

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So if you can imagine you have Alaska and you have the Siberian, Arctic Siberian Coast, and they’re almost meeting.

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I mean, they are fundamentally a single ecosystem, um, divided by political lines.

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And so this High Arctic ecosystem, I traveled there, um, in a skin boat for some of the time, so the traditional craft of the Yupik people of Siberia, that part of Siberia.

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They actually live on both sides of Bering Strait.

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So I was in a skin boat, a walrus skin boat.

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In other words, you’re enfolded in the consciousness of the animal being who has given his or her, you know, life to carry you across the ocean, and we were surrounded by gray whales because that’s where they feed.

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They come on this huge journey, and it takes them from the, um, coast of Mexico right up into Arctic waters.

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It’s a journey they make twice a year for summer feeding and then back south.

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And, and the gray whales were feeding, you know, in these shallow waters and then they would come up to breathe.

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Because we were in a skin boat, they came up right alongside us, and, and it was the first time that I had realized that through the whales, the sea is breathing, the ocean is breathing through the whales, and we also know the ocean is singing through the whales, and the ocean is also being regenerated through the whales.

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But in that moment of hearing that pulse of breath, it took me

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uh, it was like over a barrier in myself and into that living, the living world, the one that is not an abstraction or a concept or a theory of ecology, much as I love ecology by the way, but a breathing aliveness that is conscious in its own extraordinary way.

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And I, I’ve said ever since my life changed the moment I heard the breathing of the whale and felt it, you also feel it inside because it actually resonates inside you.

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And my life changed, and I, I couldn’t go back to the way I was before.

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I mean, I’d always seen

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you know, for several years I’d been working in quite hard areas of conservation, you know, like the wildlife trade and learning too much about probably the negativity, and that was that shift that I wasn’t going to stay in the problem anymore.

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It w- it was a shift into working with life and for life, you know, beyond these dualities of human and animal and domestic and wild, and, um, yeah.

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I, I absolutely love that sentence, the idea of, like, shifting into life.

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Mm-hmm.

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And I empathize with that so much.

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And, and I think people

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For you, it came in the tundra, right?

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Mm-hmm.

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And I think people mistaken the idea that that has to come in some ex- like, extreme type of situation.

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Mm-hmm.

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I feel that, I felt that the first time after my plan of reawakening.

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Mm-hmm.

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The first time I, I, I took a long walk in, you know, just a, a, a local wooded area.

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Mm-hmm.

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I was

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And I remember feeling that, and then bringing that feeling into a city.

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I remember the first time- Right.

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I was walking around.

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I think I was in Miami Beach or something.

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And I was doing this project called the Orienting of the Trees that we do here in Damanhur, which is a, a sort of mutual reawakening to the connection between us- Mm-hmm.

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and the plant world.

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And I remember I was doing it in, you know, busy city.

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Mm-hmm.

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But I was walking around these trees in front of these businesses, and I kee- I was thinking to myself, “These trees are holding the energy for everything that’s happening in these businesses.”

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These trees and all the little tiny plants, like the dandelions and little purslanes and all the- Mm-hmm.

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little weeds that are growing on the ground- Mm-hmm.

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these wild plants are holding space for the madness of disconnection that’s happening for so many.

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And like you said, it sort of shifts you out of

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It shifts you into compassion.

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Mm-hmm.

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It shifts you into generosity.

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Mm-hmm.

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It shits- shifts you into a holding of a space in a very different way.

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That doesn’t mean you don’t get pissed off when you see certain things.

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But it’s still different.

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And I can imagine that being there in that natural setting, but also with natural conditions.

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You weren’t on a, like, giant, uh, freighter boat of some sort, you know.

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Like you said, you were, you were in the being that had given their life for you to be able to do this, and you were recognizing that.

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And I could just imagine how different that small shift, which is really gigantic shift, must be.

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How did you bring that back into your life?

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Like, what did you find that- Yeah.

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changed for you once you were kind of out of that environment and back into this, quote-unquote, “normal” world?

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It’s, uh, it’s so true what you’ve just said.

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No matter where you are, no matter where you are, you know, the plants are

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The whole, you know, green world is always present and, uh, which means the birds are present and the insects are present and the underground mycelial networks are present.

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And, but in this particular, you know, from this personal story

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So, I was, um,

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on this journey, um, you know, sleeping on the tundra in tents and very exposed obviously, and sometimes dangerously exposed in a way, although

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Um, and so I came back and I came back to the middle of London, right?

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So it was a bit of a shock at first.

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I can imagine.

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Th- th- what you’ve just described

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So I was walking up just to do the shopping and I saw this tree, and this was autumn, right, when the trees are showing, you know, the fire within the green, right?

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Mm-hmm.

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And I looked at this tree, and I sat down.

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You know, i- in London, you have these walls outside some of the houses.

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I sat down and I looked at this tree, and I went

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I’m not

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This is no exaggeration.

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I went into a state of rapture.

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Because the energy was n-

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Of course, it’s

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There are changes in quality.

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But, uh, there wasn’t a difference.

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The sh- tree was showing me, was, was actually resonating back that what you have experienced with that

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At a- at that level of intensity is here right now in the tree that

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you know, the being of the tree.

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And, and it was very amazing because I didn’t see the

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I didn’t see a tree as thing.

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I saw it as a leaping flame, right?

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A flame wa- that was always

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You know, you know exactly what I mean when you s- image

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I know exactly what you mean.

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It’s like rooted and leaping, this flame.

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And that was just

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Yeah.

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Mm-hmm.

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And it’s, it’s interesting that, that you just said that because, um, you know, I do a lot of activities with people.

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I try to take them kind of out of their traditional sort of verbal headspace and really- Mm-hmm.

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bring them into their inner plant-ness.

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And one of the ways is to help them recognize that any being they’re seeing, whether that’s the house- Yeah.

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cat or, you know, the, the dog from down the street, or whether it’s a, a house plant, all have their own way of expressing themselves.

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They could be very small, very big.

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You know, they could be fiery.

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C- can, could be anything.

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And-

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kind of stepping out of our human world is about letting that, that sort of definition and label sort of drop in order to be able to see this.

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And I see this, especially, it’s, it’s

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I find it so fascinating when w- like you said, you give yourself that moment to stop in a big city.

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Mm-hmm.

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And you recognize that the tree that’s been sitting in front of the church or in this park or even just kind of in the middle of a square with children playing around and covered up to, you know, the roots all covered in concrete, and yet that, that tree still has that spirit and is waiting for that recognition.

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Like, the moment you sit in that rapture- Mm-hmm.

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you don’t just admire like a, I don’t know, rock star sitting on a stage with 20,000 people in the obvi- audience.

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Mm-hmm.

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But more of i- that you can immediately feel when the plant knows

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and the animal also, but the plant knows they’re being seen.

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And it’s like, “Oh, welcome.”

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Exactly.

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Exactly.

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Like, and you’re, you’re here, you’re present.

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You’ve entered into this plantness connection, you know, my- Yeah.

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essence to your essence.

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And- Mm-hmm.

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let me, let let you in.

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“Come, come, come.

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Have a chat with me.”

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And it’s this beautiful

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Uh, you’ve said it as, um, I’m quoting you because it’s, it’s so perfect, “Meeting the gaze of a wild being in mutual recognition.”

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Yeah.

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Ah, poetry.

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Tell me more.

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Tell me more.

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I love to.

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I love to.

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This is just

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I mean, this is my passion and I feel so blessed in this, right?

200
00:17:00,377 –> 00:17:03,916
Because you know, I work mostly with animals, right?

201
00:17:03,916 –> 00:17:13,040
But, which doesn’t mean that I don’t have an, uh, you know, very, very great love for the, for the plant, you know, commun- the plant, the kingdom of plant life.

202
00:17:13,537 –> 00:17:25,497
Um, so before I go onto that gaze with a, a free- a wild, free-living animal where there’s, there’s this mutual flow of understanding, um, I just wanna

203
00:17:25,497 –> 00:17:28,357
One story, can I tell you one story about trees, right?

204
00:17:28,357 –> 00:17:28,976
Please.

205
00:17:28,976 –> 00:17:29,497
Please.

206
00:17:29,497 –> 00:17:30,218
Yeah.

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So- We love stories.

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This

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00:17:31,997 –> 00:17:32,917
I love stories.

210
00:17:32,917 –> 00:17:37,818
Stories are how, uh, stories are how truth kind of sparkles, isn’t it?

211
00:17:37,818 –> 00:17:38,797
Yes, absolutely.

212
00:17:38,797 –> 00:17:41,937
That’s a perfect way of saying it, uh, where truth sparkles.

213
00:17:41,937 –> 00:17:42,590
I love it.

214
00:17:43,170 –> 00:17:44,476
Yeah.

215
00:17:44,476 –> 00:17:46,137
So I, I was, um

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I was working on a project in, um, a region in the Caucasus in Georgia, right?

217
00:17:52,697 –> 00:18:00,837
So you have these Caucasus Mountains that, uh, and then Georgia is, like, the country that goes from the Black Sea right up to the peaks of the Caucasus Mountains.

218
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So I was working on this project there and, um, it involved, um, going up to through a very ancient beech forest.

219
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And then, so these trees were, you know, 400 or 500, 600 years old.

220
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And in the side of the mountain, there were many waterfalls just flowing down and filling pools.

221
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And it was spring time.

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It was around now.

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And, and there was, uh, such a vivid, vibrant, you know, green awakening.

224
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And then, um, and then this was in the flow of wild water with the trees, so the trees and the water were in this beautiful resonance together.

225
00:18:39,357 –> 00:18:46,206
And, and as you can imagine, that was really, uh, uh, it was just, yeah, I was enchanted.

226
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And so I came back to London, right?

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Middle of the city, having been with these ancient trees in the Caucasus.

228
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And I, and I used to go for a walk on Hampstead Heath, which is a beautiful, very large park at the north of the city.

229
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And in Hampstead Heath, there is an alley of beech trees.

230
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And I, I knew these trees.

231
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I, you know, I used to go walking there.

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And so after I came back from being with this incredible community of ancient beech trees, I was approaching this alley of beech trees and I ru- and I felt the, I felt this change, right?

233
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In the energetic atmosphere.

234
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And I walked in among the trees and then I realized that they were sensing w- where I’d been, right?

235
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And they really wanted to commune with their fellow trees through what I’d experienced.

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00:19:49,597 –> 00:20:19,377
In other words, that I could, within my consciousness, I could open my consciousness and be a bridge between the world of the trees on Hampstead Heath who are always with humans in that, you know, beautiful way that they have, and those trees on the far- you know, on the slopes of, you know, uh, you know, this area called Lagodekhi, which is, like, so high up in the mountains.

237
00:20:19,377 –> 00:20:21,777
And so there was this meeting and it was a really

238
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It was unmistakable.

239
00:20:23,337 –> 00:20:24,476
And you, you know what I mean.

240
00:20:24,476 –> 00:20:29,539
You know when something is unmistakable because your being changes, right?

241
00:20:29,539 –> 00:20:29,726
Mm-hmm.

242
00:20:30,459 –> 00:20:34,299
And you’re no longer, um, caught up in any thoughts.

243
00:20:34,299 –> 00:20:42,864
You, you’re just feeling this beautiful amazing presence that is so sensitive.

244
00:20:43,639 –> 00:20:49,200
And y- you realize then how sensitive they are to, to the humans- Yeah, and this is-

245
00:20:49,200 –> 00:20:50,279
as well as each other, yeah.

246
00:20:50,279 –> 00:20:51,000
absolutely.

247
00:20:51,000 –> 00:20:54,099
And this is the thing about being a bridge species, right?

248
00:20:54,099 –> 00:20:54,819
We- Yeah.

249
00:20:54,819 –> 00:20:58,319
as human beings are a bridge species, as are whales- Mm-hmm.

250
00:20:58,319 –> 00:21:00,539
as are many other species.

251
00:21:00,539 –> 00:21:04,859
And we can ho- when we really bring that in, we hold that within us, right?

252
00:21:04,859 –> 00:21:04,879
Yeah.

253
00:21:04,879 –> 00:21:06,782
And we can help mediate.

254
00:21:07,379 –> 00:21:11,239
Trees can, can also be mediators of certain things, and we can be mediators.

255
00:21:11,239 –> 00:21:11,819
I think- Yeah.

256
00:21:11,819 –> 00:21:26,639
again, going back to that thi- that part of re- recognizing that we are beings of nature and that connection happens at so many different levels and that when that connection sort of marks us, it marks our soul, it marks our subtle body- Mm-hmm.

257
00:21:26,639 –> 00:21:28,359
as subtle bodies interact- Correct.

258
00:21:28,359 –> 00:21:35,839
and tap and touch, you know, these other species, the other species could then feel that like, “Ooh, you’ve been with my kin.”

259
00:21:35,839 –> 00:21:36,419
Like- My kin.

260
00:21:36,419 –> 00:21:37,519
I was that.

261
00:21:37,519 –> 00:21:38,499
Exactly.

262
00:21:38,499 –> 00:21:40,099
And especially be- I’m always like that.

263
00:21:40,099 –> 00:21:41,919
they really like to be amongst beeches.

264
00:21:41,919 –> 00:21:49,839
I mean, anybody who knows and has spent any time with beeches knows that if you have a forest and a beech tree starts to grow, pretty soon all of them are gonna be beech trees.

265
00:21:49,839 –> 00:21:51,419
They’re all gonna be there, yes.

266
00:21:51,419 –> 00:22:09,599
Beech trees are sort of like, “Eh, get out of my way, I need space, and I have a cousin and the, you know, friend of a friends and, like, this one over here who’s also, yeah, we’re gonna call them cousin too, and a oh, and a brother and a sister and an uncle and a qui-” You know, like they’re amazing in that way of just taking up space.

267
00:22:09,599 –> 00:22:12,799
Oh, they if they just wanna be with beech trees.

268
00:22:14,299 –> 00:22:23,719
So I can completely see how, you know, that, you know, having a beech tree recognize like, “Oh, you, you’ve been touched by my kind.

269
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Come, come, come share your story, sit down with us-” Totally.

270
00:22:27,999 –> 00:22:28,099
“

271
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and

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We wanna know.

273
00:22:29,659 –> 00:22:30,439
We wanna know more.

274
00:22:30,439 –> 00:22:32,179
What does it feel like?

275
00:22:32,179 –> 00:22:32,879
Well- I lo-

276
00:22:32,879 –> 00:22:39,099
you mean they have all this water and it’s cascading down the sides of the mountain and Yeah, and that’s, that’s exactly how it is.

277
00:22:39,099 –> 00:22:42,619
And, and it’s such a, I mean, it’s so much even better for us.

278
00:22:42,619 –> 00:22:53,859
I, y- y- you know, as you’re saying all these, as you’re telling these stories, which as you said, they’re those sparkles of truth, I think we, we forget how magical this world is.

279
00:22:53,859 –> 00:22:56,319
Like we get so caught up- Yeah,

280
00:22:56,319 –> 00:22:59,079
in, in the s- the things that are happening.

281
00:22:59,079 –> 00:23:20,259
I mean, one of the reasons I was attracted to, for example, your husband’s work, was because I have, you know, I’ve studied Kabbalah for so many years and then I came here to Damanhur and, and have been able to inter- ’cause for me Kabbalah is the way, everything relating to Kabbalistic world view is past a long time ago from being mental, and it really just immersed itself in my body.

282
00:23:20,259 –> 00:23:20,599
Yeah.

283
00:23:20,599 –> 00:23:23,699
So it’s been actually a long time since I’ve studied, quote-unquote- Mm-hmm.

284
00:23:23,699 –> 00:23:27,999
because I just acquire pieces and they, they continue into my integration.

285
00:23:27,999 –> 00:23:39,739
But one of the things that I’ve been trying to do with all my practices, whether my work with plants, because it’s naturally happening with plants, is to move into this more kind of mystical, uh, experiential peace.

286
00:23:39,739 –> 00:23:51,539
I’m kind of, a, a colleague of mine said it to me the other day which was, she says, “You know, with all of the AI world, with everything that we have with the internet, the need for raw knowledge is whenever- Mm-hmm.

287
00:23:51,539 –> 00:23:53,019
can easily find it.

288
00:23:53,019 –> 00:23:56,379
So instead what I need to do is how do I integrate that knowledge?”

289
00:23:56,379 –> 00:24:10,959
That’s gonna be the evolution of humanity is we no longer need to memorize, you know, book texts because the books are ask a question and Google will give you not just a series of websites but also now an AI generated response- Mm-hmm.

290
00:24:10,959 –> 00:24:11,239
right?

291
00:24:11,239 –> 00:24:13,904
So I can get the knowledge from anywhere.

292
00:24:14,519 –> 00:24:23,939
The real power, and not power, but the real kind of evolutive step we need to take is the use of that knowledge and the integration.

293
00:24:23,939 –> 00:24:31,259
And for me, I’ve reached the point and which is what I love to do with my students and my clients is how do you embody it?

294
00:24:31,259 –> 00:24:31,339
Mm-hmm.

295
00:24:31,339 –> 00:24:33,859
How does it become a part of your life?

296
00:24:33,859 –> 00:24:34,439
Because for me- Yeah.

297
00:24:34,439 –> 00:24:35,319
the plants did that.

298
00:24:35,319 –> 00:24:40,339
The plants opened that door for me in a way that I could’ve never even expected.

299
00:24:40,339 –> 00:24:44,059
And, and that was the reason why, you know, I’m looking for more mystical answers.

300
00:24:44,059 –> 00:24:50,479
I wanna sit with what I have in me and I wanna move my body and feel it coming into my body.

301
00:24:50,479 –> 00:25:09,139
And I feel like a lot of what you’re talking about also is a recognition that comes from one, allowing myself to gaze, which we don’t always give ourselves time to, or like eye to eye, and when I say eye to eye, I don’t just mean physical eye but like eye as in opened viewing which can happen- Mm-hmm.

302
00:25:09,139 –> 00:25:19,568
you know, eye to eye in a physical way with an animal but it can also happen in a much more open-minded mystical way with any being of any physiology.

303
00:25:20,219 –> 00:25:28,240
And so I feel like there’s that, that gazing that says I give myself space to be in your presence, to see you fully.

304
00:25:28,859 –> 00:25:33,699
If you are, uh, will allow me, can you please show yourself to me?

305
00:25:33,699 –> 00:25:33,794
Beautiful.

306
00:25:34,759 –> 00:25:37,899
Like tell me who you re- show me who you really are.

307
00:25:37,899 –> 00:25:38,499
Let me- Beautiful.

308
00:25:38,499 –> 00:25:44,719
feel the full impact of your full aura or, or subtle body or physical body or whatever- Mm-hmm.

309
00:25:44,719 –> 00:25:45,359
wanna show me.

310
00:25:45,359 –> 00:25:50,979
It’s like, it’s, it’s very much the, the kind of journey through da’at where you pass through- Mm-hmm.

311
00:25:50,979 –> 00:25:57,168
and you see yourself in your true essence, but in order to see myself I need to be able to see others too.

312
00:25:57,939 –> 00:25:59,619
It’s, it’s a 2way street.

313
00:25:59,619 –> 00:26:03,280
I can’t see myself if I don’t allow myself to see others as well.Beautiful.

314
00:26:04,737 –> 00:26:06,417
That’s so true.

315
00:26:06,417 –> 00:26:07,377
That’s so true.

316
00:26:07,377 –> 00:26:11,472
You know that, um, you know, I use that phrase because, uh, one of the most

317
00:26:12,417 –> 00:26:24,377
I mean, I’m thinking of, as you were speaking, other, um, other experiences are also coming into my mind through the body.

318
00:26:24,377 –> 00:26:27,312
You know, I’ve been a horse rider most of my life.

319
00:26:28,818 –> 00:26:42,064
And I grew up with horses, and then I had a beautiful horse friend, companion, soul guide, right, as an adult.

320
00:26:43,197 –> 00:26:53,937
One of the things about, about horses is that, you know, they bear the, they bear the, the pain of our obsession with control, right?

321
00:26:53,937 –> 00:26:55,097
Breaking a horse.

322
00:26:55,097 –> 00:26:56,496
Talk about a phrase I hate.

323
00:26:58,658 –> 00:26:59,056
Yeah.

324
00:26:59,874 –> 00:27:21,217
So they’re carrying the unconscious load of the human on their backs, and they’re still trying to bring us into that beautiful, buoyant, fluid state of communication that where every movement is graceful and alive and vibrant.

325
00:27:21,217 –> 00:27:25,086
And what my horse taught me, I, I could be here all day saying what my horse taught me.

326
00:27:26,018 –> 00:27:28,597
It’s like spiritual teacher, right?

327
00:27:28,597 –> 00:27:33,717
He was chestnut with a lot of fire and an incredible heart.

328
00:27:33,717 –> 00:27:40,877
Um, but when I first got him, you know, I was quite young and, and he was only 5 years old, and he had so much energy.

329
00:27:40,877 –> 00:27:42,256
And I was scared, right?

330
00:27:43,177 –> 00:27:47,517
Um, and so he got into this habit of, of bolting with me.

331
00:27:47,517 –> 00:27:53,397
And if you’ve ever ridden a horse or anybody who’s listening to this who’s ever had that experience where there’s nothing you can do.

332
00:27:53,397 –> 00:27:54,637
You know, you’re

333
00:27:54,637 –> 00:27:56,880
He’s taken over, and he would just bolt.

334
00:27:57,717 –> 00:28:03,344
And the usual, um, solution, of course, is to exercise more control, right?

335
00:28:04,617 –> 00:28:07,497
And I tried that for a while, and neither of us were very happy.

336
00:28:07,497 –> 00:28:09,278
And I could feel he wasn’t very happy.

337
00:28:10,137 –> 00:28:16,717
And then I had this extraordinary moment where I knew he was just about to bolt.

338
00:28:16,717 –> 00:28:17,597
I could feel it.

339
00:28:17,597 –> 00:28:21,257
I could feel it was traveling through my body from his body, you know, and I

340
00:28:21,257 –> 00:28:22,677
It was, it’s instantaneous.

341
00:28:22,677 –> 00:28:26,992
I mean, you know, words draw it out, but it was an in- in- instant knowledge.

342
00:28:27,476 –> 00:28:36,464
And somehow my body knew better than my training or my conditioning or my mind, and my body just relaxed completely.

343
00:28:37,637 –> 00:28:41,808
And I didn’t tighten the reins and I didn’t, you know, contract up.

344
00:28:42,677 –> 00:28:48,129
It was like I just went into this completely relaxed state, and he went, “Oh.”

345
00:28:50,897 –> 00:29:01,766
And he, like, just relaxed too and he’d never bolted again after that because what he’d been seeking from me was not control, but he’d been seeking communion- Mm-hmm.

346
00:29:01,985 –> 00:29:02,621
connection.

347
00:29:04,017 –> 00:29:12,577
And the moment he felt me give him that, our whole relationship shifted, and it w- it, it was a

348
00:29:12,577 –> 00:29:17,137
It was again one of those pivotal moments when life is teaching you directly, right?

349
00:29:17,137 –> 00:29:26,288
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350
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363
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Right?

364
00:30:48,819 –> 00:30:50,059
Absolutely.

365
00:30:50,059 –> 00:30:54,819
And I find that that’s actually, you know, that connection is- Mm-hmm.

366
00:30:54,819 –> 00:30:57,199
the core of so many- Yeah.

367
00:30:57,199 –> 00:30:57,659
many elements.

368
00:30:57,659 –> 00:31:03,819
I often say that, you know, in my work, I don’t try to teach, you know, communication or any

369
00:31:03,819 –> 00:31:05,519
I teach relationship.

370
00:31:05,519 –> 00:31:06,179
How do we enter- Yeah.

371
00:31:06,179 –> 00:31:07,599
into relationship?

372
00:31:07,599 –> 00:31:08,368
And- Yeah.

373
00:31:09,079 –> 00:31:17,639
it, uh, I have been accused of being sometimes too nice because I give people a lot of space because most people have not had a lot of space.

374
00:31:17,639 –> 00:31:21,879
Just like a lot of animals and a lot of plants, everything has been about control.

375
00:31:21,879 –> 00:31:29,439
Our human society, our, our homo sapien tendency is that, it’s control, and control comes from fear.

376
00:31:29,439 –> 00:31:30,499
And so once you- Mm-hmm.

377
00:31:30,499 –> 00:31:39,979
as you said, kind of recognize that that has all been fear-based teachings that have taught us that in a moment of fear, what do you do?

378
00:31:39,979 –> 00:31:42,439
Hold on, like, make- Yeah.

379
00:31:42,439 –> 00:31:45,659
find a way to control the space, control every aspect.

380
00:31:45,659 –> 00:31:49,819
If you’re afraid that something’s gonna happen, then you have to triple check it and double check it and

381
00:31:49,819 –> 00:31:56,959
And so therefore, 1, we disconnect from our body completely because our body has a whole series of alarm systems and understandings- Mm-hmm.

382
00:31:56,959 –> 00:31:59,919
that are way beyond the way the mind thinks.

383
00:31:59,919 –> 00:32:05,616
And, and also, we break the connection with everyone else, whether that’s human or other.

384
00:32:06,579 –> 00:32:09,099
Other can, can alert us, right?

385
00:32:09,099 –> 00:32:12,759
Plants have defense mechanisms, animals have demense- defense mechanisms.

386
00:32:12,759 –> 00:32:16,379
There’s pheromones in the air and chemical signatures and all kinds of things- Mm-hmm.

387
00:32:16,379 –> 00:32:19,339
that we as humans have stopped receiving.

388
00:32:19,339 –> 00:32:25,659
That’s why I was saying earlier that that whole idea of let me see your fullness, let me see you completely.

389
00:32:25,659 –> 00:32:25,679
Mm-hmm.

390
00:32:25,679 –> 00:32:30,479
Isn’t it in, like, Greek mythology, talking about stories that have those sparkles of truth, right?

391
00:32:30,479 –> 00:32:43,559
Greek mythology is many different, uh, Greek gods where they accidentally killed their human companions because the human companion said, “Show me your full, your, your true essence.”

392
00:32:43,559 –> 00:32:47,139
And as human beings, they weren’t ready for that true essence.

393
00:32:47,139 –> 00:32:49,099
And I think that that’s the case for many of us.

394
00:32:49,099 –> 00:33:05,439
Like, we are not always, like, prepared because our control to see the true essence of another being and allow that essence to kind of mix with mine and tell me, “Okay, w- how is the stance?

395
00:33:05,439 –> 00:33:07,799
How am I supposed to interact with you?

396
00:33:07,799 –> 00:33:08,679
Is it words?

397
00:33:08,679 –> 00:33:09,799
Is it movement?

398
00:33:09,799 –> 00:33:12,059
Is it, you know, relaxation?

399
00:33:12,059 –> 00:33:13,319
Am I supposed to control things?”

400
00:33:13,319 –> 00:33:25,039
‘Cause sometimes control has its place, but we, we default to it because we’re so afraid of, like, truly being seen and therefore truly seeing others.

401
00:33:25,039 –> 00:33:25,136
Mm-hmm.

402
00:33:28,479 –> 00:33:31,219
You know when you’re seen by a wild animal, right?

403
00:33:31,219 –> 00:33:32,819
And I mean seen, right?

404
00:33:32,819 –> 00:33:38,619
And that’s, again, as you said, that, you know, we think of seen as purely being of the eyes, but of course, it’s not.

405
00:33:38,619 –> 00:33:43,279
It’s your, it’s your entire energetic field that is being directly perceived.

406
00:33:43,279 –> 00:33:53,659
And, and that’s the power for me of dir- these direct experiences with, um, all the beings of nature.

407
00:33:53,659 –> 00:33:55,179
You know, I’m gonna speak from my experience.

408
00:33:55,179 –> 00:33:58,199
It does tend to be, you know, the animal, the animals.

409
00:33:58,199 –> 00:33:58,800
Yeah, of course.

410
00:33:59,419 –> 00:34:01,822
They’re the ones, they’re the ones that have come to me.

411
00:34:02,739 –> 00:34:05,168
Um, but you’re seen and you’re known.

412
00:34:05,899 –> 00:34:07,230
You’re known directly.

413
00:34:08,019 –> 00:34:16,912
So that surface that we have, you know, which we need in everyday life, you know, that persona, personality, that’s wiped away.

414
00:34:18,099 –> 00:34:19,059
And then the

415
00:34:19,059 –> 00:34:21,871
it’s, it’s eye to eye, and then it’s heart to heart.

416
00:34:23,239 –> 00:34:24,359
And then the

417
00:34:24,359 –> 00:34:25,219
that moment

418
00:34:25,219 –> 00:34:35,536
And you know sometimes, you know, when I think of creativity and I think of the immense creativity of nature, I think, “How do you bring something truly new into the world?”

419
00:34:37,099 –> 00:34:42,831
And what is truly new comes about through authentic meeting.

420
00:34:45,379 –> 00:34:54,512
And then there’s the f- you know, that flash that comes back and forth, and then something new is emerging into this field of earth, you know, the

421
00:34:55,699 –> 00:35:08,880
And I had that ex- I’ve had that experience a number of times, and, and I think it’s something that we as humans inhabited much more fully than we do now.

422
00:35:09,579 –> 00:35:15,984
I think it’s there in our, in our interior knowing, and we’ve had to suppress it.

423
00:35:17,479 –> 00:35:26,928
And we’ve been really trained out of that ability to enter into the space of meeting, which is a sacred space of meeting.

424
00:35:28,359 –> 00:35:28,819
I’m gonna ask.

425
00:35:28,819 –> 00:35:30,699
I’m gonna put you on the spot for a second.

426
00:35:30,699 –> 00:35:31,760
I’m sorry.

427
00:35:32,279 –> 00:35:32,659
I’m just

428
00:35:32,659 –> 00:35:44,339
I’m always so curious of this when I h- when I meet people like you with this, this connection that has been, thankfully, you know, kind of reactivated.

429
00:35:44,339 –> 00:35:44,659
Mm-hmm.

430
00:35:44,659 –> 00:35:46,299
Why do you thi

431
00:35:46,299 –> 00:35:47,079
I have a theory.

432
00:35:47,079 –> 00:35:49,744
I have my own theory, but why do you think we lost it?

433
00:35:50,818 –> 00:35:51,999
Oh, gosh.

434
00:35:51,999 –> 00:35:53,079
That’s such a great

435
00:35:53,079 –> 00:35:54,839
I mean, it’s a heartbreaking question.

436
00:35:54,839 –> 00:35:55,728
It is.

437
00:35:57,602 –> 00:36:05,519
It’s a really heartbreaking question, and because in losing it, we also lost our ability to truly relate to each other.

438
00:36:05,519 –> 00:36:06,819
Agreed.

439
00:36:06,819 –> 00:36:15,049
Completely agree.It’s not just about na- I mean, we, you know, we speak about nature as, uh, somehow a separate dimension when it isn’t.

440
00:36:15,049 –> 00:36:18,589
It’s the very, you know, it’s the very essence and expression of who we are, you know?

441
00:36:18,589 –> 00:36:27,509
We express ourselves through, um, you know, through our embodied nature, and then we meet the others.

442
00:36:27,509 –> 00:36:29,424
So, how did we lose it?

443
00:36:30,029 –> 00:36:31,568
It’s really a good question.

444
00:36:34,946 –> 00:36:36,909
It’s really an incredible question.

445
00:36:36,909 –> 00:36:47,449
You know, there’s a very old story that from, you know, I told you that I was up in this northeastern arctic corner of Russia among the Yup’ik.

446
00:36:47,449 –> 00:36:48,069
They’re Eskimo.

447
00:36:48,069 –> 00:36:52,976
They’re one of the Eskimo, um, language groups, the Yup’ik people.

448
00:36:54,049 –> 00:37:01,729
And they had a very beautiful story, um, they’re, m- they, they hunt, um, walruses and seals.

449
00:37:01,729 –> 00:37:04,254
They live from the ocean, as well as fishing obviously.

450
00:37:05,709 –> 00:37:11,760
Um, but in this story, which is a creation story, that there was a, there was a young woman who loved to sing.

451
00:37:12,429 –> 00:37:18,249
And she had such a beautiful, beautiful voice and she loved to walk in the tundra and sing to the plants.

452
00:37:18,249 –> 00:37:31,614
And so, all these little dwarf willows and all the berries and the amazing lichens and all this, like, magically-colored land that she walked on, she sang to everything.

453
00:37:32,469 –> 00:37:39,349
And the plants loved to hear her voice, and even the stones would start to vibrate when she sang.

454
00:37:39,349 –> 00:37:51,088
And she was walking along the shore one day and she was singing and a great whale swimming far out to sea heard her voice because it came to him on the wind and it came resonating through the ocean.

455
00:37:51,649 –> 00:37:55,760
And the whale had never heard anything as beautiful as this song before.

456
00:37:56,288 –> 00:38:08,779
And so he came closer and closer and closer to the shore until he could stand up on his tail, as whales do, and look, and he saw her, and he heard her, and he saw her.

457
00:38:09,449 –> 00:38:23,714
And he was filled with so much love and wonder for this being that he actually cast himself onto the shore where he was magically transformed into the shape of a very beautiful young man.

458
00:38:24,749 –> 00:38:42,416
And so this couple, of course, loved each other very, very deeply and they lived together, and they had children, and sometimes their children were in human form and sometimes their children came as tiny little whales that grew inside the lagoons that indented all this shoreline.

459
00:38:43,629 –> 00:38:57,551
And over many, many years, their children had other children and the people spread along the shore, and they had m- enormous wisdom of the sea from their father and wisdom of the tundra from their mother.

460
00:38:58,709 –> 00:39:07,728
And they knew that there was one thing they must never do and that was to kill the whales that they could see because the whales were truly their brothers and their sisters.

461
00:39:08,909 –> 00:39:12,734
And as long as they obeyed that, they lived in harmony.

462
00:39:13,489 –> 00:39:21,904
But there was one hunter who thought that he was stronger and cleverer and quicker than anybody else, and he wanted to show how powerful he was.

463
00:39:22,629 –> 00:39:38,640
And so he went out with his harpoon and with a lance, and he killed one of the whales that were breathing and singing, and brought the body, drew it back, back onto the shore.

464
00:39:39,569 –> 00:39:44,336
And then he went and he said, “Look, it’s only bone and flesh.

465
00:39:44,949 –> 00:39:45,680
Nothing else.”

466
00:39:48,209 –> 00:39:59,184
And his ancestor, the, the singer of the tundra who, you know, lived and merged in love with the spirit of the whale, you know, came to him and she said, “One day you’ll remember.

467
00:40:01,189 –> 00:40:01,935
You’ll know.”

468
00:40:03,589 –> 00:40:10,096
So it was vanity of being separate and special and more powerful.

469
00:40:10,828 –> 00:40:24,688
And that story, you know, which is an amazing story to come from a hunting culture, is really about how we lose that when we think of ourselves as, as having

470
00:40:26,719 –> 00:40:33,008
We want to make ourselves bigger, um, more

471
00:40:34,139 –> 00:40:38,480
We wanna, yeah, we want to be the ones who have the dominance.

472
00:40:39,650 –> 00:40:45,779
And I think another piece of that story that sometimes we, you know, many, many cultures have very similar stories.

473
00:40:45,779 –> 00:40:45,979
Mm-hmm.

474
00:40:45,979 –> 00:40:50,259
think there’s two elements, and there’s one in particular that I think we forget about.

475
00:40:50,259 –> 00:41:09,200
And maybe, maybe, I don’t know, maybe it, it, it sort of i- in the end distorts our way of looking at stories like that, which is, you know, there’s the part of the kind of, we call it sort of the enemy within here in Damanhur, right, that aspect of me that always wants to be special.

476
00:41:09,799 –> 00:41:09,899
Yeah, exactly.

477
00:41:09,899 –> 00:41:14,119
And not special in the I’m special for myself and you’re special in your way- Yes.

478
00:41:14,119 –> 00:41:17,959
and you’re all special in your own way, but in the I want to be more special than everybody else.

479
00:41:17,959 –> 00:41:18,619
Than you.

480
00:41:18,619 –> 00:41:18,939
And

481
00:41:18,939 –> 00:41:19,599
Exactly.

482
00:41:19,599 –> 00:41:20,639
And we call

483
00:41:20,639 –> 00:41:24,419
We, we think of that as a kind of the anti-evolution.

484
00:41:24,419 –> 00:41:24,719
Yeah.

485
00:41:24,719 –> 00:41:32,720
It’s the one that says, “I want everybody behind me, therefore, I have to stop your evolution in order for me to be at the top of that pyramid.”

486
00:41:33,299 –> 00:41:33,579
Mm-hmm.

487
00:41:33,579 –> 00:41:42,039
“And so, I don’t want anybody else or anything else to evolve, to grow, to continue to move forward, because the only thing that could be in the forward is me.”

488
00:41:42,039 –> 00:41:43,619
And so, it’s kind of like this anti-

489
00:41:43,619 –> 00:41:45,319
We call it the anti-life principle.

490
00:41:45,319 –> 00:41:45,999
It’s the one- Mm-hmm.

491
00:41:45,999 –> 00:41:48,400
that doesn’t want life to continue to unfold.

492
00:41:49,099 –> 00:41:52,819
And I think in stories like this, we see that part usually really clear, right?

493
00:41:52,819 –> 00:41:54,759
“That’s the moral, the whatever.”

494
00:41:54,759 –> 00:42:09,499
The part that we forget in it is, for example, and, and is the fact that there’s this circle of life, and there is this circle of life that we continuously sacrifice ourselves for one another.

495
00:42:09,499 –> 00:42:13,419
Not in the “I’m gonna throw myself against, you know, a harpoon for you.”

496
00:42:13,419 –> 00:42:14,219
That’s one way.

497
00:42:14,219 –> 00:42:20,079
But I mean more in the some animals and some plants know- Mm-hmm.

498
00:42:20,079 –> 00:42:22,079
that they are food, some know- Mm-hmm.

499
00:42:22,079 –> 00:42:24,319
that that’s m- might happen to them.

500
00:42:24,319 –> 00:42:32,899
And there’s this whole mechanism of play, of roughhousing, of getting myself ready, of also giving of myself.

501
00:42:32,899 –> 00:42:33,419
Mm-hmm.

502
00:42:33,419 –> 00:42:44,859
And I think that sometimes we, we tell the stories of like, “Here’s the person that went out of control,” which I think is still important, because we see examples of it all over the place, so we haven’t learned that lesson.

503
00:42:44,859 –> 00:42:45,299
Mm-hmm.

504
00:42:45,299 –> 00:42:54,096
But I think we’ve also forgotten the lesson of being part of a collective, being part of a whole also means sacrificing parts of yourself.

505
00:42:54,979 –> 00:42:57,419
And that doesn’t mean that makes me any less.

506
00:42:57,419 –> 00:43:01,319
It’s instead, like we know from like the Tiferet principle, right?

507
00:43:01,319 –> 00:43:01,659
It’s the- Mm-hmm.

508
00:43:01,659 –> 00:43:03,536
most beautiful thing you could do.

509
00:43:04,119 –> 00:43:04,139
Mm-hmm.

510
00:43:04,139 –> 00:43:22,159
I find absolute beauty in the balance of everything, which means looking and finding the parts of myself that excel, but also allowing myself to sort of smooth my rough edges, sacrifice little pieces of myself to complete a greater picture of a whole.

511
00:43:22,159 –> 00:43:24,639
And that’s what makes beauty, right?

512
00:43:24,639 –> 00:43:24,659
Yes.

513
00:43:24,659 –> 00:43:25,219
Mm-hmm.

514
00:43:25,219 –> 00:43:25,279
Yeah.

515
00:43:25,279 –> 00:43:34,799
And, and I find that that piece of the natural story sometimes gets lost, where it’s, you know, in the, the argument I was

516
00:43:34,799 –> 00:43:40,819
I actually was arguing with a vegan on, on a, on a social network the other day, and I didn’t really want to, but I’m just- Mm-hmm.

517
00:43:40,819 –> 00:43:44,179
tired also of people giving me absolute answers.

518
00:43:44,179 –> 00:43:44,499
Oh, yeah.

519
00:43:44,499 –> 00:43:47,739
The world doesn’t work on absolute answers, unfortunately.

520
00:43:47,739 –> 00:43:49,239
Uh, it just doesn’t.

521
00:43:49,239 –> 00:43:54,019
And we need to find the places where I’m okay with

522
00:43:54,019 –> 00:44:04,199
You know, here in, in Damanhur, for example, I often tell people when I go to other countries and I teach about being a community and they’re like, “What are some of the things that are the gotchas of being in a community?”

523
00:44:04,199 –> 00:44:08,959
And I’m like, “The biggest gotcha is the fact that I have to sacrifice things.”

524
00:44:08,959 –> 00:44:13,819
And, but when I do it, I feel so empowered and I feel- Mm-hmm.

525
00:44:13,819 –> 00:44:14,019
happy.

526
00:44:14,019 –> 00:44:24,059
Like, if you invite me to a super cool concert on a day that it’s my turn to cook dinner for my house, and there’s nobody else who can do it, because I can’t find a change, I’m gonna cook dinner.

527
00:44:24,059 –> 00:44:25,566
The other night I was supposed to teach.

528
00:44:26,179 –> 00:44:29,419
Somebody invited me to teach in a super cool class.

529
00:44:29,419 –> 00:44:43,408
It was my day to, uh, take the instruments of our what we call our Niall, who are the, the people in charge of the social side of Damanhur, it was the instruments, which are the magical instruments, and as a night, once every three months, I have to take them to the oracle.

530
00:44:43,939 –> 00:44:45,279
And it was like, “It’s my turn.”

531
00:44:45,279 –> 00:44:46,979
And the person was like, “Well, just find a change.”

532
00:44:46,979 –> 00:44:50,159
I’m like, “No,” like, “it’s my turn.”

533
00:44:50,159 –> 00:44:59,959
Like, it’s my responsibility and I f- take it very, like, it’s strong, it’s important, it’s part of m- what creates the fabric, the magical fabric of my community.

534
00:44:59,959 –> 00:45:03,059
Like, “No, I’m not gonna find a change.”

535
00:45:03,059 –> 00:45:19,419
Like, “It’s not worth it to me, because me being, you know, there in support of those instruments, in support of, you know, this process, this whole, I mean, ritual, for me brings a level of completeness to the overall project that I’m in, in the c- in my community.”

536
00:45:19,419 –> 00:45:24,419
And there, and therefore, I’m not gonna give that up, and that’s the same way of

537
00:45:24,419 –> 00:45:38,439
Like I, I even said to this person, this vegan that I was having a discussion with, where I said, you know, to her, I’m like, “I only wish it was more legal, like it was legal where I live, to just take my body and throw it into a hole at the end of my life, and let me-

538
00:45:38,439 –> 00:45:40,219
nourish, you know, soil- Oh,

539
00:45:40,219 –> 00:45:42,499
insects, and all the other animals in the woods.”

540
00:45:42,499 –> 00:45:48,528
Like, “I wish that y- they could just tear me apart at the very end and eat me and get total nourishment from me.”

541
00:45:49,019 –> 00:45:56,848
Like, I would gladly do that and be a part of it if that means, uh, know, nourishing a whole cycle of life.

542
00:45:57,339 –> 00:45:58,659
And I feel like that’s

543
00:45:58,659 –> 00:46:04,699
I think we f- need to find more of that mythology, more of that story where it’s I happily

544
00:46:04,699 –> 00:46:05,805
I didn’t

545
00:46:05,805 –> 00:46:11,065
you know, give away something of myself and get lost, but more of I

546
00:46:11,065 –> 00:46:16,585
this is what I ha- wha- what everybody is putting in in order for us to have our completeness.

547
00:46:16,585 –> 00:46:25,245
And I think that that’s what you see when you really see another ab- an other kin, like a- a- a no- a more than human being.

548
00:46:25,245 –> 00:46:36,225
You see that because they know that they’re equally food, they’re equally shelter, they’re equally nourishment, they’re equally, you know, being nourished, they’re equally giving, they’re equally taking.

549
00:46:36,225 –> 00:46:47,945
Like, it’s all happening at the same time and we’ve thrown ourselves out of that balance, and you just look and you’re like, “Ah, and you do it all without being totally stressed out.

550
00:46:47,945 –> 00:46:48,482
Like

551
00:46:51,746 –> 00:46:53,785
Ta- Oh, oh, absolutely.

552
00:46:53,785 –> 00:47:02,845
I me- I mean, you- there- there is no landscape, no true landscape with, p- I don’t even, I hate the word predator because it’s loaded with negativity.

553
00:47:02,845 –> 00:47:03,605
Exactly.

554
00:47:03,605 –> 00:47:06,165
Ne- uh, prey, how pathetic is that?

555
00:47:06,165 –> 00:47:08,904
Have you ever seen an elk, like, dance?

556
00:47:08,904 –> 00:47:09,665
Like- Exactly.

557
00:47:09,665 –> 00:47:19,965
like, “Here I am and, and, and proclaim their vigor, you know, their, i- it’s, they’re not prey.

558
00:47:19,965 –> 00:47:24,685
They’re our participants in the dance that you’ve just described- Right.

559
00:47:24,685 –> 00:47:26,672
with the mountain lion and with the wolf.

560
00:47:27,305 –> 00:47:32,208
And through that dance, they, they assert who they are.

561
00:47:33,025 –> 00:47:38,565
So I don’t have another word for predator and prey, but it’s really i- uh, it’s what you’ve just said.

562
00:47:38,565 –> 00:47:41,168
It’s fundamentally misunderstanding- Absolutely.

563
00:47:42,045 –> 00:47:42,145
that

564
00:47:42,145 –> 00:47:44,245
It’s, we call it the missing archetypes.

565
00:47:44,245 –> 00:47:44,565
They’re the- Yeah.

566
00:47:44,565 –> 00:47:50,785
archetypes of relationship that we have either mislabeled to the point where we’ve lost them, and predator-

567
00:47:50,785 –> 00:47:53,305
and prey are two fundamental ones.

568
00:47:53,305 –> 00:47:54,665
Like, the idea that- Mm-hmm.

569
00:47:54,665 –> 00:47:58,185
we all have predator tendencies and they’re not always bad.

570
00:47:58,185 –> 00:47:58,225
Mm-hmm.

571
00:47:58,225 –> 00:48:01,008
all have parasitic tendencies and they’re not all bad.

572
00:48:01,725 –> 00:48:06,992
They have to be used in the right context, in the right amount, at the right moment.

573
00:48:08,945 –> 00:48:09,385
Yeah.

574
00:48:09,385 –> 00:48:11,665
Abs- yeah, absolutely.

575
00:48:11,665 –> 00:48:26,416
That’s, uh, no, the judgments that we place are, um, yeah, you know, there is no relationship, no true relationship where you’re projecting your narrow understanding of who that being is.

576
00:48:27,285 –> 00:48:44,225
And I had a wonderful friend, I mean, just magical friend, and I worked with in Georgia, and he, um, was and is, um, you know, a highly qualified scientist and a lover of wolves.

577
00:48:44,225 –> 00:48:52,505
And this man, his relationship with wolves was so extraordinary, um, that he’d actually shared his life with a wolf pack- Wow.

578
00:48:52,505 –> 00:48:54,005
for a certain time.

579
00:48:54,005 –> 00:48:57,168
He had become integrated into the life of this wolf pack.

580
00:48:58,365 –> 00:49:01,725
As he told me, “I was young at the time.

581
00:49:01,725 –> 00:49:03,865
I was very strong.”

582
00:49:03,865 –> 00:49:10,416
So he- he went in, this is what he did, he went and he, he, you know, over a period of months, he became part of their life.

583
00:49:11,365 –> 00:49:17,904
And one of the things he said to me is, “Our whole relationship changed when I started helping them to hunt.”

584
00:49:18,545 –> 00:49:23,856
He said, “I closed off, um, an escape route for the deer that they were chasing.”

585
00:49:24,585 –> 00:49:33,445
And he said, “They were so excited because they understood not only what I’d done, but why I’d done it,” and so he was working with them.

586
00:49:33,445 –> 00:49:35,545
And I- I think this is very ancient in humans.

587
00:49:35,545 –> 00:49:44,016
I think we have this very ancient bond with wolves where we understand each other and we understand each other within that flow of life that, you know, you’ve just described.

588
00:49:44,805 –> 00:49:49,648
And so he said, “After that, our relationship became very close.”

589
00:49:52,065 –> 00:49:52,765
You know?

590
00:49:52,765 –> 00:50:06,174
And I- I mean, it’s, I’ve written about it in my book actually, because I spent time with him and, um, I saw him with wolves and he was somebody that had, it was like this energy in his body.

591
00:50:07,505 –> 00:50:13,040
You know, sometimes when he would describe the wolves, it was like the wolf spirit actually entered his body.

592
00:50:13,904 –> 00:50:15,056
And what he was

593
00:50:15,705 –> 00:50:26,645
and it’s very interesting, you know, how we learn through somebody who has very deeply integrated knowledge into themselves, because it passes to you directly- Mm-hmm.

594
00:50:26,645 –> 00:50:28,336
and not through the conceptual mind.

595
00:50:28,859 –> 00:50:36,752
And so he would speak to me about wolves and his experience in wolf behavior, and the wolf was present, right?

596
00:50:38,439 –> 00:50:39,119
You know what I mean?

597
00:50:39,119 –> 00:50:40,700
I totally know what you mean.

598
00:50:40,700 –> 00:50:42,040
I completely know what you mean.

599
00:50:42,040 –> 00:50:45,840
It was not just 2 human beings talking to each other.

600
00:50:46,739 –> 00:50:48,739
The wolf became present- Mm-hmm.

601
00:50:48,739 –> 00:50:51,819
between us, within us.

602
00:50:51,819 –> 00:50:58,659
And so we were able to actually e- and it is a m- it’s a magic when that happens, when you’re, you’re

603
00:50:58,659 –> 00:51:03,059
This communication that we’ve been speaking about really all through this conversation.

604
00:51:03,059 –> 00:51:03,179
Mm-hmm.

605
00:51:03,179 –> 00:51:09,232
The magic of communication that is not mediated by the narrow conc- concepts of the mind.

606
00:51:10,819 –> 00:51:11,339
love that.

607
00:51:11,339 –> 00:51:12,939
And I love when you reach that point.

608
00:51:12,939 –> 00:51:14,219
I- I am a, a- Yeah.

609
00:51:14,219 –> 00:51:16,959
as you can tell, I- I love deep conversations.

610
00:51:16,959 –> 00:51:17,879
That’s- Yeah.

611
00:51:17,879 –> 00:51:21,899
probably one of the most beautiful things of having a podcast is that you can, you know- Yeah.

612
00:51:21,899 –> 00:51:23,079
put together these

613
00:51:23,079 –> 00:51:25,399
You have excuses for it, but I am the kind- Mm-hmm.

614
00:51:25,399 –> 00:51:29,479
that, like, you know, my girlfriends and I leave each other a 15-minute, you know-

615
00:51:29,479 –> 00:51:35,779
voice messages that are super deep, like going into our emotions, or going into whatever- Yeah.

616
00:51:35,779 –> 00:51:36,399
is happening.

617
00:51:36,399 –> 00:51:44,959
And, and I do agre- and, and it’s such a beautiful thing when that h- when that mind piece clicks off- Mm-hmm.

618
00:51:44,959 –> 00:51:44,999
Yeah.

619
00:51:44,999 –> 00:51:48,959
and all of a sudden there’s an embodiment that’s talking to you.

620
00:51:48,959 –> 00:51:48,979
Yeah.

621
00:51:48,979 –> 00:51:51,799
And it could still come out in words, but you’re almost- Mm-hmm.

622
00:51:51,799 –> 00:51:55,019
not even hearing the words because you’re feeling the impact.

623
00:51:55,019 –> 00:51:55,679
Mm-hmm.

624
00:51:55,679 –> 00:51:55,699
Mm-hmm.

625
00:51:55,699 –> 00:51:58,398
And this happens even, again, across multiple

626
00:51:59,079 –> 00:52:01,639
I mean, for us, for voice messages or whatever, but I’ve

627
00:52:01,639 –> 00:52:08,099
I remember the first time I saw it in a completely different context that was like somebody with music, who- Mm-hmm.

628
00:52:08,099 –> 00:52:17,179
you know, you see this when you see a, a musician that gets lost in, and all of a sudden the, the, the music is communicating almost as an entity in and of itself.

629
00:52:17,179 –> 00:52:17,459
Yeah.

630
00:52:17,459 –> 00:52:17,479
Yeah.

631
00:52:17,479 –> 00:52:19,499
The person has moved out.

632
00:52:19,499 –> 00:52:19,799
Mm-hmm.

633
00:52:19,799 –> 00:52:31,038
And you see it, as you said, when there is like a deep communication with a person who has embodied this spirit of other kin, of a, of an animal, of a plant, like

634
00:52:31,038 –> 00:52:38,699
And to me, that is, again, that m- beautiful place of communion that is what we’re all striving for is- Mm-hmm.

635
00:52:38,699 –> 00:52:45,019
I wanna feel those parts of myself, I wanna feel my inner m- my inner animalness, my inner plantness.

636
00:52:45,019 –> 00:52:45,079
Mm-hmm.

637
00:52:45,079 –> 00:52:55,419
I wanna feel my divineness, I wanna feel my connection to the vibrations of the world, to the music of the spheres, like, I want

638
00:52:55,419 –> 00:53:05,839
That’s that whole mystical thing that we you know, as we was talking about is, when we step out and we go into the mysticism of embodiment that goes beyond.

639
00:53:05,839 –> 00:53:09,119
And sometimes it still passes through words, but oftentimes it doesn’t.

640
00:53:09,119 –> 00:53:13,616
And even the words are coming out, that’s, that’s not what you’re really receiving.

641
00:53:14,599 –> 00:53:15,059
I

642
00:53:15,059 –> 00:53:16,699
That’s, that’s my favorite space in the world.

643
00:53:16,699 –> 00:53:17,239
My favorite.

644
00:53:17,239 –> 00:53:17,659
Absolutely.

645
00:53:17,659 –> 00:53:19,199
My favorite space in the world.

646
00:53:19,199 –> 00:53:19,579
Yeah.

647
00:53:20,859 –> 00:53:29,299
I’d love, like, as we’re getting up to our kind of, like, wrap-up here, even though I know, as usual, we could go for hours, I’d love to hear a little bit more about your book.

648
00:53:29,299 –> 00:53:30,352
Tell everybody about your book.

649
00:53:31,138 –> 00:53:31,859
Oh.

650
00:53:31,859 –> 00:53:33,059
Yeah, with pleasure.

651
00:53:33,059 –> 00:53:44,368
Um, so I am, you know, I realized that, you know, I’ve been traveling and meeting quite extraord- I mean, extraordinary people, uh, and in connection with the animals.

652
00:53:45,219 –> 00:53:53,278
And that wonderful man I’ve just described, you know, uh, his name is, um, Jason Badridze, Georgian-Russian.

653
00:53:54,299 –> 00:53:59,728
Um, it was something that I, I was

654
00:54:00,299 –> 00:54:09,968
It was like a, it was like a hidden stream in human, um, awareness, this ability to have the direct connection with wild animals.

655
00:54:10,619 –> 00:54:21,392
And I was learning about it, you know, from, from these highly, highly experienced but highly qualified scientists who are working outside of the mainstream Western model of thinking, right?

656
00:54:21,999 –> 00:54:29,739
They weren’t just watching animals and noting down, you know, um, different, you know, observed varieties of behavior.

657
00:54:29,739 –> 00:54:33,519
They were, they were engaging with them directly, right?

658
00:54:33,519 –> 00:54:35,159
They were, uh, being

659
00:54:35,159 –> 00:54:49,808
1, um, scientist told me when he walked among polar bears without a weapon and without fear because he was an animal among other animals and he was communicating with them directly and he never had a problem with the bears.

660
00:54:50,819 –> 00:55:00,759
Except once when it was his own fault, and that was on a r- a remote high arctic island where the polar bears come, come in to land during the summer melt season.

661
00:55:00,759 –> 00:55:09,072
So I was meeting these people and they were telling me something about our hu- our original human ability to communicate with the natural world.

662
00:55:09,959 –> 00:55:13,072
And so I started writing about it, and then it became, um

663
00:55:13,979 –> 00:55:42,640
It took me into that deep level within myself that was really calling out to express what you’ve just said, that we call it mystical because it’s taking you further out of your own narrowin’, you know, confinement within the mind and the thought forms and the beliefs into this expansiveness.

664
00:55:43,979 –> 00:56:00,479
Um, so it’s called Eyes of the Wild because it’s fundamentally about that deep gaze of recognition, of eye-to-eye, heart-to-heart, you know, with the whale, with the wolf, with bears, with horses, wild horses as well.

665
00:56:00,479 –> 00:56:02,224
Mm-hmm.

666
00:56:03,999 –> 00:56:09,520
Um-But how do we get the book?

667
00:56:10,561 –> 00:56:17,541
Uh, well, that’s, it’s available on different, you know, certainly on Amazon and, uh, I’ll give you the link.

668
00:56:17,541 –> 00:56:17,641
Yes.

669
00:56:17,641 –> 00:56:20,721
And I, yeah- We will put it into the show notes.

670
00:56:20,721 –> 00:56:21,101
That would be lovely.

671
00:56:21,101 –> 00:56:24,881
Along with, of course, your, you know, your website and how people- Yeah.

672
00:56:24,881 –> 00:56:28,702
can contact you and find out more about the amazing things that you’re doing.

673
00:56:28,702 –> 00:56:31,041
I would be very, very pleased.

674
00:56:31,041 –> 00:56:32,681
Yeah.

675
00:56:32,681 –> 00:56:33,081
Yeah.

676
00:56:33,081 –> 00:56:33,921
We’re all so modest.

677
00:56:33,921 –> 00:56:36,202
She’s like, “The book is this, the book is that.”

678
00:56:36,202 –> 00:56:37,981
Yes, but where do we get it?

679
00:56:37,981 –> 00:56:40,042
That’s what we wanna know.

680
00:56:41,042 –> 00:56:45,661
We wanna know how we put it in our hands and we can have that experience ourselves.

681
00:56:46,661 –> 00:56:47,042
Yeah.

682
00:56:47,042 –> 00:56:53,882
And the book, sorry, the book is also about how this, I mean, I, I say it changes you, but actually no, it takes you back to who you really are, these encounters.

683
00:56:53,882 –> 00:56:54,901
That’s it.

684
00:56:54,901 –> 00:56:54,941
That’s

685
00:56:54,941 –> 00:57:00,421
That’s why we use, it’s funny when I came to Damanhur, so we’ve had to, you know, we translate a lot of words.

686
00:57:00,421 –> 00:57:00,581
Mm-hmm.

687
00:57:00,581 –> 00:57:05,281
And one of the words we’ve always talked about in Damanhur is, you know, our job is.

688
00:57:07,321 –> 00:57:11,501
Which in reality translates literally to awakening.

689
00:57:11,501 –> 00:57:11,541
Yeah.

690
00:57:11,541 –> 00:57:20,661
And I was one of the first people that was, like, translating things into, not the first, but one of the first people that was translating things into English on a massive scale for Damanhur.

691
00:57:20,661 –> 00:57:20,681
Yeah.

692
00:57:20,681 –> 00:57:23,321
And I was like, “Hun- we’re not awakening.

693
00:57:23,321 –> 00:57:24,621
We’re reawakening.”

694
00:57:24,621 –> 00:57:25,101
Yeah.

695
00:57:25,101 –> 00:57:26,201
Like, we were awake.

696
00:57:26,201 –> 00:57:27,021
We know this.

697
00:57:27,021 –> 00:57:33,541
And part of our path is to reawaken to the fact that, because that’s where the familiarness comes from.

698
00:57:33,541 –> 00:57:37,681
If we were never awake, then we wouldn’t almost know- Mm-hmm.

699
00:57:37,681 –> 00:57:38,841
when we get there.

700
00:57:38,841 –> 00:57:43,541
And in order for us to complete a cycle that we’re on, it’s a reawakening.

701
00:57:43,541 –> 00:57:44,481
We’ve been there before.

702
00:57:44,481 –> 00:57:45,661
We’ve entered into it.

703
00:57:45,661 –> 00:57:47,161
We’ll do it at a new level.

704
00:57:47,161 –> 00:57:50,541
We’ll be even more evolved, more advanced.

705
00:57:50,541 –> 00:57:52,201
There’s be so many different things.

706
00:57:52,201 –> 00:57:53,621
But it’s a reawakening.

707
00:57:53,621 –> 00:57:55,441
Like we were there once, folks.

708
00:57:55,441 –> 00:57:56,981
You’ve all been there.

709
00:57:56,981 –> 00:58:02,801
Like tap deep inside of yourself because the memory of that stuff is all in there.

710
00:58:02,801 –> 00:58:03,641
It is all there.

711
00:58:03,641 –> 00:58:05,721
And this is where all the fun things are.

712
00:58:05,721 –> 00:58:06,001
Yes.

713
00:58:06,001 –> 00:58:08,661
This is where all the joy and the good things live.

714
00:58:08,661 –> 00:58:09,421
Exactly.

715
00:58:09,421 –> 00:58:12,421
So you just gotta kind of, like, connect into that.

716
00:58:12,421 –> 00:58:16,981
And sometimes you’re gonna do it with the help of others, or actually, you’re always gonna do it with the help of others.

717
00:58:16,981 –> 00:58:20,441
The hel- help of others is, is a fundamental piece with it.

718
00:58:20,441 –> 00:58:24,801
Elinor, I, I cannot thank you enough for this conversation.

719
00:58:24,801 –> 00:58:24,881
Mm-hmm.

720
00:58:24,881 –> 00:58:31,081
I am just in awe and humbled by your experiences.

721
00:58:31,081 –> 00:58:36,941
But also it’s, it makes me so happy every time I have these conversations to see- Yeah.

722
00:58:36,941 –> 00:58:37,681
like, we are there.

723
00:58:37,681 –> 00:58:38,441
We’re getting there.

724
00:58:38,441 –> 00:58:39,721
Like, we’re seeing it.

725
00:58:39,721 –> 00:58:39,741
Yeah.

726
00:58:39,741 –> 00:58:40,041
You know?

727
00:58:40,041 –> 00:58:52,901
We’re, we feel it, and how important it is for us to get it out so that others can feel it, that others can, can move in these directions and can really have these types of experiences.

728
00:58:52,901 –> 00:58:56,441
So thank you so much for this conversation.

729
00:58:56,441 –> 00:58:58,621
I am, just like I said, deeply grateful.

730
00:58:58,621 –> 00:58:59,741
It

731
00:58:59,741 –> 00:59:00,001
Yeah.

732
00:59:00,001 –> 00:59:00,020
This

733
00:59:00,020 –> 00:59:09,001
And for those of you that are listening, everything about Elinor’s work and who she is and how to find her and how to buy her book are all going to be in the show notes.

734
00:59:09,001 –> 00:59:29,141
And of course, if you wanna continue these types of conversations, the Naturally Conscious community is your place for human-plant relationships, and really relationships between humans and otherkin in general, for all the reasons that we just talked about today, ’cause that is pretty much every event that happens in there, from the book club to the Sprouts Writing and Community- Mm-hmm.

735
00:59:29,141 –> 00:59:39,681
I mean, and Creativity Group, the Mini Voyage with Plants, everything that’s in there, and especially our Plant-Inspired Masterclass discussions, which are pretty deep dives into these types of things- No.

736
00:59:39,681 –> 00:59:39,921
Yeah.

737
00:59:39,921 –> 00:59:44,881
are all to help support you evolve and reawaken.

738
00:59:44,881 –> 00:59:50,161
And if you are looking for one-on-one support to get there, then I’m always here for you.

739
00:59:50,161 –> 00:59:51,760
All you have to do is reach out.

740
00:59:52,281 –> 00:59:55,261
So with that, thank you so much for being here.

741
00:59:55,261 –> 00:59:59,294
And remember to resist the urge to hold back your evolving green brilliance.

742
01:00:00,081 –> 01:00:00,701
Bye.

743
01:00:00,701 –> 01:00:01,854
Bye.

744
01:00:02,520 –> 01:00:05,822
Thanks for tuning into this episode of Reconnect With Plant Wisdom.

745
01:00:06,381 –> 01:00:16,752
To continue these conversations, join us in the Naturally Conscious community, your premier online ecosystem for plant reawakening and accelerated evolution and co-creation with otherkin.

746
01:00:17,346 –> 01:00:26,768
Here you’ll find expansive discussions, interactive courses, live events, and supportive group programs like the Plant Wisdom book club and the Sprouts Writing and Creativity Group.

747
01:00:27,421 –> 01:00:32,621
Connect with like-minded individuals collaborating with plants to integrate these insights into life.

748
01:00:32,621 –> 01:00:37,781
Intro and outro music by Steve Shouly and Poinsetta from The Singing Life of Plants.

749
01:00:37,781 –> 01:00:41,381
That’s it for me, Tigress Gardena, and my plant collaborators.

750
01:00:41,381 –> 01:00:45,551
Until next time, remember, resist the urge to hold back your emerging green brilliance.

751
01:00:46,121 –> 01:00:46,861
I’m out.

752
01:00:46,861 –> 01:00:47,401
Bye.