WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:25.000 [Music] 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:28.000 Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:33.920 My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of conversations with 00:00:33.920 --> 00:00:38.960 spiritually awakening people. I've done over 700 of them now, and if this is new to you 00:00:38.960 --> 00:00:45.360 and you'd like to check out previous ones, go to bathgap.com, B-A-T-G-A-P, and look under 00:00:45.360 --> 00:00:49.320 the interviews menu. I think we're going to still have that menu. We're redesigning the 00:00:49.320 --> 00:00:52.920 website, but you'll be able to find it. We're redesigning it so it'll be even easier to 00:00:52.920 --> 00:00:58.440 find things and look nicer. This program is made possible through the support of 00:00:58.440 --> 00:01:02.280 appreciative listeners and viewers, so if you appreciate it and would like to help 00:01:02.280 --> 00:01:07.320 support it, there are PayPal buttons on every page of the site and a page that 00:01:07.320 --> 00:01:12.600 offers alternatives to PayPal. I haven't mentioned this lately, but we have a 00:01:12.600 --> 00:01:16.600 bunch of volunteers doing different things, and if you'd like to volunteer in 00:01:16.600 --> 00:01:24.640 some way, get in touch. One of the things is proofreading transcripts. Some people 00:01:24.640 --> 00:01:28.300 really enjoy doing that and I haven't mentioned this lately so it's slacked 00:01:28.300 --> 00:01:32.260 off a little bit but we still have some yet to proofread. And another thing is we 00:01:32.260 --> 00:01:37.480 have this AI chatbot called the Backgap Bot which I don't know about over 4,000 00:01:37.480 --> 00:01:40.920 people have used it so far and five or six hundred people use it per week and 00:01:40.920 --> 00:01:53.920 And it's loaded with tens of thousands, over a hundred thousand documents of a bat-gap nature, spiritual and philosophical stuff, as well as 1700 of the world's sacred texts. 00:01:53.920 --> 00:02:06.920 So, you could call it a vertical bot, meaning it's a specialist in this kind of content, as opposed to a horizontal bot like ChatGPT, which gobbles up everything on the internet, 00:02:06.920 --> 00:02:11.920 and it's kind of diluted if you really want to ask spiritual or philosophical questions. 00:02:11.920 --> 00:02:16.600 So you're actually going to get better results for those kind of questions with this than 00:02:16.600 --> 00:02:19.320 you would with a commercial bot. 00:02:19.320 --> 00:02:21.760 And so there's a menu item for this on batgap.com. 00:02:21.760 --> 00:02:23.560 It's called the BatGapBot. 00:02:23.560 --> 00:02:27.600 Okay, my guest today is Georgette Starr. 00:02:27.600 --> 00:02:33.960 Georgette is an intuitive Soulstream life coach, which she will explain, and mentor with over 00:02:33.960 --> 00:02:39.960 30 years of experience dedicated to empowering adults and youth to live soul-embodied, joyful 00:02:39.960 --> 00:02:42.400 and purposeful lives. 00:02:42.400 --> 00:02:48.200 Her deep quest for self-realization and sharing this journey with others inspired her to found 00:02:48.200 --> 00:02:54.940 the Life Blessing Institute, LBI, a transformational learning community designed to guide individuals 00:02:54.940 --> 00:03:01.480 on the journey of spiritual awakening, actualization of their soul's agenda, and human potential. 00:03:01.480 --> 00:03:06.560 Through LBI, Georgette developed a variety of programs, including Maiden, Spirit, and Peace 00:03:06.560 --> 00:03:12.840 Warriors youth programs, individual and community rites of passage celebrations, and the Soul 00:03:12.840 --> 00:03:15.900 Stream Method practitioner training. 00:03:15.900 --> 00:03:19.640 Currently practicing as a Soul Stream and Life Coach and Mentor, Georgette is also working 00:03:19.640 --> 00:03:24.000 on a documentary film titled "The Woman's Rite." 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:29.760 The film examines the challenges of ageism faced by women and explores how these limitations 00:03:29.760 --> 00:03:35.520 can be transformed through spiritual awakening, creative expression, and conscious rites of 00:03:35.520 --> 00:03:41.120 passage. It highlights the opportunity for women to step into empowered, vibrant, and 00:03:41.120 --> 00:03:46.280 respected elderhood, offering their wisdom, creativity, light, and love to a world that 00:03:46.280 --> 00:03:48.680 deeply needs their contributions. 00:03:48.680 --> 00:03:53.720 There will be a link on Georgette's Backgap page, not only to her website, but also to 00:03:53.720 --> 00:03:58.280 that film, so you can watch a trailer or a promo of it. 00:03:58.280 --> 00:04:02.560 Georgette holds a master's degree from the Naropa Institute and a doctorate of ministry 00:04:02.560 --> 00:04:07.860 from the University of Creation Spirituality, which was founded by Matthew Fox, who has been 00:04:07.860 --> 00:04:09.180 on BatGap. 00:04:09.180 --> 00:04:14.040 In addition to her professional work, she cherishes being a mom, a grandmother, artist, forest 00:04:14.040 --> 00:04:16.880 dweller, and daughter of Mother Earth. 00:04:16.880 --> 00:04:24.320 Okay, Georgette, you were wondering, like, what inspired us to invite you to be interviewed 00:04:24.320 --> 00:04:25.320 on BatGap. 00:04:25.320 --> 00:04:28.440 Well, it seems like we've known you for a long time. 00:04:28.440 --> 00:04:32.580 I met you in person at one of the S.A.N.D. conferences and you brought me a really lovely 00:04:32.580 --> 00:04:33.580 goodie bag. 00:04:33.580 --> 00:04:37.920 I forget all the things that were in it, but there were probably some chocolates and some 00:04:37.920 --> 00:04:42.260 cards and some useful, interesting things. 00:04:42.260 --> 00:04:43.260 And that was really sweet. 00:04:43.260 --> 00:04:48.160 No one's ever brought me a goodie bag at a S.A.N.D. conference, so you're unique in that 00:04:48.160 --> 00:04:49.160 respect. 00:04:49.160 --> 00:04:54.600 You and Irene have struck up a friendship and been corresponding for years, so you're just 00:04:54.600 --> 00:04:59.240 Kind of like an old friend, and we always had it in the back of our minds that one of these 00:04:59.240 --> 00:05:03.280 days we would interview you, and I guess this is a good time because you're working on this 00:05:03.280 --> 00:05:10.480 film, this is a really important thing, and we wanted to help you boost support for that 00:05:10.480 --> 00:05:12.040 and bring awareness to it. 00:05:12.040 --> 00:05:14.480 Kristi Wow, thank you so much, Rick. 00:05:14.480 --> 00:05:19.080 I'm so honored to be here with you today, and you know, I want to share with you and 00:05:19.080 --> 00:05:24.200 Irene, you know, I've heard the analogy of like the spiritual path of awakening, to be 00:05:24.200 --> 00:05:28.800 somewhat like climbing a mountain. And at the bottom of the mountain, there's cities and 00:05:28.800 --> 00:05:33.800 villages and there's just people everywhere that you can talk to about what you're experiencing 00:05:33.800 --> 00:05:39.420 and find some support and communion. And then the farther up the mountain, the more rarefied 00:05:39.420 --> 00:05:44.880 the air and people kind of drop off because it gets a little harder, a little more challenging. 00:05:44.880 --> 00:05:48.720 And then, you know, there's these peaceful plateaus where you find a whole village up 00:05:48.720 --> 00:05:53.680 there way up high where it's like a comfortable place and everybody's meditating together and 00:05:53.680 --> 00:06:00.220 It's wonderful, but there's still this calling to continue and there's this sense of being eventually kind of being 00:06:00.220 --> 00:06:06.580 somewhat alone on the journey because there aren't that many people that one can actually share some of the 00:06:06.580 --> 00:06:10.300 embodied experiences that are very uncommon and 00:06:10.300 --> 00:06:18.340 So I remember especially after what I would consider like the major shift for me in my sense of self and reality 00:06:19.180 --> 00:06:24.940 listening to these interviews over and over and over all day long for days and weeks and months 00:06:24.940 --> 00:06:28.860 because it was so helpful for me to hear other people share their story. 00:06:28.860 --> 00:06:30.620 - Back gap interviews or what? 00:06:30.620 --> 00:06:32.060 - Yeah, back gap interviews. 00:06:32.060 --> 00:06:32.460 - Oh, great. 00:06:32.460 --> 00:06:34.700 - Yeah, I can't even remember how many. 00:06:34.700 --> 00:06:35.580 - Yeah. 00:06:35.580 --> 00:06:39.820 - But there was something so stabilizing about, first of all, 00:06:39.820 --> 00:06:45.020 understanding that every human being is so unique and every path is unique. 00:06:45.020 --> 00:06:52.220 And that was comforting to me as the air became more rarefied and there were less people that I could share my experience with or 00:06:52.220 --> 00:06:54.380 find community with 00:06:54.380 --> 00:06:59.580 So it's been a lifesaver to me and i'm just so appreciative of both of you 00:06:59.580 --> 00:07:05.340 For your generous act of service that you just show up for over and over and over again 00:07:05.340 --> 00:07:08.940 Well, thanks. There's this uh old bengali saying 00:07:09.580 --> 00:07:15.580 if no one comes on your call, then go ahead alone. But fact of the matter is, we're not alone because 00:07:15.580 --> 00:07:21.180 there are a lot of people around the world these days who are into this kind of thing, 00:07:21.180 --> 00:07:26.860 on this kind of journey. And one of the reasons I actually started Bed Gap was I was in this little 00:07:26.860 --> 00:07:32.220 meeting group here in Fairfield, Iowa. We'd meet once a week and have these discussions and some 00:07:32.220 --> 00:07:37.980 people had had profound spiritual awakenings, but when they would tell friends about it, 00:07:37.980 --> 00:07:41.740 friends would be skeptical. They'd say, "Oh, come on, I've known you for years, you're just Joe 00:07:41.740 --> 00:07:46.380 Schmo, you know, this couldn't happen to you or somebody like you." And so, I thought, "Oh, 00:07:46.380 --> 00:07:53.340 I'm going to start interviewing these people and demonstrate to a wider audience that this happens 00:07:53.340 --> 00:07:59.900 to and can happen to ordinary people," which is the tagline of Batgap, "Conversations with Ordinary 00:07:59.900 --> 00:08:05.180 Spiritually Awakening People." And we actually sometimes intentionally avoid interviewing some 00:08:05.180 --> 00:08:09.380 some of the more famous people, although we also interviewed them, but we are happy to 00:08:09.380 --> 00:08:14.900 interview housewives and truck drivers and just ordinary people who have had a spiritual 00:08:14.900 --> 00:08:20.840 awakening just to make it clear that it is not the exclusive right of, you know, somebody 00:08:20.840 --> 00:08:25.660 who floats two feet off the ground or wears white robes or anything like that. It can 00:08:25.660 --> 00:08:27.900 happen to anybody. It's everyone's birthright. 00:08:27.900 --> 00:08:35.180 Yeah, and it's rare that someone kind of Eckhart Tolle's right like they just have these bursts of complete realization and 00:08:35.180 --> 00:08:41.140 For me the journey of awakening has been more like, you know, they talked about the thousand petal lotus 00:08:41.140 --> 00:08:43.140 So I think the petals are infinite 00:08:43.140 --> 00:08:50.140 There's just another opening and another opening and every opening. There's also another challenge - yeah 00:08:50.140 --> 00:08:52.460 And so it's like a never-ending 00:08:52.460 --> 00:08:57.460 Unfolding process that's one of my main themes 00:08:57.460 --> 00:09:04.340 >> That it never ends, the journey never ends. Later on, I'll be talking about my mom because 00:09:04.340 --> 00:09:10.340 she was such an incredible teacher and guide and example in many ways, including becoming a 00:09:10.340 --> 00:09:17.940 conscious elder. But she was determined to use this incarnation to her very last breath to process 00:09:17.940 --> 00:09:22.820 anything that is not of pure light and love. So anything that she would come up, any fear, 00:09:22.820 --> 00:09:28.900 any anger, any reaction pattern to whatever was happening. Even when she was interacting in her 00:09:28.900 --> 00:09:34.420 assisted living care center and dealing with lots of challenging things, she just used it all as an 00:09:34.420 --> 00:09:40.740 opportunity to evolve. Rick That's great. I guess we could say that everything is an opportunity to 00:09:40.740 --> 00:09:44.980 evolve, even though sometimes things can be very challenging, obviously, and I don't want to make 00:09:44.980 --> 00:09:50.500 light of that. I just feel like the whole universe is one giant evolution machine, and there's nothing 00:09:50.500 --> 00:09:55.060 that is designed to prevent you from evolving, it's all designed to help you evolve. 00:09:55.060 --> 00:09:58.820 Jennifer Yes, and on the process, there's a dissolving 00:09:58.820 --> 00:10:04.820 of the self that we once knew. During the dissolving phases of the awakening process, 00:10:04.820 --> 00:10:11.300 like, we really need the support of each other and spiritual communion and connection to stabilize and 00:10:11.300 --> 00:10:18.020 to function in this world and fulfill our destiny path in terms of how we're here to contribute 00:10:18.020 --> 00:10:21.460 to the evolution of not just our own, but the collective. 00:10:21.460 --> 00:10:24.260 Pete Yeah. This thing of ever evolving, 00:10:24.260 --> 00:10:30.260 a quote I've mentioned many times on this show is from St. Teresa of Avila. She said, 00:10:30.260 --> 00:10:35.380 "It appears that God himself is on the journey." So, you know, no matter how high up you are, 00:10:35.380 --> 00:10:39.540 so to speak, there's a next horizon. There's evolution yet to undergo. 00:10:39.540 --> 00:10:42.980 Julie Absolutely. I wanted to also just 00:10:42.980 --> 00:10:47.860 acknowledge that on the journey to get to this moment, which is obviously a whole lifetime, 00:10:47.860 --> 00:10:53.220 but specifically to this interview, I had to fill out some paperwork, right? To, you know, information. 00:10:53.220 --> 00:10:54.420 Pete: Information forms. 00:10:54.420 --> 00:10:59.940 Kirsten: I was, yeah, I had to pick a category and I was looking at that, like, how do you pick a 00:10:59.940 --> 00:11:06.100 category? And then the whole problem of language. Everything I say I know is not actually true. 00:11:06.100 --> 00:11:11.060 Like, the words never can convey. And so, I just wanted to acknowledge that we have to make 00:11:11.060 --> 00:11:17.500 concessions for the purpose of communication, but that was a challenge. So, eventually I 00:11:17.500 --> 00:11:23.820 ended up on Awakening Process Facilitator, but even that doesn't sound true, but I'll 00:11:23.820 --> 00:11:30.420 take it for now. But when I really sat with, if I could choose a category, there would be 00:11:30.420 --> 00:11:34.380 no one else in that category, or maybe there would be, but it would be somewhat something 00:11:34.380 --> 00:11:37.220 like bowing down like a servant to the mystery. 00:11:37.220 --> 00:11:41.700 Rick>> That's nice. Yeah, the reason we have categories is, you know, we have a categorical 00:11:41.700 --> 00:11:47.300 index on Bathgap and, you know, there's Buddhism and Hinduism and Judaism and psychedelics and 00:11:47.300 --> 00:11:53.980 therapists and creative artists and all kinds of different things. Obviously, a person could 00:11:53.980 --> 00:12:00.080 be in many categories. In fact, we did have people in three categories up until last year, 00:12:00.080 --> 00:12:04.740 but times 700, that's over 2,000 listings on the page. It wasn't that helpful. So Irene 00:12:04.740 --> 00:12:08.660 went through the whole thing and tried to narrow them down to one category, and then I emailed 00:12:08.660 --> 00:12:12.220 everybody I had interviewed and said, "We had to choose just one, and would you like 00:12:12.220 --> 00:12:13.380 to change it? Let us know." 00:12:13.380 --> 00:12:17.620 - I know, I was thinking, like, how could I, you know, if I could pick one category, 00:12:17.620 --> 00:12:24.300 okay, I am a teacher, I mean, that is a function, and there is spirituality embedded in what 00:12:24.300 --> 00:12:31.300 I teach, but to claim the title of spiritual teacher, that seems, at least for me, like 00:12:31.300 --> 00:12:37.380 bowing down to the mystery that nobody knows the deeper truth of ultimate reality. 00:12:37.380 --> 00:12:41.380 Pete There's a great line toward the end of the Rig Veda, 00:12:41.380 --> 00:12:47.300 a rough paraphrase, something like, "From whence did this creation come?" He said, "The gods don't 00:12:47.300 --> 00:12:53.940 know because they were subsequent to creation." Perhaps Brahman or the highest god knows, or maybe 00:12:53.940 --> 00:12:58.980 he doesn't know. And if he doesn't know, maybe nobody knows. So, even the Rig Veda is saying this. 00:12:58.980 --> 00:13:07.260 >>Rick: Yeah, that's cool. Well, I think it's a good attitude to have, don't you? Not to 00:13:07.260 --> 00:13:12.100 be cocksure of our beliefs and opinions and convictions and so on. 00:13:12.100 --> 00:13:15.340 >>Kate: Yeah, I like that symbol. I think it's called the orzo. 00:13:15.340 --> 00:13:17.540 >>Rick: Yeah, the snake biting its tail? 00:13:17.540 --> 00:13:19.380 >>Kate: Well, it's an open circle. 00:13:19.380 --> 00:13:23.060 >>Rick: Right. Oh yeah, the Zen thing with the brush stroke, yeah. 00:13:23.060 --> 00:13:28.300 >>Kate: I really love that symbol because it's like an invitation to always know there's 00:13:28.300 --> 00:13:34.300 never a completion. It's always open to the mystery and open to, as we talked a little 00:13:34.300 --> 00:13:40.680 bit before we started our conversation recorded today, around the scientific method of just 00:13:40.680 --> 00:13:45.380 always looking at, I think you described it as everything is a working hypothesis. 00:13:45.380 --> 00:13:46.380 David That's right. 00:13:46.380 --> 00:13:49.500 Kirsten And the best of our knowledge are filtered 00:13:49.500 --> 00:13:53.220 through our most recent up-to-date conditioning that we're looking through. 00:13:53.220 --> 00:13:56.220 David Some spiritual teacher, might have been Nisargadatta, 00:13:56.220 --> 00:14:01.340 I forget who said, "The bad news is you're always going to be in free fall, and the good 00:14:01.340 --> 00:14:02.740 news is there's no ground. 00:14:02.740 --> 00:14:04.140 You're never going to go splat." 00:14:04.140 --> 00:14:05.140 [Laughter] 00:14:05.140 --> 00:14:06.140 Kim: That's so good! 00:14:06.140 --> 00:14:07.140 I want to start you. 00:14:07.140 --> 00:14:08.140 Yeah, I know. 00:14:08.140 --> 00:14:14.620 I've been talking to a lot of people about this topic of aging into saging or from role 00:14:14.620 --> 00:14:20.860 to soul or transitioning as a human being into an elder season or cycle of life, and that 00:14:20.860 --> 00:14:23.940 concept of befriending the unknown. 00:14:23.940 --> 00:14:30.660 We're always in it, but we just don't realize that we have lots of coping mechanisms to recognize 00:14:30.660 --> 00:14:32.580 how much we don't know. 00:14:32.580 --> 00:14:39.520 And wisdom often, it's like after so much life practice of surrendering into the unknown, 00:14:39.520 --> 00:14:41.060 we get better at it. 00:14:41.060 --> 00:14:46.020 It gets easier to trust that free fall, even though there's always going to be a biological 00:14:46.020 --> 00:14:49.900 response in the body to something that feels uncertain. 00:14:49.900 --> 00:14:57.060 I think fundamentalism of any sort is probably a reaction to the uncertainty and fear of the 00:14:57.060 --> 00:14:58.060 unknown. 00:14:58.060 --> 00:15:02.620 You know, you want certainty, and so you grasp onto something that somebody has told you, 00:15:02.620 --> 00:15:07.520 and then as soon as you grasp onto some limited perspective and make it absolute, it clashes 00:15:07.520 --> 00:15:08.820 with every other perspective. 00:15:08.820 --> 00:15:12.460 So everybody else is wrong now, and I've got the best perspective here. 00:15:12.460 --> 00:15:13.460 They're all going to hell. 00:15:13.460 --> 00:15:15.880 I'm going to the special heaven. 00:15:15.880 --> 00:15:23.540 But it's obviously a very tenuous or indefensible position because it's not ultimate. 00:15:23.540 --> 00:15:27.360 And so, it's constantly going to be challenged. 00:15:27.360 --> 00:15:30.840 But if you take a God's eye view, what would God's perspective be? 00:15:30.840 --> 00:15:33.040 It would incorporate all perspectives. 00:15:33.040 --> 00:15:34.040 Kirsten Yeah. 00:15:34.040 --> 00:15:39.960 Well, in the mapping system that my mom taught me that I'll share later, there's a perspective 00:15:39.960 --> 00:15:44.440 that looks at all these different realms of human development, and one of them is represented 00:15:44.440 --> 00:15:50.240 geometrically by the square or the number four, and that sense of becoming really stagnant 00:15:50.240 --> 00:15:55.000 within a structure, there's a certain point in the beginning where it can be helpful as 00:15:55.000 --> 00:16:01.440 a building block, but then when it becomes stagnant, we fall inside the square, and then 00:16:01.440 --> 00:16:05.320 we're just looking at the walls, and there's no fresh air, there's no progress. 00:16:05.320 --> 00:16:11.500 - Yeah, I had a spiritual teacher who outlined what he called the fundamentals of progress, 00:16:11.500 --> 00:16:18.100 And they were stability, adaptability, integration, purification, and growth. 00:16:18.100 --> 00:16:23.080 And some of those qualities are kind of opposed to one another, like stability and adaptability. 00:16:23.080 --> 00:16:25.160 If something is stable, how can it change? 00:16:25.160 --> 00:16:26.160 How can it adapt? 00:16:26.160 --> 00:16:27.540 But then there's integration. 00:16:27.540 --> 00:16:31.460 Perhaps its stability and adaptability can be integrated with one another. 00:16:31.460 --> 00:16:36.420 And then purification, you know, you need to continually purify the mirror or the vehicle 00:16:36.420 --> 00:16:40.460 through which this is experienced, and then all of that results in growth. 00:16:40.460 --> 00:16:46.620 I love that. I mean, when we talk about having to have concessions for language, it's like, 00:16:46.620 --> 00:16:53.020 language is so binary, right? It's like this or that, and that's not reality. So, all of those 00:16:53.020 --> 00:17:00.860 things can be simultaneously true and work together as an integrated whole. And old systems eventually 00:17:00.860 --> 00:17:05.580 do have to crack open though, in order for transformation and evolution to happen. 00:17:05.580 --> 00:17:09.780 Rick Yeah, speaking of things can be simultaneously 00:17:09.780 --> 00:17:16.020 true, Nisargadatta again said that the ability to appreciate paradox and ambiguity is a sign 00:17:16.020 --> 00:17:17.020 of spiritual maturity. 00:17:17.020 --> 00:17:18.020 Julie Yes, absolutely. 00:17:18.020 --> 00:17:19.020 I feel that. 00:17:19.020 --> 00:17:24.000 Rick Which means, paradox, things can be paradoxically 00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:28.260 opposed or incompatible with one another, but both can be true. 00:17:28.260 --> 00:17:32.060 Like search is a candy mint, search is a breath mint, that kind of thing, the search paradox. 00:17:32.060 --> 00:17:35.500 >> Yes, I heard of a t-shirt that was like a pair of ducks. 00:17:35.500 --> 00:17:36.000 [Laughter] 00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:37.740 >> The paradox. 00:17:37.740 --> 00:17:42.780 >> Yeah, I used to know two doctors that practiced together and they were also meditators. I used to 00:17:42.780 --> 00:17:44.460 call them the divine paradox. 00:17:44.460 --> 00:17:52.060 >> That's great. Yeah, you know, another sign of wisdom developing, right, is like the capacity 00:17:52.060 --> 00:17:58.700 to be able to withstand the tension of being in the center of the polarity or the duality 00:17:58.700 --> 00:18:03.100 and knowing that both can be part of the same wholeness in the center. 00:18:03.100 --> 00:18:08.940 >> What do you think about what we're just talking about in light of what's happening 00:18:08.940 --> 00:18:16.380 in society today in which there seems to be greater polarity than perhaps in our nation's history and 00:18:16.380 --> 00:18:21.820 you know the tensions that that causes and how people seem to be seeing things from such 00:18:21.820 --> 00:18:27.740 diametrically opposed perspectives? I mean I think that anything that happens in society 00:18:27.740 --> 00:18:33.900 is symptomatic of something happening at a deeper level. So, what do you think this signifies? 00:18:33.900 --> 00:18:36.700 Katie Well, once again, I'm bowing to the mystery 00:18:36.700 --> 00:18:42.540 here because it's beyond human comprehension, but I do believe there's like these compensatory 00:18:42.540 --> 00:18:49.580 counter-movements on the journey of evolution that you can only see from big, vast cycles of time, 00:18:49.580 --> 00:18:54.860 and there's something, in a sense, talking about the old structures, like they have to 00:18:54.860 --> 00:19:02.540 get to the breaking point before a new possibility can come in. You know, I was reflecting upon 00:19:02.540 --> 00:19:12.300 why has my journey somewhat emphasized the sacred feminine as being that principle and humanity as 00:19:12.300 --> 00:19:20.940 being so important to strengthen. And I have always been drawn to the Baha'i metaphor of 00:19:20.940 --> 00:19:28.140 humanity as the great bird. The Baha'i metaphor describes one wing as being the masculine and 00:19:28.140 --> 00:19:34.220 one wing being the feminine for men and women. And I don't see it quite so literally. I think of more 00:19:34.220 --> 00:19:40.460 like this vast cosmic bird flying through the universe and the masculine side, which is not 00:19:40.460 --> 00:19:47.100 a gender, it's one side of the polarity, right? It's the yang energy and Taoism. It's just been 00:19:47.100 --> 00:19:53.580 more strengthened. So, that wing is stronger than the feminine side, and so the bird is just 00:19:53.580 --> 00:20:00.860 spiraling out of control. And that's kind of where we are right now. There's some upsurges of effort, 00:20:00.860 --> 00:20:05.820 right, with all these people on the path of spiritual awakening to connect to those more 00:20:05.820 --> 00:20:12.060 internal ways of connecting to self and others and compassion and empathy and all of that. 00:20:12.860 --> 00:20:17.500 we just haven't reached that point where we're coming back into some kind of balance. 00:20:17.500 --> 00:20:22.460 Pete Yeah, some ancient traditions and even modern 00:20:22.460 --> 00:20:29.260 prognosticators feel like, you know, we really have to go through a almost catastrophic collapse of 00:20:29.260 --> 00:20:37.980 social structures and order and society in order to rise to a new, kind of a more enlightened world. 00:20:38.540 --> 00:20:43.740 Do you view it that way or do you think we can transition without too much cataclysm? 00:20:43.740 --> 00:20:55.340 I do have a hopeful, optimistic focus. I do believe in the soul of humanity as being 00:20:55.340 --> 00:21:03.260 on the journey to wholeness and to more balance. I know it's sketchy and challenging, 00:21:03.260 --> 00:21:07.500 and right now we just happen to be in one of those really tense moments politically, right, 00:21:08.060 --> 00:21:15.020 with the elections coming up and we feel all of that tension. It reminds me a lot of the contraction 00:21:15.020 --> 00:21:20.300 process of the birthing, you know, the labor process where there's these incredible moments 00:21:20.300 --> 00:21:26.140 of tension and it's painful and then eventually there's a release and a relaxation and something 00:21:26.140 --> 00:21:33.340 can open up. So I tend to feel more like we're in that birthing process. The soul of humanity is in 00:21:33.340 --> 00:21:42.340 of labor process, and that there's enough God-force in awakened humans to help us move ultimately 00:21:42.340 --> 00:21:46.580 to something better. I don't know what it's going to look like along the way, though, 00:21:46.580 --> 00:21:48.860 right now. It certainly isn't very pretty. 00:21:48.860 --> 00:21:51.660 Rick Yeah. So, you're thinking maybe we won't need 00:21:51.660 --> 00:21:59.220 a cesarean. The birth is going to go successfully. Well, as you say, people will be watching 00:21:59.220 --> 00:22:02.940 this for years and they'll look back and they'll know what actually happened, but you and I 00:22:02.940 --> 00:22:05.580 at this point are like, "Oh my God, what's going to happen?" 00:22:05.580 --> 00:22:12.060 I know. You know, something I just thought was interesting, I'm going to talk later about 00:22:12.060 --> 00:22:18.780 my mom and her teachings in the Nine Pathways mapping system, but I took a look at the charts 00:22:18.780 --> 00:22:20.300 of the two candidates. 00:22:20.300 --> 00:22:23.660 Interesting, okay. The numerology charts. 00:22:23.660 --> 00:22:28.540 Yes. Just a real brief look, but it was really fascinating to me just looking at Kamala's 00:22:28.540 --> 00:22:31.100 middle name. Do you know what her middle name is? 00:22:31.100 --> 00:22:36.600 No, I know her first name means "Lotus." In fact, I have a friend who has a t-shirt that says "Lotus for POTUS." 00:22:36.600 --> 00:22:39.100 Well, her middle name is "Davy." 00:22:39.100 --> 00:22:42.100 Oh, Davy. I heard that. Which means "Goddess." 00:22:42.100 --> 00:22:52.100 Just saying. There's little signs, little sparks of life coming up in different places, in different ways, and I don't know what it all means, but I can't help but notice. 00:22:52.100 --> 00:23:00.660 I also know that it doesn't help the world for us to dwell on what is beyond our control. 00:23:00.660 --> 00:23:06.780 What helps the world, how we can contribute to the creation of a more balanced world, 00:23:06.780 --> 00:23:12.460 a healthier planet and human population is to do what we came here to do, which is exactly 00:23:12.460 --> 00:23:13.460 what you're doing. 00:23:13.460 --> 00:23:18.940 You and Irene and all of your team, you're choosing to use your creative life force to 00:23:18.940 --> 00:23:20.100 contribute. 00:23:20.100 --> 00:23:26.020 I love that and I also really appreciate that you're a little farther down the road in your 00:23:26.020 --> 00:23:27.020 age. 00:23:27.020 --> 00:23:30.020 Pete: 75, just turned 75 a couple weeks ago. 00:23:30.020 --> 00:23:34.260 Kirsten: Yeah, so you didn't hit the wall of it's time to retire. 00:23:34.260 --> 00:23:35.940 Pete: Bit boring. 00:23:35.940 --> 00:23:38.820 Kirsten: Many people do. 00:23:38.820 --> 00:23:42.820 It's kind of baked in, unless for someone like yourself who's done a lot of spiritual 00:23:42.820 --> 00:23:47.700 practice, that conditioning comes up and it just turns something off. 00:23:47.700 --> 00:23:51.340 And then we stop feeling like we have what it takes to contribute. 00:23:51.340 --> 00:23:53.340 We want to keep the lie alive. 00:23:53.340 --> 00:23:58.580 I've done maybe 25 years of my life doing stuff that had no intrinsic meaning to me. 00:23:58.580 --> 00:24:00.340 It was just ways to earn money. 00:24:00.340 --> 00:24:05.820 But then at least another 30 years or so has been teaching meditation or doing spiritual 00:24:05.820 --> 00:24:10.180 stuff which was meaningful to me, or BATGAP which is meaningful, and it doesn't feel like 00:24:10.180 --> 00:24:11.580 work at all. 00:24:11.580 --> 00:24:15.020 Irene has to say, "Rick, it's Sunday. 00:24:15.020 --> 00:24:16.180 Get away from the computer. 00:24:16.180 --> 00:24:17.180 Stop working. 00:24:17.180 --> 00:24:22.180 something else. I think, "What working? This isn't working. This is like exciting. This 00:24:22.180 --> 00:24:23.180 is fun." 00:24:23.180 --> 00:24:28.780 That's just a real example or role model, right? Of like tapping into what, where the 00:24:28.780 --> 00:24:34.820 world's need and our personal joy can meet. Our personal sense of fulfillment. And that's 00:24:34.820 --> 00:24:39.860 going to be really unique for everyone. And not everyone is going to have like an external 00:24:39.860 --> 00:24:46.300 sense of big purpose, but it will be small, in small ways every day. And the way they 00:24:46.300 --> 00:24:51.640 they show up and shine, and I think that's what we most need right now, to make it through 00:24:51.640 --> 00:24:56.060 these tumultuous times, is to stay focused on where the light is, where we can bring 00:24:56.060 --> 00:24:57.460 the light and be the light. 00:24:57.460 --> 00:25:00.100 Rick Yeah, I'm reminded of Joseph Campbell saying, 00:25:00.100 --> 00:25:01.100 "Follow your bliss." 00:25:01.100 --> 00:25:05.020 I don't think he meant, "If it feels good, do it," which is what we went by in the 00:25:05.020 --> 00:25:06.020 60s. 00:25:06.020 --> 00:25:10.900 It's more like, bliss is actually different than happiness or sensory gratification. 00:25:10.900 --> 00:25:17.620 a subtler value. And I think that the more in tune with the force of evolution we are, 00:25:17.620 --> 00:25:24.620 the more bliss tends to resonate in our experience. Even if we're doing something that externally 00:25:24.620 --> 00:25:30.260 might not seem like a spiritual occupation or something, one can take the long view and 00:25:30.260 --> 00:25:36.100 be patient. Someone said, "All will be well in the end, and if all is not well, it's not 00:25:36.100 --> 00:25:37.100 the end." 00:25:37.100 --> 00:25:45.540 I was in the grocery store the other day and I saw this quintessential elderly woman who 00:25:45.540 --> 00:25:46.660 was decked out. 00:25:46.660 --> 00:25:51.220 She had her little suit on, she had her makeup, she had her hair perfectly, and she came up 00:25:51.220 --> 00:25:54.420 to me and she said, "Excuse me, excuse me." 00:25:54.420 --> 00:25:55.420 She was very direct. 00:25:55.420 --> 00:25:56.420 She said, "How old are you?" 00:25:56.420 --> 00:25:58.340 I said, "I'm 66." 00:25:58.340 --> 00:26:02.480 And she said, "Well, I really like your coat and I love your braid. 00:26:02.480 --> 00:26:05.480 Don't ever stop putting your hair in a braid." 00:26:05.480 --> 00:26:07.320 And I'm like, "Okay." 00:26:07.320 --> 00:26:12.940 And then she says, "I have made it my life purpose to show up wherever I am every day 00:26:12.940 --> 00:26:14.760 and say a good word to somebody." 00:26:14.760 --> 00:26:15.760 Rick: Oh, how nice. 00:26:15.760 --> 00:26:16.760 That's so sweet. 00:26:16.760 --> 00:26:17.760 Patti: Yeah. 00:26:17.760 --> 00:26:18.760 And that was her way. 00:26:18.760 --> 00:26:19.760 That was her bliss. 00:26:19.760 --> 00:26:20.760 Rick: That's beautiful. 00:26:20.760 --> 00:26:21.760 Yeah. 00:26:21.760 --> 00:26:24.520 Patti: And sometimes, I don't know about you, Rick, because you're in a different phase, 00:26:24.520 --> 00:26:30.120 but sometimes I know that I'm called to do something that isn't easy. 00:26:30.120 --> 00:26:35.040 So there's bliss in knowing I'm aligned with a calling and it's divine. 00:26:35.040 --> 00:26:41.080 I know that, but what I have to go through to do it isn't pleasant, it's a challenge. 00:26:41.080 --> 00:26:45.840 You remember Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane saying, "If it's possible, let this cup pass 00:26:45.840 --> 00:26:46.840 from me." 00:26:46.840 --> 00:26:49.640 And then after a while, He said, "All right, they will be done, whatever." 00:26:49.640 --> 00:26:55.760 It wasn't going to be easy, but I guess He resigned Himself to that fate being in kind 00:26:55.760 --> 00:26:57.720 of the divine order of things. 00:26:57.720 --> 00:27:01.280 Yeah, and the awakening process isn't always easy. 00:27:01.280 --> 00:27:06.560 And actually the aging process isn't always easy, especially in a world that is so programmed 00:27:06.560 --> 00:27:08.480 towards anti-aging. 00:27:08.480 --> 00:27:13.060 There's trailblazers out there who are giving us a new vision of possibility for what that 00:27:13.060 --> 00:27:15.960 can look like, and I want to be a part of that. 00:27:15.960 --> 00:27:20.980 Well, this would be a good segue to talking about the Women's Right Documentary Project 00:27:20.980 --> 00:27:22.820 that you're working on. 00:27:22.820 --> 00:27:28.740 Let's talk about the evolutionary value of, let's say, the last quarter of one's life. 00:27:28.740 --> 00:27:32.740 people might think, "Well, it's all over. I'm not going to have the kind of fun I used to have," 00:27:32.740 --> 00:27:36.500 you know, or anything. "I'm too old for that." But this could be the best time of one's life, 00:27:36.500 --> 00:27:44.420 couldn't it? - Oh, absolutely. You know, I think of like a rose that its petals are just glorious 00:27:44.420 --> 00:27:51.140 in its midlife, and then all the juice and the medicine goes into the hip, into the rose hip. 00:27:51.140 --> 00:27:56.580 And so, it's actually our most potent time because we've had all of these life experiences, 00:27:56.580 --> 00:28:03.860 and we process through so much and we have, if we have been processing through things, we do have 00:28:03.860 --> 00:28:12.500 some wisdom and the capacity to be a steady state of resilience and presence for those who are more 00:28:12.500 --> 00:28:18.980 in the turbulence of their younger years and their awakening process. You know, my perspective is it's 00:28:18.980 --> 00:28:26.180 actually our time of ultimate power and our culture doesn't teach that, but there are cultures who do. 00:28:26.180 --> 00:28:33.040 do and have and what might it look like if every child from the time they were born were given 00:28:33.040 --> 00:28:37.980 this impression through the media, through images, through stories, that the elder phase 00:28:37.980 --> 00:28:44.220 of their life is going to be a time of incredible well-being and vitality and opportunities 00:28:44.220 --> 00:28:46.020 because they will have more time. 00:28:46.020 --> 00:28:50.620 Hopefully, they'll have more time and more resources, they'll have more space because 00:28:50.620 --> 00:28:56.500 they've done a lifetime, to be able to become mentors, conscious mentors, to show up in 00:28:56.500 --> 00:28:57.500 new ways. 00:28:57.500 --> 00:29:03.180 You know, I think of my mom again as an example of someone who even up to when she could no 00:29:03.180 --> 00:29:08.820 longer be, like she worked until she was 78 in the marketplace as a physical therapist 00:29:08.820 --> 00:29:15.420 and she continued her spiritual practice of awakening and she became rather luminous. 00:29:15.420 --> 00:29:22.140 And when she wasn't able to physically contribute in that way, she started collecting adult 00:29:22.140 --> 00:29:24.140 godchildren. 00:29:24.140 --> 00:29:30.540 Anyone that she felt was missing, she called it the mother to the motherless, missing that 00:29:30.540 --> 00:29:34.340 really focused support and spiritual support. 00:29:34.340 --> 00:29:39.180 And even though she couldn't physically help them, she could talk with them and pray with 00:29:39.180 --> 00:29:43.220 them and that was her form of being able to contribute. 00:29:43.220 --> 00:29:49.300 she did that for people just talking on the phone all the way till her last week of her life. 00:29:49.300 --> 00:29:51.620 Rick That's great. I'm thinking it's more 00:29:51.620 --> 00:29:56.500 blessed to give than to receive, but perhaps more blessed because it's actually more enjoyable if 00:29:56.500 --> 00:30:01.460 you can do something like what your mother was doing. Being on the giving end of a situation 00:30:01.460 --> 00:30:08.420 like that is very gratifying and evolutionary. You become a conduit for the force of evolution 00:30:08.420 --> 00:30:13.380 actually when you step into a role that is conducive to people's evolution. 00:30:13.380 --> 00:30:19.620 Yeah, absolutely. And also skills. She had some skills and they became very fine-tuned. 00:30:19.620 --> 00:30:27.380 We all have that. We all have that ability. But not everyone becomes wise. Some people just get old. 00:30:27.380 --> 00:30:31.860 Yeah, it kind of depends on how you live your life, what you do during it. 00:30:31.860 --> 00:30:36.340 Yeah, so I can tell you a little bit more about how the project came to be. 00:30:37.380 --> 00:30:43.540 this lifetime has been informed by a series of visionary experiences and dreams and 00:30:43.540 --> 00:30:46.260 This one came out of a vision 00:30:46.260 --> 00:30:48.580 But that vision started 00:30:48.580 --> 00:30:53.720 Around the time I turned 65 when I started getting all of these social security and the propaganda 00:30:53.720 --> 00:30:58.980 All these messages coming in. Okay, you're old now and I was so surprised 00:30:58.980 --> 00:31:03.140 I really didn't think I had those beliefs until I hit that age 00:31:03.540 --> 00:31:10.660 Until I started having to make those changes because I suddenly felt like my motivation dropped off and I just 00:31:10.660 --> 00:31:16.020 Started thinking like oh don't buy anything new. You need to start giving away your things 00:31:16.020 --> 00:31:22.340 This is like a subconscious like thing going on in my mind and it was pulling me away from 00:31:22.340 --> 00:31:24.980 life actually 00:31:24.980 --> 00:31:26.020 and 00:31:26.020 --> 00:31:28.420 I remembered that when my mom 00:31:29.060 --> 00:31:34.740 was in her 70s and she told me once she was so afraid that people would find out how old 00:31:34.740 --> 00:31:36.340 she was because she was still working. 00:31:36.340 --> 00:31:38.460 Ricky: And they might make her stop working? 00:31:38.460 --> 00:31:39.460 Is that what she was afraid of? 00:31:39.460 --> 00:31:43.060 Kirsten: Yeah, she was terrified that anybody would find out her age because she was ashamed 00:31:43.060 --> 00:31:44.060 of it. 00:31:44.060 --> 00:31:48.100 She felt like it was a bad thing and that if they found out that maybe she would lose 00:31:48.100 --> 00:31:54.260 her job or she would lose respect because that is one of the cultural messages, unfortunately, 00:31:54.260 --> 00:31:57.560 that you become more invisible and not as valuable. 00:31:57.560 --> 00:32:02.240 for a female even more, like you have no more beauty on top of it. 00:32:02.240 --> 00:32:07.880 So she told me, and for some reason I had the presence of mind to say, "Mom, that doesn't 00:32:07.880 --> 00:32:12.960 sound right, and would you like to have a ceremony, a rite of passage?" 00:32:12.960 --> 00:32:17.800 And I only knew about this because I'd heard someone tell me a story about having a celebrated 00:32:17.800 --> 00:32:21.520 rite of passage when she began her elder cycle. 00:32:21.520 --> 00:32:26.520 So my mom came up to Oregon, I gathered a bunch of friends, she didn't know any of them, and 00:32:26.520 --> 00:32:31.400 she told her story and she got the feedback and everybody gave her little gifts and we 00:32:31.400 --> 00:32:35.960 created what was called a grandmother bundle with all of these little objects to represent 00:32:35.960 --> 00:32:43.000 how we see her, how we want her to see herself. And I swear to God, it was like a 24-hour change. 00:32:43.000 --> 00:32:47.320 She went from being like, "Oh, I don't want anybody to know," and being ashamed, 00:32:47.320 --> 00:32:51.960 to being very proud of it. And she like, you know, put a staff in the ground, "I'm an elder now." 00:32:52.920 --> 00:33:00.440 and she presided. And I watched that and I saw that and I wasn't thinking of that for myself, 00:33:00.440 --> 00:33:06.120 but I'm having those negative thoughts about myself. And I went to Hawaii for my birthday. 00:33:06.120 --> 00:33:12.600 I was very blessed to have that experience. I was meditating at a peace garden and I had this 00:33:12.600 --> 00:33:19.080 luminous visionary experience. And this is hard to describe going back to words and all of that, 00:33:19.080 --> 00:33:25.640 the concessions of language, but there was a gathering of luminous beings around me that 00:33:25.640 --> 00:33:34.200 somehow I knew they were called the pearls. And they were basically inviting me into a rite of 00:33:34.200 --> 00:33:41.720 passage to say yes to take on a rite of passage that would be documented for others to see as an 00:33:41.720 --> 00:33:47.160 example of how we can make it through that negativity into a new possibility through 00:33:47.160 --> 00:33:51.480 connecting with the deeper truth of who we are, which of course is the soul stream or the leg. 00:33:51.480 --> 00:34:00.520 I wasn't so sure I was up for that, but I felt the call and when I came out of the meditation 00:34:00.520 --> 00:34:05.960 and I wandered out through the gift store, I saw a pearl. There was a pearl necklace and I just 00:34:05.960 --> 00:34:10.200 looked at the pearl and I knew if I took it home, it would mean I was saying yes. And I'm wearing 00:34:10.200 --> 00:34:18.360 it today. This is my pearl. I said yes to having that, to be the stand-in, to step in, to represent 00:34:18.360 --> 00:34:26.280 all women, all humans, because this is not a gender issue. The transition into empowerment at aging 00:34:26.280 --> 00:34:33.880 and have that documented in a film. And it started as an idea that just came through in spirit, 00:34:33.880 --> 00:34:38.520 and I just started talking to a few people about it, and suddenly it started gaining 00:34:39.160 --> 00:34:45.800 momentum and people started coming in and a year later there was a film crew and a whole 00:34:45.800 --> 00:34:52.600 project has manifested out of that and we're just entering the post-production phase. I have found 00:34:52.600 --> 00:34:57.480 it really fascinating in this lifetime because I can see how many times this has happened over my 00:34:57.480 --> 00:35:04.120 life where when I'm listening and trusting and acting on that inner guidance and knowing something 00:35:04.760 --> 00:35:11.400 happens in the outer world. So if you could summarize in a few sentences what the main 00:35:11.400 --> 00:35:20.920 purpose of this film is. The main purpose is to bring awareness to this topic and to contribute 00:35:20.920 --> 00:35:27.080 to the cultural narrative and to present another possibility of what it could look like and also 00:35:27.080 --> 00:35:34.520 what we need in order to make that transition in a positive way. And the thematic backdrop 00:35:34.520 --> 00:35:40.360 is actually a rite of passage ceremony, which includes some of the pieces that we all have 00:35:40.360 --> 00:35:48.200 to face, kind of being symbolically enacted. We've all heard that more traditional Indigenous 00:35:48.200 --> 00:35:54.920 societies value older people. They don't just lock them away in homes where you can't see them, 00:35:54.920 --> 00:36:02.360 they become the spiritual guides for the community. I see your film as being a contribution to 00:36:02.360 --> 00:36:08.920 restoring that value. We were talking earlier about how society might go through a big tumultuous 00:36:08.920 --> 00:36:14.680 transition but might end up in a much better place after that. I think this will be one of 00:36:14.680 --> 00:36:21.480 the characteristics of that much better place. Kind of the re-establishment of the value of 00:36:21.480 --> 00:36:27.880 older people and the critical role really that they have to play. You don't just put them out 00:36:27.880 --> 00:36:33.080 the pasture and out of sight, out of mind. They really have a critical role to play, which if 00:36:33.080 --> 00:36:36.440 they don't play, society is impoverished as a result. 00:36:36.440 --> 00:36:44.440 - Absolutely. And these rites of passage are a way to stop, to pause, and to acknowledge 00:36:44.440 --> 00:36:51.880 and to be conscious about stepping into that role or into that phase in a way that feels 00:36:51.880 --> 00:36:56.440 empowered and having other people reflect that back and to confirm it. 00:36:56.440 --> 00:37:01.760 It's cool that you do a ceremony for it too, because you know, we have baptisms, we have 00:37:01.760 --> 00:37:09.000 graduations, we have weddings, we have ceremonies at various stages of our lives, but who does 00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:12.400 ceremonies for, you know, becoming an older person? 00:37:12.400 --> 00:37:15.520 I guess they give you a gold watch if you've been working at the company long enough, but 00:37:15.520 --> 00:37:21.400 for the most part, there's no traditional society-wide ceremony when you turn a certain 00:37:21.400 --> 00:37:24.440 age, 65 or whatever. 00:37:24.440 --> 00:37:28.840 this is a good time for me to just kind of give you a little snapshot of what that was like. 00:37:28.840 --> 00:37:35.320 There was an elder who's farther down the road from me who was going to be the one to initiate 00:37:35.320 --> 00:37:41.800 me into elderhood. There was a community of men, women, boys, and girls that gathered. 00:37:41.800 --> 00:37:48.200 The ceremony started, everyone had kind of passed through an arbor and added their touch to it. So 00:37:48.200 --> 00:37:53.560 they put flowers on the arbor and then they found their seats. And then the elder walked beside me 00:37:53.560 --> 00:37:55.560 to take my place and 00:37:55.560 --> 00:38:03.160 I found that really beautiful to not be alone on that walk like there was someone to show me what it could look like 00:38:03.160 --> 00:38:05.720 moving farther down the road 00:38:05.720 --> 00:38:09.720 There were a few other phases to this ceremony. So I found my spot 00:38:09.720 --> 00:38:16.600 The first part of the ceremony was I held him. I called it looking in the mirror. And so a little boy 00:38:16.600 --> 00:38:20.600 Held a mirror. He kind of held it. It was a mirror that belonged to my mom 00:38:21.160 --> 00:38:26.200 and he kind of held it right here at his chest. It's just how it worked out. He kneeled down in 00:38:26.200 --> 00:38:31.400 front of me and he held this mirror to me and my intention was to look in the mirror and look at 00:38:31.400 --> 00:38:37.800 all the wrinkles and look at all the things and call out what's challenging about this part of 00:38:37.800 --> 00:38:42.760 the journey and what I anticipate are the challenges about this part of the journey. 00:38:42.760 --> 00:38:48.840 But actually what happened instead, Rick, is that right at that moment that he put the mirror there, 00:38:49.400 --> 00:38:55.560 the sun came up over the trees and a big burst of light went onto the mirror and it reflected back 00:38:55.560 --> 00:39:03.880 into my face. And it was just like, "Okay, that's the deeper truth." All of those limiting ideas are 00:39:03.880 --> 00:39:09.240 something that I've been taught or I've seen role models and they're not really the truth. 00:39:09.240 --> 00:39:15.720 And so, I put that mirror down and that was one phase of the ceremony. And the next phase was 00:39:16.280 --> 00:39:21.880 recognizing that the journey through a lifetime we pass through different seasons and phases. 00:39:21.880 --> 00:39:27.560 But in a sense, we never really lose connection with all of those different facets. So, for example, 00:39:27.560 --> 00:39:33.240 there was a girl who came up to represent the innocence and the enthusiasm of the child 00:39:33.240 --> 00:39:38.360 archetype, and she blew bubbles and all the children blew bubbles and there's bubbles everywhere. 00:39:38.360 --> 00:39:44.920 You know, we felt that. And then we hugged. And that was like to represent the merging and the 00:39:44.920 --> 00:39:50.120 reintegration of that. You know how they say you go back to where you started at the end of your life 00:39:50.120 --> 00:39:56.520 if you're lucky. You know to reclaim that joyful present aliveness of just being here and now and 00:39:56.520 --> 00:40:01.800 excited about what creative opportunity there might be. And so there was an integration of the 00:40:01.800 --> 00:40:07.160 child. The next was a mother with two children that came up and she was to represent the season 00:40:07.160 --> 00:40:12.200 of our life that's and this is non-gendered really where it's all about the selfless service. 00:40:12.920 --> 00:40:14.920 And then we had an integration of that. 00:40:14.920 --> 00:40:20.600 These are not the phases I'm in anymore, but they're still in me and they're in all of us as archetypes. 00:40:20.600 --> 00:40:25.320 And then the midlife person. This was a CEO, a woman who's a CEO of her company 00:40:25.320 --> 00:40:28.460 and she's in that phase of her life where she has to persevere. 00:40:28.460 --> 00:40:33.900 Persevere, keep going, keep at it. It's a time of strength and perseverance. 00:40:33.900 --> 00:40:39.000 I remember that woman that I used to be where it was so motivated by 00:40:39.400 --> 00:40:46.600 the marketplace and work in the world and you know, we hugged and integrated and then the last one was the elder and so 00:40:46.600 --> 00:40:52.300 Just the acting out this opportunity. We have to become whole and complete 00:40:52.300 --> 00:40:55.880 As we age into that sage function 00:40:55.880 --> 00:41:01.160 Because when I really go deep into what's true about what it means to be an elder for me 00:41:01.160 --> 00:41:05.720 I don't really identify with it. Like I don't say I am an elder really 00:41:06.280 --> 00:41:10.600 if I do, those words don't really ring true. It's more like, 00:41:10.600 --> 00:41:18.840 eldering is a function, it's a way of being that I can go in and out of when it's called for, 00:41:18.840 --> 00:41:24.360 but I choose to be available to be called for that and to respond to the call when life presents an 00:41:24.360 --> 00:41:28.840 opportunity or I create an opportunity. Pete Did you choreograph that whole ceremony? 00:41:28.840 --> 00:41:32.520 Kirsten It was created by a council of women who I 00:41:32.520 --> 00:41:37.560 formed when I first received this inspiration because I knew I couldn't create it on my own. 00:41:37.560 --> 00:41:43.800 And in fact, that's one of the wisdom pearls that I have gathered in this lifetime. It's just no fun 00:41:43.800 --> 00:41:52.040 to do anything on one's own, really. Collaboration, at least for how I'm organized, is what brings the 00:41:52.040 --> 00:41:59.160 juice and the joy. So I just want to be a part of that process. And I was willing to be the one who 00:41:59.160 --> 00:42:05.640 stands in to represent that woman or that human. Yeah, it's more of a metaphor than a thing. So, 00:42:05.640 --> 00:42:10.760 I helped to collaborate on that, but there were others who designed the ceremony. 00:42:10.760 --> 00:42:16.840 - Nice. Okay, let's turn on the Wayback Machine and talk about your childhood, 00:42:16.840 --> 00:42:22.600 your adolescence, your early life, and, you know, some of the things you've gone through. I get the 00:42:22.600 --> 00:42:26.760 impression that you're one of these people who had some pretty interesting stuff going on, even from 00:42:26.760 --> 00:42:29.000 an early age. - Well, you know, 00:42:29.000 --> 00:42:34.360 because I have the perspective of the soul map, which I'll talk about later, I see every human 00:42:34.360 --> 00:42:40.440 being as being so unique in what they come in with and what they're here for. And I feel like I came 00:42:40.440 --> 00:42:45.400 in with a lot of development already in some areas. And I think I just woke up really early. 00:42:45.400 --> 00:42:52.920 So I just want to describe briefly that I had many ecstatic mystical experiences as a very young 00:42:52.920 --> 00:42:59.480 child, I would never have been able to talk about that or describe that to you, but I just remember 00:42:59.480 --> 00:43:05.480 laying on the cement in the summertime with water on the cement and the warmth of the sun and the 00:43:05.480 --> 00:43:12.440 water and the body and this sense of just being part of everyone and everything. So undifferentiated 00:43:12.440 --> 00:43:18.840 well-being and many experiences like that, being underneath a tree and just smelling the sap 00:43:18.840 --> 00:43:28.120 and the senses seem to be gateways to this explosion of love and presence. And that went on 00:43:28.120 --> 00:43:37.240 until I was around 10 and then I had a like a massive contraction and my dad had a major heart 00:43:37.240 --> 00:43:43.720 attack and you know we thought he was going to die. Fortunately he didn't die but he also was 00:43:43.720 --> 00:43:52.760 never well again, but my sense of being safe or secure, that freedom to feel safe enough to just 00:43:52.760 --> 00:43:58.760 blend with everyone and everything really shut down for me. But something else opened up, and 00:43:58.760 --> 00:44:05.800 this became my search for the divine, for God. I do remember so vividly in all the Bible school 00:44:05.800 --> 00:44:11.320 classes and everything, the only thing that made sense to me was this idea that God is love. Like, 00:44:11.320 --> 00:44:18.520 that seems so true and so logical, but I didn't feel it in the church. I didn't feel it really 00:44:18.520 --> 00:44:25.080 very much from any of the people. I just didn't, there was no aliveness. So I asked my parents if 00:44:25.080 --> 00:44:31.880 they would take me to other people's churches. So at age 12, I began my search as a seeker. 00:44:31.880 --> 00:44:39.400 And, you know, they took me to Glide Memorial Church. That's a big church in San Francisco, 00:44:39.400 --> 00:44:45.080 a Buddhist monastery. Somehow I got into a Mormon situation, I'm not sure how. 00:44:45.080 --> 00:44:46.680 Pete They showed up at your door. 00:44:46.680 --> 00:44:50.280 Kristin The one that really, really made a difference, 00:44:50.280 --> 00:44:57.480 changed my life. My mom took me to an Hindu guru in Berkeley, California, and I was 12 years old, 00:44:57.480 --> 00:45:02.920 and we took the bus. They were chanting, they were singing and chanting and the music, I'm like, 00:45:02.920 --> 00:45:08.760 "Wow, this is so cool!" You know, I love that part. And then they took me to see the master. 00:45:08.760 --> 00:45:14.920 And he didn't speak English, but someone was translating, and he had a peacock feather, 00:45:14.920 --> 00:45:21.480 and he just hit my forehead with a peacock feather. They gave me a mantra, and the instruction was to 00:45:21.480 --> 00:45:28.920 go home and at night to put your attention right here and to say the mantra. And so I did. But 00:45:28.920 --> 00:45:34.360 But before we left, we had to wait for the bus and I was so filled with energy, I couldn't 00:45:34.360 --> 00:45:35.360 stand still. 00:45:35.360 --> 00:45:39.560 I was like running back and forth while my mom was waiting for the bus, just filled with 00:45:39.560 --> 00:45:40.560 life. 00:45:40.560 --> 00:45:43.160 And that's when I knew there was something going on. 00:45:43.160 --> 00:45:44.740 There's something here. 00:45:44.740 --> 00:45:49.960 So I would get in my little bunk bed at night and I would concentrate here and I'd say the 00:45:49.960 --> 00:45:54.660 mantra and I'd get these like painful headaches. 00:45:54.660 --> 00:46:00.820 But for some reason, I persevered and sometimes that would pop open, and when it would pop 00:46:00.820 --> 00:46:05.940 open, that's just some way to describe this, I would just go back to that feeling of the 00:46:05.940 --> 00:46:11.540 waves of well-being and beyond the words to describe. 00:46:11.540 --> 00:46:14.460 And this was going on in my little bunk bed for years. 00:46:14.460 --> 00:46:17.180 Pete: That must have been Muktananda, right? 00:46:17.180 --> 00:46:18.180 Peacock feather. 00:46:18.180 --> 00:46:19.180 Yeah. 00:46:19.180 --> 00:46:21.700 Kirsten: I think it was later I researched to find out who that was. 00:46:21.700 --> 00:46:24.060 Yeah, it was Muktananda. 00:46:24.060 --> 00:46:29.060 But I never had a conversation with him again, it was just the instruction to meditate. 00:46:29.060 --> 00:46:30.060 Yeah, that's cool. 00:46:30.060 --> 00:46:32.660 I wish I had learned to meditate when I was 12. 00:46:32.660 --> 00:46:38.380 It took me 6 more years, during which time I did some damage to myself that had to be 00:46:38.380 --> 00:46:39.380 repaired. 00:46:39.380 --> 00:46:41.420 What was this about mom and Jane in the kitchen? 00:46:41.420 --> 00:46:42.420 It was in your notes. 00:46:42.420 --> 00:46:43.420 What was that one? 00:46:43.420 --> 00:46:48.580 Yeah, so throughout my whole childhood, but around 12 when I was old enough to really 00:46:48.580 --> 00:46:50.300 be paying attention. 00:46:50.300 --> 00:46:56.500 My mom was in the kitchen often with my godmother Jane, who was also quite a bit older than my 00:46:56.500 --> 00:46:59.620 mom so she was a mentor for my mom. 00:46:59.620 --> 00:47:06.820 And Jane had taught my mom a numerologically based mapping system and they would be having 00:47:06.820 --> 00:47:11.380 conversations, they were reading charts of neighbors and friends and relatives and having 00:47:11.380 --> 00:47:17.900 these conversations about the metaphysical perspective on what a life is all about. 00:47:17.900 --> 00:47:24.780 both of my parents were metaphysically oriented. They were both Rosicrucians and they were both 00:47:24.780 --> 00:47:30.860 really compassionate human beings and I just was kind of born into that field. 00:47:30.860 --> 00:47:35.660 Pete The Bhagavad Gita says what a good fortune it is to be born in a family of yogis. 00:47:35.660 --> 00:47:38.060 Kristi Yeah, well, I would say they were more like 00:47:38.060 --> 00:47:40.540 wounded healers. Pete 00:47:40.540 --> 00:47:43.500 But yeah, they were cool people to be raised by. 00:47:43.500 --> 00:47:46.540 Kristi Yes, and I didn't know any different, right? 00:47:46.540 --> 00:47:52.460 so I never even thought I'd like to learn this. It was just a conversation going on in the background 00:47:52.460 --> 00:47:59.580 of my life and later it became more of something that came to the front. So that meditation you 00:47:59.580 --> 00:48:03.500 learned when you were 12 and you got a mantra, you kept doing that throughout your adolescence? 00:48:03.500 --> 00:48:10.700 Yeah, and I also continued to have these visionary or intuitive impulses, 00:48:11.420 --> 00:48:17.600 knowings of things that just continued on and on, small things to big things, that I, for 00:48:17.600 --> 00:48:21.080 some reason, knew to listen to and trust and act on. 00:48:21.080 --> 00:48:22.320 Rick: That's great. 00:48:22.320 --> 00:48:26.440 So apparently you missed the whole drug phase that many of us went through in those days. 00:48:26.440 --> 00:48:28.440 Julie: I didn't miss it completely. 00:48:28.440 --> 00:48:36.840 I mean, I tried, but I found that I was experiencing a natural high from this ability to tap into 00:48:36.840 --> 00:48:41.360 this inner source, because it also was a source of creativity. 00:48:41.360 --> 00:48:45.600 There was just all this music that would flow out of me and poetry. 00:48:45.600 --> 00:48:52.520 It was so joyful that doing something to alter that also kind of felt like bringing me down. 00:48:52.520 --> 00:48:56.560 So I tried and I didn't spend a lot of time with it. 00:48:56.560 --> 00:48:57.560 That's good. 00:48:57.560 --> 00:49:01.760 That was kind of my conclusion once I took drugs quite a bit for a year before I learned 00:49:01.760 --> 00:49:02.760 to meditate. 00:49:02.760 --> 00:49:04.900 But after I learned to meditate, I never did them again. 00:49:04.900 --> 00:49:09.520 But my feeling was, "Hey, I feel better all the time than drugs made me feel temporarily, 00:49:09.520 --> 00:49:11.200 So why would I do that anymore? 00:49:11.200 --> 00:49:12.200 Yeah. 00:49:12.200 --> 00:49:13.200 Yeah. 00:49:13.200 --> 00:49:16.040 I mean, I see all these poor people taking fentanyl and all this stuff. 00:49:16.040 --> 00:49:18.760 You know, it's like, there's a better way. 00:49:18.760 --> 00:49:23.560 Whatever chemicals these drugs are able to trigger in your brain, your brain can produce 00:49:23.560 --> 00:49:29.240 them on its own and much more enjoyably than introducing some artificial substance. 00:49:29.240 --> 00:49:33.480 Now, that's not to say that psychedelics don't have value under certain circumstances, but 00:49:33.480 --> 00:49:38.200 still, we're capable of tremendous bliss through our own neurophysiology. 00:49:38.200 --> 00:49:39.200 Yeah, absolutely. 00:49:39.200 --> 00:49:45.840 Absolutely. And I wonder why it is that we have, many of us have a resistance to that. 00:49:45.840 --> 00:49:50.080 Even though we know that potential is there, we make other choices. 00:49:50.080 --> 00:49:54.320 I think to a great extent it might be due to lack of proper guidance. I mean, you had 00:49:54.320 --> 00:49:58.600 really good guidance as a child, given who your parents were, and their open-mindedness 00:49:58.600 --> 00:50:03.000 taking you to all these different things. The average kid doesn't get that. You know, 00:50:03.000 --> 00:50:07.720 I didn't have a clue that this kind of thing existed until I was 17, and it took me a while 00:50:07.720 --> 00:50:12.680 to find something that I could really do. So I finally started when I was 18. But, you know, 00:50:12.680 --> 00:50:19.960 ideally, there should be an introduction to this in grammar school appropriate to the age level of 00:50:19.960 --> 00:50:25.080 the children. And there are some schools which do that, but it's pretty rare. And if there's ever 00:50:25.080 --> 00:50:29.240 any attempt to introduce it into the public schools, it usually gets shut down by religious 00:50:29.240 --> 00:50:36.040 fundamentalists. - It's really, really true. Well, I do feel really blessed. My godmother, 00:50:36.040 --> 00:50:43.400 Jane also had a guru. His name was Charan Singh. I vaguely remember hearing about him. 00:50:43.400 --> 00:50:50.760 I was like 14 when I started going to these groups and I was just so drawn to anyone who was talking 00:50:50.760 --> 00:50:56.680 about spirituality that was a little different than the way that it was being portrayed to me 00:50:56.680 --> 00:51:02.840 in our family church. So I actually was initiated by that guru, which is, 00:51:03.960 --> 00:51:07.480 I never saw him. He was like somewhere on the other side of the planet 00:51:07.480 --> 00:51:10.200 And also there were all these rules 00:51:10.200 --> 00:51:14.200 All the things that you had to not do in order to be pure enough, right? 00:51:14.200 --> 00:51:18.360 And I was doing all that stuff, you know, it's like okay quit everything everything 00:51:18.360 --> 00:51:25.480 I mean some of it was just ridiculous like food restrictions like pour any honey you have in the house out 00:51:25.480 --> 00:51:29.640 You know celibacy was definitely on the you know 00:51:29.720 --> 00:51:34.280 like there were so many things to be pure and I just wanted to be pure enough to know God. 00:51:34.280 --> 00:51:34.760 Pete: Right. 00:51:34.760 --> 00:51:38.440 Kirsten: You know, even though I was knowing God, I just didn't realize that's what it was, 00:51:38.440 --> 00:51:39.880 you know, all along. 00:51:39.880 --> 00:51:40.440 Pete: Yeah. 00:51:40.440 --> 00:51:46.840 Kirsten: And so, I went through a, like a, you know, that process where you give your power 00:51:46.840 --> 00:51:53.640 away to an outer authority in order to somehow find that out there, you know, the God out there, 00:51:53.640 --> 00:51:59.240 and it didn't work for me ultimately. And I had to find the inner strength to say, 00:51:59.240 --> 00:52:03.720 and it's my godmother that this isn't my path. Yeah, and then more often than not, 00:52:03.720 --> 00:52:06.920 turns out the guru is doing all the things he's telling everybody else not to do. 00:52:06.920 --> 00:52:13.880 I'm afraid that happens pretty often. I will never know because I did have one of those 00:52:13.880 --> 00:52:17.160 visionary dreams where I was walking down the street and he was walking down the other side 00:52:17.160 --> 00:52:22.680 of the street and we just went like this. There was no contact. Interesting. A question came in 00:52:22.680 --> 00:52:28.520 from somebody. This is Paul Diaz in the United States. How does an older person work through 00:52:28.520 --> 00:52:33.640 feelings of resignation when facing the physical challenges of aging. The pull to just sit 00:52:33.640 --> 00:52:38.440 on the couch seems to be intensifying as I age, but at a deeper level, I know it's not 00:52:38.440 --> 00:52:39.840 in my ultimate best interest." 00:52:39.840 --> 00:52:47.160 That is such an important, good question. Just asking the question, I feel like questions 00:52:47.160 --> 00:52:54.480 are like keys because it opens up the cosmic URL or whatever, the Google in the sky. It 00:52:54.480 --> 00:52:58.960 It just opens up the possibility that there is to ultimately become the answer to that 00:52:58.960 --> 00:52:59.960 question. 00:52:59.960 --> 00:53:06.080 So, just asking it is like inviting an exploration of that feeling. 00:53:06.080 --> 00:53:13.840 That feeling of, "Well, I might as well just stop or give up and investigate to inquire 00:53:13.840 --> 00:53:16.800 to discover what that really is about." 00:53:16.800 --> 00:53:20.960 So I can give an example of one that came up for me recently. 00:53:20.960 --> 00:53:27.040 I used to love to dance and I would go to like group dancing like ecstatic dance things and this was years ago and I really 00:53:27.040 --> 00:53:28.400 Loved it 00:53:28.400 --> 00:53:33.440 And then kovat happened and none of that was possible. And then when I thought about going again 00:53:33.440 --> 00:53:40.880 I I just found like resistance like i've been saying I want to do this now for years. It's like why am I not doing this? 00:53:40.880 --> 00:53:43.600 I just want to sit here. I don't want to go 00:53:43.600 --> 00:53:50.080 And when I really tuned in what I discovered is that there was a a belief under there that was i'm too old 00:53:50.400 --> 00:53:55.280 I'm too old like a woman my age should not be there's a certain way that you're supposed to look 00:53:55.280 --> 00:53:57.360 There's a certain way you're supposed to behave 00:53:57.360 --> 00:54:03.440 And so I discovered there was a limiting belief that now I could question. Is that really true? 00:54:03.440 --> 00:54:07.840 And do I really have to hold that as true? So self-inquiry and 00:54:07.840 --> 00:54:13.440 Like going into the emotion and discovering what that might be. Yeah 00:54:13.440 --> 00:54:16.240 One thing I would say to paul is there's a saying 00:54:16.800 --> 00:54:23.440 Sitting is the new smoking. As I mentioned earlier, I'm 75. I'm pretty physically active and I really 00:54:23.440 --> 00:54:28.080 feel like, you know, I sit so much at the computer when I want to actually accomplish things that I 00:54:28.080 --> 00:54:33.280 can only accomplish at the computer. And personally, I just get kind of stir crazy if I sit here too 00:54:33.280 --> 00:54:38.320 long. I got to do something. So I go and walk four or five miles in the woods every morning, 00:54:38.320 --> 00:54:42.080 and I'm usually listening to stuff or talking to people on the phone, but it's great exercise. 00:54:42.080 --> 00:54:45.600 It's hilly, you know, so I get a lot of exercise. Before that, I was playing pickleball for a few 00:54:45.600 --> 00:54:52.640 years before COVID struck. So I don't know what Paul's physical condition is or his age, but my 00:54:52.640 --> 00:54:58.240 personal recommendation is get off the couch, do something. If you're bored by just walking, 00:54:58.240 --> 00:55:03.200 listen to a podcast, listen to Buddha at the Gas Pump while you're walking and find something you 00:55:03.200 --> 00:55:08.960 enjoy that doesn't have to be walking, it can be all kinds of things, and just build it up. It's 00:55:08.960 --> 00:55:13.920 so good for your health, it'll add years to your life. I think my resting heart rate is in the low 00:55:13.920 --> 00:55:18.000 50s and my blood pressure is 100 over 60 or something like that. 00:55:18.000 --> 00:55:19.840 Wow, that's amazing. 00:55:19.840 --> 00:55:25.120 And maybe some of that is genetic, I don't know. But in any case, I'm not bragging, I just want to 00:55:25.120 --> 00:55:31.040 set an example to say that the oldest man to climb to the summit of Mount Everest was 81. 00:55:31.040 --> 00:55:36.400 And I saw an article about some lady in her 90s who was doing triathlons, 00:55:36.400 --> 00:55:42.240 which are these really intense physical things. So, yeah, use it or lose it, man. 00:55:42.240 --> 00:55:44.240 [Laughter] 00:55:44.240 --> 00:55:52.240 Yeah, well I just feel so much compassion for the inertia, like that feeling of wanting to just stop. 00:55:52.240 --> 00:56:02.240 Because it does feel to me like there's also so much pressure, evolutionary pressure, that we're all feeling on some level on the planet today as it is. 00:56:02.240 --> 00:56:06.240 That it's almost like a natural coping mechanism. 00:56:06.240 --> 00:56:08.240 Is to be safe, you just stop. 00:56:08.240 --> 00:56:11.240 Right? And a freeze, it's a freeze response. 00:56:11.240 --> 00:56:19.400 And when we recognize that maybe we're picking up on that collective energy, it's possible to summon 00:56:19.400 --> 00:56:26.440 the motivation to just try moving. And, you know, it is really true that movement is life, 00:56:26.440 --> 00:56:33.400 even if it's the smallest movement, it's possible. And there's so many resources online for like 00:56:33.400 --> 00:56:38.440 online yoga and just simple things that are designed for people who don't have as much 00:56:38.440 --> 00:56:43.800 mobility. So there's lots of resources. Sure, it all depends on what your condition is. I mean, 00:56:43.800 --> 00:56:47.640 you could join a square dancing group or you could play pickleball. Pickleball is great. A lot of 00:56:47.640 --> 00:56:53.160 older people do it and it's fun. It makes you feel good. It actually creates endorphins and stuff in 00:56:53.160 --> 00:56:58.200 your system and helps with purification of the system. Anyway, we don't want to harp on that 00:56:58.200 --> 00:57:03.400 too much. But one thing I thought about though is, let's say a person just feels tired and they feel 00:57:03.400 --> 00:57:08.040 lethargic and all. You know how you said when you were 12 and you learned to meditate, all of a sudden 00:57:08.040 --> 00:57:12.280 you had so much energy you were running back and forth at the bus stop. Sometimes people find if 00:57:12.280 --> 00:57:17.320 they do an effective meditation practice that they start to get a lot more energy and they find 00:57:17.320 --> 00:57:23.400 themselves becoming more dynamic. There's a verse in the Bhagavad Gita which is "Yoga is skill in 00:57:23.400 --> 00:57:28.760 action" and the whole teaching of that book was that going into the transcendent can actually be 00:57:28.760 --> 00:57:34.680 a preparation for dynamic activity and can make you more dynamic. If you want to shoot an arrow 00:57:34.680 --> 00:57:37.960 You can't just hold it on the bow and let go of it, it's just going to flop to the ground. 00:57:37.960 --> 00:57:42.520 But if you pull it back on the bow, it'll shoot with great speed. 00:57:42.520 --> 00:57:46.240 And meditation can be like that, where you bring your mind to a state of silence, and 00:57:46.240 --> 00:57:50.880 then when you come back to activity, you just feel energized and you're more motivated to 00:57:50.880 --> 00:57:51.880 do stuff. 00:57:51.880 --> 00:57:57.840 It's a good question though, and I'm glad that it was brought to our focus just a little 00:57:57.840 --> 00:58:04.640 bit today, because that is one of the perils and pitfalls of the programming around aging. 00:58:04.640 --> 00:58:08.580 And everything just gets smaller and smaller and smaller, and it just doesn't have to be 00:58:08.580 --> 00:58:10.000 that way. 00:58:10.000 --> 00:58:11.960 And we all have to find our own way. 00:58:11.960 --> 00:58:12.960 Yeah. 00:58:12.960 --> 00:58:13.960 Okay. 00:58:13.960 --> 00:58:17.360 Another one of your notes here was initiation of motherhood. 00:58:17.360 --> 00:58:18.700 Oh, okay. 00:58:18.700 --> 00:58:19.700 Going back again. 00:58:19.700 --> 00:58:24.240 We're reeling back to the earlier life. 00:58:24.240 --> 00:58:34.600 I feel that the experience of conception and pregnancy and labor and birth and then responsibility 00:58:34.600 --> 00:58:43.240 for parenting and mothering was also a huge initiatory process for me because suddenly 00:58:43.240 --> 00:58:49.680 my life was no longer about me. It was about being of service and that started for me. 00:58:49.680 --> 00:58:55.680 I had my son when I was 18. So I started that really young of recognizing every choice I 00:58:55.680 --> 00:59:02.040 made had an effect on someone else and always had to be taken into consideration. And so 00:59:02.040 --> 00:59:09.600 So I feel like it took me immediately onto the path of service and also the recognition 00:59:09.600 --> 00:59:17.120 of the miraculous experience of having a human body and having a female body and, you know, 00:59:17.120 --> 00:59:18.880 just the miracle of it all. 00:59:18.880 --> 00:59:19.880 Yeah. 00:59:19.880 --> 00:59:25.800 Just as you're doing a whole thing about the evolutionary value of the older phase of one's 00:59:25.800 --> 00:59:31.040 life, whatever you want to call it, I imagine one could make a documentary and perhaps some 00:59:31.040 --> 00:59:35.760 have been made about the evolutionary value of the motherhood phase. 00:59:35.760 --> 00:59:40.680 There's a lady I interviewed a couple times in New Zealand named Lucy Grace, and she had 00:59:40.680 --> 00:59:45.960 this young child, and the child was, you know, she was used to this nice meditative routine, 00:59:45.960 --> 00:59:49.920 you know, and all of a sudden she has this kid that won't let her sleep or do anything, 00:59:49.920 --> 00:59:51.420 and she's like, "Oh my God!" 00:59:51.420 --> 00:59:56.040 But she very clearly got the message, "This is your spiritual practice now. 00:59:56.040 --> 00:59:57.040 Get into it. 00:59:57.040 --> 00:59:58.040 Take advantage of it." 00:59:58.040 --> 00:59:59.320 Yes 00:59:59.320 --> 01:00:06.120 I remember lucy and her daughter and just absolutely like if we keep rolling it back to earlier 01:00:06.120 --> 01:00:11.260 For a girl her first really big initiatory experience is with her first menstruation 01:00:11.260 --> 01:00:15.480 and that has been for some reason felt called to 01:00:15.480 --> 01:00:21.880 Acknowledge these rites of passage for women at these different ages and phases and in fact for 01:00:22.600 --> 01:00:29.400 more than 15 years of my life, I was dedicated to and created a program called Maiden Spirit 01:00:29.400 --> 01:00:36.280 that was all about helping girls to experience the conscious and celebrated rite of passage 01:00:36.280 --> 01:00:44.440 at their first noon experience, but also to prepare them for becoming conscious young women in a way 01:00:44.440 --> 01:00:49.800 that gave them access to their wisdom source within. So it was a spirituality and rites of 01:00:49.800 --> 01:00:58.040 passage program for girls. And that started because I was working with women and they had daughters, 01:00:58.040 --> 01:01:02.120 and they kept asking me, "Would you do something like this for our girls?" 01:01:02.120 --> 01:01:07.560 And at that time, I'm like, "Well, I'm not qualified for that. I don't have that experience. 01:01:07.560 --> 01:01:13.480 I have a son, not a daughter. Thank you for trusting me with that, but I'm not going to do 01:01:13.480 --> 01:01:20.600 that and then I had another one of those visionary experiences again in Hawaii and this time I was 01:01:20.600 --> 01:01:29.720 camping at a ancient village site in Maui and I had another really profound experience of being a child, 01:01:29.720 --> 01:01:36.680 being a little girl and being chased into a cave and it was really scary and somehow I found my way 01:01:36.680 --> 01:01:42.680 out of the cave and I was hiding underneath a banyan tree and that person left and then I started 01:01:42.680 --> 01:01:49.880 to hear the sound of like tinkling bells, thousands and thousands of bells. And out of that same cave 01:01:49.880 --> 01:01:56.200 came a light, a beautiful light. And then out of the light emerged this tall woman. And she's just 01:01:56.200 --> 01:02:00.920 kind of beckoned to me and I followed her into the cave and she took me down into the cave into 01:02:00.920 --> 01:02:07.480 a cavern and it was really beautiful. And I felt really safe. And she said, "This isn't the way it 01:02:07.480 --> 01:02:13.320 should be. And somehow I knew when she said that, not feeling safe, not feeling safe as a girl, 01:02:13.320 --> 01:02:20.040 and not feeling good about myself as a girl. And then I don't remember what happened. It was like 01:02:20.040 --> 01:02:25.480 something went dark. I don't remember it, but I knew when I came out of it, when I woke up or my 01:02:25.480 --> 01:02:34.920 eyes opened up, I felt so empowered and so happy, so glad to be myself, so alive. And then she said 01:02:34.920 --> 01:02:42.440 to me, "Now, I want you to go out and bring the other girls back to me." And that was my instruction 01:02:42.440 --> 01:02:48.520 to create that program, to create a place where I could bring the girls to have that experience, 01:02:48.520 --> 01:02:54.440 to support them in having that experience. And that became the visionary inspiration and 01:02:54.440 --> 01:02:59.480 instruction that turned into Maiden Spirit. That's cool. You have some pretty amazing 01:02:59.480 --> 01:03:05.960 visions. That was all just like in a meditative session? Amazing, wow. What do you think when 01:03:05.960 --> 01:03:11.720 you hear the statistics these days about all the kids, especially young girls, committing suicide 01:03:11.720 --> 01:03:17.560 and they're all addicted to social media and they're so concerned about what people are saying 01:03:17.560 --> 01:03:24.040 about them on social media? There's an information overwhelm now that kids have that we didn't have 01:03:24.040 --> 01:03:30.680 when we were that age, and it's taking a toll. What would be your advice to young girls or to 01:03:30.680 --> 01:03:35.960 their parents or whatever about that particular thing? It's very concerning, you know, the dark 01:03:35.960 --> 01:03:42.920 side of technology. In fact, I was just talking to a young school counselor and she was telling me 01:03:42.920 --> 01:03:50.200 that her girls that are like age 12 or so, they all do TikToks and they do like their morning routines 01:03:50.200 --> 01:03:56.680 And their morning routines involve 15 different products and they're asking their mothers for retinol and 01:03:56.680 --> 01:04:00.200 other anti-aging products at the age of 12 01:04:00.200 --> 01:04:06.200 And I'm like, wow, what is that all about? And she said well now because we're on you know, the social media is everything 01:04:06.200 --> 01:04:07.800 It's all about your face 01:04:07.800 --> 01:04:14.200 So there's like this incredible need to look a certain way and it is very concerning 01:04:14.200 --> 01:04:16.840 I think it's really up to the parents 01:04:17.160 --> 01:04:21.500 To recognize that they need to have limits but also to find alternative 01:04:21.500 --> 01:04:24.420 opportunities for their children 01:04:24.420 --> 01:04:29.580 To be in environments where they're having an alternative type of experience in education 01:04:29.580 --> 01:04:34.840 And there are programs like that. I know maiden spirit was specifically designed for that 01:04:34.840 --> 01:04:38.200 And when I started that work, there was hardly anything 01:04:38.200 --> 01:04:44.040 For girls like that and now there's many many programs i'm not in touch with what they are at this moment 01:04:44.120 --> 01:04:48.280 but there are resources and I think it has to be really intentional. 01:04:48.280 --> 01:04:55.320 Yeah, maybe this would be hard for a 12-year-old or a 13-year-old, but eventually, if you're 01:04:55.320 --> 01:04:59.080 fortunate, you come to the realization that you are so much more than your body. 01:04:59.080 --> 01:05:04.680 I don't mean to keep talking about myself, but I'm sometimes so oblivious to my body that, 01:05:04.680 --> 01:05:07.640 you know, Irene says, "Have you combed your hair this week?" or, you know, 01:05:07.640 --> 01:05:12.840 "Do you realize how ridiculous that outfit looks that you're wearing?" I think, "Oh, okay, I don't 01:05:12.840 --> 01:05:20.480 And I think when I was younger, I also was kind of a basket case, but I was very hyper concerned 01:05:20.480 --> 01:05:25.120 You know aware of it and how how nerdy I was or whether my hair looked good 01:05:25.120 --> 01:05:28.880 Or you know whether I had zits on my face or stuff like that. I 01:05:28.880 --> 01:05:31.080 Hopefully you grow out of that stuff 01:05:31.080 --> 01:05:33.620 I know that there have been cases of you know 01:05:33.620 --> 01:05:39.020 Beautiful movie stars who just fall into a deep deep depression when they start to lose their beauty 01:05:39.160 --> 01:05:45.920 So, I think the normal spiritual development process, I think, should enable a person to 01:05:45.920 --> 01:05:51.760 realize the truth of the matter, which is that we are way more than our physical body. 01:05:51.760 --> 01:05:55.600 The spiritual teachings all say that, you are so much more than your body, but it doesn't 01:05:55.600 --> 01:06:00.880 just have spiritual significance, it has kind of practical significance for the way one 01:06:00.880 --> 01:06:04.480 feels throughout life, our social interactions and stuff like that. 01:06:04.480 --> 01:06:10.880 Yeah, I mean the perennial questions like who am I, that deep question, that for me opened 01:06:10.880 --> 01:06:12.680 up when I was 12. 01:06:12.680 --> 01:06:17.700 It began and because of that I began to access resources, right, that pointed back to that 01:06:17.700 --> 01:06:24.280 deeper truth that we are so much more than we appear to be and the body is an incredible 01:06:24.280 --> 01:06:28.960 blessed vessel, an instrument, but it's not who we are. 01:06:28.960 --> 01:06:31.200 But the world keeps telling you that it is. 01:06:31.200 --> 01:06:38.360 And so, it takes a tremendous amount of mental and spiritual strength to counteract those 01:06:38.360 --> 01:06:39.360 forces. 01:06:39.360 --> 01:06:42.120 Pete Yeah, the body is a vehicle, like your car. 01:06:42.120 --> 01:06:45.960 It's nice to have a car that works well, but you are not your car. 01:06:45.960 --> 01:06:47.440 Kirsten Yeah, absolutely. 01:06:47.440 --> 01:06:52.760 So, somehow, so interesting, like we're going back and forth, like there's no linear flow, 01:06:52.760 --> 01:06:57.360 but I can see there's like this thread that runs through from the beginning of my life 01:06:57.360 --> 01:07:02.840 until now. And it's taken different forms of expression, but it always has that common 01:07:02.840 --> 01:07:09.280 thread of remember the deeper truth of who you are and what this life really is. And 01:07:09.280 --> 01:07:15.440 when we forget to reach out to someone who's established in that knowing to reconnect and 01:07:15.440 --> 01:07:17.400 re-stabilize again. 01:07:17.400 --> 01:07:22.880 I think another thing about all this is the whole fear of death thing. I mean, speaking 01:07:22.880 --> 01:07:28.320 of aging as we get old. I don't know how it is for most older people. Maybe you would 01:07:28.320 --> 01:07:31.940 know because you've been studying this and making a movie about it, but does fear of 01:07:31.940 --> 01:07:38.120 death become more acute as most people get older? Obviously, it would seem that a spiritual 01:07:38.120 --> 01:07:40.280 orientation would help to ameliorate that. 01:07:40.280 --> 01:07:42.920 Katie Well, that has been, I haven't done a lot 01:07:42.920 --> 01:07:48.720 of research, but that has been my experience so far. That yeah, those who have a direct 01:07:48.720 --> 01:07:55.520 connection have developed the resources and the skills and the capacities to be able to trust the 01:07:55.520 --> 01:08:01.680 unknown, to be able to step into the unknown. And because we don't know what that's going to be, 01:08:01.680 --> 01:08:07.040 how that will be, cultivating that sense of trusting one's ability, like you said, to free 01:08:07.040 --> 01:08:13.760 fall, but there's no ground. It becomes much more of like an anticipatory, I can't wait, almost like 01:08:14.640 --> 01:08:16.640 I'm looking forward to that. 01:08:16.640 --> 01:08:18.880 This is tough being here in the body 01:08:18.880 --> 01:08:21.160 and there are inevitable, 01:08:21.160 --> 01:08:23.000 there's just different kinds of challenges 01:08:23.000 --> 01:08:24.680 at each of these ages and stages, 01:08:24.680 --> 01:08:27.240 these different rites of passage in human development. 01:08:27.240 --> 01:08:29.280 There's just different challenges, 01:08:29.280 --> 01:08:34.240 but the same skills and capacities that we can develop 01:08:34.240 --> 01:08:36.680 will help us to meet those challenges. 01:08:36.680 --> 01:08:41.280 Meditation, just stilling, getting quiet and tapping in. 01:08:41.280 --> 01:08:43.200 You know, that was something I felt was so important 01:08:43.200 --> 01:08:48.400 teach those children and the curriculum was the first thing we talked about, you know, the real 01:08:48.400 --> 01:08:54.080 you. And I would take them on a guided journey to meet their inner wisdom source. That's where I 01:08:54.080 --> 01:08:59.920 learned that the wise man, the wise woman, the wise one is an archetype because those children 01:08:59.920 --> 01:09:05.440 actually know. They already know. So many of them, what now we might call the elder, 01:09:05.440 --> 01:09:12.080 the wise elder, they already have it inside and they can connect to it and they can get their own 01:09:12.080 --> 01:09:18.080 information and knowledge and be guided by that inner resource. And it doesn't, you know, that 01:09:18.080 --> 01:09:23.200 doesn't end. Pete Yeah, that's important too. I mean, on the death thing, there's that saying, 01:09:23.200 --> 01:09:29.920 "Die before you die," which I think means get to that level of life that is beyond the manifest, 01:09:29.920 --> 01:09:34.320 which is eternal and immortal and so on. And most of the people I know who've had near-death 01:09:34.320 --> 01:09:39.920 experiences, I've interviewed a lot of them, and they're like, completely obliterates the fear of 01:09:39.920 --> 01:09:44.400 of death because they've had a glimpse of something that's so marvelous. 01:09:44.400 --> 01:09:47.880 Not that they're in a hurry to die, but when it happens, no big deal. 01:09:47.880 --> 01:09:53.520 But this thing you just said about the young people finding this inner guidance, this relates 01:09:53.520 --> 01:09:57.840 to what we were just saying about social media, how people are so influenced by, they call 01:09:57.840 --> 01:10:01.020 them social influencers, you know, "I'm an influencer." 01:10:01.020 --> 01:10:06.040 But what kind of influence are a lot of these people exerting on young people? 01:10:06.040 --> 01:10:13.600 I think the ability to have greater self-determination and autonomy and less, not only young people, 01:10:13.600 --> 01:10:20.780 but it seems like a huge swath of our society these days is easily brainwashable, and being 01:10:20.780 --> 01:10:27.920 able to be more centered in oneself and less permeable, less influenced by external stimuli 01:10:27.920 --> 01:10:30.920 is a critical need in our day and age. 01:10:30.920 --> 01:10:33.160 and agree more. 01:10:33.160 --> 01:10:35.400 You know, I talked a little bit about 01:10:35.400 --> 01:10:37.080 the nine pathways of the soul. 01:10:37.080 --> 01:10:40.320 Those are realms of human development 01:10:40.320 --> 01:10:43.520 and this is one of the realms of human development 01:10:43.520 --> 01:10:46.920 is being able to withdraw from outer focus 01:10:46.920 --> 01:10:48.960 to discover all that is within. 01:10:48.960 --> 01:10:49.800 - Yeah. 01:10:49.800 --> 01:10:54.120 - And eventually that is often described as the scientist 01:10:54.120 --> 01:10:56.540 who is willing to ask the questions 01:10:56.540 --> 01:10:59.400 and explore to discover the answer. 01:10:59.400 --> 01:11:05.560 But then there's a point where the scientist can't find the answer by looking outside and 01:11:05.560 --> 01:11:11.520 asking anyone or anything and turns and faces the mystery and becomes a mystic. 01:11:11.520 --> 01:11:12.520 Rick Nice. 01:11:12.520 --> 01:11:15.280 Did you have a guru other than Muktananda? 01:11:15.280 --> 01:11:17.840 There was a point here he said, "Leaving my guru." 01:11:17.840 --> 01:11:20.480 Julie That was the first one, Charan Singh. 01:11:20.480 --> 01:11:22.280 Rick Oh, right, that guy, yeah. 01:11:22.280 --> 01:11:25.920 Julie Yeah, leaving him was scary because I was 01:11:25.920 --> 01:11:29.360 still believing that God is out there. 01:11:29.360 --> 01:11:35.920 And like I said in the beginning, these progressive openings and shocks and awakenings, and then 01:11:35.920 --> 01:11:39.000 I'd fall back into like God's out there and I'm separate. 01:11:39.000 --> 01:11:40.000 Right? 01:11:40.000 --> 01:11:44.640 Like a toggle switch, I'd have these expansions and I'd fall back to feeling like I'm separate 01:11:44.640 --> 01:11:48.640 and I'm in charge and going back and forth and back and forth. 01:11:48.640 --> 01:11:54.680 But there was one big opening that happened for me about five years ago, and I just want 01:11:54.680 --> 01:12:01.240 presence it because when we started our conversation, I talked about the mountain and having less people 01:12:01.240 --> 01:12:09.160 to be able to talk with or communicate with, and this happened for me. I was on my way to a retreat 01:12:09.160 --> 01:12:14.680 with Shakti Katarina Magi, who I believe. Ricky Oh yeah, I know Shakti. I interviewed her. 01:12:14.680 --> 01:12:20.120 Debra Yes, she's a wonderful non-dual teacher. I really like her feminine expression of that. 01:12:20.680 --> 01:12:26.360 and I was following my GPS, right? I'm following my GPS, although my intuition is saying, "Don't do 01:12:26.360 --> 01:12:32.920 this. Don't go this way. Don't go this way." And I didn't listen. I have no idea. I feel like I was 01:12:32.920 --> 01:12:39.000 on, you know, logging roads, kind of. It took me the fastest route. And over the Santa Cruz 01:12:39.000 --> 01:12:44.200 Mountains up to Mount Madonna, it's in Santa Cruz, it's a retreat center. I didn't realize I was this 01:12:44.200 --> 01:12:51.160 close but maybe it was like two or three miles and it's windy like this and there's no room for two 01:12:51.160 --> 01:12:57.400 cars and there's blind curves and I'm being careful but all of a sudden and there's a wall of mountain 01:12:57.400 --> 01:13:02.920 right here so there's nowhere to go and there was a truck coming right at me and it's right into me. 01:13:02.920 --> 01:13:09.640 It hit you? Yeah it hit me. Wow. It was like my worst fears being like alone in a deserted area 01:13:09.640 --> 01:13:15.720 Being in a car accident by myself all these things that I've had in the past that were I was afraid of happened 01:13:15.720 --> 01:13:17.880 But what also happened is that? 01:13:17.880 --> 01:13:23.640 Okay, my car smashed into the mountain the guy stops. He comes out and 01:13:23.640 --> 01:13:29.800 All I remember is he was Mexican and he had a Guadalupe gold charm right here. I'm looking at his charm 01:13:29.800 --> 01:13:34.400 I'm looking at this Guadalupe and he's talking to me and all the sudden 01:13:35.400 --> 01:13:40.360 It was like I suddenly lost my sense of individuation. 01:13:40.360 --> 01:13:46.920 I totally felt him completely as myself, the mountain, my car, the human sitting there, 01:13:46.920 --> 01:13:48.920 crunched and traumatized. 01:13:48.920 --> 01:13:52.000 It all happened all at once. 01:13:52.000 --> 01:13:57.180 And then, I don't know how this worked out, but somehow my car was somewhat drivable. 01:13:57.180 --> 01:14:02.480 And the guy, I think he was high on pot and he didn't give me his real license. 01:14:02.480 --> 01:14:03.840 It was sketchy. 01:14:03.840 --> 01:14:10.880 somehow I drove my car shaking and rattling to the retreat center and I get there. Of course, 01:14:10.880 --> 01:14:17.840 my car had to be towed from there, but I never left that state. But my body was traumatized. 01:14:17.840 --> 01:14:21.920 And so I walk into my room, I have a roommate, I've never met her before. I just said, I was 01:14:21.920 --> 01:14:27.040 just in a car accident. She goes, I'm a somatic trauma therapist, so let me help you. So she 01:14:27.040 --> 01:14:32.240 immediately put her hands on me and my body trembled and shook and did all this stuff. 01:14:32.240 --> 01:14:38.800 and then I went on with the retreat. I've never been the same. Really? That's interesting. I mean, 01:14:38.800 --> 01:14:43.680 so that was a watershed moment and things have never been the same since. Very interesting. 01:14:43.680 --> 01:14:51.360 It's been difficult to express or communicate and for a few years I really needed things like Buddha 01:14:51.360 --> 01:14:57.680 at the gas pump and a few other people that I could talk to because my experience was so out 01:14:57.680 --> 01:15:05.040 of the ordinary. It was as if, like at night, I'd be laying in bed and I couldn't tell where I was. 01:15:05.040 --> 01:15:09.040 I couldn't tell where the ceiling was or the floor. I just felt like I was all of that. 01:15:09.040 --> 01:15:11.920 That sounds lovely, but it was really scary. 01:15:11.920 --> 01:15:12.720 Pete: Yeah. 01:15:12.720 --> 01:15:17.200 Kirsten: For so much of my life, I had this really concrete feeling of being a 01:15:17.200 --> 01:15:21.680 separate human being. And even though there was these moments of expansion, 01:15:21.680 --> 01:15:25.360 there'd be a contraction back. And this time it just never contracted back. 01:15:26.000 --> 01:15:28.000 It took a while to reorient 01:15:28.000 --> 01:15:33.540 It was a little challenging and now it's like there's a silence and a stillness and an emptiness 01:15:33.540 --> 01:15:37.200 Like when I came out of that rite of passage my older rite of passage 01:15:37.200 --> 01:15:40.240 I thought people were going to be right there in front of me to give me a hug 01:15:40.240 --> 01:15:41.680 That's not what happened 01:15:41.680 --> 01:15:47.920 They all moved out into a big semi-circle and I walked down into empty space and that's how it is 01:15:47.920 --> 01:15:52.500 It's like even now we're talking and we're having this flow of communication 01:15:53.100 --> 01:15:59.500 creative, beautiful, and I feel such an emptiness inside, a stillness, a silence. 01:15:59.500 --> 01:16:01.980 Pete And in this context, 01:16:01.980 --> 01:16:06.780 emptiness doesn't have a negative connotation. Like you said, stillness and silence. You might 01:16:06.780 --> 01:16:09.580 even be able to say fullness, but it's a stillness and silence. 01:16:09.580 --> 01:16:12.060 Julie Yeah, it's going back to the paradox. 01:16:12.060 --> 01:16:12.540 Pete Right. 01:16:12.540 --> 01:16:13.100 Julie Paradox. 01:16:13.100 --> 01:16:13.580 Pete Yeah. 01:16:13.580 --> 01:16:15.660 Julie Like, I'm here, I'm doing all the things, 01:16:15.660 --> 01:16:20.540 I have to go through all the human stuff. The body's experiencing that, but it's also 01:16:20.540 --> 01:16:22.460 experiencing all of it. 01:16:22.460 --> 01:16:26.900 Rick: Interesting. I've heard of other instances, and I think it's probably come up in some 01:16:26.900 --> 01:16:32.980 of my interviews, where a traumatic experience like that precipitates an awakening. 01:16:32.980 --> 01:16:34.380 Julie: I've heard that too. 01:16:34.380 --> 01:16:35.940 Rick: Yeah, and it doesn't reverse. 01:16:35.940 --> 01:16:36.940 Julie: I don't recommend it. 01:16:36.940 --> 01:16:40.940 Rick: No, I mean, there are probably more graceful ways of doing it, but... 01:16:40.940 --> 01:16:44.340 Julie: Mostly it's been nice. You can integrate afterwards. 01:16:44.340 --> 01:16:45.340 Rick: Yeah. 01:16:45.340 --> 01:16:49.540 Julie: I remember my friends, like, they could listen, but they just couldn't understand 01:16:49.540 --> 01:16:55.460 to relate and I didn't know how to explain what was happening. It's funny, I even forget 01:16:55.460 --> 01:17:01.020 time, thinking of like stepping into this elder season. When one is identified more 01:17:01.020 --> 01:17:07.140 as the self, there is no time. So, there's no old age either. It's just now. 01:17:07.140 --> 01:17:10.100 Rick The word "identified" is a good one because 01:17:10.100 --> 01:17:14.260 obviously there are all these different dimensions to our life and one dimension is the body 01:17:14.260 --> 01:17:20.740 and it is aging, but if that's your primary locus, then it's a problem. But it could be 01:17:20.740 --> 01:17:26.260 much more peripheral than that, and you could be primarily established in being, which is ageless. 01:17:26.260 --> 01:17:32.820 - Yeah, I love having this human. I find the senses, it's like going back to where I started 01:17:32.820 --> 01:17:39.460 as a child, but now there's more of like an individuated consciousness here, so it's not so 01:17:39.460 --> 01:17:46.620 diffuse. The senses are what bring me so much incredible happiness and just feeling the 01:17:46.620 --> 01:17:54.300 aliveness. Sometimes I'll just look at something and I'll just really see it. It's so incomprehensibly 01:17:54.300 --> 01:17:55.300 beautiful. 01:17:55.300 --> 01:17:58.900 Rick You know, it's said that a progression after 01:17:58.900 --> 01:18:06.180 Self-Realization can very often be the refinement of the senses. That refinement needs the establishment 01:18:06.180 --> 01:18:24.180 the 01:18:24.180 --> 01:18:26.540 God realization is out of the question. 01:18:26.540 --> 01:18:29.220 He couldn't even telephone from a distance, you'd be crushed. 01:18:29.220 --> 01:18:33.980 So, you need that stability and then the senses can just really start to flourish. 01:18:33.980 --> 01:18:35.240 Kim: Yes. 01:18:35.240 --> 01:18:40.140 I remember with Jane, you know, she used to tell me that there's self-realization before 01:18:40.140 --> 01:18:41.140 God realization. 01:18:41.140 --> 01:18:42.140 Dave: Exactly, right. 01:18:42.140 --> 01:18:43.300 Kim: And I'm like, "What? 01:18:43.300 --> 01:18:44.300 I don't get that. 01:18:44.300 --> 01:18:45.300 Why? 01:18:45.300 --> 01:18:49.340 Why would you want to have self-realization if you could just go right to God realization?" 01:18:49.340 --> 01:18:56.220 So, it took me a few decades of maturing to recognize the importance of developing the 01:18:56.220 --> 01:19:01.740 vessel to be capable of withstanding the intensity. 01:19:01.740 --> 01:19:06.700 Another analogy might be a small shallow pond can't rise up in great tidal waves. 01:19:06.700 --> 01:19:10.340 It would only just stir up the mud, but an ocean can do that. 01:19:10.340 --> 01:19:11.340 Exactly. 01:19:11.340 --> 01:19:15.820 This also pertains to the idea of devotion, the expansion of the heart. 01:19:15.820 --> 01:19:17.900 Okay, we have about half an hour left. 01:19:17.900 --> 01:19:21.100 I want to make sure that we don't miss out on something important. 01:19:21.100 --> 01:19:25.340 You know, there are a few little tidbits from your younger years, but maybe we've covered 01:19:25.340 --> 01:19:26.340 that. 01:19:26.340 --> 01:19:32.220 You have alluded to this work you have done with young girls and also young boys. 01:19:32.220 --> 01:19:33.980 We might want to talk more about that. 01:19:33.980 --> 01:19:37.740 And then there's the Life Blessing Institute, and maybe there's more to say about the Women's 01:19:37.740 --> 01:19:39.900 Right Documentary Project. 01:19:39.900 --> 01:19:45.460 And then there's Matthew Fox, who you studied with, Thomas Hubel you studied with. 01:19:45.460 --> 01:19:48.340 So what would you like to cover in the next half hour? 01:19:48.340 --> 01:19:55.900 I do want to just mention again, my filter, I guess, is always looking towards what's 01:19:55.900 --> 01:20:02.600 working, what can feel better, how can it be improved, rather than what's wrong. 01:20:02.600 --> 01:20:07.220 One of my greatest teachers around this concept is Matthew Fox. 01:20:07.220 --> 01:20:12.440 And the way that I discovered Matthew was, I was at a Franciscan renewal center for just 01:20:12.440 --> 01:20:17.920 some contemplative time and I went into the library and I looked at the books and I saw 01:20:17.920 --> 01:20:23.720 this book and it just had the title of "Original Blessing" and I'd never heard of original 01:20:23.720 --> 01:20:26.200 blessing, I'd certainly heard of original sin. 01:20:26.200 --> 01:20:27.200 Pete: [Laughter] 01:20:27.200 --> 01:20:30.200 Kirsten And it's almost like that moment changed my 01:20:30.200 --> 01:20:31.200 life. 01:20:31.200 --> 01:20:37.440 Like, wow, you mean all this really is is sacred and a blessing, this human experience, 01:20:37.440 --> 01:20:44.720 human body, this creation is inherently good and sacred. And I didn't really even need to read the 01:20:44.720 --> 01:20:53.200 book. I mean, it was just like, yes, that resonated with me and later became woven into everything that 01:20:53.200 --> 01:20:58.400 I do. And I've heard you talk about this many times, Rick, but whatever we focus on will increase. 01:20:58.400 --> 01:21:04.880 So why don't we focus on how to bring more love and compassion and beauty and justice 01:21:05.600 --> 01:21:10.960 into the world, even if it's just like that woman in the grocery store who told me she liked my 01:21:10.960 --> 01:21:18.480 braids. The main tenet of creation spirituality is that life creation is a blessing. And I also 01:21:18.480 --> 01:21:25.520 really loved that woven into that philosophy is this idea that spirituality is lived both through 01:21:25.520 --> 01:21:34.480 science as well as through spiritual practice or spiritual values. And I like that. I also like 01:21:34.480 --> 01:21:40.160 that Matthew really specifically talked about the feminine aspects of the divine and really 01:21:40.160 --> 01:21:46.480 celebrated that and it resonated with me. I just found an organization and a community and a belief 01:21:46.480 --> 01:21:54.880 system that I could fit into somewhat, but life as original blessing is I think the main takeaway 01:21:54.880 --> 01:22:00.480 for me from that whole educational process because I got my master's through the Naropa Institute and 01:22:00.480 --> 01:22:06.920 and the creation spirituality track, and my doctoral project was to create a curriculum 01:22:06.920 --> 01:22:12.440 to train mentors for the main spirit work. But I always appreciate and bow down to important 01:22:12.440 --> 01:22:15.560 mentors along the way, and Matthew Fox was one of them. 01:22:15.560 --> 01:22:18.200 Rick Yeah, he's a neat guy. I first saw him at 01:22:18.200 --> 01:22:22.520 the S.A.N.D. conference and liked him a lot and then interviewed him a little bit later. 01:22:22.520 --> 01:22:25.960 But you know, what you're saying here I think is really important because I know I've gone 01:22:25.960 --> 01:22:32.060 through phases in my life under the influence of certain spiritual teachings where I maligned 01:22:32.060 --> 01:22:38.720 and belittled life. It was more like something to escape from. Let me get off the wheel, 01:22:38.720 --> 01:22:42.720 and kind of like life sucks, then you die kind of a thing. And you know, there are spiritual 01:22:42.720 --> 01:22:46.180 traditions which emphasize that, you know, this world is horrible, but then you'll go 01:22:46.180 --> 01:22:53.320 to heaven if you're a good person. But to me, that kind of demeans God. It kind of makes 01:22:53.320 --> 01:22:57.720 God into some kind of sadist who would just set up this torture chamber for everybody, 01:22:57.720 --> 01:23:03.400 as opposed to seeing the beauty of life and the potential and the value of it as something 01:23:03.400 --> 01:23:05.840 to enjoy rather than to escape from. 01:23:05.840 --> 01:23:06.840 Katie - Yes. 01:23:06.840 --> 01:23:12.360 Yeah, we have so much power in our - we don't have much free will or choice, but we do have 01:23:12.360 --> 01:23:14.240 the choice of where we put our attention. 01:23:14.240 --> 01:23:15.240 Pete - Yeah. 01:23:15.240 --> 01:23:19.040 Wiggle room, I always say, when the topic of free will comes up. 01:23:19.040 --> 01:23:25.640 It's like I can't play basketball like LeBron James, but I can do, you know, within my dharma, 01:23:25.640 --> 01:23:30.220 within my field of possibilities, there's a window of freedom, and you can move it this 01:23:30.220 --> 01:23:32.020 way or that way. 01:23:32.020 --> 01:23:34.920 Greater freedom, greater bondage, depending on what you do with that window. 01:23:34.920 --> 01:23:37.640 Well, I say, "Let's do love." 01:23:37.640 --> 01:23:38.640 Yeah. 01:23:38.640 --> 01:23:41.320 What are these Soul Stream life map readings? 01:23:41.320 --> 01:23:47.120 So Jane and my mom were practicing this life mapping system, and they eventually, when 01:23:47.120 --> 01:23:54.160 I entered into my first wave of career path was as a hands-on healer, and I did body work, 01:23:54.160 --> 01:23:59.720 and that quickly transformed into a body-centered coaching or counseling method called Hikomi. 01:23:59.720 --> 01:24:04.760 And I'm working, yeah, with Hikomi, I'd be working with my clients and we'd, you know, 01:24:04.760 --> 01:24:09.080 come to a place where they're repeating patterns, they're stuck, and it's just recycling, and 01:24:09.080 --> 01:24:12.040 nothing that we're doing is helping to break through. 01:24:12.040 --> 01:24:16.680 And I would go consult with my mom, and she would give me some impressions from her looking 01:24:16.680 --> 01:24:21.540 at their soul map, that would be helpful for me to bring back into the session and would 01:24:21.540 --> 01:24:24.080 often help to catalyze a breakthrough. 01:24:24.080 --> 01:24:28.340 So after years and years of consulting with my mom, it became obvious that I should take 01:24:28.340 --> 01:24:30.040 it on and learn. 01:24:30.040 --> 01:24:31.440 And so I did. 01:24:31.440 --> 01:24:36.840 And what I find really helpful, as we both know, as everyone knows, the map is not the 01:24:36.840 --> 01:24:38.220 territory. 01:24:38.220 --> 01:24:40.200 So it's like language. 01:24:40.200 --> 01:24:42.680 You know, it's a pointer, symbolic. 01:24:42.680 --> 01:24:49.160 can help us to gain access to what we are own deeper knowing. But it is helpful and 01:24:49.160 --> 01:24:55.240 I find it really helpful for getting out of the self-criticism and judgments that 01:24:55.240 --> 01:25:01.740 so many people have around the places where they have fears and have limiting 01:25:01.740 --> 01:25:06.320 belief systems and as well as to step more powerfully into their gifts and 01:25:06.320 --> 01:25:10.700 abilities. It's also really helpful when you have a kind of a basic understanding 01:25:10.700 --> 01:25:16.700 about how a human's operating system works, to be more compassionate and patient with the 01:25:16.700 --> 01:25:20.460 differences because everyone is organized really differently. 01:25:20.460 --> 01:25:23.900 And just like we have a genetic inheritance, it's not going to change tremendously. 01:25:23.900 --> 01:25:30.700 If I didn't know what my partner, my husband's soul code is, we might have more friction 01:25:30.700 --> 01:25:32.740 because I just understand. 01:25:32.740 --> 01:25:34.260 It's nothing personal. 01:25:34.260 --> 01:25:39.620 There's some areas that we just don't understand each other or jive because he has different 01:25:39.620 --> 01:25:45.340 degree of development in that area, or he's more developed, like he's real analytical and 01:25:45.340 --> 01:25:51.620 I'm more mystical, and it's just helpful to have this understanding that is impersonal 01:25:51.620 --> 01:25:52.620 in a sense. 01:25:52.620 --> 01:25:54.620 Nathan: And so how do you do it? 01:25:54.620 --> 01:26:00.260 Miriam: So the real nutshell version is that it's a mathematical process. 01:26:00.260 --> 01:26:04.380 There have been throughout time and cultures many numerological systems. 01:26:04.380 --> 01:26:11.260 The ancient Egyptians had a system, the Hebrew Kabbalah is their numerical system, I think 01:26:11.260 --> 01:26:17.180 the I Ching may be a numerical system, but Pythagoras is the Greek philosopher who was 01:26:17.180 --> 01:26:22.860 given credit to what became the system that my godmother Jane was taught. 01:26:22.860 --> 01:26:29.940 And I don't really know anything more about her mentors, but it's based on this idea that 01:26:29.940 --> 01:26:35.740 your full name at birth and birth date can be translated to numbers. So there's a mathematical 01:26:35.740 --> 01:26:40.020 sentence, it's like your cosmic URL, you put it up there and you click the button and it 01:26:40.020 --> 01:26:46.620 just kind of shows a basic framework, not for the truth of you as intelligence of light, 01:26:46.620 --> 01:26:53.180 that presence of the divine spark that is the real you, but it can elaborate or illuminate 01:26:53.180 --> 01:26:59.300 some of the framework for this lifetime. Your sense of purpose, the need for fulfillment, 01:26:59.300 --> 01:27:07.140 personality structure of your human self, your greatest abilities. It also reveals what are 01:27:07.140 --> 01:27:12.500 called in this system the karmic learning pathways. And those are the areas that I've found most 01:27:12.500 --> 01:27:18.260 useful in working with clients is to see where there are areas in those nine pathways where 01:27:18.260 --> 01:27:23.860 there's something that's occluding that they were born with. And then it just gets layered on top. 01:27:24.420 --> 01:27:30.020 I found it to be a really useful assessment tool for helping people move past those barriers, 01:27:30.020 --> 01:27:35.140 or move, actually consciously recognize them for what they are, and then have more compassion with 01:27:35.140 --> 01:27:41.700 the process of melting some of that. I guess in some systems you would call it a trauma reaction, 01:27:41.700 --> 01:27:50.020 or a samskara, or a vasana, depends on the system. I converted your book about the nine pathways to 01:27:50.020 --> 01:27:54.660 audio and listen to the whole thing. And there was useful stuff in every chapter, I thought, 01:27:54.660 --> 01:27:59.460 that pertained to anybody in every chapter, but I imagine that there would be different 01:27:59.460 --> 01:28:03.860 classifications of people that it would pertain more to than the other ones would. 01:28:03.860 --> 01:28:07.620 Katie We all have to evolve on all of the nine pathways. 01:28:07.620 --> 01:28:08.020 Pete Right. 01:28:08.020 --> 01:28:10.740 Katie And we're learning and developing on all of them all the time. 01:28:10.740 --> 01:28:11.060 Pete Yeah. 01:28:11.060 --> 01:28:16.980 Katie It's just there's specific ones. There's an archetypal energy that represents my purpose in 01:28:16.980 --> 01:28:22.740 this life and it's manifesting right here with you because my number is nine for that particular part 01:28:22.740 --> 01:28:30.020 of my map and that's all about selfless service. So, I'm willing to get past my forced bump like 01:28:30.020 --> 01:28:35.940 introversion and show up here and have this conversation because I know it might touch 01:28:35.940 --> 01:28:40.980 somebody and make a difference in their lives and if it does, that's fulfilling to my sense of purpose. 01:28:41.780 --> 01:28:47.700 you know, I can't not do that. It's just there. And even when I've tried to have a different kind 01:28:47.700 --> 01:28:54.260 of lifestyle, it's like the desire to serve and contribute always overpowers that. So, yeah, 01:28:54.260 --> 01:29:00.500 that's an example of a specific archetype that affects me personally, but all human beings have 01:29:00.500 --> 01:29:04.580 to learn about selfless service and being connected to the greater good. 01:29:04.580 --> 01:29:08.420 Pete Yeah. And the actual mechanism of boiling 01:29:08.420 --> 01:29:13.140 it down to a number. I don't understand it. It seems kind of arbitrary to me. You know, 01:29:13.140 --> 01:29:17.460 name you happen to be given. I could have been given a different name, but I don't know. It's 01:29:17.460 --> 01:29:21.380 not something we could resolve. But you know, there's a lot of things I don't understand. 01:29:21.380 --> 01:29:25.380 So that's just one of them. I can share with you what my mom told me about that. 01:29:25.380 --> 01:29:34.740 She said that the name, it's a vibration. It's a vibration. And in a way, the parent is tapping in 01:29:34.740 --> 01:29:41.780 or tuning in to that vibration and is being influenced by the incoming soul to choose that 01:29:41.780 --> 01:29:42.660 name. Because it's - 01:29:42.660 --> 01:29:43.940 I was named after my father. 01:29:43.940 --> 01:29:50.980 That's just what she said. And this is where the logic and reason, like, my predisposition is to 01:29:50.980 --> 01:29:57.220 try things and see if they work and then if they do, I'll develop some faith in them. And because 01:29:57.220 --> 01:30:04.980 I was born into this system and I practiced and I discovered it to be so accurate, I just gained 01:30:04.980 --> 01:30:11.300 confidence and kind of gave up the need to totally understand all the logic and reason for how the 01:30:11.300 --> 01:30:19.140 system works. I know that in the Vedic system, they use Jyotish or Vedic astrology to help to 01:30:19.140 --> 01:30:24.500 determine what a child should be named based upon their chart. In my niece's case, her name was 01:30:24.500 --> 01:30:29.860 supposed to have a "k" sound, start with a "k" sound, so they named her Camille, which fit with her 01:30:29.860 --> 01:30:35.780 jokish thing. And of course, if they named her Amy or something, I don't know what kind of effect that 01:30:35.780 --> 01:30:40.420 would have had on their life. Maybe nothing? Why not? Well, you know, if something's useful, 01:30:40.420 --> 01:30:44.980 of course, we always have to have our own filters, right? And check everything with what really 01:30:44.980 --> 01:30:51.060 resonates. But I have found it to be a really joyful way of interacting with people. I love 01:30:51.060 --> 01:30:56.740 doing those readings, something happens. It's not just the map because there's an intuitive element 01:30:56.740 --> 01:31:03.460 to it. It's like something starts to come through that is beyond the map itself. Yeah, it's almost 01:31:03.460 --> 01:31:09.780 like a catalyst for you to just sit and interact and have the stuff come through. Exactly. So you 01:31:09.780 --> 01:31:15.300 still do those I presume over Zoom or Skype or something. How's the film coming along? Do you 01:31:15.300 --> 01:31:22.180 have enough funding? Are you going to be able to finish it up on time? We were able to do an Indiegogo 01:31:22.180 --> 01:31:29.540 fundraiser and get enough money to pay for all the filming, so that part's done. Thank you, God. 01:31:29.540 --> 01:31:35.940 And now we go into post-production, which is a tremendous job to edit. Four and a half days of 01:31:35.940 --> 01:31:42.420 film distilled down into probably a half hour film. And it's going to have poetic elements to it, and 01:31:42.420 --> 01:31:46.980 You know working with a director and an editor and that is a slow process 01:31:46.980 --> 01:31:49.060 Just even organizing all the files 01:31:49.060 --> 01:31:50.580 so all of that to say 01:31:50.580 --> 01:31:55.860 We're going to be in post-production for months and months and hopefully by the end of spring we'll have something to 01:31:55.860 --> 01:32:01.700 Actually bring forth to the world and we might need to do another fundraiser. I don't know most likely 01:32:01.700 --> 01:32:04.420 That's a cool project. See you at the oscars 01:32:04.420 --> 01:32:10.660 Well, thank you, I so appreciate you recognizing the value of this 01:32:11.300 --> 01:32:18.340 topic of bringing light to empower that spiritual awakening even more so at this age and stage. 01:32:18.340 --> 01:32:20.260 Pete Yeah, you know, as we've been talking, 01:32:20.260 --> 01:32:25.860 I've been thinking about the spiritual significance of every age. Your single-digit years and your 01:32:25.860 --> 01:32:32.260 adolescence and your married years and business years and your retirement years, each one has 01:32:32.260 --> 01:32:40.100 its own flavor and its own evolutionary potential. And none of them are better or worse than the 01:32:40.100 --> 01:32:45.780 others. And if you believe in reincarnation, we've probably been through thousands of such cycles. 01:32:45.780 --> 01:32:48.820 So you just take full advantage of each one as you go. 01:32:48.820 --> 01:32:52.900 - Yeah, I love metaphors and I love the nesting doll metaphor. 01:32:52.900 --> 01:32:54.500 - Right, the Russian dolls, yeah. 01:32:54.500 --> 01:33:00.340 - Yeah, like we just progressively like become more expansive, but we never really lose the core, 01:33:00.340 --> 01:33:08.660 the spark at the center. It just develops and mature. You know, we're here to develop on all 01:33:08.660 --> 01:33:14.220 of these pathways as human beings. But we're also here through the ripple effects, through 01:33:14.220 --> 01:33:21.320 our interconnectivity to contribute to the creation of a more enlightened culture. So 01:33:21.320 --> 01:33:26.980 there's two different levels of evolution going on at the same time. And who knows what 01:33:26.980 --> 01:33:30.580 the smallest thing, like I'm thinking of those mentors I had when I was in my early 01:33:30.580 --> 01:33:35.180 twenties that taught me about having this opportunity to live off the land and learning 01:33:35.180 --> 01:33:40.540 how to live off the grid and they didn't teach me like here's the book and here are the steps, 01:33:40.540 --> 01:33:46.060 they just lived it and I just watched them and all these years later I'm like wow I've recreated that 01:33:46.060 --> 01:33:52.300 in my life so much. That opportunity to contribute through the ripple effect by just being more 01:33:52.300 --> 01:34:00.620 completely aligned with who we are here to be and to eventually become, I could describe it 01:34:00.620 --> 01:34:05.260 Another metaphor is the pearl, right? The pearls came to me, the pearl was given to me. 01:34:05.260 --> 01:34:09.260 What is a pearl? You know, how's a pearl formed? 01:34:09.260 --> 01:34:11.660 >> RICK: There's an irritant in the oyster. 01:34:11.660 --> 01:34:17.180 >> SONIA: Yes. So every age and stage, you know, of our development, 01:34:17.180 --> 01:34:24.380 along with the fun and the creativity, there's also irritants. And they have to be worked. 01:34:24.940 --> 01:34:32.540 and then slowly in the fullness of time, if we stay with our process and don't become lost, 01:34:32.540 --> 01:34:40.700 we become living pearls. If you could imagine an ideal society in which children were raised in 01:34:40.700 --> 01:34:48.380 the ideal manner and each phase of life was lived in what you would conceive of as the ideal manner, 01:34:48.380 --> 01:34:53.260 what would that look like? This is a big question, but what would that look like both individually and 01:34:53.260 --> 01:34:55.580 collectively, you know, what kind of world would it be? 01:34:55.580 --> 01:35:03.340 Well, what kind of world would it be? I guess every child would be given that education from 01:35:03.340 --> 01:35:08.940 the beginning, like they would be directly invited into communion and connection with 01:35:08.940 --> 01:35:17.740 that wisdom source within and be mentored and guided in how to actualize their realizations 01:35:17.740 --> 01:35:23.660 or their feelings, their knowings into contribution to find their gift and then bring it into the 01:35:23.660 --> 01:35:31.180 world and be supported in being able to do that and be infused with a vision of possibility 01:35:31.180 --> 01:35:36.940 that is inspiring rather than degrading, you know, about what it means to have a physical body, 01:35:36.940 --> 01:35:41.340 what it means to have a female body if you're a female, male body, whatever type of body you're 01:35:41.340 --> 01:35:47.260 given, what it means to be at these different ages and phases would all be described as 01:35:47.260 --> 01:35:53.860 desirable and good. So, I guess education from the beginning, spiritual education from the 01:35:53.860 --> 01:35:54.860 beginning. 01:35:54.860 --> 01:35:57.020 Rick Yeah, I'll add to that if I may, and maybe 01:35:57.020 --> 01:36:00.780 you can elaborate more, but you know, you think of all the problems in the world with 01:36:00.780 --> 01:36:06.100 climate change and social unrest and wars and poverty and famine and disease and drug 01:36:06.100 --> 01:36:11.420 abuse and all these things, any one of which almost seems unsolvable. 01:36:11.420 --> 01:36:13.900 But ultimately, who's creating all that stuff? 01:36:13.900 --> 01:36:14.900 It's us. 01:36:14.900 --> 01:36:15.900 It's everybody in the world. 01:36:15.900 --> 01:36:23.100 It's just a reflection of our collective consciousness, our collective level of development or undevelopment. 01:36:23.100 --> 01:36:28.660 And we're trying to tackle all these problems through political means and economic means 01:36:28.660 --> 01:36:29.660 and so on. 01:36:29.660 --> 01:36:34.620 I heard the other day someone said, "There isn't a poverty problem, there's an ethics 01:36:34.620 --> 01:36:35.620 problem." 01:36:35.620 --> 01:36:38.980 and you could kind of say that with all the different problems I just enumerated, 01:36:38.980 --> 01:36:46.260 it all comes back to the state of consciousness of each individual in the world, all eight billion of 01:36:46.260 --> 01:36:52.100 them. I think that's important for people to contemplate because, as Einstein said, if you 01:36:52.100 --> 01:36:56.180 try to solve a problem with the same level of consciousness or understanding at which it was 01:36:56.180 --> 01:37:03.380 created, you're bound to fail. One of the themes of my life has always been... remember that radio 01:37:03.380 --> 01:37:08.900 show called New Dimensions, where Justine and Tom's, and I forget what her husband's name 01:37:08.900 --> 01:37:13.980 was, but their little intro was always to say, "It's only through a change of consciousness 01:37:13.980 --> 01:37:15.740 that the world will be changed." 01:37:15.740 --> 01:37:17.620 I used to love that show. 01:37:17.620 --> 01:37:19.960 I think that's what it boils down to. 01:37:19.960 --> 01:37:21.420 We obviously need all the other stuff. 01:37:21.420 --> 01:37:27.100 We need education and technologies and food, all the different things that we need to make 01:37:27.100 --> 01:37:28.100 a world. 01:37:28.100 --> 01:37:34.020 If we don't have the consciousness piece in place, then the foundation is missing, and 01:37:34.020 --> 01:37:36.460 we're always going to have all these problems. 01:37:36.460 --> 01:37:40.420 I didn't mean to give such a speech, but I just wanted to make that point. 01:37:40.420 --> 01:37:42.700 Oh, that's beautiful. 01:37:42.700 --> 01:37:46.940 I couldn't agree more, and I also love hearing you share your wisdom. 01:37:46.940 --> 01:37:47.940 Yeah. 01:37:47.940 --> 01:37:50.380 Well, you know, I'm standing on the shoulders of giants. 01:37:50.380 --> 01:37:52.740 I didn't dream any of this stuff up. 01:37:52.740 --> 01:37:57.300 the things I've come to believe over the years based on my experiences and observations. 01:37:57.300 --> 01:38:04.420 And it is also part of what makes what you do so unique and beautiful is that you do 01:38:04.420 --> 01:38:08.820 enter into the flow of communion with another soul and you share your side. 01:38:08.820 --> 01:38:12.900 Yeah, it's also the biggest criticism I get. People say, "You talk too much. I just want to 01:38:12.900 --> 01:38:17.220 hear the guest." But people don't usually want to do a two-hour monologue. They want to have 01:38:17.220 --> 01:38:22.500 a conversation. Yes, because for me, speaking publicly 01:38:22.500 --> 01:38:29.540 is one of my fears, right? So the gentleness of being able to flow back and forth has been 01:38:29.540 --> 01:38:36.660 really important for me and I knew it would be that way with you, which is why I said yes to this 01:38:36.660 --> 01:38:44.020 and also because I know that spirit has shown throughout my lifetime that there are important 01:38:44.020 --> 01:38:49.380 ways that we can contribute to the creation of a better world through that shift in consciousness. 01:38:50.020 --> 01:38:57.060 and this project, the Women's Right, and it's like R-I-T-E, the right, but also behind that is all 01:38:57.060 --> 01:39:02.340 the women's rights that are being challenged, that are not well established on the planet. There's an 01:39:02.340 --> 01:39:07.300 awareness of how the real pragmatic side, how will that change if we don't have a change of 01:39:07.300 --> 01:39:12.660 consciousness? Yeah, there's some politicians now who are actually saying women shouldn't be allowed 01:39:12.660 --> 01:39:19.540 to vote. If they want to take us back to the 1910s or something, there's a guy who has a political 01:39:19.540 --> 01:39:23.940 sign in his yard, we walked past it when we walked the dogs around the block, it says, 01:39:23.940 --> 01:39:24.940 "Take America Back." 01:39:24.940 --> 01:39:27.260 I'm thinking, where do you want to take it back to? 01:39:27.260 --> 01:39:30.100 The 1840s or something? 01:39:30.100 --> 01:39:31.780 Moving forward is a better idea. 01:39:31.780 --> 01:39:32.780 - Yeah. 01:39:32.780 --> 01:39:38.380 Look at his soul map, we'd probably see he has a karmic lesson and some really fundamental 01:39:38.380 --> 01:39:43.100 area of like marriage, home, and family or something, I don't know. 01:39:43.100 --> 01:39:50.540 Coming out to the big picture also helps me to stay in that more neutral space, even though 01:39:50.540 --> 01:39:51.540 I have preferences. 01:39:51.540 --> 01:39:52.540 Exactly. 01:39:52.540 --> 01:39:53.540 I totally agree. 01:39:53.540 --> 01:40:00.020 There's the universal value of it all, God's eye view, and then, you know, we're individuals. 01:40:00.020 --> 01:40:01.020 We have preferences. 01:40:01.020 --> 01:40:02.020 Yes. 01:40:02.020 --> 01:40:04.380 So, how can people get in touch with you? 01:40:04.380 --> 01:40:07.540 Oh, well, you know, I know you're going to share my website. 01:40:07.540 --> 01:40:08.540 That's right. 01:40:08.540 --> 01:40:14.980 specific link to the Women's Right Project and also I love doing the life maps if anyone's 01:40:14.980 --> 01:40:21.740 interested. I have trained some others to do that also. I am thinking about creating a 01:40:21.740 --> 01:40:28.980 monthly Zoom gathering for people who are interested in the topic of illuminated aging, vivacious 01:40:28.980 --> 01:40:35.860 aging, through the expansion of consciousness. I can give you more information about that. 01:40:35.860 --> 01:40:39.540 I'm going to see if just in my community if there's an interest there. 01:40:39.540 --> 01:40:40.540 And if there is also... 01:40:40.540 --> 01:40:42.620 Rick>> I bet you there will be just as a result of this interview. 01:40:42.620 --> 01:40:46.540 There will probably be a lot of inquiries. 01:40:46.540 --> 01:40:49.420 Make sure you have some kind of email list people can sign up for. 01:40:49.420 --> 01:40:53.700 Katie>> Yeah, on my website there's a place to sign up for my newsletter and there's also 01:40:53.700 --> 01:40:54.700 a contact me. 01:40:54.700 --> 01:40:55.700 Rick>> Good. 01:40:55.700 --> 01:40:58.900 Yeah, so if somebody's watching this a few years from now who knows what you might be 01:40:58.900 --> 01:41:02.420 doing but go to your website and see what's going on. 01:41:02.420 --> 01:41:04.580 Katie>> I'm a baby elder. 01:41:04.580 --> 01:41:09.140 I just stepped through the portal, right, and I'm like out in the space, and it hasn't filled 01:41:09.140 --> 01:41:10.140 in yet. 01:41:10.140 --> 01:41:12.740 It's just like, wow, I don't know what's next. 01:41:12.740 --> 01:41:13.860 And I'm open. 01:41:13.860 --> 01:41:15.900 I'm befriending the unknown. 01:41:15.900 --> 01:41:19.660 And showing up here today with you has been part of that. 01:41:19.660 --> 01:41:20.660 Nice. 01:41:20.660 --> 01:41:21.660 Well, thanks, Georgette. 01:41:21.660 --> 01:41:23.300 I've really enjoyed doing this. 01:41:23.300 --> 01:41:28.540 And if I ever get out to Oregon, I'll come and visit you. 01:41:28.540 --> 01:41:30.860 And I don't know, I've never been to Oregon. 01:41:30.860 --> 01:41:32.580 It's one of the few states I've never been to. 01:41:32.580 --> 01:41:38.100 I'd love to come visit and please give Irene a big hug for me too. 01:41:38.100 --> 01:41:39.100 Rick>> Will do. 01:41:39.100 --> 01:41:43.940 Okay, so thank you everybody who has been watching this. 01:41:43.940 --> 01:41:49.020 If you happen to be watching the live one or watch this in the next few days, my next 01:41:49.020 --> 01:41:54.140 one will be with a fellow named Thomas LeGrand who has written a book called "The Politics 01:41:54.140 --> 01:42:00.220 of Being" about how a lot of things we talked about today, how spirituality is the ultimate 01:42:00.220 --> 01:42:06.860 sauce which will make politics a much more wholesome instrument for the well-being of 01:42:06.860 --> 01:42:07.860 society. 01:42:07.860 --> 01:42:10.700 And I'm just listening to his book now. 01:42:10.700 --> 01:42:13.980 Interesting guy, he's been working with the United Nations for a couple of decades, doing 01:42:13.980 --> 01:42:18.100 all kinds of cool things, but he has been in Thich Nhat Hanh's community in Plum Village 01:42:18.100 --> 01:42:19.700 in France for a long time. 01:42:19.700 --> 01:42:20.700 Okay, good. 01:42:20.700 --> 01:42:21.700 Talk to you later. 01:42:21.700 --> 01:42:22.700 Thanks, everybody. 01:42:22.700 --> 01:42:23.700 Thanks, Georgette. 01:42:23.700 --> 01:42:24.700 Thank you, Rick. 01:42:24.700 --> 01:42:25.700 Bye. 01:42:25.700 --> 01:42:25.700 Bye. 01:42:25.700 --> 01:42:26.700 Bye. 01:42:26.700 --> 01:42:26.700 Bye. 01:42:26.700 --> 01:42:51.060 Thank you.