Unshod with D. Firth Griffith
The Interwoven Tapestry, Honoring The One Living System with Cari Taylor
What if the names matter? What if our acknowledgement of life's oneness matters? Matters to what? You may ask. Yes! But really, how?
Cari takes us on a journey through The One Living System, a profoundly simply interconnectedness of life that emphasizes our connection and not our roles in Earth. We share personal stories about pets and the meaningful names they bear, as well as the idea of renaming within families to better reflect individual identities. These anecdotes weave a rich tapestry of how names and stories deeply influence our sense of belonging and connection to the world around us.
From there, our conversation emerges as Cari sheds light on the power of storytelling in reclaiming our Indigenous roots and understanding our place within the natural world. We delve into how colonization has eroded the intrinsic narratives of First Nations peoples and why reconnecting with these stories is vital for restoring a sense of oneness with nature. Storytelling is likened to a fishing line, binding us together and fostering shared understanding. We also discuss the importance of embodying our connection to nature through our actions and presence, rather than through superficial acknowledgments, offering a more profound relationship with the environment.
Lastly, we unravel the intricate relationship between language, science, and sacred rituals in fostering a deeper connection to the living system. "Science gives the sacred form," Cari says. By viewing life as an ongoing conversation, we open ourselves to richer interactions with the natural world. Cari shares insights on the creative joys and challenges of writing, underscoring the power of words in conveying complex ideas. From examining the balance between faith and control in creative projects to the importance of local rituals and community-centered approaches, this episode invites you to rethink your place within the interconnected web of life.
Buy Cari's book: The One Living System
Buy our latest book: Stagtine
Join us in The Wildland Chronicles community on Substack to continue this enlightening conversation. It is free!
What if the names matter? What if our acknowledgement of life's oneness matters? Matters to what? You may ask. Yes! But really, how?
Cari takes us on a journey through The One Living System, a profoundly simply interconnectedness of life that emphasizes our connection and not our roles in Earth. We share personal stories about pets and the meaningful names they bear, as well as the idea of renaming within families to better reflect individual identities. These anecdotes weave a rich tapestry of how names and stories deeply influence our sense of belonging and connection to the world around us.
From there, our conversation emerges as Cari sheds light on the power of storytelling in reclaiming our Indigenous roots and understanding our place within the natural world. We delve into how colonization has eroded the intrinsic narratives of First Nations peoples and why reconnecting with these stories is vital for restoring a sense of oneness with nature. Storytelling is likened to a fishing line, binding us together and fostering shared understanding. We also discuss the importance of embodying our connection to nature through our actions and presence, rather than through superficial acknowledgments, offering a more profound relationship with the environment.
Lastly, we unravel the intricate relationship between language, science, and sacred rituals in fostering a deeper connection to the living system. "Science gives the sacred form," Cari says. By viewing life as an ongoing conversation, we open ourselves to richer interactions with the natural world. Cari shares insights on the creative joys and challenges of writing, underscoring the power of words in conveying complex ideas. From examining the balance between faith and control in creative projects to the importance of local rituals and community-centered approaches, this episode invites you to rethink your place within the interconnected web of life.
Buy Cari's book: The One Living System
Buy our latest book: Stagtine
Join us in The Wildland Chronicles community on Substack to continue this enlightening conversation. It is free!
There is a thread of life existing through all things. It is a sacred thread that creates all of life. It holds its own desires, intentions, designs and is the language of life. Its conversations offered to us as a living system. This vital construct of life mostly goes unnoticed and without voice, yet it is a space we must all return to in order to truly unravel and return A process that asks each of us to recollect our truth and honor all that we are as custodians of this great planet. We will never take up the call to the challenges we are facing without truly recognizing our place and purpose amongst it. In today's episode, I am with my dear friend Carrie Taylor, the author and carrier of the work the One Living System. Carrie does a fine job describing her work, and so I will leave it at this. I encourage you to check out her website, onelivingsystemorg to learn more.
Speaker 2:Let's jump into the conversation Now. If you get cats roaming past you, you get the tail coming through.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:How many cats do you have?
Speaker 1:Three, Three cats, what are?
Speaker 2:their names. Oh, are you ready for that? Yes, so one is called Hypatia, and there's a whole story to how that poor cat got that name. But Hypatia was the name actually actually of a female philosopher back in the days and who was never given any credit for really, I mean, as a woman allowed to even really be a philosopher, so to speak. And then there's another one called Onyon, and Onyon is an Indigenous name that kind of means little one or little one, that sort of thing. And then there's sammy, and that's short for samayel, for he's black, so he's short for lucifer samayel that's amazing.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. We uh. We used to have a dog named Argus uh, from the Iliad or the Odyssey. I should know, the Odyssey. I believe that's the Odyssey. He's the only dog that recognizes Odysseus, or the only you know living soul that recognizes Odysseus. And upon his return, and he was wonderful for a long period, um, and then we had another dog named Boudica. I don't know if you're familiar with Boudica.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, boudica, yeah, yeah, yeah, the warrior, yeah.
Speaker 1:Warrior queen, warrior queen of the Celts. I interestingly had a conversation with a wonderful author out of Scotland named Amanda Scott recently on this podcast. And I've really enjoyed she has. I think it's a four part, could be a three part. Um story on on Boudicca. The first book is dreaming the Eagle. It's a wonderful, wonderful book. But uh, that's wonderful that you name your animals, the animals in your life, as such. You know, so many people are just like fluffy, you know sprinkles twinkles. What's in passion there?
Speaker 2:I always laugh because when I, um, when I go for a walk now, people have their pet's names like on their leads or on their little you know vests and everything else. And I was walking past one of them and this dog's name was Sharon and I was like what? Like, how do you actually call that dog Sharon? Sharon, come here. Like how do you actually like, if you go to abbreviate it, then at least on the lead put Shazza or something Like? Who's calling me Sharon?
Speaker 2:But you know, they're becoming so much more sort of human names now, as if you know well, I mean, they are. For many people they're fur babies, right, and so it's like is that actually the name you'd call your child?
Speaker 1:yeah, wonderfully, I was reading this book a while back that uh, fred provenza had gifted to me, and they were making the claim that, uh, humans, modern humans, are to neanderthals what, uh, poodles all are to wolves, you know, and I wonder if you were to truly walk up to that human and ask what its name is, I wonder if it would be, you know, equally as boring in our sense. You know, not that we much can control that, but I think there's a lot of cultures that, um, they have a renaming process. That's, it's an. It's an official renaming process. In our, in our family, we have a very unofficial renaming process. All of our kids have at least three names. As they grow older, they just, you know, at one point we realize, oh, no, no, no, you really are something or other, you know, and you just find a new name to describe who they are.
Speaker 2:And there truly is something about a name, don't you think? Absolutely, Absolutely, and all of our kids have a name. That is a meaning. It's not just like what sounds nice, Like there is deep meaning to why you've picked that name, and I mean for me, I think there's a story behind everything, right, and I love that. I love that we can come with the ability to not only share a story but the ability to create a story around it. So, you know, I want my kids to be able to sit for someone to say, oh, that's a nice name. You know, how'd you get that name? It's like well, actually there's a story. Let me tell you.
Speaker 1:Sit down, take your shoes off, stay a while. It is interesting. When my wife and I first met, one of the first conversations, we I should say that differently when my wife and I really actually started to date and really meet each other we had a conversation quite early and we decided that our first child was going to be a girl and her name was Elowen Parker. We just knew it. We just looked at each other. It was wonderful.
Speaker 1:It's a whole other story in and of itself. And then, about maybe six years later I don't know from that point, the day that she was born was the same day that we stopped a clear cut logger crew from about 200 acres of old growth forest and her name literally translates to the keeper of the forest, you know. So, like six years before this, we knew that this individual was going to come on this day and this I mean it was just like you know, her name isn't, I don't know, sally, like what a wonderful name that is, but I hope like that meant something to those parents, like ellen parker means, you know, to us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when you know how every kid goes through that phase of you've named me the stupidest name and I want to change my mode, right, and they all come up with a better name for themselves, and so my answer to that was always that I had an alternative name.
Speaker 2:So I would say, oh, that's fantastic, you can change your name to that and when you do, I have a name that I'm changing mine to as well, and I don't know if you ever saw the show Golden Compass, but I was always like, well, I'm Serafina Piccolo, like that's my name, and they'd be like you can't do that, that's stupid and I'm like, but she's such a great character I want to be, you know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:well, it just seems like self-understanding um is so critical in understanding the greater whole around us not to make too inappropriate of a transition to to what I think that I you know, at least for what I want to talk about here with you, and we'll see how this conversation unfolds and emerges. But it does decently start there, don't you think?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, it does it really.
Speaker 2:I think a part of you know the work that I've done is I include in there so much about story and what the story is that we are actually living right now and the story that we have left behind and the story we want to walk in.
Speaker 2:You know, story is important, how that all you know the place that um colonization had in that of really removing such deep story from our first nations peoples, and how that really transfers forward. Because essentially, for me, in describing, you know, the one living system, you know we hear a lot now this throwaway line of we have to return to our Indigenous peoples, and it's true, but they. But why, like tell, why give people the reason why that's so important and being able to say, because they heard those first whispers, they are a part of those first whispers, they grew from those first whispers, they know this as their whole being and they are the ones who walk this way and live this way and want to bring back their storytelling in this way. So it's natural, right, and so going back to that capacity to tell a story like we just shared, is just such a beautiful thing because it connects us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it connects us. Do you think that's the role of story? Not that story must have one role, of course, but maybe in your work a question could be like what is the role of story?
Speaker 2:Not that story must have one role, of course, but maybe in your work, a question could be like what is the role of story? I think story is like a fishing line, right, Like I'm throwing my line into you and being able to connect with you in some manner that hooks us together and whatever. When we tell that story, it's like, hey, I remember when I spoke to Daniel about that, you know, and it's something that allows us to have those threads in and you know, when you actually are paying attention to a person, when you have done your work to observe them, even in just seconds before you meet them, there's some similarity. What's a story in me that I know that's going to connect with you, what's something that we share that the minute I throw that line out there, you're going to be able to go wow, yeah, I want to reel myself back in and be able to sort of share some sort of connection. So I think you know, the capacity to have story through connection allows us to start that weaving process of back to our oneness.
Speaker 1:wow wow, let's, let's dive into that oneness. You know there's a lot of talk today which I'm sure you find both inspirational in parts and maybe demoralizing or tiring in other parts. You know, we are nature, we live as nature, we are one with nature. It's very easy to allow the utterance of those words be the completion of that task. That's what I've always found. You know, when I wrote my book in 2021, wild Like Flowers, you know everybody was just I said in the book, just haphazardly, I didn't even understand the potency when I wrote it. I wrote the book in three weeks, which was another conversation, another story in and of itself. There, maybe one day we will, we will talk on Um, but I wrote that we regenerate from the soul to the soil, and that was a new concept to me and so many people were like, yeah, wonderful, you know, sold to the soil, ringed.
Speaker 1:Well, it was easy to say. And by saying it and allowing it to be easy to say, to me it just felt like it just concluded there Like, okay, good, we acknowledge that we are working from the inside to the outside. Now let's go play on the outside. Right, that the acknowledgement was good enough.
Speaker 1:And so I guess what I'm asking you is you know, let's, let's begin in this idea of oneness, but also, I don't want to lose track on what is it? I don't want to say force into our consciousness, but what? What? In order to truly understand it? To me, there's a necessary leap that we have to take. Is there's something, not to do in terms of work, um, but to do in terms of being, that seems to require the all of us. So I've planted a couple of words there, and maybe you disagree with some of them, but I just want to give you the platform to get started and then from there, depending how the conversation unfurls, you know we can go so many different directions, and so I'll lead you, you lead me, and we'll get to the end of the conversation together and we'll get to the end of the conversation together.
Speaker 2:I remember your book, your first book. I remember all the different little tags that were in there and I'd been introduced to it through the Bums Footprint. That's their first site, which is a whole other conversation for us all together.
Speaker 1:Yes, maybe this one we might get to it. We'll see.
Speaker 2:Well, what I find interesting is you have thrown a few things in there. So being is the new form of doing. We have to focus on that and I write in the book how, you know, our full-time job is actually being who we are and honoring that. If we had time and capacity to do that, it would allow us to thread ourselves so much easier back into nature and life, back into that oneness. But the system that we've constructed on the other side of that, the system that we are, you know, so gently cattle mustered through the gates at the beginning, you know, with going into school and you go this way and this way and all these sorts of things as we're pushed through into that, you know we are done so in the manner that we come out in a particular way, right like that we can, you know, abide by certain rules, and that we are really eager to want to play in this little system over here All along.
Speaker 2:What we don't realise is that with each step we and I deliberately use this word we slice another piece of ourselves off as we step through. And so you know, I'm using that because the slicing represents the cutting away from our natural space. I guess a lot of common terms around that might be we add another layer. So whether or not you're recognising it as a cut away from where we belong to, or whether or not you are sensing it in a way that we are putting on another layer, either way, we are dressing ourselves in a completely different manner to that which we are born into, and so our being is of little consequence. It's our doing that matters, because our doing equals money, our doing equals the economy, our doing equals the system that we have to play into. So everything that we want to be is given such little recognition unless it's around being a leader, being the best, being something that we can achieve from a goal sort of perspective. So to me, a part of all of this movement that we're needing to change into, so much has to happen at the same time. If one thing changes, we're going to hit.
Speaker 2:But with that perfect gear setting motions in the car, when it all sort of takes and the clogs move and we sort of all fit in, there's so many pieces that have to move at one time to allow that to happen, and that being stepping into that being means that we get to go into what you were talking about as this oneness. And interestingly, you know, in my book there's a whole section on soil, soul, solar, right, and that is saying from underneath us, through us, to the above, it is all one. There is one thread that connects all of that and I still say, the reason we have that disconnect of truly understanding, that is we don't understand or connect to our sacredness. Understand or connect to our sacredness, we just don't see ourselves as these sacred, beautiful, energetic beings. We see ourselves in this human form and in this human form alone, and that's what it means. You are human, you are not a part of all this else and other. That's on the other side.
Speaker 1:Thinking of slicing. We're in this, teaching this course online, meeting with this group of people for about 10 weeks, in these live cohort, seminar-based studies, and we started to look recently at the idea of memory because in my most recent book, the book deals with a lot of memory, of memory. Because in my most recent book, we, the book deals with a lot of memory, which we don't have to get to into now, but the I, in prepping for the course, I had this wonderful, not not dream in the truest sense, but vision in a very basic sense, which was still unbelievably powerful. But like re memory, like to remember something, is to re member, like put a space there, it's to re-member something right. So imagine that you had all of your limbs off of you. The actual re-membering of your body is putting the limbs back in place to create that one central being again.
Speaker 1:And it just seems so interesting the metaphor you have with slicing, because I think a lot of people feel that way, right, in order to be. A lot of people feel that way right in order to be, you know, a member of this, this, this mother culture, or the industrial age, or modernity, whatever phrase we want to use. We have to de-member ourselves, we have to slice aspects of us off that we really do believe are aspects of ourself. And so what is memory? Or maybe does memory have any thing to say in regard to the slicing off process that you think describes our entrance way into the life that is around us, or maybe the sustenance of our life that's around us?
Speaker 2:yeah, I use that exact phrase as well in writing around remembering and always place from that broken space to remember. And I think what's really important around that is that we this goes a million ways right when you keep that word together remembering. We are almost, you know, really placed in a space where we are asked constantly to remember ourselves as one word Remember, remember when that happened, remember this, remember, remember. And even that slowly dissipates the more you're placed into this educational or work environment where so much else clutters your mind you don't remember. Interestingly, we get to the other end of life and remembering and not being able to then leads us into Alzheimer's and dementia and all these other things that we're told that we've lost.
Speaker 2:You know now, we've lost cognition, and so it's really interesting then when you actually take it away from the mind and allow remember to actually drop into who we are and being a connection of membering. And that takes us back to storytelling, right, Because it's not remember a moment, it's remember the connection in that moment. It's not just saying that's what happened, it's I was there and I was present and I, you know, was a part of everything, so deeply and deeply, you know, connected into that moment, and it's a membered moment, right Like it's a part of even if you're on your own, which you never are. You have nature, you have the ocean, the sky, own, which you never are. You have nature, you have the ocean, the sky, whatever it is.
Speaker 2:Wherever you are, everything is there with you and you are a part of all of that, the more that we are told that a memory is held just in that camera right, we go back to put ourselves in instead of stop, bring yourself into this space, draw a line in in, weave a thread, do whatever, but bring it into you so that it's a part of your being and allowing all of that to come in. And I deliberately actually, you know, separated things like remembering to remembering and even things like recognition to recognition, having to change our mindset around all of those things. So it's really interesting when you actually look back on some of the words and how we've shaped and formed them, and if we just give them some space and pull them apart a little bit, we can actually find our way through those back into this oneness again.
Speaker 1:John O'Donohue, an Irish poet. He says that our language erupts from the mountains beneath the soul, which is poetic. But I think what I'm hearing from you is that language, story, moments, memory. There's a lot that's erupting from that very deep and sacred place. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was just going to say I mean, one of the reasons I was questioned once about calling it a living system, because system became such a, you know, loathed word. We don't want any more systems. But if I'd said that one living language people have gotten would have just gone. What is that? The reason I've called it a living system is because it is a, you know, a system of a form from life, and, and more so because it was the framework that everybody was using as, again, another throwaway line of, oh, we have to be a part of the living system, and yet no one was really defining it. Or, you know, a real throwaway sort of attempt at trying to link some of the greenwashing that was, you know, in the conversation back to living system. Right, but you know, it is a language.
Speaker 2:Everything that's happening around us from life is a language. If we could just understand that that conversation is happening constantly, that we are a part of, we start to lean in and listen and want to partake in that conversation. Right, like if you walk outside from this moment with that mindset and start to, you know, look at the grass, look at the sky, look at what, the oceans or waters around you. Whatever it's a conversation that it's having with you. It's telling its story by the way it rolls in, or the way it's growing, or the way the sun's shining. All of that it's life, literally saying I'm here, I'm present and I'm talking to you and I'm with you. We just don't pay attention. We present and I'm talking to you and I'm with you, we just don't pay attention. We get in the car, we drive to the shop, we drive to work, we do whatever.
Speaker 1:You know, we just don't pay attention. A dear friend of mine, a Maori herbalist, healer, breath worker, shalita Zaney you familiar, she's in your neck of the woods, she's in New Zealand, she's a. She was joking with me recently We'll be conversating soon on the podcast together after their their new year is born. And she was conversating, she was joking recently and she said she wants to create a conference for people like you and me and people for like our listeners here, where what was called the tree conference. And you're going to come, you're going to expect all of this flair and fluff and goodie bags and such, but we're going to give you a tree and we're going to tell you don't leave until you have a conversation with it. And then she says if you start to leave the forest cause you're like hey, my tree is not talking, then she's going to stop you and she's going to say no, no's talking, you're just not listening. And then she's going to tell you to go sit back down again.
Speaker 1:It was this wonderful, wonderful idea, because so much of us, like I, was on a podcast earlier today today's just a day of podcasts, I guess and I made the comment to the host and you know. I said you know I was talking about talking to grasses. You know, and a lot of what our work is is trying to open our eyes, not shift a paradigm, but open our eyes to the paradigm that is ancient and that we need to make more familiar to people like myself and much more tangible in the real sense, like the soil beneath your toes, et cetera. And I said what was the last time you ever walked down to a field and asked like, what do you want to be? So many farmers, agriculturalists, we say we want a grassland, grassland cycle. The most carbon, grasslands also feed the fattest cattle, so we want a grassland right. But none of us have ever walked into a field kneeled down in our, in our, in our callous knees and said you know, what do you want to be? And we've never waited for the answer. And even if we did wait for the answer, we would all be expecting the people listening to this, because the host was too. We would all be expecting it to reply meadow field, like the words that you and I know so well. But in the Irish language there's 34 words for meadow right. And then Lakota language, which I did not know, the name of Central Plains, turtle Island, western Hemisphere, I think they have 31 names, different words for bison. And this is the same way in almost all ancient languages that I've ever studied or been able to to, to, to learn about or touch just a slice. And so you know, even in these ancient languages you have this idea of um, what word do I really want to use? We have have this idea of nuance, but it's a linguistic nuance because our understanding is also highly nuanced and our language has to follow that.
Speaker 1:I wonder in your work, because I realized that your book, the one living system, which I want to kind of gravitate maybe into some, some aspects of that and then maybe we'll gravitate out of it into something else. We'll see what happens. But in your book, one Living System, this to some degree is the pinnacle of many years of your work in your region. Talk to me about that a little bit. As you were finding words to carry these ideas, like you're saying, the difference between one living language and one living system, et cetera as you were trying to find words to document or to allow for the re-manifestation of these ideas into readers, you know, as authors you know intend to do, what was the process of that, maybe from an author perspective, but I'm even talking about like a deeper perspective, like why did you sit down to write this book and why did you choose it to?
Speaker 1:Why did you choose the medium to be in words? Does that, does that question make sense? The written word why didn't? Why did you choose the medium to be in words? Does that, does that question make sense? The written word why didn't? Why don't you have a podcast? Why aren't you doing other things in this way? Or maybe are you. So there's a lot of questions there. I didn't have so many questions for you, I apologize. You can pick whichever way you want to go.
Speaker 2:No, no, let's see if we can. We can wrap them all in. So what's really interesting is the process for me was akin to yours, perhaps without even knowing. In that first book and my, you know, my early days were on a farm sheep and wheat farms most often. Sometimes other you, pigs are different things.
Speaker 2:So my father was a manager, a farm manager, so we moved a lot and you know we're on different farms and and for me I was outside all day, every day, you know, just playing, and it was nothing for me to not have. You know, farm life is isolated life. People need to really understand the enormity of, you know, our farmers and what actually happens. So for me, playing was amongst life, the world, every day, you know, there was nothing else. And so going out and playing with the animals or with the trees, the grasses and everything else. So I always had this conversation, you know, and it's never to nobody, and it's never just to myself, it's to life and it's with life. Whether another person walks past and thinks that nobody else is there is their business, you know, is there's lots of other entities constantly around us, that that we're speaking, and so for me, um, that was always a part of it and so that that was sort of a part of the deep roots with regards to how I then sort of went through life and did different bits and pieces.
Speaker 2:And poetry was my first writing and my, you know still is one of my first loves. You know, writing a lot of poetry, and even when I tried to write what would be called, you know, and in an academic or normal manner, my kids especially would always come back and go Mum, it sounds like poetry and so it was really interesting. It was just a natural way for me to write. But I think one of the reasons I've included poetry in the book is because poetry changes how we read things. There's a beat, a metre to it, there's a feeling to it, different ritual words can be used within it. And in writing this book I tried very hard to walk a very fine line between what would be considered and this is honestly what would be considered to be taken seriously and yet poetic, because a lot of poetry wouldn't necessarily be taken seriously by academics or by other people. You know writing books that is in mainstream, and so there's a line of using a language that is fluid and sensed and felt and deep for, and meaning, dressed with this, you know, academic sort of flavour and referral, to be able to allow that poetry to sit on something that you know is going to be taken seriously.
Speaker 2:Why did I write the book? Well, I actually didn't choose to write the book. I had written a number of books and self-published a number of books because I loved writing for years. And then I swore I was never doing it again.
Speaker 2:And one day I was sitting down in meditation.
Speaker 2:I'd had a little bit of started with different aspects of things, really looking at the way the world was going, and we went through the COVID times, all those sorts of things, and I went I really want to deeply research what's you know what's happening here, and just really dived in. And then I was in a meditation and the book came to me through a meditation and I wrote it all over the walls, all over paper, everywhere through this meditation, and then sat back and had to make sense of it, group it form it, give it some shape. What are you asking, what are you needing, you know, and at first I put them into, you know, into sort of pockets to be able to, you know, start to weave and make sense of, and I remember I was sitting here, you know, literally just at my desk one day doing some more research about it, and all of a sudden I've gone. No, really do we really want to put it in a book, are we sure that that's the best idea? Because I'm not like.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty sure we said we're not doing that again and that's how it happened. It was literally. You know, that's what has to be done, that's how this voice has to come out. And, of course, when you're working with that from that living system perspective, it is for no reason other than the energy gets expressed, the voice gets placed into life, it starts to flow through life, not about who hears it, who reads it, who agrees with it, just that it is. And that's where it is. It's allowed expression and it's allowed its space and time.
Speaker 1:It's interesting. I've tried for so long, you know, in short answers, emails, etc. To to well elucidate what being means. You know, because I'm sure you've had these conversations.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, even in the writing of my most recent book I had this community of people that I wrote it within the book was written had, this community of people that I wrote it within the book was written within this community of people. And one of the first phone calls we ever had, a zoom meeting, just like this, you know, I said some of the ideas and uh, and one of them, one of the individuals, they said, uh, okay, daniel, I got you, like be cool, but like, what do we? What do we do with that? You know, and that's the response that I get so often and I get that response. I feel that response, I understand that response and I think you do as well. But what you just said there, I think was really inspirational, at least to me. You said there's energy, right, and then you put that energy to voice and that energy just flows and it's not about if it lands, because I don't think that's up to you.
Speaker 1:I think that's where a lot of people and I often find myself there as well. That's where we often get so far off from reality, the actual reality of things, not the reality that we try to create. You know, and it's this, this, this separation between, like, the hope of an outcome and the manifestation of that outcome. Right being to me is about not not just hoping for an outcome, but feeling the energy, putting it to voice, doing that deep work, if you will, and then letting the outcomes go, whereas a lot of what's going on around us is the opposite. We spend very little time with energy, we spend as little as time so we can be efficient with the voicing, the working right. We put that very quickly, make it very efficient, and then we try to control the outcome, because the outcome is why we're doing it. Talk to me if we're not controlling the outcome, where do you find hope in your work? Like what if nobody reads this book?
Speaker 2:So first of all, let me deal with the word hope. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan of the word hope and I think for a little while there it got some spotlight time. You know, hope is the new future. Hope is the new word. Hope is where we're going and it was really given a bit of a spin. I'm not a fan of hope. In fact, I would challenge that.
Speaker 2:You know, the way we recognise hope is a part of the way we've been moulded. I think the fact that there was always faith, truth and love. What really took truth from us was religion. It wanted us to hope and hope that there was somebody there that was going to come in and save us. It gave us the ability to want outside of ourselves. It gave us the ability to seek outside of ourselves, because hope is outside of who we are. I'm hoping that the next moment is going to be great, that control is taken away from us, then with hope. Hope becomes something that we allow ourselves to lean into, that everyone else is going to be able to fix it. Like if I hope that someone else fixes it, that's the best I can do as opposed to going. The truth is you need to fix it. The truth is you need to do something. The truth is, this is what's happening. And the reason I separate those two is because the word that I use is faith, and once understanding that sacredness of who we are, faith is, at the end of the day, everything that we lean into. I have faith that this book will do as it needs to.
Speaker 2:I, as mothering it, you know, allowed it gestation. I allowed it a birthing process. I'm currently in that you know that difficult time where you're running everywhere trying to make sure you know it gets onto its feet, or it can crawl, or it can, you know, not overindulge itself with all sorts. You know, like you're literally leading it through. And so I have faith in the capacity of what it is.
Speaker 2:Whether or not it is a success, whether or not it becomes something is not really up to me, and that's so difficult for most people to understand, because from a business perspective, it's all up to me. It's never going to be anything unless you put it out there, unless you market it, unless you tell everybody about it, right? But the other side of that is allowing the faith of what comes, how that process is going to be. So the merging of that for me is not designing it, it's really just allowing it. It's being present with as many spaces that feel right as I can. It's allowing, you know, connections that feel good, not connections that feel forced or where you're being, you're being judged or questioned and that sort of thing. But where it fits it'll flow and fit and I just really have to allow the faith in what life wanted from this book to come from this book.
Speaker 1:That's really interesting. Because you're, because you're mothering it, right, as you described. You're in that you're in that phase and yet, at the same time, why are you mothering it in that way? Because it has substance outside of you, right? Am I understanding this? How would you put words to that? Because I think a lot of people would say that we're mothering it whatever it is, regardless if it is a book, creative project, a you know whatever, or a kid in general, a human child. We're mothering it because we hope that it's going to have X, y and Z right, like a safe life and improved life, whatever that is right. And you're saying there's faith there, like I guess maybe another way of asking the question is like what is that faith in? That the energy, the initial source, energy, was real? How would you describe that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I mean to not believe in the source energy being real completely negates everything that you and I both know. The minute we step out of the door, right Like why the the winds talking to us, why it's moving, why you know everything that is growing and thriving and happening around us, there is complete and utter faith in the energy that it is the reason it came. The voice that you have, even with your book, there is. You know, why did your book come to you and be written in three weeks, or any of these other ones? Because you're the one who can shape the message the way it's needed to be presented. And here it is right.
Speaker 2:And so part of the obstruction to it, I think, is that we are so used to being outcome-based and goal-based and goal-orientated. Why would you do anything? Why would you spend all that amount of time writing a book, getting it ready? It's an enormous process. But as a carrier, as a channel, but as a carrier, as a channel, which every mother is, you know, you have no control over anything, even our children's lives.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of faith that has to go into being a mother. Oh stop, we can't protect them. We can give them tools, we can't protect them. We can give them tools, we can give them so many beautiful attributes of virtues and qualities that will take them through life. But life, energy, life force is going to also play a part in that journey and where it goes and how it travels and everything else. And so there is so much that we have to let go of and willingly know that we are not in control of, at the same time as being willing to do the work of giving it as many opportunities as it can and allowing its space to shine where it can. And, as you know, there's going to be so many people who things don't resonate with. You know, publishers are the first one right like talk.
Speaker 1:Could you talk to me about that? I want to interrupt your flow of thought. Oh, I don't know. You know I'm the only person I've ever met besides you that self-publishes their, their. You and I are a strange variety because it's interesting even in the space that I am in and have been in for nearly 15 years, um, with like a moderately small reputation. But the people that know me either hate me or love me, but they know me Even when we were sending out the book as like an advanced reader copy to people I cared about in the same space that I occupied, you know, get their thoughts but also see if they have anything nice to say about it or comment, you know, any sort of negative things.
Speaker 1:I mean I had a quote, unquote, peer reviewed by a couple of scientists, because I have some science in there and I'm not a scientist. I was a math, computer science major, but that's as far as I ever went in college and I had two people that are well-published authors in this overall space that wouldn't provide a blurb to the book because it was self-published, because I went outside of their playground. Why do you self-publish? What draws you into self-publishing?
Speaker 2:There's a couple of really strong reasons around that One. I have a lot of respect for the publishing industry. Over the years it's tried to, but again it's shaped us. It's shaped us by each decision by a boardroom of people who have said that's good enough and that's not. Who are you to sit there and tell someone that what's being written isn't worth being read, when it could be the exact thing somebody needs, like what?
Speaker 1:are you?
Speaker 2:doing? Why are you doing it? You're doing it because, at the end of the day, you want money, you want profit, you want your shareholders or whomever to get the benefit out of it. And literally that was the response that I got, and there was actually only a couple of places that I wanted to publish with, because I didn't want to go with publishers who weren't really rallying around the sort of genre or have any sort of inclination around this kind of work. Right, and the response was the book industry is going through such an upheaval at the moment that we have to be really particular about what we publish, because nothing's, you know, not as much is being bought. The money power isn't there behind every book anymore, and so it was almost like what is this about? I can't even really open the book and see whether it's worth anything because I know I'm not going to make enough money off it.
Speaker 2:And at the end of the day, that's what the publishing industry is about. And then when you take that and understand what you're getting from a publisher which is literally just a brand name now they don't do the marketing for you. They don't do, you know, any of the socials for you. They don't set any. You have to do everything of the heavy lifting and yet at the same time earn 30 cents off your book. It's like I don't know that this is so pretty and I get that there's capacity with their connections, but at the end of the day I just really was like, unless we have and I notice in America there's a bit more to this I notice in America there are some alternative sort of publishing houses that do publish some what have become more popular, but you know, out of mainstream books sort of thing. But even they, you know, really want some weight behind you.
Speaker 2:And the minute I start getting questioned with like how many followers do you have on your socials, it's like wow, like you're really just measuring me up against something that you're then going measuring me up against something that you're then going to tell me I don't meet your mark, I want to play with it.
Speaker 2:And so I really made the decision to self-publish, partly because I had done before, but because I wanted to have more capacity to control it. There's also some really parts of the book that I wanted things to be integrative to and that is, you know, building things like different economies allowing communion and sharing and giving and trade and exchange and these sorts of things to be more a part of how we go forward, and therefore not having this price set that says only these people can afford it, but being able to say it's a donation base, what have you got here? It is sort of thing. So otherwise I just I'm not living by what I'm writing about, right. So I I wanted to really be able to have that depth of integrity around what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:With with stag time, my most recent um. Like you, I had written previous books and uh, and had always been so overwhelmed by the publishing process. I don't enjoy the, even self-publishing, I just mean the finishing of the book side. I love the creative, I love the imaginative, I love the you know days, weeks, months, whatever it is on end where you're just like with yourself, you know, and the energy that was given to you for the book, like I love that idea. And then you hit save in the last final draft and and and it's like, oh boy, now you know you need editors and whatever. You know how it is that the book design and the front cover and all those things are just like I don't know. I just want to keep reading and thinking and writing and conversing with people. And so I told my wife over a year ago I said, listen, if I ever write a book again cause I've written three so far up to that point I really wanted to try to publish it. You know, just let somebody else deal with all of that. That was my opinion at the time.
Speaker 1:And then, when I started writing Stag Time, you know, I had an idea for the book. I had a rough understanding of like I, like you, it would ease, you know, happily or easily say that I believe this book was handed to me. The dedication speaks to that. I don't believe many of these things are my thoughts. I truly feel like I was carried, or I was. I'm carrying these thoughts and I reached out to a number of publishers, probably similar to the ones that you mentioned, and I'll give you two examples of the responses. The first one was you need a better outline of exactly what you're going to say. And I was like well, you know, when I get to that, I hope you know losing the language of this conversation, I hope, like source speaks, then Right, and while I anticipate getting there, I don't know what the there is going to be until I experience it. And so, like I'm so sorry, you know, I'm happy to constrain this in a word count, you know, but I'm not, I'm not willing to constrain it into an idea. And they were like well, just make something up, you can always change it later. And I was like well, how disingenuous is that? Like, that doesn't make any sense. So that was an issue. The other side of the issue was I had one literally replied to me and said, uh, we looked you up on Instagram. You have 1800 followers. You're supposed to have 30,000, else it's a no-go. And so I joked with them. I emailed them back and I said, well, like could I just resubmit the query? Because, like, I'll just go out and buy 30,000 Instagram followers, cause that's you can do this now. Right, like real digital marketing companies sell Instagram followers. This isn't like some online dark hat sort of you know scary place anymore. Like you could just do this in the open. And I was like, can I resubmit the book? I'll go buy some Instagram followers and I'll meet your minimum requirements. Never heard back.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think they thought that I was just, you know, being an asshole and I kind of was to be honest with you. You know, in the same way, in that force of nature conference, um, when I was asked to speak, they they literally asked if Tim could come and speak. But they reached out to me and I responded I said, well, you know, nobody here is named Tim, but I can like find one if you need one, you know. And they also didn't like that. But it was just like, you know, I see your hand and I call you. Like that's kind of what I was saying.
Speaker 1:But the interesting thing and I want to come back to story here because you know this is the thread that I would like to weave in the moment One of them asked, they told me that one of the biggest publishers that I would like to work with that was in the view of possibility, they told me that they would publish this book, absolutely came down to numbers, but they wanted all of the story removed. They just wanted the data, because the way that the book is written is it's story and science, and we say that the story and science is, is, is allowed to be convivial in the truest of senses, like I don't think scientific understanding or inquiry is in some way, you know, alien to this one living system or earth. I think it actually can be made quite convivial, an aspect of this system, an aspect of our creativity, as long as it's compassionate, you know, empathetic, sympathetic to some degree. This just reductionistic, linear science is not obviously compassionate, but it has to imbue the story. You can't just remove the story and expect the science to be anything of interest.
Speaker 1:And so I wonder, you know, in your writings, with the poetry, you know, with the stories, with all of that information. How does story and science? And you can determine how you want to define science. That's perfectly fine with me. I'm open to many definitions. But how do we make story and science convivial when we're allowed to? As you said, you wanted the capacity to control certain aspects you know, like how do we have the capacity to control story and science that allow them to be convivial with each other? In the written word?
Speaker 2:Okay. So at the start of the book I actually speak really strongly about the fact that the whole point of the journey of the book is to reconnect and reweave science and sacred Right. They got separated very early in the book and I know everybody jumps up and down and during this again, you know time and let's grab a word that somebody's used. And we all run within a million miles. And you know time and let's grab a word that somebody's used and we all run within a million miles. And you know, let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food. And you know Hippocrates and all this sort of stuff. But the dude was also one of the first people that removed science and sacred from each other. He wanted to be able to separate and go, let's make science something you know, really strong here, because we've got, you know, all of this proof and let's make more proof. And right at the beginning, when this peeling away happened, that's part of that journey of our separation.
Speaker 2:All of our ancients, all of those whom we quote these days back in time and beginnings, only ever studied things together science, we call it religion, sacred maths, astrology, all of those things. As you know, it was all studied together, because you didn't know the truth until you put all of it together back into one little parcel. And a great way I used to explain that to people is around truth and perspectives. There is the truth, but we all each only know a perspective of it. The way we get truth is coming together and talking about our perspectives. Well, this is what happened. From where I was sitting, where I was sitting, this sort of thing to be able to go, wow, this is what actually happened. Because no one person they only see it from where I was sitting, where I was sitting, this sort of thing to be able to go, wow, this is what actually happened. Because no one person, they only see it from where they're sitting. So it's why, when something happens, we go out and ask as many people as we can to be able to form that whole truth of what happened and so bringing all of it back together, really understanding that the stars matter, that everything that happens you know, from the sacred matter matters to that scientific form.
Speaker 2:I think I also go on to really say that so important are science and sacred together, like science gives sacred form. Science gives sacred form right, like when you have some form of scientific proof about something. It gives some sort of form to what this sacredness is. But sacred gives science foundation. It's the why. Otherwise, why the hell are we doing it like? Why do we go and research something if we're not asking why and the foundation of why that really matters? And research something if we're not asking why and the foundation of why that really matters and why that really matters comes back to that deep meaning and purpose and all those sorts of things. They have to be together.
Speaker 2:And so when also people look at my book, which is enormous, it's because there is story in there, it's because I want you to feel, hence there's poetry, there's a bibliomaniancy in there, I want you to be able to stop and read little messages from life.
Speaker 2:If you're not going to feel and just think about it, you're never going to understand what the living system is, because it's not a thought.
Speaker 2:We feel a long time before we think, and I know that that goes against what we're told. We think we act, we think we do, we think we speak, but before any of that happens, we feel, we sense, and even if it's only minutely which it never really is it's just that we're so disconnected from it that we it might just be a twinge, but so disconnected from it we think that we think first, that you had that thought first, but it was a feeling, it was a sense, it was something that moved in you, that asked that thought to come, that then you respond to. So if I'm not going to ask you to feel again, you're only going to be trying to read and think about sacred from this thought space, from this intellectual space, and you're just not going to find the truth there. But what you are going to find is that deep inner, felt, sensed connection, the minute you drop back into the rest of your body science gives the sacred form, but what's the role like?
Speaker 1:is there a connection between that idea of science as it's, like living reality, that's that's necessary in this one living system, using your words? What's the connection between, between that and like ceremony or like sacred rituals?
Speaker 2:look sacred rituals so in the start of the book, where I'm sort of really spending a lot of time, you know, there's a bit of a why we are in this space. Then there's the whole sort of section around what is the living system and what are its values and what is its foundation, what's its? It's a philosophy, it's a language, right? This is why life wants to create itself over and over again. This is the joy and the love that it has, that it wants to keep expressing itself. And then it gets to, you know, our disconnect from that and how we come back into it, how we come back together, the two things that we can do. And the very first part of that is understanding our sacredness and seeking to connect that again, to really bring ourselves back into that.
Speaker 2:And the reason I go through that is to say that is ritual, that is the capacity to understand the difference between a habit and ritual. And ritual is I am present, I am here, I am doing this with intent, with capacity, with meaning. That's ritual, not just habit of. If I do this every day, I'm going to get this result right. Ritual holds that deep inner connection to everything and so that brings that form into that ritualized, I am connecting. I'm bringing the science of being told I had to brush my teeth, or whatever it is, into the sacredness of deeply connecting into myself at this moment, this nurturing, loving, self-care moment that allows things to become more connected through ritual and presence.
Speaker 1:What do you think we lose and I realize this could be a two-hour conversation, and so what particularly do you think we could lose or do lose when we so focus on the science being this abstract, almost like new mother right the science says, when we add animacy in, in, in this separate idea of what animacy could mean to the science, or maybe just the science with air quotes, what do we lose when we see science as that separatist force?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really great question, because I feel that what we really lose from science is our own inner permission and our own inner knowing that something is true. We allow science to tell us it is true, and that's okay. It's just that the process of it is generally way behind the fact of us ever knowing it. And so years later, when science, you know, musters up and says guess what? Science has just proved that this really really happens, and we go. You know, we've been doing it for years, but thanks for letting us know. And so it's one of those things where the process of science, the process of this academic quantification of you know, we need to test this 10 more times and we need to do all these things and we need to write about this five more times, all of that sort of stuff five years later, 10 years later most times it's 20 years later and so it denies our capacity to actually, in a moment, trust or hold faith or hold connection to something, because we aren't given permission outside of science to do so. So that, to me, is one of the places where we need that capacity to really start to honour so much more of what is right within us and what is right for us, as opposed to simply waiting all the time for, you know, this external permission which you know, let's face it again, and there's so many reasons for this right.
Speaker 2:If your village is now 8 billion people, we've got to do things different. How are we all going to connect? How are we going to talk? How do we keep us all safe? I understand that in the beginning there was huge reason for setting up, you know, different forms of systems to allow for some form of, you know, protection or growth or all these sorts of things.
Speaker 2:We've just pulled ourselves so away from where that's relevant and that's why, to me, you know, the big talk around locality is so important right now. Because, at the end of the day, who we are is shaped by where we are. How we eat, how we are nourished, is shaped by where we are, and we don't give enough credit to that, because we can continue with trade and eat grapes any time of the year, because I feel like grapes means that we aren't really in sync with our location and location. And having the capacity for a smaller locality to be able to hold that protection and hold our well-being and our wellness more to its, you know confinement means that we really do get to be nourished right from the beginning.
Speaker 2:You know, right deeply into our place and space, as opposed to this enormous overarching you know the overarching can be. You know simply the goal that as a collective we want to treat the earth better. We want to be able to, you know, limit how we abuse, rape the earth. The world can you do as a location, as opposed to setting these huge, I guess, goals that often aren't relevant to each and every individual or each and every location, so pulling it right back into that yeah, well, let's, let's hold a moment for that.
Speaker 1:That nutrition, um, so I want to get back into that. You know, local, locality, place, that connectedness. Before I do this, there's something that you're causing me to see and I wonder if it's accurate. So let me, let me ask you, and we can talk from there. Place can become source. Right that the science tells us what to do and it tells us how to feel?
Speaker 1:Like to me, this is that, that, that source energy that you talked about at the beginning. So science, out of the place becomes source, and this tells me that the location of these aspects matter. That like place matters, like you're getting into that, that your place, you as you as carry there's this carrying or carrying or this carrier, excuse me of the energy through the voice, into that final flow of your book, your part, it seems to me like you're saying that your part is to take this energy, manifest it through the way that you felt like you were supposed to, you were called to, and then to just mother it out into the world, but to release it to some degree. Like you said, it's not hope, it's faith. How do we relearn this? How do we become reawakened to this? How do we practice this in our own lives, in a world? And maybe the answer is just Daniel we have to fix the world. The world's the problem.
Speaker 1:I'll let you respond. But how do we allow ourselves to reawaken to the idea that the location matters, that science isn't bad. It's location to this energy that matters. Is it the source or is it just an aspect that that forms? You know this the sacredness gives form to the sacredness. How do we relearn that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think part of this is and this is where we go back to those cogs all turning in one place right at the one time to allow so much to happen. Because there is the process of, for starters, recognising the power and the capacity and the need for each person to adopt, you know, self-responsibility and really take themselves back into their own place, of understanding not just who they are but where they are and how that placement is. And I wonder if a part of the piece of this is coming back to belonging. And belonging sits at the start of the book as speaking about it is the absolute baseline for the living system when we belong. And that we belong is of utmost importance to the living system, because we all will find that we have specific threads and connections really really deeply rooted into a place, a people that we belong to. And belonging then asks us and allows us to fit and form back into that space because we deeply want to be there and be a part of it and connect to it. And that's going to be so individual for every person.
Speaker 2:For some people it might be where they were born, for other people it might not be, but it's finding that capacity to belong, because then, once we belong into a space, the desire to then belong in deeply in the terms of being threaded into that community, supporting that community, protecting that community, being a part of that community, all falls into place.
Speaker 2:So where we belong allows us the ability to start to do the process of moving into the ritual and the oneness and the togetherness. And science at this point has become this godlike figure outside of all of that. That has really removed for us this capacity to have our own inner knowing and truth, which we started from right, like how did our very first first nations peoples know which plant they could eat or not eat or all of these things? There was so much knowing and sensory around all of that that allowed them to really deeply connect. And we've lost all of that. We look on a label. We wouldn't even know how most of our food is made. We wouldn't even know where it's made or any of those or who it belonged to, and so that changes the game completely.
Speaker 1:Do you think our reliance on labels will only continue to co-create with the organizations and the institutions that we probably won't see as beneficial here in this living system, this thing that makes us slice off our members? Do you think our labels distance us? Let me ask the question that way, from this deeper understanding, this oneness type understanding, or do they help us? I don't even know how to form that, you know. Do they do they? Do they help us carry on? Is there, is there value or virtue in just carrying on? That's, that's kind of a second part of that question for you I mean labels.
Speaker 2:Labels allow us to, to maintain ourselves within that system. That's exactly what the labels provide. They tell us everything we want to know, because we can't stand in front of a person and say how did you make it, betty, right? So because we don't do that, we need the labels to allow ourselves to stay, you know, with some capacity to feel at ease with what has happened around this process, you know, around this creation of whatever we're having. Does that keep us safe within that system? Absolutely, do we need it while that system is there? Absolutely, because people need to be able to be held accountable to, at least at this point, a standard, because it's all we have, right, and other people need to know what that standard is in truth for themselves. Do we really want it? Of course, not. Right, like when we make stuff from home and give it to our friends. Now, we might put a random label on it, but mostly it would just be here's a loaf of bread, right, because we know that it's been made and it's good and it's great and it's fine.
Speaker 2:Sometimes now, people at the sort of market, sort of stalls might have, you know, self-raising flour, sugar, this, you know, list ingredients really roughly, just to be able to make sure if someone picked it up, if they had an intolerance of some sort, they could pick it up straight away, you know. But all of that is solved by having the conversation. You know, by having to, by being in a place that you have a relationship with the people who are making your food or preparing your food. Be Be that a farmer, you know for straight away, with fruit and vegetables or, let's say, meats and everything else, or you know the craft person who's cooking or making something. There's my baker standing there, you know. Hey, george, how did you make my bread? Oh, yeah, it's full of rye and this and this. Great thanks. You know, we don't have that ability now to ask. Well, we don't take advantage of that. We are building that back and we are really trying to build back the capacity to you know, know the people and know our farmers and know all of these things. Will we step back into that? That really literally depends on us, and it amazes me that more people don't understand that the one big game changer in the whole game is ourselves. We literally determine how everything functions within a day within our location, within our relationships, by the manner in which we shop, buy, work, all of those things, and it just amazes me that we stay.
Speaker 2:Do we need to change? We can keep clocking the way we're going, you know, and for a lot of people I think the capacity to change is so, it's not even enormous. It's so out of what their desire is, of comfort, that they're not interested in it. You know, I've got 20 years here and I've got the capacity to do as I want, play as I want and all the rest of it, and and I can enjoy my time. Then that is the view of some people, sadly, you know. Do I think we need to change? There will be no need if people want to maintain that.
Speaker 2:Do we need to change? If we want to, you know, give a future to generations to come, then absolutely, you know, and all of our actions that we take right now tell that story and begin that story and reveal to our young people how much we actually care. Right, like, from that perspective, one of the devastating things for our younger generation right now is not just this is what you've left for us, or this is the position you've put us in, but how much you care about us in not being willing to make some changes to make things liveable or enjoyable for us as we go into a future. The fact that our young people are filled with anxiety 30 down, the anxiety that is and the depression that is rampant through that younger generation of what are we actually walking into is enormous yeah, I think a lot of people would then start arguing that we need to control ourselves out of this.
Speaker 1:That's the response I usually get. The enormity of the situation demands an enormous response, and we see that. As we have a lot of work to do, how do you respond?
Speaker 2:more of the same gets the same results, really doesn't it? Yeah, isn't that the definition? You know loosely, so I think you know a part of it. To start with, there has to be a lot more coming back together. You know there has to be a lot more listening. You know there has to be a lot more listening and it's really great for all of these. You know webinars and influential people and all the rest of it wanting to promote our First Nations peoples, their prophecies, their voices, all these sorts of things.
Speaker 2:But at the end of the day, if the governments, if the people who are holding the strings to all of the rest of us as puppets aren't listening and we aren't willing to step outside of the normal control, nothing's going to change right.
Speaker 2:We either have to be serious about the things that we're sharing and talking about and saying well, regardless, we're stepping out. We're going to take be serious about the things that we're sharing and talking about and saying well, regardless we're stepping out, I'm going to change these things, or everything will just fall into that controlled manner looking out, because the governments, the people with money, they have, at the end of the day, the capacity to keep that controlled manner going forward. You know the people who get to go to the conferences that literally shape the rest of our lives. The rest of us go to these other conferences that are trying to come up with a new way to shape all these lives and it's great to keep talking about them. But we have to recognise we have the power to start to make those changes based on find where you belong and find in that belonging. Who else is sharing those voices with you? And start with two Start with you and life and connecting to your being. Start with finding one more person in that area who listens.
Speaker 1:Start exchanging things, start right like this is what we have to start to do I love, uh, I'm, I'm so attracted, carrie, to your ruggedness, if I can use this word so many of us in this, in this modern moment you know we can keep names out of the way, but so many of our mutual connections they're, I believe. I know they have nothing to say about their heart, so don't take this that way, but so much of their work is what is the biggest platform, the most successful platform, the most profitable platform, to get this message out Right? And the message is still about the platform. Okay, and I really believe that that's true, the message is still about the platform. There is a realness.
Speaker 1:I had a conversation with a friend of mine in the UK and and he said he had become disillusioned with these climate narratives because the more he thought about the climate, the less he thought about his neighbors. And so he said I want to be a celebrity to my neighbors. I want to be the person they call when they need. I want to be the person they call when they cry or want to laugh or want to get a drink Right, like that's what I want with my neighbors. And so he said as soon as you let go of the climate crisis, if we can call it that, regardless if it is or not. He turned homeward right. And what I'm getting from your words is that the first step in truly understanding this other world that really exists, that is the world right, that the world around us that we perceive to be the world is not the world is a human created world to some large degree that the first step is turning inward and understanding what, what this is right, this bacteria and clay, or bacteria and fungi, you know, as I wrote about, uh, that took its clay with it. You know, like, just like, what is what's swimming around in here that makes any sort of sense? I've heard people call them meat suits, which I think is also a really funny way of describing it. It's turning inward, it begins turning inward.
Speaker 1:But to me, I also get this, and I've listened to a conversation in preparation for this interview I can't speak to where I've completely just lost that train of thought. But in the conversation you make the comment about individualness and about teams and terrain, and I want to give you an opportunity to touch on that because to me, understanding your thoughts and the wisdom that you share, it is that we must first turn inward. But if we don't start to allow that turning of inwardness to turn kind of like togetherness. You know I'm doing this with my hands right now. If you're on video, like I don't know what this is. I don't want to say external, because it's not external to me, but it's also not this aspect of earth. Right, it's that also one there. So could you speak to that? After turning inward, what then?
Speaker 2:yeah, so inward is in. Inward is the space of us being able to go into that. You know that real sacredness of who we are and it's almost like an open out right.
Speaker 1:I like that.
Speaker 2:So we come in to open out, and the opening out allows us to discover everything that we are, and in general, it's everything. We've been separated from right, and so it's from each other, but from an internal journey We've also been separated from everything that's within us, the terrain that's within us, you know, and that, again, was that big journey away from knowing, you know what we are in this human form, understanding the biome, the bacteria and all these intricate little beings that make up who we are. That very same terrain that's happening within there is a part of what we are meeting internally but then bringing to the external as well, and I think I just repeat time and time again within the book that everything is in this micro, macro form, right? So, again, this holonic sort of form of wholeness that it's repeated constantly, it's the same, the very same way a cell is functioning is the same way, you know, a solar system is functioning in many ways, right, everything is talking in the same manner, and so this concept of terrain is how everything works as one within that. So, you know, as opposed to something being a team, where most things come as an individual into a space to be able to simply offer what they have as an individual to say. This is what our goal is going forward At all times.
Speaker 2:A terrain, which is how the earth works, is coming from a space of nothing is ever actually separated, so nothing is individual, so nothing is coming only as itself. It's already coming as this little form, but as a part of a whole. It never sees itself as only one and so it's never actually trying to fit in. It already belongs, it already connects and it's already a part of. We just have to allow ourselves to recognize that sort of energetic exchange as opposed to this individual. But we've been, you know, again categorised into this concept that we are individual, this idea that we are just one self getting along in the world, and it just couldn't be further from the truth. Right, like everything that we have, is this little nucleus running, whether it's a family, whether it's within our environment.
Speaker 2:There's this whole conversation through this terrain, capacity to live off and through and with each other is happening all the time. And whether we believe it or not, you know, it's evident in our own neighbourhoods, right by the relationships we have within our own communities. There's already an establishment of that kind of terrain there, whether we think that we're a part of it or not. It's already there and it's already existing, just as it is between, you know, the soles of our feet and the earth when we're walking on it or whatever else. Right, there's that energetic linkage coming through all things all the time. So my perspective, the terrain, is the capacity to allow ourselves to be a part of the wholeness, and everything that we are doing really impacts that wholeness constantly. So we are allowing ourselves to flow as one part, but never a part, right, we're always in that wholeness sort of view.
Speaker 1:For those listeners who have been with us this whole time but maybe are asking a foundational question. Maybe their spirits are driving with you, but they're not yet sure that this truly matters. I think I know your answer, but I want to give you a platform just to put it there. Why does this understanding matter? Why does this understanding matter? I don't want to ask because that sounds like a very simple question and so you probably have an answer for it already. Let me ask it to be a little bit more particular. We talked about eating food locally. Right, that is a thing that we can do, but someone who disbelieves in the one living system may also eat food locally. So why made the belief in a one living system while eating food locally? Why may that matter more than just simply eating food locally? Because it's a thing to do? Does that question make yeah.
Speaker 2:So the whole point of the living system as to why it matters, is because it's the why that holds our capacity as a foundation to reconnect to anything that we truly are going to care about. So the difference between the person who doesn't believe and is acting locally is probably generally acting locally out of convenience. The person who's doing it as a part of the living system is doing it to be a part of that community. They're doing it to be a part of the economy of that community and there's a huge difference in that right. So there's a person who's like well, I'm going to build my house here because it's closer to the school and closer to the bus and everything else. I don't have to. You know, I can get my life's easy right, and that's completely different to the person who's like I am happy to live here because I want to be able to speak to my grocer or know the person who's made my bread and walk in every day and go how are you doing and what's happening. So the living system is the connection. It's the connection to the meaning and the why of what we do within, you know, within our space and place, and when speaking to a lot of people on the land, like regenerative, as a word we don't have time to get into that and restorative sort of landowners and everything else. What they have is, at the moment, an understanding of what they can do to better source their land, to better nurture their land, to. At this point in time, a lot of it would be driven around doing your part for the climate crisis. You know all these sorts of things as to why they're going to be in this regenerative or restorative state, but once you know the living system, that becomes why you're doing it because you're a part of it. Why do you want to restore that land? Because it's restoring yourself at the same time. Because you and the part of it. Why do you want to restore that land? Because it's restoring yourself at the same time. Because you and the land are one. Because if you really want to restore and connect to it, then you need to belong to it.
Speaker 2:We don't care for things that we don't belong to. How many people care about their neighbours or even know their name or care what's happened to them within a day? Because it's not my business, my life's fine, I'm down the shutter. This is me. The minute we care, the minute we have connection to something we want to care and have capacity to protect and nurture and love and, from a land perspective, steward something. So the minute we start to bring ourselves back into that connection and understanding that we are the very same sacred energy that is the land, that is life, we will stop and go. This is why I'm going to fix it. This is why I'm going to play my part, because it's me. I'm in that blade of grass, I'm in that tree. I'm in that blade of grass, I'm in that tree, I'm in those clouds, and what I do matters to every other one's. You know pieces of those expressions, right?
Speaker 1:it's that inward, how did you say it?
Speaker 1:the inward folding out yeah, well opening out, yeah, opening out yeah, it's a wonderful image, especially in in in land management, or whatever you want to call that wonderful. Well, what else is on your mind? I mean, I have so many questions for you. There's so many different places we can go. We've obviously talked quite a period of time. Is there anything left that you would like to discuss or that you know you want to handle a little bit better, or or go off on a tangent? I'm going to give you that, give you that place.
Speaker 2:How about? How about cutting out a, a, um, a call?
Speaker 1:Is that what that was?
Speaker 2:A call from a a, a call from a little one. No, I just enjoy being able to hold, you know, really beautiful conversations with people that go off in all sorts of different places. I think it's just such a wonderful thing that allows us the ability to you know for more than what you would expect to come, and I think that's what's really important. I never go with thoughts or questions or queries because I like to just see what arrives at the time and and how it sort of wants to come into play, and so it. I think one of the things that I've always loved about reading your work I've been reading into stag time is the similarities. Right, and here I am, you know, right down the bottom of Australia, and there you are, you know, in the middle, in the, you know, united States, and here we are having similar thoughts and feelings and visions and connections. And one of the things I do say at the start of the book is and this is a really important, I think, message for everyone is that no vision is ever given to one person, it's given to many, and our very first task is to find each other, to find the rest of those pieces to the vision and allowing then that stronghold to start to feel more connected when you realise that you aren't one, you're one of many, and that brings the voice to being louder and louder and louder. So to the listeners, to your people, it would be. Agree or disagree is not the point. The point is find the connection to the people that you know, that are in that same people that you know, that are in that same space that you are, to allow you to bring your visions and everything else forward. I always do ask people to keep at least one you know antagonist in the group to help you expand yourself and grow. But most people aren't really wanting that. They like to just have people there that are going to agree with them. But it's true, whether people agree or disagree, you know, find your people, find where you belong, find where you're at at any point in time and really allow yourselves to start sort of emerging from that space and place.
Speaker 2:I I argue that you know, all the self-help we've done over decades has actually only led us into more of our egoic human mind.
Speaker 2:How could it not? Because we've never seen ourselves as a part of anything other than humanity and so seeing yourself as sacred, unravelling ourselves back into that space is work we've never done before. We've never known ourselves as a part of life, as a part of nature, as a part of each other. We've only ever dared to look at ourselves in our own human form and therefore, how could we ever have found the truth when it's not the whole truth? Our whole truth is all of who we are. Our whole truth is a part of you and a part of life and a part of all these other things. Understanding, you know, consciousness only from this human perspective means we'll never find it because it's not the whole truth you know. So, really allowing ourselves to step out and see ourselves as more than this human form, feel ourselves past our skin, past our fingertips, allows us to really start to discover the truth of who we are, I would argue, for the first time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, brilliant. I don't want to say much because that was just brilliant, kerry, thank you. If people listening to this have interest in, in this work and these ideas, how may they find you? How may they find? Find the book?
Speaker 2:so the book is on um the website. The link is just under one living systemorg, uh, and, and they'll find the book in there and a donation, as much or as little as you have capacity to, and then the link will be sent a link, you know, to an online platform, and you can download it as a PDF or grab it as an audio and just work through it. And the most important thing is to reach out and have conversation about that. That's the most exciting part for me, as people are going through the book. Let's talk about it, let's explore it together so that we have, you know, such a deepening of our connections and everything together.
Speaker 1:Speaking about publishing and then this weird culture that surrounds us, and publishing just surrounds all of us. The number of people that have come up to me and said, man, I've read your book and you know, and whatever they have good things to say, they have bad things to say. I was like, well, that book's been out for like four or five years. Where were you? You know, they're like oh, I didn't think you cared about my opinion and it's just like. I want to shake everybody, like for all authors anywhere and maybe I can't speak for all of us, but I can at least speak for you and you and myself here Like, come right, like this is not like people like you and I were not writing these books to fulfill some sort of, you know, grant process in a university, where somebody pays us to write a book about a particular subject, cause that's what they wanted, and we do so and it's just checked off the list.
Speaker 1:We now get tenure, whatever. You know, it's not, it's not this way. It's a conversation, you know. So I'm thrilled you think the same thing. So I always just want to be like give me a hug. Like what are you talking about? You've lived with these words and we've never been able to speak about it. How unnatural is that? Become known to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Wonderful.
Speaker 2:I look forward to many more days of becoming known to each other. Daniel, it's been so great talking to you.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely, Absolutely Well. Thank you again, Kerry. It's a pleasure to be with you. We'll do this many more times, hopefully in person one day. I don't know if I'll ever make it there or you'll make it here, but we'll have to make it in person somewhere sometime.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Have to make it in person somewhere sometime, absolutely that's a, that's a promise.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you. Well, we made it. Thanks for listening to this episode. If you've enjoyed the content or the conversation and you want to join the content and conversation, I beg, I plead with you to allow us to create a two-way conversation and it's not just us speaking at you, but join us online on Substack. It's free, it doesn't cost you anything at all. It's the Wildland Chronicles on Substack. It's a link in the bio. You know what to do. Click it, join it, and all of these episodes are posted there, with some further discussion topics and a way for us to discuss and comment and critique and further these thoughts together, which is, I have to be honest with you, the only reason we do this. I have no interest in talking at people, with people. So join us. We'll see you there.