Latest / Random Heathen Ramblings / Mind, Land, and Spirit: The Holistic Heathen Way feat. Dina Ely [RHR S6, EP39]

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Mind, Land, and Spirit: The Holistic Heathen Way feat. Dina Ely [RHR S6, EP39] · Random Heathen Ramblings

• 0:02
  Hello everyone, and welcome to the Random Heathen Ramblings
• 0:05
  podcast where we discuss all sorts of things Germanic
• 0:08
  Heathenry related. My name is Jesse and I'm your
• 0:11
  host. Let's get into it.
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  Visit our online store at the Olivet here.com and discover the
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  beauty of Mountain Spirit. Welcome back to the show,
• 1:11
  everyone. Hope you've had a great week and
• 1:13
  that you're welcoming in the cool weather.
• 1:15
  Finally, I know I talk about all the time, you think that's all I
• 1:18
  care about, but I am sick of eight months of summer.
• 1:22
  So I'm glad to report, at least here in Middle Tennessee, cool
• 1:25
  mornings are finally here. We had a good nice, crisp, you
• 1:28
  know, 4050° mornings here this week.
• 1:30
  And I hope wherever it is that you are that you're getting a
• 1:32
  chance to get into that mindset of welcoming in the autumn,
• 1:36
  well, really winter months. For those of you that are old
• 1:39
  ways, I'll either altitude old sacks in old ways or foreign
• 1:44
  seed old Norse old ways practitioners.
• 1:47
  You are like myself, looking forward to the winter nights
• 1:51
  celebration coming up here in just a couple of weeks and I
• 1:54
  think about 3 weeks, the next full moon.
• 1:58
  So very excited for that. It is getting into winter.
• 2:01
  If you're in the northern area of the country listening, it's
• 2:04
  going to be coming sooner than it is probably for me.
• 2:07
  But yeah, very excited about that.
• 2:10
  So thank you all for being here. If this is your first time
• 2:13
  listening to the show on any of the audio platforms, welcome.
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  Thank you for listening. You didn't know.
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  I do have a video version of this broadcast available on my
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  Patreon. If you click the link tree link
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  that's in the description or the show notes area of the show, you
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  will be directed to a bunch of things, one of which is my
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  Patreon site to patreon.com/midgard Musings.
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  social media, feel free to follow me on Facebook,
• 3:01
  Instagram, subscribe to me on YouTube and we'll see you is
• 3:04
  around. So now that we got all that
• 3:06
  stuff out of the way, I'm very excited to announce my next
• 3:09
  guest for this week. She is a board certified
• 3:13
  holistic health practitioner and a Norse or Germanic heathen of
• 3:17
  about 3 decades. We're going to be talking a lot
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  today about the importance of mind, body, spirit, you know, a
• 3:24
  holistic approach to being heathen.
• 3:27
  So we're going to be hearing from Deena Ely of Whispering
• 3:31
  Wilds. Welcome to the show, Dina.
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  Thank you for being here. Thank you so much for having me.
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  I'm really excited to speak to you and to your audience and
• 3:40
  I've enjoyed the show for quite a while, so.
• 3:43
  Yeah, do you remember when you found out about random heathen
• 3:47
  ramblings or Midgard business 'cause I believe we have a
• 3:49
  mutual acquaintance community? Yes, and I and Saga's obviously
• 3:55
  been been on the show. So that was highly likely, I
• 3:58
  believe either around that time or possibly before.
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  But I think we're we're also in a couple Facebook groups
• 4:06
  together. So it's kind of like that.
• 4:09
  We've orbited the same, same circle, so.
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  Very cool. Well, it's great to have you
• 4:16
  here. We exchanged some conversation
• 4:18
  over e-mail over the last several weeks getting to know a
• 4:21
  little bit about you. So I got to learn that you are a
• 4:24
  board certified holistic health practitioner, which sounds
• 4:27
  really fancy, sounds really important.
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  So I'm excited to get to hear about that is and what that
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  entails. And also your Heathenry of of
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  three decades. You know, when when you start to
• 4:38
  calculate tenure within anything, whether it's a job or
• 4:43
  a practice, when you can start saying decades, you know, like I
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  just hit my first decade in Heathenry this year.
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  So it's kind of like, yeah, it gives you some of that
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  credibility. You know, you should know what
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  you're talking about when you can start.
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  Do, you know, doing stuff like that.
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  So 3 decades is, is no dropping the hat.
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  So between all of that, I'm really excited to, to hear your,
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  your story and, and learn a little bit about you this this
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  week. And I hope my listeners are too.
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  So you guys are in for a ride, but you are, you're in New
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  Jersey. We talked a little bit about
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  this earlier. Are you, are you from that
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  northeast area of the country? Is that your kind of your base?
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  Yeah, Yep. I actually was born and raised
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  in New Jersey, went to College in Vermont, so I got some of
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  that beautiful mountain scenery and was briefly in Texas for
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  just like a tiny bit and then came back to New Jersey.
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  But this is just this little part of the world being nestled
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  between a forest and a lake. It's just where I was meant to
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  be. I have my my little families of
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  wildlife that and just deep connection to this land.
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  So yeah, I've, I've spent a long time here.
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  That's great. It is a beautiful area.
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  We talked offline earlier. You know, I'm I'm a New York
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  State native and you know, New York and New Jersey, they are
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  neighbors and and they border one another.
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  So there's a lot of similar landscape in that portion of the
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  state. And the portion of the state
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  where I'm from in New York is close to Jersey.
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  And you could have fooled me. I just gotta say, you know,
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  there's this like long time, long standing, like rivalry
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  between New Yorkers and New Jerseyans, you know, and you you
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  hide, you hide your accent really well if you have one.
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  I just gotta say I don't have I'm.
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  On my way, yeah. I don't have one either.
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  I never did. I always attribute it to growing
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  up with a a really big UK influence.
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  So I feel like I'm this weird mishmash.
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  I never really got to kind of settle into my native accent.
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  I can't even fake it. Like people fake, you know, put
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  it on and I'm like, how do you do that?
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  It's so foreign to me. Well, that's great.
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  You know, I just it, it's funny how sometimes you know, people
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  when you, when you talk to them for the first time, you and you
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  hear about where they're from. You go really, you know, I've,
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  I've, I, I used to, well, I still do.
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  But like my job for the longest was, was talking to people on
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  the phones. And a lot of the people who I
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  would talk to are New York natives and I would be, you
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  know, talking to them in my quote UN quote customer service
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  voice. And they're like, you sound like
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  you're from Illinois. I'm like, hold on a minute,
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  buddy. Like, oh, you know, don't,
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  don't, don't throw me in there with those.
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  What do you call them? Hoosiers or whatever they call
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  them Indiana. But anyway, in the Midwest, it's
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  kind of like a neutral accent, you know what I mean?
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  So people that have like just kind of a neutral American
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  accent, it's they think that it's a Midwestern.
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  Right, makes sense. But OK, so let's get into it.
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  Dina, you have been a heathen, at least from what you told me.
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  You've been a heathen for 30 years.
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  You've been in the holistic health practice for how long
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  would you say is this? Is this been your whole life?
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  Like when? You no, I I entered into it in
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  2003 and it took a a few different forms, but 2003 was
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  the the first time that I was certified which started with
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  Reiki. So the energy medicine side of
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  things. And then I, I kind of just grew
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  my set of interests, became a yoga trainer, all kinds of
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  things. And eventually it was thought,
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  well, I'm doing all of these things for all of these
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  different parts of, of the body and the spirit and the mind.
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  I might as well see what it's like combining all of them and
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  learning this, this holistic, very specific holistic
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  framework. So went and pursued my education
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  in, in that and some additional certifications in under that
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  umbrella and things like meditation and breath work and,
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  and different practices. So I'm an eternal learner.
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  That's what I like to say. I will never be somebody who
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  just does one thing, even if I do it well.
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  I'm always looking for ways to expand my mind.
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  I, I've always been that way. I, I think that's, that is the,
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  that is the, the crux of, of life for me.
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  If you're not always living to expand your horizons and to just
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  kind of experience new things, then you know why are you
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  living? Yeah, yeah.
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  You know, I had AI had a a very similar outlook on life or still
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  you have a very similar outlook on life is, you know, I'd ever
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  like getting settled into something and becoming too
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  comfortable with it. You know, I mean, stability is
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  one thing, finding your place in the world and knowing where that
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  place is and nurturing it, but never settling for like the tree
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  keeps growing. You know what I mean?
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  In different ways. It's, you know, upward, outward,
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  and in this process also deeper, right?
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  The, the roots grow deeper, the tree can grow stronger and out,
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  you know, out and all that. So that's how the, the analogy
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  that I always give is if I can learn more and there's so much
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  to, you know, all of this. And it sounds like for you,
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  your, your, your, your approach in holistic Wellness and in all
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  these various practices, you, you came into that after you'd
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  been heathen for some time. Is that an accurate?
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  Yes, yes, definitely. It was.
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  I, I think being heathen has made me very open to learning
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  new things in general. It's it's sort of important to
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  us. Obviously we we have Odin's
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  entire jam is wisdom and sacrificed so much for it and
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  he's always calling us to learn more.
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  And even just the religion itself, you know, there's the
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  joke that it's the religion with homework, but I think that comes
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  with a certain amount of intellectual curiosity built
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  into it. So.
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  Yeah, yeah, 'cause I mean, I don't know when, when, if we
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  could maybe touch a little bit on like the the roots of the
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  origins of your arriving at Heathenry.
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  Do you come from a, you know, Germanic or Scandinavian family
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  that has those traditions kind of rooted into their family
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  dynamic that you grew up around these stories or what brought
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  you into Heathen, if you if you wouldn't mind sharing that with
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  us? I'm happy to share.
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  I don't have, I do have Norwegian in my family, you
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  know, composition and, and background, but they're not
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  heathen, not worse or Germanic either.
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  What actually introduced me to the cosmology was I went to an
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  Catholic school from when I was 7th grade through through 12th
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  grade, so like 12 to 11 to 17. And one of the first things that
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  they had me do was to enter into kind of like this, this study of
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  world religions. And adjacent to that, I think
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  was their way of introducing us to some classical literature
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  because, you know, a lot of it was was written in times when
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  other religions were more prevalent.
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  And so they introduced us to Norse mythology and had us read
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  a series of of books on Norse mythology.
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  And I was just absolutely fascinated because I was also
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  studying Latin and I've been studying Greek and, and Roman
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  gods. And there was just something
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  about what seemed what felt like an, an absolute chaos in, in the
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  Norse cosmology by comparison, that I loved.
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  It was just, it felt wild. And the more that I studied
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  about these concepts of things like animism, the more I
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  realized, you know, I had been kind of embracing that my whole
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  life regardless. So I was raised Catholic and I
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  made it to, to, you know, 12 years old before I was first
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  introduced to, to foreign religions.
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  But it was thanks to the the sisters at the school really
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  that I started learning about something that would become a
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  huge part of me so. I wonder how much longer after
• 14:08
  that that they dropped that curriculum.
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  We lost another one. Like the whole idea was like it
• 14:16
  kind of backfired on them a bit. A.
• 14:18
  Little bit, you know. I've had this.
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  I've had this standing, I don't know, observation that I've made
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  a joke out of, you know, that Catholics are just pagans in
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  denial. I've been to Catholic mass.
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  I was baptized Catholic when my neither one of my parents, they
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  were both raised, you know, my mom, you know, she was half
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  Italian, half German, born into the Roman Catholic religion.
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  My dad went to, you know, and they both went to Catholic
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  school and but they never like we never as kids.
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  My sister and I like when I was born, you know, we, we, I was
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  baptized in the Catholic Church, but I never went to mass as a
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  kid, you know, our, our religious views as I was over,
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  you know, 4-5 years old after my sister was born, they were more
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  non denominational, you know what I mean?
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  It was a, it was a much more secular approach to
• 15:13
  Christianity. But later on in my life, I was
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  exposed to Catholic Mass and it was unlike any other church
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  service I'd been to because of all of the, the methodology,
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  like the, the ritual of Mass. It's beautiful.
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  I mean, and, and this is coming from a heathen myself, you know,
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  so it's the, the process, you know, and then the smells of the
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  frankincense in the, in the, in the, in the cathedrals, you know
• 15:43
  what I mean? It's, it's a beautiful ceremony.
• 15:45
  It's a beautiful ritual. But as a Pagan, right?
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  Or as heathen, I'm like, this looks pretty Pagan to me, you
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  know, incantations, the, the, this and the, that.
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  So I made this joke, right? You can call yourself, you know,
• 15:58
  you believe in God, whatever, you're Saints and this and that.
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  You're still doing Pagan ritual, it says.
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  Yeah, it's, it is very interesting.
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  There are a lot of parallels and one of the the things I
• 16:13
  recommend to anybody who says that they're going to, to
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  Europe, particularly to country like, like France, for example,
• 16:20
  where you have a lot of the very old churches with the Danse
• 16:23
  macabre where you just walk in and it's like these frescos of
• 16:28
  skeletons doing wild parties and, and dancing and stuff.
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  And it's, it feels very, yeah, it's, it's not at all solemn
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  and, and somber. And when it is, it is very
• 16:42
  beautiful in, in its ritual and right.
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  But there's, there's a lot in places where I have walked into
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  churches and recognized clearly some, some Pagan symbolism that
• 16:55
  have been hidden in there, you know?
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  Yeah, yeah. So, so I guess you didn't really
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  have a hard time transitioning from Catholicism to to
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  Heathenry, right. There was no prior like did you
• 17:12
  have any baggage that you had to pick apart or or anything going
• 17:16
  from one to the other after you discovered Heath and right that
• 17:18
  there was a religion or a faith or folkway to these myths and
• 17:22
  things that you had read about. I wouldn't say so.
• 17:27
  All I would say is that for Catholicism in particular, and
• 17:31
  you will understand this, there is a, a doctrine of that that
• 17:38
  tends to come with guilt and a lot of overthought.
• 17:45
  And Catholics, something I actually admire about
• 17:49
  Catholicism actually is, is that their salvation comes from doing
• 17:53
  good as opposed to just accepting, you know, Jesus or
• 18:00
  accepting whatever the, the tenants of their faith are.
• 18:03
  They actually have to earn their goodness and that does come.
• 18:09
  The flip side of that is it comes with some guilt and shame
• 18:12
  and pressure. But it also, I think is not
• 18:17
  unlike what we have to do to try and, and behave in a way that we
• 18:26
  are upholding the principles of the, the hub mall, for example,
• 18:30
  or nothing is as set in stone as Catholicism because the religion
• 18:35
  isn't written as clearly. That's not a living religion
• 18:39
  anymore apart from from us, but it's not a popularized living
• 18:44
  religion. So I, I admire the idea that you
• 18:49
  have to kind of work at being good to participate in, in your
• 18:53
  own spirituality. You have to constantly work at
• 18:56
  at improving or like I, you know, said earlier, the
• 19:00
  learning, expanding horizons. You don't just say you are a
• 19:04
  good person and sit back and let that be your reputation.
• 19:08
  So you're. You gotta yeah, it's it's it's,
• 19:13
  you know, deeds. We are our deeds.
• 19:16
  That's a that's a, it's a catch phrase.
• 19:18
  But it's also the the title of a book that that was very popular.
• 19:22
  I know it. It's fallen under a lot of
• 19:24
  criticism with some academic sorts and other heathens of Eric
• 19:29
  welding, right, because the welding brothers have a have a
• 19:32
  reputation. I think it was Eric who doesn't
• 19:34
  even it's either Eric or Swain who doesn't even claim heathenry
• 19:37
  anymore. They they denounce it.
• 19:40
  One of them does. But anyway, we are our deeds,
• 19:42
  right? That's the name of the book, but
• 19:44
  it's also what we believe. I think a lot of us as heathens
• 19:47
  is we're not just skating by, you know, because we have
• 19:52
  certain percentage of Northern European ancestry and this is
• 19:56
  our ancestral way. And you know, till Valhalla and
• 19:59
  all this kind of junk, we, we, we, we.
• 20:03
  And I think what most heathens do is, is, is they, they, they
• 20:06
  see our lives as, you know, reflections upon our ancestors.
• 20:11
  We do things to give honor to them.
• 20:13
  We live, we should be living in ways that honors their memory.
• 20:17
  And sets up a good future for our descendants or whether it's
• 20:22
  children or, you know, through birth, adoption, marriage, what
• 20:24
  have you. Our deeds now are important.
• 20:27
  It's not to give us salvation in the afterlife.
• 20:30
  It's to pass down that luck and strengthen the, the, the, the,
• 20:36
  the web of weird and, and, and everything and, and feed the
• 20:39
  well with good things for the future to, to have 'cause this
• 20:43
  is, you know, what we believe is, is a continuation of things.
• 20:47
  It's, it's not we live and we die and that's it.
• 20:49
  It's we continue on, just in a different form.
• 20:52
  Exactly, Yeah. Yeah.
• 20:55
  That's a beautiful put. Yeah.
• 20:57
  And so it's really interesting for me to learn that, you know,
• 21:01
  you came into Heathenry through story, through myth, through
• 21:08
  lore. And there's a lot of that in, in
• 21:10
  various beliefs and in various cultures.
• 21:13
  You know, their mythology is, is their origin story, you know,
• 21:20
  but, and that's where it ends for a lot of people.
• 21:21
  They read about it, they learn about, and that's a cool story.
• 21:23
  Then they go back to doing their thing.
• 21:25
  You know, this, these were stories that resonated with you
• 21:29
  to the point of your interest in pursuing that as a, as a
• 21:32
  lifestyle. Like I could, I could get behind
• 21:35
  this religiously, you know, spiritually.
• 21:39
  And we're going to get into that because when, when a lot of
• 21:42
  people listen to what I say and they hear me say religion, that
• 21:46
  kind of for some, I think, and you and you, I'm sure in your 30
• 21:50
  years of being heathen, you've seen when we use the term
• 21:54
  religion to describe this, some people get kind of uncomfortable
• 21:58
  with that because of the connotations of religion being
• 22:03
  this organized, you know, controlling force, which I get,
• 22:09
  but I use religion. And I was going to ask you,
• 22:11
  like, when, when we talk about religion or, or religiousness,
• 22:14
  religiosity, maybe do you have a specific view or, or like, do
• 22:19
  you separate religious acts differently than spiritually,
• 22:25
  like than spiritual acts? So religiosity versus
• 22:28
  spirituality, do you see that they're that they're two
• 22:31
  different things? And if So, what makes them
• 22:33
  different to you? So I, I don't from, from me and
• 22:38
  and from my framework, I don't look at them as being different.
• 22:44
  That said, I tend to use the word faith because of the exact
• 22:48
  reason that you, you said that the idea of religion does
• 22:52
  bristle some people. And when I speak about my
• 22:56
  religion, I will usually call it my faith because that just feels
• 23:01
  good to me. Anyway to frame it as, but I, I
• 23:07
  think that there are people who separate it and that's just
• 23:13
  never really been something that I've put that much thought into
• 23:16
  because I'm definitely not obviously I came from an, an
• 23:19
  organized religion into very disorganized or self organized
• 23:26
  religion. And it's just not ever really
• 23:32
  been a thing for me where I thought, oh, I've got to make
• 23:36
  sure that I'm doing it exactly the same way as somebody else is
• 23:39
  doing it. And I pretty quickly realized
• 23:42
  that everybody's trying their best who are doing this with
• 23:48
  with good intent. They're trying their best to
• 23:52
  follow the faith to the extent that we understand it.
• 23:56
  We're always going to be a little bit different on that,
• 23:58
  especially with EPG and stuff. So I just don't think of it as
• 24:02
  religion anymore in within the the context that that we have
• 24:07
  kind of like religion being more organized or being a force, you
• 24:10
  know? But spirituality is definitely a
• 24:14
  concept that resonates really heavily with me just because I
• 24:17
  think it, it suggests the, the spirit, which is sort of our,
• 24:22
  our more raw and distilled part of us that's connected to our
• 24:26
  beliefs, which are part of our mental state and, and everything
• 24:30
  else. So that that I think
• 24:33
  spirituality or spirit and faith are, are terms that you'll hear
• 24:38
  me use a lot versus versus religion.
• 24:42
  But I don't think innately there's there's anything wrong
• 24:45
  with calling it a religion. But I definitely understand
• 24:47
  people's objection to to the concept of of religion.
• 24:52
  There's a lot happens in the name of religion, so.
• 24:56
  Yeah, definitely. It has a kind of a, you know,
• 24:58
  that that that term or that word does have a have a bit of a
• 25:02
  sourness to it for a lot of folks.
• 25:05
  And and you know, there's, there's, there's so many things
• 25:07
  about this. We'll call, we'll, we'll use
• 25:10
  your term, right, this, this faith way or this faith.
• 25:13
  But the reason I've used I've I've, I've kind of divested
• 25:16
  between the terms spirituality and and and religion because I
• 25:22
  heard this one time through another very well respected
• 25:24
  heathen in the in the community. Not sure if you've ever come
• 25:28
  across his name. Eric Shervin, word Weaver.
• 25:30
  He goes by, Yeah. If you've been around for as
• 25:35
  long as you have in the heathen space, I'm sure you've either
• 25:37
  heard of him or seen his content or know of him.
• 25:40
  Anyways, he, I remember him talking about one time and, and
• 25:43
  how he identified the terms was, you know, the way he saw things,
• 25:47
  right. So again, he and he's very
• 25:49
  transparent with it. It's like, this is just my way.
• 25:51
  It doesn't necessarily reflect my tribe's views on things, nor
• 25:55
  does it reflect the overarching or overall heathen view on
• 25:59
  things. But his view on things was that,
• 26:01
  you know, religion or religiosity refers to our
• 26:03
  relationship with the holy, with the gods, with the divine, with
• 26:07
  the sacred, with those unseen upper level management type
• 26:12
  forces, you know what I mean? And then our spirituality is
• 26:16
  intertwined in that, but our spirituality is more focused on
• 26:20
  how we interact with the spirits of the local space, which exists
• 26:25
  in profane space. So the land of a tier and the OR
• 26:29
  the any other names or terms that you want to use to describe
• 26:32
  your local regional spirits, your ancestors, of course,
• 26:37
  right. So and how he like broke that
• 26:40
  down. I was like, that's cool, You
• 26:41
  know, Like I, you know, if I wanted to adopt that, it
• 26:45
  wouldn't feel, it wouldn't feel foreign to me to think that, you
• 26:48
  know, when we deal with the gods and when we interact with the
• 26:51
  gods as our ancestors did, there's a separation between
• 26:55
  that and the rest of the time. They understood what sacred
• 26:58
  space was. They had it dedicated.
• 27:01
  It was you didn't go to the Grove to, you know, talk to your
• 27:07
  ancestors and really you you went to the Grove to talk to the
• 27:09
  gods and to interact with the divine and those forces, right.
• 27:13
  So the, there is a separation between their day-to-day
• 27:16
  spirituality, I feel and this again, I feel right.
• 27:20
  I think there was a definite separation between how they saw
• 27:22
  the world from the day-to-day aspect of things versus the very
• 27:26
  special times, whether it be times of year at certain holy
• 27:30
  tides or whatever, when the gods were particularly close or they
• 27:34
  would bloat or sacrifice to them to gain their attention, hope
• 27:39
  and and gift to them in hopes for gifts in return.
• 27:42
  Right. That whole gift exchange
• 27:45
  reciprocity type of thing. So yeah, it's interesting.
• 27:49
  I always like to, you know, hear with with somebody who has such
• 27:52
  a a long tenure in this to see where your just to see where
• 27:58
  they're, you know, for so for you see where your views are on
• 28:02
  things. So thank you for sharing.
• 28:03
  Of course, Yeah. I mean, actually when that is a
• 28:08
  very interesting perspective. And I wouldn't say that I'd
• 28:10
  given it kind of words or, or names to that, but there
• 28:14
  definitely are two sides to my practice.
• 28:18
  And I think at the core, most of us are animists.
• 28:26
  That's sort of our and you can't take that away from from the
• 28:30
  faith. You can't take that away from,
• 28:32
  from the religion. That is just part of what we
• 28:34
  are. That is day in, day out, live
• 28:40
  it, breathe it for me, my, my everyday spirituality and
• 28:44
  approach and experience in nature.
• 28:47
  But there is definitely a, a point at which things are, are
• 28:53
  different when I approach the gods, when I bloat and and that
• 28:56
  sort of thing. So while I've never really
• 29:00
  thought to kind of give it a, a name and say that's religion, it
• 29:04
  is much more of a formal kind of just different.
• 29:10
  It's like the the relationship that I live with the spirits
• 29:14
  that are around us all the time is just they're very casual and
• 29:18
  informal. And, you know, I show up the way
• 29:20
  that I am and, and whatever we do, we do excluding say there,
• 29:25
  which is is kind of a whole different ball of wax.
• 29:28
  But yeah, no, when that is really interesting and that
• 29:32
  definitely, I, I know there's kind of a duality to it because
• 29:35
  it's like, OK, well now it's time to, to kind of put the
• 29:39
  serious, you know, to an extent, I'm still pretty playful with my
• 29:44
  approach to the gods, but I also don't expect very much of the
• 29:47
  gods. I, I've kind of learned that
• 29:50
  it's, you can pray and I do, you can offer and I do, but they're
• 29:57
  very busy with their own stuff. It's not quite as as much
• 30:02
  intercession as you come to expect with other religions.
• 30:06
  So in my experience. No, that's a that's a valid
• 30:10
  observation. You know, I think, and I wonder
• 30:13
  how many people this kind of goes back to what I was at, you
• 30:18
  know, talking we were talking about before with our past
• 30:21
  experiences and other religions, right?
• 30:23
  If you grew up in a certain faith or a certain religion and
• 30:25
  you discover Heathenry, you know, you, you are informed by
• 30:29
  this worldview of, of how to access, interact and approach
• 30:35
  divinity, right? Whether it's God, Jesus,
• 30:38
  whatever. And then you come into this, you
• 30:40
  know, polytheistic or halotheistic kind of
• 30:46
  relationship with the divine. And it's like this is, you know,
• 30:49
  we're, we're playing by different rules here.
• 30:51
  This is a different set of circumstances.
• 30:55
  But you know how newbies, you know, people that are new to
• 31:00
  this or that are discovering it, You know how they're like, I
• 31:02
  don't really know what to expect and why didn't the gods answer
• 31:06
  my prayers? And like, it's not really how
• 31:08
  this works. You know what I mean?
• 31:09
  Like it doesn't, it's not the same thing.
• 31:11
  If you, you didn't do anything wrong for your prayer to not be
• 31:14
  answered per SE. It's, you know, wasn't the right
• 31:17
  time, didn't get to him it, you know what I mean?
• 31:19
  Plus, they're not here to do our bidding.
• 31:20
  It's, you know, we got to do it ourselves and and their
• 31:24
  involvement in our lives is what it is or how much it is and
• 31:27
  whatever depending on what we do and how we do it, I think.
• 31:33
  Yeah, absolutely. And I think coming at the
• 31:36
  approach that I I did coming at, at learning about Norse faith
• 31:43
  from mythology kind of helped a little bit with that.
• 31:47
  Because in Norse in the sagas and in the stories, you don't
• 31:52
  see a ton of the gods just showing up for the everyday
• 31:56
  person. And, and the way that you do say
• 31:58
  in Greek mythology, where the gods are constantly meddling
• 32:02
  with humans and can't leave them alone.
• 32:04
  It's it's not really something that the gods are are very
• 32:07
  invested. The stories of the gods are very
• 32:09
  invested in other gods and other things that are going on.
• 32:12
  And there's like bigger fish to fry than constantly interacting
• 32:19
  with us, no matter how much we may want it.
• 32:21
  And you know, that that just kind of set the tone for me.
• 32:25
  And I've had some beautiful that just makes the interactions that
• 32:28
  I have had that much more precious to me.
• 32:32
  Yeah, there, yeah. Those like one officer that you
• 32:35
  know, it's, it's that kind of drives it home for you at that
• 32:38
  moment, like I'm on the right track, you know, that little
• 32:41
  affirmation, it's always nice. But so to talk a bit more about
• 32:46
  your holistic approach. So let's let's get into, you
• 32:50
  know, we, we know some of your background with the Heathenry.
• 32:52
  We know you know around 2003 is when you began pursuing your
• 32:56
  professional path or your professional career in holistic
• 33:00
  healing. So in your view right now, what
• 33:05
  does it mean to be holistically or to live holistically as a
• 33:11
  heathen 'cause it seems like these two things have become
• 33:15
  intertwined for you in in in in many ways.
• 33:20
  Absolutely. It's really a lot closer aligned
• 33:25
  than it would seem on the surface.
• 33:27
  Which involves a little bit of understanding of how the
• 33:30
  holistic view of the body and, and works.
• 33:36
  If you're a heathen, you're already kind of accustomed to
• 33:39
  the idea that our soul body, the mind, that's all a lot of
• 33:46
  complicated parts. And there are quite a few of
• 33:48
  them when we start figuring in, you know, luck, like you
• 33:52
  mentioned before, or Filia and all these other concepts into
• 33:57
  our being, right? In the holistic being.
• 34:01
  There are also a whole lot of different bodies that interact
• 34:06
  that make up who we are. And depending on which school of
• 34:10
  thought you follow or who you're talking to, it could be anywhere
• 34:13
  from the three that you hear about, you know, body, mind,
• 34:16
  spirit, all the way up to I've heard, I think 9.
• 34:20
  I tend to focus on 6, which are your body, mind, spirit, energy
• 34:27
  and your social and environmental bodies.
• 34:33
  So it's living in relationship with ourselves and all these
• 34:39
  different parts of ourselves and accepting that parts of
• 34:41
  ourselves are also external in our community and in the
• 34:47
  environment around us, which is actually very in tune, very, you
• 34:54
  know, vibes very well with the with animism and also with the
• 34:59
  idea for those. I, I've been solitary for for
• 35:03
  most of of the years that I have been heathen.
• 35:06
  But for those who belong to Kindred, for example, there is a
• 35:12
  sense when you take an, an, an oath and there is a sense of
• 35:15
  communal belonging that is almost inseparable from your
• 35:20
  religious being, You know, your spiritual being, you know, it's
• 35:23
  just a, a part of, of, of who you are.
• 35:28
  And so that kind of, if nothing else, and then as a metaphor, it
• 35:33
  works really well. But I think in practice, it
• 35:35
  actually also aligns very well and made a lot of sense for me.
• 35:42
  So when I started studying it in earnest and this my, my very
• 35:50
  first experiences learning about this actually went back to my,
• 35:54
  my first job, which was in a metaphysical bookstore when I
• 35:57
  was 15. So I'm 46 now.
• 35:59
  So that was longer than than I have been practicing
• 36:03
  professionally for sure. It just, it definitely struck me
• 36:09
  that there is a cause and effect and relationship between all of
• 36:15
  these different parts of ourselves.
• 36:17
  And I think in allopathic or or modern medicine, it's pretty
• 36:21
  well accepted that our bodies and minds are interrelated and
• 36:27
  the state of 1 affects the state of the other pretty profoundly,
• 36:31
  I would say guaranteed to happen between, you know, hormones
• 36:38
  affecting brain chemistry and your mood affecting what happens
• 36:42
  with your body. There's, it's not that much of A
• 36:46
  stretch for me to then think the other parts of us are our
• 36:51
  energy, our spiritual side. It all makes it makes sense for
• 36:56
  all of them to also have an effect on one another.
• 36:59
  And they're really interwoven deeply in kind of the way that
• 37:03
  all the parts of of us as heathens are interwoven and
• 37:07
  can't really be separated out, you know?
• 37:13
  Have you? Have you, maybe this goes into
• 37:19
  like the mind aspect, but but in your practice, is there like,
• 37:24
  have you, have you approached psychology part of your practice
• 37:28
  like is because you talk about the mind.
• 37:30
  I mean, that's that's what we're talking about, right?
• 37:33
  Like understanding the, the, the, the human mind.
• 37:35
  And that's what psychology is the study of it.
• 37:38
  Do you, do you, do you have like a favorite, a psychologist or
• 37:42
  philosopher that that really speaks to you in in, in how you
• 37:45
  approach this, this whole holistic Wellness thing?
• 37:49
  That's a a great question. I have a degree my, my
• 37:53
  bachelor's degrees in psychology and I've since gone on to do
• 37:58
  accreditation and some neuroscience modalities as well.
• 38:01
  But I think most people in my position would answer that
• 38:07
  question with Young because there's a lot of of overlap in,
• 38:12
  in some of what he, he says and, and came up with and even things
• 38:17
  that that we still practice from or practice from me spiritual
• 38:23
  side of things. But I really don't have anyone
• 38:27
  that I could say is absolutely my favorite because I have
• 38:33
  pulled so much from the different modalities that I've
• 38:36
  studied and trained in. That for me personally, there's
• 38:41
  no one method that has worked for my own mental Wellness as
• 38:48
  well as kind of the patchwork quilt of, of pulling different
• 38:54
  methods and, and thoughts and influences into something that
• 38:57
  makes sense and is highly individualized.
• 39:01
  So there are modalities and, and methods and schools of thought
• 39:05
  that I am more qualified to, to practice or, or, and I have to
• 39:11
  walk a, a line there because it's, it's not a, not like a
• 39:14
  psychiatry practice, right? It's so this informs my
• 39:19
  approach, but I'm not actually practicing psychotherapy.
• 39:23
  I'm practicing and something that that approaches all of the
• 39:27
  bodies to help keep us in balance so that we don't tend
• 39:31
  to, to be unwell mentally or physically or or spiritually.
• 39:36
  And then I will refer people if, if need be.
• 39:39
  But yeah, I, I'm super passionate about psychology and
• 39:43
  neuroscience, neuroplasticity right now.
• 39:47
  Lately I've been very, very into somatics.
• 39:50
  So that's Puta Levine and that's the the effect of of body on our
• 39:58
  psychology and how moving the body in particular or touch.
• 40:04
  Can work therapeutically for us in terms of our our mental
• 40:08
  health, it's really, really good for trauma recovery in
• 40:12
  particular, which is is huge so. You mentioned something that I
• 40:19
  keyed in on 'cause it's been something close to my life here
• 40:24
  recently. And you said things about
• 40:26
  balance and, and, and that that goes, I think in hand, in hand
• 40:31
  with holistic, a holistic approach because there's so
• 40:34
  many, it's multifaceted, you know, and I was, I was thinking
• 40:38
  about this the other day and I shared my thoughts kind of
• 40:41
  publicly on a little short reel or whatever short form video.
• 40:46
  When we, when we hear the word balance, right, I think most of
• 40:49
  what gets invoked in a person's mind when you think the word
• 40:52
  balance is you, you, you look at scales, right?
• 40:54
  It can go this way or that way up or down.
• 40:57
  And it's, and it's, it's dual thing, right?
• 40:59
  Like there's, but I challenged that and I said, well, what if
• 41:05
  we look at it as a circular platform where it, it, it's
• 41:09
  multifaceted. There's, you know, this end of
• 41:12
  it could tip more, but you can't necessarily put all your weight
• 41:15
  on the opposite end. You have to be nimble.
• 41:18
  And there, there has to be this, this fluidity and this
• 41:20
  flexibility. And, and part of what balance
• 41:23
  is, is knowing when to put, when to apply pressure and when to
• 41:27
  release, when to, when to relinquish, when to be not as,
• 41:31
  as, as heavy-handed. And it's a constant thing 'cause
• 41:35
  there's so many things going on in people's lives that keep the
• 41:41
  balance off, right. So I was gonna ask you, you
• 41:47
  know, like with with regards to that, do you, do you see that
• 41:50
  as, as, as an accurate representation of this balancing
• 41:54
  act that we're in that it's more multifaceted that you can't just
• 41:58
  think of it as one side or the other?
• 42:01
  Yep, absolutely. From a holistic perspective,
• 42:04
  balance is when all of your selves are in harmony.
• 42:07
  So even if nothing else, we just looked at the six that I talked
• 42:11
  about. That's six things that have to
• 42:13
  be in harmony and aligned for us to truly be well.
• 42:17
  And when they fall out of alignment is when we start
• 42:19
  having, you know, disease or mental health problems or what
• 42:27
  have you, crises of faith. And so definitely balance is, is
• 42:33
  in my perspective, a lot more complicated than, than the scale
• 42:37
  analogy that you gave. There's really no way to kind of
• 42:42
  easily counterbalance 1 action with another without considering
• 42:46
  all of the little ripple effects that it has on, on lots of
• 42:49
  different parts of our life, not just our our bodies, but but our
• 42:54
  lives. You know, if I give more
• 42:55
  attention to one thing in my life then another, when I'm
• 43:00
  spinning a lot of plates, things start to get wobbly.
• 43:03
  Something's going to fall down. It, it just is what it is.
• 43:08
  And that's it's very unrealistic, I think to consider
• 43:13
  balance as being that linear. It really is.
• 43:17
  I think circular is a, a good way of looking at it for sure.
• 43:21
  And I think that a lot of us mentally go there.
• 43:23
  Like I just said, spinning plates, we think about this
• 43:26
  concept of of kind of balancing through spinning or jumping, you
• 43:31
  know, circular, circular movements, balances, flow.
• 43:35
  It's not a scale. There's so much, there's so much
• 43:39
  to be said for the, you know, circular movement, right?
• 43:43
  Circular, the sun, the, the rotation of the Earth, the
• 43:48
  cycles of the moon, the, the, everything is circular.
• 43:52
  Our, our, our seasons, our lives, nothing's linear.
• 43:57
  Nothing is point A to point, you know, stop here and here go for
• 44:00
  like, it's all cyclical, even to the point when we get into the
• 44:06
  religiosity or the spirituality of things, it's called the gift
• 44:09
  exchange because it revolves it. It's I, I give a gift and I get
• 44:14
  a gift and then it doesn't stop and, or end on one side or the
• 44:17
  other unless we make that choice.
• 44:19
  But the, the, the, the approach is that it is a cyclical
• 44:23
  exchange. It's reciprocal.
• 44:25
  So. Absolutely, yeah.
• 44:29
  And I had, so I did have. I'm sorry.
• 44:32
  Go ahead. Go ahead.
• 44:33
  But when you, you, you say that that also applies very much to
• 44:38
  things like healing and recovery.
• 44:41
  None of that is linear. And the more we expect things to
• 44:45
  be linear in life, the more frustrated we get with one
• 44:47
  another. And I think the happiest that I
• 44:50
  am ever is when I'm in a flow state where things are just
• 44:54
  moving and I just allow motion to happen.
• 44:57
  And I think that's the case with a lot of people, whether we
• 45:00
  realize it or not, whether it is literally physical movement and
• 45:04
  we feel our, our bodies flow, we dance, we play the drum,
• 45:07
  whatever it is that that we do that builds a, a rhythm and
• 45:11
  motion. Or whether we're sitting down
• 45:13
  and really able to focus on a task.
• 45:15
  And we call that a, a mental flow state.
• 45:17
  And we can just get something done without any distractions.
• 45:22
  Flow energetically and otherwise is where we are most free.
• 45:29
  So that's, you can't ever expect that to just go from point A to
• 45:33
  point B. That's going to loop all the way
• 45:35
  around the alphabet. And that's just the way the
• 45:39
  nature will flow. So.
• 45:43
  I, I did want to ask kind of along the lines of, of this
• 45:46
  because, and, and by the way, if, if this question gets into
• 45:49
  something that you don't want to answer directly because it would
• 45:53
  compromise a professional or otherwise image or whatever,
• 45:58
  that's totally fine. We don't have to talk about it.
• 46:01
  But it is in regards and in the vein of mental health and
• 46:07
  healing the mind and the psyche and the application and use of
• 46:13
  plant medicines. Is that something you you're
• 46:16
  willing to talk about? Absolutely.
• 46:20
  It is not something that I'm at all averse to.
• 46:25
  It's not something that I in terms of psychedelics, it's not
• 46:29
  something that I are taken. But that being said, even right
• 46:37
  now, some of the top medical schools that have research
• 46:42
  facilities in the country are studying the idea of microdosing
• 46:46
  natural psychedelics, specifically mushrooms, to help
• 46:52
  treat a plethora of mental illnesses.
• 46:54
  But one of them, the key ones, is depression.
• 46:58
  So rather than maybe someday, rather than just throwing SSRIs
• 47:03
  at, at depression, we'll actually be looking towards
• 47:07
  natural solutions. And when you go beyond that even
• 47:12
  and, and you start looking at it for spiritual purposes,
• 47:16
  obviously it's hugely popular in certain traditions and certain
• 47:22
  faiths, and particularly when it comes to journeying and things
• 47:27
  like that. When it comes to just, we're
• 47:30
  speaking about kind of like everyday medicine.
• 47:32
  I mean, I grow a medicinal garden myself of, of herbs and,
• 47:37
  and that carries me through the winter because, you know, cold
• 47:41
  and flu season is, is miserable without some tinctures and
• 47:44
  teeth. I.
• 47:46
  Grew up on echinacea and golden seal that was my mom's like
• 47:49
  echinacea, golden seal, zinc. Yeah, we.
• 47:53
  The Advil, we never took aspirin.
• 47:54
  We didn't take any sort of those like we didn't take Nyquil,
• 47:57
  Dayquil, none of that. If I get us, if I was getting a
• 48:00
  runny nose, my mom's like vitamin C, Echinacea, gold and
• 48:04
  seal and zinc and and vitamin A, like all these like things that
• 48:08
  your body needs to boost and and strengthen your immune system,
• 48:11
  right? Your natural defense to this
• 48:15
  thing, herbs and plants and things are medicine.
• 48:18
  It's more than feeding our physical body, right?
• 48:21
  It's feeding our holistic it's it's holistic.
• 48:24
  It is holistic medicine. I feel right like herbs it.
• 48:26
  Definitely is. And I, I think, you know, I, I,
• 48:30
  I always am very careful to not shame or make people feel badly
• 48:35
  about needing a pharmaceutical, but I always encourage people to
• 48:40
  think that pharmaceuticals began in a, with a natural compound.
• 48:47
  Eventually we learned how to do synthetics, but medicine at its
• 48:54
  root has, has come from the earth.
• 48:57
  It's been plants, you know, so herbal medicine is definitely a
• 49:03
  holistic medicine, definitely involves a lot of that.
• 49:06
  But typically you will have somebody who's trained as a
• 49:08
  naturopath or an herbalist, but typically a naturopath who does
• 49:14
  the prescribing of that kind of thing.
• 49:17
  So, you know, I know what I recommend from what is basic,
• 49:22
  like what I do and, and what I consider to be safe and can kind
• 49:25
  of recommend to people. But we'll usually tell them to
• 49:28
  consult someone whose specialty is is actually the prescribing
• 49:32
  of a wide range of of verbs, because you can also get
• 49:37
  yourself into some trouble if you don't know what you're doing
• 49:40
  so. Sure.
• 49:41
  I mean, you know it and that goes into study and and knowing
• 49:45
  what it is that you're doing. I mean the experts you look at
• 49:49
  like ancient societies or, or or Archie's and times or you know
• 49:54
  these, these, these times when you know, you had a medicine
• 49:58
  person in your village, right? You had the person met with man,
• 50:01
  woman, whatever, whose specialty it was, whose job it was to be
• 50:07
  the healer, and they knew how much of what to quote UN quote,
• 50:13
  prescribe or to or to administering right.
• 50:16
  They understood those things and and why?
• 50:19
  Because they worked with these things.
• 50:22
  It was their life. They it was woven into their
• 50:25
  very fabric of their being. They didn't just, you know, go
• 50:28
  down to the next village and get a piece of parchment that said I
• 50:31
  know what I'm talking about, and then came back six months later
• 50:34
  or a year or four years or eight years.
• 50:37
  They lived it. It was their life, you know?
• 50:40
  Yep, exactly. I'm sure this is like a whole
• 50:43
  thing too, right? Your understanding of, of, of
• 50:46
  the herbs and whatnot that you've come into contact with
• 50:49
  medicinally, you know what those are for you and for your, for
• 50:54
  the region that you're in. You know, you go, you go to like
• 50:56
  maybe the Southeast or the Pacific Northwest or the Midwest
• 50:59
  or anywhere else. And there's going to be nuance,
• 51:02
  sure, but there's also going to be variance in, in differences
• 51:06
  too. I think just like we experienced
• 51:08
  that with the spirit of the land, that is part of that
• 51:11
  spirit. It is, it is what medicine that
• 51:12
  that land has given to its people that are native to that
• 51:17
  area to heal them. What our mother knows best,
• 51:20
  right Mother Earth is. All of.
• 51:22
  My mother and she knows best for us and she gives those people of
• 51:25
  that area what they need. Exactly.
• 51:28
  Yeah, No, that that's very true. And living in relationship as an
• 51:33
  animist also with the spirits of the things that I grow or the
• 51:38
  things that I, I know I can safely forage in the area, that
• 51:44
  also adds another dimension to it because there's a, something
• 51:50
  beautiful in having a relationship, having a, a
• 51:53
  partner in your healing, you know, and every single one of
• 51:57
  these plants then becomes a partner if it, if you enter into
• 52:01
  a relationship with it and you talk to it and you commune with
• 52:05
  it and you care for right. And you have that exchange, you
• 52:09
  know that gifting goes back and forth.
• 52:12
  So. Wow, that's a really.
• 52:14
  That's a really like I, I reacted the way I did when you
• 52:17
  said that, you know, communicating 'cause I had, you
• 52:21
  know, we'll, we'll go back to plant medicine in the
• 52:26
  psychedelic aspect or, you know, context of things.
• 52:30
  I, I only view those as medicine.
• 52:37
  I don't look at them as parties, drugs or anything like that,
• 52:40
  even though our current and and long standing, you know, view in
• 52:45
  in in government is that it is a drug.
• 52:47
  You know, you get in trouble if you're in possession of these
• 52:49
  things. You get put in prison, you get
• 52:51
  fined, you get this, you get that you get punished for using
• 52:55
  these things that your mother has given to you for use, right.
• 52:58
  These have these have been traditional medicines for
• 53:01
  hundreds or thousands, you know, more years.
• 53:04
  But when you talk about communicating and, and having a
• 53:08
  relationship, like one of the most beautiful things I've come
• 53:11
  in to practice with is, is to, I'm not just going to take this
• 53:18
  medicine. I'm going to prepare my mind.
• 53:22
  I'm going to prepare my heart. I'm going to prepare my spirit.
• 53:24
  I'm going to do that. And I'm also going, I'm going to
• 53:27
  do it, you know, within, I'm going to do it without because
• 53:29
  I'm going to prepare the medicine.
• 53:31
  I'm going to sit with the medicine.
• 53:32
  I'm going to communicate with my intentions to the medicine.
• 53:36
  We're going to have this dialogue.
• 53:38
  This is a relationship that I'm entering into and there is a
• 53:42
  reason because what is medicine for, right?
• 53:45
  Medicine is for healing. So I'm looking for this healing.
• 53:49
  Well, what are you healing? What are you looking for healing
• 53:51
  from? Is there trauma?
• 53:53
  Is there hurt? Is there pain?
• 53:55
  Is there just what is it? Face it, Be present with that
• 54:02
  physically, mentally, spiritually and interact with
• 54:06
  the medicine in such a way. And then lo and behold, the
• 54:10
  medicine actually works because it's you've now connected with
• 54:14
  it in that way that it understands.
• 54:16
  I need to work with Dina in this way.
• 54:18
  I need to work with Jesse in this way, whatever it might be.
• 54:21
  And I, you know, to hear you talk about that with
• 54:23
  relationship to non hallucinogenic medicine, herbal
• 54:27
  medicine, you know, just good stuff for our bodies, right?
• 54:31
  This is a beautiful way. I wonder if if this is how the
• 54:35
  tradition of praying before a meal came into such a practice.
• 54:40
  I think about that often, particularly when I, I talk
• 54:43
  about conscious use and, and being aware and thankful for the
• 54:48
  things that we are consuming as animus.
• 54:52
  I frequently think of the idea that we really have to, you
• 54:58
  know, it's beneficial for us to give thanks even posthumously to
• 55:04
  the things that are feeding us, whether they're plants or
• 55:07
  animals. And, and then that goes for
• 55:08
  everything, the clothes on our our backs.
• 55:10
  There are lots and lots of different spirits that are
• 55:13
  touched by everything that we consume, make, wear, use.
• 55:19
  And I keep going back to that because I think the only
• 55:23
  difference is that right now, usually what what a blessing
• 55:29
  before a meal involves is, is saying something like, you know,
• 55:32
  thank you God for the food you have provided.
• 55:35
  Whereas I look at it more like, thank you cow for the steak on
• 55:42
  my plate. You know, I'm, I'm a vegetarian,
• 55:45
  so it doesn't doesn't apply so much for that.
• 55:47
  But that's, you know, the plants I think frequently.
• 55:50
  And when I harvest, this is my harvest time, it's deeply somber
• 55:55
  for me to harvest these, these things that I have communed with
• 55:59
  for the entire summer since Mother's Day when I, when I
• 56:02
  first, you know, got the, the sprouts of them and, and lived
• 56:07
  in relationship with all this time.
• 56:08
  And I've been enjoying them fresh over the summer.
• 56:10
  And now I will harvest them and I will have them dried or
• 56:14
  prepared in other ways over the winter.
• 56:16
  But they, you know, I, I think giving thanks and entering into
• 56:20
  and honouring that sacrifice that they make and knowing that
• 56:23
  we have an exchange and relationship and connection with
• 56:27
  them is so important for, for everything that we consume,
• 56:31
  everything that nourishes us, it it just makes sense for us to
• 56:36
  give some, some thanks or nourishment in exchange.
• 56:40
  Yeah, boy. And I tell you what, like so
• 56:43
  much of that puts a perspective, gives us the perspective that we
• 56:47
  need. You know, we are, we are such A,
• 56:49
  and I say we, I mean, you know, humanity as a whole, but
• 56:55
  specifically Americans right here in the United States, We
• 56:59
  have so much more than what we need with regards to most
• 57:04
  everything, food being one of them, you know, and, and it's
• 57:10
  like, you know, I got to thinking recently, 'cause I'm
• 57:14
  involved with, with the, with the, with the project or with a,
• 57:16
  with a, more than a project. It's a, it's a initiative, It's
• 57:19
  an institution of, of men that are looking at holistic health,
• 57:25
  men's holistic health specifically 'cause I feel like,
• 57:28
  I don't know. And, and this is maybe an
• 57:29
  interesting point to, to bring up for you to, to, to weigh in
• 57:32
  on since this is your area of expertise, but, you know, men's
• 57:35
  holistic health, women's holistic health, children's
• 57:38
  holistic health and separating these out appropriately and for
• 57:43
  what reason? So the, the men's holistic
• 57:46
  health rate, look, mind, body, spirit and, and feeding
• 57:54
  ourselves and, and food was, was, is one of the things that
• 57:57
  we're like, we're going to fast, we're going to do a fast as, as,
• 57:59
  as a group, You know what I mean?
• 58:01
  We're going to pick a day doesn't have to be the same day
• 58:02
  for all of us. We're going to pick a day where
• 58:05
  we're going to go on a fast and and it, it, it, it, it made us
• 58:10
  all aware. Like I really don't need to eat
• 58:13
  3 square meals a day to survive to be, I mean, I'll be
• 58:17
  uncomfortable for a little bit, but I'm not gonna die.
• 58:19
  I'm not gonna really even be in that much discomfort.
• 58:21
  It's a minor inconvenience at best if I don't eat for 24 hours
• 58:26
  with the exclusion of some medical conditions like diabetes
• 58:29
  and other things. Again, consult your medical
• 58:31
  professional for, for, you know, all that stuff.
• 58:34
  I'm not trying to say that, you know, just don't eat for a day
• 58:37
  because some people might have real problems with that.
• 58:40
  So disclaimer. But for those of us that don't
• 58:44
  have those things and we're like, you know, I'm fine.
• 58:47
  I, I'm, I'm literally fine. And it, and it brings into that
• 58:50
  perspective, you know, like I just don't need to do, to eat as
• 58:54
  much as I do. Why do I do this to myself?
• 58:56
  I, you know, why are we doing this to ourselves?
• 58:59
  And, and it, and it takes away the relationship that one would
• 59:02
  have with this nourishment because we're, we're, we're
• 59:06
  abusing it. We're taking advantage of it.
• 59:10
  Yeah, I think food waste is a really good symptom of what
• 59:13
  you're talking about where we just get to the point where
• 59:16
  we're numb to the consumption of how much we we buy, we eat,
• 59:22
  let's sit in our fridge and don't eat and then throw away.
• 59:26
  And it just comes from a lack of mindfulness and awareness and
• 59:30
  and respect basically. And when you are fasting, you're
• 59:36
  essentially depriving yourself of a nutrient, but that sort of
• 59:40
  heightens other, other senses and, and other opens up our our
• 59:48
  mind to something that is outside of the usual because we
• 59:51
  are accustomed to eating on a schedule or eating, you know, a
• 59:54
  certain amount of calories or a certain kind of diet.
• 59:56
  Anytime you change that up, I find, whether it's fasting or
• 1:00:01
  changing the type of diet that you eat.
• 1:00:04
  Kind of opening a whole new frontier of awareness and, and
• 1:00:11
  realizing how much is either essential and OK, then then we
• 1:00:16
  recognize it's, it's essential or superfluous and, and extra
• 1:00:21
  and beyond what we need. In which case maybe we just
• 1:00:25
  don't do so much of that. You know, we learn that we, we
• 1:00:28
  don't have to to do it and we shouldn't because it's wasteful
• 1:00:31
  otherwise. And it's so hard nowadays, I
• 1:00:35
  feel because, you know, we, we were exposed to so much
• 1:00:40
  emptyness. You know, you're, you're filling
• 1:00:45
  a, you're filling the space with product that has no nutritional
• 1:00:49
  value or, or, or next to no nutritional value, you know, so
• 1:00:53
  like you're filling this void that, but it's not giving
• 1:00:55
  anything in return. It it doesn't do well for your
• 1:00:58
  body, and I'm sure you would agree, like if you what, what
• 1:01:04
  you're putting into your body is going to reflect in what comes
• 1:01:06
  out of you in many ways. You know, so your mental health
• 1:01:10
  could be suffering as a result of the food that you're
• 1:01:12
  consuming. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
• 1:01:16
  It's, it could be affecting you in lots of different ways.
• 1:01:19
  But again, in the holistic framework it's all
• 1:01:21
  interconnected. But I know for, for myself, even
• 1:01:28
  though it, it's difficult to do the balancing act for, for my
• 1:01:32
  diet, I feel so much better when I'm having a lot of protein.
• 1:01:35
  Not appropriate for everybody. Everybody's needs are different.
• 1:01:38
  But a high protein diet really just gives me energy and clarity
• 1:01:42
  and focus and works really well for me, despite the fact that I
• 1:01:47
  have to get very creative about how I, I do it because I'm
• 1:01:50
  because of the I do have like eggs and things like that, but I
• 1:01:54
  don't need meat. So you just kind of you find
• 1:01:58
  what, what works for you and what connects with you and you,
• 1:02:01
  you go, oh, I feel better. I feel good eating this way or I
• 1:02:06
  feel great when I fast certain hour number of hours a day or
• 1:02:11
  occasionally for 24 hours. I just feel, you know, we don't
• 1:02:16
  realize just kind of going through the motions, getting
• 1:02:18
  fast food or eating our convenience meals or making, you
• 1:02:23
  know, the same thing because we know that it's quick and
• 1:02:26
  efficient or whatever. If we're not consuming mindfully
• 1:02:31
  food or anything else, we lose a whole bunch of potential for us
• 1:02:37
  to see how different we feel trying different things and how
• 1:02:44
  much better we might feel when we eat a different kind of food
• 1:02:49
  or, you know, drink a different kind of tea or whatever it is
• 1:02:53
  that that we're doing to fuel ourselves.
• 1:02:57
  There's so much nuance to it that I don't think he any, not a
• 1:03:02
  holistic practitioner, not a doctor, not a dietitian.
• 1:03:07
  I don't think there's anybody who could 100% say to you, yes,
• 1:03:13
  like I can give you a prescription for life and every
• 1:03:16
  single thing that I tell you to do is gonna make you feel great.
• 1:03:19
  There's it's a grand experiment for all of us, you know, 'cause
• 1:03:22
  with things resonate differently and physically and emotionally
• 1:03:25
  and otherwise. So.
• 1:03:28
  Yeah, we are all, I mean we're all individuals.
• 1:03:30
  We're all cut from different pieces of you know, we're all
• 1:03:32
  cut from a different cloth, you know.
• 1:03:34
  So it's, it, there is no one-size-fits-all, I think
• 1:03:36
  solution, but I definitely appreciate a holistic approach
• 1:03:42
  on things and understanding it a bit more, you know, from, from
• 1:03:44
  your explanation of things, it's, it's been very
• 1:03:46
  enlightening so far to, to hear, you know, what your 30 years of
• 1:03:52
  Heathenry and decades of holistic Wellness and, and
• 1:03:57
  practition practices have brought.
• 1:04:01
  So thank you for for all that. There's there's a bit of this
• 1:04:06
  though, there's a bit of this episode and I know we've we've
• 1:04:08
  gone almost an hour now. If you have just a little bit
• 1:04:10
  more time, I'd like to maybe is that OK?
• 1:04:14
  Yeah, perfectly OK. I would like to talk a bit about
• 1:04:20
  trauma. This is like that, that part of
• 1:04:24
  the part of things, part of holistic 'cause, you know, we
• 1:04:26
  talk about holistic a little bit of everything.
• 1:04:28
  Gotta gotta treat, gotta treat it all.
• 1:04:31
  So, so for those that are, you know, listening this far or, or
• 1:04:34
  watching and, and here we go into, into the trauma aspect.
• 1:04:38
  It, this is a, it's a touchy subject.
• 1:04:41
  There's a lot of us that have experienced different forms of
• 1:04:43
  trauma, but it ripples, right? It ripples through, into our
• 1:04:47
  lives. It ripples through into the
• 1:04:48
  lives of of our family and our communities.
• 1:04:53
  Even so, what has your work been like in, in, in in giving space
• 1:05:04
  to trauma? I feel, you know, a lot of times
• 1:05:07
  what people are faced with is avoiding it, hiding it, burying
• 1:05:12
  it, suppressing it. So, So what would you like to
• 1:05:17
  say to that? And then how your approach has
• 1:05:19
  been in, in your, you know, path as a heathen, as a holistic
• 1:05:23
  Wellness practitioner with regards to trauma.
• 1:05:28
  Well, it's played a huge role in my life and it's actually how I
• 1:05:32
  developed my, the modality that that I created in, in practice,
• 1:05:37
  which is very much based on mimicking nature's intelligence
• 1:05:42
  in our lives. And the reason that all of it
• 1:05:48
  started is because I was to, you know, endured complex trauma, a
• 1:05:52
  couple different events when I was a child.
• 1:05:55
  So from a very young age, my safe space was outside, you
• 1:05:59
  know, just out in nature. And now I look at that and I
• 1:06:04
  realize that that was space holding that nature was holding
• 1:06:07
  space for me to feel safe and to heal and being incredibly
• 1:06:12
  patient and and lovely in allowing me to just kind of take
• 1:06:19
  the time that I needed to process without realizing that's
• 1:06:21
  even really what I was doing at at the age that I started.
• 1:06:25
  But I continued to do it and to heal.
• 1:06:29
  I, I say that I heal in and with the wild for really almost my
• 1:06:34
  entire life now, but it became very important to me when I was
• 1:06:41
  about 24, I would say 2004 ish. So, so right around or just
• 1:06:48
  after the time that I got into some more formal education in
• 1:06:54
  these holistic practices, my grandfather died and he was a
• 1:07:01
  huge part of my life. And it really kind of sent me
• 1:07:06
  into a tailspin. And I was bequeathed he had
• 1:07:13
  bought a a digital camera that he never got a chance to use.
• 1:07:15
  So they gave it to me and I was spending so much time outside in
• 1:07:20
  nature. I just took the camera and I
• 1:07:22
  started to just take pictures of things in nature.
• 1:07:26
  No training or anything like that, just whatever looked
• 1:07:31
  interesting to me. And then the more I started
• 1:07:34
  examining it because I do quite up close, not macro photography,
• 1:07:38
  but I do very, I look at for the patterns and colours and things
• 1:07:42
  that are interesting in nature. And, and I've done this now for,
• 1:07:46
  for 20 years. And my photography is what
• 1:07:52
  helped me to discover the form and function of nature, the
• 1:07:57
  living systems of nature that then inspired how I could behave
• 1:08:04
  in a way that was healthy and balanced and, you know, balanced
• 1:08:10
  in, in the sense of the complexity of life.
• 1:08:13
  And how could I live harmoniously the way that that
• 1:08:17
  nature lives Where nature doesn't overthink, doesn't have
• 1:08:22
  this kind of like obsession with being in the limbic system that
• 1:08:25
  we do. Nature doesn't do this
• 1:08:26
  ruminating thing that we do. That's uniquely human experience
• 1:08:30
  for the most part. And we we, you know, trying to
• 1:08:36
  get down to distill the actual how does nature survive and
• 1:08:39
  thrive and then apply that to our lives and pull ourselves out
• 1:08:44
  of the the overthinking and the negative side of of what our
• 1:08:48
  brains do. That's a a bit that for me was a
• 1:08:52
  a huge part of trauma recovery. So my whole modality and what I
• 1:08:57
  do was really born from trauma and grief and things like that.
• 1:09:02
  And I think that ignoring it is, is dangerous on so many levels.
• 1:09:07
  Not only does it erode our holistic, well, our holistic
• 1:09:12
  health and all of our our bodies and impedes our ability to have
• 1:09:16
  authentic relationships with ourselves, with the gods, with
• 1:09:19
  the spirits, with our family, with our friends.
• 1:09:23
  It actually contributes to what you were saying earlier, how our
• 1:09:29
  deeds influence the generations to come.
• 1:09:33
  Well, that certainly has to do with me.
• 1:09:35
  And we talk about generational trauma.
• 1:09:37
  That's a very real thing as well.
• 1:09:38
  You pass it down and you just keep wounding and wounding and
• 1:09:42
  wounding. And that takes a lot to heal
• 1:09:46
  from after a while. Takes a lot to come back from it
• 1:09:48
  and to be the person who breaks the chain.
• 1:09:52
  So dealing with trauma is incredibly important.
• 1:09:56
  And I think the most important thing to know is that we don't
• 1:10:01
  ever have to do it alone. Whether you feel comfortable
• 1:10:04
  working with someone, and I hope that everybody finds someone
• 1:10:07
  they're comfortable working with, or you just go outside and
• 1:10:10
  hug a tree, I cannot, cannot explain.
• 1:10:14
  Like, I mean, I could explain it energetically there, there is an
• 1:10:18
  exchange there, but I can't possibly overstate how good it
• 1:10:24
  is for us to hug trees. And everybody thinks so.
• 1:10:27
  That's just a hippie dippie thing.
• 1:10:29
  No, it is an actual. Like you hug a tree and you will
• 1:10:33
  just feel that release because nature, we're part of nature.
• 1:10:39
  And we've just completely forgotten that in our civilized
• 1:10:42
  society. But it's a homecoming to touch
• 1:10:48
  nature, you know, to be barefoot on the grass.
• 1:10:50
  All of this stuff is very healing and really, really good
• 1:10:53
  for trauma, so. Yes, yes, yes, gosh, you know,
• 1:10:57
  and that's the I've, I've talked about this for a long time,
• 1:10:59
  Dina, the the benefits of grounding, right?
• 1:11:03
  Even if it's just 5 or 10 minutes a day, surely I don't
• 1:11:06
  care where you are in the world listening to this.
• 1:11:09
  I don't even care if you're in the middle of Manhattan.
• 1:11:11
  I mean, you can find a piece of turf somewhere, right?
• 1:11:14
  You can get your bare skin, you can put your, you know, bare
• 1:11:18
  skin on the earth. You can touch a tree.
• 1:11:20
  You can and be present in that moment, right?
• 1:11:24
  Just just give whatever time you have, put everything else on
• 1:11:28
  pause and be present. Put your intention, put
• 1:11:33
  everything into that moment of time that you're in feeling that
• 1:11:38
  and it'll release it. It it's scientifically proven.
• 1:11:42
  You know, you only have to get into the spirituality or the
• 1:11:44
  psychology or the philosophy of it.
• 1:11:46
  It is scientifically proven. The negative energy, the
• 1:11:49
  negative ions in the like, in that exchange that we have with
• 1:11:52
  our mother Earth. It's it's science.
• 1:11:55
  Yeah, science, right. Like that's the thing.
• 1:11:58
  It is. And you know that it's in a lot
• 1:12:03
  of heathens are rediscovering this now, which I'm thrilled
• 1:12:06
  about. You know, we, we see a lot more,
• 1:12:08
  at least I have, seeing a lot more awareness, you know, of
• 1:12:13
  this giving time, giving space, right?
• 1:12:17
  Whatever it is that we're doing, it can be paused.
• 1:12:21
  It can be put on hold. Time is a construct anyway.
• 1:12:25
  We've established that long time ago.
• 1:12:27
  But it, you know, or long ago, this whole thing is, is, you
• 1:12:33
  know, you're just kind of scooting along on this big rock,
• 1:12:39
  you know, our mother, we're we're just scooting along in a
• 1:12:41
  sequence of events that 8:00. What is even that?
• 1:12:46
  Yeah, who knows? You know, you know, you look up
• 1:12:48
  one time and it's 9:00 and then you look down and you look back
• 1:12:51
  up again and it's 8:00. How did I go back in time?
• 1:12:53
  Well, what does that even mean? Back in time?
• 1:12:55
  You're just existing in vibrations, you know what I
• 1:12:58
  mean? It's gonna come.
• 1:12:59
  It's gonna go. And some people listening to
• 1:13:02
  this or, or, you know, hearing this are gonna know what I mean
• 1:13:04
  when I say like you, you know, when, when you're, when you're
• 1:13:08
  connected. And this is what it goes back to
• 1:13:10
  animism, right? It is a connection.
• 1:13:12
  It is a, it is a presence with spirit around us, that
• 1:13:18
  everything has a spirit. Everything has spirit.
• 1:13:20
  And when you're connecting with spirit around you.
• 1:13:23
  And I, I, I talked about this other thing recently too,
• 1:13:29
  isolation versus solitude. You talked to you talked a
• 1:13:32
  moment ago about you're not alone.
• 1:13:36
  I have felt more connected when I'm by myself because of what
• 1:13:43
  I've been doing, right? I'm not alone.
• 1:13:47
  I've I've I've got a support system around me, whether they
• 1:13:51
  are seen or unseen. OK, but, but, but sometimes we
• 1:13:56
  need to, you know, there there's a isolation disconnects us from
• 1:14:01
  people, from spirit. We, we, we become bitter, we
• 1:14:05
  become hateful, we become angry. And that, that that transference
• 1:14:08
  of pain is is is is is an expression that that we're,
• 1:14:14
  we're withdrawing. We're separating ourselves from
• 1:14:18
  a source from, from, from love, from kindness, from compassion,
• 1:14:21
  from that grace. Things that are in nature and
• 1:14:26
  you know, look like nature is brutal.
• 1:14:29
  Nature is unforgiving. The nature is what it is.
• 1:14:34
  I mean, the sea is always right. The mountains are always right
• 1:14:38
  there. There's no question to that.
• 1:14:40
  It's it is what it is. You're not going to, you're not
• 1:14:42
  going to tell the you're not going to tell the tornado.
• 1:14:45
  Hey, that's not very nice. Right.
• 1:14:49
  OK, well, I guess it's not as it rips up everything in its path,
• 1:14:54
  but it is what it is. Yeah.
• 1:14:56
  There's lessons to be taught. I guess there's lessons to be
• 1:14:58
  learned from from those teachings.
• 1:15:03
  Yeah, I don't. Know one of the most important?
• 1:15:05
  Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, you go ahead.
• 1:15:08
  I've I've said enough for the moment.
• 1:15:09
  I was just going to because you, you mentioned the tornado and
• 1:15:12
  the brutality of, of nature. And this is something that I was
• 1:15:15
  speaking to someone recently about, and I had written a
• 1:15:20
  little bit about this idea that violence is inherent in nature.
• 1:15:25
  It just looks different than our violence.
• 1:15:26
  So tornado is a great example of that.
• 1:15:29
  The the fact that the ocean will do whatever it wants and it does
• 1:15:35
  not care if it squashes you or snuffs you out like a candle.
• 1:15:39
  You have to learn to respect it and and be smart around it.
• 1:15:43
  And it's the same from pretty much everything in nature.
• 1:15:46
  We, we know that there is inherently destruction in
• 1:15:52
  nature. Sometimes that destruction is
• 1:15:54
  also a purification. There's you know that wildfires,
• 1:16:00
  unfortunately, yes, they're, they have been more frequent due
• 1:16:04
  to some of our influence on the planet, but they also have
• 1:16:09
  always been a way that nature maintains itself in certain
• 1:16:12
  biomes. And you will.
• 1:16:16
  You'll encounter violence in nature, but it's violence
• 1:16:19
  without value judgement, which is the difference with humans
• 1:16:23
  because we tend to assign value judgement to things when they go
• 1:16:27
  wrong or we. Personal.
• 1:16:30
  Violence. Exactly.
• 1:16:31
  Yeah, we so man made violence is just pure chaos and nature's
• 1:16:37
  violence has an order to it. And sometimes things are going
• 1:16:41
  to happen that we really wish didn't happen.
• 1:16:44
  And that's just part of living on this planet, you know?
• 1:16:47
  But it's not happening to us personally.
• 1:16:51
  It's not singling out our house and destroying it because we did
• 1:16:56
  something or you know, it. It just is what it is.
• 1:16:59
  It is what it is, yeah. Have you in your practices?
• 1:17:03
  Have you, or I guess maybe the better question is like how, how
• 1:17:08
  do you in your practice help people move from like we talk
• 1:17:16
  about trauma and the the just the destructive violence of
• 1:17:19
  life, you know, and then those experiences, how have you, like,
• 1:17:24
  what's your approach or how do you help people move from this
• 1:17:27
  idea of I just have to survive into a sense of I've got to be
• 1:17:34
  present, I've got to belong here, right?
• 1:17:35
  Kind of like moving away from this like fragmented view of
• 1:17:38
  things into a more holistic Frith bound or Frith web
• 1:17:44
  ideology or concept of of existence.
• 1:17:47
  How, how have you been able to help people identify and then
• 1:17:53
  move towards a better place with with regards to that?
• 1:17:57
  So I think that Frith is a a perfect word for it.
• 1:18:02
  I think that what happens when we are living in connection,
• 1:18:05
  particularly with nature and with spirits that are around us,
• 1:18:10
  is that we realize that we are in solitude and not isolation.
• 1:18:15
  Like you said. This is a really good
• 1:18:16
  distinction to make that you can be present in this moment with
• 1:18:23
  yourself. In fact, the best thing that you
• 1:18:26
  can do. I am learning more and more as I
• 1:18:28
  I have been speaking with a consciousness expert whose name
• 1:18:34
  is Marty Spiegelman. She does amazing work.
• 1:18:38
  Is that the best thing that you can do is just show up without
• 1:18:44
  those thoughts and try to to just cast aside yourself and
• 1:18:48
  feel what actual connection is. And that's when you end up in
• 1:18:51
  dialogue with spirit and you end up in your purest form.
• 1:18:57
  And that to me, like that's, that's the ideal is helping
• 1:19:01
  people realize that they can just go be vulnerable in
• 1:19:05
  connection with nature because a lot of people aren't comfortable
• 1:19:09
  being vulnerable in connection with other humans.
• 1:19:11
  And I get it. Humans can be scary.
• 1:19:14
  So and humans are often the source of our trauma.
• 1:19:16
  So being in connection with nature is a beautiful way to
• 1:19:20
  learn to be comfortable being yourself, being present,
• 1:19:23
  acknowledging your pain, letting something help you work through
• 1:19:27
  it. And that's what I try and guide
• 1:19:30
  people. And I'm very, very cautious
• 1:19:33
  because I don't like to use the word healer for what I do at
• 1:19:36
  all. I am a guide.
• 1:19:39
  I want people to heal themselves because you know, each a man's
• 1:19:42
  fish is the proverb goes. So it's very important that I
• 1:19:48
  help people to, to figure out how this works for them.
• 1:19:50
  And it's individual to everyone. But generally, I think living in
• 1:19:55
  relationship with the world around us as animus is an
• 1:19:59
  incredible first step. And incredibly important to
• 1:20:03
  teaching us the value of relationship and community and
• 1:20:06
  strength and these other things that really contribute to our
• 1:20:10
  Wellness. And we have that whole social
• 1:20:12
  body that comes into play here in in the holistic web and that.
• 1:20:20
  So for me, what it looks like really is just I work one-on-one
• 1:20:27
  with people and I do facilitate some some group stuff as well.
• 1:20:33
  But for the most part, I think having a safe space with
• 1:20:38
  somebody who can help you feel like you can, can go be
• 1:20:44
  connected in the place and to the people or the things that
• 1:20:47
  that connection helps you is valuable.
• 1:20:51
  So that's what I try to to offer other people and why nature is
• 1:20:55
  just woven into everything that I do.
• 1:20:58
  And it's so important to everything that I do and to, to,
• 1:21:02
  you know, most holistic practitioners are fond of
• 1:21:05
  nature. It's just that we we really find
• 1:21:10
  that first step towards healing often comes when we have a
• 1:21:17
  connection that we can trust to just be unconditional.
• 1:21:22
  And that's what nature is. It is unconditional and it has
• 1:21:27
  no agenda. It really doesn't.
• 1:21:29
  It's agenda is survive and thrive.
• 1:21:32
  That is all that nature is wired to do, to have It's, it's to be
• 1:21:38
  to promote the survival of the next generation, right?
• 1:21:41
  That's what nature wants, to just keep life alive.
• 1:21:44
  And that's as far as its agenda goes.
• 1:21:46
  It's not judging you. It's, it's not trying to work
• 1:21:50
  its way up a corporate ladder. It's not doing whatever all of
• 1:21:53
  the other things are that we have, we worry about with
• 1:21:56
  humans, you know, so, so healing at its most powerful begins when
• 1:22:04
  we can release all of those those judgments.
• 1:22:07
  And we do it very easily in nature.
• 1:22:11
  Would you perhaps venture to say that nature knows when to knows
• 1:22:16
  about being enough? Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:22:21
  Nature is the perfect example of of enough in my opinion, because
• 1:22:27
  nature doesn't obsess over what it doesn't have.
• 1:22:31
  If it's, if there's a a very hungry animal, yes, it's going
• 1:22:35
  to go into survival mode and it's going to work really hard
• 1:22:37
  to get the food that it needs. And it might be panicked and
• 1:22:41
  afraid if it's starving. But not every single one of
• 1:22:46
  those animals in that species is then triggered into this state
• 1:22:50
  of obsessing over scarcity. And on the the flip side, nature
• 1:22:58
  doesn't really care about abundance in the way that that
• 1:23:02
  humans do. You know, there's there's kind
• 1:23:05
  of this scarcity mindset and abundance mindset that came into
• 1:23:10
  to popular thought with our approach to life.
• 1:23:14
  And we can either look at at things from the there's not
• 1:23:18
  enough to go around. So why bother scarcity or
• 1:23:21
  there's so much to go around. We all have more than than what
• 1:23:26
  we we could possibly need, which is great on on paper, but that's
• 1:23:31
  become confused then with manifesting.
• 1:23:33
  OK, so then I deserve my piece of the pie since the pie is big
• 1:23:36
  enough for everybody. And this idea of manifesting
• 1:23:39
  abundance, which is almost like toxic positivity, we get so
• 1:23:45
  caught up in that, that we forget there is a middle.
• 1:23:51
  And that middle is where we are sustained.
• 1:23:54
  It's where we have what we need. And you said this this earlier
• 1:23:59
  when you were talking about solitude, that you have your
• 1:24:01
  supports and and that space of enough that nature does so well
• 1:24:07
  is where nature realizes it has what it needs to survive.
• 1:24:12
  Now it can rest because rest is very, very important to
• 1:24:16
  sustaining life and to getting up and looking for a meal
• 1:24:19
  tomorrow. That's not something that we do
• 1:24:22
  very well. We're, we're not very content
• 1:24:24
  with resting, particularly not in, in modern times.
• 1:24:28
  So enough for us looks like that finding that space in between
• 1:24:32
  scarcity and abundance where we are able to look at our support
• 1:24:39
  system, what we, what is tangible, the roof over my head,
• 1:24:44
  you know, the food that I eat, what's intangible education to A
• 1:24:50
  to an extent relationships like family relationships are because
• 1:24:53
  we're kind of inherited spirituality.
• 1:24:56
  We have all of these supports that we frequently just don't
• 1:25:00
  think about because we're so concerned about the bills that
• 1:25:04
  are coming up or we're so concerned about the goals and
• 1:25:08
  dreams and five year plan or whatever else we have working
• 1:25:12
  toward abundance or dwelling in scarcity.
• 1:25:15
  And that actually rewires our brain neuroscientifically to
• 1:25:19
  exist in an unhealthy mindset. One way or the other enough to
• 1:25:25
  nature is very easy enough is having what you need to survive
• 1:25:28
  and not courting it and stealing it away from everybody else so
• 1:25:33
  that you don't, you know, have to ever worry about anything
• 1:25:36
  again. Nature just takes it moment to
• 1:25:38
  moment it. It does what it needs to sustain
• 1:25:40
  life. Again, a uniquely human thing
• 1:25:44
  that we just kind of go crazy above and beyond what we need to
• 1:25:49
  sustain life. So yeah, nature knows enough and
• 1:25:53
  so can we. If we're mindful, we stop and we
• 1:25:57
  look and we're, we're truly honest about what supports us
• 1:26:02
  and honest with ourselves about what our actual needs are and,
• 1:26:06
  and when we just have what we actually need.
• 1:26:10
  And then we can kind of hit pause and that's that's hard for
• 1:26:15
  for a lot of us 'cause we're conditioned otherwise.
• 1:26:19
  Yeah. I mean this this whole, this
• 1:26:21
  whole human experience, we'll call it is, is volatile in in a
• 1:26:27
  lot of ways we're we're always, I mean, just, you know, this
• 1:26:34
  against that it, you know, it's, it's, it's divisive, sadly.
• 1:26:37
  So, you know, so when you know, one of the things that I think
• 1:26:41
  about with this, this whole concept of, you know, enough,
• 1:26:46
  right, is we talked about this earlier, you know, and how
• 1:26:50
  nature looks at at or nature is, is, is looking at the being
• 1:26:55
  enough to to sustain itself and then its future generations.
• 1:27:00
  You know what I mean? For us as humans, right?
• 1:27:03
  Like especially now, it seems that so much of that idea has
• 1:27:09
  has turned to or has, has has like shifted our focus to
• 1:27:13
  become, say, violent in a lot of ways, You know what I mean?
• 1:27:22
  To, to, to go against our fellow humans.
• 1:27:24
  Instead of working together towards that collective goal,
• 1:27:29
  we're fighting against each other for the bigger piece of
• 1:27:33
  this high. You know, it's, you're not
• 1:27:38
  worthy enough to have what I'm worthy enough to have.
• 1:27:40
  And, and, and, and yeah, it's, it's, it's, you know, there's a
• 1:27:43
  lot of uncertainty and, and, and cultural exhaustion happening.
• 1:27:50
  Like we, we, we turn on our, it's not even that we open the
• 1:27:52
  news, you know, flip the newspaper anymore or turn on the
• 1:27:54
  TV. It's we just, we open our phones
• 1:27:56
  and we scroll through social media and we see all this
• 1:27:58
  garbage that's being put in front of our faces to think a
• 1:28:02
  certain way. And who's really thinking for
• 1:28:04
  themselves? Who's really getting out into
• 1:28:06
  nature and seeing what's happening and, and putting boots
• 1:28:09
  on the ground or bare feet in the earth and doing the damn
• 1:28:12
  work? Who's actually out here doing it
• 1:28:14
  instead of just reading what an algorithm wants to feed you?
• 1:28:19
  You know what I mean? You have a, you have a, an
• 1:28:22
  upcoming. I don't know if it's a public
• 1:28:26
  speech or, or public talk that that you and I were talking a
• 1:28:29
  bit offline about, about this whole, you know, being enough or
• 1:28:32
  enoughness. Is this some of like what you're
• 1:28:36
  talking about right now? Is this, is this some of what
• 1:28:39
  you have kind of like lined up for in your upcoming talk?
• 1:28:42
  And when is that? And, and can people get involved
• 1:28:45
  or like what is what is the details of that?
• 1:28:48
  Absolutely. So it is.
• 1:28:50
  It's going to be a talk that I'm facilitating with a regenerative
• 1:28:55
  leadership group, which, you know, regenerative it's, it's
• 1:28:59
  just basically everybody who's interested in trying to find
• 1:29:03
  sustainable ways to move forward, to be resilient.
• 1:29:06
  And so it, if you're not in the regenerative space, don't, don't
• 1:29:12
  be turned off by the idea because it's, it's really very
• 1:29:16
  accessible to everyone. But this, this group meets about
• 1:29:20
  once a month and it is a Zoom call, It's free, anybody can
• 1:29:24
  join. And really these conversations
• 1:29:28
  are fantastic. There's a lot of stuff that
• 1:29:31
  we've talked about today, other experts have touched on during
• 1:29:34
  these calls. They're just really good open
• 1:29:38
  exchanges. So I will be talking about this
• 1:29:41
  concept of enough for enoughness and not existing in in scarcity
• 1:29:45
  or, or abundance exclusively and using nature as the example, as
• 1:29:52
  regenerative practices tend to do for how we should find our
• 1:29:59
  supports and trust them and allow ourselves to be present in
• 1:30:04
  the moment. Otherwise, you know, where's our
• 1:30:07
  joy? So that will be hosted by
• 1:30:13
  Kathleen Allen, Dr. Kathleen Allen.
• 1:30:15
  So Kathleen allen.net is her website, but you can also go to
• 1:30:20
  my website, whisperingwilds.com and find all of my socials
• 1:30:24
  there. I'll be posting about it on
• 1:30:26
  social. It's on January 20th at 1:00 PM
• 1:30:29
  Eastern. I believe there's also a
• 1:30:33
  recording and the recording will.
• 1:30:35
  Be fantastic. So this this is a this is a free
• 1:30:38
  to attend webinar as kind of like kind of like a thing like
• 1:30:41
  that. Would we be able to get a link
• 1:30:44
  for for the listeners that are hearing this now in October to
• 1:30:48
  maybe plan their life or time around attending if they wanted
• 1:30:52
  to? Absolutely.
• 1:30:55
  So the the clearance, I'm sorry. No, I just meant like if we
• 1:31:00
  could get like, you know, a, a link or something or an event,
• 1:31:03
  you know, whatever, how people could join it, Yeah.
• 1:31:06
  That's there's the information for the Zoom call is already up
• 1:31:10
  on kathleenallen.net. If you click on conversation,
• 1:31:15
  they call it the conversation. But if you go to
• 1:31:17
  mine@whisperingwilds.com as well.
• 1:31:19
  If you want a reminder closer to I'll be sending out an e-mail,
• 1:31:23
  you can sign up for my emails. I don't send that very many of
• 1:31:27
  them, but I will be sending a reminder before this.
• 1:31:29
  I'm posting on my social as well.
• 1:31:31
  So if you want to follow me on like your your favorite network
• 1:31:34
  closer to I'll be posting the link directly to where you can
• 1:31:39
  tune, you know, call into the zoom call if you want to attend
• 1:31:42
  live or I'll share the the VOD when it's on YouTube.
• 1:31:47
  Fantastic. I would love to include that.
• 1:31:49
  So for the listeners and those of you on Patreon, if you're
• 1:31:52
  watching this, links will be down in the description, right?
• 1:31:55
  All the details to Catherine's website, Dina's website, all of
• 1:32:00
  that stuff sounds like a very useful, very beneficial thing to
• 1:32:05
  to be a part of. Even if you can't attend when
• 1:32:07
  it's happening, watch it thereafter.
• 1:32:10
  I'm sure it's going to be great. If, if it's anything like what
• 1:32:12
  we're talking about today, tonight, at this point, yeah,
• 1:32:16
  it's it, I think it'd be much worth your, your time.
• 1:32:19
  So we'll, we'll include those things and Dean, if you want to
• 1:32:23
  just shoot anything over to me that will be helpful to, to add
• 1:32:26
  to the show, I'll have it down there.
• 1:32:29
  So we're going to get to wrapping things up 'cause I know
• 1:32:31
  we talked earlier about, you know, time and it's what it is.
• 1:32:36
  It's just a construct. Yeah, well, I still got to work.
• 1:32:38
  I got to go to a job tomorrow. You've got to do your thing or
• 1:32:41
  whatever. So there is one thing that I
• 1:32:44
  want to ask you before we get into just some fun kind of light
• 1:32:47
  hearted rapid fire type questions.
• 1:32:50
  If you could leave the listeners here today with the truth, we'll
• 1:32:56
  say one truth about healing. OK, a lesson maybe that bridges
• 1:33:01
  mind, land, body, spirit, or even your 6 faceted holistic
• 1:33:11
  view. OK, if you could leave the
• 1:33:13
  listeners with one truth about healing or a lesson, what would
• 1:33:19
  it be? I would say to the listeners who
• 1:33:24
  are probably mostly Animus as well, that don't ever forget the
• 1:33:30
  importance of living your spiritual connection with the
• 1:33:36
  spirits in all things, with the gods, with the matter, with the
• 1:33:42
  plants outside your door, with the energies, the elements.
• 1:33:47
  Healing happens. Healing doesn't really ever
• 1:33:50
  happen for humans in a vacuum. And that's because we're social
• 1:33:53
  beings, and our truest home, the ancestral home that every single
• 1:33:59
  one of us shares, regardless of our DNA, our culture, or
• 1:34:02
  anything else, is nature. We began in the wild as part of
• 1:34:08
  nature. We've separated ourselves from
• 1:34:10
  it. And that's led to a lot of
• 1:34:11
  disorder in our lives and our cultures and societies.
• 1:34:15
  So healing really begins when we start to remember that there is
• 1:34:21
  a place and it's full of these these beautiful spirits.
• 1:34:25
  But even if you're not an animist and you just want to go
• 1:34:28
  out and experience nature, it is your home.
• 1:34:32
  It's your community. And it is absolutely, really,
• 1:34:36
  really important to healing to accept that you have a broader
• 1:34:43
  home and a broader community. And you will never really in, in
• 1:34:48
  my experience, fully heal if you try to do it entirely by
• 1:34:53
  yourself without looping anybody or anything else in and beyond a
• 1:35:01
  shadow of a doubt. For me, the safest space to do
• 1:35:04
  that, where you don't have to worry and you can just be
• 1:35:07
  yourself, is nature. Because it's not going to judge
• 1:35:10
  you for it, and it's not going to judge you for your thoughts,
• 1:35:13
  feelings or deeds. And you can commune with it
• 1:35:15
  spiritually as well as physically, energetically,
• 1:35:19
  emotionally, all of it. So the truth about healing from
• 1:35:23
  my perspective is keep your relationship with nature.
• 1:35:28
  If you do nothing else, really try and work at your
• 1:35:33
  relationship with nature. I would love to echo that
• 1:35:39
  sentiment. It is.
• 1:35:43
  It's the real deal. I mean, you know, people might
• 1:35:47
  think I'm not really good at it, right?
• 1:35:49
  What do I stop thinking about it?
• 1:35:50
  You, you, you're putting too much.
• 1:35:52
  You put, you're complicating it too much, right?
• 1:35:54
  Just go out there and just be, just sit, be quiet, feel,
• 1:35:59
  listen, express, vibrate, just be.
• 1:36:03
  It's beautiful. It's tough for us, for some of
• 1:36:06
  us, depending on our lifestyles and and what not to just kind of
• 1:36:11
  dial it back a bit and let us let yourself be present in that.
• 1:36:15
  But 100% I would, I would echo that sentiment.
• 1:36:18
  Dina, beautifully said. Thank you for that good good
• 1:36:21
  advice. Ready for some rapid fire type
• 1:36:25
  fun things to wrap things up with.
• 1:36:28
  OK, if you if you could have a conversation with any figure
• 1:36:32
  from Nora Smith or Legend, who would it be?
• 1:36:38
  Absolutely Freudis daughter of Eric the Red.
• 1:36:41
  I am fascinated by her and the conflicting stories that we have
• 1:36:45
  in sagas. I want to know whether she was
• 1:36:47
  bare breasted, beating a sword on her chest and scaring people
• 1:36:51
  away or this, you know, conniving, kind of backstabbing
• 1:36:54
  kinslayer. But I would just, I'm, I'm just
• 1:36:57
  fascinated by her. I'd I'd love to learn the truth.
• 1:37:00
  Yeah, let's hear straight from Froydy's mouth.
• 1:37:02
  Yeah, Really. Yeah.
• 1:37:06
  Favorite Rune and why? Favorite rune is probably ESA,
• 1:37:11
  which is an interesting one because I think a lot of people
• 1:37:15
  think of it as stagnation, but ESA exists in pretty much, well
• 1:37:19
  really most of the other runes, all of them if you look at at
• 1:37:23
  angles. So there's there's a foundation
• 1:37:26
  in stillness there. Yeah, it's pause.
• 1:37:29
  Really. It's not, it's not, it's not
• 1:37:31
  stagnation. I've used that terminology
• 1:37:33
  before too, in the sense that, you know, if you stay too long,
• 1:37:36
  if you stay frozen too long, it becomes this, this, this, Yeah,
• 1:37:40
  it's, it rots in a way. It becomes, you know, but it's,
• 1:37:43
  it's a slow movement. It's pause.
• 1:37:45
  It's, it's you almost can't detect it.
• 1:37:48
  Do you have a favorite like book that you think everyone on a
• 1:37:53
  spiritual path should read? You've been in the academic or
• 1:37:56
  you know, higher learning space for some time now.
• 1:38:00
  Would you would you have one book recommendation that people
• 1:38:03
  that are on a spiritual path should should read once?
• 1:38:10
  I do, and it's going to be unexpected, but it's a book
• 1:38:12
  called The Little Prince by Antoine Desson Azupe.
• 1:38:16
  It is a children's book, but it's not really It's really a
• 1:38:21
  beautiful book for grown-ups. It's full of important
• 1:38:23
  philosophy and I highly, highly recommend reading and I call it
• 1:38:28
  recommended reading for life, especially if you are somebody
• 1:38:31
  who is trying to pursue greater spiritual awareness or heighten
• 1:38:36
  your, your emotional intelligence.
• 1:38:40
  So I, I would say second to that, like I absolutely am a
• 1:38:44
  huge fan of the Hobble Mall. Just find like your, your best
• 1:38:46
  translation that really resonates with you.
• 1:38:49
  That's like how to be a good human, but the Little Prince is
• 1:38:53
  not so good. Yeah.
• 1:38:55
  It's just it's had my heart forever and it always will.
• 1:38:58
  Great. I'll put a link for for folks to
• 1:39:00
  to find a copy of that, I'm sure or hopefully it's, it's
• 1:39:04
  available on like a, you know, Amazon or whatever.
• 1:39:07
  Yeah, we'll put a link down there for for folks that may
• 1:39:09
  want to check it out. All right, two more.
• 1:39:12
  What is one thing that you do every day to stay grounded?
• 1:39:18
  I sing to my crows. I have a a family of crows that
• 1:39:21
  live with me and nature loves singing and I was trained as an
• 1:39:27
  opera singer and I never did anything with it.
• 1:39:30
  Crows, they dance, So I sing to my crows and it is so wonderful.
• 1:39:36
  That's, that's cool in so many different ways.
• 1:39:40
  One of my like, you know, say guilty pleasure or whatever.
• 1:39:44
  Like when I say, like, you know, people look at me and they have
• 1:39:46
  a certain look. And then when I, you know, when
• 1:39:48
  I say like, I love opera, don't know in half the time, but I
• 1:39:52
  love the energy. I love the the, the, the, the,
• 1:39:55
  the just the, the passion, the expression, the story that's
• 1:39:59
  being told through song. Whether or not I understand the
• 1:40:01
  language or not, I I understand the spirit of what's being and I
• 1:40:03
  love opera for that. And then the fact that, you
• 1:40:08
  know, they that, that this is done for crows and you know,
• 1:40:13
  like there's, there's, there's bird dances, there's crow crow
• 1:40:16
  dances, there's, you know, things in indigenous beliefs
• 1:40:19
  that that echo or mimic, I should say, the movement of
• 1:40:23
  these of these creatures for reasons.
• 1:40:25
  So it's really cool to hear you say that for like I said, for
• 1:40:28
  some reasons, I'm, I'm like kind of geeking out a bit about it.
• 1:40:31
  So very, all right, last, last. The last rapid fire question I
• 1:40:37
  have for you, Dina, is if you could describe your path in
• 1:40:41
  three words, what would they be? Gosh, I'm the thing that came to
• 1:40:52
  mind is going to sound terrible because I have such negative
• 1:40:54
  connotation. But for me, I would say going in
• 1:40:59
  circles because flowing and moving and accepting that things
• 1:41:06
  are sometimes circular like we talked about earlier is really
• 1:41:12
  beautiful to me. And it's where I'm where I'm
• 1:41:13
  happiest is when I'm flowing. So I hope that my path is I'm
• 1:41:18
  going to pick up little bits and pieces of other things while I'm
• 1:41:21
  traveling this orbit, but I want to, I want to keep moving so.
• 1:41:27
  What an interesting answer. You know, when, when A lot of
• 1:41:30
  times I think when people get asked, you know, to describe
• 1:41:32
  something in three words, they're looking for adjectives
• 1:41:37
  to do so, or adverbs right to or Yep, yeah.
• 1:41:41
  They're looking for things to describe, you know, honorable,
• 1:41:45
  joyful, exciting, like they're looking for those types of
• 1:41:48
  things. And you just made a sentence out
• 1:41:52
  of three words that like you say, might, might lean to like,
• 1:41:56
  like might leave somebody thinking that seems a bit
• 1:42:00
  redundant or insane in, in, in a lot of aspects.
• 1:42:06
  But when you get to the to the root of it, to the, to the
• 1:42:10
  spirit of it, yeah. I mean, going in circles, being
• 1:42:14
  in touch with the flow, a perfect circle, being in
• 1:42:18
  connectivity with the the cyclical nature of our existence
• 1:42:22
  as a whole. There's there's more depth to
• 1:42:25
  that than I think you might have intended for it.
• 1:42:30
  Would pop into my, my head and I, I trust those thoughts
• 1:42:33
  sometimes and they will often lead to interesting things
• 1:42:37
  coming out of my mouth. But I, I know I'm receiving
• 1:42:39
  feedback and saying hopefully what I meant to say, but that
• 1:42:42
  just came, that was absolutely what I felt in the moment.
• 1:42:45
  And you know, I, I wear the the wheel and I really just that.
• 1:42:50
  I noticed, yeah, I was given a gift to that, a bone carved 1.
• 1:42:57
  I don't know if yours is bone. I was given a gift of one that
• 1:43:02
  my wife had admired. And it was it was a personal
• 1:43:05
  piece of, of a dear friend and brother of mine.
• 1:43:08
  And when I it was made of elk bone.
• 1:43:11
  And when I told him about it, that my wife had admired it,
• 1:43:15
  he's like, well, then here and he gave it to me to give to her.
• 1:43:22
  So she keeps it. She keeps it away.
• 1:43:24
  It's not a piece of leather kind of like yours.
• 1:43:25
  It's like a choker style. You know what I mean?
• 1:43:28
  But he had, he had made it himself.
• 1:43:31
  And so, yeah, I, I, I admire the artistry and the, the style.
• 1:43:37
  And yeah, when you know, like Dina, I, I appreciate you for,
• 1:43:40
  for coming on here and talking so much.
• 1:43:42
  We've we've gone only an hour and 40 some minutes.
• 1:43:47
  Well, we could have gone way longer if, if time wasn't a
• 1:43:51
  thing. Maybe it'll be a Part 2.
• 1:43:54
  If you're ever interested and you want to come back, you know,
• 1:43:56
  I know you got this talk coming up in January and that, you
• 1:44:00
  know, that's, that's basically kicking off season 7 here at
• 1:44:03
  this on the podcast. So I would just like to extend
• 1:44:08
  an open invitation for you. If you're ever interested in
• 1:44:11
  wanting to come back, We want to book something else.
• 1:44:13
  Would love to have you. Would love it.
• 1:44:17
  Fantastic, so for everybody that's listened up to this
• 1:44:20
  point, thank you for sticking around.
• 1:44:23
  You know, even if you absorb this in piece meal, you know, a
• 1:44:26
  lot of people like to, you know, break away and come back and and
• 1:44:29
  pick up. But I really appreciate you all
• 1:44:32
  for at least listening to this. And if you've decided to come
• 1:44:35
  over to the Patreon side of things and watch the whole
• 1:44:37
  video, thank you very much for your patronage and your support.
• 1:44:41
  All of Dina's information is going to be linked either down
• 1:44:44
  below in the description of the video or in the show notes of
• 1:44:48
  the podcast. So wherever you're listening,
• 1:44:51
  just head over there and click those links.
• 1:44:55
  Follow along on Dina's journey. Whispering wilds.com, 30 years
• 1:45:00
  as a heathen, more than that as a holistic, as a board certified
• 1:45:05
  holistic Wellness practitioner. Did I say that?
• 1:45:07
  Is that is that? Is that your label?
• 1:45:09
  Is that what you would put that OK?
• 1:45:10
  That's the that's the official title, yes, but.
• 1:45:14
  Yeah, she's doing great work. So, so check her out there and
• 1:45:18
  and see, you know, maybe this is hitting you at a certain point
• 1:45:20
  in time where you're like, I need some of that.
• 1:45:22
  I need some of that guidance. And as Dina said, you know,
• 1:45:27
  she's working in that space as a guide.
• 1:45:30
  Heal yourself. You need some help with that.
• 1:45:33
  Check out Dina's work, Whispering wilds.com and all of
• 1:45:36
  her socials that are gonna be linked down below.
• 1:45:38
  And Dina, thank you very much for being here.
• 1:45:40
  Stick around for just a few minutes while I kind of sign
• 1:45:42
  everybody off here. We'll, we'll, we'll touch base
• 1:45:45
  for just a couple of minutes if that's OK with you.
• 1:45:49
  But again, wonderful. Thank you for being here.
• 1:45:52
  Thank you for sharing so much of your experience, your knowledge,
• 1:45:56
  your passion with all of us here today.
• 1:45:58
  It's been great to have you. Thanks so much.
• 1:46:01
  It's been great to be here. All right, everybody, you know
• 1:46:04
  the drill. Check out all the details that
• 1:46:06
  are linked down below, over here, over there, wherever it is
• 1:46:08
  that you see them, follow along. Sign up for whatever it is that
• 1:46:12
  speaks to you. Thank you so much for all of
• 1:46:14
  your constant support. Until we talk to each other
• 1:46:17
  again, may the gods continue to notice you and may your
• 1:46:21
  ancestors smile upon you. And we'll see you in the next
• 1:46:24
  one.