Latest / The Masonic Roundtable - Freemasonry Today for Today's Freemasons / The Masonic Roundtable - 0570 - Ancient Order of Free Gardeners

Transcript

The Masonic Roundtable - 0570 - Ancient Order of Free Gardeners · The Masonic Roundtable - Freemasonry Today for Today's Freemasons

• 0:21
  Speaker: Hello and welcome back to the Masonic Roundtable, a weekly
• 0:25
  Speaker: program where Masons from around the world get together to talk
• 0:28
  Speaker: about Masonic news and opinions in a friendly and social manner.
• 0:32
  Speaker: As a reminder, the thoughts and
• 0:33
  Speaker: opinions expressed here are
• 0:35
  Speaker: solely the opinions of the
• 0:36
  Speaker: participants and do not
• 0:37
  Speaker: represent any Grand Lodge
• 0:39
  Speaker: statements or positions or other
• 0:41
  Speaker: grand organizations.
• 0:43
  Speaker: So make sure you keep your conversations open for the
• 0:45
  Speaker: public and on the level to interact with us.
• 0:47
  Speaker: We love seeing you every
• 0:48
  Speaker: Thursday night on Facebook and
• 0:50
  Speaker: YouTube, and remember that your
• 0:52
  Speaker: chats may show up on the show,
• 0:53
  Speaker: so check yourself before you
• 0:55
  Speaker: wreck yourself.
• 0:56
  Speaker: And if you can't catch us live, we are always available in the
• 0:58
  Speaker: replay, which shows up immediately after the show or in
• 1:02
  Speaker: your favorite podcast app.
• 1:04
  Speaker: You know me, I am not John Ruark.
• 1:05
  Speaker: I am Joe Martinez, past master
• 1:07
  Speaker: of Manasseh Lodge number one
• 1:09
  Speaker: eighty two in Manassas,
• 1:10
  Speaker: Virginia.
• 1:11
  Speaker: And next up for his intro, we
• 1:13
  Speaker: will do, do, do go around the
• 1:15
  Speaker: room and say hello to this
• 1:18
  Speaker: handsome guy.
• 1:19
  Speaker: Hi, hi, hi.
• 1:23
  Speaker: Who are you?
• 1:24
  Speaker: I'm Jason Richards, past master of Acacia Lodge, number sixteen
• 1:27
  Speaker: in Clifton, Virginia.
• 1:29
  Speaker: Well, hello, Jason Richards.
• 1:31
  Speaker: So good to see you, friend.
• 1:34
  Speaker: And let's see.
• 1:34
  Speaker: Better to be seen than not seen.
• 1:37
  Speaker: Oh, you saved it, I love it.
• 1:40
  Speaker: See who's next.
• 1:41
  Speaker: Got the always incomparable Robert Johnson.
• 1:46
  Speaker: Hey, guys.
• 1:47
  Speaker: Robert Johnson, past master, Waukegan Lodge seventy eight,
• 1:50
  Speaker: current sitting secretary over at, uh, that same lodge, also
• 1:55
  Speaker: past Master of Space, Novum Lodge eleven eighty three, where
• 1:58
  Speaker: I am also the secretary.
• 2:02
  Speaker: I'm secretary of like everything.
• 2:03
  Speaker: So anyway, happy to be here.
• 2:05
  Speaker: An exciting show, a little bit
• 2:07
  Speaker: of a reunion and we got some new
• 2:09
  Speaker: friends.
• 2:09
  Speaker: It's gonna be good indeed.
• 2:12
  Speaker: Speaking of reunions, we have the original O.G. in the person
• 2:17
  Speaker: of Nick Johnson.
• 2:19
  Speaker: Yes, you.
• 2:20
  Speaker: Oh, man.
• 2:20
  Speaker: Holy moly.
• 2:21
  Speaker: Well, you know, I, I am here.
• 2:23
  Speaker: I everybody has asked, is he dead?
• 2:26
  Speaker: And I said, yes, yes I am.
• 2:28
  Speaker: Uh, this is what happens when you join too many things.
• 2:32
  Speaker: Uh, Nick Johnson, Corinthian Lodge number sixty seven and big
• 2:36
  Speaker: time Farmington, Minnesota.
• 2:37
  Speaker: And then I'm also a member of a
• 2:41
  Speaker: other organization that we'll be
• 2:42
  Speaker: talking about.
• 2:43
  Speaker: But I don't want to spoil it because, well, that's just not
• 2:46
  Speaker: something I want to do.
• 2:47
  Speaker: So I will let you bring them in.
• 2:51
  Speaker: Alrighty.
• 2:52
  Speaker: Next up we have Michael Capellas.
• 2:57
  Speaker: Hello there.
• 2:58
  Speaker: Michael.
• 2:58
  Speaker: Say hello.
• 3:00
  Speaker: Hello, everybody.
• 3:02
  Speaker: Uh, Michael Capellas from the state of new Jersey.
• 3:06
  Speaker: And I hail from Kingston.
• 3:09
  Speaker: Linwood, new Jersey, number one fifty three.
• 3:13
  Speaker: Right on.
• 3:13
  Speaker: Thanks for being here tonight.
• 3:16
  Speaker: Thank you for having me.
• 3:17
  Speaker: Yeah, man.
• 3:18
  Speaker: And last but certainly not least, the person who I'm told
• 3:23
  Speaker: is the big time person here this evening will let me.
• 3:26
  Speaker: Well, how are you there, brother?
• 3:28
  Speaker: Will.
• 3:29
  Speaker: I'm doing good, brother.
• 3:30
  Speaker: How are you?
• 3:31
  Speaker: Good, good.
• 3:34
  Speaker: Who are you?
• 3:36
  Speaker: Uh, I am, uh, brother Will Lemuel.
• 3:40
  Speaker: And since we're on the Masonic roundtable.
• 3:41
  Speaker: I'll start there first.
• 3:42
  Speaker: I hail from Saint John's Lodge, number twelve for the most
• 3:45
  Speaker: worshipful Prince Hall, Grand Lodge of North Carolina.
• 3:48
  Speaker: I am in transition now since I
• 3:50
  Speaker: live here in the state of new
• 3:51
  Speaker: Jersey.
• 3:52
  Speaker: Uh, to join in Lodge number forty, which is with the most
• 3:56
  Speaker: worshipful Prince Hall, Grand Lodge of New Jersey.
• 3:59
  Speaker: Right on.
• 4:00
  Speaker: Well, congratulations and
• 4:02
  Speaker: thanks, everybody, for coming
• 4:03
  Speaker: tonight.
• 4:03
  Speaker: Um, before we start with the
• 4:05
  Speaker: show, we have to do as we always
• 4:07
  Speaker: do and thank and give a special
• 4:09
  Speaker: shout out to all of our patrons
• 4:11
  Speaker: on Patreon.
• 4:12
  Speaker: You guys and gals and all of you are amazing.
• 4:14
  Speaker: So thank you for everything that
• 4:16
  Speaker: you do, uh, to keep Masonic
• 4:18
  Speaker: education and shows like ours
• 4:20
  Speaker: supported, uh, at least through
• 4:22
  Speaker: twenty forty.
• 4:23
  Speaker: Right?
• 4:23
  Speaker: So sixteen more years until this
• 4:26
  Speaker: all comes crashing down on us,
• 4:28
  Speaker: right?
• 4:28
  Speaker: And we end up on Zoom every night of the week.
• 4:30
  Speaker: So thank you for all you do.
• 4:33
  Speaker: And, uh, I'm super bummed because I, uh, if you haven't
• 4:36
  Speaker: noticed, I'm hosting this evening and this is my first
• 4:39
  Speaker: time doing it and I don't have all the cool buttons.
• 4:42
  Speaker: Um, but we will have all the
• 4:44
  Speaker: cool buttons because I tried to
• 4:47
  Speaker: log in just to find that my
• 4:49
  Speaker: admin privileges had been taken
• 4:51
  Speaker: away.
• 4:52
  Speaker: That was not I. And so yeah, so just so you know, but yeah, I
• 4:57
  Speaker: can't find the magic song.
• 4:58
  Speaker: So we are going.
• 5:00
  Speaker: Mr.. Didn't show up tonight.
• 5:02
  Speaker: Yes.
• 5:03
  Speaker: Um, he who should not be named,
• 5:04
  Speaker: but I was told by Mr. Robert
• 5:07
  Speaker: Johnson that it will be added in
• 5:08
  Speaker: post, so you can hear it
• 5:09
  Speaker: afterwards.
• 5:10
  Speaker: But our next favorite segment of the show is whenever the hell I
• 5:16
  Speaker: can find the banner.
• 5:17
  Speaker: It is tarot card of the week.
• 5:20
  Speaker: Hooray!
• 5:21
  Speaker: I'm not singing the song.
• 5:24
  Speaker: Anyway.
• 5:25
  Speaker: Boom boom.
• 5:26
  Speaker: All right, so tonight is that is being done by Jason.
• 5:30
  Speaker: What do we got?
• 5:32
  Speaker: We have the gourmet tarot tonight.
• 5:34
  Speaker: Oh. And card for tonight's episode.
• 5:44
  Speaker: We've got some ramen.
• 5:47
  Speaker: Oh!
• 5:47
  Speaker: Two of wands.
• 5:49
  Speaker: Oh, the chopsticks are wands.
• 5:51
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 5:52
  Speaker: Okay.
• 5:53
  Speaker: All right.
• 5:58
  Speaker: So we got future possibilities.
• 6:02
  Speaker: We've got making a major choice in your life.
• 6:04
  Speaker: Choice planning.
• 6:06
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 6:06
  Speaker: Discovery.
• 6:08
  Speaker: Oh, yeah.
• 6:11
  Speaker: And a lovely hard boiled egg right in the middle there.
• 6:15
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 6:15
  Speaker: So I think that's like the hard boiled egg is, is representative
• 6:20
  Speaker: of, of making poor decisions and then the progress of digestion.
• 6:26
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 6:26
  Speaker: That's probably what's going on there.
• 6:28
  Speaker: Say this is an alchemical card.
• 6:31
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:32
  Speaker: That is way deeper than I
• 6:33
  Speaker: thought we were going to go on,
• 6:36
  Speaker: on, on the two of wands and the
• 6:39
  Speaker: ramen.
• 6:39
  Speaker: Right on.
• 6:41
  Speaker: Cool.
• 6:41
  Speaker: All right, so what are we talking about tonight?
• 6:44
  Speaker: Uh, well, the name of the show this evening is the Ancient
• 6:47
  Speaker: Order of Free Gardeners.
• 6:49
  Speaker: So we're actually going to leave the world of masonry a little
• 6:52
  Speaker: bit and maybe come back to it, um, a little bit now and again.
• 6:55
  Speaker: And, uh, I believe we're going
• 6:57
  Speaker: to start with brother Will,
• 6:59
  Speaker: who's going to tell us what is
• 7:01
  Speaker: the ancient order of free
• 7:02
  Speaker: gardeners.
• 7:03
  Speaker: So take it away.
• 7:05
  Speaker: Big question.
• 7:06
  Speaker: So the ancient Order of Free Gardeners is a, um, organization
• 7:12
  Speaker: that started in the seventeenth century in Scotland.
• 7:16
  Speaker: So there's, uh, no exact start date, but um, one of the oldest
• 7:22
  Speaker: records we have is of a Haddington lodge that met in
• 7:25
  Speaker: East Lothian, Scotland.
• 7:27
  Speaker: Um, and in the beginning of
• 7:29
  Speaker: their record book, they have
• 7:30
  Speaker: their uh, date of charter, which
• 7:33
  Speaker: was August sixteenth, sixteen
• 7:35
  Speaker: seventy six.
• 7:36
  Speaker: And um, it gives insight into what the order was.
• 7:40
  Speaker: And essentially it was a form of a primitive, uh, trade union,
• 7:44
  Speaker: um, or a guild as it may have been called in, um, in England.
• 7:49
  Speaker: Uh, but in Scotland they call them incorporations.
• 7:52
  Speaker: So it was a guild or trade union for actual gardeners.
• 7:56
  Speaker: Operative gardeners as a way to, uh, come together, exchange
• 8:01
  Speaker: trade secrets, uh, network with one another as far as, uh, jobs
• 8:06
  Speaker: that were in the area and, um, train up and coming apprentices
• 8:11
  Speaker: or journeymen gardeners.
• 8:13
  Speaker: So, um, to jump into some of
• 8:16
  Speaker: the, uh, the similarity early on
• 8:18
  Speaker: is, uh, similar to Freemasons,
• 8:20
  Speaker: which of course, as we know,
• 8:22
  Speaker: were, uh, stonemasons, um,
• 8:25
  Speaker: gardeners were for actual
• 8:27
  Speaker: gardeners.
• 8:28
  Speaker: So, um, yeah, uh, I'll start
• 8:32
  Speaker: there and try to start off as a
• 8:33
  Speaker: trade union, but eventually
• 8:35
  Speaker: emerged to become more of a
• 8:36
  Speaker: fraternal organization over the
• 8:38
  Speaker: years.
• 8:41
  Speaker: Very cool.
• 8:44
  Speaker: Michael.
• 8:44
  Speaker: Nick, anything to add?
• 8:52
  Speaker: Okay.
• 8:54
  Speaker: I won't have much to say.
• 8:55
  Speaker: So here, here's the quickie story.
• 8:58
  Speaker: Just because you know, I am a, as I called it, baby gardener.
• 9:03
  Speaker: Uh, and so I am extremely new to this, this organization.
• 9:07
  Speaker: So luckily we have some really,
• 9:10
  Speaker: uh, you know, great, uh, really
• 9:14
  Speaker: will and Michael have been
• 9:15
  Speaker: pushing, pushing this in such a
• 9:17
  Speaker: strong direction.
• 9:18
  Speaker: And so I absolutely, they, they will know everything about this.
• 9:22
  Speaker: I, I really enjoyed myself so far though.
• 9:25
  Speaker: So it's, it's cool.
• 9:27
  Speaker: Regalia is cool.
• 9:28
  Speaker: And, you know, bling is like
• 9:30
  Speaker: literally my favorite thing on
• 9:31
  Speaker: earth.
• 9:32
  Speaker: So, um, but yeah, well, first,
• 9:36
  Speaker: most important question for
• 9:37
  Speaker: Nick.
• 9:38
  Speaker: Are there swords?
• 9:40
  Speaker: No, but there's something else.
• 9:42
  Speaker: And I will let somebody reveal that because it is wonderful.
• 9:47
  Speaker: And I know that this is for the
• 9:48
  Speaker: most part, everybody's listening
• 9:50
  Speaker: to this and not seeing this on
• 9:51
  Speaker: the video.
• 9:51
  Speaker: But once you see it, it, uh, you'll want to join.
• 9:55
  Speaker: I could just tell you.
• 9:58
  Speaker: Right on.
• 10:00
  Speaker: Well, cool.
• 10:00
  Speaker: So where should we go next?
• 10:02
  Speaker: Uh, will Michael, what is, uh, tell us about what the
• 10:05
  Speaker: organization is today.
• 10:08
  Speaker: You know?
• 10:11
  Speaker: Um, okay, so I guess I will, uh, step in.
• 10:15
  Speaker: Looks like Mike is passing the baton to me as far as what the
• 10:19
  Speaker: organization is today.
• 10:21
  Speaker: So, um, what the organization is
• 10:23
  Speaker: today is, um, a fraternal order
• 10:28
  Speaker: that focuses on the lessons of
• 10:31
  Speaker: love, uh, harmony, wisdom, and
• 10:35
  Speaker: truth.
• 10:36
  Speaker: Um, that's kind of like the, uh,
• 10:39
  Speaker: straight from the brochure
• 10:40
  Speaker: answer, but in reality, what it
• 10:42
  Speaker: is is that we're, uh, today, not
• 10:45
  Speaker: operative gardeners or most of
• 10:47
  Speaker: us are not gardeners, much like
• 10:49
  Speaker: any of the surviving trade
• 10:50
  Speaker: guilds or craft guilds where we
• 10:54
  Speaker: called metaphorical gardening,
• 10:55
  Speaker: which is what, uh, in the
• 10:58
  Speaker: Masonic craft, we may refer to a
• 11:00
  Speaker: speculative Masons.
• 11:01
  Speaker: So we have metaphorical gardeners.
• 11:03
  Speaker: And what that is, is that on our life's journey, we're using the
• 11:06
  Speaker: metaphor of gardening and the craft of gardening, the art of
• 11:10
  Speaker: gardening as a guide along the path of life for, um, not just
• 11:17
  Speaker: self improvement, but improvement of our fellow
• 11:20
  Speaker: members and the world around us.
• 11:23
  Speaker: So a lot of what gardening
• 11:25
  Speaker: focuses on now, uh, especially
• 11:28
  Speaker: in the ceremonial is just
• 11:30
  Speaker: conveying the lessons and ideas
• 11:32
  Speaker: and, um, the morals behind
• 11:34
  Speaker: oneness.
• 11:36
  Speaker: Uh, as you can imagine by the
• 11:37
  Speaker: name, we're very much focused on
• 11:38
  Speaker: nature in a ceremonial
• 11:40
  Speaker: standpoint, but also making it a
• 11:42
  Speaker: very practical thing because
• 11:44
  Speaker: we're urged to actually spend
• 11:45
  Speaker: time in nature to reflect on,
• 11:48
  Speaker: uh, not just our life, but how
• 11:50
  Speaker: we're connected to all living
• 11:52
  Speaker: things around us from nature,
• 11:54
  Speaker: the trees, the plants, flowers,
• 11:57
  Speaker: animals, the sky, uh, go even
• 12:00
  Speaker: beyond that, the, um, stars and
• 12:04
  Speaker: the galactic and planetary, um,
• 12:07
  Speaker: um, bodies.
• 12:08
  Speaker: So it, it really causes you to
• 12:10
  Speaker: reflect deeply on life or it
• 12:12
  Speaker: calls, it encourages members to
• 12:14
  Speaker: reflect deeply on life and their
• 12:16
  Speaker: place in it, uh, their purpose
• 12:18
  Speaker: in it.
• 12:18
  Speaker: And, uh, not just from a standpoint where you're, um, as
• 12:24
  Speaker: an individual, that is definitely a big piece of it,
• 12:27
  Speaker: but how you as an individual is interconnected to everything
• 12:32
  Speaker: around you and how your actions, your, your thoughts or inactions
• 12:37
  Speaker: can affect the world around you.
• 12:39
  Speaker: And so it causes you to really contemplate on those things and
• 12:41
  Speaker: not just contemplate on it.
• 12:43
  Speaker: It gives a guide or a path on
• 12:46
  Speaker: maybe how to, uh, how to move
• 12:49
  Speaker: through life.
• 12:50
  Speaker: Uh, pretty much like how, how not not just telling you to
• 12:54
  Speaker: consider the world around you, but how do you do that?
• 12:56
  Speaker: What are some ways to do that?
• 12:57
  Speaker: How can I do that as an individual?
• 12:59
  Speaker: How can we do it as a lodge?
• 13:01
  Speaker: How can we incorporate the community into that and, um, get
• 13:05
  Speaker: other people to, um, see the bigger picture that how we are
• 13:09
  Speaker: all connected and all things affect the other.
• 13:14
  Speaker: Wow.
• 13:15
  Speaker: That's amazing.
• 13:16
  Speaker: Um, I have so many questions, but I want to yeah, I was gonna,
• 13:20
  Speaker: I was going to say like, I was not expecting some sort of deep
• 13:25
  Speaker: philosophical, like bent to this like almost, almost Neoplatonic.
• 13:32
  Speaker: It is absolutely.
• 13:33
  Speaker: That's so fascinating.
• 13:35
  Speaker: And then so, I mean, I had a few
• 13:37
  Speaker: questions that I was going to
• 13:38
  Speaker: ask, and you guys sort of
• 13:41
  Speaker: answered a lot of those as we
• 13:42
  Speaker: went in.
• 13:43
  Speaker: But I don't want to, like, jump
• 13:45
  Speaker: ahead, but but can I ask like a
• 13:48
  Speaker: little bit about some of your
• 13:49
  Speaker: symbols?
• 13:50
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 13:50
  Speaker: Of course.
• 13:51
  Speaker: Sure.
• 13:51
  Speaker: So, um, a lot of.
• 13:53
  Speaker: Sorry.
• 13:53
  Speaker: Go, please.
• 13:53
  Speaker: You go.
• 13:54
  Speaker: I'm sorry.
• 13:54
  Speaker: I was just I was going to say.
• 13:55
  Speaker: So the one thing that I'm familiar with that I always see,
• 13:58
  Speaker: um, regardless of the fraternal organization, is there's always
• 14:02
  Speaker: some form of like a square encompasses, um, you know,
• 14:06
  Speaker: there'll be like, uh, engineering ones, electrical
• 14:09
  Speaker: unions and all this stuff.
• 14:11
  Speaker: You guys have, um, the use of it looks like a pocket knife.
• 14:16
  Speaker: I know it's a pruning knife if I understand that correctly.
• 14:18
  Speaker: Yes, but yeah.
• 14:20
  Speaker: Okay.
• 14:21
  Speaker: So Brother Michael is holding that up.
• 14:23
  Speaker: Yeah, there it is.
• 14:25
  Speaker: So in masonry, we we talk about
• 14:28
  Speaker: the compasses keeping us, you
• 14:30
  Speaker: know, um.
• 14:34
  Speaker: Keeping us, uh, I would say like within our own scope of
• 14:39
  Speaker: influence and, uh, keeping our desires and urges in check.
• 14:46
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:46
  Speaker: And yeah.
• 14:47
  Speaker: And the square, you know, making
• 14:49
  Speaker: sure we're acting with other
• 14:50
  Speaker: people correctly and this kind
• 14:51
  Speaker: of thing.
• 14:52
  Speaker: What is up with with that?
• 14:56
  Speaker: Like, how does that compare?
• 15:01
  Speaker: And what is it sort of like teaching in, in the gardeners?
• 15:04
  Speaker: I just think it's fascinating.
• 15:06
  Speaker: I love the symbol.
• 15:07
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 15:08
  Speaker: Yes.
• 15:08
  Speaker: Good question.
• 15:08
  Speaker: Michael, do you want me to step
• 15:10
  Speaker: in or do you want me to keep
• 15:10
  Speaker: going?
• 15:11
  Speaker: I can start if you like.
• 15:12
  Speaker: Okay.
• 15:12
  Speaker: Yeah, please.
• 15:14
  Speaker: Um, and then you go ahead and keep going.
• 15:17
  Speaker: Okay.
• 15:18
  Speaker: Um, I think, um, it is one of the tools that we are given and
• 15:26
  Speaker: introduced to and um.
• 15:32
  Speaker: The philosophy behind it is to
• 15:34
  Speaker: be able to utilize it for those
• 15:39
  Speaker: vices that you carry within your
• 15:42
  Speaker: self.
• 15:43
  Speaker: And so think about going into the garden, what it is that you
• 15:47
  Speaker: actually see out there.
• 15:49
  Speaker: Um, well, what do you utilize
• 15:50
  Speaker: the pruning knife for, for weeds
• 15:53
  Speaker: or, you know, certain things
• 15:55
  Speaker: that you don't want, um, growing
• 15:58
  Speaker: in your garden, but also to
• 16:00
  Speaker: take, let's just say a plant
• 16:03
  Speaker: that you want to see grow and
• 16:05
  Speaker: you just cut it into a portion
• 16:08
  Speaker: of another tree and make that
• 16:09
  Speaker: insertion into it and then wrap
• 16:12
  Speaker: it around and then allow it to
• 16:13
  Speaker: grow.
• 16:14
  Speaker: So there's many different ways that it could go right.
• 16:18
  Speaker: Grafting.
• 16:19
  Speaker: Definitely.
• 16:20
  Speaker: Um, but definitely it is a tool.
• 16:24
  Speaker: The way that I tell people is
• 16:26
  Speaker: you always have some sort of
• 16:28
  Speaker: symbol, whether it's a rosary,
• 16:31
  Speaker: prayer beads or something like
• 16:34
  Speaker: that to remind you of something
• 16:36
  Speaker: greater.
• 16:37
  Speaker: So to the free gardeners, it's
• 16:38
  Speaker: the pruning knife and it's a
• 16:40
  Speaker: constant.
• 16:41
  Speaker: That's why we carry it.
• 16:42
  Speaker: It's a constant reminder of what we should be doing with our
• 16:45
  Speaker: character and with our dealings or certain situations.
• 16:49
  Speaker: When you know that it's beneficial to utilize it and how
• 16:54
  Speaker: to utilize it well, you have anything else on it.
• 16:59
  Speaker: Um, yeah, if you, if you don't mind, I can step in.
• 17:02
  Speaker: It is something, as Mike said, that we are given.
• 17:04
  Speaker: So it's a very special piece.
• 17:05
  Speaker: It's kind of, um, one of the
• 17:08
  Speaker: first things you're, you're
• 17:10
  Speaker: gifted in the order I guess, so
• 17:12
  Speaker: to speak.
• 17:13
  Speaker: Um, because early on, you know, to, uh, you're told to carry it
• 17:19
  Speaker: with you at all times during, during your journey, not as like
• 17:22
  Speaker: a, a mandate, like someone's going to check for it.
• 17:25
  Speaker: And if you don't have it, you're going to be excommunicated.
• 17:27
  Speaker: But just as that, that physical
• 17:29
  Speaker: or tangible reminder, as Mike
• 17:31
  Speaker: said, not to compare saying
• 17:33
  Speaker: like, well, you know, I'm going
• 17:37
  Speaker: to.
• 17:39
  Speaker: I don't recommend carrying on
• 17:40
  Speaker: airplanes, even though when I
• 17:41
  Speaker: got initiated in Canada, I
• 17:43
  Speaker: forgot I had it and somehow got
• 17:46
  Speaker: through.
• 17:46
  Speaker: But I hope Canadian Border Patrol isn't listening.
• 17:49
  Speaker: But, um, yeah, I don't recommend doing that.
• 17:52
  Speaker: I guess I lucked out, but, um, uh, in your daily walks when not
• 17:57
  Speaker: traveling on planes or entering government buildings, uh, we
• 18:01
  Speaker: carry it with us.
• 18:01
  Speaker: It's like that physical, tangible reminder because it's,
• 18:04
  Speaker: it's always there.
• 18:05
  Speaker: Um, and so, um, they go back to what you're saying about the
• 18:10
  Speaker: square and compass.
• 18:11
  Speaker: Uh, it, it in our history,
• 18:14
  Speaker: there's no record in the free
• 18:17
  Speaker: garden and free gardening
• 18:18
  Speaker: records, ceremonial or
• 18:19
  Speaker: otherwise, any mention of a
• 18:21
  Speaker: square and compass until about
• 18:23
  Speaker: close to two hundred years after
• 18:25
  Speaker: what we know to be the start of
• 18:27
  Speaker: the organization.
• 18:28
  Speaker: So that was something.
• 18:30
  Speaker: And it came around the time of
• 18:31
  Speaker: when it opened up to men who
• 18:34
  Speaker: were not necessarily gardeners,
• 18:36
  Speaker: similar to how eventually the
• 18:38
  Speaker: Masonic craft opened up to
• 18:39
  Speaker: Non-masons.
• 18:40
  Speaker: So then we see that introduction for the first time, a mention of
• 18:45
  Speaker: a square compass, and the added part to keep it free.
• 18:48
  Speaker: Gardening, the pruning knife.
• 18:50
  Speaker: Um, before then we had and still do have on our regalia an
• 18:54
  Speaker: otherwise, uh, three interlocking triangles with
• 18:58
  Speaker: letters inside of each triangle, which we still use that, but it
• 19:01
  Speaker: was definitely without a doubt that Masonic influence, because
• 19:05
  Speaker: lots of members who were free gardeners had joined the Masons
• 19:08
  Speaker: because they had opened up membership to non Masons sooner
• 19:11
  Speaker: than the gardeners who held on for as long as they could open
• 19:14
  Speaker: up membership to non gardeners.
• 19:17
  Speaker: So, uh, there was definitely that crossover influence.
• 19:20
  Speaker: And you guys, the, the free gardeners have been around.
• 19:24
  Speaker: I think you already said it.
• 19:25
  Speaker: But I mean this is older than, uh, organized masonry, right?
• 19:30
  Speaker: Like you guys started in the like I think sixteen hundreds.
• 19:33
  Speaker: Was it something like that?
• 19:34
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 19:34
  Speaker: Well, the one of the earlier
• 19:36
  Speaker: records, earlier complete
• 19:38
  Speaker: records that we have of like an
• 19:40
  Speaker: entire lodges record book, uh,
• 19:42
  Speaker: is sixteen seventy six and, uh,
• 19:45
  Speaker: Haddington, Scotland.
• 19:47
  Speaker: But, uh, even based on reading that, it's one of those things
• 19:50
  Speaker: where they can tell that was not the first lodge.
• 19:52
  Speaker: It was just.
• 19:53
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 19:54
  Speaker: We have.
• 19:54
  Speaker: Yeah, that's, that's fascinating because what we see, right.
• 19:57
  Speaker: And all of the after
• 19:59
  Speaker: Freemasonry, there's like this,
• 20:01
  Speaker: you know, explosion of fraternal
• 20:03
  Speaker: societies across the United
• 20:04
  Speaker: States.
• 20:05
  Speaker: Nick has a dues card from all of them.
• 20:07
  Speaker: But when you.
• 20:10
  Speaker: So this happens and it, it shows that masonry has sort of
• 20:13
  Speaker: influenced these other groups.
• 20:14
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 20:15
  Speaker: But at the same time, you've got these these older groups like
• 20:20
  Speaker: Free gardeners then that existed prior to saw a little bit of,
• 20:26
  Speaker: you know, cultural influence come in through masonry, but
• 20:29
  Speaker: really maintains its own thing.
• 20:32
  Speaker: And what is so interesting to me is that while masonry
• 20:40
  Speaker: propagated, all these other.
• 20:41
  Speaker: I didn't mean to say it.
• 20:42
  Speaker: No pun intended for the show tonight, but propagated all
• 20:45
  Speaker: these other fraternities.
• 20:46
  Speaker: We can look at free gardeners as one of those original craft or
• 20:54
  Speaker: employment type guild systems that masonry literally was born
• 21:01
  Speaker: out of and became something.
• 21:04
  Speaker: You know what it is today?
• 21:06
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 21:06
  Speaker: Well, and you know,
• 21:07
  Speaker: organizationally as well, I
• 21:08
  Speaker: mean, free gardening is
• 21:09
  Speaker: fascinating.
• 21:11
  Speaker: And just organizationally, how,
• 21:13
  Speaker: how recognition and things like
• 21:15
  Speaker: that work.
• 21:15
  Speaker: And so I don't know, Mike or
• 21:18
  Speaker: Will, if you wanted to comment
• 21:19
  Speaker: on that, but I found it to be
• 21:21
  Speaker: one of the most fascinating and
• 21:23
  Speaker: refreshing things I've ever
• 21:24
  Speaker: heard, especially as a mason who
• 21:26
  Speaker: hears about recognition
• 21:28
  Speaker: constantly.
• 21:29
  Speaker: And yeah, it's fascinating.
• 21:32
  Speaker: It's actually a bit different.
• 21:35
  Speaker: Um, because a large Curtis's on
• 21:39
  Speaker: his own and there could be a
• 21:40
  Speaker: grand lodge.
• 21:42
  Speaker: And from different areas we
• 21:45
  Speaker: recognize one another and our
• 21:49
  Speaker: ceremonies maybe even quite a
• 21:52
  Speaker: bit different.
• 21:54
  Speaker: Yet the reason that.
• 21:58
  Speaker: Um, I don't want to say animosity.
• 22:00
  Speaker: I don't know if that's the
• 22:01
  Speaker: proper word, uh, to describe
• 22:04
  Speaker: other organizations, but, um,
• 22:06
  Speaker: what I'm trying to say there
• 22:07
  Speaker: isn't that, uh, you know, you
• 22:09
  Speaker: are fictitious, you're bogus,
• 22:12
  Speaker: you're this and this and that
• 22:14
  Speaker: or, you know, are you that
• 22:17
  Speaker: doesn't exist.
• 22:18
  Speaker: We just, we know that we could trace each organization back to
• 22:25
  Speaker: the origin, to the very first beginning of where everything
• 22:29
  Speaker: started, which is beautiful Historically, to see that the.
• 22:35
  Speaker: Even though the craft dwindle
• 22:37
  Speaker: for a while and this revival is
• 22:41
  Speaker: coming back.
• 22:42
  Speaker: Uh, we could just say, oh yeah,
• 22:43
  Speaker: I know exactly what brand she
• 22:45
  Speaker: came from and how everything got
• 22:48
  Speaker: started.
• 22:49
  Speaker: So that's very nice.
• 22:50
  Speaker: It's unique and it's its own sense.
• 22:53
  Speaker: So we're not seeing this pyramid hierarchy.
• 22:58
  Speaker: It's just something organic.
• 23:01
  Speaker: And that's tied directly to the history of free gardening.
• 23:06
  Speaker: So in its heyday, um similar to Masonic lodges there, they
• 23:12
  Speaker: didn't start by some all encompassing Grand Lodge that
• 23:17
  Speaker: then created local lodges.
• 23:20
  Speaker: It started the same way a lot of
• 23:21
  Speaker: Masonic or Masonic, uh,
• 23:22
  Speaker: Freemasonry did in, um, England
• 23:25
  Speaker: and Scotland.
• 23:25
  Speaker: They were individual lodges.
• 23:27
  Speaker: They may have had regional bodies at some point.
• 23:30
  Speaker: And then, you know, the United
• 23:31
  Speaker: Grand Lodge of England came
• 23:32
  Speaker: along seventeen seventeen and
• 23:34
  Speaker: things changed.
• 23:35
  Speaker: You know, there were more there was a uniformity.
• 23:37
  Speaker: There was a standard or standard
• 23:40
  Speaker: of regular practice, so to
• 23:42
  Speaker: speak.
• 23:43
  Speaker: Uh, free gardening didn't did not have that.
• 23:45
  Speaker: There was they had a meeting of all of several of the individual
• 23:50
  Speaker: lodges in separate regional grand lodges, um, to decide
• 23:55
  Speaker: whether they wanted to go in that direction at one point.
• 23:58
  Speaker: And they decided not to, because
• 24:00
  Speaker: the way the order existed is
• 24:01
  Speaker: that even with establishments of
• 24:04
  Speaker: certain grand lodges in areas
• 24:06
  Speaker: for free gardening, they never
• 24:08
  Speaker: established with the intent of
• 24:11
  Speaker: everyone has to come through us
• 24:13
  Speaker: for a charter or to spread and
• 24:15
  Speaker: encompass everyone.
• 24:16
  Speaker: It was this is our grand Lodge because we have lodges in this
• 24:20
  Speaker: area and we want to come together and meet together and,
• 24:23
  Speaker: you know, exchange ideas together within our region.
• 24:25
  Speaker: And if they members went to other places like the United
• 24:29
  Speaker: States or other things.
• 24:30
  Speaker: Then they would maybe get a
• 24:32
  Speaker: charter from the Grand Lodge to
• 24:33
  Speaker: start.
• 24:33
  Speaker: But there always has existed.
• 24:34
  Speaker: And free gardening, independent lodges who were never and never
• 24:38
  Speaker: affiliated with any grand bodies that may have formed.
• 24:41
  Speaker: But in between those grand
• 24:42
  Speaker: bodies, there was never an issue
• 24:44
  Speaker: of recognition like we
• 24:45
  Speaker: understood that we shared a
• 24:46
  Speaker: Scottish lineage.
• 24:47
  Speaker: If you trace it back far enough,
• 24:49
  Speaker: whether through initiation or
• 24:51
  Speaker: just ceremonies.
• 24:53
  Speaker: Um, and even with the revival, uh, depending on what ceremonies
• 24:57
  Speaker: were used when certain organizations were revived,
• 25:00
  Speaker: there was never this, um, this need to, uh, say what is correct
• 25:06
  Speaker: and what's not correct.
• 25:07
  Speaker: We understood that there
• 25:08
  Speaker: existed, uh, several, uh, I
• 25:12
  Speaker: think for more than forty
• 25:14
  Speaker: different variations of the
• 25:15
  Speaker: ceremonies that were in
• 25:17
  Speaker: different places and they
• 25:20
  Speaker: existed fine.
• 25:21
  Speaker: And everyone got along.
• 25:22
  Speaker: And though the work was
• 25:24
  Speaker: different and ceremonies may be
• 25:26
  Speaker: different.
• 25:26
  Speaker: And even now with the revived
• 25:28
  Speaker: branches, ceremonies are
• 25:29
  Speaker: definitely different.
• 25:30
  Speaker: Signs may be different in some degrees.
• 25:32
  Speaker: Passwords, grips, things like that.
• 25:36
  Speaker: There's no animosity, as Michael
• 25:38
  Speaker: was saying, or, uh, you know,
• 25:40
  Speaker: words like regular or irregular
• 25:42
  Speaker: or clandestine that we, um, have
• 25:45
  Speaker: in Freemasonry.
• 25:46
  Speaker: So it is a breath of fresh air, especially me as a Freemason to,
• 25:50
  Speaker: uh, you know, not have to hear that, um, or have to worry
• 25:55
  Speaker: about, you know, that necessarily just the fact you're
• 25:57
  Speaker: a gardener is, is good enough.
• 25:59
  Speaker: If you said you're a free gardener, then great.
• 26:01
  Speaker: I'll, I'll treat you with, with that respect, like I would want
• 26:04
  Speaker: anyone to treat me.
• 26:06
  Speaker: Um, I will say that with the
• 26:09
  Speaker: revival, uh, majority of the
• 26:11
  Speaker: people follow that traditional
• 26:12
  Speaker: mind frame.
• 26:13
  Speaker: But like anything else, that man touches things, you know, they
• 26:18
  Speaker: implement their own ideas.
• 26:19
  Speaker: So there is one particular branch that their leadership
• 26:24
  Speaker: being heavily involved in masonry in their area.
• 26:27
  Speaker: They're trying to implement that Masonic idea of regularity.
• 26:30
  Speaker: It's not going over very well with all the other branches
• 26:33
  Speaker: because, you know, um, it's just not a part of our tradition.
• 26:39
  Speaker: If you establish your grand Lodge and you establish lodges,
• 26:41
  Speaker: then that's your right.
• 26:43
  Speaker: But then to go to other places and say, well, unless you got
• 26:47
  Speaker: your charter from us, then you know, we can't recognize you.
• 26:52
  Speaker: But in some cases, some of those
• 26:54
  Speaker: other branches started before
• 26:56
  Speaker: yours.
• 26:56
  Speaker: So, you know, it's not going
• 26:58
  Speaker: over very well, but there is,
• 26:59
  Speaker: uh, there you don't see it as
• 27:02
  Speaker: often anymore.
• 27:03
  Speaker: But, um, there is that one, only one branch that I know of that
• 27:08
  Speaker: has the, uh, the ideology of all things must come through us.
• 27:14
  Speaker: And, um, like I said, it's not going over very well because
• 27:16
  Speaker: just, it's just not our way.
• 27:18
  Speaker: It's not the way we're, we're
• 27:19
  Speaker: built and it's not what we're,
• 27:22
  Speaker: we're taught in ceremonies how
• 27:24
  Speaker: we're supposed to be as an
• 27:25
  Speaker: organization.
• 27:26
  Speaker: So yeah, that is that is super refreshing.
• 27:29
  Speaker: Everything you just said is super refreshing.
• 27:31
  Speaker: And is it it jars the mind, you know, especially if you're a,
• 27:34
  Speaker: you're a mason, right?
• 27:36
  Speaker: Um, I, I did want to go back a
• 27:39
  Speaker: little bit because you had
• 27:39
  Speaker: mentioned quite a few times the
• 27:41
  Speaker: word revival.
• 27:43
  Speaker: So what do you mean when you're talking about the revival?
• 27:45
  Speaker: What, what is that all about?
• 27:47
  Speaker: Well, free gardening, uh, in the Western world had essentially
• 27:51
  Speaker: died out completely, uh, with maybe the exception of at least
• 27:56
  Speaker: one confirmed lodge that existed until the nineteen fifties and
• 28:01
  Speaker: maybe one that kind of hung on a little after that time period.
• 28:07
  Speaker: But, uh, for the most part in the Western world, you know, the
• 28:12
  Speaker: Americas, uh, Europe as a whole, it had gone away like the lodges
• 28:18
  Speaker: were, were, were closed.
• 28:20
  Speaker: Um, a lot of it is similar to
• 28:22
  Speaker: some other organizations like,
• 28:23
  Speaker: you know, the Odd Fellows or
• 28:24
  Speaker: maybe some others, and
• 28:25
  Speaker: especially the craft
• 28:27
  Speaker: organizations like the
• 28:28
  Speaker: carpenters, the, uh, Fletcher
• 28:31
  Speaker: Fletchers or butchers, as they
• 28:32
  Speaker: were called.
• 28:32
  Speaker: You don't hear about those organizations anymore because
• 28:35
  Speaker: after a while, you know, they died out as well.
• 28:38
  Speaker: Um, some of it had to do with free gardening had shifted from
• 28:43
  Speaker: being trade guild to being, uh, friendly society or benevolent
• 28:48
  Speaker: society where it became more of an insurance thing.
• 28:51
  Speaker: Uh, so they, uh, some of the
• 28:53
  Speaker: ceremonials had in some areas
• 28:55
  Speaker: shortened and the focus became
• 28:57
  Speaker: more of providing monetary
• 28:58
  Speaker: benefits.
• 28:59
  Speaker: Um, but then when the welfare
• 29:01
  Speaker: state started in, um, in Europe
• 29:04
  Speaker: and in the United States, there
• 29:06
  Speaker: wasn't much of a need for, uh,
• 29:09
  Speaker: members to belong for that
• 29:10
  Speaker: reason.
• 29:11
  Speaker: And if you stripped down all the
• 29:12
  Speaker: other reasons that they had like
• 29:14
  Speaker: ceremonial teachings and things,
• 29:16
  Speaker: order starts to die out,
• 29:17
  Speaker: especially compared to larger
• 29:18
  Speaker: organizations like the
• 29:19
  Speaker: Freemasons.
• 29:21
  Speaker: Um, so it was pretty much, uh, I'll say extinct in Europe.
• 29:25
  Speaker: Um, the only continuous grand lodges left in the world, uh,
• 29:30
  Speaker: were in Australia, which still exists, and South Africa, where
• 29:33
  Speaker: the last Grand Lodge that was in Scotland, uh, they actually,
• 29:36
  Speaker: when they closed, transferred their records down to South
• 29:39
  Speaker: Africa and um, they maintained the records there.
• 29:42
  Speaker: So revival occurred, um, coincidentally through um
• 29:47
  Speaker: Freemasons in Scotland.
• 29:50
  Speaker: Um one in particular, uh,
• 29:52
  Speaker: brother Robert Cooper who was a
• 29:54
  Speaker: curator, he's now retired, but
• 29:56
  Speaker: he's curator emeritus of the
• 29:58
  Speaker: Grand Lodge of Scotland for
• 29:59
  Speaker: Freemasons.
• 30:00
  Speaker: Uh, he, uh, part of his job was
• 30:03
  Speaker: curation of the artifacts in the
• 30:04
  Speaker: museum there.
• 30:05
  Speaker: And he noticed lots of Masonic like objects or artifacts.
• 30:10
  Speaker: They weren't quite Masonic.
• 30:13
  Speaker: Uh, so he started to look deeper into that and noticed a lot of
• 30:18
  Speaker: the things they had were actually free gardening things
• 30:20
  Speaker: and a lot of.
• 30:21
  Speaker: He goes into the records and finds, like all these free
• 30:24
  Speaker: gardener lodges that existed.
• 30:25
  Speaker: So the Grand Lodge of Scotland,
• 30:27
  Speaker: where the Freemasons had a lot
• 30:28
  Speaker: of records of free gardening
• 30:30
  Speaker: ceremonies, etc. so with that
• 30:33
  Speaker: preservation or sorry,
• 30:35
  Speaker: preservation conservation
• 30:37
  Speaker: Committee was started and for
• 30:39
  Speaker: the purpose of studying deeper
• 30:40
  Speaker: into it.
• 30:41
  Speaker: And this is around the two
• 30:43
  Speaker: thousand when they really
• 30:45
  Speaker: started going.
• 30:46
  Speaker: And then from there they learned South Africa still has a active
• 30:50
  Speaker: body in Australia.
• 30:52
  Speaker: So there was exchanges, exchanges there, uh, travels.
• 30:57
  Speaker: Around two thousand and two, they decided to start reviving
• 31:01
  Speaker: lodges in Scotland, um, through the conservation committee and
• 31:07
  Speaker: um our society I should say not committee and uh, the records in
• 31:12
  Speaker: South Africa because unfortunately they were starting
• 31:15
  Speaker: to close down their Grand Lodge, they transferred the last Grand
• 31:18
  Speaker: Lodge charter in records back to Scotland to that society.
• 31:22
  Speaker: Um and that's kind of in two thousand and two when that
• 31:26
  Speaker: European revival started.
• 31:28
  Speaker: And then the revival eventually spread to the Americas through,
• 31:32
  Speaker: uh, through Canada.
• 31:35
  Speaker: So, um, what we have with that
• 31:38
  Speaker: is especially for those of us
• 31:41
  Speaker: who aren't, uh, didn't receive
• 31:43
  Speaker: degrees in South Africa or
• 31:44
  Speaker: Australia, is that unique
• 31:45
  Speaker: opportunity to get a fresh
• 31:47
  Speaker: restart, like a hard, fresh
• 31:49
  Speaker: restart?
• 31:50
  Speaker: There's no oh, I won't say old.
• 31:54
  Speaker: There are no, um, previous members from a time where lodges
• 31:58
  Speaker: had existed, who can now come in and say, well, when I was doing
• 32:02
  Speaker: we always did it this way.
• 32:03
  Speaker: And when I was in the chair, it was it's completely a fresh
• 32:07
  Speaker: start, no baggage, pretty much.
• 32:09
  Speaker: And so with many people, because of how it because of how it was,
• 32:14
  Speaker: uh, revived in Europe and because by whom it was revived
• 32:18
  Speaker: and who had the records.
• 32:19
  Speaker: Many of the initial members of this revival were Freemasons,
• 32:24
  Speaker: and so for a lot of them, it was a breath of fresh air to have
• 32:27
  Speaker: something that's like a fresh, clean slate, clean start without
• 32:31
  Speaker: maybe some of the politics you may find in certain lodges and,
• 32:35
  Speaker: and things like that.
• 32:36
  Speaker: So it was an opportunity to
• 32:37
  Speaker: really, uh, start a revive
• 32:40
  Speaker: something taking from maybe some
• 32:43
  Speaker: of the things you've experienced
• 32:44
  Speaker: in other organizations and
• 32:45
  Speaker: knowing what signs to look for
• 32:47
  Speaker: and shaping it in such a way,
• 32:49
  Speaker: uh, while respecting the
• 32:51
  Speaker: integrity of the organization
• 32:53
  Speaker: and its uniqueness so that it
• 32:55
  Speaker: doesn't leave room for certain,
• 32:57
  Speaker: uh, attitudes within the
• 32:59
  Speaker: organization itself.
• 33:00
  Speaker: Like as far as, you know, officers and how officers behave
• 33:04
  Speaker: and, you know, politics or, you know, things, things like that.
• 33:08
  Speaker: So, uh, when I say revival, I'm referring to that because we're
• 33:13
  Speaker: all a result here in the United States and in Europe of that
• 33:16
  Speaker: revival that took place in two thousand two thousand and two?
• 33:21
  Speaker: No. That's amazing.
• 33:22
  Speaker: And, uh, working off a clean slate.
• 33:25
  Speaker: I mean, that's yeah, it's a dream, right?
• 33:27
  Speaker: Like, I wish someone could could
• 33:29
  Speaker: like masonry in the US or a
• 33:31
  Speaker: grand lodge just decide, you
• 33:33
  Speaker: know, let's just start over
• 33:35
  Speaker: with, you know, start with
• 33:38
  Speaker: masonry and then build up from
• 33:40
  Speaker: there maybe.
• 33:41
  Speaker: Um, but so in all of this, does anybody has like a magic ball?
• 33:49
  Speaker: Maybe, I don't know.
• 33:50
  Speaker: Michael.
• 33:50
  Speaker: It might take a purge.
• 33:52
  Speaker: We need, we need the, uh, the dungeon master meme, right?
• 33:55
  Speaker: Like the wizard with the crystal ball.
• 33:57
  Speaker: Um, I wanted to ask you guys,
• 33:59
  Speaker: because the order of free
• 34:01
  Speaker: gardeners seems to be so
• 34:02
  Speaker: similar.
• 34:03
  Speaker: And there is this crossover and
• 34:05
  Speaker: all of this, um, what does it
• 34:07
  Speaker: look like joining the order of
• 34:10
  Speaker: free gardeners?
• 34:11
  Speaker: Like how many degrees are there
• 34:12
  Speaker: or is there just one degree a
• 34:13
  Speaker: ceremonial?
• 34:14
  Speaker: How does that what does that look like?
• 34:17
  Speaker: so I could I could start well, if you like.
• 34:20
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 34:20
  Speaker: Please.
• 34:21
  Speaker: Um, in the order of free gardener in the ancient order of
• 34:27
  Speaker: free gardeners, um, or degrees are considered more ceremonial.
• 34:33
  Speaker: Uh, so that's what we actually say.
• 34:35
  Speaker: You are about to embark in your ceremonial degrees.
• 34:39
  Speaker: And so they're solemn.
• 34:41
  Speaker: Uh, they're very, um, they want you to really meditate into what
• 34:46
  Speaker: you're receiving and really listening to the words, um, as
• 34:51
  Speaker: you go through the degrees.
• 34:53
  Speaker: Um, um, there are some similarities, but differences as
• 34:57
  Speaker: well, especially with um, our patrons, um, the, the fathers of
• 35:05
  Speaker: the, uh, order that were chosen.
• 35:09
  Speaker: And um, there are three degrees
• 35:12
  Speaker: that you would go to, um, which
• 35:14
  Speaker: is the entered apprentice, the
• 35:18
  Speaker: journeyman.
• 35:19
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah that's right.
• 35:21
  Speaker: Dang it.
• 35:22
  Speaker: So many different orders.
• 35:23
  Speaker: So easy to.
• 35:24
  Speaker: They they all get smooshed in.
• 35:28
  Speaker: So apprentice and the journeyman
• 35:30
  Speaker: and then the master free
• 35:32
  Speaker: gardeners.
• 35:33
  Speaker: Then after you have served as a, uh, a worthy master of lost.
• 35:40
  Speaker: And I think, uh, you are invited into the past master degree,
• 35:47
  Speaker: which is a different degree that you received later down the
• 35:51
  Speaker: road, which will is the only one amongst us, uh, at this moment
• 35:57
  Speaker: that is physically here, that has received it.
• 36:01
  Speaker: So, um, so those are the degrees.
• 36:05
  Speaker: Um. There are certain things
• 36:09
  Speaker: that, uh, I guess are very
• 36:12
  Speaker: different.
• 36:14
  Speaker: Uh, definitely the way that the
• 36:18
  Speaker: ceremony commences and where it
• 36:20
  Speaker: commences.
• 36:22
  Speaker: Uh, so it takes you into.
• 36:27
  Speaker: Other esoteric elements that it
• 36:30
  Speaker: sees it from a different lens, I
• 36:32
  Speaker: guess.
• 36:34
  Speaker: Um, I would say that for the anyone that is.
• 36:42
  Speaker: A master mason at the.
• 36:47
  Speaker: After receiving your third
• 36:48
  Speaker: degree, there's going to be a
• 36:51
  Speaker: nice connection and a nice
• 36:54
  Speaker: fulfillment.
• 36:55
  Speaker: At least it was for me.
• 36:57
  Speaker: I'm not sure for you, Nick, or well, but for me it was just
• 37:00
  Speaker: kind of like this circle that just came full round.
• 37:06
  Speaker: Um, yeah.
• 37:08
  Speaker: So but there definitely is not
• 37:13
  Speaker: Anything like you will
• 37:15
  Speaker: experience in the Blue Lodge, or
• 37:18
  Speaker: if you go to the, um, Royal Arch
• 37:20
  Speaker: or the Council or Knights
• 37:23
  Speaker: Templar or even the York Rite,
• 37:25
  Speaker: there's it's none of those
• 37:28
  Speaker: degrees.
• 37:28
  Speaker: It's nothing like that.
• 37:29
  Speaker: It's very, very different.
• 37:32
  Speaker: So Michael, just just to.
• 37:34
  Speaker: Oh, go ahead Jason.
• 37:35
  Speaker: I was I was just going to ask.
• 37:37
  Speaker: So can you obviously without delving into secrets and modes
• 37:42
  Speaker: of recognition, can you kind of explain what those what some of
• 37:47
  Speaker: those differences are?
• 37:48
  Speaker: Is it a difference in ambience?
• 37:50
  Speaker: Is it, uh, are they structured differently?
• 37:54
  Speaker: Like, give us a little bit.
• 37:56
  Speaker: I think everything starts with the garden.
• 37:58
  Speaker: So I think, you know, and you
• 38:00
  Speaker: see it, uh, in the, um, if you
• 38:06
  Speaker: look at the historical records
• 38:07
  Speaker: of the aprons that the free
• 38:09
  Speaker: gardeners have, you'll see the
• 38:11
  Speaker: garden.
• 38:12
  Speaker: You'll see Adam.
• 38:13
  Speaker: Uh, you know, and you'll probably see, uh, a reference
• 38:17
  Speaker: towards, like, Noah and, and other elements that are there.
• 38:22
  Speaker: So just, I think that's, that's where it starts.
• 38:25
  Speaker: It's just the garden itself.
• 38:27
  Speaker: It's actually the main theme,
• 38:30
  Speaker: um, of everything where
• 38:32
  Speaker: everything springs from and the
• 38:36
  Speaker: esoteric teachings that later
• 38:39
  Speaker: come about and is explained to
• 38:41
  Speaker: you.
• 38:42
  Speaker: Um, elevate that even deeper.
• 38:45
  Speaker: If I can just real quick, uh,
• 38:48
  Speaker: to, uh, add on to the, uh,
• 38:51
  Speaker: answer even more, uh, it's one
• 38:53
  Speaker: of the things as far as when I
• 38:54
  Speaker: first joined.
• 38:55
  Speaker: Um, so I guess this kind of goes
• 38:57
  Speaker: back to the initial question in
• 38:58
  Speaker: your question.
• 38:59
  Speaker: Jason.
• 38:59
  Speaker: So two for one.
• 39:01
  Speaker: Uh, my first impression when I
• 39:02
  Speaker: first joined it was nothing like
• 39:03
  Speaker: I expected.
• 39:04
  Speaker: I did not expect, uh, because I
• 39:06
  Speaker: have experienced coming through
• 39:07
  Speaker: Freemasonry, Oddfellow and some
• 39:09
  Speaker: other things to be hit so
• 39:12
  Speaker: upfront and open with the
• 39:15
  Speaker: esoteric element that exists in
• 39:18
  Speaker: free gardening from the very
• 39:19
  Speaker: first degree.
• 39:20
  Speaker: Um, I feel like it's there in some organizations.
• 39:24
  Speaker: I'm sure you agree that it's
• 39:25
  Speaker: definitely there in the Blue
• 39:27
  Speaker: Lodge, but some of to get it at
• 39:30
  Speaker: the level I feel to which you
• 39:32
  Speaker: receive it as an apprentice in
• 39:34
  Speaker: free gardening, it takes more
• 39:36
  Speaker: digging either on your own or
• 39:38
  Speaker: attending lectures outside of
• 39:39
  Speaker: just regular Blue Lodge degree
• 39:41
  Speaker: work to get to that level of
• 39:44
  Speaker: esoteric, um, information or to
• 39:47
  Speaker: be presented with these, these
• 39:49
  Speaker: lessons.
• 39:49
  Speaker: And so tied to like an esoteric tradition.
• 39:52
  Speaker: So I would say it surprised me just how esoteric it was.
• 39:55
  Speaker: It's very much in your face.
• 39:57
  Speaker: This is what it is, heavy philosophy and I love that about
• 40:03
  Speaker: it because I just thought it was going to be like, you know, walk
• 40:06
  Speaker: here and stay here.
• 40:07
  Speaker: This is this and this is this will.
• 40:09
  Speaker: I gotta say, as a very esoteric
• 40:13
  Speaker: minded person, somebody who
• 40:14
  Speaker: loves nature.
• 40:15
  Speaker: Um, you know, this sort of nature leaning book of nature
• 40:23
  Speaker: type person that I am.
• 40:25
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 40:26
  Speaker: This sounds so appealing to me.
• 40:30
  Speaker: Like, send.
• 40:31
  Speaker: Let's start a charter.
• 40:32
  Speaker: Let's get something going in Chicago.
• 40:35
  Speaker: Hey, go!
• 40:35
  Speaker: Go for it.
• 40:37
  Speaker: This is wild.
• 40:38
  Speaker: Let me tell you, this is super easy to start one as well.
• 40:40
  Speaker: Robert.
• 40:40
  Speaker: So you will be quite, quite ecstatic about that.
• 40:44
  Speaker: So I don't have to like do one
• 40:46
  Speaker: hundred thousand administrative
• 40:48
  Speaker: tasks.
• 40:49
  Speaker: And no, actually, so it, it does
• 40:53
  Speaker: it, it does hold true to the old
• 40:55
  Speaker: way of what a operative gardener
• 40:57
  Speaker: would have been in the medieval
• 40:58
  Speaker: times.
• 40:59
  Speaker: If you're a master gardener, a master of your craft of
• 41:01
  Speaker: gardening, you have the right to take on an apprentice.
• 41:04
  Speaker: So if you're a master gardener
• 41:06
  Speaker: in the ancient order of free
• 41:07
  Speaker: gardeners and our particular
• 41:08
  Speaker: branch.
• 41:08
  Speaker: Because every branch is different, we tend to lean more
• 41:10
  Speaker: towards the old pathways.
• 41:12
  Speaker: If you're a master gardener and
• 41:13
  Speaker: you come to the United Council,
• 41:16
  Speaker: which is our kind of oversight
• 41:17
  Speaker: body, um, and say, hey, I'm a
• 41:20
  Speaker: master gardener in Chicago, I
• 41:23
  Speaker: want to start taking an
• 41:23
  Speaker: apprentice.
• 41:24
  Speaker: I want to start a lodge here.
• 41:25
  Speaker: You get a commission just as that one individual because you
• 41:28
  Speaker: are a master gardener.
• 41:29
  Speaker: So who are we to stop you from taking apprentice?
• 41:32
  Speaker: That's how we view it.
• 41:33
  Speaker: There's not a lot of administrative tasks as far as
• 41:36
  Speaker: you have to recruit this many people, and you have to fill out
• 41:38
  Speaker: this paperwork and this.
• 41:39
  Speaker: Many people have to have this degree.
• 41:40
  Speaker: All it takes is a master
• 41:42
  Speaker: gardener who says, I want to
• 41:43
  Speaker: establish here and take one
• 41:44
  Speaker: apprentice.
• 41:45
  Speaker: Should I have told you this before the call that I would
• 41:48
  Speaker: love to like start one in, I don't know, uh, big time
• 41:51
  Speaker: Minneapolis that, uh.
• 41:53
  Speaker: Anyway, there you go.
• 41:54
  Speaker: I'm just letting you know I, you know what?
• 41:56
  Speaker: It's how it is, right?
• 41:57
  Speaker: It's just.
• 41:58
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 41:59
  Speaker: I mean, literally like, like you
• 42:01
  Speaker: were saying, I mean, when I was
• 42:03
  Speaker: taking the degrees, they were so
• 42:05
  Speaker: philosophical that it was the
• 42:07
  Speaker: kind of philosophical where it's
• 42:08
  Speaker: like it hits you right in the
• 42:10
  Speaker: face because it's kind of like
• 42:11
  Speaker: that.
• 42:11
  Speaker: I don't know if you guys watch
• 42:13
  Speaker: the comedian Pete Holmes, but,
• 42:14
  Speaker: you know, he has this joke about
• 42:16
  Speaker: where it's like, life makes no
• 42:17
  Speaker: sense.
• 42:18
  Speaker: You're on a planet right now.
• 42:20
  Speaker: You think you're in America, Zoom out.
• 42:22
  Speaker: And there's a part in the degrees where it's essentially
• 42:24
  Speaker: that it's zoom out.
• 42:26
  Speaker: No, no, zoom out.
• 42:27
  Speaker: Like it's literally telling, you
• 42:29
  Speaker: know, there's bigger things than
• 42:31
  Speaker: you can even imagine at this
• 42:33
  Speaker: point.
• 42:33
  Speaker: And it's like, and, you know,
• 42:35
  Speaker: just watching and watching these
• 42:36
  Speaker: degrees, you're like, I didn't
• 42:39
  Speaker: think about that today because,
• 42:40
  Speaker: you know, we kind of like, you
• 42:42
  Speaker: know, it's like, hey, there's a
• 42:44
  Speaker: terrestrial sphere.
• 42:45
  Speaker: Did you know that?
• 42:46
  Speaker: It's like, yeah, I know what a globe is, guys.
• 42:48
  Speaker: Well, how about this?
• 42:49
  Speaker: Did you know there's a celestial sphere too?
• 42:52
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 42:52
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 42:53
  Speaker: Right.
• 42:53
  Speaker: Okay.
• 42:54
  Speaker: Awesome.
• 42:56
  Speaker: Uh, it's like, wow, my sixth grade astronomy teacher is so
• 43:00
  Speaker: happy right now.
• 43:01
  Speaker: Um, yeah, but no, it's like a
• 43:04
  Speaker: philosophical, like fire hose
• 43:06
  Speaker: that you have absolutely no
• 43:08
  Speaker: expectation of.
• 43:09
  Speaker: And that's because free gardening seems to be like, it's
• 43:14
  Speaker: one thing where you're like, okay, well, it's like about
• 43:16
  Speaker: trees and whatever, right?
• 43:17
  Speaker: Maybe it's like super hippie, I don't know.
• 43:19
  Speaker: And then you go into it and you're like, okay, so I actually
• 43:23
  Speaker: have to think about things.
• 43:25
  Speaker: I did not expect this coming into it.
• 43:27
  Speaker: Same here.
• 43:29
  Speaker: Yeah, that is amazing.
• 43:31
  Speaker: Well, one thing we glossed over, um, is so, so who can join who,
• 43:36
  Speaker: who is, who is allowed to, to join the free garden?
• 43:40
  Speaker: Any individual that is, you
• 43:43
  Speaker: know, a good person of good
• 43:45
  Speaker: character.
• 43:47
  Speaker: Um, that is interesting.
• 43:48
  Speaker: And that is actually male or female.
• 43:53
  Speaker: We have one of our lodges in Los
• 43:58
  Speaker: Angeles, the first flower of Los
• 44:00
  Speaker: Angeles that just actually had,
• 44:03
  Speaker: uh, the worthy master was a
• 44:06
  Speaker: female.
• 44:07
  Speaker: Uh, now she became, I believe it's, uh, one of the recent past
• 44:12
  Speaker: masters because she served for a time that she could serve.
• 44:16
  Speaker: And, uh, but it's, it's open to all and it's unique.
• 44:23
  Speaker: It's.
• 44:25
  Speaker: And you just, it's just the
• 44:26
  Speaker: ceremonies themselves make you
• 44:28
  Speaker: think and act and be a different
• 44:32
  Speaker: way.
• 44:33
  Speaker: And because that is their, um, the brotherhood and sisterhood
• 44:38
  Speaker: that actually comes together.
• 44:40
  Speaker: Um. It's something different.
• 44:44
  Speaker: I would just say it's, I haven't and being in a fellow being a,
• 44:50
  Speaker: a, you know, a master Mason, those are two different
• 44:55
  Speaker: experiences on their own to different orders of their own.
• 44:59
  Speaker: But Free gardeners is just a whole different thing.
• 45:03
  Speaker: Okay.
• 45:04
  Speaker: Real quick, Mike, just about
• 45:05
  Speaker: answer your question about
• 45:06
  Speaker: membership.
• 45:07
  Speaker: So it is open to men.
• 45:08
  Speaker: And both men and women lodges have their own autonomy.
• 45:11
  Speaker: And we want to respect that in
• 45:13
  Speaker: our particular branch of free
• 45:14
  Speaker: gardeners.
• 45:15
  Speaker: So even though women are of course permitted, it is up and
• 45:19
  Speaker: at the discretion of the lodge.
• 45:21
  Speaker: And that is only specifically because in forming a lodge and
• 45:24
  Speaker: may be the desire of the person who says, I need other like
• 45:28
  Speaker: minded men as the outlet I'm looking for, then that lodge
• 45:33
  Speaker: could be an all lodge, but if they want it to be a co-ed
• 45:36
  Speaker: lodge, then a lodge could form as a co-ed lodge.
• 45:38
  Speaker: Um, so it's it's, uh, never a situation where someone is
• 45:44
  Speaker: forced to take to be a, a co-ed lodge, but at the same time,
• 45:49
  Speaker: there's room to form co-ed lodges or single sex lodges if
• 45:53
  Speaker: the person forming the lodge so desires we're free gardeners.
• 45:57
  Speaker: Emphasis on the free, right?
• 45:59
  Speaker: I mean, emphasis on the free.
• 46:00
  Speaker: So what?
• 46:01
  Speaker: What are the.
• 46:02
  Speaker: So pretend I'm a dummy.
• 46:04
  Speaker: Um. And I know nothing about free gardening.
• 46:06
  Speaker: What are the other.
• 46:07
  Speaker: Is there an age requirement?
• 46:09
  Speaker: Is there a, um, a spiritual requirement?
• 46:13
  Speaker: Like I'm trying to equate it to,
• 46:14
  Speaker: you know, Freemasons who are
• 46:15
  Speaker: listening tonight.
• 46:16
  Speaker: Um, you know, kind of like in Freemasonry, you have to have
• 46:19
  Speaker: belief in a supreme being.
• 46:20
  Speaker: You have to be over a certain age.
• 46:22
  Speaker: Um, things like that, you know, is there, is there any other
• 46:24
  Speaker: sort of requirements?
• 46:27
  Speaker: Um I wouldn't um there are.
• 46:29
  Speaker: Yes.
• 46:30
  Speaker: So as far as an age requirement, you must be of legal age, which
• 46:33
  Speaker: of course that may vary depending on your location, but
• 46:37
  Speaker: here in the United States, uh, I would say you have to be a
• 46:41
  Speaker: person who's eighteen or older.
• 46:42
  Speaker: Um, so as far as belief in a
• 46:46
  Speaker: supreme being, it's not quite
• 46:48
  Speaker: worded like that, nor is it even
• 46:49
  Speaker: a requirement when you're
• 46:51
  Speaker: applying, but you have to
• 46:52
  Speaker: believe in something bigger than
• 46:53
  Speaker: yourself.
• 46:55
  Speaker: Uh, is the way we go about it.
• 46:56
  Speaker: So it's not necessarily a
• 46:57
  Speaker: supreme being, but just that
• 46:58
  Speaker: there's something in this world
• 47:00
  Speaker: that exists that's bigger than
• 47:02
  Speaker: yourself.
• 47:03
  Speaker: Um, so whatever that may be to you.
• 47:06
  Speaker: Okay.
• 47:09
  Speaker: Very cool.
• 47:10
  Speaker: So there's hope for those that believe in the spaghetti.
• 47:13
  Speaker: God of the heavens.
• 47:14
  Speaker: Oh, yeah.
• 47:16
  Speaker: Monster.
• 47:17
  Speaker: Indeed.
• 47:18
  Speaker: That's tight.
• 47:18
  Speaker: Yeah!
• 47:19
  Speaker: Monster.
• 47:19
  Speaker: We don't have to have any sort of kerfuffle with a grand
• 47:23
  Speaker: organization throwing a fit, because they don't like your
• 47:27
  Speaker: version of things.
• 47:30
  Speaker: Interesting.
• 47:32
  Speaker: Well.
• 47:36
  Speaker: I, so I am a little bit curious.
• 47:37
  Speaker: You alluded to the esoteric side
• 47:39
  Speaker: of things and how different this
• 47:40
  Speaker: is.
• 47:42
  Speaker: Um, given that this is a Masonic podcast and we have talked about
• 47:46
  Speaker: everything from Muscovites to sojourners and things.
• 47:51
  Speaker: My question is for brothers
• 47:54
  Speaker: listening who are already active
• 47:55
  Speaker: master Masons.
• 47:58
  Speaker: Uh, what would you say that joining the free gardeners.
• 48:06
  Speaker: Uh, what does that offer that they might not be getting, say,
• 48:10
  Speaker: in masonry offers?
• 48:15
  Speaker: Say that again.
• 48:17
  Speaker: It offers the life of the Tsar, the life of the Tsar, or the
• 48:20
  Speaker: life of the Tsar.
• 48:22
  Speaker: Yeah, that's a different one.
• 48:24
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 48:25
  Speaker: Wrong one.
• 48:26
  Speaker: I like where your head's at.
• 48:27
  Speaker: Uh, I, I think, I think for we've had lots of people who are
• 48:32
  Speaker: Masons join, myself included.
• 48:34
  Speaker: I think it offers, uh, just from my experience, it was a, it's a,
• 48:38
  Speaker: it's a breath of fresh air.
• 48:40
  Speaker: Uh, because I think coming just
• 48:44
  Speaker: from the science standpoint,
• 48:45
  Speaker: coming from Freemasonry, uh,
• 48:47
  Speaker: depending on, I guess the
• 48:49
  Speaker: individual, some things can just
• 48:51
  Speaker: become mechanical.
• 48:53
  Speaker: You're never, um, in every lodge is different, but overwhelmingly
• 48:58
  Speaker: some brothers, some brothers share the same opinion.
• 49:00
  Speaker: Unless they're doing their own individual studies, they're
• 49:02
  Speaker: never caused to think about the bigger picture outside of that
• 49:05
  Speaker: vegetable that shall not be named, and whether it should be
• 49:07
  Speaker: served at the banquet or not.
• 49:09
  Speaker: And you know, the business of
• 49:10
  Speaker: the day where, um, free
• 49:12
  Speaker: gardening is.
• 49:14
  Speaker: Oh, there it is.
• 49:17
  Speaker: Uh, free gardening is, um, it really focuses on the philosophy
• 49:21
  Speaker: and the discussion coming together to discuss certain
• 49:24
  Speaker: ideas for the purpose of, uh, self-improvement, like
• 49:30
  Speaker: everything within the ceremonies, opening and closing
• 49:33
  Speaker: just during large meetings or when you're doing degree work,
• 49:36
  Speaker: it really causes you or reminds you to look at the bigger
• 49:39
  Speaker: picture and reminds you that as this world is something so grand
• 49:43
  Speaker: and so divine, so are you.
• 49:45
  Speaker: It's all encompassed within you, but also all around you.
• 49:50
  Speaker: So it's like we're constantly reminded of that and, um, in
• 49:54
  Speaker: such a way that I feel, Um, we don't quite get it.
• 49:59
  Speaker: In Freemasonry and I think the
• 50:01
  Speaker: way I think that is because so
• 50:02
  Speaker: many of our symbols in the act
• 50:04
  Speaker: of gardening or being in nature
• 50:06
  Speaker: is something that's so much
• 50:07
  Speaker: more, uh, feasible and tangible
• 50:11
  Speaker: and relatable because I can walk
• 50:14
  Speaker: outside, I can look at the
• 50:16
  Speaker: plants and trees and start to
• 50:17
  Speaker: think about certain symbols and,
• 50:19
  Speaker: you know, pick up a shovel if I
• 50:21
  Speaker: so choose.
• 50:22
  Speaker: But I've never built the building out of stone.
• 50:25
  Speaker: I've never shaped a stone for placement on a building, a
• 50:29
  Speaker: building out of stone.
• 50:29
  Speaker: So I get the symbolism there,
• 50:31
  Speaker: but it just seems so much more
• 50:33
  Speaker: practical.
• 50:34
  Speaker: And so it makes a completely different impact to me.
• 50:37
  Speaker: The lessons, because I can
• 50:38
  Speaker: physically engage in the act of
• 50:41
  Speaker: gardening or the act of walking
• 50:42
  Speaker: amongst nature and closing my
• 50:44
  Speaker: eyes for a second to meditate
• 50:46
  Speaker: where I can't really, you know,
• 50:50
  Speaker: I've never, I can't, I can't
• 50:51
  Speaker: right now build a building out
• 50:53
  Speaker: of stone.
• 50:53
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 50:54
  Speaker: It's accessible, right?
• 50:55
  Speaker: It's accessible.
• 50:56
  Speaker: It's a thing that you can actually do in your life.
• 50:59
  Speaker: Mhm.
• 51:00
  Speaker: Like, whereas, you know, we've got popular themes to this are
• 51:04
  Speaker: of course, masonry, where we take building materials.
• 51:07
  Speaker: King Solomon's temple, we're shaping the stone.
• 51:10
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 51:10
  Speaker: Very few people can, you know,
• 51:12
  Speaker: work in a quarry or, you know,
• 51:14
  Speaker: go to a garden shop and buy
• 51:16
  Speaker: bricks and, you know, do you
• 51:18
  Speaker: think.
• 51:18
  Speaker: Okay, uh, what's another one?
• 51:20
  Speaker: People?
• 51:20
  Speaker: We're always talking about
• 51:21
  Speaker: alchemy and they talk about the
• 51:22
  Speaker: inner alchemy.
• 51:23
  Speaker: Well, I'm pretty sure unless
• 51:26
  Speaker: you're one of those guys, you
• 51:29
  Speaker: know, you're probably not having
• 51:30
  Speaker: an alchemy lab in your basement,
• 51:32
  Speaker: but.
• 51:35
  Speaker: But free gardening, right?
• 51:37
  Speaker: This is something I think.
• 51:39
  Speaker: I think I think every person can do it.
• 51:43
  Speaker: Go ahead.
• 51:44
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 51:44
  Speaker: Um, here's one big difference
• 51:47
  Speaker: that I was actually just
• 51:48
  Speaker: thinking, uh, we have in the
• 51:54
  Speaker: Masonic Lodge, a. Volume of
• 52:00
  Speaker: Sacred law, whichever it is,
• 52:03
  Speaker: even though the volume of sacred
• 52:05
  Speaker: law is in the garden, the Book
• 52:07
  Speaker: of Nature is actually something
• 52:10
  Speaker: that is always constantly
• 52:12
  Speaker: present.
• 52:14
  Speaker: And if you go to the volume of
• 52:16
  Speaker: sacred law, the volume of sacred
• 52:18
  Speaker: law in certain individuals there
• 52:21
  Speaker: give wisdom from the book of
• 52:24
  Speaker: nature.
• 52:25
  Speaker: So just to give you a little bit of that, I will also just throw
• 52:31
  Speaker: an invite, uh, or research lodge saying, uh, large number eleven
• 52:40
  Speaker: is having its inaugural symposium this Saturday.
• 52:46
  Speaker: Um, and we could provide the
• 52:47
  Speaker: link and everything, and we're
• 52:49
  Speaker: going to have an open invitation
• 52:52
  Speaker: to all.
• 52:53
  Speaker: So you get to see why Free Gardeners is not Freemasonry.
• 52:59
  Speaker: I have, I have sorry, one one more question.
• 53:03
  Speaker: Um, I was just I was browsing the website and one of the
• 53:08
  Speaker: things I noticed here is, uh, you guys have a United council
• 53:13
  Speaker: research lodge and you publish the Free Gardener.
• 53:17
  Speaker: That's pretty cool.
• 53:18
  Speaker: Can can you guys tell me anything about the.
• 53:22
  Speaker: Like masonry has research lodges per state.
• 53:25
  Speaker: Some have.
• 53:25
  Speaker: Many has one.
• 53:27
  Speaker: It's.
• 53:27
  Speaker: This seems really cool.
• 53:28
  Speaker: You guys have a research lodge?
• 53:30
  Speaker: Is it like papers and stuff?
• 53:32
  Speaker: Like academic stuff?
• 53:33
  Speaker: What's going on there?
• 53:35
  Speaker: So, um, basically the research
• 53:38
  Speaker: lodge is something new within
• 53:41
  Speaker: free gardening, and it's
• 53:43
  Speaker: something to continue to sustain
• 53:46
  Speaker: the meaning of the symbolisms
• 53:48
  Speaker: and history.
• 53:51
  Speaker: um, from an academic perspective and point of view.
• 53:55
  Speaker: So any master free gardener, any individual who does actually the
• 54:04
  Speaker: art of horticulture itself, um, or any one that deals with
• 54:12
  Speaker: nature itself in a scientific way or scholarly way, they could
• 54:17
  Speaker: actually introduce a paper and turn it in to be considered by
• 54:21
  Speaker: the research lodge.
• 54:23
  Speaker: Now, the research lodge is composed of three prime officers
• 54:29
  Speaker: that maintain the same names as our regular, uh, lodges.
• 54:38
  Speaker: And then the rest we have like a
• 54:40
  Speaker: director of research, etcetera,
• 54:43
  Speaker: etcetera.
• 54:44
  Speaker: So it divides all the way down to that deep.
• 54:48
  Speaker: So when you're when you're you turn in papers in the paper that
• 54:53
  Speaker: you're turning in.
• 54:54
  Speaker: You have to turn it into a
• 54:55
  Speaker: certain format, uh, which is a
• 54:58
  Speaker: Caribbean format.
• 55:00
  Speaker: Historical old.
• 55:02
  Speaker: Um, and it needs to be reviewed and criticized and then it gets
• 55:08
  Speaker: to be accepted.
• 55:09
  Speaker: So that way you can continue to
• 55:10
  Speaker: be published, um, for the
• 55:13
  Speaker: individuals and for the history
• 55:15
  Speaker: and, and, you know, the
• 55:16
  Speaker: symbolism that goes into it and
• 55:18
  Speaker: even the art of horticulture
• 55:20
  Speaker: itself.
• 55:23
  Speaker: Right on.
• 55:23
  Speaker: That's amazing.
• 55:24
  Speaker: Um, brothers, we definitely want
• 55:26
  Speaker: to be respectful of everyone's
• 55:28
  Speaker: time.
• 55:28
  Speaker: And, uh, we normally have a
• 55:30
  Speaker: final question and I'm going to
• 55:31
  Speaker: save this final question for our
• 55:33
  Speaker: free gardeners that are on
• 55:35
  Speaker: tonight because Jason, Robert
• 55:36
  Speaker: and I have no idea what we'd be
• 55:38
  Speaker: talking about if we ask this
• 55:39
  Speaker: question.
• 55:40
  Speaker: So, um, let's start with, uh, our good friend Nick.
• 55:44
  Speaker: Uh, what is one valuable lesson or one big takeaway from your
• 55:50
  Speaker: time as a free gardener?
• 55:51
  Speaker: Like, what's one thing that you
• 55:53
  Speaker: can walk away with and say, this
• 55:55
  Speaker: is awesome?
• 55:56
  Speaker: Yeah, it's a great question.
• 55:57
  Speaker: So, you know, I think with this
• 56:00
  Speaker: organization, it was it was
• 56:02
  Speaker: shocking in how accessible it
• 56:05
  Speaker: was.
• 56:05
  Speaker: I know we've said that a number
• 56:07
  Speaker: of times, uh, you know, the, the
• 56:09
  Speaker: lessons themselves are extremely
• 56:13
  Speaker: philosophical, uh, metaphorical,
• 56:15
  Speaker: metaphorical is the word that's
• 56:17
  Speaker: used.
• 56:18
  Speaker: Um, but again, the, the, the bar
• 56:21
  Speaker: to entry in terms of what needs
• 56:25
  Speaker: to happen is, is not
• 56:28
  Speaker: insurmountable, you know, with,
• 56:30
  Speaker: with Freemasonry, with odd
• 56:32
  Speaker: fellowship, things like that, it
• 56:34
  Speaker: can be kind of difficult to find
• 56:38
  Speaker: the door.
• 56:38
  Speaker: And then once you find the door, it's, it's just not, um, you
• 56:44
  Speaker: know, it, it sometimes finding the door is, is really just kind
• 56:50
  Speaker: of the best part that you've had in the whole organization.
• 56:53
  Speaker: Uh, for some, I, I, I still love Freemasonry.
• 56:57
  Speaker: Here's the real blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 56:59
  Speaker: Anyway, uh, but, uh, the, uh,
• 57:04
  Speaker: you know, for me, it was one of
• 57:05
  Speaker: those that I just essentially
• 57:07
  Speaker: was on a discord with, um, will
• 57:11
  Speaker: and Mike and I just said, hey, I
• 57:13
  Speaker: hear about this free Gardner
• 57:14
  Speaker: stuff.
• 57:15
  Speaker: And they said, well, lucky for
• 57:16
  Speaker: you, we're, we're getting pretty
• 57:18
  Speaker: active.
• 57:18
  Speaker: And I said, well, great.
• 57:19
  Speaker: What's, uh, what's the damage then?
• 57:22
  Speaker: You know, because I, I have more dues cards than I have pictures
• 57:25
  Speaker: of my entire family.
• 57:27
  Speaker: And they said, well, it's, uh,
• 57:29
  Speaker: pretty much just the cost of the
• 57:31
  Speaker: regalia.
• 57:33
  Speaker: Huh?
• 57:33
  Speaker: What?
• 57:34
  Speaker: And so literally, because of that, that, that.
• 57:40
  Speaker: Uh, not low cost of ownership, but like that feeling that it's
• 57:44
  Speaker: like, oh, I'm just earning these lessons and learning from them.
• 57:48
  Speaker: It was it was incredible.
• 57:50
  Speaker: It it really was one of the best experiences I've had, uh, so far
• 57:55
  Speaker: in my fraternal life.
• 57:57
  Speaker: Wow.
• 57:58
  Speaker: One of the best it it literally philosophical.
• 58:01
  Speaker: I, I still haven't gotten my
• 58:02
  Speaker: pruning knife yet because I've
• 58:03
  Speaker: got, I've got other gardening
• 58:06
  Speaker: that every time I look at it, I
• 58:07
  Speaker: think I have to do more
• 58:09
  Speaker: gardening.
• 58:11
  Speaker: Oh yeah.
• 58:13
  Speaker: Right on.
• 58:13
  Speaker: Awesome.
• 58:14
  Speaker: So good to see you.
• 58:15
  Speaker: Um, you are always welcome here, you know that.
• 58:17
  Speaker: Um, and yeah, absolutely.
• 58:20
  Speaker: Let's see.
• 58:21
  Speaker: Oh, where did my.
• 58:22
  Speaker: Oh, there's Michael.
• 58:22
  Speaker: Okay.
• 58:23
  Speaker: And we gotta let Will back in.
• 58:24
  Speaker: Uh, Michael, your big takeaway
• 58:27
  Speaker: from the ancient order of free
• 58:29
  Speaker: gardeners.
• 58:33
  Speaker: So I, for some reason, I think I
• 58:36
  Speaker: lost audio, but the I heard the
• 58:39
  Speaker: question before.
• 58:41
  Speaker: Um, I hope you can listen to me.
• 58:43
  Speaker: Uh, I think one of the biggest thing about this particular
• 58:48
  Speaker: fraternal order, um, the beauty of it is that you are constantly
• 58:55
  Speaker: aware of it because it's always present before your eyes.
• 59:00
  Speaker: Once you go through the ceremonies and you come out into
• 59:04
  Speaker: the world, you get to see the garden everywhere you go.
• 59:07
  Speaker: So those lessons are constantly
• 59:10
  Speaker: working through you and through
• 59:12
  Speaker: your day.
• 59:13
  Speaker: Um, and they become very real and they are integrated into
• 59:19
  Speaker: everything that you do and your dealings with other individuals
• 59:23
  Speaker: and especially, especially with your own self regarding, um,
• 59:28
  Speaker: your own character and the person that you are and what you
• 59:32
  Speaker: want to become.
• 59:33
  Speaker: Um, and the beautiful thing is that, uh, you are able to
• 59:39
  Speaker: discuss this with all of your other brothers and sisters when
• 59:45
  Speaker: you come together and they understand what it is.
• 59:47
  Speaker: And it's so easy.
• 59:49
  Speaker: Uh, it's just a place of respite.
• 59:52
  Speaker: It's it's truly a beautiful space.
• 59:55
  Speaker: It's a garden.
• 59:58
  Speaker: Right on.
• 59:59
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 59:59
  Speaker: Thank you so much.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker: And thanks for coming on tonight.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker: Last but not least, brother Will, what's your nugget of
• 1:00:05
  Speaker: wisdom to impart with us?
• 1:00:10
  Speaker: Um, mine's going to be, uh, I guess, short and sweet.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker: I'm not sure how much, uh, knowledge is going to be, but,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker: um, I think that one thing that's been rewarding being a
• 1:00:21
  Speaker: part of free gardening is just, uh, not just the people I've
• 1:00:24
  Speaker: met, but, um, being able to, uh, be entrusted with assisting
• 1:00:32
  Speaker: people, like helping with the degree work and, uh, being a
• 1:00:36
  Speaker: part of people's journey, like brother Nick or brother Michael.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker: It's, it's, uh, Rewarding.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker: And it's every time I learn something different.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker: Uh, taking it apart and just
• 1:00:46
  Speaker: hearing the different brothers,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker: uh, perspectives about their
• 1:00:50
  Speaker: individual path and their life
• 1:00:51
  Speaker: experiences.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker: We talk about life a lot.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker: So just to hear from other people.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker: Uh, some of their life
• 1:00:56
  Speaker: experiences and, um, their
• 1:01:00
  Speaker: views.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker: We, we help each other in that way and sharing.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker: So I think that just the, the
• 1:01:05
  Speaker: sharing and, um, the different
• 1:01:10
  Speaker: as we view each other as trees
• 1:01:12
  Speaker: basically, uh, in free gardening
• 1:01:14
  Speaker: or like trees, just seeing what
• 1:01:16
  Speaker: everyone has to contribute, uh,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker: to the environment there within
• 1:01:21
  Speaker: the lodge.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker: Um, that has been the most
• 1:01:25
  Speaker: beautiful part for me and the
• 1:01:26
  Speaker: most helpful part, uh, as an
• 1:01:28
  Speaker: individual.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker: So. Right on.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker: Thank you so much for sharing.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker: And again, thank you.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker: It's great to meet you.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker: And thank you for coming on the show tonight.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker: Jason, any final words?
• 1:01:39
  Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker: Thanks so much for for coming on the show with us.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker: Um, had a blast learning about this organization.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker: It seems like, um, it's got a
• 1:01:50
  Speaker: really interesting history and
• 1:01:51
  Speaker: imparts some, um, some
• 1:01:54
  Speaker: unexpectedly philosophical moral
• 1:01:57
  Speaker: lessons.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker: So excited to learn more.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker: Right on.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker: Thank you sir.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker: Last but certainly not least, Robert, listen, I love history.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker: I love what you guys were able to bring to the table and tell
• 1:02:13
  Speaker: us about this.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker: Um, up till now, um, I
• 1:02:17
  Speaker: purposely, you know, in the age
• 1:02:19
  Speaker: of information, it's easy to
• 1:02:21
  Speaker: just go on and you can search
• 1:02:23
  Speaker: something up and, and get all
• 1:02:24
  Speaker: the answers.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker: It's a whole nother thing to
• 1:02:26
  Speaker: talk to somebody who's lived
• 1:02:27
  Speaker: through it and can convey things
• 1:02:30
  Speaker: in a way that cold text can't
• 1:02:32
  Speaker: do.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker: And so I just, I appreciate you
• 1:02:35
  Speaker: guys coming on to talk about
• 1:02:36
  Speaker: this.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker: I thought it was fascinating.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker: Um, and I just love that it is a, uh, like a modern throwback
• 1:02:46
  Speaker: to something that existed, you know, even prior to masonry,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker: right back to the guild system.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker: And I think the thing that I, that stuck out the most to me
• 1:02:54
  Speaker: tonight was the way you brothers talked about it as being
• 1:02:58
  Speaker: something that is a practical thing in your life that you
• 1:03:01
  Speaker: actually are doing.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker: Uh, that helps you think about,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker: uh, you know, the lessons of
• 1:03:08
  Speaker: that craft and how they, you
• 1:03:10
  Speaker: know, work in your everyday
• 1:03:11
  Speaker: life.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker: Unlike, you know, some of our other, um, organizations that
• 1:03:16
  Speaker: use other analogies.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker: So very cool stuff.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker: Awesome.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker: Thank you so much.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker: And, uh, I will have the last word because John is not here,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker: but that is where we're going to leave it tonight.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker: So whether we think of ourselves
• 1:03:29
  Speaker: as stones being shaped or, or
• 1:03:31
  Speaker: gardens being tended, you know,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker: none of this happens by
• 1:03:34
  Speaker: accident.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker: It happens through intention through through patience,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker: through self-examination and the willingness to to do the work.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker: So keep doing the work.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker: I want to thank all of our guests for sharing this amazing
• 1:03:46
  Speaker: knowledge and giving us a closer look into this ancient order of
• 1:03:51
  Speaker: free gardeners, right?
• 1:03:52
  Speaker: So hopefully tonight reminds us that although our traditions may
• 1:03:55
  Speaker: be different and you know, those who are in, you know, all the
• 1:03:58
  Speaker: traditions, um, they point us towards that same goal, right?
• 1:04:02
  Speaker: So strengthening our bonds with one another with nature and
• 1:04:06
  Speaker: hopefully leaving the world a little better than we found it.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker: So thank you so much for watching or listening and keep
• 1:04:12
  Speaker: searching for more light.