Latest / Random Heathen Ramblings / Random Heathen Ramblings: S6, EP16 - Plant Animism In Heathe

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Random Heathen Ramblings: S6, EP16 - Plant Animism In Heathe · Random Heathen Ramblings

• 0:01
  Hello everyone and welcome to the Random Heathen Ramblings
• 0:04
  podcast. Discuss all sorts of things
• 0:07
  Germanic Heathenry related. My name is Jesse and I'm your
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  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. All right, everybody, welcome
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  back to this week's episode of the Ramblings podcast and thank
• 1:10
  you so much for coming back here and hanging out with us for a
• 1:14
  little while for however long you decide to to sit and listen
• 1:18
  to what we've got to ramble on about this week.
• 1:20
  I think it's going to be an episode that a lot of your
• 1:22
  interests or interests for a lot of you, however you want to put
• 1:27
  it, going to be talking about trees today and the animistic
• 1:33
  connection that we find in in, in within a lot of heathen's,
• 1:37
  you know, world views and how that is framed.
• 1:41
  You know, our relationship with the nature spirits and, and that
• 1:45
  animistic side of plants and, and all that fun stuff.
• 1:47
  So we have a guest lined up for us today to talk about that.
• 1:49
  His name is Chris Miller, a former guest of this show.
• 1:54
  He was here last season. If you want to watch or listen
• 1:57
  to that episode, it'll be annotated in the show notes.
• 2:02
  But we talked quite a bit about nature tags too.
• 2:06
  Chris's line of of work and study has a lot to do with, you
• 2:11
  know, being in nature and spending a lot of time with
• 2:13
  studying it. So it seemed like a very natural
• 2:16
  thing to to get into. But we'll get to more about him
• 2:20
  here in just a moment when we bring him on screen.
• 2:22
  As always, just a few housekeeping things.
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  If you guys are new to listening to this show, again, thank you
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  the link tree link that's annotated down there.
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  And for all of my existing and new Patreon member, welcome to
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  Couldn't do it without you. All right, so once you check all
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  that stuff out, be sure to give this video an upvote.
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  Like it, whatever. The thing is that you're
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  catching this on Patreon, of course, is just the video
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  Helps with algorithmic funny things like that.
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  All right, so without further ado, let's go ahead and bring
• 4:20
  Chris on screen here. What's up Chris, welcome back to
• 4:24
  the show. Thanks very much for having me,
• 4:26
  I appreciate it. Yeah, and thank you for for, for
• 4:29
  reaching out to, to want to come back and and do that.
• 4:33
  I don't get a lot of folks that after their first appearance,
• 4:37
  they, I don't know, it's just life in general or whatever.
• 4:39
  But, and I, there's, it's very rare that I have a guest that
• 4:43
  comes on that I'm like, well, this was fun.
• 4:45
  Hope I never talked to you again.
• 4:48
  You know, it's always pretty open, you know, for people, if
• 4:51
  they have something they want to talk about, they, they think
• 4:53
  about it later, they want to come back on the show and like,
• 4:55
  hey, let me know. That doesn't happen that often.
• 4:58
  So I appreciate you reaching out and wanting to to come on here
• 5:01
  and talk. Yeah, man, of course.
• 5:03
  I was listening to your last couple episode.
• 5:05
  You mentioned that you didn't have a whole lot of people
• 5:07
  writing in, so I figured I'd might as well just slide back in
• 5:10
  there now that my Mondays are free again.
• 5:12
  Yeah, yeah, no, the, the timing was perfect.
• 5:16
  And, and, and just so that people that maybe haven't
• 5:19
  checked out the previous episode or know who you are, I know that
• 5:22
  a lot of the listeners or maybe even some of the viewers know
• 5:26
  who you are from your local community up in the Champaign,
• 5:29
  IL area, as I recall, right. Yep that's the one.
• 5:33
  I personally live in Champaign, but my tribe, which is
• 5:35
  Foggersletta, we cover sort of the belt of Central Illinois,
• 5:40
  our our dedicated tribal vase in Springfield, which is our state
• 5:43
  capital. It's about an hour and a half
• 5:44
  West of where I live. But yeah, we try and cover that
• 5:47
  sort of whole Central Illinois region.
• 5:49
  Yeah, and the, the Facebook that people can find you in or
• 5:55
  everybody else that that's kind of associated with that that
• 5:57
  area is a Land of Lincoln Heathens, right?
• 6:00
  Yes, that's the one. You can come to our Facebook
• 6:03
  group Land of Lincoln Heathens. Although our tribes Govi, he
• 6:07
  goes by the call sign. Hoodie is also quite active in
• 6:10
  the Northwoods Kindred discord. He runs their Thursday sort of
• 6:15
  community informational discussions over there.
• 6:17
  They call him the Thor's Dogger talks.
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  So you can find either one of us at either one of those.
• 6:21
  Places all right. Cool.
• 6:23
  Heck yeah. Yeah.
• 6:24
  A lot of good stuff coming out from the Northwoods Kindreds
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  too. So it's good to hear that you
• 6:28
  folks are representing your area and and networking with those
• 6:32
  with those fine people up there in the Pacific Northwest area of
• 6:37
  the country. So yeah.
• 6:40
  So you, you, you said your Monday evenings are free.
• 6:43
  You just finished up a a semester for your school, right?
• 6:49
  What you're Yeah, yeah, I'm. Currently working on Masters of
• 6:52
  Natural Resources and Environmental Science here at
• 6:55
  the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign, which is also
• 6:58
  who I work for. It's a pretty, pretty good gig
• 7:00
  as as an employee of the university, you get a certain
• 7:02
  number of credit hours waived for.
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  So I, I figured of all the places to get a master's, this
• 7:08
  would be the perfect 1. So I should hopefully get it
• 7:10
  finished up in the next two years here.
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  But it's been a, it's been a good learning experience.
• 7:14
  So far and it's ideal for your obviously your career path
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  natural sciences ties beautifully into what we're
• 7:23
  going to be talking about today and you as a he then of course
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  too. This is like the best of both
• 7:29
  worlds. You know, you get to have a, you
• 7:32
  get to put the bread on the table and keep a roof over your
• 7:34
  head and support your life by being in nature, which is such
• 7:37
  a, a central part of, of, of heathen practices and, and just
• 7:42
  lifestyles, right? Absolutely.
• 7:45
  I, I do consider myself very lucky that, you know, as many
• 7:47
  days as I spend in the office, I also spend driving out through
• 7:51
  the cornfields, heading out the riparian, you know, flood zone
• 7:54
  forests and hanging out with oaks and cottonwoods and
• 7:57
  sycamores are my Co workers. So it's pretty great.
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  The conversation's always nice with them.
• 8:03
  They're it, It's not, it's not very busy, but you guys can
• 8:07
  learn something from them. I think if you, you have to be
• 8:10
  quiet, you know, it's, it's one of those those that's the
• 8:12
  company that when you keep is, is you learn more of the quieter
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  you are. Yep.
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  Between every two trees is a gateway to a new world.
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  I think it was John Muir said. Something along those lines.
• 8:26
  That is John Muir, OK? I don't think I've familiar with
• 8:30
  him. Oh, he's a yeah.
• 8:33
  He's a sort of 19th century, early national parks, wilderness
• 8:37
  philosophy kind of guy. You always see his quotes on
• 8:40
  like stickers, like for mountains, you know the
• 8:43
  mountains are calling and I must go.
• 8:45
  That's one of his. Quotes as well.
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  OK, Yep, I've seen that one. Yep.
• 8:49
  OK, well, that's great. And a lot of this is like one of
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  those things where I think, you know, when I think of talking
• 8:57
  about nature and and, and stuff I was thinking of, I forget who
• 9:01
  I was talking. I think it was with Wright
• 9:04
  Spirit Pennington, Jock straight spirit Pennington a couple of
• 9:06
  episodes ago where we were talking about the, you know, the
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  convenience of modern life and how it, it, it makes things.
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  So, you know, you, you forget what it's like to to live in in
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  a symbiotic way with the land, you know, and then to rely on
• 9:22
  the land and to have that connection with the land, which
• 9:25
  are not even all, not even all that long ago, our ancestors had
• 9:28
  a more awareness of. And then whether or not they had
• 9:33
  a an animistic view of the world, they still new and and
• 9:40
  recognize the importance of of having a connection with with
• 9:45
  the land. Yeah, I think, I think that's
• 9:48
  very true. You know, I mean, especially in
• 9:50
  my line of work, I'm, you know, I, I am not yet 30 years old and
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  I, I work with a lot of people who are, you know, in their 60s,
• 9:56
  seventies and stuff. They, they come out and they,
• 9:58
  they really talk about just how sort of disconnected people are.
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  Like the new people coming into the world of natural resources,
• 10:08
  just, you know, they didn't always grow up, you know,
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  barefoot fishing down by the Creek like a lot of people used
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  to. You know, there's, there's
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  definitely been a sort of shift away from the natural world and
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  into the world of convenience and electronics and climate
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  control. You see there was a lot more
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  respect of this sort of agency and power of the outside world
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  and the older generations and we've we have kind of lost that.
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  Yeah. And I love to see.
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  I love to see people, you know, your age and, and you know that
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  that sort of middle age group, you know, 30s and 40s and the,
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  you know, the, the people that are coming into realizing it's
• 10:48
  important. It's it's this is our home.
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  You know this is, we only get this one.
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  You know it's you. Got a chance?
• 10:54
  Right. We can't there.
• 10:56
  Is no backup planet you? Know we can't just up and move
• 10:58
  to you know Mars or something tomorrow and be like yeah we'll
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  we'll we'll figure it out there it's.
• 11:02
  Not it won't. It won't stop people trying, but
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  yes. Yeah, these pipe dreams, right?
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  Quite right? Yeah, and I and I, and I see
• 11:12
  more of it. I mean, I don't know what it's
• 11:13
  like, you know, obviously you're immersed in the, the, the
• 11:17
  environment, you know, natural resources and conservation
• 11:19
  probably definitely encompasses some of those things, you know,
• 11:24
  so you probably see more than than what I do.
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  But even around here, I noticed there's like, we have a really
• 11:28
  great community that, that orchestrates and coordinates,
• 11:36
  you know, trash pickup for the area, you know, and also
• 11:39
  educational type outings where people can learn about
• 11:43
  identifying certain plants and trees and what they are for, for
• 11:49
  good and for bad things. You know, some of the invasive
• 11:51
  type species of a flora and fauna and all that, you know
• 11:56
  what I mean? So there's a, there's a good
• 11:58
  effort of that going around which I'm, I'm happy to see.
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  And I'm, I'm sure you see a lot more of that than the average
• 12:05
  person being that that's kind of your niche or niche, you know?
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  Yeah, I mean, that's, that's, that's a big component of my
• 12:11
  job, right. Is, is not directly like big
• 12:14
  community events, but I, I work individually with land owners
• 12:17
  who are enrolled in the specific conservation program that I work
• 12:20
  for. And I help them lock their
• 12:23
  property and identify what, what trees are growing where, as well
• 12:27
  as what, you know, some invasive species and nuisance species.
• 12:30
  And sort of help take what their goals for the property are and
• 12:34
  match that against what the land is trying to do both
• 12:38
  historically and in its current state.
• 12:40
  And try and find a way to braid those together and, you know,
• 12:43
  get something that works for all parties involved.
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  So your efforts are are are definitely about, you know,
• 12:50
  educating and informing people from a very scientific
• 12:55
  perspective. Is that is that accurate?
• 12:58
  Yeah, not very much so. Not so much like, let me tell
• 13:02
  you about the spirit of the oak and how you can communicate with
• 13:04
  him or her or them or this or that.
• 13:05
  It's not kind of like on the spiritual side of things, no.
• 13:08
  No, as an employee of the state of Illinois, I'm supposed to
• 13:10
  keep that stuff to a minimum if I can.
• 13:13
  But I always, I always like to, you know, sneak in little bits.
• 13:17
  You know, I, I rarely mention spirit, but I do talk about the
• 13:20
  plant species as if they are sovereign beings.
• 13:23
  And I often times if we come across animals or something,
• 13:27
  I'll, I'll say someone, not something when I talk about
• 13:30
  them. So they're just like small
• 13:33
  patterns of speech that I'm sure if someone really dug into it,
• 13:35
  they'd be like, hold on, there's something here.
• 13:38
  But you know, it, it doesn't really pass.
• 13:40
  Probably most people don't pick up on it.
• 13:42
  But I, I do try to be intentional with the way that I
• 13:45
  communicate about these things. And even the framing of natural
• 13:48
  resources is something that I do find somewhat problematic.
• 13:51
  It is, you know, the official title of my degree, but I think
• 13:55
  it is a very reductionist perspective to view the natural
• 13:59
  world as a warehouse full of resources for humans to use and
• 14:04
  not a committee that we are a part of and that we have a
• 14:07
  special role to safeguard the health and well-being of, you
• 14:11
  know. Right, like to to, to act as the
• 14:15
  caretakers and custodians of the land that we are and, and take
• 14:21
  it from that approach, which I think the more you know, and I
• 14:24
  you know, so obviously, you know, in in the line of work
• 14:27
  that you're in and in the capacity that you, that you
• 14:29
  work, You know, you, you definitely have a worldview of,
• 14:33
  of nature spirits and, and, and you they're, they're a part of
• 14:37
  your practice, maybe even with your tribe.
• 14:40
  Yeah, certainly I would have to assume like that's a very
• 14:42
  integral part of, of heathenry being outdoors.
• 14:46
  We we venerate or worship or you know, we are, we're, we're not
• 14:49
  outdoors when we're doing it. We're not confined into a, you
• 14:54
  know, a church or temple or in, in, in many cases it's, it's
• 14:58
  historically that's where it was done.
• 14:59
  It was done in sacred Groves or the vase or, you know, the,
• 15:03
  those outdoor places. And so having that, having that
• 15:09
  awareness of, of connecting in that sort of way.
• 15:13
  I like how you, you, you keep that in mind even in the
• 15:16
  capacity of your, of your professional, you know, work or
• 15:20
  whatever. Yeah, I mean, and it manifests
• 15:22
  in small ways as well, you know, like I've, I've been out in the
• 15:26
  field with people and you can tell who sort of respects nature
• 15:31
  on the small scale as well as on the big scale.
• 15:33
  Cause some people will see a big tree in the distance and they
• 15:35
  say, oh, I want to go over there and they just take a straight
• 15:38
  line right to it. And you know, they're just eyes
• 15:41
  up just crashing through underbrush, not really taking
• 15:45
  the time to slow down and move with care.
• 15:47
  But when I'm out there, like, I look for deer trails, I always
• 15:51
  trip over stuff because I'm like looking up at the trees to see
• 15:54
  if I can, like, see, you know, shapes between the branches,
• 15:57
  noticing the way that the light plays through.
• 15:59
  And I like, fall on a branch and crack a rib.
• 16:01
  That happened two years ago. I, I recovered.
• 16:05
  But, you know, just like being more conscious and intentional
• 16:09
  about the way in which we walk into natural spaces and knowing
• 16:13
  that when I go into the woods, I'm a guest, right?
• 16:16
  You know, And, you know, the Hollow Mall teaches us all about
• 16:18
  the etiquette of a guest. And the very first thing you do
• 16:21
  is when one enters a new well, you should look well around.
• 16:24
  You should spy well around because, yeah, you don't know
• 16:27
  what's out there. It doesn't just apply to going
• 16:30
  into the homes of other human beings.
• 16:32
  When you enter the, you know, the world of spirit, you should
• 16:36
  also, you know, keep your head on a swivel and be careful that
• 16:39
  you're not smashing Burrows or, you know, tripping over
• 16:43
  skeletons and stuff. There's the Force has a lot to
• 16:45
  offer. Yeah, yeah.
• 16:48
  I mean, there's a there's a degree of treacherous, you know,
• 16:51
  it can be treacherous, you know, the best depending on where you
• 16:54
  go and, and, and how deep into the into that space that you
• 16:58
  want to travel. I mean, there's all kinds of
• 17:02
  dangers and, and things, you know, I mean, you can twist your
• 17:06
  ankle in a in a Gopher hole. You can, you know, slip on some
• 17:10
  mud and tumble down a tumble down a hill or a Cliff or
• 17:13
  something, you know, and I, I noticed that going into the
• 17:17
  river, that's like another level of entering space for me because
• 17:24
  yes, going into the forest or the woods, I always approach it
• 17:28
  with a, a degree of being respectful.
• 17:32
  Like you say, you know, like I'm, I'm a guest here and to
• 17:35
  conduct myself with the decorum of a good guest, you know, but,
• 17:42
  but going into the river is, is like a level beyond that for me,
• 17:46
  'cause it's now I'm in now, I'm, now, I am in an environment that
• 17:51
  is not my natural habitat. You know, it's water.
• 17:54
  I'm, I'm kind of in, in between realms now.
• 17:58
  And so it's even more spiritual for me to.
• 18:02
  And then, you know, when you're walking in a river at various
• 18:06
  depths, I mean, the ground is going up and down the, the
• 18:08
  water's, you know, shallow and deep, you can't really see where
• 18:12
  you're walking because of, you know, the moving water and, and
• 18:15
  the debris and this and that. You know, so there's that
• 18:17
  challenge too. And it does.
• 18:19
  It forces you to really take care and, and with that sense
• 18:24
  of, of respect and, you know, reverence in a way.
• 18:30
  Yeah, my my first job with the university is I was, I worked
• 18:34
  with this program, but not from the land side of things.
• 18:37
  The purpose of the program is primarily to protect waterways.
• 18:41
  So I was a stream technician and that I would like throw on
• 18:44
  waders and an Electro fishing backpack and go out there and
• 18:47
  sample for fish right to to see what sort of species were out
• 18:51
  there in the streams that are that is in this program drains
• 18:55
  into see if it's really making a difference.
• 18:57
  I had a really bad habit of stepping into the middle of
• 19:00
  sunken tires and then when I would pull my foot out and
• 19:04
  forward, I would just like tump over.
• 19:06
  It happened multiple times and I learned very quickly that, yeah,
• 19:09
  like you, you are sort of feeling your way.
• 19:12
  It it opens you up to a different level of perception
• 19:15
  because your eyes will not help you.
• 19:17
  Like you have to use your body and the not just like where the
• 19:24
  water hits your skin is the boundary of you.
• 19:26
  You kind of have to slip your Hummer a little bit and sort of
• 19:30
  bleed out into the river and find your way by feel.
• 19:34
  Yeah, it's a very cool experience.
• 19:37
  It's one of my favorite forms. It's it's like it's medicine to
• 19:41
  me. I mean, it does such, so much
• 19:43
  what good, you know what I mean? It, it's healing and it's again,
• 19:47
  being forced to, to to have that degree of consciousness, you
• 19:52
  know, and awareness and fullness makes me think like you were
• 19:55
  talking about feeling your way. I think of that line from
• 19:58
  Crocodile Dundee where they're out there at night and, and that
• 20:03
  Aborigine guy goes running into the Bush, you know, and she's
• 20:06
  like. How does he see in the dark and
• 20:10
  he's and Mick Dundee says he thinks his way and.
• 20:16
  Yeah, I mean, that's very real. You know, yeah, you got to like
• 20:19
  when, when you when your eyes can't see or you're, you know,
• 20:23
  one of your major senses is, you know, impeded in some sort of
• 20:29
  way, like other things are forced to come into a more
• 20:33
  heightened awareness. You know, it's like that old
• 20:34
  thing where you, you hear about people who have a form of, of
• 20:40
  blindness, you know, their hearing becomes stronger because
• 20:44
  they can't see well or at all. And so therefore other senses
• 20:49
  become more heightened to, to kind of pick up the slack.
• 20:53
  And yeah, like, I know while walking in the river is it's
• 20:57
  almost like I'm not, I'm not walking.
• 20:59
  I'm, I'm like hovering, like my foot kind of glides around, you
• 21:04
  know, and you probably see, or you know, my, my affinity to
• 21:10
  herons or towards herons and how they are, they are like a
• 21:13
  follower spirit for me or philia for those that are heathen to
• 21:17
  know what the philia is and how it can manifest itself.
• 21:22
  And I see, I see walk, you know, and it's the same sort of way.
• 21:25
  They, they kind of, they kind of glide, you know what I mean?
• 21:29
  And, and they're, they're slow, they're patient, that they're
• 21:31
  deliberate. Nothing's in a hurry.
• 21:34
  So, yeah, it's like embracing that kind of spirit.
• 21:39
  And that's their realm, you know what I mean?
• 21:40
  Like that's, that's their space. So to connect with that spirit
• 21:45
  as well. And, and, and we, we talk about
• 21:47
  animism and, and what animism is, is, is the spirit in things
• 21:50
  and, and that things are alive, not just, you know, a rock is
• 21:55
  just a rock. Well, there's the spirit of the
• 21:57
  rock and there's the spirit of the river and there's the spirit
• 21:59
  of the trees and of the, of the plants that grow nearby.
• 22:04
  And, and you, you don't, you don't hear what they have to
• 22:09
  say. You don't connect with them when
• 22:11
  you're just busy rushing around and and hurrying through things,
• 22:15
  you know? Absolutely.
• 22:18
  I It's not only just the the physical speed, it is the speed
• 22:23
  at the modern age demands of our minds.
• 22:27
  Our shortened attention spans are running a mile a minute,
• 22:31
  aided by technology, discursive thought that you know,
• 22:35
  constantly, you know, oh, what am I going to have for dinner
• 22:37
  tonight? What emails am I missing by not
• 22:40
  looking at my phone right now? You know, I'm on 6 different
• 22:43
  social medias and something is happening at every second on
• 22:45
  every one of them. And it's very easy for your
• 22:48
  attention to be grabbed by those things like have them all, says
• 22:52
  the the bird of UN memory. The O Mimius Hegdi is the, you
• 22:55
  know, that spirit that sits over the Mead hall and snatches your
• 22:59
  wits away. It it takes being intentional
• 23:02
  and slowing down, getting out of that space and that's what
• 23:07
  allows the spirits to make their way in.
• 23:09
  You have to createspace I find. Yes, yeah, it, it, it has to be
• 23:15
  a deliberate effort and you have to be present in it, you know,
• 23:19
  not just, and that's, I think, you know, that's like for me,
• 23:22
  that's one of the most helpful things is, is when I do have
• 23:27
  that, you have, you have to make that time.
• 23:29
  You know, I, I, I try to everyday, you know, no matter
• 23:34
  what is even if I'm just standing outside in my yard, you
• 23:37
  know, barefoot on the ground, even if it's that, even if
• 23:40
  that's all I do is is to just find a way to get out of the
• 23:45
  house, get away from technology and just have time to reconnect
• 23:51
  with those frequencies, with that energy that that is always
• 23:56
  there through the earth. And I think that's one of the
• 24:00
  key things about animism is, is that's, that's a, that's a form
• 24:03
  of communication. You know, you're not going to
• 24:05
  necessarily hear the tree or the Bush or the plant say, hey,
• 24:09
  Chris, let me tell you something.
• 24:12
  That's not how they communicate, at least.
• 24:14
  No, not that I've not that I've encountered yet, you know?
• 24:18
  No, no, we don't. We don't hear them with our
• 24:20
  ears. We hear them with our heart.
• 24:22
  Yeah. And, and through other means,
• 24:24
  like, you know, we were talking earlier about not being able to
• 24:26
  see with their eyes and relying on other things to see for us,
• 24:31
  you know, feeling our way and all that.
• 24:35
  That's receiving communication. It's it's, it's receiving a word
• 24:39
  or receiving a, a lesson or something through those senses
• 24:43
  and by putting that bare skin to, to the earth.
• 24:47
  That's one of the ways that I believe the, the plant spirits,
• 24:53
  you know, the breeze and, and, and all of that is able to
• 24:56
  communicate with us because again, it's, it's not through
• 24:59
  spoken word. It's through that, you know,
• 25:01
  through the, through the heart, through those vibrations,
• 25:04
  through those magnetic currents frequencies, whatever you're,
• 25:08
  you know, you want to call it absolutely.
• 25:13
  And every, and they all have different voices too.
• 25:15
  I don't know if you've, if you've ever thought of that, if
• 25:17
  you've encountered that or if that's something that you feel
• 25:19
  is is accurate to, to say is is, you know, just like we have
• 25:22
  different voices, so do they. No, that's, that's, that's very
• 25:25
  real for me. So I, you know, not only doing
• 25:28
  this professionally at my home, I tend several gardens, not a
• 25:33
  whole lot of vegetables this year, but I have different areas
• 25:36
  of my yard that are dedicated to, you know, different types of
• 25:41
  plant life that we grow. You know, I I have an area
• 25:44
  around the side of my yard that is largely I've just allowed it
• 25:49
  to sort of grow up wild with whatever is going to show up
• 25:51
  there. Right now it's a bunch of
• 25:53
  butterweed. But around I have a full sun
• 25:56
  section of my backyard that I've planted a number of perennial
• 26:00
  Prairie plants. And then I have multiple pots
• 26:04
  with different herbs and other stuff that's beneficial for
• 26:07
  pollinators. But yeah, the, the idea of
• 26:10
  plants having different voices, you know, even probably 10 years
• 26:14
  ago, I suffered from what people call plant blindness.
• 26:19
  The idea that you could look out and just see a wall of green and
• 26:24
  not know an ash from an Elm, from an oak.
• 26:26
  You know, it was just these are trees and these are grass and
• 26:31
  weeds. That's a way that a lot of
• 26:32
  people see the world of plants and it is so much more in depth
• 26:37
  and intricate and beautiful than that.
• 26:39
  So learning the ways that plants are different from each other
• 26:44
  allows me, you know, learning the way that they are different
• 26:47
  from each other scientifically and taxonomically opens that
• 26:51
  space for me to be able to differentiate them as persons.
• 26:55
  And part of my daily devotion is going outside bare feet and just
• 27:00
  checking in on everybody. You know, right now we are in
• 27:03
  the peak of the growing season. And for the last couple months,
• 27:06
  it's been, you know, something will poke up above the soil and
• 27:09
  something else won't be awake yet.
• 27:11
  You know, learning to be patient and learning that each one will
• 27:14
  show up at its own time when they're ready to show up and
• 27:17
  when the conditions have been, you know, when something has
• 27:20
  made space for them to flourish out of the underworld and into
• 27:24
  the Mythgarth that that will be the time that they arrive.
• 27:28
  And it won't be on your schedule, but it'll be right
• 27:30
  when they, you know, need to as to paraphrase Gandalf, right.
• 27:35
  But that's, that's, I mean, that is really huge for me, you know,
• 27:38
  learning the difference between the voices of mint and goldenrod
• 27:41
  and milkweed and to have differing relationships with the
• 27:44
  plants that I grew for myself to consume.
• 27:48
  And that side yard butterweed is toxic to mammals, right?
• 27:53
  I don't have been our pet. But it's not even a plant that
• 27:56
  could be used for weaving or for medicine or for herbal
• 27:59
  tinctures. It's toxic to the liver.
• 28:01
  And if I ate enough of that stuff, it would kill me.
• 28:04
  But I don't see the need to get rid of it, because I can look
• 28:08
  out on a warm day like today and I can see two dozen native bees
• 28:12
  buzzing around. None of them honey bees but
• 28:15
  Carpenter bees and solitary Mason bees and ones that drill
• 28:19
  into plant stems. All these native pollinator
• 28:22
  species that are really threatened by the presence of an
• 28:26
  invasive species on our landscap, that plant would be
• 28:30
  toxic to me. So most people want to get rid
• 28:33
  of it. But it has its place and it has
• 28:35
  its role and it is not for me. You know, like that thing does
• 28:40
  not exist for the purpose of my use of it.
• 28:44
  It is connected to so many other beings that if I were to just
• 28:47
  run my mower across it, they wouldn't have anything to eat in
• 28:50
  my yard. That's an interesting thing to
• 28:54
  to bear in mind too. Is, is realizing that, yeah, not
• 28:58
  everything is for us. Not everything is for our use or
• 29:01
  consumption or, or benefit. It's we, we share this space
• 29:06
  with a lot of different personalities and a lot of
• 29:08
  different, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a diverse
• 29:11
  environment. It's a diverse community of
• 29:14
  different different individuals, different different people,
• 29:18
  different species of things. And don't get me wrong, humans
• 29:23
  are special. Like I'm not saying that we that
• 29:26
  we aren't certainly unique, but decentering our perspective has
• 29:30
  been a big part of my spiritual journey.
• 29:33
  Learning to recognize it's not that I have power and I am, you
• 29:39
  know, I'm so great and my Gods are so great.
• 29:43
  So, you know, I'm going to, I don't kneel in front of them and
• 29:47
  I'm going to call them to be my spiritual allies.
• 29:49
  It's like, no, I am a Nexus point of connection between all
• 29:53
  of these and it is by my relationships that I am
• 29:56
  strengthened. You know, it's, it's not that
• 29:59
  I'm great, it's that I know great spirits, you know?
• 30:03
  Yeah, it goes back to the respect and, and the the
• 30:08
  reverence of it all. And you know, one of the things
• 30:11
  that does come with respect is, is knowing our place, you know,
• 30:16
  knowing those and respecting those boundaries.
• 30:18
  I mean, you talk about some plants being toxic and harmful
• 30:22
  for consumption. I mean, you don't even have to.
• 30:25
  You just touch certain plants and you'll get a reaction from
• 30:30
  it. Poison Ivy oak, you know, the,
• 30:32
  the, what's another one that that's recent.
• 30:34
  It's, it's, it's, it's grown up here like crazy.
• 30:38
  Hemlock I think. Yeah, poison hemlock.
• 30:41
  One time I thought that was a carrot and I crushed some up and
• 30:44
  put it in my nose to smell it. I was like, what is this?
• 30:47
  And I was like, did I? Did I just poison myself?
• 30:52
  I I, I think I did. And like, about 10 minutes
• 30:56
  later, I got like a burning sensation around my nose.
• 30:58
  I was like, yeah, no, that was that was that was a stupid thing
• 31:01
  to do. But, you know, that's, I mean,
• 31:04
  that's what happens when you you don't take the time to properly
• 31:08
  identify. Yeah, the leaves of these things
• 31:10
  look very similar. But if I were to look closely, I
• 31:13
  would notice that one had purple flecks that were flat and one
• 31:16
  has white flecks that are raised.
• 31:18
  And one of those is carrot. And one of those is the plant
• 31:21
  that killed Socrates. So you know it's.
• 31:25
  You got to know the difference. Yeah, yeah.
• 31:27
  It's like the people joke about, you know, mushrooms and
• 31:31
  foraging. It's like, well, every mushroom
• 31:32
  is edible at least once. I say, I say that a lot, yeah.
• 31:38
  You know certain things, the same thing you know you can.
• 31:40
  You can eat anything at least once.
• 31:42
  Yeah, it'll certainly go down. It'll go down, it might come
• 31:45
  out, it might come back up or out or something, you know, in a
• 31:48
  way that that's not so pleasant. But it isn't that a form of
• 31:52
  communication too? Isn't that a way that the spirit
• 31:54
  of that, of that plant is letting us know, hey, don't,
• 32:00
  don't mess with me, I'm hands off, you know, kind of thing?
• 32:03
  Absolutely. I mean, and it's, and it's so
• 32:05
  interesting as well because so many plants communicate in that
• 32:09
  way with insects as their primary herbivores, right?
• 32:13
  The, the things that kill them, boring beetles and biting flies
• 32:17
  and stuff like that. So many plants have developed
• 32:20
  these complex chemical defenses, right?
• 32:23
  These strong aromatic that will blind the senses of these
• 32:27
  insects or these strong tastes to repel them.
• 32:31
  And we call those things caffeine, nicotine, theobromine,
• 32:35
  the elemented chocolate that makes you feel good, menthol,
• 32:39
  right? All of these aromatic plants
• 32:41
  that for us are medicines and foodstuffs and plants that are
• 32:45
  very beloved by humans are toxic to insects.
• 32:48
  And the opposite is also true. Like the plants have Co created
• 32:54
  these ships with different types of animals in different ways.
• 32:58
  I had a guy that I spoke to at work that made himself throw up
• 33:00
  by eating a ton of honeysuckle berries.
• 33:03
  And I was like, why would you do that?
• 33:05
  And he's like, well, I saw the birds eating them so I figured
• 33:07
  they must be good. And I was like, I don't know why
• 33:11
  you would think that. You're not a bird.
• 33:15
  You. Don't have the same?
• 33:16
  No, no, you are not you. Know you don't have the same
• 33:20
  things going on. We've got, there's a little bit
• 33:23
  in the middle of the vendetta there, but largely dissimilar
• 33:26
  animals. And I don't recommend.
• 33:28
  But you know, you also have stories of indigenous traditions
• 33:31
  watching Elks and horses and bears treat themselves with
• 33:36
  medicinal herbs. And that's how in early days,
• 33:39
  some people learned which herbs were safe to use as medicine is
• 33:42
  by watching our animal relatives interact with them.
• 33:45
  So can't write them off entirely, but make make a habit
• 33:49
  of learning before you put stuff in your body is generally a good
• 33:52
  policy. Right.
• 33:54
  And, and it's it, it, it supports the, the approach that
• 33:58
  we were talking earlier about with, you know, learning and,
• 34:02
  and actually, you know, taking the time to, you know, be aware
• 34:05
  of these things and don't just arbitrarily think, you know,
• 34:10
  everything is, is for us or, or, or blindly going into it.
• 34:14
  Yeah, I remember growing like working on the farm as a kid.
• 34:17
  There was a big one of the pastures in one, one patch of
• 34:24
  actually where the steers would, would graze.
• 34:27
  They didn't touch that area and we'd have to go up there and
• 34:31
  we'd have to manually mow it down 'cause it would become so
• 34:35
  overgrown. The reason they didn't need it
• 34:37
  is because it was inundated with mint and they didn't eat it.
• 34:41
  They didn't eat mint. They, they, I don't know if they
• 34:44
  didn't like it or if it was bad for them or whatever, but I
• 34:46
  mean, they just so they didn't need anything that grew around
• 34:48
  it. So we had to go up there and,
• 34:52
  you know, mow it down and it was a big, you know, swap of land
• 34:55
  that that just, it was weird. They they, they, they chew
• 34:58
  everything else down. But this one patch of, of the
• 35:00
  pasture would just grow up like crazy because of the mint that
• 35:03
  was too spicy. Must have been the white cattle,
• 35:06
  I guess, you know, like mayonnaise is a spicy condiment
• 35:09
  or salt spice. It must have been, it was, yeah.
• 35:12
  They were, they were white faced Hereford.
• 35:14
  It's funny enough. Oh, fun.
• 35:17
  Mint is a crazy plant. They are aggressive and they,
• 35:20
  they, they show up loud. Yeah, they're, they're, they're
• 35:24
  fun. I have a couple varieties of
• 35:26
  mint that I grow in their herbal capacity.
• 35:29
  And then we have a, a native, what's called blunt mountain
• 35:32
  mint, which is not Mentha. It's it's a different genus, but
• 35:35
  it's a North American native plant in the mint family.
• 35:38
  And it smells and tastes just like spearmint.
• 35:41
  But it doesn't go crazy when you put it in the ground because
• 35:43
  it's part of this ecosystem naturally.
• 35:45
  So kind of cool. Yeah.
• 35:47
  Very. Nice.
• 35:49
  Well, yeah, it's, it's cool to think about the connection that
• 35:52
  we have with, you know, and making a connection between the
• 35:57
  plant life trees and, and, and other flora and fun and, and how
• 36:04
  it's, it's even woven into the myths of, of Norse stories, you
• 36:09
  know what I mean? I mean, the, the, the, the 9
• 36:11
  realms, what's the central thing that connects all the realms?
• 36:16
  A tree, you know, an, a, an ash tree or a Yew Tree, you know,
• 36:20
  however you want to. I think, I think, I think most,
• 36:23
  I think most scholars would, would, would argue that it's an
• 36:28
  ash tree. And then I've heard that it's a
• 36:29
  Yew Tree. Yeah, I I like to sit in both
• 36:33
  camps, to be honest. I mean, the word we see in Old
• 36:36
  Norse all the time is Oscar, right?
• 36:38
  You know, it is. It is very clearly describing
• 36:40
  the ash tree. But, you know, little asterisk,
• 36:46
  neither ash trees nor yew trees grow in Iceland.
• 36:50
  So the Icelanders who are writing these things down, sure,
• 36:53
  they were probably preserving some fragments of older
• 36:55
  tradition, but both trees would have been unfamiliar to them.
• 36:58
  So, you know, they might have been having some of that plant
• 37:01
  blindness where, you know, they don't really mind one way or the
• 37:04
  other. I've also seen it described as a
• 37:07
  needle ash, which if you ever look at the leaf of a Yew Tree,
• 37:12
  it is what we call a compoundly pinnate leaf, which means that,
• 37:16
  you know, there's a one stem and a bunch of small leaflets come
• 37:19
  off of it. There are not very many trees
• 37:22
  that have that leaf shape in Scandinavia.
• 37:25
  Ash is one of the deciduous ones.
• 37:26
  But you if you were to take all of those leaf blades and turn
• 37:29
  them into little needles, you know, it makes a lot of sense.
• 37:33
  You could very much be described as a needle ash also use or
• 37:38
  Evergreen, which ashes are not and all of the descriptions of
• 37:41
  interest. So we have say that is an
• 37:43
  eternal Evergreen tree. Now that could be referencing,
• 37:47
  you know, it's it's generative eternal nature that, you know,
• 37:50
  it doesn't go through winter in the same way the trees in
• 37:52
  Midgard do. So why would it drop its leaves?
• 37:55
  But I like the idea of it being, you know, an an older, more
• 37:57
  Evergreen tree, especially with its relationship between life
• 38:02
  and death, which is always a test with you.
• 38:04
  Yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, I was going to
• 38:07
  say there's, there's that the, the, the, the, the Aquas rune,
• 38:14
  which is only attested to in one rune poem because it doesn't
• 38:17
  that sound doesn't exist in in the later Norse language, but
• 38:23
  that's. True, but the the Younger
• 38:25
  Futhark has the UR rune, which means you as well.
• 38:29
  It's it's, it's also referencing the same tree.
• 38:32
  There's one for you and there's one for Birch and no one else
• 38:35
  gets 1. So, you know, pretty, pretty big
• 38:38
  hint right there. Right, Yeah, No, that's a that's
• 38:41
  an interesting observation that, you know, I've, I've always,
• 38:44
  I've, I've found that it funny how people maybe not funny, but
• 38:48
  curious to me how people have come up with this idea of, of
• 38:53
  the runes having having associations to gods.
• 38:57
  You know, like I saw one time somebody said, you know,
• 39:01
  Hagalas, that's Haimdall's rune. And and I'm like, where does
• 39:05
  that ever mentioned? How is how aside from the fact
• 39:08
  that the, the name Hamdall is the letter H and, and, and the
• 39:13
  Hoggle rune and the, you know, that's it gives the H phenom in
• 39:18
  the language. Aside from that, you know, why
• 39:21
  would you associate that? But yet you have these rune
• 39:24
  poems that who give things that are associated to certain
• 39:27
  things. So you don't like the the Ingwaz
• 39:29
  rune and the T Waz rune. Those are runes associated with.
• 39:33
  Just literal God names. Literal God names, you know, and
• 39:36
  then, like you say, you know, you have the, the EU or the, OR
• 39:39
  the Ahwaz rune and, and the, the, the Berkana rune for the
• 39:44
  Birch 2 trees that are why, why? Like what's, what's so important
• 39:50
  about these things to, to the culture, to the, to the people.
• 39:53
  Why, why was that the thing that they associated with the rune?
• 39:58
  So it's interesting that trees do have a very important part in
• 40:02
  the, the cosmology, the mythology, the, the language
• 40:05
  itself. It seems that the the the the
• 40:07
  linguistic side they they they put a a a strong emphasis and
• 40:11
  importance to trees. Yeah, I mean and the the tree at
• 40:17
  its basest level, like what it means to be in a relationship
• 40:21
  with the tree is to the ancient mind.
• 40:25
  And I think it would do some good if modern minds thought
• 40:28
  this way. Trees are the ultimate self
• 40:32
  encapsuled symbol of connection. They root in the world below
• 40:37
  ours, they grow across our plane and they stretch to the heavens.
• 40:41
  So they are a physical vessel between the underworld, the
• 40:45
  overworld and the middle world that we inhabit.
• 40:49
  They because of their long lived nature, you know, they say an
• 40:53
  oak spends 300 years growing, 300 years living and 300 years
• 40:59
  dying. Pine trees can live to be 4000
• 41:02
  years old. And you know, yew trees worked
• 41:06
  it in church graveyards in Ireland and it was thought that
• 41:08
  their roots would entwine with the skulls of the dead to keep
• 41:12
  them from wandering. They have these, they have this
• 41:16
  eternal nature to them from the span of one human life against
• 41:20
  the life of a Sycamore down in the, you know, in the
• 41:23
  floodplain, you walk out there, that tree has been there for 400
• 41:27
  years. And you know, people might have
• 41:29
  been buried beneath that tree. How many offerings, how many
• 41:31
  prayers, how many people sat beneath that being?
• 41:35
  You know, they connect us not only in space but in time.
• 41:38
  Like they are the perfect example of that sort of Nexus.
• 41:44
  So what better symbol is there to represent the core of
• 41:47
  creation? Yeah, I've always, I've always
• 41:52
  found it pretty cool when you look at you say ancient minds or
• 41:56
  ancient beliefs and, and how we can adopt it.
• 42:00
  Like we live in North America, obviously, where there there's a
• 42:06
  book that that that comes with a deck of cards.
• 42:13
  That was a gift my wife gift gave me as a gift year a couple
• 42:16
  years ago. But it's, it's, it's, it's
• 42:20
  circulates around Native American spirituality.
• 42:24
  So it's kind of like a, a deck of tarot cards.
• 42:26
  Is, is like the closest thing I can associate with, but they are
• 42:28
  far from tarot like the, the what little bit I know of them.
• 42:34
  And they have the Oracle Oracle deck, right.
• 42:37
  Well, I, I think they're probably closer to an Oracle
• 42:39
  deck. But if if anybody wants to check
• 42:42
  them out, it's called, they're called sacred path cards.
• 42:47
  And the author's name is Jamie Sam's S AM S Jamie Sam's in any
• 42:55
  book she had. There's like one of the cards
• 43:01
  for this deck is the card for the standing people, which are
• 43:05
  the trees that they call them the standing people.
• 43:08
  Now, I don't know, there's, there's mention of Cherokee,
• 43:16
  which I know is a very, you know, that's a pretty broad name
• 43:20
  for, for a nation. But the quote that I was going
• 43:23
  to refer to is, is that the standing people, which are the
• 43:25
  trees? And this is what she wrote or
• 43:28
  writes in her book. She says the standing people,
• 43:30
  the trees are our sisters and brothers.
• 43:32
  They are the chiefs of the plant Kingdom.
• 43:36
  The standing people provide oxygen for the rest of the
• 43:39
  children of Earth through their trunks and branches.
• 43:42
  Trees give shelter to the winged ones in their roots.
• 43:47
  Trees provide Burrows for smaller 4 legged creatures.
• 43:50
  Materials for building homes for their human relations are
• 43:55
  another gift of Tree Nation. And the Cherokees teach that the
• 44:01
  stone people hold energy for the Earth Mother and hold specific
• 44:06
  records of all that has happened in a place.
• 44:08
  They teach us that the standing people and all others of the
• 44:12
  plant Kingdom are the givers who constantly provide for the needs
• 44:16
  of others, the stone people and the standing people.
• 44:19
  So rocks and trees both balance each other as holders and give
• 44:25
  birth. And again, that's from Jamie
• 44:27
  Sims book Sacred Path car. It's sacred path cards.
• 44:31
  So it's a book that comes to help you learn about the cards
• 44:35
  and everything. Really, really cool stuff.
• 44:37
  And I love that because, you know, we are in North America,
• 44:40
  you know, this is indigenous beliefs of, of the, of the
• 44:43
  indigenous people that is being, that are, it's, it's being
• 44:45
  shared with the world. And, and we're here, this is the
• 44:50
  land that that these beliefs come from.
• 44:54
  So we talk about mythologies and, and, you know, stories and
• 44:59
  lore, You know what, what better way to find a connection to, to
• 45:03
  things and to, and to learn about what is native to this
• 45:06
  place. We can find those nuances and
• 45:08
  similarities and other cultures too.
• 45:11
  Nothing wrong with that, but when you've got, you know,
• 45:14
  ancient wisdom being shared right in your own backyard from
• 45:17
  the land that we're on, you know, I always think that's
• 45:20
  pretty special when that when you can learn from those types
• 45:23
  of sources. Absolutely.
• 45:26
  And I mean you, you can't have a conversation with me without me
• 45:29
  bringing up Breeding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
• 45:32
  But she talks about so much of this in that book.
• 45:36
  She has a section where she discusses that in multiple
• 45:39
  indigenous languages, the name that is given to plants are
• 45:42
  those who take care of us because it is true.
• 45:47
  I mean, you know, what you just read out talks about how trees
• 45:52
  produce oxygen in What better encapsulate of the gifting cycle
• 45:56
  is there than the relationship between animals and plants, the
• 46:01
  twin alchemies of photosynthesis and glycolysis, the taking of
• 46:06
  gases and binding them into sugar and the splitting of that
• 46:10
  sugar to power all cellular life on this planet.
• 46:13
  Like everything that we breathe out is everything that they
• 46:17
  breathe in, and everything that they breathe out is everything
• 46:20
  that we breathe in. You know, every moment of our
• 46:22
  lives. We are part of the gifting cycle
• 46:24
  with plants and you know, all the bacteria in the ocean who
• 46:28
  actually generate most of the oxygen on the planet.
• 46:30
  But we love trees too. Yeah, yeah.
• 46:35
  And you know how similar we are. You know, I've, I've talked a
• 46:41
  lot about just, you look at the, you know, our, our molecular
• 46:44
  structure and, and, you know, everything that makes up what we
• 46:50
  are, our, our matter is, is everything in the universe.
• 46:57
  But then, you know, you look at, you know, you get closer to
• 46:58
  home, you know, maybe you don't look out that far.
• 47:01
  You don't have to look at the trees, you know, you see the,
• 47:03
  the ringlets of trees and, and, and, and how gauge their age.
• 47:06
  It looks like a fingerprint. You know, you look at our
• 47:09
  fingerprints and it looks like the rings of trees, you know?
• 47:12
  Yeah. The cells of our nervous system.
• 47:14
  Yeah, there you go. Yeah, you just say nervous
• 47:17
  system neural network, right? It looks like it looks like
• 47:19
  roots. And the cells are literally
• 47:22
  called dendrites, which means tree in Greek.
• 47:25
  Like the individual. Yeah, Yeah, the individual
• 47:27
  neurons are called dendrites. And when they talk about neural
• 47:30
  connections in the brain, they call it the dendritic Arbor,
• 47:34
  right? Arbor, like Arbor Day, like a
• 47:36
  Grove of trees, is the actual physical connection of us.
• 47:39
  And it's not just the physical, it's also our mental processes
• 47:43
  going back to like a tree. You know, we are rooted in our
• 47:46
  subconscious minds. That is the below ground dark
• 47:50
  processes that contains the sort of mulch and compost of
• 47:54
  everything that we've experienced then growing up
• 47:57
  through the discursive thinking mind into the expanded
• 48:01
  consciousness of connecting to the upper worlds and to the
• 48:04
  higher planes. Like we, there's a reason the
• 48:07
  skulls talk about man as the battle tree.
• 48:11
  You know, like trees and people are interchangeable in Nordic
• 48:16
  poetry and, you know, just connecting back to the the
• 48:20
  indigenous lore that you've got there.
• 48:22
  Yeah. You know, trees are people.
• 48:23
  People are trees. I'd also think it's worth
• 48:29
  mentioning how, you know, because we talked about
• 48:32
  communicating and, and how the plants in the plant Kingdom, how
• 48:37
  they communicate is, is, is not through spoken words, but it's
• 48:41
  through a network that missilial network, you know, and how, when
• 48:46
  I've I've heard parent trees, you know, if there's, you know,
• 48:50
  that when they, the way that they grow, if, if a, if a
• 48:53
  sibling or a parent tree detects that one of its children, one of
• 49:00
  its, you know, neighboring family is suffering, is hurting
• 49:07
  through that mycelial network, they will feed and nurture and
• 49:11
  give of itself a lot of times to make sure that that other tree
• 49:14
  is healed and is, is doing, you know, better.
• 49:20
  And I thought, man, you know, like, what a way to, you know,
• 49:21
  what a, what a lesson you know, to be learned with people.
• 49:25
  Now he's like, you know, we're so far removed from being
• 49:31
  sensitive to, to our, our, our fellow speak, you know, our,
• 49:35
  our, our other people. You know, it's everybody's out
• 49:38
  for themselves. Everybody's doing their own
• 49:39
  thing. And nobody's realizing, you
• 49:41
  know, well, somebody else is, is hurting here.
• 49:44
  Your people are hurting. Are you taking care of them?
• 49:46
  Are you, are you giving them of your love?
• 49:48
  Are you, are you nurturing them? Are you showing them grace?
• 49:51
  Are you showing them compassion? Are you showing them support?
• 49:54
  You know, just like our trees do?
• 49:57
  That's a important lesson I think to to also bring up when
• 50:01
  we're talking about stuff like this.
• 50:03
  Yeah, no, I mean it, It really is.
• 50:05
  And it, you know, it, it, it goes back to how you were
• 50:08
  talking about moving mindfully through the river.
• 50:11
  And Heron teaches us to do that. There are many lessons that we
• 50:16
  can learn from trees, and I think living in truly rooted
• 50:20
  reciprocity and knowing that we have those bonds that commit us,
• 50:26
  right? They might not be fungal threads
• 50:29
  within the human community, but they're threads of Frith, right?
• 50:32
  Threads of mutual obligation, where by rooting ourselves in a
• 50:37
  community of other people, those nutrients flow both ways.
• 50:41
  You know, we help our people and our people help us, and that's
• 50:45
  how it's supposed to be. That's how nature has come about
• 50:49
  and survived and thrived. And we are of nature.
• 50:53
  We still belong to it, whether or not people realized in the
• 50:56
  modern day. But you know, we are also all
• 51:00
  nourished that way it is by the bonds that connect.
• 51:03
  US, yeah. I I'd also like to go another
• 51:07
  step further with that, if you don't mind going back to
• 51:09
  braiding sweetgrass, the Hodonishoni.
• 51:14
  Hodonishoni, I believe, also known as the Iroquois, right,
• 51:18
  the the Confederacy up there, they have something called the
• 51:22
  Thanksgiving address. And basically it's it's how they
• 51:26
  would establish consensus when they would do their version of
• 51:30
  the thing right, These legislative councils where
• 51:33
  people would gather together, they would start in a very
• 51:37
  opposite way than European governing systems do, where
• 51:41
  people file onto either side of their aisle of the Hall of
• 51:45
  Parliament or the Hall of Congress.
• 51:47
  But they would all come together and they would recite this
• 51:50
  address of Thanksgiving for the many layers of the natural world
• 51:57
  that make it up. You know, we first give thanks
• 51:59
  to the water for, you know, the water it, you know, allows us to
• 52:03
  drink and we're thirsty and it's a home for those that swim our
• 52:07
  relatives there. Now our minds are one.
• 52:10
  We give thanks for the trees. We give thanks for, you know,
• 52:14
  and, and they go through all of these things.
• 52:17
  When they give thanks for trees specifically, they have a
• 52:21
  section where they talk about the greatest of the trees.
• 52:23
  And they say that the greatest of the trees is the Maple,
• 52:27
  because when the people are hungry, the Maple gives of its
• 52:30
  sugar so that the people may thrive.
• 52:34
  And that is their model of what makes a good leader.
• 52:37
  This is not somebody with a sword or a staff who tells other
• 52:40
  people what to do. It's someone who notices that
• 52:43
  people are hurting and people are in need.
• 52:46
  And it gives of itself, right? We, when we give ourselves to
• 52:50
  the people who are around us, that's what it means to lead.
• 52:53
  And that's another lesson that comes.
• 52:57
  Yeah, no, I think the, the hallmark of a good of a good
• 53:01
  leader is, is, is, is that they serve the people.
• 53:06
  You know, it's not that they expect the people to do for
• 53:09
  them. It's, it's, they're the ones
• 53:10
  that are doing for the people. And then by design, because of
• 53:13
  that relationship, there's that reciprocity, you know, that I do
• 53:18
  for you and you do for me. We do for each other.
• 53:20
  We look out for one other. And there's that the, the, the
• 53:24
  gifting exchange, which is very natural.
• 53:28
  It's, it's we, it exists in nature that, that reciprocity,
• 53:32
  the things that you were talking about before, we breathe in,
• 53:34
  they breathe out. We, they breathe in, we breathe
• 53:37
  out. You know, it's this constant,
• 53:39
  constant thing. And you don't, yeah, like modern
• 53:42
  people don't really have that in their, in their minds.
• 53:47
  It, it's taken for granted 'cause it's, it's just every
• 53:51
  day. You don't even have to think
• 53:52
  about it. You don't have to think about
• 53:53
  how am I even breathing right now.
• 53:56
  No, yeah, you just do it. You know, get rid of them.
• 53:59
  You ain't gonna be. You're not gonna be here long.
• 54:01
  Everyone listening to this podcast is now manually
• 54:04
  breathing. Right, yeah, it's and the even
• 54:11
  like the the The Chieftains of you know, the in the Norse are
• 54:16
  dramatic. You know that a good Chieftain
• 54:19
  of the people was was a hater of gold, you know, ring giver these
• 54:24
  their their wealth was distributed and and so that way
• 54:28
  the people benefited from it. They didn't you know, a bad
• 54:31
  leader was was the one that hoarded all of the treasure and
• 54:35
  kept it all for himself and didn't share.
• 54:37
  And I think that's even warned against in the Hava Mall too.
• 54:39
  Trying to remember what what the exact line is, is something
• 54:45
  about, you know, don't don't hold on to things too much or.
• 54:52
  Yeah, I won't be. I won't be able to pull it.
• 54:54
  I don't. I don't remember that one on my
• 54:56
  head. I'll I'll try to add it to the
• 54:59
  show notes or whatever for you is.
• 55:00
  But there's there's something in the Hovemall that that warns
• 55:03
  even about stuff like that, you know, because you know you're
• 55:08
  not going to be here forever. There's you know, there's no
• 55:10
  sense in and you know one of the what is it?
• 55:12
  Sig Gruffamall or or Falcon Small.
• 55:17
  Sorry, Falcon Small. The dragon, you know, and and
• 55:21
  and and hoarding the golden and what, what he was before the
• 55:26
  dragon, you know, and it was his love for that gold and wanted to
• 55:30
  hoard it turned him into this, this thing.
• 55:34
  Yeah. Sickness of the heart.
• 55:37
  Yep. Yeah, I was thinking too, you
• 55:41
  know, like how much people think of sort of 1 dimensionally or
• 55:46
  one track mind when it comes to certain things.
• 55:48
  And you know, all trees, you know, they're, you know, we, we
• 55:53
  can't live without them. But like you were saying that
• 55:56
  even after they're even, they're even after their body is no
• 56:01
  longer above ground, when they've fallen down or they've
• 56:04
  been blown down in the storm, they still have a have a place,
• 56:09
  you know, in nature's ecosystem, the decay, the rot, everything
• 56:15
  right, feeds the earth. And they're reintroduced back
• 56:18
  into that ecosystem in the, in the mushrooms that that are, you
• 56:22
  know, growing on that that carcass are feeding everything.
• 56:27
  So if it's even in their death, you know their their gift
• 56:32
  continues to give. Absolutely.
• 56:35
  I mean, it's, it's the symbolism of the burial mound.
• 56:37
  It's, it's the same idea that even after the body is gone, the
• 56:42
  spirit remains. And it's a bit of my personal
• 56:46
  UPG as well. But you know, all trees have
• 56:49
  spirit. And it is said in the stories of
• 56:52
  the creation of humans that we were once trees before we were
• 56:55
  given the, the breath of life and the ecstasy of divine
• 57:00
  connection and the sort of comely hue and movingness of our
• 57:03
  bodies. But that bit of our soul that is
• 57:06
  the tree is still in there. You know that that bit of
• 57:10
  wildness and when everything else, you know, the divine
• 57:14
  ligature expires with our last breath and everything floats
• 57:18
  where it will. I think that tree soul stays
• 57:20
  behind and it's always going to haunt that bit of soil that our
• 57:23
  body lies in. When people find glimmers of
• 57:26
  spirits of place, or they go beneath a tree and they feel a
• 57:29
  specific connection, I think there's echoes of people that
• 57:33
  stay behind. I mean, I feel like that's if
• 57:41
  you, if you really get into the the study of the conceptual
• 57:47
  worldviews of death in the afterlife among the Norse and
• 57:49
  Germanic peoples, I think that there's probably more than just
• 57:53
  your own UPG in there. I think that I think it well,
• 57:55
  that's well, that's. Fair.
• 57:57
  You know I meant. I meant, I meant specifically
• 57:59
  the tree sole bit. But yes, yeah, the the idea
• 58:03
  that, you know, people remain behind in the place they were
• 58:06
  buried and that the gifts continue even after the death of
• 58:10
  a person. That's yeah, that's that's very
• 58:11
  well attested. Yeah, Yeah, I have a, we have a
• 58:17
  Maple tree. It's interesting that you talk
• 58:18
  about. I don't remember, we may have
• 58:20
  even talked about this the last time on the last podcast, but I
• 58:22
  know I've talked about it to several people.
• 58:25
  So if this is a repeat, you'll have to forgive me, but we have
• 58:30
  a Maple tree that grows in, in our yard and it's been here, you
• 58:35
  know, I don't know exactly how long, but you know, the, the,
• 58:40
  the trailer is, is from the 90s. You know, I moved here in 2015.
• 58:46
  The tree's been here before that.
• 58:50
  So anyway, because of how trees go obviously, and you have
• 58:54
  houses and structures, I mean, part of that part of that
• 58:58
  relationship that that I think we we have to, to kind of talk
• 59:03
  about is when those native species, those trees that have
• 59:08
  been here, you know, when we share space with them in our
• 59:10
  homes, how their growth can can sometimes present a, a danger or
• 59:17
  a hazard. You know, branches can grow over
• 59:20
  to over roofs and things can crash and fall down and do
• 59:23
  damage. So you have to maintain them.
• 59:27
  You have to kind of keep things a bit contained.
• 59:31
  And so anyway, we in in that effort, right, to keep the tree
• 59:35
  from completely encroaching our roof, we had to cut some
• 59:40
  branches off of it and some limbs.
• 59:41
  And out of those branches is I have a staff that's actually, I
• 59:50
  think you can kind of see it. It's, it's this white staff next
• 59:53
  to this big one, this big knot of thing with the ram head, that
• 59:56
  white staff that's going up there.
• 59:58
  That's a Maple branch that I, that I turned into a kind of a
• 1:00:01
  ceremonial staff that I've worked with before.
• 1:00:04
  And my runes, my rune set that I personally use is, are, are
• 1:00:09
  from, from that same Maple tree. And I always acknowledge that
• 1:00:17
  that tree in our yard as as a guardian, you know that that
• 1:00:22
  guardian spirit and seeing it. Seeing its existence, growing
• 1:00:29
  with it over the last decade, you know, and that's again,
• 1:00:32
  that, that being conscious and being aware this tree's not
• 1:00:38
  this, this tree hasn't always been this large and it's hasn't
• 1:00:42
  been, you know, in 10 years time, that tree has grown, it's
• 1:00:46
  grown up, it's grown out, it's grown down.
• 1:00:48
  And so have I, you know, So if we, you know, and growing side
• 1:00:51
  by side with that spirit and, and sharing in that space and,
• 1:00:55
  and realizing, wow, you know, this is a, this is a, this is a
• 1:00:59
  shared space. This is a literal shared space,
• 1:01:02
  shared relationship. It's not like walking out kind
• 1:01:05
  of like with Arden, you know, spending time with those, with
• 1:01:10
  those spirits and, and talking with them and, and acknowledging
• 1:01:13
  them and make, you know, cultivating and nurturing a
• 1:01:19
  relationship with them, you know.
• 1:01:23
  Thank you for their life. And I know a person who I've
• 1:01:29
  talked to nothing on the podcast or anything with a local lady in
• 1:01:32
  the community. She's very big into land
• 1:01:37
  connecting this, you know, and and she'll, she'll say
• 1:01:42
  sometimes, you know, it's been a long time since I've sung to the
• 1:01:45
  land. And I thought, wow, man, like
• 1:01:48
  what a, what a, what a gift, you know, to, because if you think
• 1:01:52
  about it, you know, it's all, all vibration.
• 1:01:56
  You know, we talk like grounding and, and, and getting those
• 1:01:59
  magnetic currents, that vibration that the earth, you
• 1:02:02
  maybe can't like put your hand down and feel it literally
• 1:02:04
  vibrating. But they are vibrations.
• 1:02:05
  They have frequencies and what is sound, you know, what is the,
• 1:02:10
  the, the, the vocal cords and the, the, the, the power of
• 1:02:12
  speech and song, you know, and how that kind of encounter that
• 1:02:19
  kind of behavior towards plants. They respond in, in, in, in ways
• 1:02:27
  when, when we talk to them, when we speak to them, when we sing
• 1:02:30
  to them. Even, you know, I know you've
• 1:02:31
  probably seen studies being done with plants, you know, when
• 1:02:35
  they're listening to like classical music or, you know,
• 1:02:39
  things versus like death metal or whatever.
• 1:02:41
  Like the plants respond differently to to like happier
• 1:02:45
  sounding music versus like depressing sounding music.
• 1:02:48
  Like they they grow better or not in in some of those cases, I
• 1:02:51
  think. I think I've seen stuff like
• 1:02:53
  that before maybe? Yeah.
• 1:02:54
  No, that's that's real. And it also goes beyond that
• 1:02:57
  that like specific low vibrations like below the human
• 1:03:02
  voice, but like those caused by the pounding of footsteps or by
• 1:03:06
  the beating of large drums in about the four Hertz range
• 1:03:11
  stimulates the growth of mycelium.
• 1:03:15
  So it is not just that plants themselves respond to our
• 1:03:19
  voices, but when we gather together in community and we
• 1:03:23
  hold ritual with bare feet pounding on the earth and drum
• 1:03:27
  beats under in toning chance, the earth responds and
• 1:03:31
  everything. You know, that mycelial glue
• 1:03:34
  that holds these communities together is strengthened by the
• 1:03:38
  intentional human act of stitching community together.
• 1:03:42
  It's a beautiful sort of synchronism there.
• 1:03:45
  Yeah, yeah, it stimulates that, that that connection.
• 1:03:50
  It's like, yeah, it's like knocking on the door and saying,
• 1:03:54
  hey, can we in you want to come out, you know, play with us, you
• 1:04:00
  know, kind of thing. Like it's an invitation.
• 1:04:02
  I think it's, it is, it's a, it's a conscious way of, of
• 1:04:05
  speaking and communicating. It's that's, that's their
• 1:04:07
  communicate. That's how we communicate.
• 1:04:10
  Yeah, absolutely. I have a Maple tree in my yard
• 1:04:12
  as well. And that's, that's, I have two
• 1:04:14
  of them, but I, I have one that I really specifically do my
• 1:04:17
  offerings under and it's, it's grown up with ink cap mushrooms
• 1:04:22
  come up from the roots and it's got ground Violet flowers that
• 1:04:26
  are all around it. And it's, it's really amazing.
• 1:04:29
  You know, 'cause I, I also, you know, not just when I go out in
• 1:04:32
  the morning, I'll, I'll obviously, you know, check on
• 1:04:34
  the garden is a big part of it. But whenever I leave offerings
• 1:04:37
  on my altar and I almost always do liquid offerings, I'll do
• 1:04:40
  food when we have proper rituals and have people over to the
• 1:04:43
  house. But if it's, you know, just
• 1:04:45
  daily devotion stuff, I almost always do liquid, either beer or
• 1:04:49
  coffee or tea or, you know, whatever I'm having at the time.
• 1:04:52
  And I'll have that on my altar until the candle goes out.
• 1:04:54
  And then I always take it out and pour it on the roots of that
• 1:04:57
  tree. And I've, I've seen that tree
• 1:04:59
  and in every temperature and every season.
• 1:05:03
  And you really do get a sense of their individuality.
• 1:05:06
  I do get the feeling that it knows me, you know, every time
• 1:05:09
  that I go out and speak to it or spend time sitting under it and
• 1:05:13
  listening to the wind play through its branches or, you
• 1:05:16
  know, play a little bit of drum underneath it, send out some
• 1:05:19
  incense. When you when you form that
• 1:05:21
  connection, it when you make space for it, you know they are
• 1:05:25
  they are very quick to sort of pour themselves back in.
• 1:05:29
  Yeah, have you? Have you ever like, if you have
• 1:05:35
  guests over that aren't maybe new to the area, you know, they
• 1:05:38
  they've like they're heathen or, you know, obviously you wouldn't
• 1:05:41
  do this like with a complete stranger like, oh, come out
• 1:05:43
  here, let me introduce you to my my Maple tree.
• 1:05:45
  But have you ever done anything like that?
• 1:05:47
  I do that with most people actually.
• 1:05:51
  But no, yeah, I, I legitimately have, yeah.
• 1:05:53
  Like, and and they've been very struck by it as well.
• 1:05:57
  I, one of one of my, my tribe sisters who is our, who is our
• 1:06:00
  spoken. She's our Cirrus and the first
• 1:06:03
  time she came over to my house and we went in the backyard, we,
• 1:06:07
  we were doing old Norse lessons and a little bit of wood
• 1:06:09
  carving, you know, classic heathen social activities.
• 1:06:13
  And we went out and threw down blankets in the backyard and we
• 1:06:15
  were just under the trees and she's like, wow, like this, this
• 1:06:18
  tree is just amazing. You know, the, it's got these
• 1:06:21
  awesome old, old, old branches. It's it's probably 200 if I had
• 1:06:26
  to. And clearly when it was very
• 1:06:29
  young, it lost a big limb off the front of it.
• 1:06:32
  And there's just this sort of circular area about this big is
• 1:06:35
  the scar of the branch that came off it.
• 1:06:37
  And the entire thing is coated over with shelf fungus, right?
• 1:06:41
  Turkey tails that all flare out from it.
• 1:06:44
  And it's this cascading series of these mushrooms that are
• 1:06:48
  feasting on the flesh of it and pushing up through the roots.
• 1:06:50
  And it's surrounded by wildflowers.
• 1:06:52
  There's a lilac Bush that grows right next to it.
• 1:06:55
  So there's this intoxicating scent in the air and springtime
• 1:06:58
  right about now. And it's like you can really
• 1:07:01
  feel the spirit of those plants when you go out and spend time
• 1:07:04
  with them. So yeah, I've introduced people
• 1:07:07
  to my trees when they come over and and I'm more than one person
• 1:07:12
  has said that they feel the connection there.
• 1:07:13
  Yeah, I like doing that too, because again, in my, in my
• 1:07:18
  worldview, I, I regard, I regard them again as as a guardian, you
• 1:07:25
  know. And so it's it's almost OK now
• 1:07:27
  that you're here. And I may not do it to like
• 1:07:30
  every random person, obviously, but if I have, you know, people
• 1:07:35
  over that are for a meal, you know, or for any sort of social
• 1:07:40
  type thing, you know, in the right, in the right sort of way.
• 1:07:44
  I will introduce them to the veytir of our space because we
• 1:07:50
  do have them that I believe have been very involved with the
• 1:08:00
  safeguarding of this space. You know, we have a relationship
• 1:08:03
  with them and through that relationship, we have formed a
• 1:08:06
  sort of bond or connection and we, they, they protect the
• 1:08:11
  space, you know, and, and we gift and return to them to, to,
• 1:08:14
  to keep that relationship going. So introducing newcomers to the
• 1:08:19
  land, being like, OK, you know, you're here because they say you
• 1:08:22
  can be here. This isn't, you know, I'm the,
• 1:08:24
  I'm the caretaker of this place, but this is really their place.
• 1:08:29
  This is their space. And we're just here kind of
• 1:08:31
  sharing it with them. And it's thanks to them and
• 1:08:33
  their gifts that we are here and have a peaceful life.
• 1:08:36
  So you know you are going to be introduced to them and that way
• 1:08:43
  they know that you are you come in peace.
• 1:08:47
  You know you're here not to to harm or do anything of ill.
• 1:08:52
  It's that way they know that that you you are under their
• 1:08:54
  protection now as well, and you give to them and you get into
• 1:08:58
  that same sort of exchange with them.
• 1:09:01
  That's what one of the things that I've come to do here in our
• 1:09:05
  little our little plot, you know, nothing big.
• 1:09:08
  Yeah, and, and well, and I, I think it's a good headspace to
• 1:09:12
  be in the idea that you are a caretaker and you're a steward.
• 1:09:15
  You're not, you know, some feudal Lord or some owner, you
• 1:09:19
  know, you know, stare out the door and say, yes, all that mine
• 1:09:22
  eyes behold belongs to me. And look at all of the fine
• 1:09:25
  timber in my woods and look at the fine game that run across.
• 1:09:29
  It's like, no, you are a resident.
• 1:09:32
  You are someone who is in this web of relation and yeah, the
• 1:09:36
  the idea that you're extending invitations on behalf of your
• 1:09:39
  guests, you know, sort of as the person who has the standing
• 1:09:43
  relation with the other land spirits.
• 1:09:45
  So, yeah, you know, I vouched for this person.
• 1:09:47
  They're with me. So you don't need to, you know,
• 1:09:50
  get the teeth and claws out, raise the hackles.
• 1:09:52
  You know, this, this person is safe.
• 1:09:54
  And because you've cultivated that, you know back and forth
• 1:09:58
  with the spirits of the habit, your landscape, things go
• 1:10:00
  smoothly. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:10:03
  And it's also interesting how I don't know if you've ever
• 1:10:06
  experienced something quite like this where even when you like,
• 1:10:11
  I've had it happen to where I had somebody here who, you know,
• 1:10:20
  was a brother to me. You know, they, they were like
• 1:10:22
  kin to me, but they had come at a time and under a certain
• 1:10:30
  circumstance where it wasn't good, you know, and I, in my
• 1:10:37
  effort of, you know, hospitality and, and and love and whatnot,
• 1:10:40
  extended an invitation. Hey, come in, you know, take
• 1:10:43
  refuge. And they couldn't, they
• 1:10:46
  couldn't, they couldn't walk through the, the threshold of,
• 1:10:49
  of our door. And I I thought that that was
• 1:10:52
  interesting because it's almost like the guardians, the of the
• 1:10:58
  space were like, we're not going to let this happen.
• 1:11:00
  We're not going to, we're not going to put you in harm's way.
• 1:11:03
  And so you can say all you want to invite them in, but we're
• 1:11:08
  preventing that from happening. Wow.
• 1:11:12
  That's happened before. I don't know if you've ever had
• 1:11:15
  anything quite like that happen, but I've I've seen, I've seen
• 1:11:17
  the the work, I've seen the spirits at work in in, in lots
• 1:11:22
  of different ways. You know that sort of again, you
• 1:11:25
  know that that cooperative relationship between them.
• 1:11:30
  And then I've also seen them act definitely of their own agency
• 1:11:35
  in in a way to safeguard the space, even if I, you know,
• 1:11:41
  thought otherwise. Yeah.
• 1:11:43
  I mean, I haven't had that happen to me, but I can't say
• 1:11:46
  that I'm surprised by that. You know, they have a, they have
• 1:11:50
  a perception that is fundamentally different than
• 1:11:52
  ours. And, you know, maybe they picked
• 1:11:54
  up something that, you know, your eyes and your heart missed
• 1:11:59
  because, you know, you had a relationship with that person
• 1:12:01
  that was in one context and they were looking at it with fresh
• 1:12:04
  eyes and said, actually. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:07
  And that's, you know, that's another like thing, a moment
• 1:12:10
  that for, for me and my own cultic practices, really kind of
• 1:12:17
  like drove the nail in and, and sealed it for me in terms of how
• 1:12:21
  important it is to have these relationships and communicate
• 1:12:28
  with them and, and be present with them.
• 1:12:30
  You know, it's, it's one thing to go out into the wild, you
• 1:12:34
  know, or in the river and, and, you know, be in their space and
• 1:12:37
  you're sort of you again, you are 100% part of, of their
• 1:12:43
  space, But as a, as a, as a guest, you know, a temporary
• 1:12:45
  guest. And it's another thing to have
• 1:12:49
  those spirits of the land kind of look out for you in your
• 1:12:55
  local little spot, you know what I mean?
• 1:12:57
  At least that's how it's felt. There's, there's a different
• 1:13:00
  sort of, there's a different sort of energy locally here in
• 1:13:07
  this place than it would be outside.
• 1:13:09
  And like, you know, a trail in the woods or in the river or
• 1:13:12
  somewhere out, you know, like they're not, we're not as
• 1:13:15
  familiar and we haven't established a relationship.
• 1:13:18
  I'm just, hey, I'm passing through, you know, thanks for
• 1:13:21
  letting me hear that sort of thing.
• 1:13:23
  But it's, it's, it's different when when you're having those
• 1:13:28
  relationships, having those interactions day in and day out
• 1:13:30
  and those types of experiences that I just described where they
• 1:13:35
  kind of put their proverbial foot down and said no when I was
• 1:13:39
  trying to say yes, you know, they saw things that I didn't
• 1:13:40
  see it, it did put things in perspective for me like, huh, we
• 1:13:45
  thank you for that, you know, and let's, let's keep that
• 1:13:48
  relationship going. Yeah, I mean, what is it the,
• 1:13:52
  the Hovomo quote that, you know, a false friend will just sort of
• 1:13:55
  go along with whatever you say, but a real friend will, you
• 1:13:58
  know, tell you you're being a dumb ass.
• 1:14:01
  That's a paraphrase. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:14:03
  I think that's the, I think that's the Hollander
• 1:14:04
  translation. But yeah, I mean, it's a it's,
• 1:14:09
  it's and you know, good on you for hearing that lesson and not
• 1:14:14
  doing the individualist thing in where you you dig your heels and
• 1:14:18
  you say, well, no, you know, I have this idea of the way that
• 1:14:21
  things are going to go and I'm going to force you to to do
• 1:14:23
  things this way or the other. You know, good on you for having
• 1:14:26
  that humility to learn the lesson and actually internalize
• 1:14:31
  it. Yeah, it's it's definitely
• 1:14:35
  helped with and thank you for saying so.
• 1:14:38
  But it's definitely helped with those other types of
• 1:14:42
  relationships too, right when I am on the river or out doing
• 1:14:46
  something in nature. It's, I rode a so every year I,
• 1:14:52
  I do this Riverwalk because in April on the 16th is, is when
• 1:14:58
  my, my father passed away two years ago.
• 1:15:00
  So, you know, last year, I, I, I went on this, this walk and it,
• 1:15:06
  and it became, it has, because it, it is, it's, I did it again
• 1:15:09
  this year, same day on the, on the anniversary of his, of his
• 1:15:13
  passing, as a commemorations of his, of his life and of his
• 1:15:17
  memory. You know, and it's, and it's
• 1:15:19
  like a two and a half mile or so walk downstream.
• 1:15:24
  And again, the, the river water depths vary from, you know,
• 1:15:27
  ankle deep up to over my head where I have to swim and the
• 1:15:32
  currents, you know, and when you, when you get to some of
• 1:15:34
  those like waterfall spots and, and the spirit of the river is
• 1:15:40
  unforgiving. It, it doesn't care that you're
• 1:15:43
  walking through on a mission for your dad or whatever.
• 1:15:46
  It's I'm going to trip you up. I'm going to try to take you
• 1:15:49
  down because you're in my house now.
• 1:15:51
  And, and those relationships with that type of spirit, you
• 1:15:54
  know, that is, there's no, it's not really, I would say
• 1:15:58
  malevolent. It's just indifferent.
• 1:16:00
  It is what it is. It's this, it's that the law of
• 1:16:03
  the jungle, you know, the the law of nature, that tundra law,
• 1:16:05
  that whatever you want to call it, it's you, you have to
• 1:16:09
  respect it and different, different things too from from
• 1:16:14
  those experiences, you know, getting getting taught those
• 1:16:18
  lessons when you're in that space, you know, like it's just,
• 1:16:24
  it's going to be what it's going to be and you know.
• 1:16:28
  If you're not careful, the nature of the wind spirit is to
• 1:16:32
  peel you off the Rockwall. And it's not because it's mad at
• 1:16:35
  you. That's just what its nature is.
• 1:16:38
  You know, everything has its place in its role.
• 1:16:41
  And you know, sometimes the role of water is to take you under.
• 1:16:45
  And why do you think there are so many stories about Nekken and
• 1:16:49
  kelpies, right? All of these spirits of drowning
• 1:16:53
  places? Because it it happens, you know
• 1:16:56
  it's. Well, heck, you Ron has the has
• 1:17:01
  that place in the Norse lore, you know, like the, the she has
• 1:17:04
  that governance of taking sailors or taking the, you know,
• 1:17:10
  the, the seafarers, you know, And so when you died at sea, you
• 1:17:12
  went to to Ron's Hall, you know. Yeah, definitely part of it.
• 1:17:19
  Well, that's a beautiful tradition that you've that
• 1:17:21
  you've created out of a out of a bittersweet thing.
• 1:17:24
  So I remember you posting about that on Facebook.
• 1:17:27
  So that's a really amazing commemoration.
• 1:17:30
  It helped me. It's, it's, it's the inspiration
• 1:17:32
  to a saga that I wrote called The Heron that Flies to Hell.
• 1:17:36
  And now and then this year when I did it again, it, it, it was
• 1:17:41
  like Part 2, you know, the Heron who returned to hell, you know,
• 1:17:45
  and then the different lessons and the different things that I
• 1:17:48
  learned on that journey because it was a who said it.
• 1:17:51
  And you know, the a man never steps in the same river twice
• 1:17:54
  because it's not the same river and he's not the same man who
• 1:17:58
  said that Heraclades or something like that.
• 1:18:01
  But anyway, I couldn't tell you, but it's good quote.
• 1:18:03
  Yeah, it's but same thing. So I knew that I was going to
• 1:18:09
  again, follow the same route to to to where I was going, but it
• 1:18:14
  was not the same river and I was not the same person.
• 1:18:19
  No matter how many times I go in that space, it's never the same
• 1:18:24
  experience twice because it's not the same river.
• 1:18:28
  Even if you know, because the water's always moving and
• 1:18:31
  there's always something changing about it.
• 1:18:33
  It's it's never. Yes, it has the same name, the
• 1:18:37
  Stones River, but it's it's not the same river twice.
• 1:18:41
  So and it's and it's not the same shape as it was, you know,
• 1:18:44
  the last time the the nature of the of the river is to meander
• 1:18:48
  and to flow where it will. Yeah, it's a it's a very
• 1:18:51
  important less. The spirit of that place might
• 1:18:53
  be the same, but the physical very different.
• 1:18:58
  Right, yeah. And that's kind of like the neat
• 1:19:00
  thing about going on these types of you know, I'm not, I'm not
• 1:19:04
  saying that people should force something like this, but I, I
• 1:19:07
  would encourage people to find a way in to, to connect to nature
• 1:19:11
  in in a way that becomes a bit of a story for you to tell.
• 1:19:16
  You know, write your write a saga about your adventure, you
• 1:19:20
  know, and then because storytelling is such an
• 1:19:22
  important part of many cultures, and you know, the Norse or
• 1:19:25
  Germanic people that that was a that was a central part of their
• 1:19:28
  society is just to tell stories. That's how everything was passed
• 1:19:31
  down was through oration you know of.
• 1:19:33
  Course. So these stories that we're told
• 1:19:37
  that we have written copies of thanks to scholars and, and
• 1:19:42
  people like the Snorri Sturlusons and whoever who, who
• 1:19:45
  wrote these things down, they told the story for they, that
• 1:19:49
  they, they, they were told the story for a reason.
• 1:19:52
  You know, there was something to be learned from the myths and
• 1:19:56
  something to be learned from the sagas.
• 1:19:57
  You know, lessons about whatever, whether it was courage
• 1:20:02
  or betrayal or greed or all these various things, you know.
• 1:20:09
  We are in saga times and we have, you know, we, we can, we
• 1:20:12
  can write our own sagas and we can tell these stories around
• 1:20:15
  our campfires and around our hearts to these, you know, to,
• 1:20:19
  to our friends and to our family.
• 1:20:20
  And then they have a story that they can share with others too.
• 1:20:24
  I think it's a beautiful tradition that needs to be
• 1:20:29
  retained and, and kept and, and nurtured and, and the stories
• 1:20:34
  that you can tell from having been in the, the company of the
• 1:20:39
  spirits, like we're talking about, you know, the plant
• 1:20:41
  spirits and the, the various entities or, or bodies that that
• 1:20:48
  exist. They, they, they have a lot to
• 1:20:51
  teach us. They've been here for a long
• 1:20:53
  time. I couldn't agree more.
• 1:20:57
  And how many of the great, you know, fairy tales and stories
• 1:21:00
  even even after the conversion to Christianity?
• 1:21:02
  How many of the old stories start when, you know, the Yuga's
• 1:21:06
  daughter steps out of the village and into the woods,
• 1:21:10
  right? You know, Little Red Riding
• 1:21:11
  Hood, Sleeping Beauty, the Green Knight there, There's so many,
• 1:21:15
  you know, Fossilisa, the Beautiful, the stories about
• 1:21:18
  Baba Yaga, right? There are so many of these
• 1:21:21
  foundational narratives that people have told each other
• 1:21:24
  century upon century. And it all comes back to
• 1:21:27
  breaking out of that iron ring of the familiar is how Jared R
• 1:21:32
  Tolkien describes it, right? That little boundary of safety
• 1:21:35
  and security and convenience that we put around our lives.
• 1:21:39
  You go out of the woods after your phone dies and you don't
• 1:21:42
  have a tent with you. You're going to get into some
• 1:21:44
  animism real quick because you're going to start here in
• 1:21:47
  branches snapping. You're going to start seeing
• 1:21:50
  eyes where you might not have seen them before.
• 1:21:53
  That's, you know, I mean that's that is living in its most
• 1:21:57
  authentic form. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:22:01
  I, you know, if you want to really test the, I'll say test
• 1:22:10
  the, the cut of your jib or your grit or whatever it is, is, you
• 1:22:13
  know, spend the night in the woods, deep in the woods.
• 1:22:18
  Like not just, you know, backyard where you can hear like
• 1:22:20
  the traffic, but like get out into somewhere where it's far
• 1:22:23
  away, where all you can hear is just the wind and the trees and
• 1:22:26
  the sounds of nature around it. And again, like when the, when
• 1:22:28
  the lights go out and the sun goes down and it's just you in
• 1:22:31
  the dark out there, you, it puts things into perspective.
• 1:22:37
  I remember one time I was out. It was, it was in this was a, a
• 1:22:41
  journey in more ways than one, if you catch my drift into, into
• 1:22:44
  nature and, and into an introspection, you know, really
• 1:22:49
  searching myself and, and stuff. And it was about 5, a little
• 1:22:53
  over 5 miles into the woods that I went to camp for the night.
• 1:22:58
  Right. And yeah, like I say, you know,
• 1:23:02
  I had, and it was February, so I think it got down like 28° at
• 1:23:06
  night, you know, And so once the fire went out, you know, and
• 1:23:10
  I'm, and I'm bundled up there under some animal furs and, and,
• 1:23:14
  and stuff to, to, to just keep warm.
• 1:23:16
  It's, you know, everything, all of the, the, the, the spirits
• 1:23:20
  that came alive, you know, in that, in that darkness and you
• 1:23:24
  know, it does it, it really tests your, your wit, your,
• 1:23:30
  your, your sanity, your, your, your, your courage.
• 1:23:34
  It just, if it pushes you to, to a limit, it's a it's a valuable
• 1:23:37
  thing to, to experience. You know, I'm not advocating for
• 1:23:41
  anybody to just get up one day and and go spend the night or
• 1:23:44
  two in sub freezing temperatures.
• 1:23:47
  Yes, do it smartly. You know, do it.
• 1:23:49
  Do it. The Scout must be prepared.
• 1:23:51
  Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:23:52
  I mean, but I mean, honestly that that was one of the one of
• 1:23:55
  the, I think probably for me, like the most foundational part
• 1:23:58
  of being in Scouts as a kid and then like going back and helping
• 1:24:01
  out as an adult is just the ability to do that, you know,
• 1:24:05
  like it was structured. We had adults, we had first aid
• 1:24:09
  kits, you know, we had modern camping equipment, you know,
• 1:24:12
  nice collapsible tents and waterproof jackets and
• 1:24:15
  everything. But, you know, just the ability
• 1:24:18
  to get out away from everything and walk through a field of
• 1:24:24
  broomweed and juniper, just sit under an oak tree for 10
• 1:24:28
  minutes. That's all it takes.
• 1:24:31
  But yeah, just the, the, the ability to get out and immerse
• 1:24:35
  yourself in that ecology, not just of the physical
• 1:24:39
  representations, but the spiritual side that underlies
• 1:24:43
  this world. You know, it's I it's
• 1:24:45
  foundational. And I, you know, I think it is
• 1:24:49
  very easy to not do it. Our society is set up in such a
• 1:24:54
  way that you know all the all the shiny things that pull our
• 1:24:57
  attention, all the convenience you can get on your phone, you
• 1:25:01
  can order, you know, whatever food you want, it'll be at your
• 1:25:04
  house in an hour, right? You can turn on the TV.
• 1:25:08
  There's more content on there than you have minutes left in
• 1:25:10
  your life. You'll never get through all of
• 1:25:12
  it. So it is easy to distract
• 1:25:14
  yourself and easy to not nurture that connection to breathe fire
• 1:25:20
  onto those embers. Tyson Yunka Porta is in
• 1:25:25
  Aboriginal Australian philosopher, educator.
• 1:25:28
  He's done a couple of crossover events with Ruin.
• 1:25:31
  Rasmussen from Nordic Animism has a book called Sand Talk,
• 1:25:35
  which I really like. He talks about the, you know,
• 1:25:38
  the five components of the mind and one of them is the ancestor
• 1:25:42
  mind. It's that layer of your mind
• 1:25:45
  that when you turn off the internal monologue, you get out
• 1:25:49
  into nature. You find yourself doing some
• 1:25:52
  repetitive tasks like carving something or sewing something or
• 1:25:57
  starting a fire with a bow. You know, it allows you to quiet
• 1:26:01
  down and knock off all the sort of postmodern crust and just
• 1:26:04
  feel the moisture of the air on your skin, feel the sunlight,
• 1:26:08
  breathe the clean air. And it's amazing what things
• 1:26:12
  manifest from your own roots, right from your subconscious,
• 1:26:16
  the that sort of mulch heap that all of our minds are growing on.
• 1:26:21
  It's a it's really healing. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 1:26:26
  You know, and I, you know, we, we, we talk about this, you
• 1:26:30
  know, plant animism and, and the spirit of the plant and, and and
• 1:26:34
  so forth. You, you really, even, even if
• 1:26:37
  you don't participate or, or get involved, you can't not have a
• 1:26:42
  conversation like this. And, and, and forget to include
• 1:26:45
  medicine, plant medicine, things that have become so regulated by
• 1:26:51
  the government that they've been deemed, as, you know, scheduled
• 1:26:55
  whatever narcotics or illegal substances and things that have
• 1:26:58
  been for thousands upon thousands of years used for
• 1:27:04
  healing. The things that you just talked
• 1:27:07
  about, you know, peeling back these layers and, and, and
• 1:27:09
  letting that, that all that stuff fade away and, and be and
• 1:27:14
  be kind of scraped away. You know, these are some of the
• 1:27:18
  things that that plant medicine can help with getting back to
• 1:27:22
  and realizing it is part of how they communicate to us.
• 1:27:26
  It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's holitic, it heals our body,
• 1:27:31
  our and our spirit and it's who and what we are.
• 1:27:34
  It's, it's what we've been as, as a species for a very, very,
• 1:27:39
  very long time. So to, to not include these
• 1:27:42
  things and to, and to have them become such a, a stigma, you
• 1:27:46
  know, it's like, damn, you know, like it's, it's, it's one of the
• 1:27:51
  reasons why I think I am the way I am now.
• 1:27:53
  Well, it's not, I think I know it's the reasons why I am the
• 1:27:56
  way I am now is because I've, I've, I've went into those
• 1:28:00
  spaces with that in mind to be healed, to, to, to see what the
• 1:28:05
  mushroom can teach me, to see what this can teach me, what
• 1:28:08
  that can teach me, right? These, these naturally occurring
• 1:28:10
  things that are, you know, we produce it, you know, we produce
• 1:28:14
  the, the, the, the, the, the DMT chemical in our brains.
• 1:28:17
  And so the, the, the things that exist in the, in the psilocybin,
• 1:28:21
  you know, all these things that activate that part of our, of
• 1:28:24
  our consciousness. You know, like I said, it's,
• 1:28:30
  it's, it's healing and, and to see it becomes such a, a
• 1:28:35
  stigmatized thing or, or even criminalized is is kind of
• 1:28:39
  sucky, but. Quite right.
• 1:28:42
  Well, I think it's also, you know, you, you bring up, it's
• 1:28:45
  like it's approaching it with a protocol of respect, right.
• 1:28:48
  It's not like, oh, this, this makes me feel kind of funny.
• 1:28:51
  So let me see what happens this time.
• 1:28:53
  No, like this is, this is a sacred thing.
• 1:28:57
  This is a sovereign being that you are harvesting a part of and
• 1:29:01
  ingesting. And, you know, it would have
• 1:29:03
  been mediated or potentially like a like a solo journey of
• 1:29:08
  discovery, but that you're approaching it with an intention
• 1:29:11
  of, I'm going to use this to shine a light on something that,
• 1:29:16
  you know, whatever is going on with the discursive mind, the
• 1:29:20
  conscious mind is not able to work through this.
• 1:29:22
  So let's Plumb the depths, right?
• 1:29:25
  Let's take the journey to the underworld.
• 1:29:27
  Let's hang on the tree. And only by gazing into the mud
• 1:29:33
  and the clay at the root of us can we pull up that wisdom.
• 1:29:39
  I, I think it's, it's, it's an important thing that people have
• 1:29:42
  done for a long time. And some that can be very, very
• 1:29:48
  beneficial for a person or very harmful if they are not
• 1:29:52
  approaching it with respect or if they're not ready to, you
• 1:29:56
  know, learn the lesson that's trying to be taught.
• 1:29:59
  Yeah, yeah. And that's the, that's, that's,
• 1:30:01
  that's a very key part because when you get into that type of,
• 1:30:04
  of, of things that the, the plant Kingdom can, can help
• 1:30:08
  with, it is it's, it's sacred. It's, it's, you know, it's you,
• 1:30:15
  you, you really get to realize the, the divine aspect of of us
• 1:30:20
  as a, as a, as a, as creatures, as, as beings, You know, the God
• 1:30:25
  within that sort of thing, which doesn't necessarily, you know,
• 1:30:30
  it's not a Germanic per SE thing, but it is a universal
• 1:30:33
  belief. I think, you know, you get back
• 1:30:35
  to to older things, you know, Indo European and beyond
• 1:30:39
  mentalities. It's this is this was something
• 1:30:41
  that was realized across many cultures that that there is
• 1:30:45
  divinity within us and and these were things that, you know,
• 1:30:49
  unlocked that or or or revealed it.
• 1:30:52
  So to to again, I don't, this isn't this isn't me trying to be
• 1:30:56
  like everybody, you know, go do some mushrooms and come out on
• 1:30:59
  the other side of better person. Like.
• 1:31:02
  Do it the right way if that's what you're going to do.
• 1:31:04
  But it's, you know, I don't, don't just go about it all Willy
• 1:31:07
  nilly because it's, it is, it's, it's I, I call it medicine or
• 1:31:10
  it's called medicine. And I and I adopt that thought
• 1:31:13
  about it and belief into it for a reason.
• 1:31:16
  This isn't, it's I don't, this isn't a party, you know, and
• 1:31:20
  it's not for all the time, you know, when the only thing about
• 1:31:23
  medicine to me is, you know, the medicine is for the sick.
• 1:31:26
  Medicine is for healing. And it helps with what we should
• 1:31:31
  be doing anyway, you know, So, OK, maybe the medicine helps
• 1:31:36
  reveal some things or open up some things that had been locked
• 1:31:39
  away before. It doesn't replace the work that
• 1:31:43
  you need to do the rest of the time.
• 1:31:46
  It's it's not a, it's not replacing that.
• 1:31:49
  It's just helping you kind of get to the point of being able
• 1:31:51
  to administer the work and then go to work.
• 1:31:54
  You know, it's an ally. You still got to do it.
• 1:31:57
  You still got to do those things.
• 1:32:00
  Yeah, for sure, I agree. Yeah.
• 1:32:04
  And I mean, yeah, and not in specifically in the context of
• 1:32:07
  entheogen use, but you know, plant medicine more broadly.
• 1:32:11
  I mean it it goes back to the idea that, you know, plants are
• 1:32:16
  they they care for us not just as food, but they are, you know
• 1:32:21
  the the word for in Greek pharmacon, which gives us
• 1:32:25
  pharmaceuticals. It referred to this blend of of
• 1:32:29
  psychoactive and medicinal plants that was the purview of
• 1:32:33
  Dionysus, this, you know, God of wild growth and not just like
• 1:32:39
  wine and poetry because, you know, that's kind of how he gets
• 1:32:42
  reduced, but the that deeper, Wilder aspects to him that, you
• 1:32:46
  know, you'll go on a journey and it might involve you getting
• 1:32:50
  ripped in parts by wild animals and, you know, the the throes of
• 1:32:55
  ecstatic frenzy or it'll teach you to write the most beautiful
• 1:33:00
  song that's ever been written. You know, these things can go a
• 1:33:03
  number of different ways because the medicines have their own
• 1:33:06
  agency and they all have their own their own personhood and
• 1:33:10
  their own character that can only be gleaned through
• 1:33:13
  relationship. When we were talking about this,
• 1:33:16
  we've talked a little bit about the nine herb charm, which is a
• 1:33:21
  beautiful piece of, you know, practical green sorcery from the
• 1:33:27
  Middle Ages. But you'll notice when you know
• 1:33:31
  the when they're going through the different herbs and you
• 1:33:34
  know, Odin is Woden, I guess because it's Anglo-Saxon, right?
• 1:33:38
  When he's listing all of them, he doesn't say this is mugwort.
• 1:33:44
  This is what mugwort does. This is how mugwort heals a
• 1:33:48
  person. It says, oh, you mugwort.
• 1:33:52
  It's addressing the spirit of that plant directly and hailing
• 1:33:56
  them as a person. And yes, it talks about some of
• 1:34:00
  the medicinal uses of that plant, right?
• 1:34:03
  You know it it banishes on Flyers and wicked spirits that
• 1:34:08
  ride over the land, right? It talks a little bit about the
• 1:34:10
  utility of bringing mugwort in as an ally.
• 1:34:14
  But what it doesn't say is, hey, you mugwort, get in this
• 1:34:17
  poultice and do this for me. It is acknowledging its
• 1:34:21
  sovereignty and acknowledging its gifts, not coercing it as a
• 1:34:25
  tool. Yeah, I think it's a you know,
• 1:34:28
  it's, it's, it's interesting to see the the, the mysticism at
• 1:34:34
  work there with, you know, these these are, these are static
• 1:34:37
  items. They are, they are living things
• 1:34:39
  and the static items, I mean like, you know, herbs in a bowl,
• 1:34:42
  you know what I'm saying? But they they are part of a
• 1:34:44
  living thing. But the you want to call it the
• 1:34:48
  magic at at play or at work is, is by speaking, you know, and,
• 1:34:54
  and invoking and awakening the spirit of that substance, you
• 1:35:00
  know what I mean, in such a way to, to bring it into that, you
• 1:35:05
  know, in, in into the spell work, you know, or into the,
• 1:35:09
  into the magic part of things. So, yeah, it's, it's not just,
• 1:35:13
  you know, so here's a bunch of herbs.
• 1:35:16
  Take it, call me in the morning. It's, it's singing the song
• 1:35:18
  about it or, or, or encanting these things.
• 1:35:21
  It's, it's all, it's all necessary.
• 1:35:22
  It's all part of the the formula that makes it work the way it
• 1:35:29
  does. Yeah.
• 1:35:30
  I mean, and protocol is foundational to animism and I
• 1:35:34
  think a lot of modern practitioners shy away from that
• 1:35:37
  because they are inherently, they're inherently wary of
• 1:35:41
  control structures. And you know, given the way that
• 1:35:45
  religion has manifested itself over the last couple thousand
• 1:35:49
  years in the history of Europe and its diasporic descendants, I
• 1:35:53
  understand when people are wary of, you know, I don't want this
• 1:35:57
  person telling me how to do things.
• 1:36:00
  I'm my own person. I should be able to do things
• 1:36:02
  the way I want. And I say, yes, that is true
• 1:36:04
  with an asterisk of when you are working with anything related to
• 1:36:10
  spirit, including something as simple as lighting a candle,
• 1:36:12
  right? There are protocols.
• 1:36:16
  There are precautions you should take.
• 1:36:18
  You should be aware that what you're doing is dipping a toe
• 1:36:22
  into the world that lies under our world and not everything
• 1:36:27
  there necessarily has your best interest at heart.
• 1:36:31
  And there are processes that you should undergo and you know,
• 1:36:35
  things that you should do and things that you shouldn't do.
• 1:36:37
  And that's not anybody trying to control you.
• 1:36:40
  That is basic. Setting up a vessel for your
• 1:36:43
  ritual, acknowledging those that are in the space with you,
• 1:36:47
  calling in those that you would like to be in the space with
• 1:36:50
  you, turning out the hammer of Thor to push away those who you
• 1:36:53
  don't want in with you. Like it's, it's pretty basic
• 1:36:55
  stuff. But yeah, I mean, spell work and
• 1:36:58
  sorcery and protocoling is is is very important part of this path
• 1:37:02
  that more people should engage with.
• 1:37:05
  Yeah. And I believe that's, you know,
• 1:37:07
  when the protocol is there and it's been established as this is
• 1:37:12
  the way it works, or this is at least the way that it worked for
• 1:37:14
  this culture, for this variety of the thing.
• 1:37:18
  You know what I mean? It's, it's like a, it's an
• 1:37:21
  affront to, to, to change it and to make it something different
• 1:37:25
  like you, you're, you, you have it laid out in this way for a
• 1:37:28
  reason. It's, it was done this way
• 1:37:30
  because this is how the gods were engaged or this is how they
• 1:37:35
  set sacred space for a reason to, to, to modify it or to
• 1:37:42
  change it to be something totally different.
• 1:37:44
  It it's disrespectful to the, to the spirit of it.
• 1:37:48
  I feel it, it, it doesn't, you know, like you say, you know,
• 1:37:53
  you do what you want, I guess, but you know, when there's
• 1:37:55
  protocol, when there's things ritual is very specifically, you
• 1:37:59
  know, it's done a certain way for a reason.
• 1:38:01
  So. Follow the I I listen to a
• 1:38:04
  podcast by a guy named Josh Schrei called The Emerald, which
• 1:38:09
  is about animism. You know, many animisms.
• 1:38:12
  He he practices the goddess traditions of India, but there's
• 1:38:16
  a lot in there for anyone who follows any animist path.
• 1:38:20
  And one of the things that he says that really stuck with me
• 1:38:23
  is you have to build the mandala before you break it.
• 1:38:27
  There's a difference between wandering into a new spiritual
• 1:38:30
  tradition and just throwing your weight around and saying, I can
• 1:38:34
  do whatever I want and I'm going to do it this way.
• 1:38:36
  And this is, you know, what I've decided versus approaching it
• 1:38:40
  with humility, learning the history.
• 1:38:43
  And once you've learned the history, if you want to change
• 1:38:47
  the formula of your ritual and you're in a kindred or a tribe
• 1:38:51
  that we decide that we want to do ritual this way, go for it.
• 1:38:55
  Because you know your history and you are choosing what to
• 1:38:59
  modify, changing the, changing the aesthetics, changing the
• 1:39:03
  order while keeping the spirit of the thing as opposed to
• 1:39:06
  making your own thing entirely and then claiming, Oh well,
• 1:39:10
  these are old ways, you know? Right I I.
• 1:39:13
  Think there's a lot to be said about maintaining existing
• 1:39:17
  protocols, and there's always room for flexibility, right?
• 1:39:21
  You don't have to deliver your ritual and fluent Old English if
• 1:39:25
  you don't want to, but you know you should at least know where
• 1:39:29
  it came from and know why you're changing it.
• 1:39:32
  And not knowing is not a good answer.
• 1:39:34
  Right, Yeah, I mean that's a that's a very important
• 1:39:39
  observation. You mentioned that, you know,
• 1:39:41
  like looking on non iron herbs charm, for example, like I've,
• 1:39:43
  I've recently came into that learning about it because of I,
• 1:39:49
  I had to, I had the opportunity to lead a ritual for cigar bloat
• 1:39:55
  last month. Yeah.
• 1:39:57
  And so like the 9 herbs charm is, you know, it's, it's not a
• 1:40:03
  particularly heathen thing. It's, it's from like what, like
• 1:40:07
  the 11th, 12th century, you know, it obviously it has some
• 1:40:12
  mentions of, you know. Not heathen or non Pagan things
• 1:40:18
  about it, but I learned about it because I was, I was running
• 1:40:23
  into some challenges with executing this ritual in the
• 1:40:29
  space where I was in the public park.
• 1:40:32
  And I'm like, well, I wanted, you know, I wanted to do bloat.
• 1:40:34
  You know, I wanted to have blood, animal blood for food,
• 1:40:37
  great animal blood, and by every effort of mine to try to obtain
• 1:40:40
  it. So I just kept hitting walls
• 1:40:43
  like nobody didn't have it available.
• 1:40:44
  Nobody had, you know, wasn't the markets that I was going to, the
• 1:40:47
  Asian and the, and the Latin markets just they didn't have
• 1:40:49
  it. And so I'm like, OK, you know,
• 1:40:53
  now what? And I thought, well, you know,
• 1:40:56
  alcohol. But then I'm like, well, and
• 1:40:59
  everybody's going to get a little sticky with this meat
• 1:41:01
  and, you know, whatever, if I'm like spraying it with meat and
• 1:41:03
  there's bees and there's flies and yeah, this is not going to
• 1:41:07
  be that great. And so I'm like, all right,
• 1:41:10
  well, what else can I do here? And I don't know how I became
• 1:41:15
  across it, but I start looking at this, this 9 herbs charm and
• 1:41:18
  I'm going, all right, well, these are very, these are, these
• 1:41:20
  are specific herbs that are in, in the charms and whatnot.
• 1:41:22
  It's, it's, if you read the, the charm, it's four very specific
• 1:41:26
  things like you were talking about.
• 1:41:28
  And I said, OK, what if I can acquire these things and kind of
• 1:41:34
  create a sort of tea, like brew them together to create the, the
• 1:41:40
  substance to bless the people with, provide them with the
• 1:41:43
  history of it, realizing that this is not the same thing.
• 1:41:46
  I'm not trying to, you know, I'm not doing the things that the
• 1:41:49
  charm is, is intended to do. But there is a, it's a call to
• 1:41:53
  these things. And first of all, if they're
• 1:41:55
  herbs, you know what I mean? And, and there's, there's things
• 1:41:57
  in there that if I spray it on you, it's basically just get
• 1:42:01
  getting sprinkled with tea. You know, you're not going to
• 1:42:03
  have flies or whatever bothering you.
• 1:42:05
  So that's kind of convenient too.
• 1:42:08
  And and granted I didn't get getting.
• 1:42:12
  I wasn't able to get every single of the 9 herbs.
• 1:42:16
  Or that was going to be my next question.
• 1:42:18
  I was like, did you manage to rustle up some sour wood apple?
• 1:42:22
  I know people who can get it, but they just, it just wasn't,
• 1:42:25
  it just wasn't in, it wasn't producing, you know, I know a
• 1:42:30
  lot of they call them green witches, I guess is the term
• 1:42:34
  that it gets used nowadays. A lot of the herb herbalists and
• 1:42:37
  stuff in the area that grow things like that for just
• 1:42:42
  reasons, I guess, you know, and you never know, you know,
• 1:42:45
  somebody had something. But I did have a contact and
• 1:42:48
  they're like, well, I don't have any of this growing just yet.
• 1:42:52
  It's a little early in the year or it wasn't producing or
• 1:42:54
  something. I didn't have it planted or
• 1:42:55
  whatever. So I'm like, OK, well, I'll get
• 1:42:59
  them. I'll get as much as I can from
• 1:43:02
  where I can, you know, and you know, so like thankfully, you
• 1:43:05
  know, some of the things mentioned in the Niner's charm
• 1:43:08
  are, are readily available in, in certain markets.
• 1:43:11
  You know what I mean? Like fennel is is really easy to
• 1:43:14
  come across and you know. My backyard is full of is full
• 1:43:20
  of plantain. Yeah, Way bread.
• 1:43:23
  Way bread. Did they talk about in that?
• 1:43:25
  Yeah, no, I've my, my side yard is absolutely full of that stuff
• 1:43:28
  I love. It yeah, they're very they're
• 1:43:30
  not uncommon if you if you're growing it, obviously now you
• 1:43:34
  know, again, that the wood apple thing like that's kind of
• 1:43:36
  obscure unless you know somebody who just happens to be growing
• 1:43:39
  it or can get it. So anyway, I made a tea, I
• 1:43:44
  brewed something, you know, that morning, let it steep for a good
• 1:43:47
  long while, get it all infused into a a liquid and use that for
• 1:43:55
  the blessing and the ritual, you know, for for the ceremony.
• 1:43:58
  So when it comes to you know, like you say, you know, like
• 1:44:01
  that's definitely not traditional heat than anything.
• 1:44:04
  It's but I wasn't trying to claim it to be such.
• 1:44:07
  I'm like. And I wouldn't and I wouldn't be
• 1:44:09
  so quick to write it off. You know, just because it was
• 1:44:12
  preserved by the monks doesn't mean that it wasn't existing
• 1:44:16
  folk practice at the time. And you did say something.
• 1:44:19
  You did say something that you kind of skipped over.
• 1:44:22
  You said, I mean, yeah, you know, they they kind of grow
• 1:44:24
  everywhere. They're not hard to find.
• 1:44:25
  And then you kept talking. And I think that's important to
• 1:44:28
  realize that when people were working herbs and medicines,
• 1:44:31
  historically, it was what was in their local woods.
• 1:44:34
  You know, you weren't buying spices from faraway lands.
• 1:44:38
  If you were a common person, you would go out with a basket and
• 1:44:42
  you would walk through the woods slowly and this mushroom would
• 1:44:45
  be up and you would know how to identify that mushroom and you'd
• 1:44:48
  pick it for dinner that night. Or you'd come across a stand of
• 1:44:51
  this plant that has this medicinal value that's as as
• 1:44:55
  simple as it can be. You know, people in the modern
• 1:44:59
  age when we're working with these, they don't necessarily
• 1:45:01
  need some grand grimoire that's handed down from ages past.
• 1:45:05
  Like if you, if you want to get into relationship with plants,
• 1:45:10
  walk out your front door. What's the first plant you see?
• 1:45:13
  If it's a dandelion growing up through a crack in your driveway
• 1:45:17
  or you know, some tree that was just planted by the city on the
• 1:45:21
  corner of your street, that's a great place to start because
• 1:45:25
  that plant has seen you every time you've walked out your
• 1:45:28
  door. You might not have been noticing
• 1:45:30
  it, but you've spent time with that being so you know, sit
• 1:45:35
  down, sit down for 5 minutes, brew some tea, pour a little
• 1:45:39
  beer, a little coffee, read a book under a tree.
• 1:45:42
  You know you can start anywhere and you can begin building that
• 1:45:46
  first layer that will. Then you know who knows what it
• 1:45:49
  will blossom into. Yeah, that's the seed, you know,
• 1:45:53
  like it. What a great way to kind of
• 1:45:56
  close this off and circle around to, to tying the knot, as it
• 1:45:59
  were, you know, we talked about. And then where do plants start?
• 1:46:03
  Start as a seed, you know, and that seed that plants has to go
• 1:46:06
  into that darkness and it has to be buried and then that seed has
• 1:46:11
  to die. There has to be death in order
• 1:46:15
  for it to sprout, to become the plant that serves what purpose
• 1:46:21
  it serves it. It doesn't serve its purpose as
• 1:46:24
  the seed. That's where it starts.
• 1:46:26
  That's the thing. So that, that seed that you say,
• 1:46:28
  you know, planting that seed, just starting off with that one
• 1:46:30
  thing. My niece, she'll be 4 this year.
• 1:46:34
  You know, we, we go outside sometimes in the yard and like,
• 1:46:36
  when very early in the year, like the dandelions are the
• 1:46:38
  first thing that starts to, to flower, you know, when they come
• 1:46:42
  to head. And then there's a, you know,
• 1:46:44
  you blow the, the pods and stuff around and it's all fun for the
• 1:46:47
  kids. And she thinks it's so pretty.
• 1:46:48
  And I, you know, that's a moment, that's a time that's of
• 1:46:50
  teaching. So you know what those things
• 1:46:52
  are, Those are, those are seeds. These are what help those other
• 1:46:56
  things grow. And you can actually eat them,
• 1:46:58
  but not in this form. You can brew this, you can, you
• 1:47:00
  can make stuff out of this. This is good for you, you know,
• 1:47:04
  and that's a seed that's planted in her heart.
• 1:47:06
  Maybe she's so little right now to, to remember it, but it's
• 1:47:09
  still a, a seed that gets planted and then you can nurture
• 1:47:13
  it. And it's just like you're
• 1:47:16
  saying, you know, those, those moments, those times where you
• 1:47:19
  go outside, you see something, you take a moment and I
• 1:47:23
  encourage everybody saying just like you do, Chris, you know,
• 1:47:25
  is, is everybody, no matter how busy your life is, you've got 10
• 1:47:29
  minutes in your day to stop, get your shoes off, put your feet in
• 1:47:33
  the ground on the grass, touch earth.
• 1:47:37
  You've got that. And that's all you need.
• 1:47:39
  That's that 10 minutes of of silence, of quiet, a pause when
• 1:47:45
  you put your intention to that, when you put your mind to that,
• 1:47:47
  and you just disconnect from everything else and you just
• 1:47:49
  give yourself that 10 minutes, you'll feel a lot better and
• 1:47:52
  you'll want more of it. You'll find time for more of it
• 1:47:55
  because it's good for you, but it's healing for you.
• 1:47:58
  Absolutely. One of my favorite epic poems is
• 1:48:01
  Alva Small. And you know, I, I think a lot
• 1:48:04
  of people doggone all of a small because they're like, oh, you
• 1:48:06
  know, it only talks about 7 worlds and it's clearly just a
• 1:48:10
  repository of a bunch of poetic names for stuff.
• 1:48:13
  But I think there's a lot of little glimmers of wisdom hidden
• 1:48:15
  in it. And then the stanza when it
• 1:48:18
  talks about the earth, you know, it says the earth.
• 1:48:22
  She is called among men. She is called the field by the
• 1:48:25
  gods. You know the the elves call her
• 1:48:28
  the growing 1 and it says then the Vanier call her the path.
• 1:48:34
  And I think that is just so very true.
• 1:48:37
  You know what, whichever direction your life takes,
• 1:48:41
  whatever trajectory you have set yourself on, whatever your
• 1:48:44
  journey is, 10 times out of 10 the earth is the path upon which
• 1:48:50
  you take that journey. So no matter how busy you get,
• 1:48:53
  just if you see a bird fly by, just stop for one step, maybe 2
• 1:48:59
  steps time. Watch it go and just approach
• 1:49:03
  that moment with thankfulness and a little bit of wonder and
• 1:49:07
  it'll do a lot for you. I find myself doing that a lot
• 1:49:13
  and I have to be careful sometimes because I'll do it
• 1:49:15
  when I'm like I'm driving and I'll like, I'll get a, I'll get,
• 1:49:20
  you know, out of my peripheral. I'll see, you know, a crow or a
• 1:49:22
  Buzzard or something. I'll be like, oh, you know, hold
• 1:49:25
  on now, you know. Dude, there's so many Hawks on
• 1:49:28
  the side of the highway up here in Illinois because there's so
• 1:49:30
  many farm fields. You got rid of all the trees.
• 1:49:32
  So like all these, all these like Hawks and Falcons and
• 1:49:35
  kestrels is a perch up on power lines.
• 1:49:37
  And I'm always like, as they go fast, yeah, I need to keep my
• 1:49:42
  eyes on the road. Yeah, but yeah, that's a good,
• 1:49:44
  that's a good. That's another good reminder,
• 1:49:46
  you know, is, is be be present and realize of what the things
• 1:49:49
  going on around you. And I was sitting just outside
• 1:49:53
  today after work because, you know, I work from home, but I'm
• 1:49:55
  in an office room, you know, I'm confined to that, that space.
• 1:49:58
  And so like, I have to work a lot of times I just, I want to
• 1:50:00
  be on my lunch break. I want to be outside sitting on
• 1:50:04
  sitting in the sun or if it's raining, sit out on my porch.
• 1:50:07
  And it was it was starting to rain.
• 1:50:09
  Thunders was rolling. The storm was starting to come
• 1:50:11
  in. And I'm just sitting there and
• 1:50:12
  listening to the, the rain starting to come down And out of
• 1:50:15
  the corner of my eye, it's I see movement and it's a Robin, very
• 1:50:19
  common bird, you know, And I just stopped what I was doing
• 1:50:23
  and put my phone down and I just watched it, you know, hopping
• 1:50:25
  along on the ground and going after those worms that are
• 1:50:28
  coming up from the moisture because it's raining and stuff.
• 1:50:30
  And just watching it do its thing, you know, and just being
• 1:50:35
  present in that moment, just seeing how they do their thing.
• 1:50:38
  And it does it, it, it calms your spirit.
• 1:50:42
  It, it takes, you know, that time away that you had, that you
• 1:50:47
  were thinking about whatever that was stressing you out.
• 1:50:50
  Watch the Robin beep, bop around and eat a worm, you know, or
• 1:50:55
  watch a squirrel scurry up and down a tree.
• 1:50:57
  Or just, you know, listen for something that you haven't heard
• 1:51:01
  before, you know, a bird chirping or something, you know.
• 1:51:05
  Just put your attention to that and then be immersed in that
• 1:51:09
  moment, even just for a little bit.
• 1:51:11
  Yeah, man, I keep seeing these, I keep seeing these memes going
• 1:51:14
  around like the last two weeks and it's just, it's like 2
• 1:51:17
  people sitting in a field or something and it just has a
• 1:51:20
  caption at the top says, I almost forgot that this is what
• 1:51:24
  it's all about. And I've it makes me happy that
• 1:51:29
  people are passing that message with each other because I think
• 1:51:32
  more people need to hear it. Yeah, yeah, it's a good message
• 1:51:37
  to, to share and I'm glad that you were here today to help
• 1:51:41
  share it and spread it. You know, the work that you do,
• 1:51:44
  you, you know, you're immersed in it a lot.
• 1:51:48
  So maybe it becomes, and I don't want to presume, but you know,
• 1:51:52
  I, I think you still have a really healthy appreciation for
• 1:51:55
  it all. You know the the the work
• 1:51:57
  doesn't get lost. The appreciation doesn't get
• 1:51:59
  lost in the work for you. No, certainly not.
• 1:52:03
  So, you know, it's great that you get a chance to come on here
• 1:52:05
  and share your wisdom and, and experience with people and help
• 1:52:10
  inspire because these are the types of conversations that I
• 1:52:13
  could, you know, really, really go on and on and on about.
• 1:52:16
  I agree. I, I keep looking at the timer
• 1:52:19
  up there. I was like, gosh, I, I, I really
• 1:52:21
  feel like I could truly go double this length and we
• 1:52:24
  probably still wouldn't get to all the thoughts I have about
• 1:52:27
  it, but Oh well. Well, that'll be again, you,
• 1:52:31
  you're, you know how to get a hold of me.
• 1:52:34
  It's, I got, you know, a wide open schedule.
• 1:52:37
  So if, if you want to kind of strike while the iron's hot and
• 1:52:40
  you want to come back soon and talk about Igdasil and, and just
• 1:52:44
  this whole connectivity of the cosmology and wherever your mind
• 1:52:48
  wants to go with that, I, I'd be down for it.
• 1:52:51
  I think the people would like it too.
• 1:52:53
  Well, hopefully I, I really appreciate you having me on
• 1:52:57
  again. It's, it's really great what you
• 1:52:58
  do to help connect people and amplify voices.
• 1:53:02
  It's, it's really worthy thing. So, you know, thanks again for
• 1:53:06
  holding the space for other heathens and for letting me
• 1:53:09
  ramble. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:53:11
  And I appreciate you and thank you for everything you're doing
• 1:53:14
  up there in Central Illinois. So for people that are
• 1:53:17
  listening, Land of Lincoln Heathens is the public Facebook
• 1:53:21
  group that you can check out if you want to, if you're in the
• 1:53:25
  area or you just want to see, you know what what Chris and the
• 1:53:27
  people up there are are doing, check them out on Facebook link
• 1:53:32
  will be annotated in the show notes and description area of
• 1:53:36
  the podcast. And I think that's about it.
• 1:53:40
  Of course, you're on discord too, or at least who he is on
• 1:53:43
  the, on the, what do you call it Northwoods Kindred discord.
• 1:53:46
  If you guys are doing that, just look for Northwoods Kindred and
• 1:53:50
  they'll you'll see him here there too.
• 1:53:54
  Absolutely. Yeah, he's on there.
• 1:53:55
  He's on there way more than I am.
• 1:53:57
  But you know, he's a he is as equally a a vote for our for our
• 1:54:02
  group and one of the other people who helped found it.
• 1:54:05
  So awesome. Well, it's good, worthy work
• 1:54:08
  man. Good job on that and thank you
• 1:54:11
  again for being here. So anything else that you want
• 1:54:13
  to just parting words that you want to leave the people with
• 1:54:16
  before we go? I think we've covered most of
• 1:54:21
  it. It's just, you know, Remember
• 1:54:23
  that while the world is our home, it is not for us
• 1:54:28
  specifically. Be humble, walk outside and know
• 1:54:32
  that you are a guest and that every being you come in contact
• 1:54:36
  with is sovereign. That's right, good advice and I
• 1:54:42
  appreciate you for sharing that. So I'll I'll, I'll say goodbye
• 1:54:46
  to the people here. I'll say a parting word for you
• 1:54:50
  after we end this here real quick, but thank you again for
• 1:54:53
  Chris. Thank you too, Chris, for being
• 1:54:55
  here and thank you to everybody that's listening and watching
• 1:54:59
  this on Patreon. Again, if you aren't yet a
• 1:55:02
  patron at the Carl tier, it's not for too late for you to do
• 1:55:05
  so. Just go ahead to patreon.com/men
• 1:55:08
  Guard Musings, join at the Carl tier.
• 1:55:09
  It's just about a dollar and you get to watch us talk about these
• 1:55:13
  things in addition to listening. So check out the merch
• 1:55:17
  midgardmusingstore.com, follow me on all the socials.
• 1:55:19
  Any way that you can help support the podcast is greatly
• 1:55:22
  appreciated. At the very least, share these
• 1:55:25
  musings around and get some people involved talking in your
• 1:55:30
  communities to plant the weeds and nurture those trees.
• 1:55:34
  So until we talk to all of you again, thank you again for your
• 1:55:38
  support. May the gods continue to notice
• 1:55:40
  you, and may your ancestors smile upon you, and we'll see
• 1:55:44
  you in the next one.