Latest / Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck / Interview with Aaron Ogden

Transcript

Interview with Aaron Ogden · Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, I'm Kay Eck, and welcome to my podcast, Alive and Kicking: Stories of Waking Up.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back, everybody.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to the podcast.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: I have with me today my good friend Aaron Ogden.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron is kind of a magical creature with many, many, many talents, including um teaching yoga, leading beautiful yoga and nature retreats, um, modern permaculture.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what it's called?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Modern permaculture?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: I call it um modern permaculture since it is, it's only since the 70s that permaculture has really been a phrase, but really how to work with nature.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: And um shamanic healing and body work and a long, long, long list of skills and talents and assets.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: So welcome.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Kay.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's really, really it feels auspicious to be connecting today.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you you always come through on auspicious occasions.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm starting to think that you're just an auspicious occasion.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, all my all my Indian friends are always like, oh, it's an auspicious day.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, you always say that, but truly, you know, when you're really in that moment, and it happens to be Valentine's Day.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's right.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Happy Valentine's Day, it is there is um that universal love feels auspicious.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, let's tap into that.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: That feels really nice.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, good to be here.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so as you know, we're um get together for these conversations to talk a little bit about each of our individual paths to um waking up.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I just want to start out by asking you how do you define that?
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Whether you call it waking up or um embodiment or enlightenment or any of the words that may have been you know tossed around in our awareness.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: How do you what do you think about that?
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh one of my favorite questions, um, and I feel like um even to answer this kind of question requires that awareness of becoming present, you know, even connecting with you, connecting with even the feeling of my voice, and you know, recognizing that awakening is really a state of being.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: As I've come to learn as I practice a lot of the non-dual teachings with my teachers, you know, yoga, shamanic arts, just sitting around a fire, being with nature, and it's really just sensing what is.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yet for almost all of us, because we're in our minds, and our minds tend to kind of split things up, like a computer program.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: It has like a problem solution-oriented type of mechanism.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: It tends to, there's this experience of being separate.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we have this experience of awakening, like an you know, it's undeniable.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we call our awakening, or some people it's continuous, you know, or some people have kundalini awakening and they feel it like moving through their spine.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, it's it can it in whenever we speak about it in words, it's gonna have a dualistic connotation.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like there's no such thing as awakening, it's actually really just a removal of the klasias of the colorings of the mind where we seemed separate.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and so you wake up to realizing you're present and it's just what is like the phrase um before enlightenment or awakening, chop wood, carry water, after awakening, chop wood, carry water.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's business as usual, yet everything changes without anything needing to change.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, I have goosebumps on that.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: I I I love that because it it that taking it from being like a happening into it it a being, a being-ness, a state of being, kind of allows for everybody to have a really unique experience with it.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think about myself, I I have always, you know, it's been like so subtle, so gradual, and so slowly expansive that I I couldn't really focus on any one particular moment.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: But there are people who have those, you know, yeah, moments.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to um, you know, I remember write reading Akaratoli's book, The Power of Now, which was just, you know, as a modern day spiritual teacher, that book came to a lot of us, and he described his process of awakening, like there was an event from like one night to the next.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: And interestingly, I had some kind of simulated awakening while I opened that book and read it.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, so what I'm saying is the story of one's own awakening can be very amazing, it's like an alchemy.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yet I think what you're describing for yourself is actually it's such a blessing because we can get trapped in the story.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just telling a story about 20 years ago or whatever.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yet awakening is a state of being as you're recognizing this just little by little.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's just trickling like mist, you know, like every breath, just every day.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's quite ordinary.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the extraordinary is in the ordinary, you know, like it that's why you can say it's so auspicious to connect to the day.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like the mind's like, why?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like, give me a good story about it.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, I just feel the vitality of being alive right now, and I I see it in your face, and it's reflected in everything.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, whether it's painful in the moment or going against what I want, you know, so to speak, or whether it's exactly what I want.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Either way, you know, that when you recognize awakening is a state of being, it's always, you know.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, because you're caught in the story, the mind-made linear time frame of awakening, and then you're actually removing yourself from that state of awakening.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's all it's all a trap.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, I this might be a little bit off-subject, but um this um I've been experiencing this like incredible vitality and aliveness that I've never felt before, yet it's not, it's like so much quieter and subtler and dropped down.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not like you know, explosions of life and happiness and you know, blah blah.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's like really rooted and really just like almost like silent and still, but so incredibly vital.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: I I think that's actually right on in line with what we're sharing.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: It it's it's the subtle energies, like in the in the spiritual realms of learning about the they call it the koshas in yoga, the different sheaths or layers of the energy, and um it's subtle, and subtle tends to be um, like you're saying, like a gentle breeze or a breath in, or just noticing the way the light reflects, you know, through the windows behind you as I see or on someone's face, or you know, like that's what we call an awakening story.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like suddenly, like in my experience, suddenly I was felt timeless.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Suddenly I felt like the witness.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't thinking of Aaron Ogden and his story at all.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: I felt very embodied.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: I felt my my position I was in, I was reading a book, yet there was this inner experience that became illuminated as so obvious and clear.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And even the words I hear, I do this thing where I translate energy into English language because that's the language I speak.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and this voice was like, You have everything you've ever wanted is within you right now.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it like it was like this alchemy that almost repeated infinitely in a way, and I just my mind stood still, like I don't recall any thinking, any regular thoughts, noticing the absence of how much regular thought is going on, and it lasted, you know, maybe a short time, 30 seconds to a minute, which is actually quite a while to have that, but it it permanently changed something in my I was 22 years old, that 22-year-old psyche, you know, and then it was like I was practicing yoga a lot, and it was like then I had this like thought, that's what yoga is.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then I laughed, like probably to myself out loud, no one else was there, and I'm like, I've been practicing yoga for years, and I had no idea what I was doing, and it was just funny, it was so joyful.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was like such awareness of ignorance, of living in such ignorance, yeah, yet it was just like opening a door and looking through, suddenly you could see through.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it was, but it was a permanent change.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is how like the story, I didn't even mean to tell this story, but how that story is ever-present, like it brings that brings that ever-present connection like forward, you know, into our connection.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, wow.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: All right, well, let's roll the clock back a little bit, the calendar back, and tell me about your childhood.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: You live, you're you live in Ohio among other places, but Ohio, California.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Have you always been a West Coast boy?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was born in Ohio.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, I'm based um when I'm in Ohio, I'm periodically traveling all different places.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but when I'm in Ohio, I'm on the 11-acre plot that my family has.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so the land of my childhood are the same gardens that I tend to and the same soil that I play with, and flowers that I grow, views that I see that when I was two to eighteen years old, you know, I was raised here on this land, and so it's unique to come back.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, were your parents um, you know, like hippies or what was their story?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um both my parents came from the Midwest to where they were raised, um, both at about 10, 11 years old.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: They were about um 10 years apart.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so my dad came, he actually came through the Theosophical Society.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: His aunt brought him to Happy Valley School in Ojai with his other siblings.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: And slowly um my grandmother came out, and so the family was out.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then my mom's family they came out in a station wagon.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the story is my grandfather was having heart attacks very early on from being in World War II, and maybe it was partly genetic, but you know, the cold of Ohio, um, the farming lands was just too intense, and it was recommended they go somewhere sunny, and you know, the 60s California, it was just becoming world famous, and so they my grandmother just moved everyone out, her four kids got rid of everything and landed in Santa Barbara and then Ohio, and my parents ultimately met.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, what was your childhood like?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: Did you have what was your awareness of yourself as a child and within your family structure?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I love I love that, and that's a perfect question because there's so many ways I could answer this because there's so many, like my unique awareness is that there's different sheaths of consciousness.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and like even both my parents had very different ways of seeing the world, different consciousness, different religious views.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so for instance, I was raised in the Catholic Church mostly with my mom.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: My dad was more on the atheist side and even abandoned kind of the new age philosophies of Christian murdy and the Theosophical Society, and he just was more in the science of the mind, which actually is yoga, but he he tended to push away kind of healing arts and the esoterics and that kind of thing.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: But my awareness was especially through nature, I was really connected.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Everything felt alive to me, everything spoke to me.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: The trees were my friends.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: When I climbed, I grew up climbing on boulders and trees and finding baby birds and nests, you know, and my dad planted um avocado orchards and gardens.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I had a lot of that exposure, and I know that it was informing me in such a deep way.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I also had a lot of um kind of you could call them alien experiences, starlight, star being experiences, like phenomenal experience with ghosts and with paranormal and all that kind of languaging that was quite scary as a young one.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And as I've revisited it, um, I just had a very open energy field.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I was aware of where people were at all times.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: People carrying me like my parents or my sis were born into my life.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I could I'm a full empath, so I can feel someone else like it's me.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember that as a young one, and so I got so much information all the time, and I think nature helped me feel grounded and kind of clear and open because when I was around people and the complexity of our minds and the multi-layered consciousness of that humans have been holding, especially I was born in 1978, so that's kind of the time frame of my childhood through the 80s.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's fascinating, even to tune into it right now, as you ask.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so on my own with nature, I was tuned into wholeness of life.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: There wasn't a lot of thought around it.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I was around people, I felt deep, deep emotions.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think I yet, as a young one, could put it together the way I can now, because I've done so much, you know, trauma healing and psychotherapy and somatic healing arts, all this kind of work for decades.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I could tell if someone was really sad and held and bogged down.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: I could tell if they were very depressed, I could tell if they were very happy, I could tell if they were feeling artistic and creative, I could tell if they were feeling stressed and burdened.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure as a young one, I took it on and internalized a lot of that.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it was perfect for my own healing, for my own development as a human, you know, come into my humanity.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can't you can hardly imagine a more challenging situation to put a young child in than to feel not just their own experience of living, but everybody else's as well.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: So did that um, I mean, you used nature to cope with that, but how did that um affect you like going through school and in your like childhood relationships?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that um again, it's so it's so varied.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was blessed to have cousins who were really great friends.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: We had a lot of fun.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was blessed to have a really good friend growing up, a couple good um guy friends.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I went into like junior high, like my parents were getting a divorce, the home was going on the market.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: I went into a public school, and I think what happened was I really got frozen.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: I just shut down, but I I kept going, like I got through school.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: I did quite well in school with grades, but um, socially it was very challenging.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I ultimately made friends, learned social skills, but I was so introverted and so I think just things shut down.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think my openness to that natural way of being shut down, which for a lot of people, through puberty and just the challenges everyone has, we have a similar life story, just seems so personal.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's my story.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I was holding a lot of things for my parents, for loved ones who were close, who were my caregivers.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it everything just happened, you know, life just happens, and so we they get lodged like deep in the unconscious, you know, and so I was holding a lot of stories, yeah, you know, patterns, energy patterns.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it seems that that of course would seem like almost like a defense mechanism or a coping strategy to get through those really challenging experiences that you had.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, middle school, which I called a black hole.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: It was tough.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and what I learned later on is when I because the way I really orient is that I was born free.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: But what I love about astrology too is it's a great, it's a great, um, a great like mediumship that helps you see the wheel of life and your own personal story.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: And mine is to come back home through the body, but also through family and discern.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: So whether it's it was my dad's story I was holding, or whether it was just something I was here to learn from, it doesn't really matter any anymore.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was both and because when I got older, I left home at 18 to go to college, or many opportunities through my life as an adult, I knew I could consciously choose.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: I was free, I could make my own decisions.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: So even that, some of the coping was to hold myself back from freedom and just kind of mole over these old cycles, but I wasn't conscious that I was holding it through my father's lineage or his story, or my my, you know, my parents were both um, you know, very significant in that.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I was the first born, you know, the family.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: So you were the first what?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was the firstborn.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, first child, and um so it's just it's fascinating, um, even to be speaking about this, because again, I see everything as these swirling waves of consciousness depending on how you see it, depending on how you feel it, these different vantage points opening up.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: So this is fascinating to recall.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, you're you are such a um, you know, a creature of light with so many um with access to so much.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: I can't imagine trying to put that in the box of school or even like relationships, you know, that seems like it would have been.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: I do, I do really um, yeah, I do really I'm I feel really blessed to say this right now.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: I do really well with all of it.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel so fortunate grateful for all of it.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that's not to say during some of those time cycles in life, it was deep suffering.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've definitely been through long periods of portals, I'll call it portals of time cycles where I did not have the will to be here.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I was talking a little bit about that.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um I love that you call that um a portal because that that I mean, that is like there's a deliverance.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: You're being delivered somewhere through something to somewhere.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, ooh, that gives me the body shivers.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: I love, I feel the subtle energetics, the state of being that is awakening when I get those goosebumps, you know, and sometimes they kind of flow through my body.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, my mom is amazing, and she really helped kind of keep things going through life, keep me in school, keep, you know, she was a great math tutor, you know, she got the bills paid.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: She's a very responsible human and very loving, and just really demonstrated that where my dad was a little more of a kind of abandoning, kind of not as present and active in my life.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: So by the time I left college at 18, and by the time I was more like 19, um, my uncle passed away from brain cancer.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a very um significant time of watching someone pass through that way.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it he came to me in my dreams, and he was just a really beautiful person in my life.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was tremendous.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I um basically I was starting to just really make my own decisions and live life on my own, and I didn't see anything, I didn't see how I was gonna be.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: I was taking college classes and nothing, I ended up as a philosophy major because nothing was really resonating really, and I didn't, but I didn't see how philosophy could be a life, and I just didn't see anything.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it just I remember consciously being like, I don't have the will to live, but I wasn't a depressive that like wouldn't get out of bed, you know.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was functioning, you know, and I was fairly social at that time too.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: But when night would fall, especially I just I would fall into this really deep depression, and I was, I think, picking up on a lot of energies.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was in the middle of I La Vista, which is a huge drunken playground for like 19-year-olds and 20-year-olds, and just a lot of energies going on, and then my own psyche needing to release things that were being deeply held, even trauma lineages, you know, and I mean I could go into so much of that.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I went through a period of really being actively suicidal and ultimately um ending up in the hospital and getting the assistance professionally that was needed, and then a little bit after that, maybe a period of a couple years, then finding yoga and a really amazing teacher, and that started to really, really deeply shift things.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then a couple years after starting yoga, what I just described of um having that awakening experience, but realizing, like how you were noticing within me is so much.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: In this moment, it feels like there's this wellspring of creative vitality, you know, this essence of being that stems from everything or nothing, it's just within us.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like when I was younger, I somehow wasn't tapped into that consciously, and that is necessary, and I think it's necessary for every human.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: We must at this time learn some capacity to go inward into our inner landscape, whether it's eyes closed or the breath.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a million techniques, and just living life from the truth of its wellspring, whether you call it spirit or God, but it it was necessary for me because I wasn't gonna make it.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was not, I wasn't, I didn't know who to trust in.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: There wasn't a religion, there wasn't a spirituality even that was it had to come from within me.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the who am I kind of um inquiry.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: I I found myself in a similar situation um to that.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: I was older than you, I I think I I already had all of my kids, but I had um also let go of the Catholic Church that I had been raised in, including going to school in a Catholic church for eight years.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I because I had started practicing yoga, then you're offered some Eastern religions, but to me that was just something felt like the same, you know, like different but same.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I felt like I was um walking on a tightrope, and I didn't have like the plan, like I didn't know like I can't die now because I don't have a connection to anything, so I have to like be really careful on this tightrope, and it was like way too much stress for me to handle, way too much stress.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: I was so scared, and so I started getting panic attacks, and and and really yoga was what saved me because the it's you know it's such a gift because it it's a technique for drawing the the senses inward and living in the body, which was such a um, which is kind of like my body has always been my temple because I was really athletic and totally into sports and understood movement as meditation when I was eight years old.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, um yeah, so that I can totally um relate to that, but I never thought of it as a portal, which I think is so beautiful.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: Why did you call it a portal?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, as you were just sharing right near the end there, I got that tune in too of I remember one day I was driving down um the road, and just almost the thoughts were around suicide, like trying.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I just want to be done with this.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like I can't see the future, I just don't see a place for myself, all this even whining and complaining, really.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: But it was there was suffering.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I was in this portal, and this is actually the presence that I live in.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm learning that I actually am designed to be in a an ever-present portal where ideally there is no past and future, there's just presence.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not gonna say that I'm always in that.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: I I have a I operate through the mind all the time.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yet I'm aware of that, I'm learning to flower into that each day.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember driving and this voice, again, it was like a voice would come through, and it's like, you don't really want to kill yourself, you just want to be loved.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it was undeniable that it was true, and it even was something like, and you just you want to share love, and so there was something, and that almost that even I can feel it in my own heart, not just like the energy of the heart, but even the organ of the heart, just like almost skipping a beat, and here we are on Valentine's Day.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was like, I mean, love really is the answer.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like all the cliched memes and phrases, it's like I just really I couldn't live unless I was expressing, and it's agape love, it's high spiritual love, it's not just romantic or the fleeting love of loving a perfect day because it's sunny out, or loving that cash flow because you just love what you're the service you're offering the world or whatever, the new home, whatever it is, just it was so clear.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then there was this I'm always in this open channel with those who have deceased, and it goes not just with my family, it's ancestry of all humans, and then it goes even beyond that, which is maybe another story of different worlds and different entity consciousnesses.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but they said the problem that you're experiencing is going to remain with you even if you kill yourself, and I felt it so clearly that what I was denying myself or the so to speak problem, the agony I felt, I was still going to feel.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I might as well stay here and deal with it.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: And there was almost this understanding if I unpack it further, was this the shamans call it earth school that I was here learning, and actually, maybe there was a blessing in this, like maybe there was an actual almost the technique of being human.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and this this almost gives a um, it's almost like you want to understand you're a spiritual being, but I didn't even have that in my languaging framework yet.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: It was maybe a story of Jesus and Mary being, you know, um giving birth to a son without having sex or some of these kind of stories, but I didn't, it wasn't in my conscious framework.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: I hadn't thought that deep yet about it, but I understood it to be true that I'm and so there was something that changed there.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I did go into experiences where I was hospitalized and needed help, but I was aware that I needed help.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was the only way at that time that I could start to receive help because I wasn't yet strong enough in myself, present enough to just say to someone, I need to share love with you, or I need help and I don't know how to go about it.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe partly because I was surrounded by particular peoples who were so consumed in their own story and their own life that they actually weren't present for that.
• 29:52
  unknown: Yeah.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's so many ways I could speak about it, but I I find that to be true, and um and I don't think there's any actual ultimate shame or guilt in killing yourself.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think that actually everything that we um feel or judge is our our own being is doing that, whether it's projected on that other people judge us or we judge ourselves, we're left with that at the end of the day or the end of the life.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it just feels really true to me.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: I really, I really trust that.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, the messages that I get from that trust are are wonderful, they feel really good.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm here to love.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, that's not such a crazy, like off the wall kind of thing.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's you know, I'm here to be kind.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I have to be kind.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: The process of waking up and acknowledging sometimes is being very unkind or rude.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes there's things we have to do.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's like everything that we've ever rejected or resisted or not wanted, if it's a strong feeling, a lot of times it comes to us in this phenomenal game for us to reconcile.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and yeah, and as yeah, and people, you know, will probably want to know that this is the time for this is a major time of reconciliation.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like we are, um, a teacher of mine says that like the things that were tapping you on the shoulder in the past are pretty much gonna be slapping you in the face this year.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you know, and if you don't want to be slapped in the face again, there's probably gonna be an and this is I mean, let it this be a light way to say it, or just let us be playful, but like we'll be slapped again in some way.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like I've I've attracted some beautiful teachers, and the things that they've shown me, again, this is a clacious the coloring of my mind.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I expect this teacher to act this way, and if they're, for instance, if they're rude or act in a certain way, then I'm gonna be upset.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is like an unconscious program, and then they behave that way, and then I'm like, ugh.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yet I'm blessed to have some teachers who are really, as far as I can see, they're so present, and they're and I really feel love from them, and then I'm able to see, oh, that was a trigger.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I didn't want to happen, or I didn't want to be the one to mess it up, or I, you know, there's everyone has their own unique things.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: And on the flip side, we're also here to accept the blessings that maybe we might see as more positive.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, a lot of us, I think it's Marianne Williamson who's been, you know, she's that modern, the modern day mystic teacher who's now like political, you know, and she's really bringing it home.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, maybe it's you're most afraid of that love, maybe you're most afraid of that wealth and abundance coming and letting that flow.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, again, it's not to say, oh, you're you're doomed to always repeat karma that feels negative.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: The karma can be positive, except for me, it's like accept the freedom that I was born with, yeah, accept the ability to love, and it doesn't require anyone to be any which way.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, those are how you just get to love.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I want to get back to what you said about love because um it it kind of caught me um in that, you know, the that voice from you know, your angel or whoever spoke to you um said that you know you're here to love.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, like each of us as humans has a sense of that, but it there are so many examples of imperfect love and our imperfect ability to to love.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like you you go through these experiences of love, and it's like, that's not good, like that's not better, and then but it's like you have to go through sort of these machinations of what you think love looks like as a human until you get drawn back around into your own heart, and then once like that's the the only perfect love is you for yourself, right?
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so once you get that loving, you're actually loving it all, and again, this is an idyllic statement, and this is why you know, being human, all the imperfect loves or the the varieties of love, it actually is all love.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: But when you feel betrayal, or when you feel someone outright like stab your back, or you feel grief of losing something you cherished.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to create examples that you know were especially, I mean, betrayal is such a good one, you know.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like that person betrayed me, or or life is betraying me, or you know, which something is just not fair and not just, and that's so big, not only in the United States right now, but just it's not fair, it's not just why, you know, that why is nature being thrashed?
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, why can't humanity come together?
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: These these really penetrating questions, and to actually feel it as love, or actually to rest back in presence and realize that you can totally express and be in love, and there's betrayal.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is love, everything comes from love.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: The thing is, and we spoke about this earlier, like the mind interprets a story around it, and the mind is also seeing who is Kay, and me and Aaron, and we're separate.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, in a third-dimensional sense, in Earth School, that's true.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: You are your own entity, your own body, your own mind, and I am too, and I call myself Aaron, and I have this story, and you call yourself Kay, and you have this story, and we can change the stories, and it's so creative, yet who we really are, that love that we really are, is is beyond that, or it doesn't need the story.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm really learning this right now.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm speaking about it almost a little conceptually, but I'm learning like when my heart gets torn open, you know, when your heart breaks, these kind of things with humanity that we we mostly stop at the story of it, and then we have certain responses, or someone passes away.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so sorry that passed away, or or when someone's heart breaks, oh, I hope you feel better, you know, these kind of things.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing wrong with any of that.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's actually a lot of love caring in it, but it's to start seeing it all the way through, to stay with it and stay.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe love doesn't isn't the right word anymore.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that vocabulary is like the word God for some people, um, or even the word Jesus, you know, it has a connotation that takes them away from just being present.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the yoga techniques, I know for both of us, following the breath, being in body, just spreading the hands, just like you know, body work, touching the face, massaging a muscle, something like that, bringing you more present.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the alchemy is that if you're willing, if you have a sense of enthusiasm or a dedication or devotion to paying attention, I'll stay with this.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I have experience with this too.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen the betrayal, and I didn't I didn't experience a lack of love.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I actually experienced a love that was unbridled and immeasurable, and just bringing so much light through what I might describe as the story of my pain of that betrayal.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it keeps coming up, you know, and we all have our own kind of flavorings of that.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, mine definitely is the topic of betrayal, really the last like five years, it came up really strongly.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the story, I got very I felt very wrapped in the story.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then we want to divide ourselves and protect, and then I naturally gravitated toward experiences where the messaging was like, are you trying to protect yourself?
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then going back to referencing when I felt more depressed in that portal, which was suicidal, yet at the same time I was experiencing a direct communication with the other side or with a guidance that was saying, you have everything you've ever wanted inside of you, and you're here to love.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that true, honey?
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: Honey darling, honey, sweetie.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like the sweetest thing.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then that same sweetness is like, honey, you feel devastated that you feel betrayed by that person, don't you?
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, yeah.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's like the second grader or the young little one, and it's like, yeah, it's just like when a kid pushed us on the playground, ultimate betrayal, and a child just gets over it.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: Adults, we hang on to those stories because it's like you took my bank account, or you took my home, or or like you, you messed my life up, or all these things.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I don't mean to speak flippantly or lightly about it, yet there is a love that is here for us that is causeless, that actually feels to me like it grows and expands and becomes more present even in the darkness of our humanity.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't mean some of us don't say goodbye to people, and sometimes it doesn't end very pleasantly, and maybe that's the one thing we weren't wanting.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, it's like I don't want to have to just shut the door on that person, or I don't want to, it's deep little stories that come out, and if we can see what is and see the brightness of our day and also the darkness, or like I don't like the way I see humanity, or they're treating that forest, or this the ethics of that company, and it's like, can we practice seeing it just to see it at least a little bit each day?
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: I know that's a lot to ask.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: Not everyone has feels like they have all that time, yeah, but just a breath in and out.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think um maybe another way of putting that is um because I think that this could be really, really valuable for people as they struggle through their various um experiences in their lives.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, when you have a situation that is causing you like that there's no a way, no way around how you're feeling about it.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's like front and center, and you cannot avoid it.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: And the um the in the the other party can, you know, your attention to the other party can take you outside of your experience of it.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: And if you remain in your experience of it, you can wind your, you know, spend the time winding your way around in and out of it so that you can gain from it what you need to get or can gain from it, and ultimately that's gonna be about you loving you, giving yourself that time and experience of really sitting in it.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: Set right.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: I I I love that, and um and I think this is really important to come because when I'm speaking, the place I'm speaking from is not a triggered space, it's not a place of trauma release, it's not a place of a situation that has a gravity to it and it's really penetrating.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not to say there's anything wrong with that, and those are necessary steps, and I personally gone through them again and again, and I'm sure there'll be more opportunities where the question, the alchemy question, I think that helps is if we ever have enough space, just say, what am I learning today?
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: What am I learning from this right now?
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes you're learning to be really pissed, and you get to be pissed.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes you're learning I'm gonna take the time and grieve.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna not, I don't need to know what's next in my life.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: One of my clients just was sharing with me, and she, you know, she's got a divorce of her husband where she grew up in a kind of where that would never happen.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: And she did that, and her parents are passing on, and just her whole life is changing so radically.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, people keep asking me, it's been a couple years, and they're like, So what's next?
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: And she feels like she's supposed to know.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, you know, what feels most right is that you don't know.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, it's okay to not know, it's really powerful, especially in our current circumstances where we need innovation, we need ingenuity, we need, we need to take a break from just going and going and going.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, even in our political system, clearly things need whether it's a disruption or just a little break, and hopefully they're just small little pieces, you know.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: So even on our own lives, like what's working right now?
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what am I learning right now?
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: And if even if at the end of the day you can take a deep breath in or just reflect on that question, even if you're like, I can't answer that right now, or I don't even want to, that's even present.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think situations are that are that intense for us as humans.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think one of the most important um aspects of that is what we were talking about before, is to is sometimes you're in a situation where you just cannot figure out what the fuck that thing is trying to tell you.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's okay too, to just let it stop chasing it, stop seeking it, stop going after it, and just sit and Let it come to you.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: That is what has been so instructive to me lately is like stop pushing myself even there.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when I'm trying my hardest to do my best work to like, you know, work through it the way I know I'm supposed to, sometimes just doesn't happen.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: And even, you know, some of the languaging I've already shared and the kind of the new age spirituality, and especially on social media and things, it's really pumped forward.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's just not landing.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's there's a level of healing traumatic traumatic wounds or post-traumatic stress disorder, and all these different labels, but um, you know, feeling deeper emotions is so incredibly important, and just like my teacher offers sacred rage and sacred anger ceremonies.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, wow.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: And just simply put, she goes, There is a place for this in our world.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: It is a really healthy, good thing to feel these.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: And not everyone has the time or the blessing to meet with a teacher and do a ceremony, but even if this could lend um, I think just a voice to that, that that there is a place, and maybe you don't see it in society, but we must make a place for it.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: It is incredibly in my own practice, you know, some of the guidance I've shared and moving through those portals of suicide, there was still anger and rage that wanted to come through.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it was sometimes come through situations where I just downright didn't feel like it was allowed, or I didn't know how to access it, or I just didn't even know that that's what was going on.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: That I was so pissed and unsettled and rejecting the current situation for very good reasons.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: But it was just like, and usually it's very complex, it's so much.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I think many, many people, this is erupting like a volcano.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: And some people have like even what you were sharing, your experience might be just these little whiffs each day of the subtle gifts of love and presence.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: That also can actually be the way that it's releasing.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_00: Not everyone has to be like, I'm enraged and like be breaking glass, and you know, but sometimes that's the way to do it.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I invite people to know that that's necessary and um so important, and it's not also just done, right?
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes it comes back to be revisited, and that's when we can actually what I was saying earlier, you can start to see like, wow, that betrayal, I see it, and ultimately it's within me, and I no longer need to betray myself, the love that I am, you know, and this is this is um a place that I'm recognizing, and I want to share it with people, and also share that if that's not fully doing it for you right now, just to like take a breath in and close the eyes and start to feel it.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: There are so many teachers out there, more and more people coming forward with very just rock solid techniques and ways to really authentically source what you're feeling, and sometimes it's just ugly.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I see the beauty in what is considered ugly, you know.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_00: I see the beauty in in all of the atrocities that humans are capable of, and just running rampant with right now, and it's uh it's not keeping me from recognizing that true source within.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm feeling more love and more beauty, yet I'm able to see everything, and so every day is like I mean, my life on one level looks very beautiful, and I do like yoga retreats, and you know, I live in beautiful places, and you know, I'm just like this like smiling white guy that looks around walks around being so privileged and all this, and and so much of that is the mask, is there's truth in that, what I was given, and deep down I feel there's a responsibility.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: I remember being called here to love, and so I'm learning how to love.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to um move on before um I take the opportunity with you to ask you about the unique journey of men on this path, because um, you know, you and I know, especially in the yoga community, it's you know predominantly female um dominated as well, and this and in a sense the spiritual community is as well.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I just wondering if you could speak to that a little bit, because I feel like that's really needed.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and as you said that I just felt, and again, this you know, just having an open heart.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: I know that I don't need to reject anything, and when you started bringing that in, I just almost feel like I want to cry, like I felt so much sorrow, maybe partly um a personal feeling that I know, and then just feeling so many men.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um I do see that the feminine energy, which tends to look like it's embodied through women for through their biology and neuropathways and society's cultural standards, all of this, but is the feminine principle of receiving, not knowing and always have that plan of action, but to receive love, to receive the plan, the agenda, um, which is feminine in nature, um, it is available for men and women equally.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_00: And where women biologically, and again through the way they communicate socially, and I'm mostly a Westerner, but I know a lot of cultures, um, you know, they tend to, you know, they receive their moon cycle, you know, they receive, especially if you become a mother, I mean, things that men just don't know.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yet there are so many men, and myself included, um, where I didn't feel like it was safe to act feminine.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was actually I was endangered on the playground growing up.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: And especially in my case, I have more of what you might call a queer sexuality.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: So my sexuality is very open.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_00: Predominantly I'm I'm connect sexually with men.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, that's been changing because I'm more in this like agape love.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like everything is just pure love.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I'm very versatile in that way, which is maybe consciously a little more unique, but I just really remember it did not feel safe in my body.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I also was around a lot of women who were actually quite masculine in their energy and even abusive, and a couple of people where I felt physically unsafe.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had a maybe a unique experience, but more men that I that I see doing this kind of work and opening up, whether they're sharing with men or just sharing in public, um, or you know, sometimes on yoga retreats, often on my yoga retreats, there's men um just coming forward and seeing that we're all male and female, we all have the masculine feminine energies, and it's necessary.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: And for women to realize as because there is this storyline that's very real that women have been shut down and men have been given open access to power, and in this present moment, the opportunity is for a woman to step into her power, but being through that feminine receiving, like a portal receiving, and same with men.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, a lot of women are stepping into power by using that patriarchal masculinity, and it can be very subtle.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, men are doing that, so we're all in the same playing field now in that way.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: The challenge is for women to do their work and release in the way they need to, and I know there's so many women's circles, and I invite women to keep doing that, to feel safe with their fellow women, but realizing we're not here to grab that masculine energy.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_00: So there might be a lot of quietude, there might be a lot of silence, you might not necessarily step up that corporate ladder.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: That might not be the way that you are going to show your power.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, for some, it is.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_00: It all depends.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I invite everyone to listen in.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_00: Same with men, like it doesn't mean being a successful man out in the corporate world doesn't mean you have to undo that, but to receive and to participate in noticing when others are receiving.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_00: And may we start to congratulate each other and honor each other for receiving, which can look a lot like, I don't know, or I'm stepping back, or maybe I'm not gonna execute that plan to really get that next capital gain that fast, you know, the kind of business world that rewards us on doing, even in the spiritual world, it's like, oh, I have this many retreats and I've launched my new my new book and I'm doing this, and it's all like, and everyone's like, yeah, and it's like, what about?
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not doing any of that, I'm listening really deeply.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I support you on that, you know, and so I'm going off on a tangent a little, but for men to embrace listening to embrace those qualities to support women's empowerment without them having to like play the same game.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: So everybody coming to a place of balance and yeah, it has to it has to happen.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_00: Again, that's why I think certain closed groups or or safe groups can allow people their own unique process.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_00: But otherwise, like where I come from with my retreats or my work is like, let's find a balance and harmony.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: And if there's storylines that need to play out or trauma that needs to be released, or whatever the authentic process is for each person, we'll listen to that and we'll be with it.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, though, I'm coming from a place of balance and harmony.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're all in the same boat as they become a conscious to that, and again, unique process for everyone, depending on what cycle they're in, um, then they can come into that harmony of seeing clearly.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then I do find that the material reality, the phenomenal reality, um, you interact with it differently, you see it differently.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like I feel very safe to be more feminine.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm, you know, I appear as a leader in that.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: I get to lead retreats, and I really sometimes I joke, I get to lead the retreat so I can be how I want to be.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_00: I can set the standard.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and then it allows, you know, everyone to step up in their own, their own unique way in that fresh aliveness of this moment.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because being the boss of your life does not mean you have to be like the muscles.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and everyone has their own unique um, you know, some men might have like literal, like a lot of muscular energy, or they might do the heavy lifting, so to speak, but there's plenty of women that do.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_00: And some men are um much more feminine in nature.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're not as physically strong, or I mean, everyone's so unique, and just to set a space, a tone in your family, in your community, in your own mindset, that everyone is you so unique.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, watch when we're just sending out these thought kind of stories about people or projections.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're all it's all happening, and it's not my thought, it's just thoughts that come in.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_01: I I can foresee a time when you know everybody's just allowed to be who they are, and it's like this beautiful ebbing and flowing and coming and going, and um, you know, there's it and and the interactions that you have is just like, oh, just discovery, you know, and it's not like there's no bullshit, there's no conditioning.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_00: So many of the kids right now, and I know many parents, regular conversations with their own kids, especially the ones who are like 11, 12, 13, um, and it's and a little older too, they've been going through this, and it's part of their kind of socializing too, is every day they wake up as a different sex, at least mentally.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_00: And some of them are going through a lot more, even they want the physical changes, and that's unique, but it's showing this the neuro neurology is like changing.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_00: People are so fluid, and it can be very confusing and very challenging for the parents.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: But if the kids are um supported in this, it's helping all of us as humanity start to shift, and it might be kind of radical right now, but it's necessary.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, okay, that's so awesome.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_01: Erin, are you ready for our lightning round?
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_00: I love that, yes.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, all right.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_01: What inspires you?
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: Small question.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_00: I know, you know, nature, the ecology of of the world, and just watching nature's cycles and then seeing how humans interact with that for better or worse, you know, politely or rudely, but it's so inspiring to see the cycles of the moon and the sun and the stars and the elements play out.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm pretty obsessed with being in nature every day.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_01: But not everybody knows you, so um, do you have a nickname from your childhood?
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when I was younger, it was Aaron, just regular, and then when I was a little older, it was Augie or AO, like Aaron Ogden, AO, and then Aaron.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's cute.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay, would you want to live as a human forever?
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_00: Gosh, I feel like in this auspicious day of connecting, I might want to say yes.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if I would have ever said that.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_01: Talk about a portal.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_01: I was as I was writing the question, I was thinking, like, no, like I want to be other things too.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know if it's possible, actually.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_00: Might even be a more authentic answer.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't even know if I I said yes, and I'm like, can I even say yes?
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't even have any idea what what that is.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_01: Forever is a long time, too.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_01: I guess in a way we are forever human because here we are, human.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what I'm feeling right now.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, present moment.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel as though your life is speeding up or slowing down?
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's both.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's both.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and again, this is in the the mind's perception.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_00: So as I connect, which is my kind of frontal normal way, like we're connecting in time, space, words, you know, on this call.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, on one way, it really feels like it's speeding up.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yet there's more and more of these opportunities, almost these windows beyond what I call beyond the mind, where I'm just perceiving, you know, the state of being that is awakening, and it tends to feel like it's slow, that is slowing down relatively.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_00: But what happens is actually it becomes beyond the feeling of faster slow.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so fast and slower we're just taking these games out.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so again, it gets a little like kind of a little mystical in this realm of discussing, but it's both fast and slow.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_00: Things are happening faster than ever.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like I can think about something and it just comes in.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yet at the same time, I'm I am taking a lot of time, like not initiating in the ways I used to.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and I'm maybe a little unique, but days on end where I'm not even really talking, where I'm just out with the nature, where I'm not like taking steps toward goals in my life.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just living.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think if someone were to observe my life from the outside, they would assume that it's there's not very much happening, perhaps.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I've never known, I've never been in a faster life.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_01: I I feel like everything is so much faster, and yet I am more still in the midst of it.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm I'm that's the game, I think.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually the illusory reality on a collective scale with the internet, social media, the way we communicate, and the information we get is incredible.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_00: We've already, over 10 years, I think we've gotten used to so much.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_00: Our neural pathways, yet at the same time, almost in relationship, it's like yoga, the duality of yoga that's so fast, and yet there's this like stillness, I think is a better word than even slow.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's such a connection to stillness.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_01: I I think there actually is some sort of scientific phenomenon that says, you know, that you go so fast you stop.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's like an athlete, you know, a someone, a sprinter who just suddenly these, you know, we practice, we practice, just like the yoga techniques or all different techniques.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_00: You practice, you practice, you practice the breath moving in and out, you practice these rapid fire movements.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then a lot of, especially pro-athletes, especially the professional ones where they just have they just stay at it.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's this the zone.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's the zone.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't have any kind of spiritual languaging or architecture.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's a real scientific experience with our neuropathways and our ability to focus.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, do you watch TV?
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the classic, um, got rid of TV like two decades ago, and now I like have Netflix.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_00: So the last 10 years since moving back to California, I got on sharing a Netflix account with someone and slowly started watching certain shows.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_00: And now I go in and out of um getting really into Netflix, it becoming habitual as my downtime, you know, my relaxation kind of pleasure time.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_00: I also love watching movies and videos because they are all sim symbols to me.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_00: So it's entertainment, but it's also raising consciousness.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's just, you know, vegging out a little bit.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_00: But so no regular TV.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, gotcha.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so that concludes our lightning round.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have a question for me today?
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and you know, I've been thinking about this question a bit, and it feels a little bit kind of married together with a question that just feels alive all the time, but I know you're the perfect person to ask this to.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so the disclaimer, it's about intuition.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the disclaimer is I already know you are you know what intuition is for you, and you practice it regularly.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so people might answer this differently, but for you, Kay, like how how are you finding that intuition is a vital aspect in your daily day-to-day living?
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um or maybe even what even what is intuition to you, yeah, and how how is that a vital aspect in your day-to-day living?
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's funny because um I was just talking to our mutual friend Thea, who you know is very involved in the intuitive process, and she asked me the similar question.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_01: So um I'm gonna try and think about it a little differently so I can you know offer a different side of it.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_01: But I used to think that um intuition was a response that to a question that came from a different part of my body.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I can answer, you know, there's a there's a way to put my mind to the question, and but some of those some of some questions don't really um, you know, the mind isn't really that good at answering them.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I used to have this mental uh top-down feeling, and my intuition actually rises from like my solar plexus up to my heart.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_01: But I found now that um I have come to a place where I don't know whether it's because my mind is so tame now after years of practicing that, or whether the two have actually met in my heart center.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_01: And because obviously there are times that we when we need to think, and um, but probably not as often as we as we think.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you think about out driving in traffic, I find myself driving so much more intuitively than mentally, and so you know it's more fluid, I don't have to worry about things.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I have developed like greater and greater and greater trust in it, so it's it's coming into more aspects of my life, more um, more areas.
• 1:06:15
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_00: I love I love that you spoke about trust.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's ringing true so much.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like it might even be the question is how do we trust?
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, practice.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it's, and I know you're somatically like body-oriented with your practices as a yogi.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and all of us are in bodies, we're all yogis, we're connecting.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I love hearing how that intuition can feel physically oriented, like intuitive movement or even hands on the steering wheel, like intuitively driving without the mind always has a goal or a solution at hand.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, intuition, what I'm hearing from you too is you're trusting the process, not not just primarily occupied on I gotta get here or I gotta get that done, or what how is this an ends to the a means to the end?
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's just a means to the means.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think one of the ways that I began to um trust the intuition was when I was working through like really uh periods of my life where I had like ginormous to-do lists, like you know, I raised four kids, I started a business, I ran a business, and so you know, those those lists can get really long.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_01: And to look at the list, it would seem overwhelming, but I would sit every morning and just be quiet and trust that my life was going to order the list in such a way that I just had to do what came to mind next, and that was going to be enough.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_01: No matter what needed to get done, what I got done that day was enough that I could feel peaceful and relaxed, and um, that I had made progress.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's I think that's so key is intuitive prioritization.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_00: Especially in this day where, well, I mean, for decades we've been living this in the modern world that there's this to-do list and things that need to be done, and it doesn't always have to make sense.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_00: Trusting intuition says no, this needs to be tended to.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it can be very practical.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_01: I use it very practically.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much for being with me today.
• 1:08:31
  SPEAKER_01: I have enjoyed every minute.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_01: You're such a light and such a um, I'm so thrilled to have you in my orbit.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I could talk to you more often.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I want to encourage everybody to um check out the notes in the podcast so that they can connect with you, maybe join up with you on one of your retreats along with me, which I'm planning to do.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_01: But you also offer um all kinds of astrology services and yoga and healing, and um, you're just a carrier of the light and always have wise, wise things to say.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, Kay.
• 1:09:06
  SPEAKER_00: Such a pleasure and honor.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.