Latest / Live Free Ride Free with Rupert Isaacson / Being Upset by Beauty | Healing, Activism, Ayurveda & the Quiet Power of Presence with Rejane D’Espirac | Ep 46

Transcript

Being Upset by Beauty | Healing, Activism, Ayurveda & the Quiet Power of Presence with Rejane D’Espirac | Ep 46 · Live Free Ride Free with Rupert Isaacson

• 0:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Thanks for joining us.
• 0:01
  Welcome to Live Free, Ride Free.
• 0:03
  I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author of
• 0:06
  The Horseboy and The Long Ride Home.
• 0:08
  Before I jump in with today's guest, I want to say a huge thank you to you, our
• 0:13
  audience, for helping to make this happen.
• 0:15
  I have a request.
• 0:16
  If you like what we do here, please give it a thumbs up,
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  like, subscribe, tell a friend.
• 0:22
  It really, really helps us to make the pro.
• 0:24
  To find out about our certification courses, online video libraries,
• 0:29
  books, and other courses, please go to rupertisaacson.com.
• 0:34
  So now let's jump in.
• 0:36
  Welcome back lads.
• 0:38
  I've got an old friend here.
• 0:40
  I've got Rajan De that might give you a little bit of a clue into her nationality.
• 0:48
  She's French.
• 0:49
  And I've known Rajan for about 400 years, I think now, which
• 0:53
  is odd because she's only 21.
• 0:55
  But I first met her when I published a book, the Healing Land and it was
• 1:00
  published in French and Rajan came to interview me and she, I realized
• 1:06
  was someone quite similar to me and that she was a journalist who also
• 1:09
  crossed the line into activism.
• 1:12
  And over the course of her career, I've been tracking her.
• 1:16
  She's published all kinds of interesting books, tackling everything from human
• 1:22
  rights to the struggles, even her personal struggles with conception and having
• 1:28
  children and, all sorts of interesting stuff in the arts and all sorts of
• 1:33
  interesting stuff in general culture, and then back to activism, and then
• 1:36
  round the corner again to some other interesting documentary somewhere else.
• 1:40
  And the interesting thing about Rajan is I would say she absolutely epitomizes
• 1:46
  what we're talking about here when we, when we use the word self-actualization,
• 1:52
  this is somebody who has lived life on her own terms, still does.
• 1:56
  And absolutely we can learn a lot from how she does it, even
• 2:01
  if she doesn't quite know.
• 2:02
  I think it might be a bit of a magic thing.
• 2:03
  But let's see.
• 2:04
  So I'm going to turn it over to Rajan, thank you for coming on the show.
• 2:09
  Can you please tell us who you are, what you do, and why you do it?
• 2:15
  Rejane D'Espirac: Okay.
• 2:16
  I've got two minutes.
• 2:18
  Well, my occupation is a, I'm a writer.
• 2:21
  I'm tell a storyteller.
• 2:23
  I will say I'm real storyteller.
• 2:26
  And so I, I started, I, I, I.
• 2:29
  I started as a reporter as a travel reporter.
• 2:33
  Then I met human rights and I get involved into human right activism
• 2:39
  as a writer, as a reporter.
• 2:41
  Then I decided to write books because it was time.
• 2:44
  Then I decided to make films because it was time.
• 2:48
  But then, yes someone tell me that my best talent ends to be upset by
• 2:53
  things and to be moved by things.
• 2:56
  So I guess my line is to be upset and moved by life and to start writing
• 3:02
  about it and try to transmit what I feel and what I learn from things.
• 3:11
  Rupert Isaacson: Interesting.
• 3:12
  Talking about being upset.
• 3:13
  You know, we living in this, when I first met you, social media was not a thing.
• 3:19
  And obviously it's become a thing.
• 3:21
  And the fact that we are having this conversation over
• 3:24
  Zoom is part of social media.
• 3:27
  So generally we are often looking at it as a negative, but the truth
• 3:33
  is, we now to a large degree, all of us make our livings through it.
• 3:38
  However, I do think there's this interesting fine line between how
• 3:45
  it's used and how it's misused.
• 3:50
  And when you use the term upset, that's what made me think about it, because the
• 3:55
  idea of being moved, like feeling a sense of outrage about something or a sense of
• 3:59
  injustice about something and saying or, or noticing pain and suffering really,
• 4:04
  and saying, I would like to do something to ameliorate this pain and suffering.
• 4:09
  That's a very good thing.
• 4:10
  That's a very good motivator.
• 4:12
  As you and I both know, social media sometimes does the opposite, where back
• 4:18
  in the sort of 1960s and seventies and eighties, I guess into the nineties,
• 4:23
  the, the cliche was sex cells.
• 4:29
  Mm-hmm.
• 4:29
  And since social media that has been replaced with anger cells and fear
• 4:34
  cells and anger and fear sell much, much more than fear than sex ever did.
• 4:39
  It's a stronger emotion.
• 4:41
  And unfortunately, as we know this has led to what it's led to.
• 4:47
  So when you say, you know, that feeling of being upset by things, I know that
• 4:52
  you mean it in the traditional way.
• 4:56
  Yeah, of course.
• 4:56
  Yeah.
• 4:56
  Yes.
• 4:57
  Rather than in the modern day misinterpretation of it.
• 5:00
  But it's very interesting that this now comes to mind, isn't it?
• 5:04
  Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
• 5:04
  Yes.
• 5:05
  Yes.
• 5:05
  Because it's not the point, but you're right.
• 5:07
  I'm upset because I feel I can see the magic of life about everywhere.
• 5:12
  And when the magic is not seen on, when love is not seen on, when love
• 5:17
  is not respect, that makes me upset.
• 5:21
  So I guess my point, it's always to say, look, this is beautiful.
• 5:25
  Look that there is something precious here.
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  Look, you should be, be able to see that the way I see it, and this is why
• 5:34
  I get moved and that I want to transmit something by my writings, by my filming.
• 5:40
  It's always to see the beautiful part of it.
• 5:43
  I've, I have mo I am moved.
• 5:46
  I am upset because it should be so beautiful
• 5:51
  Rupert Isaacson: and
• 5:51
  Rejane D'Espirac: it's not.
• 5:52
  And so of course I'm not upset in the, in the anger way.
• 5:56
  I'm upset in the, whoa, it takes my breath away, it takes my love.
• 6:02
  It, it makes my earth so big.
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  I must do something with it.
• 6:08
  This is part of being moved and being upset.
• 6:12
  It's not possible that love can't be there or this is not possible.
• 6:17
  Beauty can't be thin there, something like that.
• 6:21
  Rupert Isaacson: I think the word that you are using here is passion.
• 6:26
  That it, it, it, it, it, it makes you feel impassioned and, and thing
• 6:30
  that passion is so interesting is, what does passion mean really?
• 6:35
  At least in English it, it means to suffer, you know, we often think
• 6:38
  passion is to love greatly or to, but actually that you talk about the passion
• 6:43
  of the Christ, for example, that's Christ suffering on the cross, right?
• 6:47
  So compassion is suffering with, yeah.
• 6:52
  But one cannot suffer with until one knows one's own suffering and
• 6:57
  recognizes the suffering in the world.
• 7:00
  I mean, that's the story of Shar, right?
• 7:02
  That's the story of the Buddha.
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  And it seems to me in your work, that's exactly what I recognize.
• 7:09
  It's like Rajan goes out into the world.
• 7:12
  She's like, the young Buddha goes out into the world from, from the palace
• 7:16
  and then she notices, Hey ho, hold on.
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  There's people starving over there.
• 7:20
  That's not right.
• 7:21
  And look, there's a bloke over there having to do a poo in the middle of
• 7:25
  the street 'cause he's got no toilet.
• 7:26
  And there's a lady over there having to give birth on the
• 7:29
  street 'cause she's got no bed.
• 7:30
  And hold on a second.
• 7:32
  What's all this malarkey?
• 7:34
  You know, what can we do about this?
• 7:36
  And then off you go, right.
• 7:39
  You're right.
• 7:39
  A beautiful
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  Rejane D'Espirac: story, I guess part of it.
• 7:41
  But there is another dimension.
• 7:43
  Go on.
• 7:43
  It's people who do something to go against.
• 7:47
  I mean, I'm very moved by people who do things.
• 7:51
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 7:51
  And
• 7:51
  Rejane D'Espirac: people who get involved like you.
• 7:53
  That's why I guess this links we have for 400 Euros, it's still there because
• 7:59
  I'm very moved by all you created.
• 8:02
  And it's not only says, okay, that's not fair.
• 8:06
  Says say, oh, what's the solution?
• 8:08
  What can we do very pragmatically to better something even a little bit.
• 8:15
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
• 8:15
  Rejane D'Espirac: I'm very moved by people who do stuff and for example, my latest
• 8:19
  documentary film about Bal people, it's not only about Bal situation, it's about
• 8:25
  a free clinic in the contaminated zone that helps people through Yoga and Veda.
• 8:31
  Where op medicine doesn't work anymore.
• 8:34
  It's not only saying, oh, poor people, it's okay.
• 8:38
  Even there, there are people who are able to create solutions that helps people.
• 8:44
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 8:45
  Talk to us about this film.
• 8:46
  So this film is called Boal.
• 8:48
  Rejane D'Espirac: It's called Sam bna.
• 8:49
  Sam BNA is the name of the free clinic and it means possibility some,
• 8:53
  Rupert Isaacson: but nah.
• 8:54
  Alright.
• 8:55
  What's it about?
• 8:56
  What is this Bow Pal thing?
• 8:58
  Tell us the story.
• 9:00
  Rejane D'Espirac: So you can't remember young girl 40 years ago, the city of
• 9:04
  Bal in India, in the middle of India has been the victim of the worst
• 9:09
  industrial disaster in the world.
• 9:12
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay?
• 9:12
  Rejane D'Espirac: It was what happened, a pesticide factory belonging to a
• 9:16
  American company called Union Carbide.
• 9:19
  At this time, it's do chemical now.
• 9:23
  And there were a, there was a huge leak of a very, very, very, very
• 9:29
  toxic gas during a coal night and the gas spreaded all around the city.
• 9:36
  And it killed like 8,000 people during the night, okay?
• 9:41
  And at the end, it killed 25,000 people, but then 600,000 people paid with
• 9:52
  chronical disease because of the gas.
• 9:56
  And the, and so people still live with chronical disease because what happened 40
• 10:04
  years ago and the factory closed, but the field has not never been decontaminated.
• 10:12
  So people living there are still victim of toxic groundwater and toxic fields.
• 10:19
  And so children are still.
• 10:22
  Are are still born with chronicle disease and malformations and cerebral,
• 10:28
  pasty and all this kind of stuff.
• 10:31
  So yes, we say now that boal is 600,000 victims and one or 200,000
• 10:41
  people living on contaminated ground and without any justice.
• 10:47
  And it's a neverending story till the, the, the factory ground and
• 10:53
  around is not decontaminated.
• 10:55
  But nobody wants to decontaminate, nor the Americans, nor the Indian government.
• 11:00
  No one because it's poor people.
• 11:02
  Nobody cares.
• 11:03
  Rupert Isaacson: How did you come across this story?
• 11:04
  Now that you've reminded me?
• 11:05
  I do remember reading about it, but of course I didn't
• 11:08
  ever read about the true scale.
• 11:11
  Rejane D'Espirac: Yes.
• 11:11
  Because we can remember some of us Yeah.
• 11:15
  Can remember what happened 40 years ago, but we, it's the end of the story, but
• 11:20
  it's just the beginning of the story.
• 11:22
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 11:22
  Because unlike say Bel, where they just moved everybody out mm-hmm.
• 11:27
  They couldn't move everyone outta an Indian city.
• 11:30
  Right.
• 11:30
  Also, India doesn't operate that way as I know.
• 11:33
  'cause I've lived in India.
• 11:34
  You've lived in India and Yeah, India.
• 11:37
  India has its own, its own rules.
• 11:39
  Rejane D'Espirac: How did you get involved in this political issues, cast issues?
• 11:42
  You've got all of that.
• 11:43
  Yeah, yeah.
• 11:44
  Mix.
• 11:45
  Rupert Isaacson: So how did you get involved?
• 11:46
  Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
• 11:47
  Oh, through a writer, so I know our writers can be powerful.
• 11:52
  Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
• 11:52
  Rejane D'Espirac: Like it was like 15 years ago an English book called Animals
• 11:57
  People has been published in French.
• 12:00
  And the same press rep that asked me to meet you, in fact, okay.
• 12:05
  He asked me to meet this English writer and the guy is called
• 12:10
  Reina and I met RA in Paris.
• 12:13
  And so I write the book, it's about Papa and I met the guy
• 12:17
  and we talked and you know, this kind of, okay, we are connected.
• 12:22
  I dunno it which way, I dunno when, I dunno where, but I'm gonna
• 12:26
  do something about this story.
• 12:27
  And he told me about the free clinic because this was part of
• 12:32
  it and he helped at that time.
• 12:35
  He was creative director in a huge London agency.
• 12:39
  And he created the, the ad in English newspapers that helped the clinic to get
• 12:47
  the money to, for the clinic to be built.
• 12:50
  So he was involved.
• 12:52
  And so Indra told me about Boal.
• 12:54
  He told me that the.
• 12:56
  The disaster was still on.
• 12:58
  And he told me about these people trying to help people through in traditional
• 13:04
  medicine because it was free or cost less.
• 13:08
  And allopathic medicine doesn't work anymore for them because of taking like
• 13:13
  kilos and kilos of medicine for years.
• 13:17
  So, you know, at at the time it doesn't work anymore or it
• 13:19
  creates new kind of problems.
• 13:22
  And so he told me about that like 15 years ago.
• 13:26
  And at that time I knew I will go, I would go, I didn't know where, when,
• 13:32
  when, but I knew I was part of the story.
• 13:36
  And in 2009 it was time.
• 13:40
  So I decided to go.
• 13:41
  I spent a couple of weeks at the clinic and I knew I would do a film
• 13:46
  about it because I deserve a film.
• 13:48
  I deserve to be known and I deserve tools.
• 13:51
  Tools to get funds because it's a free clinic.
• 13:55
  They operate only with individual funds.
• 13:59
  So I wanted to be part of it and create something that can be helpful for them.
• 14:03
  Rupert Isaacson: So tell me, because
• 14:04
  Rejane D'Espirac: meetings, you know, life, my life, it's always
• 14:07
  about meetings and things I didn't know about, but I recognize them.
• 14:12
  This is one of my tenants I recognized at, at what time?
• 14:15
  I say, okay, this is part of my life too.
• 14:17
  I need to go further.
• 14:18
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, it's interesting what you say.
• 14:20
  I think all.
• 14:22
  All of my, just like you, all of my significant work or anything
• 14:29
  in my life actually, it's all about meetings and conversations.
• 14:33
  And it, it does show, you know, people call us homo sapien
• 14:37
  sapiens, the the thinking ape.
• 14:39
  But I always thought that that's actually not a very good description for us because
• 14:43
  that anything with a brain thinks, right?
• 14:45
  So there's lots of things out there with brains and some things have
• 14:48
  quite a few brains like octopuses.
• 14:51
  What makes us unique is, is this thing, is the larynx.
• 14:55
  We talk, we speak, we are the speaking ape with a storytelling ape.
• 14:59
  That's our thing.
• 15:00
  And it's through stories, and stories come through meetings.
• 15:03
  You can't get a story unless you meet you.
• 15:05
  You can do it virtually.
• 15:07
  You can meet a story in a book.
• 15:09
  You can meet a story in a film.
• 15:10
  Yes.
• 15:11
  Yeah.
• 15:11
  That's the first step.
• 15:11
  Yeah.
• 15:12
  But that usually happens because somebody else met in person and
• 15:17
  then transmitted that story.
• 15:20
  So I think you're absolutely right.
• 15:21
  And if, if we.
• 15:22
  Looking for, like what can we learn from an interview like this?
• 15:26
  I think one of the things immediately it's worth looking at if you are
• 15:31
  listening to this or watching this, is have conversations, have
• 15:35
  lots and lots of conversations.
• 15:37
  They're never wasted time because conversations lead to other conversations
• 15:42
  that lead to other conversations, which will lead to the conversation
• 15:46
  that makes the thing happen.
• 15:48
  Yeah,
• 15:48
  Rejane D'Espirac: and more and more I want to understand what I'm working, because
• 15:53
  I, I do this work for like 20, 25 years and now I've got enough to say, okay,
• 15:59
  after 25 years of writing and meetings, what I'm writing about, it's not clear
• 16:05
  for me, but I think at the end it's relationship is there a way we relate with
• 16:13
  ourself, with the others, with nature.
• 16:16
  So I understood the relationship is a key factor.
• 16:21
  It was not the case at the beginning because I'm a little bit, you know,
• 16:24
  shy and always kind of observing person, but a bit away from the scene.
• 16:30
  And more and more I understand that I do that work and because this
• 16:35
  is a way to get related, related to people related to the world.
• 16:41
  And in fact everything is relationship and maybe my job now it's that,
• 16:47
  okay, look, how can we relate.
• 16:52
  With someone or with nature, with more on, on a sensitive way or on a more
• 17:00
  lovely way or the quality of relationship.
• 17:04
  Yes.
• 17:05
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, I agree.
• 17:07
  Listen, I need to know more about the story, BOPA.
• 17:10
  Rejane D'Espirac: Mm-hmm.
• 17:10
  Rupert Isaacson: So this is, as you say, a story about multiple relationships.
• 17:15
  Mm-hmm.
• 17:15
  And the healing power of relationship because that free clinic coming in at a
• 17:20
  crucial time must have come about because of conversations and relationships.
• 17:27
  It, it's the only way it could have happened.
• 17:29
  Right.
• 17:29
  But so, so tell me how did it happen?
• 17:33
  And a couple of other things.
• 17:35
  Not everybody listening to this or watching this will know what a Aveda is.
• 17:39
  Okay?
• 17:40
  Sure.
• 17:40
  Okay.
• 17:41
  Not everybody will know why it could work in some cases better than you're
• 17:51
  using the word allopathic medicine.
• 17:53
  If people are not familiar with that word.
• 17:56
  It means the medicine that you get when you go to see your Dr.
• 17:58
  Rejane D'Espirac: West, Western Medicine.
• 17:59
  Yeah.
• 18:00
  Rupert Isaacson: When you go to the hospital.
• 18:01
  Rejane D'Espirac: Mm-hmm.
• 18:02
  Rupert Isaacson: So it would be possible to look at a big disaster like that
• 18:06
  where everyone is all messed up.
• 18:08
  Mm-hmm.
• 18:09
  And say, well, obviously we need, you know, medicine er in there.
• 18:14
  We need the doctors to go in, we need this, we need that.
• 18:18
  And then why do we need these funny blokes who are just like quacks,
• 18:26
  who, there's not real medicine that's just like hippie stuff.
• 18:29
  Mm-hmm.
• 18:30
  Why would that be effective and how did it get going?
• 18:40
  Yeah.
• 18:41
  Why did this free clinic just came out of nowhere and I don't think so.
• 18:45
  So we need to know that story and you need to educate us a bit.
• 18:49
  What is Ayurveda?
• 18:51
  Rejane D'Espirac: Oh, sure.
• 18:52
  Okay.
• 18:52
  Let's start from the beginning.
• 18:53
  Yeah, of course.
• 18:55
  Western medicine, our medicine is a beautiful medicine for
• 18:59
  emergency and for bubble people.
• 19:02
  It, it has been completely useful for 10 years from the, the accident was in 1984,
• 19:08
  so for 10 years they took normal medicine.
• 19:12
  They took a lot of antibiotics psychotropic medicine because they've got
• 19:17
  like A-P-T-S-D, you know, this kind of
• 19:19
  Rupert Isaacson: mm-hmm.
• 19:20
  Rejane D'Espirac: And so they took, but they took a lot because the, the
• 19:23
  pain they had because of the gas was.
• 19:28
  Big, big, big.
• 19:29
  So at the end, after 10 years the guy who created the clinic, and I need to talk
• 19:34
  about him because he's very important.
• 19:36
  Rupert Isaacson: Please do.
• 19:36
  Yeah.
• 19:36
  He,
• 19:36
  Rejane D'Espirac: he discovered that people were taking like 30 kilos, 40
• 19:41
  kilos of western medicine, of antibiotics, an anxiety, anti antibiotics and all.
• 19:47
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 19:48
  But
• 19:48
  Rejane D'Espirac: per year, so 30, 40 kilos per year.
• 19:52
  It's a lot.
• 19:53
  Yeah.
• 19:54
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
• 19:54
  They were taking themselves 30 or 40 kilos.
• 19:58
  I mean, so if you translate that into American English or English.
• 20:02
  English, yeah.
• 20:03
  That's 60 to 70 pounds of medicine
• 20:07
  Rejane D'Espirac: Yes.
• 20:08
  Steroids in one person per year.
• 20:10
  Yeah.
• 20:10
  Rupert Isaacson: That's a lot.
• 20:11
  Yeah.
• 20:11
  Rejane D'Espirac: Because they've got breathing disorders, they've got any kind
• 20:15
  of pain you can imagine they've got and
• 20:17
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 20:18
  Rejane D'Espirac: Especially with respiratory organs because it's, they have
• 20:21
  been affected by very, very toxic gas.
• 20:24
  So, so yes, but at the end, after 10 years of taking ki kilos and kilos of medicine
• 20:32
  it creates I dunno how to say that in this kind of your body is is getting
• 20:37
  used so it's not effective anymore.
• 20:40
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 20:40
  Yes.
• 20:41
  Builds up a resistance.
• 20:42
  Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah, absolutely.
• 20:44
  Okay.
• 20:44
  And or it can create something else like your kinase doesn't support it anymore.
• 20:49
  Right.
• 20:50
  So you've got kidney disease because you've taken too more,
• 20:54
  too much me, too many medicine.
• 20:56
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 20:56
  Side effects effectively.
• 20:57
  Yeah.
• 20:57
  Yeah.
• 20:57
  Rejane D'Espirac: The side effects.
• 20:58
  Yeah.
• 20:59
  So this guy, so let's talk about this guy.
• 21:02
  His name is Sengi and the specific part, but this guy is
• 21:07
  not from Boal and he's an Indian.
• 21:11
  He is from the a past cast in India.
• 21:14
  He is a Braman.
• 21:15
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 21:16
  And
• 21:16
  Rejane D'Espirac: he was preparing a PhD in engineering when Boal happened.
• 21:21
  But he was quite an activist already, and he was helping farmers
• 21:25
  in the place where he was living.
• 21:27
  Mm-hmm.
• 21:28
  Rupert Isaacson: So he
• 21:28
  Rejane D'Espirac: decided to take a train Toal the day after the disaster.
• 21:32
  I guess he's the only guy in the planet to take a train to a
• 21:36
  disaster place after the disaster.
• 21:39
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 21:39
  Rejane D'Espirac: So he, he came there to give an help.
• 21:42
  He didn't know.
• 21:43
  Oh.
• 21:44
  But as he was very educated and very clever, he started to organize
• 21:49
  the rights of the victims and to try to help them on this way.
• 21:54
  And more specifically about the health rights, what can be done to save them.
• 21:59
  And so he was, he get involved and he never left.
• 22:04
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 22:04
  He's
• 22:04
  Rejane D'Espirac: living in Bal for 40 years and he never left.
• 22:09
  So he was involved in 10 years.
• 22:11
  After the disaster, he discovered people were taking so many medicine
• 22:16
  and it was not effective anymore.
• 22:17
  So he went to see the medical authorities and says, okay, what's next?
• 22:22
  What can we do now?
• 22:23
  And doctor says, we can't do anything more.
• 22:26
  It's, it's over.
• 22:28
  We can't do more.
• 22:30
  And but this is a kind of guy, you know, this kind of guy.
• 22:34
  You, you can't say such, you, you can't do anything else.
• 22:38
  It's over.
• 22:39
  So he starts singing and he is from a Brahman family where a plant
• 22:45
  medicine he's quite well known.
• 22:47
  And in his family, his father, who was a yoga practitioner and his
• 22:52
  mother was, and grandmother, were very educated with plant medicine.
• 22:57
  So he knew, so he decided to make a test.
• 23:02
  So he tried with a few victims, and then he decided to send them to four
• 23:10
  victims, two children, two adults.
• 23:12
  They, he sent them to Kerala, which is a, a state in India, the southwest
• 23:18
  of India, which is specialized in what is called Ayurveda.
• 23:22
  And Ayurveda is one of Indi in Indian traditional medicine.
• 23:27
  And it's mostly based on detoxification procedures.
• 23:32
  So it's a detox process and detox through plans and any kind of
• 23:38
  detox procedures like message or steaming and stuff like that.
• 23:43
  And so they tried and he discovered when, when the, the, the four victims came back
• 23:49
  from Carla, Carla for one month after the, their situation was quite better.
• 23:56
  So I decided to create the clinic from scratch with this vent nutrition.
• 24:00
  And and also because at that time he's been evolved in a manifestation and he has
• 24:05
  been beaten by police, very badly beaten.
• 24:09
  And he went to the hospital just to get a checkup and to be able to sue
• 24:14
  police because of what happened.
• 24:17
  And the doctor said, so, okay, you, you are badly injured and you're gonna,
• 24:21
  you have to stay for one month in the hospital and you will have side effects.
• 24:26
  But he was the cleaning at the he was building the clinic, so he said,
• 24:30
  did not to stay at the hospital.
• 24:32
  And the people at the clinic says, okay, we're gonna prepare something
• 24:36
  with Curcuma and Vera and cook it for you, and you will have to pass it on
• 24:41
  your body for 10 days and you will see.
• 24:44
  And after 10 days, it was better.
• 24:47
  So I said, okay, there is something I, I should go.
• 24:50
  And for yoga, he had this little bit of knowledge from his childhood, but
• 24:55
  he went to Beal to know more, to meet some yoga teachers, really advanced yoga
• 25:00
  teachers, and to understand, oh, yoga can be a therapy, not on the leisure part.
• 25:06
  More on the very specifically part of helping people from disease with yoga.
• 25:14
  And he came back with the knowledge and he created the clinic from
• 25:16
  scratch and from 30 years now they're documenting what they're doing.
• 25:21
  So they've got proof and they can, they have published articles
• 25:27
  in science magazines and all.
• 25:29
  And so they can explain these people are full of chemicals because of
• 25:34
  the gas, because of the, the DNA of people have been damaged, so the new
• 25:42
  generations are are sick too and whatever.
• 25:45
  So, these people are full of chemicals, so giving them more chemicals.
• 25:52
  Is it, it's not the, it's pointless.
• 25:55
  So the idea with Ayurveda, which is most of all detoxification
• 26:00
  procedures, is to detox them,
• 26:02
  Rupert Isaacson: okay.
• 26:02
  For
• 26:03
  Rejane D'Espirac: all the, the, the the chemicals they have inside.
• 26:06
  And it works also for emotional parts because most of them, the
• 26:12
  survivors, they are still very shocked about what happened.
• 26:15
  And they lost a lot.
• 26:17
  They lost their jobs.
• 26:18
  They lost their relatives.
• 26:20
  They have lost a lot.
• 26:21
  A lot.
• 26:21
  And they lost, they lost their health.
• 26:23
  So, and without any compensation, well, what they receive from
• 26:28
  the American company is $500
• 26:33
  Rupert Isaacson: per person.
• 26:33
  Rejane D'Espirac: Yes.
• 26:34
  For, for life.
• 26:35
  Not for your by, for.
• 26:37
  Well, that's it.
• 26:38
  Take 500.
• 26:39
  I was just, while you were talking, I was just,
• 26:42
  Rupert Isaacson: I was just doing a little Google on, on the thing and Yeah.
• 26:45
  Seeing how little accountability, of course there was.
• 26:50
  I've got some interesting questions here.
• 26:52
  Yeah.
• 26:53
  Okay.
• 26:53
  The first thing is even though this was largely a disaster that negatively
• 27:00
  affected mostly poor and lower middle class people, there must have been a
• 27:08
  certain number of wealthy and upper class people affected by it too.
• 27:13
  And if not, why not?
• 27:16
  Okay.
• 27:16
  Was it because the gas only settled in certain areas?
• 27:22
  Low lying areas and all the rich people are up on the hill?
• 27:25
  Is that why?
• 27:26
  Exactly, yes.
• 27:27
  That's because, you know, in America there's a lot of not dissimilar
• 27:32
  type of things that happen.
• 27:34
  And usually the people that get affected are low income people who are living
• 27:41
  in low altitude, low lying areas.
• 27:45
  And yeah, it frequently doesn't get the bosses, the company bosses, because
• 27:50
  they live on a hill and there's wind.
• 27:52
  Okay.
• 27:52
  So that was one question.
• 27:54
  The second question is I know something about detox and what in
• 27:59
  the autism world we call collation.
• 28:01
  Mm-hmm.
• 28:01
  Because when my son was going through his most difficult period with autism mm-hmm.
• 28:08
  He had a lot of heavy metals in his body that we had to get out
• 28:12
  and he lacked a naturally produced chemical called glutathione.
• 28:21
  And in fact, a lot of people with autism do lack or, or have an
• 28:26
  impaired ability to make glutathione.
• 28:29
  And glutathione is one of our natural.
• 28:32
  Collators.
• 28:32
  So we had to give him collating agents like zinc and so forth, to which the
• 28:38
  heavy metals would bind within the body.
• 28:41
  And then you ship them out.
• 28:42
  You piss them out, you sweat them out, you get them out in
• 28:44
  your hair, all these things.
• 28:45
  Okay, now that's one person.
• 28:49
  How do you do that with hundreds of thousands of people from one
• 28:55
  clinic that's going to take several forest worths of, of plants.
• 29:00
  Right.
• 29:01
  You talk about the volume of the medications that these people
• 29:05
  were taking, the volume of plants needed similarly is huge.
• 29:11
  How do you serve that number of people with that amount of plants?
• 29:18
  It's, you know, it's one thing to say it, it's another thing to do it.
• 29:23
  How did that happen?
• 29:24
  Rejane D'Espirac: Okay, so I'm gonna start, I've got a few questions.
• 29:28
  First I finish with what I've created.
• 29:30
  We talk about Ayurveda as you told.
• 29:32
  It's a
• 29:32
  Rupert Isaacson: okay.
• 29:33
  Rejane D'Espirac: Yes.
• 29:34
  And yoga is the second part, okay?
• 29:36
  Because yoga boosts the immune system.
• 29:39
  They've got very low immune system and that's why they keep being sick and sick
• 29:44
  and sick because the gas and the effects of the gas has lower their immune system.
• 29:50
  And so yoga helps them to boost the immune system.
• 29:54
  So it's both part, it goes together.
• 29:56
  All
• 29:56
  Rupert Isaacson: yogas or certain forms of yoga.
• 29:59
  Rejane D'Espirac: It's very simple.
• 30:00
  Yogas, it's only a few.
• 30:02
  They, they do like a few has and us, but very few some breathing process
• 30:07
  because they've got some, these breathing problems and a little bit of relaxation.
• 30:11
  But these guys they're mostly Muslim.
• 30:15
  They have no knowledge of, you know, yoga and Ayurveda is braman things.
• 30:20
  This is a Hindu thing, right?
• 30:21
  Not a
• 30:22
  Rupert Isaacson: Muslim thing.
• 30:22
  Rejane D'Espirac: Normal Indian people, I mean, low class Indian people,
• 30:26
  they don't dunno, nothing about that we see is a part of cultural Indian
• 30:31
  culture, but it's not in a way.
• 30:32
  I
• 30:32
  Rupert Isaacson: agree.
• 30:33
  Rejane D'Espirac: So it's, yeah, it's the upper classes,
• 30:34
  Rupert Isaacson: it's not for the lower classes.
• 30:36
  It's
• 30:36
  Rejane D'Espirac: smart and low cast into people.
• 30:38
  They, they arrive at the clinic.
• 30:40
  They know nothing about Ayurveda.
• 30:42
  Okay.
• 30:42
  They know nothing about yoga.
• 30:43
  And most of them now, and mostly women, they are, you know, with all
• 30:47
  they covered kind of stuff and Yeah.
• 30:49
  Rupert Isaacson: Workers.
• 30:49
  Yeah.
• 30:50
  Rejane D'Espirac: And so the, the yoga therapist has to go very slow.
• 30:54
  So she only gives two, three SNS movements to say, to, to, to
• 31:00
  practice at home or at the clinic.
• 31:03
  And two weeks after people come back and she can, okay, you
• 31:08
  manage so we can something else.
• 31:10
  But she's very simple yoga.
• 31:12
  It just to create an habit to take care of yourself so we can go back to care.
• 31:17
  Because at the clinic it, it works because of yoga, because of a veta.
• 31:22
  But it works mostly because of care.
• 31:25
  These people are been completely abandoned.
• 31:28
  Okay.
• 31:29
  You've, you have been completely, your, your life has been completely
• 31:34
  broken by gas, but nobody cares.
• 31:36
  Okay.
• 31:37
  Farewell.
• 31:38
  And as a clinic, they care.
• 31:40
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 31:41
  Rejane D'Espirac: And it's almost 50% of treatment just being listened.
• 31:47
  And to, and to answer your question about plans, first things
• 31:52
  they create is it's a garden.
• 31:55
  So for me as a, as a documentary maker, you've got something very visual.
• 32:00
  We are 500 meters from the, from the factory, which is still there.
• 32:06
  You know, this rotten factory.
• 32:09
  And 5500, 500 meters far from there.
• 32:13
  You've got a garden and a garden of plant medicines and medic medical plants.
• 32:19
  And so they've got their own garden and they created their own medicine
• 32:23
  and they've got a little factory of creating Ayurvedic medicine there.
• 32:29
  So this is way, the way they manage to give plants to people
• 32:34
  because they cultivate plants.
• 32:37
  Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
• 32:38
  But this is a lot of people.
• 32:39
  This is not, it's one neighborhood.
• 32:41
  This is,
• 32:42
  Rejane D'Espirac: yes.
• 32:42
  But you've got six, 600,000 people.
• 32:46
  It is a, it's the number of victim at the wall for 40 years.
• 32:50
  Now we can consider there are like.
• 32:52
  100,000 people are concerned.
• 32:56
  And the people you can help, you mean, and people with clinical disease, they
• 33:01
  come to the clinic and that's the clinic.
• 33:03
  They say they follow like 30,000 people in a way, but for, for 30 years.
• 33:12
  So at the clinic, every day they can see like 61, 60 people, 100 people a day.
• 33:19
  Rupert Isaacson: I'm still really impressed that, that a
• 33:23
  garden can scale to that degree.
• 33:26
  It shows how much can be done with small resources.
• 33:29
  Really
• 33:30
  Rejane D'Espirac: they do.
• 33:31
  This is, they do with small resources, they have no choice, you know?
• 33:34
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 33:35
  Rejane D'Espirac: And they, you've got one yoga therapist, two Ayurvedic doctors.
• 33:40
  There is, they are not against, he, you have an allopath doctor coming too.
• 33:46
  And they used to have other stuff, but because of cost, they, they have
• 33:50
  to reduce their but yes, they did it.
• 33:54
  They do it even if they do it small, but they do it and they create
• 34:00
  protocols that can be helpful for us too, because of back pain, because of
• 34:04
  psoriasis, because of breast problems.
• 34:08
  That boal is kind of, you know, big mirror of
• 34:11
  Rupert Isaacson: a bit of a laboratory
• 34:12
  Rejane D'Espirac: of our society.
• 34:13
  But it's what, but I, I'm just try to, a book, we will be published
• 34:18
  next year about boal today.
• 34:21
  And in a way it's not about boal, it's about all of us, you know, living
• 34:26
  in contaminated zone on another.
• 34:29
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 34:30
  Rejane D'Espirac: But this, this is a, just a thinking about what will help
• 34:36
  us in the future if we have to live in this kind of contaminated zone.
• 34:41
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 34:41
  And
• 34:41
  Rejane D'Espirac: the answer is care and be, here's a couple
• 34:44
  Rupert Isaacson: of questions then about yourself.
• 34:46
  You obviously have spent quite a lot of time in Bopa.
• 34:48
  Yeah.
• 34:49
  Yeah.
• 34:50
  How do you stay healthy because you are breathing in and drink, you know?
• 34:54
  Well, my
• 34:54
  Rejane D'Espirac: breathing is okay.
• 34:55
  You know, I don't live there.
• 34:57
  So I don't drink the contaminated water.
• 34:59
  I can
• 35:00
  Rupert Isaacson: You are to some degree eating foods from the area.
• 35:03
  Yeah.
• 35:04
  Rejane D'Espirac: That's it.
• 35:05
  It's okay.
• 35:05
  And mm-hmm.
• 35:06
  I don't live for your, you know, the, the problem is that people
• 35:10
  living there day after day for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years.
• 35:15
  Rupert Isaacson: My, my question was going to be do, have you taken
• 35:18
  practices from being in Boal that were perhaps self-care detox to look after
• 35:27
  yourself while being in a Bo pal, and now you use those now that you are
• 35:32
  living in polluted old Paris, or, yeah.
• 35:39
  Could you do stuff there to keep yourself healthy that you've
• 35:42
  now brought home, basically?
• 35:44
  And what tips can you give us?
• 35:47
  Rejane D'Espirac: I, I, I, I guess what I learned, I didn't learn it from
• 35:50
  Al because yoga and I Veda as well, well, came to my life earlier mm-hmm.
• 35:57
  For other reasons, but I learned a lot from them.
• 36:00
  And I would say it's a holistic approach.
• 36:03
  The what I, well, what I, what I, it's in a way I learned that everything is
• 36:10
  healing and most of all the quality of relationship we have to everything to what
• 36:16
  we eat, to people we have around us, and the kindness we can put in everything.
• 36:24
  I think my main lesson, lesson from Boal is caring for people and just the way
• 36:34
  when you listen to people and when you try to understand who he is and
• 36:38
  why he is like that you are gonna give him the power to heal himself.
• 36:45
  And that's what Samba Popal do in a way, because as you say, it's a very
• 36:50
  small clinic and they do with very red.
• 36:54
  Means and tools, but they give people attention.
• 36:59
  And when they give people attention and the small tools to take care of
• 37:04
  themself, when you, when you teach someone to breathe like twice a day
• 37:11
  or to do some very simple movements twice a day, you give him the power
• 37:18
  to take care of himself or herself.
• 37:21
  And that's a lot for people who have been considered like, cheat for years.
• 37:26
  Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
• 37:27
  Rejane D'Espirac: Because suddenly they take care of themself and they get energy
• 37:31
  to do something better for their house maybe, or the way they, the job they do or
• 37:39
  the way they interact with their children.
• 37:42
  It's, it's just giving power back.
• 37:45
  Rupert Isaacson: This is really interesting.
• 37:46
  I was just thinking about the concept of self-healing, where if you have a part
• 37:55
  of yourself that you feel needs healing, you give it attention in some way.
• 37:59
  Not negative attention, like you stupid thing.
• 38:03
  You shouldn't be like that.
• 38:04
  Rejane D'Espirac: Not care.
• 38:05
  Yeah.
• 38:05
  But
• 38:07
  Rupert Isaacson: thinking about that part of your body or that
• 38:10
  part of your brain lovingly.
• 38:12
  And for all of us who grow up in the west, this is an alien concept at the beginning.
• 38:19
  Actually, as you also point out, even in places like India where such
• 38:24
  concepts are traditional, they're only traditional for the upper classes.
• 38:28
  They're not traditional for the lower classes.
• 38:30
  People think, oh, everyone in yoga must be doing yoga in India, must be doing yoga.
• 38:35
  It's like, no, no, no.
• 38:37
  That bloke who's breaking the rocks on the road, he is not doing any yoga.
• 38:41
  He's got no time to do yoga.
• 38:42
  He doesn't even know what yoga is.
• 38:43
  Yeah.
• 38:44
  That's for other people a little bit like it is in the West.
• 38:48
  I mean, the people that that do this are tend to be people who have
• 38:52
  the leisure and the money to turn their attention to these things.
• 38:56
  However, that does not mean that these things are not true.
• 39:01
  Just like not everyone in the west is a scientist and most scientists have to come
• 39:06
  from family backgrounds where there is the money and opportunity to have education.
• 39:11
  You know, yes, you get some people who come up from absolutely
• 39:15
  nothing, but not that many.
• 39:17
  Most people come from the upper end of the middle class.
• 39:20
  Okay.
• 39:21
  So,
• 39:24
  but what's lovely about this story is that that knowledge is then given back
• 39:29
  to the people who who need it the most, for whom it is alien, but also for us.
• 39:36
  I think for me, hearing this story, you know, one has one's own reactions
• 39:42
  and you know, you have, you.
• 39:44
  I remember myself at 10, myself at 20, myself at 30, myself at 40.
• 39:48
  Yeah.
• 39:49
  And each time my reaction to something like that would've been different because
• 39:53
  of my conditioning in my own culture.
• 39:56
  So in the early, my early adulthood, I would've dismissed
• 40:00
  something like a Aveda as well.
• 40:02
  That's just sort of hippie thing.
• 40:04
  'cause that's what my parents would've said, right?
• 40:06
  And then later you go traveling and you spend time in India and you
• 40:11
  spend time with other people, go, oh, actually this shit works, right?
• 40:14
  There's more than one technology out there.
• 40:16
  Good to know.
• 40:17
  Okay.
• 40:18
  Then you go through another thing.
• 40:20
  By the time you get to the idea that care, just simple care
• 40:27
  could really be the game changer.
• 40:31
  Those of you who are listening or watching might want to look
• 40:34
  at a concept called Yoga Nira.
• 40:37
  I use it a lot.
• 40:39
  In the middle of the day.
• 40:41
  One things I love about it is I'm a terrible meditator.
• 40:44
  Like I've tried to meditate.
• 40:46
  I just make up stories in my head.
• 40:48
  And, you know, it's just not, you know, it's just not me.
• 40:50
  And then you have to sit in this uncomfortable, stupid position where your
• 40:54
  back hurts, and then you're this hurt.
• 40:56
  And it's like, why?
• 40:56
  What the fuck?
• 40:57
  You know?
• 40:58
  And this is just some asshole bloke, like another Roman Catholic priest, you
• 41:03
  know, telling me I've got no fuck off.
• 41:06
  You know?
• 41:06
  But why can't I just lie down and relax and then suddenly.
• 41:09
  There you are with yoga nidra, with the person saying, yeah, if you just lie
• 41:14
  down and relax, oh, and by the way, if you fall asleep, that's totally okay.
• 41:17
  That's what your body needs.
• 41:19
  Oh, and now all we're going to do is just bring our attention
• 41:22
  to these different parts of your body in a sort of rhythmic way.
• 41:26
  You think about, you know, the top of your head, then you think
• 41:28
  about the middle of your forehead.
• 41:29
  Then you think about the muscles around the eyes, and then you think
• 41:32
  about your tongue, and then you think about this part and that part.
• 41:36
  You go down through the arms, through the, and by the time you are, one
• 41:40
  minute in, you are feeling really good.
• 41:43
  And then either after that you might be unconscious or you go into this state
• 41:48
  of very, very deep relaxation where you come out feeling like you just had
• 41:54
  eight hours of sleep after maybe 25 minutes, and there's been no effort.
• 42:01
  And all one has done is bring attention care, I suppose, in another word, to first
• 42:10
  the body as a whole lie down, relax, and then to these different parts of the body.
• 42:16
  Of course, this has been known for thousands of years, but it's interesting
• 42:21
  that even I think somebody like me who has spent all this time with shamans and blah,
• 42:26
  blah, I, I still find these concepts new.
• 42:29
  And it's like an endless discovery.
• 42:33
  It is, and it is rather beautiful that you can bring something
• 42:37
  like that to our attention.
• 42:39
  To use Bo Paul as a mirror to say it's not just about these people over there.
• 42:46
  You need this too.
• 42:48
  You are living in a contaminated zone.
• 42:50
  In a way.
• 42:51
  You lead a stressful life in a a less extreme way.
• 42:56
  Perhaps you've been abandoned or dismissed or overlooked or betrayed or attacked,
• 43:04
  or just the stuff that happens in life.
• 43:07
  You can't go through life without these things happening.
• 43:10
  That's part of the human condition.
• 43:12
  Sometimes you are the perpetrator, sometimes you are the victim.
• 43:15
  That's how it goes.
• 43:16
  It's, it's a, but what do you do about all this?
• 43:18
  There's, there's suffering, passion, suffering, there's compassion.
• 43:24
  Okay, so you bring this story back and you bring it to our attention.
• 43:28
  And simply by bringing our attention to the fact that you can heal through
• 43:35
  attention as a reader or even listening to this, I feel a certain sense of healing.
• 43:42
  It's very interesting, isn't it?
• 43:44
  That story transmits healing in this way.
• 43:47
  Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
• 43:48
  In a way where, at the beginning of the conversation you are talking about
• 43:51
  social medias and this zoom being part of it, and I guess this conversation.
• 43:57
  Yes, we are.
• 43:58
  Can be form of healing because of that, because it's a conversation,
• 44:03
  because well, in France in French we've got this term we call presence.
• 44:06
  Presence, you know, this kind of care, atten attention and care,
• 44:10
  just being present to the other, to the conversation to the moment and
• 44:15
  presence in itself can be very healing because suddenly you are not alone.
• 44:20
  You are with someone sharing something.
• 44:23
  And the most important part is a sharing part.
• 44:26
  It's not you, it's not me.
• 44:27
  This is what is between you and me.
• 44:31
  This is presence, and this is sharing, and it can be sharing in silence.
• 44:35
  But this is the most important, important part.
• 44:38
  And, and I guess the bubble story, it's part of it, it's a moment of sharing
• 44:44
  where all this kind of possibility was not there for this kind of people.
• 44:50
  And just to answer your question, why whilst people, rich people has
• 44:54
  not been concerned by the disaster?
• 44:57
  Yes.
• 44:58
  It's because the, the factory was in the suburbs in the popular
• 45:02
  areas, and so it was cold.
• 45:05
  So the gas leaked Yes.
• 45:07
  At very low level.
• 45:09
  And so entering the houses and then, and in Bal you've got a huge lake.
• 45:14
  Lake in the middle of the city, and the, the gas was absorbed.
• 45:21
  By the water and the wells where the rich people were living at the, out
• 45:27
  the other part of the lake on deals.
• 45:32
  So yes, the, the gas never reached the, the rich the rich areas.
• 45:40
  Rupert Isaacson: It's interesting, the geography of health, isn't it?
• 45:44
  You live in the low lying swamp, chances are you'll get more sick than
• 45:50
  if you live up on the hill, sure.
• 45:52
  Where the wind blows.
• 45:54
  And there's a reason why, if you think about it, you think of any
• 45:57
  city with perhaps the exception of places like the favelas of Rio de
• 46:05
  Janeiro, which sometimes are up on the hills, but in general, in general,
• 46:12
  the rich people live high and the poor people live low.
• 46:15
  So if you're moving to a place lads, you might want to consider
• 46:23
  which bit of the physical geography you go for.
• 46:26
  The story in Boal, of course in India, you spent a lot of time in India.
• 46:34
  I've spent some time in India, but you've spent much more time than me.
• 46:38
  And this of course.
• 46:40
  Has impacted your personal life in massive ways.
• 46:45
  The book that sort of, I would say launched you in a way was
• 46:51
  this book called On Fa Bibe.
• 46:55
  Rejane D'Espirac: Oh yeah.
• 46:56
  Almost.
• 46:56
  And Bibe on Fa On
• 46:57
  Rupert Isaacson: Fa.
• 46:58
  Right At Last Baby.
• 46:59
  At at Last.
• 47:00
  Yeah.
• 47:00
  A Baby at Last.
• 47:01
  Right.
• 47:05
  Tell us about that story.
• 47:08
  Rejane D'Espirac: In fact, this is the same story in a way.
• 47:11
  Rupert Isaacson: Go on.
• 47:13
  Rejane D'Espirac: The this is my son's story.
• 47:15
  The book is about the fact that after seven years of trying to
• 47:19
  have a baby it was not there.
• 47:22
  And I didn't want to go to medicalization of infertility medicalization.
• 47:29
  I knew it was not my pass.
• 47:31
  Something else was waiting for me.
• 47:33
  But I and then I happened to be in India with my husband and before going to
• 47:42
  write a story about Indian bikers, we stopped in a, in Ayurvedic clinic in the
• 47:49
  South of Carolina to see a friend of us.
• 47:52
  So we were there just for a couple of days to meet our friends, but then
• 47:56
  we were there, so we met the doctor.
• 47:58
  The I have doctor, and I knew nothing about Aveda at that time.
• 48:02
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 48:02
  That's interesting.
• 48:03
  Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
• 48:04
  Rupert Isaacson: You weren't so meeting, you know,
• 48:05
  Rejane D'Espirac: I, I've never looked for a solution there,
• 48:09
  but the ion found me in a way.
• 48:12
  Yeah.
• 48:13
  And so we met the doctors and he asked us why are you there?
• 48:17
  I said, okay, we just came to visit asa, but by the way, you know, we've got
• 48:22
  this kind of western healthy conditions.
• 48:26
  I've got headaches, my husband have back pains, and we are very stressful because
• 48:31
  we work a lot and blah, blah, blah.
• 48:33
  He said, okay.
• 48:34
  And then my husband told him, and I was so angry about that, he says, okay,
• 48:40
  and you know, we've, we've been trying to have a baby, but it doesn't work.
• 48:45
  And Dr.
• 48:46
  Clark says, okay.
• 48:49
  And I was so angry because this was kind of taboo for me.
• 48:53
  That's why, why I was saying that to this guy with a big mustache.
• 48:56
  We don't know for 10 minutes, would
• 48:59
  Rupert Isaacson: it have been all right if the guy didn't have a mustache?
• 49:03
  You are only allowed to tell people you have no mustache.
• 49:05
  Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah,
• 49:06
  Rupert Isaacson: I know what you mean though.
• 49:07
  Yeah.
• 49:07
  Yeah.
• 49:08
  Rejane D'Espirac: And but then we spend a couple of days and we
• 49:11
  have this kind of sweet message and then, it was interesting.
• 49:15
  Mm-hmm.
• 49:16
  After two days I won, I needed to go to do my story with Indian bikers, so tour
• 49:23
  South India by bike with these guys.
• 49:25
  And, and I said, I guess as
• 49:27
  Rupert Isaacson: in motorbikes or Hell's Angel, Indian Hell's Angels, or, yeah.
• 49:30
  Kind
• 49:30
  Rejane D'Espirac: of.
• 49:30
  It was people from Ryan and Field, people who knows India knows Royal Enfield.
• 49:35
  This Yes.
• 49:36
  The Indian brand of motorbikes.
• 49:38
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 49:39
  Rejane D'Espirac: So yes, it was, the idea was to, to to have a trip
• 49:43
  in India with viol Enfield people.
• 49:46
  Okay.
• 49:47
  And it was fun.
• 49:48
  I
• 49:48
  Rupert Isaacson: bet.
• 49:49
  Rejane D'Espirac: But then I, I told the doctor, okay, doctor, it
• 49:51
  was very interesting to be there.
• 49:53
  And but by the way, I still have headaches.
• 49:56
  And the guy looked at me and say, Rajan, why are you so sad?
• 50:04
  And I don't have the answer still, but just I started crying and
• 50:08
  crying and crying for two hours.
• 50:10
  I start crying.
• 50:12
  So I decided to go back after my riding trip.
• 50:16
  I, we going back to the clinic for 10 days and we have like very classical
• 50:20
  treatments what they call Pan Karma.
• 50:23
  It's a detox process.
• 50:24
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 50:25
  But
• 50:25
  Rejane D'Espirac: nothing really focused on infertility.
• 50:28
  But I understood the guy was interesting with the, the Christian and he,
• 50:33
  we talked, we talked about love about couple, we talked about life.
• 50:38
  That Ida first, it's a, it's a, it's a balance process.
• 50:42
  The idea for them, it's when you got sick, when you've got something, you see it's
• 50:46
  easy because your energy is unbalanced.
• 50:49
  So the medicine, the, the goal of the medicine is first to balance your energy.
• 50:56
  So after 10 days, I went back to France and I really feel balanced.
• 51:01
  So I went back to my boss.
• 51:03
  I was taking, I was the editor of a magazine at that
• 51:06
  time, and I went to my boss.
• 51:08
  I said, okay, I'm gonna be there three months and the fourth month I'm not there.
• 51:14
  I'm gonna work part-time.
• 51:15
  I need time for me.
• 51:17
  I need to go back to the ground.
• 51:18
  I need to maybe start something else, but I need time for me.
• 51:23
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay?
• 51:24
  Rejane D'Espirac: And slowly, slowly months after months I realized I, overda
• 51:30
  has changed something very subtle.
• 51:33
  It was not very mechanical, but it was subtle.
• 51:36
  It was in my energy.
• 51:37
  I was more in life, more alive in a way.
• 51:41
  And like six months.
• 51:44
  And then we decided to go to see a, a specialist in France.
• 51:49
  I said, okay, we have opened this box of having a baby again, so let's be sure.
• 51:55
  So we went to see a, a specialist in France and we had some big
• 51:59
  analysis about fertility stuff.
• 52:02
  And after some weeks, the guy told us.
• 52:06
  You will have, you will never have a baby.
• 52:08
  Don't try a medicalized process.
• 52:12
  It will not work if you want a child adopt.
• 52:15
  Rupert Isaacson: As you know, if you followed any of my work, I'm
• 52:18
  an autism dad and we have a whole career before this podcast in helping
• 52:25
  people with neurodivergence, either who are professionals in the field.
• 52:30
  Are you a therapist?
• 52:31
  Are you a caregiver?
• 52:33
  Are you a parent?
• 52:34
  Or are you somebody with neurodivergence?
• 52:38
  When my son, Rowan, was diagnosed with autism in 2004,
• 52:43
  I really didn't know what to do.
• 52:45
  So I reached out for mentorship, and I found it through an amazing adult
• 52:50
  autistic woman who's very famous, Dr.
• 52:53
  Temple Grandin.
• 52:54
  And she told me what to do.
• 52:56
  And it's been working so amazingly for the last 20 years.
• 53:00
  That not only is my son basically independent, but we've helped
• 53:05
  countless, countless thousands of others reach the same goal.
• 53:09
  Working in schools, working at home, working in therapy settings.
• 53:14
  If you would like to learn this cutting edge, neuroscience backed
• 53:19
  approach, it's called Movement Method.
• 53:21
  You can learn it online, you can learn it very, very simply.
• 53:25
  It's almost laughably simple.
• 53:28
  The important thing is to begin.
• 53:32
  Let yourself be mentored as I was by Dr.
• 53:35
  Grandin and see what results can follow.
• 53:39
  Go to this website, newtrailslearning.
• 53:44
  com Sign up as a gold member.
• 53:47
  Take the online movement method course.
• 53:51
  It's in 40 countries.
• 53:53
  Let us know how it goes for you.
• 53:55
  We really want to know.
• 53:56
  We really want to help people like me, people like you, out there
• 54:00
  live their best life, to live free, ride free, see what happens.
• 54:05
  Why did he say that medically?
• 54:07
  What was his reason?
• 54:08
  Rejane D'Espirac: Oh, because you know, the, the rates of hormonal
• 54:11
  rates for him, hormonal rates for me and the number of staff.
• 54:16
  The values, the
• 54:17
  Rupert Isaacson: hormonal values,
• 54:19
  Rejane D'Espirac: right?
• 54:19
  Yeah.
• 54:19
  Yeah.
• 54:19
  And all this kind of very factual Okay.
• 54:23
  Stuff.
• 54:24
  It says, okay, now you, you can be sure don't go.
• 54:27
  It's gonna be painful and long and useless.
• 54:31
  So if you want a child you can adopt.
• 54:33
  And it was okay for us.
• 54:34
  I said, okay, at least we know and we are gonna think about it.
• 54:38
  But it was in March and in October or November after I
• 54:43
  discovered I was pregnant.
• 54:45
  Completely, naturally,
• 54:47
  Rupert Isaacson: okay.
• 54:47
  Rejane D'Espirac: So this is the beginning of the book said, whoa, okay.
• 54:50
  What happened?
• 54:52
  What happened for the diagnosis of western medicine being so invalid
• 54:59
  after a few weeks or months?
• 55:01
  Mm-hmm.
• 55:02
  What happened with Ayurveda?
• 55:03
  What did they open to me?
• 55:05
  So I started investigation about the link between emotions and body and mm-hmm.
• 55:12
  And about what?
• 55:15
  What we don't know, in fact about a human being.
• 55:18
  And the, maybe we are not only a mechanical process, maybe we are not only
• 55:24
  a machine and it's more complex than that.
• 55:27
  And maybe this kind of traditional medicine and on, on not only
• 55:31
  Ayurveda, but, and maybe care is opening something else and is
• 55:36
  operating on a different level.
• 55:38
  And maybe it's time to get it all together on a more holistic approach.
• 55:43
  Of course, you need to go to Western doctors, of course you need to investigate
• 55:49
  quantitative things about what is wrong in your body, but maybe there is something
• 55:55
  more meditative you can work with.
• 55:58
  And that's for the book.
• 55:59
  So I wanted to, I have, so this is my story and my son's story, and this
• 56:04
  is also my story as a professional, as a, as a writer, because I
• 56:07
  wanted to understand what happened.
• 56:09
  So I start writing a lot about healing and human complexity and
• 56:15
  maybe consciousness and all this kind of stuff we are made with.
• 56:20
  So for the book, I went back to the doctor, the French doctor, that told
• 56:24
  me I, I would never have a child.
• 56:27
  And I told him what happened, and he told me that, you know, I'm working with
• 56:32
  quantity, but I don't work with quality.
• 56:36
  Maybe if you've got only one egg, and for my point of view,
• 56:39
  statistically it's not enough.
• 56:42
  But if this one egg is a very good quality, it's gonna work.
• 56:46
  But quality is not my stuff.
• 56:48
  So maybe all this traditional approach or more holistic approach or more emotional
• 56:54
  approach or spiritual approach, any in humanism, it's part of it, of course.
• 56:59
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 57:00
  Rejane D'Espirac: They're working more on spirits or on quality of things.
• 57:06
  Rupert Isaacson: That's a really good answer, and it was not
• 57:10
  the answer I was expecting.
• 57:11
  Okay.
• 57:12
  I really like the analogy that the doctor gave there of quality versus quantity.
• 57:23
  This is a really interesting thing to consider.
• 57:27
  Why do certain things work against the statistics, against the odds?
• 57:38
  Is it possible that the quality of the minority thing is so good that it
• 57:45
  makes up for, well, I think we know that this is true, but it's, what is
• 57:50
  true is we don't, we don't look at this scientifically at all, do we?
• 57:54
  Scientifically we tend to only deal.
• 57:57
  It's so true in quantity and in the work that we are doing.
• 58:01
  With autism in the brain.
• 58:03
  We have a lot of academics that study us.
• 58:05
  Last year we had a PhD published into movement method, which is, you
• 58:10
  know, our neuroplasticity approach started with kids and now it's
• 58:15
  for everybody started with autism.
• 58:17
  Now it's for everybody.
• 58:19
  And our equine approaches too.
• 58:21
  There've been so many studies done now on us, and there's more beginning.
• 58:27
  And I always hear these academics when they want to do the studies, 'cause they
• 58:32
  always use this term, is it a quantitative study or is it a qualitative study?
• 58:39
  And I'm like, I don't fucking know.
• 58:40
  I I don't know.
• 58:40
  It's your job.
• 58:41
  I mean, you know, I'm just doing the thing.
• 58:43
  I mean, you tell me.
• 58:45
  And then they tell me something in academic speech.
• 58:47
  I'm like, yep, that makes no sense at all.
• 58:48
  Okay, anyway, I'm gonna go do my job.
• 58:51
  You do yours.
• 58:52
  But I think what you just said has actually allowed me to understand the
• 58:57
  difference in a way that I haven't before.
• 59:02
  So thank you for that.
• 59:05
  The, and the
• 59:05
  Rejane D'Espirac: guy, the guy say something else about quality said, and
• 59:10
  quality is very linked to environment, inner environment, and outer environment.
• 59:17
  So if you want, don't, if you want, the quality can be really,
• 59:22
  modeled maybe by inner environment.
• 59:26
  So your emotions, your personal story.
• 59:28
  Mm uh, your familial background.
• 59:31
  So this part of your inner environment.
• 59:34
  Mm-hmm.
• 59:34
  And you can walk and what you eat and the, what you do about stress and whatever.
• 59:39
  And outer environment, the way the, the place you live with the pollution
• 59:44
  you are you are around and whatever.
• 59:47
  So quality is influenced by environment.
• 59:50
  The, in the big way of understanding what environment is.
• 59:54
  And this is very interesting too because I, I start under understanding
• 59:59
  that we are not isolated beings.
• 1:00:04
  We are just contexts, you know?
• 1:00:06
  And context can change.
• 1:00:08
  And so the way context change, you are gonna change on a
• 1:00:12
  good way, on a, on a bad way.
• 1:00:17
  Rupert Isaacson: Back to my work with movement method, we have an equation
• 1:00:21
  that we teach people for learning.
• 1:00:23
  We call it the learning equation.
• 1:00:25
  And it's about environment.
• 1:00:27
  And we say, if you get the physical environment right, the
• 1:00:34
  physical environment is both your internal physical environment, your
• 1:00:38
  nutrition, this and that, but it's also your external environment.
• 1:00:41
  Effectively, the more nature the better, because that's our habitat as a species.
• 1:00:48
  And the right human environment.
• 1:00:51
  IE hopefully an asshole free zone when you're trying to learn.
• 1:00:56
  Because when you are dealing with an unsympathetic person that the brain
• 1:01:02
  perceives that as a threat, then the brain will tell the body to produce cortisol
• 1:01:07
  stress hormone, which blocks learning.
• 1:01:10
  That's its job to get you out of trouble.
• 1:01:12
  So you're not thinking, so you need to get that right too.
• 1:01:18
  So no assholes and nice physical and internal environment.
• 1:01:25
  But then we started to look at that and say, okay, but which of
• 1:01:28
  those two is the most important?
• 1:01:30
  And we realized it was the human environment because you can go into the
• 1:01:34
  forest with somebody who's horrible and really scary, and all you will learn
• 1:01:42
  is to try to run away from that person.
• 1:01:45
  You can be in a terrible physical environment with somebody very empathetic
• 1:01:53
  and learn a lot that the quality of love will always be the most important thing.
• 1:02:02
  Rejane D'Espirac: Back to Bapa,
• 1:02:03
  Rupert Isaacson: back to Bapa.
• 1:02:04
  Yeah.
• 1:02:05
  So when you are talking about at last a baby, that book,
• 1:02:14
  I'm just tracing the story.
• 1:02:17
  It starts, I guess, when the Ayurvedic practitioner said
• 1:02:23
  to you, why are you so sad?
• 1:02:27
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:02:28
  Did he give a chance for your subconscious mind to begin a process of self-care?
• 1:02:38
  Yes.
• 1:02:38
  This is a question, right?
• 1:02:40
  Yes.
• 1:02:40
  Yes.
• 1:02:41
  And then did that process of self-care allow for an internal environment
• 1:02:49
  and an external environment?
• 1:02:51
  'cause you would begin therefore to make certain changes in your environment
• 1:02:54
  externally, certain changes in your behaviors, perhaps that were not kinder
• 1:03:00
  to yourself, perhaps that gave that egg
• 1:03:07
  the chance to show its quality,
• 1:03:10
  Rejane D'Espirac: I guess.
• 1:03:10
  Yes, that's true.
• 1:03:11
  I guess it gave me the chance of self-care.
• 1:03:14
  It gave me, it is behind my mask in a way.
• 1:03:19
  So he was say, he was telling me, I see you.
• 1:03:23
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah,
• 1:03:24
  Rejane D'Espirac: I see you.
• 1:03:25
  You are the way, you really are.
• 1:03:27
  I mean, you are fragile.
• 1:03:28
  You are maybe a little bit lost.
• 1:03:30
  You are a little bit bit fed up with, with what you are doing now.
• 1:03:35
  And I can see it.
• 1:03:37
  So it was giving me the opportunity to be weak and to be seen.
• 1:03:42
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:03:43
  To accept help in a way.
• 1:03:47
  And the way Aveda helped me at that time was also very helpful because it's
• 1:03:56
  mostly message, and it's not talking.
• 1:04:00
  Rupert Isaacson: It's mostly massage.
• 1:04:01
  Rejane D'Espirac: Massage, yes, yes, yes.
• 1:04:03
  So it's not talking.
• 1:04:04
  So in a way just being, you know, that I, I didn't have to tell my
• 1:04:11
  life and to, to explain my doubts about becoming a mum and mm-hmm.
• 1:04:17
  And explaining my doubts about this guy in my life.
• 1:04:20
  And would you, I am ready.
• 1:04:23
  Am I ready to have a child with this guy and whatever, and blah,
• 1:04:26
  blah, blah and blah, blah, blah.
• 1:04:27
  So it was not the point.
• 1:04:30
  And he says, okay, I see you and now we are gonna touch your body
• 1:04:34
  and feel you secure and feel, you, feel, make you feel warm, and make
• 1:04:42
  you feel secure and make you back to this kind of very primal state.
• 1:04:49
  And from that, you are gonna blow again.
• 1:04:53
  Rupert Isaacson: So a couple more questions come up.
• 1:04:56
  This is interesting.
• 1:04:57
  So initially you have this negative reaction because your husband.
• 1:05:02
  Says to this man with the mustache.
• 1:05:04
  And, and the reason too, I, it's funny 'cause you know, I've spent time in
• 1:05:08
  Kerala, and Kerala is southwest India, where I discovered what a verta is, and I
• 1:05:16
  also ended up getting Ayurvedic massage.
• 1:05:20
  And this Vedic practitioner had a great big mustache and had me naked
• 1:05:26
  on the table with all his students watching while he was explaining,
• 1:05:30
  you know, what he was doing.
• 1:05:32
  And it felt totally okay.
• 1:05:34
  And I remember lying there thinking, why does this feel totally okay?
• 1:05:37
  But it does.
• 1:05:38
  And the quality of the oils, this was probably true for you.
• 1:05:45
  He was going into the forest and he was collecting the plants
• 1:05:50
  and creating the oils himself.
• 1:05:52
  So the purity of the oils, you could feel it like, just like when you
• 1:05:58
  ibe really good olive oil as opposed to what you buy in the supermarket.
• 1:06:02
  If some, if you have a friend who has a farm who makes olive oil, you
• 1:06:05
  can tell the difference immediately.
• 1:06:07
  You don't, nobody needs to explain it to you.
• 1:06:09
  Or if you drink a wine from your friend's farm that has been done organically and
• 1:06:14
  beautiful and blah, blah, blah, no one needs to explain to you the difference.
• 1:06:17
  It's clear in the taste.
• 1:06:19
  Similarly, the feeling when the.
• 1:06:22
  Even the smell of the oils, you could feel the medicinal value immediately.
• 1:06:27
  You could feel your own own hormones.
• 1:06:30
  Your endocrine system reacting to this.
• 1:06:31
  Yes, yes, yes.
• 1:06:32
  However, when a stranger with a big black mustache says something
• 1:06:38
  to you like, why are you so sad?
• 1:06:40
  That could be a very manipulative situation.
• 1:06:47
  And then you said, and then when I'm gonna touch the body.
• 1:06:50
  'cause we know that human touch is so vital, but again, we are now
• 1:06:57
  living in a day and age where touch is almost more taboo than ever.
• 1:07:02
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:07:03
  And then you say, and then he touched me in all these ways, including sexually.
• 1:07:09
  How does that, how did that not trigger?
• 1:07:13
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:07:13
  Your defensive responses.
• 1:07:15
  How did you know at a gut level that this was not creepy?
• 1:07:21
  That this was actually a healing technology?
• 1:07:28
  Why did the trust, 'cause you are a skeptical lady.
• 1:07:31
  I know.
• 1:07:31
  You, you know, your bullshit meter is very, very high.
• 1:07:35
  You know, you are not, you are not going to be, you are not going to
• 1:07:40
  be easily manipulated by anybody.
• 1:07:44
  I've known you for a long time, Rajan, you know, I'd say you see
• 1:07:47
  the world pretty accurately and.
• 1:07:49
  With a sense of humor.
• 1:07:51
  And so it's intriguing to me that in this process, you said,
• 1:07:58
  yeah, you know, this is actually
• 1:08:00
  Rejane D'Espirac: time to Yeah.
• 1:08:00
  Rupert Isaacson: What, what is needed here?
• 1:08:02
  Yeah.
• 1:08:02
  Rejane D'Espirac: Time to like
• 1:08:03
  Rupert Isaacson: that.
• 1:08:03
  This is medicinal, not manipulative.
• 1:08:06
  What?
• 1:08:08
  Rejane D'Espirac: So the, the four thing, the sad thing I guess I
• 1:08:10
  just felt it it was going from him, from the good, the good part of him
• 1:08:15
  not the manipulative part at all.
• 1:08:18
  Rupert Isaacson: Because, you know, someone who's, who's in
• 1:08:19
  charge of a cult might say that to some, oh, why are you so sad?
• 1:08:23
  And Yeah.
• 1:08:24
  Now just gimme all your money and
• 1:08:25
  Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
• 1:08:25
  Oh yeah, sure, sure.
• 1:08:26
  Yeah.
• 1:08:26
  Yeah.
• 1:08:27
  And your passport, we had not decide to come back.
• 1:08:30
  So he didn't knew he didn't know he will, he would see me again.
• 1:08:34
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 1:08:34
  He had nothing to gain.
• 1:08:35
  Rejane D'Espirac: No, no, no.
• 1:08:36
  Okay.
• 1:08:36
  Okay.
• 1:08:36
  Rupert Isaacson: That's important.
• 1:08:37
  So just
• 1:08:37
  Rejane D'Espirac: giving me a clue, another clue.
• 1:08:40
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:08:41
  Rejane D'Espirac: I was, I, I should have, like before, first time he told
• 1:08:45
  me when we spent these two days during the conversation, he told me, but if you
• 1:08:49
  want a child, give him a place right now.
• 1:08:54
  And I said, in my, in my, I was thinking, but shut up.
• 1:08:57
  It's not, it's not your business.
• 1:08:59
  You know, I, I was skeptical for sure.
• 1:09:01
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:09:02
  Rejane D'Espirac: But then when leaving, he told me that.
• 1:09:06
  And I, I, I didn't, I, I've never.
• 1:09:10
  Thought it as manipulative, and at that time it just, you know,
• 1:09:15
  it was the, the, the arrow.
• 1:09:17
  We just let Yeah, it's well, gut
• 1:09:20
  Rupert Isaacson: instinct.
• 1:09:21
  Yeah, sure.
• 1:09:21
  Yeah.
• 1:09:23
  Rejane D'Espirac: And so it was going from him, from the good part of him.
• 1:09:26
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:09:27
  Rejane D'Espirac: And and when we decided to come back and all the
• 1:09:30
  message I, I was messaging by women, the, the, the doctors in in Vedic
• 1:09:37
  centers are not the therapists.
• 1:09:40
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:09:41
  Rejane D'Espirac: They give orders, but the therapists, the one who
• 1:09:44
  give message are not the doctors.
• 1:09:46
  They're therapists, and it's India.
• 1:09:48
  So girls are messaged by women and boys.
• 1:09:53
  Ared.
• 1:09:53
  That's a perfect answer.
• 1:09:55
  Right.
• 1:09:55
  So they were just young girls, so they were in their twenties
• 1:09:59
  and they were just applying oils.
• 1:10:01
  Yeah.
• 1:10:02
  Rupert Isaacson: So
• 1:10:03
  Rejane D'Espirac: they were nothing, no, no threat, you know?
• 1:10:05
  Yes.
• 1:10:06
  Yeah.
• 1:10:06
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:10:07
  This is good to know because it's good to be clear because I think there will
• 1:10:12
  be people listening and watching who are in that position right now, who
• 1:10:17
  are definitely wanting to have a baby.
• 1:10:20
  This is a not an unusual thing and are wondering, or, or, or maybe have other
• 1:10:26
  reproductive issues, endometriosis, things like this, you know, which is
• 1:10:31
  such a, you could say it's an epidemic.
• 1:10:33
  I'd say you could say it's a pandemic, I'd say endometriosis at this point.
• 1:10:38
  And it's interesting too, what you say to me.
• 1:10:41
  So, so anyway, Ayurveda, I would agree with you, is a really
• 1:10:47
  valid avenue to explore for any mental or physical dilemma.
• 1:10:57
  I have a friend who we work with in our horse boy and movement method world,
• 1:11:06
  who had such terrible endometriosis that she was being told at the age
• 1:11:12
  of 22, I think that she must have a full hysterectomy and had had
• 1:11:18
  some surgeries that had gone wrong.
• 1:11:19
  And, and this part of her rebelled and said, there's just no way
• 1:11:25
  that a 22-year-old, no, no, no, I need to find another way.
• 1:11:30
  And she ended up finding something called Maison.
• 1:11:34
  Have you heard of that?
• 1:11:35
  No.
• 1:11:35
  Which is a Muslim, it's a Sufi.
• 1:11:38
  Okay.
• 1:11:38
  Muslim tradition practiced by a small minority of Muslim women
• 1:11:45
  in, well, in her case, the uk.
• 1:11:47
  Okay.
• 1:11:48
  And it.
• 1:11:52
  Basically is a very light directed massage around the area of the
• 1:11:59
  ovaries and the lower abdomen.
• 1:12:03
  And
• 1:12:07
  this with a few sessions created such a breakthrough for my friend that
• 1:12:15
  it left her questioning her sanity.
• 1:12:19
  And then what was really interesting was the lady doing it said, oh, well I think
• 1:12:28
  now maybe you should go to my teacher.
• 1:12:31
  And my friend expected that to mean, you know, a sort of
• 1:12:36
  super duper Sufi somewhere.
• 1:12:38
  You know, the, the, the, the high super duper Sufi with the super duper hat, you
• 1:12:43
  know, that says I'm the super duper Sufi.
• 1:12:46
  And it wasn't, it was a naturopath.
• 1:12:51
  Well, really a homeopath
• 1:12:55
  living on the outskirts of Edinburgh, who is still a ex
• 1:13:01
  arm welshman, ex British army.
• 1:13:06
  He's the sort of bloke you'd meet in the pub and who would just tell you all
• 1:13:11
  kinds of stories about doing special ops in Serbia when that war was on and.
• 1:13:21
  Being a bit of a naughty boy and let's have another drink.
• 1:13:24
  And, and she said, yeah, no, this guy, you need to go to this guy.
• 1:13:30
  So my friend goes to this guy and even more, and I wa I, I then
• 1:13:35
  was so intrigued by this story.
• 1:13:36
  I had to meet this guy.
• 1:13:37
  So I, I went to, to Edinburgh and I watched him work and I'm like, oh my
• 1:13:41
  God, you really are the real thing.
• 1:13:44
  And it made me think about all the good shamans that I
• 1:13:47
  know or used to know, because unfortunately they're all dying now.
• 1:13:52
  You know, I'm reaching the age of, I'm almost 60, you know,
• 1:13:55
  although in my head I'm only three.
• 1:13:57
  And so I used to think that all those healers that I was so privileged to
• 1:14:03
  meet, you think they'll last forever.
• 1:14:05
  And they don't.
• 1:14:06
  There's the whole generational die off now, in particularly the Kalahari.
• 1:14:11
  And you wonder where the next generation is gonna come from.
• 1:14:14
  Anyway, all of those good healers are totally open to every other discipline.
• 1:14:24
  Yeah.
• 1:14:24
  Whether it's allopathic medicine, whether it's some other type of healing,
• 1:14:28
  they would never be constrained by some prejudice of their own culture.
• 1:14:33
  And I realized that I was seeing within my culture.
• 1:14:38
  A reflection of that from this Sufi Muslim tradition over to homeopathy,
• 1:14:46
  but homeopathy through the lens of British army down the pub.
• 1:14:51
  And it comes back to this universality, doesn't it?
• 1:14:54
  It comes back to this and what's universality, but relationship
• 1:14:57
  and what's relationship but love.
• 1:14:59
  Rejane D'Espirac: Hmm.
• 1:15:00
  This is why the, the book Baby At Last, at Last Baby, it's not about
• 1:15:03
  Ayurveda, it's not about technique.
• 1:15:06
  It's about what is Yes.
• 1:15:08
  Behind and, well, what I call love in a way.
• 1:15:12
  It's people give love in a, in a good way.
• 1:15:14
  They give attention, they give presents.
• 1:15:17
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
• 1:15:17
  Rejane D'Espirac: It's yes, they gave you the power to change something in a way.
• 1:15:22
  And yes, of course.
• 1:15:23
  So it's being bo or the book is not about saying I everything, or it's gonna
• 1:15:30
  heal yourself because it's complex.
• 1:15:32
  And the, but there is, there might be a way, and you have to find new way to find
• 1:15:38
  the good person to meet to create moment with him or, and something would happen.
• 1:15:44
  Rupert Isaacson: I think what's also true is that you have to move your ars.
• 1:15:48
  You have to move your physical ass.
• 1:15:50
  I'm a great believer in the power of pilgrimage and sacred journeying.
• 1:15:56
  And whether or not you can do that in your own.
• 1:15:59
  You don't have to get on an airplane to do that.
• 1:16:02
  There are so many sacred sites on planet earth.
• 1:16:06
  There will for sure be ones within a day's travel of where you are, no matter
• 1:16:12
  where you are sitting on the planet.
• 1:16:14
  But I do think there's something about the contract that you make with the
• 1:16:18
  universe to say, I am willing to make the physical effort to try to find,
• 1:16:29
  to make a quest for healing, for love.
• 1:16:33
  And usually that does involve looking outside of your own
• 1:16:38
  immediate culture because chances are you have not found it there.
• 1:16:45
  But what is interesting is that not immediate culture could still be within
• 1:16:51
  England or France or the United States.
• 1:16:53
  Because if you think about France, for example, where
• 1:16:56
  you're sitting, how many parallel cultures are there just in France?
• 1:17:01
  And that's before you even consider immigrants from other countries
• 1:17:05
  bringing their traditions just within traditional indigenous frenchness.
• 1:17:09
  If you think about each region of France and its regional culture,
• 1:17:15
  and then within those cultures, the subcultures of the subcultures, the
• 1:17:18
  subcultures, you don't have to move geographically very far necessarily,
• 1:17:23
  but you do need to move outside.
• 1:17:27
  Of your immediate familiarity zone that I think is true.
• 1:17:32
  Rejane D'Espirac: It's the first step is inside in a way.
• 1:17:35
  Yeah.
• 1:17:35
  And it's opening door and as I said, the, the, the Indian Dr.
• 1:17:40
  May be held because when he said, why are you so sad?
• 1:17:43
  He, he, he cracked my mask.
• 1:17:46
  He opened the door and said, okay, just, and this opening door, to be
• 1:17:54
  open to something else and maybe to change your system to your
• 1:17:58
  frozen system, it's a first step.
• 1:18:01
  Just open the door.
• 1:18:02
  Rupert Isaacson: And did he expect answers from you to that question?
• 1:18:04
  Or was it more of a rhetorical question?
• 1:18:06
  Oh, no,
• 1:18:06
  Rejane D'Espirac: no, no, no, no.
• 1:18:07
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah,
• 1:18:07
  Rejane D'Espirac: and I, I don't have the answer.
• 1:18:09
  Yes.
• 1:18:09
  I can't say now, like 15 years after why I was sad.
• 1:18:13
  This is not the point.
• 1:18:15
  Well,
• 1:18:15
  Rupert Isaacson: it, you know, we talked about, I, I just said endometriosis
• 1:18:20
  seems to be a bit of a pandemic.
• 1:18:23
  I do feel that sadness is a pandemic.
• 1:18:26
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:18:26
  And I agree with you that most of us do not know actually quite why we are so sad.
• 1:18:34
  But I think I do have the answer.
• 1:18:36
  Hmm.
• 1:18:37
  I think it's because obviously I could be wrong 'cause I'm Rupert and I'm often
• 1:18:42
  wrong, but in fact I'm mostly wrong.
• 1:18:45
  Some people would say always, but let's say there are some small amounts of
• 1:18:49
  time where perhaps I'm not as wrong as I might be in other times, because I've
• 1:18:55
  been so lucky to spend time with the Sun and the Bushman in the Kalahari.
• 1:19:00
  One thing for sure that I observed is that when human beings live in their original
• 1:19:09
  state, which is hunting and gathering with enough resources around and enough control
• 1:19:18
  of the resources that life is okay.
• 1:19:23
  The base state that one observes emotionally is a
• 1:19:28
  kind of a quiet happiness.
• 1:19:30
  Mm.
• 1:19:32
  And that also, okay, we're living in our natural habitat.
• 1:19:36
  We're eating all the stuff we should eat.
• 1:19:38
  We're have relationship because we're in, we, we, we are, we are
• 1:19:41
  not in competition with each other.
• 1:19:44
  Because in that situation, you are the middle of the food chain.
• 1:19:53
  What becomes of paramount importance is that the group stays together because if
• 1:20:00
  the group fragments because of conflict, everybody will get eaten by hyenas.
• 1:20:07
  That is just gonna happen.
• 1:20:10
  So.
• 1:20:12
  The most important thing becomes conflict resolution and a constant state of
• 1:20:20
  conflict resolution so that the healers that I was working with out there, people
• 1:20:25
  like besa, people like Kunta and these guys, what they spent most of their time
• 1:20:31
  doing was not healing physical ailments.
• 1:20:37
  They did do that, of course.
• 1:20:39
  Mostly what they were doing was about every 10 days washing the psychic dirty
• 1:20:47
  laundry of the group, the whole group getting together just with that intention
• 1:20:53
  in order to make sure that conflict never went beyond a certain point.
• 1:20:58
  And because nobody is overpopulating because hunting and gathering people
• 1:21:05
  don't need to put a crop in the ground and get a crop outta the
• 1:21:10
  ground, which takes a lot of people.
• 1:21:12
  Agriculture takes a lot of people hunting and gathering does not, so you don't
• 1:21:18
  need to overpopulate, you don't need the men to have more power than the
• 1:21:23
  women because in agriculture, the men want to have control over the uterus
• 1:21:29
  because they need lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of people to do, and
• 1:21:33
  then actually they need slaves as well.
• 1:21:35
  And you get war and you get but in hunting and gathering you, there's no economic.
• 1:21:40
  Imperative for any of this.
• 1:21:43
  So what you observe is that people are kind of okay most of the time and the
• 1:21:53
  predator is never, this is interesting.
• 1:21:58
  Your fellow human, Hmm.
• 1:22:01
  There can be conflict to a certain degree.
• 1:22:03
  There can be arguments, there can be this, there can be that.
• 1:22:06
  But no one's going break into your heart and kill you or torture you or no.
• 1:22:11
  Uh uh.
• 1:22:13
  That's the hyenas job.
• 1:22:15
  That's not the human's job
• 1:22:18
  in our society.
• 1:22:20
  The predator is only the fellow human.
• 1:22:25
  We've gotten rid of all the other predators.
• 1:22:28
  Instead of a society of conflict resolution, we now have a
• 1:22:31
  society of conflict creation.
• 1:22:35
  'cause it's good for business.
• 1:22:38
  We wanna sell arms, you need wars.
• 1:22:41
  Agriculture itself breeds conflict because it breeds
• 1:22:44
  competition for land and resources.
• 1:22:47
  So why are we so sad?
• 1:22:50
  Well, for 10,000 years, more or less, since the creation of agriculture,
• 1:22:58
  a large proportion of us on the planet moved away from this authentic, if
• 1:23:05
  you like, state, original state.
• 1:23:08
  Into this state that we now know.
• 1:23:10
  So even though you are sitting there in Paris leading a really
• 1:23:12
  interesting self-actualized life, you are your own boss.
• 1:23:16
  You have control of your uterus, you have control of your finances, you have
• 1:23:19
  control of your career, you have control of your destiny to a large degree.
• 1:23:23
  You are, I would say, pretty professionally and artistically
• 1:23:27
  and creatively fulfilled.
• 1:23:29
  Of course, you have things you still want to do, lots of things.
• 1:23:32
  Sometimes you're a bit frustrated and Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:23:35
  But basically you're doing, you are living life on Rajan, Raja's
• 1:23:40
  terms, and yet you are sad.
• 1:23:43
  And I'm living life largely on Rupert's terms, and I'm still sad because
• 1:23:49
  we are not in our natural habitat, both physically and emotionally.
• 1:23:58
  This, I think, sends us completely insane.
• 1:24:01
  And I think we are maddened with pain so that when somebody says, I see you.
• 1:24:08
  I see your pain.
• 1:24:09
  Why are you so sad?
• 1:24:12
  If I ask you that question?
• 1:24:13
  I don't expect you to answer it.
• 1:24:16
  I can see where he was coming from, that guy.
• 1:24:18
  It's more like, I see your sadness perhaps, and the sadness is my
• 1:24:23
  sadness, and we have no choice really in this sadness, but we can offer
• 1:24:29
  each other support within that.
• 1:24:32
  We can do that.
• 1:24:32
  We can do,
• 1:24:34
  Rejane D'Espirac: oh, oh.
• 1:24:36
  I don't know about Well, you, you, you answer why you are so sad.
• 1:24:42
  I have never thought about it that way, but my answer that's very personal, it's
• 1:24:48
  I'm always sad when I feel is isolated.
• 1:24:53
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:24:53
  Rejane D'Espirac: When I hit part of something, which has, which is as a
• 1:24:57
  sense for me when in a way I'm less sun when I forget myself in something.
• 1:25:05
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:25:05
  A hundred percent.
• 1:25:05
  And why,
• 1:25:06
  Rejane D'Espirac: why service is probably the most important.
• 1:25:09
  Or it's a huge part because it's a, if I feel like Ian controlling her life
• 1:25:15
  and doing beautiful things, and it can be satisfying, but I can be sad.
• 1:25:22
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
• 1:25:22
  'cause
• 1:25:22
  Rejane D'Espirac: it's always about me creating something for my
• 1:25:26
  own glory or something like that.
• 1:25:28
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:25:28
  That is in its own nature, isolating.
• 1:25:30
  You're right.
• 1:25:30
  Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
• 1:25:31
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:25:31
  Rejane D'Espirac: And in, and it's just, this is why I so much
• 1:25:35
  love to be on the ground, to write a story or to film a story, to,
• 1:25:39
  to feel people I really care of.
• 1:25:42
  And I, people, I really find amazing because in that moments,
• 1:25:48
  in these moments, I am not there.
• 1:25:54
  I'm just part of it.
• 1:25:56
  I'm just in.
• 1:26:00
  And this, this moment, I just feel connected to everything and part
• 1:26:05
  of everything and resign as not to be there as a frame human being.
• 1:26:11
  And when it's more softened, more, it's more tender.
• 1:26:16
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:26:17
  If you made it this far into the podcast, then I'm guessing you're somebody
• 1:26:22
  that, like me, loves to read books about not just how people have achieved
• 1:26:27
  self actualization, but particularly about the relationship with nature.
• 1:26:34
  Spirituality, life, the universe, and everything.
• 1:26:37
  And I'd like to draw your attention to my books.
• 1:26:40
  If you would like to read the story of how we even arrived here, perhaps
• 1:26:45
  you'd like to check out the two New York Times bestsellers, The Horseboy
• 1:26:50
  and The Long Ride Home, and come on an adventure with us and see what engendered,
• 1:26:55
  what started Live Free Ride Free.
• 1:26:57
  And before we go back to the podcast, also check out The Healing
• 1:27:01
  Land, which tells the story of.
• 1:27:04
  My years spent in the Kalahari with the Sun, Bushmen, hunter gatherer people
• 1:27:10
  there, and all that they taught me, and mentored me in, and all that I learned.
• 1:27:14
  Come on that adventure with me.
• 1:27:16
  Rejane D'Espirac: I feel connected to life.
• 1:27:17
  So I don't have to be sad because I'm just part of life.
• 1:27:22
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:27:23
  And I, I I guess from the sun or the Bushman point of view, it's the same.
• 1:27:27
  Right?
• 1:27:27
  It's service to the group, service to the community.
• 1:27:31
  I do agree with you.
• 1:27:32
  I think it's not possible to find happiness unless you have service.
• 1:27:38
  You can maybe, perhaps, you know, it, early stages of motherhood, for example,
• 1:27:44
  can be very, or fatherhood too can be very fulfilling because you're very
• 1:27:47
  much in service to this other being.
• 1:27:51
  Rejane D'Espirac: And it can be very tricky too, because you are so much in
• 1:27:54
  service, so you have to forget yourself.
• 1:27:56
  Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
• 1:27:57
  There wrote
• 1:27:57
  Rejane D'Espirac: a book about that too.
• 1:27:58
  Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
• 1:27:59
  But it's both, it's both at the same time.
• 1:28:02
  Right.
• 1:28:03
  And I think, I think too, that people living in hunting and
• 1:28:06
  gathering groups would say that, so,
• 1:28:11
  because in that life.
• 1:28:14
  There are not so many opportunities as there are in our society for acting
• 1:28:21
  completely from your own self desire.
• 1:28:27
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:28:30
  When an opportunity comes for that, you take it because it's a relatively rare
• 1:28:35
  thing, like when you eat some food with a lot of fat in it, if you are living
• 1:28:41
  in the forest, you're gonna eat it because don't get so many opportunities.
• 1:28:45
  Or if you find something with a lot of sugar in it, you're
• 1:28:48
  going to eat it because there aren't so many opportunities.
• 1:28:50
  So we have a biological drive for Yeah.
• 1:28:55
  Self gratification, sugar and fat.
• 1:28:59
  Because normally these things are rare resources.
• 1:29:02
  Now suddenly they're everywhere and we can spend our whole lives.
• 1:29:06
  We're looking for something
• 1:29:07
  Rejane D'Espirac: else.
• 1:29:07
  Yes.
• 1:29:08
  Yeah.
• 1:29:08
  And maybe relationship are good.
• 1:29:09
  Relationship are rare in our society, so we, we see them as magic and as so much.
• 1:29:16
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
• 1:29:17
  Rejane D'Espirac: Yes.
• 1:29:18
  It's always moments momentums when you just strike and say, oh my
• 1:29:22
  God, I'm alive, and it's so good.
• 1:29:24
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:29:25
  You know?
• 1:29:25
  Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
• 1:29:27
  And for anything, because it's, you have a fat, fat food or
• 1:29:31
  because you meet someone amazing.
• 1:29:33
  And, oh, because you see, this is my last latest book.
• 1:29:36
  It's about flowers and just to say.
• 1:29:39
  Life is amazing because flowers exists.
• 1:29:41
  The book is about that.
• 1:29:42
  Oh,
• 1:29:42
  Rupert Isaacson: I like this.
• 1:29:43
  Okay, tell us about your latest book about flowers.
• 1:29:46
  Don't just say, oh, and I've got this latest book about flowers.
• 1:29:48
  No, but it's say, what's the fucking book?
• 1:29:50
  Come on, tell us.
• 1:29:51
  Rejane D'Espirac: Because it's a book about amaze being amazed by flowers,
• 1:29:55
  because flowers say never about This is
• 1:29:57
  Rupert Isaacson: a beautiful idea.
• 1:29:58
  Rejane D'Espirac: And so well, when suddenly you see a flower, she's,
• 1:30:03
  it's on your balcony for yours.
• 1:30:05
  But suddenly you see it, really
• 1:30:07
  Rupert Isaacson: see,
• 1:30:08
  Rejane D'Espirac: and then you've got this moment of connection and
• 1:30:11
  saying, oh my God, life is so magic.
• 1:30:14
  And so the book is about that.
• 1:30:16
  Okay, once I was, trek in the mountains in France, and suddenly I saw flowers
• 1:30:24
  because there are flowers, nothing else.
• 1:30:26
  And I realized oh, creative.
• 1:30:29
  Oh, adaptive, oh, everything.
• 1:30:33
  Life is just because flower exists.
• 1:30:35
  And so I, I wrote a book about that.
• 1:30:38
  It's about present moment.
• 1:30:40
  It's about beauty.
• 1:30:41
  It's about diversity, it's about creativity.
• 1:30:45
  To be able to be alive in a very strange.
• 1:30:50
  Environments.
• 1:30:51
  It's about links.
• 1:30:53
  Because in our society, flowers are the symbol of links.
• 1:30:57
  You offer flowers, you offer flowers for marriage, you offer flowers for funerals.
• 1:31:03
  You, we offer flowers.
• 1:31:04
  You also
• 1:31:04
  Rupert Isaacson: offer flowers to the divine.
• 1:31:06
  You offer flowers to God.
• 1:31:07
  Yes.
• 1:31:07
  You offer flowers to, yeah.
• 1:31:08
  Rejane D'Espirac: In a symbol of links.
• 1:31:10
  The link between wa and that's the symbol of everything.
• 1:31:13
  That's a symbol of life.
• 1:31:14
  And so flowers are everywhere.
• 1:31:18
  Well, but suddenly you're gonna see a flower.
• 1:31:21
  You are gonna really see it.
• 1:31:23
  And this moment
• 1:31:28
  put, put us away from sadness because we can't be sad.
• 1:31:32
  If we are able to see a flower for what it is.
• 1:31:37
  Rupert Isaacson: I think you are talking about the process of awe.
• 1:31:40
  A WE.
• 1:31:41
  Yes.
• 1:31:41
  Ab absolutely.
• 1:31:42
  Yes.
• 1:31:43
  Yeah.
• 1:31:43
  And we're used to thinking of awe as when you're, something's much bigger than you.
• 1:31:49
  You are under the night sky.
• 1:31:50
  There's a mountain, there's the ocean, whatever.
• 1:31:53
  One of the interesting things about working with horses is you are in a
• 1:31:56
  constant state of awe because they're dangerous, they're beautiful, they're
• 1:32:02
  mysterious, they're connected to you.
• 1:32:05
  They're all of these things.
• 1:32:06
  Yeah.
• 1:32:06
  But I love the idea 'cause it is true.
• 1:32:10
  That I think yes, flowers do bring us into a state of all.
• 1:32:16
  You cannot walk past a florist's shop and not breathe in the scent
• 1:32:21
  and look at the flowers and go, whoa.
• 1:32:25
  And be in worship a little bit.
• 1:32:27
  Yeah.
• 1:32:28
  But okay.
• 1:32:29
  This kind of book is a departure though, for you because you,
• 1:32:34
  this, what's the name of the book?
• 1:32:37
  Rejane D'Espirac: In
• 1:32:38
  Rupert Isaacson: in French First
• 1:32:40
  Rejane D'Espirac: Discrete, the flowers, the discrete power of flowers.
• 1:32:42
  Rupert Isaacson: Discrete power
• 1:32:43
  Rejane D'Espirac: of flowers, of flowers.
• 1:32:45
  And of course it's political because you Well, that's what I
• 1:32:49
  Rupert Isaacson: was gonna ask.
• 1:32:49
  Flower
• 1:32:49
  Rejane D'Espirac: power.
• 1:32:50
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 1:32:51
  Because you know, and flowers
• 1:32:52
  Rejane D'Espirac: are also part of zen, you know, yeah.
• 1:32:54
  Ikebana, the, the art of creating how do you say that?
• 1:32:59
  B you know, yes,
• 1:33:00
  Rupert Isaacson: yes, yes.
• 1:33:00
  Flo flower arrangement.
• 1:33:02
  Yes.
• 1:33:03
  Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
• 1:33:03
  Flora.
• 1:33:03
  It's, it's zen art.
• 1:33:04
  Yes.
• 1:33:05
  It's called Buddhism.
• 1:33:06
  And so the, the book goes from flower power Yes.
• 1:33:10
  To the zen art.
• 1:33:11
  And, but it's same thing.
• 1:33:13
  It's maybe once, as you said, we can react to things by hangar and
• 1:33:19
  we can react to things by beauty.
• 1:33:22
  Rupert Isaacson: It's so true.
• 1:33:23
  Rejane D'Espirac: Mm-hmm.
• 1:33:23
  Rupert Isaacson: And that it's a choice, isn't it?
• 1:33:25
  And of course, we can be angry because somebody is destroying the beauty.
• 1:33:29
  You talk about service, obviously it's a service to produce a book about
• 1:33:35
  flowers that reminds us to be in a state of awe and happiness and so forth.
• 1:33:41
  Where is the service element though, in your, in, with flowers?
• 1:33:44
  Are you now becoming a nature active activist as well?
• 1:33:48
  Oh, way, yes.
• 1:33:49
  Oh, good.
• 1:33:50
  Tell me how
• 1:33:53
  Rejane D'Espirac: probably the, the book is the first step.
• 1:33:56
  Yeah.
• 1:33:56
  By writing more about that in magazines and you know, I, I've, I've investigated
• 1:34:02
  a lot about healing and about wellness and about consciousness, about who we are.
• 1:34:07
  But now I've, I, I, I would never say I know because I, but now
• 1:34:14
  I'm very comfortable with that and I have no question anymore
• 1:34:19
  about who I am or who we are.
• 1:34:22
  This is not a question.
• 1:34:23
  Now, maybe I open to something else and maybe protecting nature
• 1:34:28
  and taking care of environment.
• 1:34:30
  It's part of it.
• 1:34:32
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, if you trace your story and you look at, we started
• 1:34:35
  with Bob Paul, and I know obviously your story in activism and writing
• 1:34:39
  and filmmaking goes back before that.
• 1:34:42
  We need a 10 part series to cover everything in Raja's life.
• 1:34:46
  But what has been, theme running through the whole thing has been plants.
• 1:34:54
  Yeah.
• 1:34:54
  Right.
• 1:34:55
  Yeah.
• 1:34:55
  Plants are flowers.
• 1:34:56
  Ayurveda is plants.
• 1:34:59
  The free clinic.
• 1:35:00
  The garden.
• 1:35:01
  Yeah.
• 1:35:02
  The healing power of plant medicine.
• 1:35:05
  It's the, the, Hmm.
• 1:35:10
  Plants.
• 1:35:10
  You are, you are, you are, you are going into, you're talking
• 1:35:14
  about creating environments.
• 1:35:17
  That's plants and human life, as we know mm-hmm.
• 1:35:22
  Cannot exist without oxygen.
• 1:35:24
  And oxygen cannot happen without plants.
• 1:35:26
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:35:27
  So, and plants cannot happen without flowers because
• 1:35:31
  flowers can make more plants.
• 1:35:34
  So then we need bees, flies, bees.
• 1:35:37
  We need that.
• 1:35:38
  And if we need them, we need that.
• 1:35:40
  And if we need them, and it, that's lovely for me because, you know, in my, in my
• 1:35:45
  world, my activism was also human rights, but it was human rights for land rights.
• 1:35:54
  And it was land rights for hunter gatherers who look after the
• 1:35:58
  land, the plants on behalf of all of us, because they don't.
• 1:36:02
  Exploit them.
• 1:36:03
  They know truly how to conserve them.
• 1:36:07
  And so we sort of rely on these people as the custodians because we go around
• 1:36:13
  destroying the very thing that we need.
• 1:36:16
  So if it's very dear to my heart, and actually I just got a phone call.
• 1:36:21
  I've been out of that game for a while and I just got a phone call last week asking
• 1:36:26
  me to come back in for the next stage.
• 1:36:29
  And it's lovely because it means more protecting plants through people,
• 1:36:34
  through the people that protect plants.
• 1:36:36
  So I'm a hundred percent in agreement with you and I've
• 1:36:38
  always been in love with plants.
• 1:36:41
  My earliest memory that I have is of walking in the gar my
• 1:36:46
  parents' house garden in London.
• 1:36:49
  I think I must have been between three and five.
• 1:36:53
  And I know it's a Sunday morning because the parents always used to
• 1:36:58
  sleep in on a Sunday morning and we weren't allowed to disturb them.
• 1:37:02
  So we'd wander around, you know, kids wake up at, you know, 5:00 AM so you're
• 1:37:05
  wandering around wondering what to do.
• 1:37:08
  And I remember walking, it was a sunny morning and the sun was
• 1:37:13
  shining on the bricks of the wall, the old wall in the garden.
• 1:37:19
  And there were flowers growing out of the wall and bees buzzing around the flowers.
• 1:37:25
  And I heard God speak to me.
• 1:37:28
  Directly and clearly through the flowers and the bees.
• 1:37:32
  And it's, and it, I can't tell you the words of the conversation but I can
• 1:37:37
  tell you that it was a conversation about being welcome and being happy
• 1:37:47
  to see me there and excited for whatever part I was going to play.
• 1:37:53
  And it, it felt, yeah, it was a welcome, really.
• 1:38:00
  And I've, I'm in love with trees.
• 1:38:02
  I've always been in love with trees.
• 1:38:03
  In fact, look in my pocket right now, currently
• 1:38:07
  I'm carrying acorns.
• 1:38:11
  Oh, really?
• 1:38:11
  So I plant, it's, it's November.
• 1:38:14
  I'm in Spain.
• 1:38:16
  All of the acorns are dropping.
• 1:38:18
  And so what I do, and I've been doing this for about 30 years, is I go into the
• 1:38:24
  city where there are oaks and chestnut trees and things like that, dropping their
• 1:38:32
  acorns and their nuts on the concrete.
• 1:38:36
  And I fill up bags.
• 1:38:37
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:38:38
  And I, you only have to push them in this deep.
• 1:38:41
  Rejane D'Espirac: Okay.
• 1:38:42
  And them, and
• 1:38:43
  Rupert Isaacson: I did it along all the fences of my land and my friend's land.
• 1:38:51
  So you don't need to own land to do this, but you need to know
• 1:38:54
  someone who has a bit of land.
• 1:38:56
  And I try to plant a tree for every day of my life.
• 1:39:00
  Hmm.
• 1:39:01
  And I've been doing that for, 'cause it, it's relatively easy.
• 1:39:04
  You can, you can gather like 3000 acorns and then people
• 1:39:09
  say, oh, what are you gonna do?
• 1:39:10
  If they don't make it, it's like, I don't fucking care.
• 1:39:13
  They're gonna go in the ground and the ones that don't make it will become soil.
• 1:39:18
  And the ones that make it will make it.
• 1:39:19
  And that's fine, you know, and some will live a bit and die, but they will still
• 1:39:23
  photosynthesize and create some oxygen.
• 1:39:26
  But anyway, when I go back now to Texas, in particular, where I began this process.
• 1:39:32
  Oh, better part of 30 years ago maybe 25 years.
• 1:39:37
  Those trees are now belts of forest that are about 30 feet high and go
• 1:39:45
  over hundreds and hundreds of meters.
• 1:39:47
  So I still do it to this day everywhere I go.
• 1:39:50
  And I now gorilla it too well anywhere.
• 1:39:52
  I know that it's unlikely to be cut.
• 1:39:57
  I put them in and I watch them come up and they come up and I do it with
• 1:40:01
  the autistic kids that I work with.
• 1:40:03
  And they see their trees come up because if you put acorns in and fruit trees
• 1:40:09
  as well, plums, peaches, cherries, if you put, I don't know, a hundred of
• 1:40:15
  those things in, which is easy to do, in about 15 minutes you can be sure
• 1:40:21
  that at least 5, 6, 7 will come up.
• 1:40:24
  And the kids watch, they, they can see this direct cause and effect.
• 1:40:29
  And I, I fell in love with this process a long time ago now when I'm working.
• 1:40:34
  So now we work on a slightly bigger level with movement method.
• 1:40:38
  And now I asked a friend of mine who's German who's also a politician
• 1:40:44
  who runs a horse boy place.
• 1:40:47
  I said, I want a forest.
• 1:40:50
  And we got one and we got one in this county in Germany
• 1:40:54
  where they planted a tree.
• 1:40:56
  For every resident of the county, 325,000 trees.
• 1:41:02
  I thought this is possible.
• 1:41:04
  So now everywhere I go, like, I want a forest, and I've gotten a few.
• 1:41:08
  It's amazing.
• 1:41:09
  It's like if you don't ask, you don't get I got one in Ireland.
• 1:41:12
  It's half a hillside of a place that we are developing for autism.
• 1:41:16
  I said, I want a forest.
• 1:41:18
  I got one.
• 1:41:18
  I did another one.
• 1:41:19
  I said, eat that little bit there.
• 1:41:21
  I want that as a forest.
• 1:41:22
  I got one, 3000 trees.
• 1:41:24
  You know, it's incredible.
• 1:41:26
  And I get really excited, as you can tell, I get quite excited.
• 1:41:32
  Congratulations about forest.
• 1:41:33
  It makes me flat, my hands like this.
• 1:41:35
  I love trees.
• 1:41:37
  I love them.
• 1:41:37
  I, I I, I, I don't really have the words for how much I love trees.
• 1:41:42
  And so flower is, it's a, it's a tree.
• 1:41:47
  So I'm absolutely with you.
• 1:41:50
  One thing I'm going to ask you to do mm-hmm.
• 1:41:53
  I am a great lover of nature writing.
• 1:41:58
  You might have noticed it's a predominantly male thing.
• 1:42:03
  It's not only a male thing, but it's predominantly we have a bit of a lack,
• 1:42:08
  I feel of good female nature writers.
• 1:42:12
  It's not been as much of a tradition and I think it's needed.
• 1:42:16
  There's another friend of mine that I'm.
• 1:42:20
  Yapping at her heels, like a terrier to get her to write a book.
• 1:42:24
  She works with the criminally insane in Michigan.
• 1:42:29
  Okay.
• 1:42:29
  With nature.
• 1:42:30
  And she creates these beautiful pictures and she writes these
• 1:42:33
  amazing short pieces and poems.
• 1:42:35
  I'm like, dude, you've gotta publish this shit.
• 1:42:37
  We, we need it.
• 1:42:39
  I think we need Raja's Nature writing.
• 1:42:42
  I mean, you've done it with your flower book.
• 1:42:44
  Are you gonna make a film about flowers?
• 1:42:49
  Rejane D'Espirac: I can.
• 1:42:50
  It's not a Why you
• 1:42:51
  Rupert Isaacson: want Raja's film about flowers.
• 1:42:53
  Rejane D'Espirac: Okay.
• 1:42:54
  I'll put that on my list.
• 1:42:59
  Yeah, why not?
• 1:43:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Why not?
• 1:43:01
  Rejane D'Espirac: Hmm.
• 1:43:03
  Okay.
• 1:43:04
  Rupert Isaacson: It would be very interesting to trace in your own
• 1:43:06
  story from Boal through your own body, through your other activism.
• 1:43:13
  What have been the main flowers?
• 1:43:15
  What have been the main plants that have been, have carried this story?
• 1:43:20
  Hmm.
• 1:43:20
  It would be very interesting.
• 1:43:21
  I bet there's some silent heroes and heroines in the plant world that
• 1:43:25
  probably show up in each of your stories.
• 1:43:30
  Rejane D'Espirac: Hmm.
• 1:43:30
  No, I've never thought about that.
• 1:43:32
  What, what came, comes to me when you say that?
• 1:43:34
  It just, the seeds of life.
• 1:43:37
  I mean, there is something about seeds and seeds of life and okay.
• 1:43:41
  I, I will check for the, I will, going to look for the error.
• 1:43:47
  Rupert Isaacson: My friend Tim Smit, who has been on this podcast who runs two
• 1:43:53
  things, the, the Eden Project in England, which is a, a rainforest under a roof.
• 1:44:00
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:44:01
  And it started with his project, the Lost Gardens of Halligan, which was
• 1:44:06
  a, a garden that he restored and, and now he's running a national wildflower
• 1:44:11
  center and a seed bank and a national repository for wildflowers in the uk.
• 1:44:17
  Mm.
• 1:44:18
  I think maybe you and he need to have a chat.
• 1:44:20
  Okay.
• 1:44:21
  Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it, going from this human activism becoming
• 1:44:29
  impassioned and upset, as you said at the beginning of this conversation,
• 1:44:34
  by suffering, observing, suffering, when there could be healing, and
• 1:44:40
  then getting involved in the story of healing personally for other people.
• 1:44:47
  And now bringing it back to what is the process of that healing?
• 1:44:51
  Plants and the flowers themselves.
• 1:44:55
  And what are their personalities?
• 1:44:57
  What's their energy?
• 1:44:58
  What's their story?
• 1:45:02
  I think maybe Rajan is a good person too.
• 1:45:08
  Hmm.
• 1:45:08
  Rejane D'Espirac: To put in your podcast.
• 1:45:13
  Rupert Isaacson: Now, a lot of our listeners and viewers
• 1:45:16
  are not French speakers.
• 1:45:17
  Mm.
• 1:45:18
  And so far you've been doing all your stuff in French.
• 1:45:21
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:45:22
  Yes.
• 1:45:23
  Those of you listeners and viewers who do speak French, however, and there will
• 1:45:28
  be some of you who do you might want to profit from checking out Raja's stuff.
• 1:45:36
  Rajan, can you tell us how they will find your writings in your films and give them
• 1:45:41
  a little list that they can write down?
• 1:45:43
  'cause there will be people with their pens out right
• 1:45:45
  now wanting to write it down.
• 1:45:47
  What's your website and what are the books and what are the
• 1:45:49
  films and how do they find them?
• 1:45:52
  Rejane D'Espirac: Okay.
• 1:45:53
  Everything is listed on my website, so website is my name.
• 1:45:58
  Rupert Isaacson: So spell
• 1:45:59
  Rejane D'Espirac: it.
• 1:45:59
  We joined Reja Dera, which is R-E-J-A-N-E-D-E-S-P-I-R-A c.com.
• 1:46:12
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:46:12
  Okay.
• 1:46:13
  Reja is R-E-J-A-N-E.
• 1:46:16
  Yeah.
• 1:46:16
  Right.
• 1:46:17
  And Deak, which should be de apostrophe, but yeah, you can't do
• 1:46:22
  that when you're doing a, a web domain.
• 1:46:23
  So D-E-S-S-P-I-I
• 1:46:30
  Rejane D'Espirac: air RACC,
• 1:46:34
  Rupert Isaacson: Deak, what a beautiful name.
• 1:46:36
  Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
• 1:46:36
  Rupert Isaacson: All French names are so depi.
• 1:46:38
  It was, they always, they always sound to the English here, so poetic.
• 1:46:42
  You know, it's I, I, when I'm speaking the people,
• 1:46:46
  Rejane D'Espirac: Bo Country is on YouTube.
• 1:46:48
  Rupert Isaacson: Say what?
• 1:46:49
  Rejane D'Espirac: The, the boar documentary with English subtitles is,
• 1:46:52
  Rupert Isaacson: is on YouTube.
• 1:46:53
  Yeah.
• 1:46:53
  Okay.
• 1:46:53
  Tell us the name of the Boal documentary.
• 1:46:55
  Sam
• 1:46:56
  Rejane D'Espirac: Bna.
• 1:46:57
  Rupert Isaacson: Spell it please.
• 1:46:59
  Rejane D'Espirac: S-H-A-M-B-H-A-V-N-A.
• 1:47:08
  Sam
• 1:47:10
  Rupert Isaacson: Samba.
• 1:47:11
  Shana?
• 1:47:11
  Rejane D'Espirac: Yes.
• 1:47:12
  Okay.
• 1:47:13
  Rupert Isaacson: We will also be putting this in all the
• 1:47:15
  show notes, by the way, guys.
• 1:47:17
  So
• 1:47:17
  Rejane D'Espirac: we'll send you the link.
• 1:47:18
  You don't have
• 1:47:19
  Rupert Isaacson: to remember this or if you haven't got it.
• 1:47:21
  So Shana is the name of the free clinic, which is also the name of the boar
• 1:47:26
  movie, about the recovery from this.
• 1:47:28
  Rejane D'Espirac: Yes.
• 1:47:29
  Because it means possibility.
• 1:47:31
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:47:31
  It means possibility in Hindi or in in Sans Sant, San San.
• 1:47:37
  Yeah.
• 1:47:38
  Okay.
• 1:47:39
  And then your book?
• 1:47:43
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:47:45
  A baby at last or at last Baby.
• 1:47:49
  And now your book about Flowers.
• 1:47:56
  De
• 1:47:57
  Rejane D'Espirac: Indeed.
• 1:47:58
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:47:59
  The Discreet Power of Flowers, discreet Flower Power.
• 1:48:05
  Go on her website guys, if you've got some French, check it out.
• 1:48:09
  Now here's the good news.
• 1:48:10
  I'm also going to try to bully my agent into taking Raja's books
• 1:48:18
  and jolly well, selling them to English speaking publishers so
• 1:48:24
  that we can benefit from them.
• 1:48:27
  Rajan, what's next?
• 1:48:28
  What, what are the next projects for you?
• 1:48:30
  Rejane D'Espirac: I'm finishing the writing of a book,
• 1:48:32
  my first novel about Bob.
• 1:48:34
  Ooh, about Boal today?
• 1:48:36
  Well, it's not really a novel.
• 1:48:38
  Rupert Isaacson: What's the story?
• 1:48:38
  Rejane D'Espirac: Very inspired by real facts.
• 1:48:40
  Yes.
• 1:48:40
  But yes, it's kind of, what's
• 1:48:42
  Rupert Isaacson: the story?
• 1:48:42
  Tell us the story quickly.
• 1:48:44
  Rejane D'Espirac: The story is is a, well, it's very basic story of a young
• 1:48:47
  American journalist who happened to arrive in Boal now Oh, in 2024, because
• 1:48:55
  she received a, a small black notebook, which is in fact the memory of Whan
• 1:49:02
  Anderson, who were, who were the CEO of Union Carbide at the time of the accident.
• 1:49:09
  So first part of the book is her, her discovering Bopa now, and the story
• 1:49:15
  of the disaster told by the eyes of the CEO of the chemical company.
• 1:49:23
  And second part is, is the, the erroring discovering the case of boal children.
• 1:49:30
  Now all the disabled children in Boal, thanks to a free clinic that exists in
• 1:49:37
  Bal a Day Hospital for disabled children.
• 1:49:42
  And so she, the second parties meeting with his children and the, the
• 1:49:48
  journal she creates with the children where they tell their daily life,
• 1:49:55
  Rupert Isaacson: the CEO of Union Carbide.
• 1:49:59
  The, the Indian CEO, not the American?
• 1:50:01
  Rejane D'Espirac: No.
• 1:50:01
  Yeah.
• 1:50:02
  Rupert Isaacson: The American.
• 1:50:02
  The
• 1:50:02
  Rejane D'Espirac: American.
• 1:50:03
  CEO.
• 1:50:04
  Rupert Isaacson: Is that dude still alive?
• 1:50:06
  Rejane D'Espirac: No, no, no.
• 1:50:07
  He he died in 2014.
• 1:50:12
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:50:13
  Rejane D'Espirac: And he has never been judged nor condemned.
• 1:50:16
  Rupert Isaacson: What, what are the legalistics of writing a
• 1:50:20
  fictional journal about that bloke?
• 1:50:23
  Like are you, are, do you skate on thin ice there with his
• 1:50:28
  Rejane D'Espirac: No, I'm, I it's mostly based off what I know.
• 1:50:31
  It was a way to tell the story.
• 1:50:33
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
• 1:50:33
  But
• 1:50:33
  Rejane D'Espirac: I wanted to have the guy inside.
• 1:50:36
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:50:37
  Rejane D'Espirac: And what it is to be responsible for such a, a disaster,
• 1:50:43
  but having the impression right.
• 1:50:46
  Or false that you are not responsible.
• 1:50:48
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:50:49
  Yes.
• 1:50:50
  'cause that would be my feeling.
• 1:50:51
  I bet you he did not feel responsible.
• 1:50:53
  Rejane D'Espirac: No, it was bigger than Im, it was in India.
• 1:50:55
  It was far away.
• 1:50:56
  It was because of Indian processes.
• 1:50:58
  Right.
• 1:50:59
  Which is totally true.
• 1:51:00
  But it was also because the factory was badly designed to save cost.
• 1:51:06
  And this is very American in a way when it's not based on their own country.
• 1:51:11
  And the, all the legal part and trials have been in India because they didn't
• 1:51:19
  want American law to be involved.
• 1:51:22
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
• 1:51:23
  Rejane D'Espirac: So they paid 500.
• 1:51:25
  Dollars per people.
• 1:51:26
  And that's it.
• 1:51:27
  Rupert Isaacson: And also he, I, I presume that this CEO did not quietly with all the
• 1:51:34
  money that you get when you are retired as A CEO, which we know is a lot of money.
• 1:51:41
  He did not go and create a foundation for Of course.
• 1:51:44
  No, no, no.
• 1:51:45
  Of the No
• 1:51:47
  Rejane D'Espirac: bought, he bought, he bought a house.
• 1:51:48
  Yes.
• 1:51:48
  He bought a beautiful house in Florida just to have peace from journalists.
• 1:51:53
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes, yes.
• 1:51:55
  Like you
• 1:51:57
  Rejane D'Espirac: I see
• 1:52:01
  Rupert Isaacson: they pe excited
• 1:52:02
  Rejane D'Espirac: to give him a voice.
• 1:52:05
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, how very nice of you.
• 1:52:07
  Okay.
• 1:52:07
  So there's that, that's,
• 1:52:08
  Rejane D'Espirac: that's, it's gonna be published in September,
• 1:52:10
  in France next September.
• 1:52:12
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:52:12
  And then
• 1:52:13
  Rejane D'Espirac: for next year everything is opened.
• 1:52:15
  So I still have my little project above movement method, but we need to,
• 1:52:19
  Rupert Isaacson: okay.
• 1:52:20
  Okay.
• 1:52:20
  Yes.
• 1:52:20
  We might be.
• 1:52:21
  Those of you who are interested in movement method, Anne and I have
• 1:52:24
  been talking for about 30 years about possibly doing some sort of
• 1:52:29
  documentary around movement method.
• 1:52:31
  I sort have time, Anne, you'll probably do it.
• 1:52:33
  Yeah,
• 1:52:35
  Rejane D'Espirac: yeah, yeah.
• 1:52:36
  I've got slow processes.
• 1:52:38
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes, yes, indeed.
• 1:52:39
  When the time is right.
• 1:52:40
  Always for these things.
• 1:52:41
  What's the name of the, of the novel that
• 1:52:44
  Rejane D'Espirac: in French, it's,
• 1:52:47
  they will be our children.
• 1:52:49
  Rupert Isaacson: They will be our children.
• 1:52:52
  Okay.
• 1:52:53
  I think we definitely need you being published in English.
• 1:52:55
  Let me see if I can get to work on this a little bit.
• 1:52:59
  Alright, my friend.
• 1:53:00
  Well, listen, always a delight to talk to you.
• 1:53:06
  Always.
• 1:53:07
  Rejane D'Espirac: Same.
• 1:53:08
  Thank you very much.
• 1:53:09
  Rupert Isaacson: Thank you for this.
• 1:53:11
  And then listeners and viewers, if you've got any questions
• 1:53:14
  for Rajan, send it to us.
• 1:53:16
  We'll send it to her.
• 1:53:17
  I'll ask if she'll reply.
• 1:53:20
  We'll,
• 1:53:21
  Rejane D'Espirac: I will.
• 1:53:21
  Rupert Isaacson: Meanwhile go check out her website and the amazing work she does.
• 1:53:25
  We haven't touched on everything she does.
• 1:53:27
  There's plenty of other things too.
• 1:53:30
  So, there's one question I didn't ask you.
• 1:53:32
  Yeah.
• 1:53:36
  How do you
• 1:53:41
  make it work economically to live this type of self-actualized life?
• 1:53:51
  Rejane D'Espirac: That, that's a question.
• 1:53:52
  Rupert Isaacson: It's possibly, it's possibly the most, or one of the most
• 1:53:56
  financially unstable ways to make a life.
• 1:54:02
  And yet you have and you do.
• 1:54:06
  How'd you do it?
• 1:54:08
  Rejane D'Espirac: Well, I start everywhere wondering, oh, I'm gonna
• 1:54:12
  make a living for the, your coming.
• 1:54:15
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
• 1:54:16
  Rejane D'Espirac: And then I involved in a project and the life has always
• 1:54:23
  been wonderful with me in a way.
• 1:54:26
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:54:27
  So well the, the, when I got a project, like a film a book I dedicate
• 1:54:35
  weeks or months in a year for them.
• 1:54:37
  But, but I make a living with journalism, with writing pieces for magazines.
• 1:54:45
  This is my way to stabilize my income is to work for magazines
• 1:54:49
  Rupert Isaacson: and in today's online world where so much
• 1:54:53
  content is created artificially.
• 1:54:56
  Rejane D'Espirac: Mm-hmm.
• 1:54:56
  Rupert Isaacson: This is still a viable way to make a living.
• 1:55:00
  Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
• 1:55:01
  Some of, I work for a couple of magazines mostly how do you say that?
• 1:55:05
  Well, nature magazines or, so which kind of society do we want to, to
• 1:55:10
  create magazines or stuff like that.
• 1:55:13
  And it's beautiful paper magazines and I mostly reporter, so I mostly write
• 1:55:20
  stories about initiatives on the ground.
• 1:55:23
  So there is, this is a very tiny place where being there.
• 1:55:30
  There is an added value of a human being being there on the ground
• 1:55:36
  because it's not only information, it's about feeling and meeting people.
• 1:55:40
  And well, more and more I assume that my job is subjective.
• 1:55:45
  That it's only my point of view and it's only my feelings about it.
• 1:55:49
  So I just transmit my views and my feelings.
• 1:55:53
  And this IA can do that.
• 1:55:55
  Not, not on the same way for the moment.
• 1:55:59
  So this is my chance.
• 1:56:01
  I'm highly subjective and people read me because it's subjective.
• 1:56:06
  Rupert Isaacson: Hmm.
• 1:56:07
  Rejane D'Espirac: And so yes, but it's more and more tricky and it's more and
• 1:56:10
  more tricky because I'm getting older too.
• 1:56:13
  And it's and it's a real issue to be a woman over 50 in a world that
• 1:56:21
  doesn't need meet so much anymore on a more professional or business way.
• 1:56:26
  Mm.
• 1:56:26
  So it's less and less easy to have a place on the very mainstream magazines because
• 1:56:33
  you've got young people and that's normal.
• 1:56:35
  There are sorties, they've got ideas, they've got energy, they
• 1:56:37
  don't have kids, and they don't take a lot of money and they do the job.
• 1:56:42
  Hmm.
• 1:56:42
  So, more and more I accept to go on my personal projects and to.
• 1:56:52
  To have faced enough to work with them and to hope they are gonna make a living
• 1:56:59
  for me, because I have no choice, in fact.
• 1:57:04
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:57:06
  How much of a, how much of a role does optimism play?
• 1:57:13
  Rejane D'Espirac: I wouldn't have say optimism, confidence
• 1:57:17
  more, but not self-confidence.
• 1:57:19
  Rupert Isaacson: But you must have an optimi, you must have an expectation of a
• 1:57:23
  good outcome based upon your experience.
• 1:57:27
  Rejane D'Espirac: I know that if I am
• 1:57:33
  authentic enough, if I don't want to do good, and if I don't
• 1:57:37
  want to answer to standards,
• 1:57:40
  Rupert Isaacson: yes.
• 1:57:41
  Rejane D'Espirac: If I do my stuff from my heart, it's gonna work.
• 1:57:46
  Rupert Isaacson: I think you just defined optimism actually.
• 1:57:49
  It's a very good Yes, because it's, it's confidence from a, it's
• 1:57:55
  based on, you know, experience.
• 1:57:58
  Well, but there was a point where you had to start without that experience.
• 1:58:03
  Yeah.
• 1:58:03
  Yes.
• 1:58:07
  Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
• 1:58:07
  But it was easier.
• 1:58:08
  Yeah.
• 1:58:09
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:58:09
  Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
• 1:58:10
  I, I didn't start 25 years ago being so much involved in my
• 1:58:15
  topics, and I started as a travel writer, and it was more like taking
• 1:58:22
  Rupert Isaacson: observation
• 1:58:22
  Rejane D'Espirac: advantage of my experience and talking about
• 1:58:25
  people, but not being so involved.
• 1:58:27
  But then I met people and it was impossible for me not to be involved.
• 1:58:33
  And years after years, we find found ways to have our views and voices
• 1:58:42
  heard, but it's always very unstable and it's always very, it's difficult,
• 1:58:49
  but you, I can remember having a di a conversation with you about margins.
• 1:58:55
  And I guess my work is a lot about margins and in a way I have to
• 1:59:00
  accept to be part of it, margin.
• 1:59:04
  Rupert Isaacson: But the margins interestingly, is where the most
• 1:59:08
  food is usually because Yes.
• 1:59:10
  Rejane D'Espirac: And it's, oh, it's where creativity is and it's, so,
• 1:59:14
  it's of course, it start from that,
• 1:59:18
  Rupert Isaacson: the, the meeting of one world to another world.
• 1:59:21
  That's where the richness is, whether it's ecologically or whether it's
• 1:59:25
  Rejane D'Espirac: yes, fertilization.
• 1:59:26
  Yes.
• 1:59:27
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:59:29
  But I think I guess, go ahead.
• 1:59:31
  I'll
• 1:59:31
  Rejane D'Espirac: not say no.
• 1:59:32
  To big bestseller and be, you know, indeed and able to do more in a way.
• 1:59:38
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, it sounds, it sounds like the Bo Pal thing, you're
• 1:59:41
  sort of on that, on that journey.
• 1:59:43
  I think I, I could see a book like that being very successful.
• 1:59:47
  It's also cinematic, obviously or television.
• 1:59:50
  You may not yet be doing this, but I suspect that's something else you
• 1:59:57
  probably should be doing is mentoring.
• 2:00:01
  Hmm.
• 2:00:02
  I would imagine there's a lot of young people wanting to start off, you know,
• 2:00:06
  I get this too, when people say, Rupert, how do you, how do you make it work?
• 2:00:10
  And you know, like, oh, go on.
• 2:00:12
  Yeah.
• 2:00:12
  And you know, you, I remember when I, when I was first sort of going out in
• 2:00:17
  the world and establishing myself, you know, with writing and journalism, but I
• 2:00:25
  was feeding myself through manual labor.
• 2:00:28
  I just worked on building sites, farms, trained horses.
• 2:00:33
  Sometimes I didn't eat, you know, that sort of thing.
• 2:00:36
  And then you just sort of keep a momentum, but you do have
• 2:00:39
  to have a kind of optimism.
• 2:00:41
  You do have, you know, and I'm very interested in the psychology
• 2:00:45
  of optimism because I think we're an optimistic species.
• 2:00:49
  People say, oh no, I'm not.
• 2:00:50
  I'm a pessimist.
• 2:00:51
  But actually.
• 2:00:52
  There's now so many studies coming out saying optimism tends to actually look
• 2:00:56
  what result in good outcomes, whether it's health, whether it's economic,
• 2:01:01
  because it just means you are actively looking for solutions rather than
• 2:01:06
  assuming that there are no solutions.
• 2:01:08
  But it does mean that yes, you have to become comfortable with a certain
• 2:01:12
  degree of instability, but that instability is of course what allows
• 2:01:19
  you to be able to follow the story.
• 2:01:22
  But I, I do think that someone, you talked about being over 50, a woman and so on,
• 2:01:26
  you're now able to give some wisdom.
• 2:01:30
  And quite a few of my friends are now starting to do this.
• 2:01:34
  I should imagine, you know, there'll be people listening to this and watching
• 2:01:38
  this who are thinking, I would quite like to do something like Raja's done.
• 2:01:43
  You know, could I, could I pay her some money to mentor me?
• 2:01:47
  Rejane D'Espirac: I, in fact, people came to me to, to help them writing.
• 2:01:51
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
• 2:01:52
  Rejane D'Espirac: Yeah.
• 2:01:52
  And you know, it's very relative, unstability, when I spend time in
• 2:01:57
  Bal, my unstability is quite, whoa.
• 2:02:01
  Well,
• 2:02:01
  Rupert Isaacson: that is so true.
• 2:02:01
  You wanna talk
• 2:02:02
  Rejane D'Espirac: about the same business?
• 2:02:03
  Mm, yeah.
• 2:02:04
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 2:02:05
  There's nothing like a bit of perspective.
• 2:02:09
  Rejane D'Espirac: I'm healthy, my son is healthy.
• 2:02:10
  We've got a roof.
• 2:02:11
  Well, everything's, yeah.
• 2:02:13
  Yeah.
• 2:02:13
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 2:02:15
  Okay.
• 2:02:16
  Rejane D'Espirac: Thanks a lot.
• 2:02:17
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, thank you.
• 2:02:18
  It's a pleasure.
• 2:02:19
  Rejane D'Espirac: Such a pleasure.
• 2:02:20
  Rupert Isaacson: Such a pleasure.
• 2:02:20
  Always.
• 2:02:21
  I can't wait for the next conversation.
• 2:02:23
  Rejane D'Espirac: Oh, let's plan it.
• 2:02:26
  Rupert Isaacson: Do that.
• 2:02:27
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• 2:02:31
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• 2:02:35
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• 2:02:39
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• 2:02:44
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• 2:03:27
  T shirts, hoodies, all that sort of thing.
• 2:03:29
  rupertisatson.
• 2:03:30
  com, it's all there.
• 2:03:31
  I can't wait for our next guest and also to meet you there.
• 2:03:36
  In the meantime, remember, live free.
• 2:03:40
  Ride free.