Latest / Live Free Ride Free with Rupert Isaacson / Ultra Distances & Deeper Connections – Inside the Mongol and Gaucho Derby with Stevie Delahunt | Ep 28 Live Free Ride Free

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Ultra Distances & Deeper Connections – Inside the Mongol and Gaucho Derby with Stevie Delahunt | Ep 28 Live Free Ride Free · 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
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• 0:16
  If you like what we do here, please give it a thumbs up,
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• 0:24
  To find out about our certification courses, online video libraries,
• 0:29
  books, and other courses, please go to rupertisakson.
• 0:33
  com.
• 0:34
  So now let's jump in.
• 0:39
  Welcome back to Live Free, ride Free.
• 0:41
  I've got Adventurous Barbie here.
• 0:44
  Stevie Della Hunt.
• 0:46
  She does crazy shit.
• 0:48
  Among these things is Organ helping to organize and helping
• 0:54
  people to prepare for a couple of really extreme events that happen.
• 1:00
  One in Patagonia and one in Mongolia.
• 1:04
  The Gaucho Derby and the Mongolian Derby.
• 1:06
  But she has a lot of other strings to her bow.
• 1:09
  It seems to be a story of resilience, putting oneself in challenging positions
• 1:19
  and why one might do that and why one might help other people to do that.
• 1:24
  So, buckle up 'cause we're in for a good ride.
• 1:27
  Welcome, Stevie.
• 1:28
  Tell us who you are and what you do.
• 1:31
  Stevie Delahunt: Hi, thank you so much for having me.
• 1:33
  I'm Stevie Della Hunt and you just did a one lovely job explaining the
• 1:38
  major part of what I enjoy doing.
• 1:40
  I also happen to put shoes on horses or, and trim their nails.
• 1:44
  Trim their feet.
• 1:46
  So I'm a farrier and I am also a riding instructor for
• 1:50
  beginner adults and, and kids.
• 1:52
  Cool.
• 1:53
  And I do endurance running and riding as well.
• 1:56
  So I'm addicted to long haul excursions On foot or on horseback.
• 2:04
  Rupert Isaacson: Why?
• 2:04
  Why are you addicted to this?
• 2:05
  Oh,
• 2:07
  Stevie Delahunt: I think, you know, it's, it's that type two fun addiction where
• 2:11
  Rupert Isaacson: it's that what type two, what addiction
• 2:13
  Stevie Delahunt: Type two.
• 2:14
  Fun.
• 2:15
  Rupert Isaacson: What's Type two Fun.
• 2:16
  Stevie Delahunt: So type two fun in my mind.
• 2:19
  There's type one fun where you're on a rollercoaster, you're enjoying
• 2:21
  it, and that's very obvious.
• 2:24
  Type two fun is maybe you go on a hiking and camping trip with friends
• 2:28
  and you get caught in the rain and at the time it doesn't seem fun.
• 2:32
  It's stressful and you're cold and wet.
• 2:34
  But the next day in the pub talking about it, you guys are like, you're bonding
• 2:39
  with your friends and you're talking about how much fun it was to be out there.
• 2:42
  That's type two fun.
• 2:44
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay, so it's
• 2:44
  Stevie Delahunt: the excursions where you're in between that sort of, that
• 2:49
  space of either trauma or triumph and you end up triumphing over it.
• 2:54
  And I love, I love that little phrase, trauma or triumph because I feel like
• 2:59
  when we put ourself up against new goals or challenges, it can become a trauma
• 3:04
  if we don't have the tools in place.
• 3:05
  Or it can become a triumph.
• 3:07
  And I think the type two fun is that space when you triumph and type three
• 3:12
  fun is where you, you ends up being a trauma, like taking out the trash.
• 3:16
  Maybe that's not a trauma, but taking out the trash I say is type three fun.
• 3:20
  It's not fun while you're doing it and it's not fun
• 3:22
  later when you look back on it.
• 3:25
  Rupert Isaacson: That's that how, how was the type three fun in that case.
• 3:29
  If it's not fun at the time and it's not fun,
• 3:31
  Stevie Delahunt: it's more of a joke.
• 3:32
  I think I started that with Work Schiller when we were trying to define type two
• 3:36
  fun and type three fun came up as well.
• 3:40
  Rupert Isaacson: This reminds me of a lyric from a joke band called
• 3:45
  The Flight of the Concordes.
• 3:47
  I dunno if you ever saw them.
• 3:48
  They had a TV show where they were.
• 3:52
  It's two guys from New Zealand and they are musicians and they, the,
• 3:57
  the, the, the conceit of the show is that they are New Zealand's fifth.
• 4:03
  Most popular band and they're trying to make it in New York.
• 4:05
  Of course they're not making it.
• 4:07
  And they do all these funny songs and there's one they call Business
• 4:10
  Time, which is when he is gonna make love to his wife 'cause it's
• 4:13
  business time and it's on Wednesdays.
• 4:15
  And the foreplay, they talk about the part of the foreplay on this sort of
• 4:18
  Barry White and they're brushing their teeth and that's all part of the foreplay.
• 4:21
  And then he goes and puts the recycling out and he says that's not part of the
• 4:25
  foreplay, but it's still very important because foreplay is very important.
• 4:29
  So that sounds like type three fun.
• 4:32
  Yeah.
• 4:33
  Who came up with these categories?
• 4:36
  Stevie Delahunt: I, I don't know who came up with like type one and type two fund,
• 4:39
  but that's been around and in my head and in my, my vocabulary for a long time.
• 4:43
  But the type three, that was just a, like a joking addition.
• 4:47
  What I believe what I chatted to Warwick Chiller on is podcast.
• 4:50
  We might have talked about that, but
• 4:53
  Rupert Isaacson: okay.
• 4:53
  So, so what happens if it's just trauma?
• 4:57
  What category does that go under?
• 4:59
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah, that's probably gonna be type three fun.
• 5:01
  Not fun while you're doing it.
• 5:03
  And not fun when you look back on it.
• 5:04
  And the fun
• 5:05
  Rupert Isaacson: that you, but allows you to have fun later 'cause you survived.
• 5:09
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah, exactly.
• 5:10
  Yeah.
• 5:11
  I like keeping those things in the categories of, there's, there's nothing
• 5:14
  outside of this three types of fun, right?
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  'cause everything, I think a lot of things in life are a choice.
• 5:20
  You know, I love the phrase, if you're not laughing, you're crying.
• 5:23
  And I've tried to hold that dear because there's some situations in
• 5:27
  which it feels really difficult.
• 5:28
  But if you just take a moment and realize that you're the speck of dust
• 5:31
  in the universe and your problems are quite small, it can help give
• 5:35
  perspective and you can see how ridiculous our situations are every day.
• 5:39
  So, that's, that's why I like the categories of fun
• 5:43
  being one, two, and three.
• 5:44
  And there's nothing outside of that.
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  So,
• 5:47
  Rupert Isaacson: so have you always been drawn to testing yourself in
• 5:52
  this way or was it a gradual process?
• 5:56
  Stevie Delahunt: I think for me it was a gradual process.
• 5:58
  I'm a normal human being with a normal, well an probably an abnormal brain,
• 6:03
  but still I'm drawn to comfort and not always wanting to go out when it's
• 6:07
  raining or you would rather sit on the couch and watch Netflix sort of person.
• 6:13
  So I'm not any braver or there's no nothing in me that's
• 6:16
  different from anyone else.
• 6:18
  And I think it took some time to realize the rewards that were to be had if I went
• 6:23
  out and tested myself and pushed myself.
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  I started running half marathons and that was.
• 6:31
  I think I really inherited that from my parents.
• 6:34
  They were both very physically active and kind of wondered why my dad was
• 6:38
  drawn to being a marathon runner.
• 6:40
  And so I started running half marathons and then like that feeling
• 6:44
  of accomplishment of something I, I never thought I could run 13 miles
• 6:48
  and that's, and one day I was able to do it and I got addicted to that and
• 6:55
  eventually I ended up doing a 50 k.
• 6:57
  And what was crazy for that is that in my training for a 50 k, something that I
• 7:01
  once thought, that 13 mile, half marathon mark that I thought was impossible,
• 7:06
  that was like a training run for me when I started going ultra distances.
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  And that was just such an interesting progression to realize that those
• 7:16
  benchmarks that you thought were once impossible are actually a part of,
• 7:19
  can become a part of your routine.
• 7:21
  It's a little bit like when you hear about those marathon runners there's like
• 7:25
  a comedian, a British comedian that went and just started doing a marathon a day.
• 7:31
  And like those, those benchmarks are possible.
• 7:34
  And like to some people, the idea of just doing one marathon is, it's a lot.
• 7:38
  I mean, even now, right now I probably, I haven't been training, I would feel
• 7:43
  like a lot to give to a marathon.
• 7:44
  I would have to walk a bit of it for sure.
• 7:46
  And it's just interesting like how your perspective can shift when
• 7:50
  you start shifting your, yeah.
• 7:52
  When you start shifting your life.
• 7:55
  Rupert Isaacson: And talk to me about ultra distances.
• 7:58
  An ultra distance, so basically 50 K is two marathons in a row, more or less.
• 8:06
  Stevie Delahunt: Actually 50 K is, it's less so it's, it's the short, it's
• 8:10
  the shortest ultra distance there is.
• 8:12
  So it's about 31 miles.
• 8:14
  Rupert Isaacson: I love that.
• 8:14
  It's the shortest ultra distance there is.
• 8:17
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah.
• 8:18
  Rupert Isaacson: So that's like your baby ultra distance, like Oh, bless you.
• 8:20
  Yeah, yeah.
• 8:21
  You're only running 50 k.
• 8:22
  Mm-hmm.
• 8:22
  When you run 50 k, do you run the whole way or do you run, walk, run, walk?
• 8:28
  Stevie Delahunt: It depends on elevation.
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  So the race that I did had 9,000 feet.
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  So what is that?
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  Like 3000 meters of elevation gain in the first five miles.
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  So it's quite a lot.
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  And some of those climbs you end up walking and it's just advantageous.
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  You can actually walk faster than you jog uphill.
• 8:47
  So that one, at the beginning I did do some walking, but I tried to, I was
• 8:52
  trying to be a sub six hour time on my 50 K, and so I was trying to run
• 8:59
  and I had not trained well enough.
• 9:01
  I'd only done 18 miles in preparation.
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  Hadn't had the time in my life to get enough running in.
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  Like I should have probably done a marathon distance before in
• 9:09
  training and I hadn't been able to.
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  And so the last six miles were really, really difficult.
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  I was jogging probably slower than grandma's can walk, but I was
• 9:18
  jogging and I did come in at 5 59, so
• 9:24
  Rupert Isaacson: it's not good for your body.
• 9:27
  Stevie Delahunt: I, you know, there's so many people out there, like Courtney Dewal
• 9:31
  is a pretty famous ultra runner, and she's able to do distances of like 240 miles.
• 9:36
  Like that's becoming a normal distance to race for ultras.
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  Like the Moab two 40 they're bringing in a 250 mile race.
• 9:46
  There's, there's even longer distances, I think a
• 9:49
  Rupert Isaacson: good for your body.
• 9:50
  I mean, I believe's possible.
• 9:51
  They
• 9:52
  Stevie Delahunt: seem to be, I, I think it's probably no more damaging
• 9:56
  than sitting on a couch all day.
• 9:58
  Like they're just different health risks, right?
• 10:00
  Like it might, how
• 10:00
  Rupert Isaacson: old is, is Courtney?
• 10:03
  Stevie Delahunt: I believe she's in her forties now.
• 10:06
  Rupert Isaacson: Possibly.
• 10:06
  I one just can't help but one, I mean, I do, I do absolutely accept that there are
• 10:11
  certain body types and personality types that, that might suit, but I'm skeptical.
• 10:19
  But help me with this, that setting up those things as goals for your
• 10:27
  average human being might not invite people into potential injury
• 10:34
  that they maybe don't need to.
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  Or am I looking at it wrongly?
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  Stevie Delahunt: You know, it's an interesting topic to bring
• 10:43
  up because I do endurance horse racing so ultra running for horses.
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  And it's a subject I think a lot about as like the breakdown in the
• 10:51
  wear and tear on their bodies, the breakdown in wear and tear on mine.
• 10:54
  But I look back to thinking about how I would think about doing a half marathon.
• 11:00
  When I first started, I thought that was impossible.
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  And from the perspective of a person who had never run any distance, I
• 11:07
  would look out and be like, that can't, that can't be possible.
• 11:10
  You can't be healthy running marathons all the time, say.
• 11:13
  And same with there's a lot of horse people that might look and say, you can't
• 11:17
  ride a horse a hundred miles in 24 hours.
• 11:20
  Well, yes, that's true.
• 11:21
  If, and that seems like a very valid perspective when you have a horse
• 11:25
  that lives in a stall all day, doesn't exercise very much, and is just
• 11:30
  going out for an hour in the arena and is sweaty and and out breath
• 11:34
  after doing an hour in the arena.
• 11:36
  So as my perspective has shifted, like once I started completing
• 11:40
  half marathons, it became normal.
• 11:43
  It became my every day felt normal to just go run five miles.
• 11:47
  No big deal.
• 11:48
  Doesn't feel like wear and tear because I have the tools in my body, the muscles
• 11:51
  built up over time to support that.
• 11:53
  It'd be like if we had to run three miles every day to get water.
• 11:58
  Like, you know, maybe, maybe you'd have to travel to get water back in the day.
• 12:03
  You wouldn't be running maybe, but I'm, I'm just saying it's,
• 12:06
  our bodies are very adaptable
• 12:08
  Rupert Isaacson: over time.
• 12:09
  I absolutely, I absolutely agree.
• 12:10
  And, and, but the reason I'm, I'm, I'm harping on this I think sort of early
• 12:15
  in the podcast, is I think what gets tricky is we live in a society where
• 12:21
  expectations are set for us through culture, social media, and so on.
• 12:33
  Let's say for example, we're talking about horses doing, you know, an endurance race.
• 12:39
  There are definitely types of horse that are selectively bred, partly by
• 12:44
  nature and partly by man for that.
• 12:46
  So there's, it's no surprise, for example, that your average endurance
• 12:51
  horses in Arabian or something close to it because the, and it's no surprise
• 12:58
  that the fastest runners in the world come out of the Horn of Africa
• 13:03
  and are of a certain genetic type.
• 13:06
  And these horses are of a certain genetic type.
• 13:08
  I don't think I'm of that genetic type.
• 13:10
  So I think that for me to run that distance, as much as I loved running.
• 13:16
  Before I smashed up my legs over cross country fences now it's too painful
• 13:21
  'cause I've got metal rods in my legs.
• 13:22
  But when I did run a lot I enjoyed it.
• 13:26
  I loved it.
• 13:27
  I definitely hit the spiritual side of it, but I never thought deep
• 13:33
  down that I was a marathon runner.
• 13:36
  And I remember having people kind of peer pressure me to it.
• 13:39
  I'm like, dude, I don't think that's me.
• 13:42
  That might be that person over there who's got a very different body type
• 13:45
  to me totally support them doing it.
• 13:50
  Me with my knees, my ankles.
• 13:53
  Mm.
• 13:54
  I could see where and tear are that I can feel it happening.
• 13:58
  So I'm gonna stay sort of where I am, but I maybe will push myself
• 14:02
  and find my extremes in other ways.
• 14:05
  What I worry about with things like a ultra distance or that sort of thing,
• 14:11
  being, you know, and, and people will sort of see that go, I want to do
• 14:14
  that and I'm gonna make that my goal.
• 14:16
  And they might or might not be physically, let alone emotionally, but probably more
• 14:24
  physically that type then if they injure themselves or fail, is that, you know.
• 14:34
  Or can we look at it in a more measured way and saying for a certain
• 14:38
  type of physical type, this ultra distance actually might be a thing,
• 14:41
  but it's going to be a small minority of people, and that's all right.
• 14:44
  You know?
• 14:45
  Do you know what I'm saying?
• 14:46
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah.
• 14:47
  Yeah.
• 14:47
  I absolutely do.
• 14:48
  I don't think I'm, like, I'm not built to run fast.
• 14:52
  Mm-hmm.
• 14:52
  At all.
• 14:53
  And I think it's, I think if you intuitively, like you were
• 14:56
  saying intuitively, you felt you were not a marathon runner.
• 14:59
  I think that's your answer right there.
• 15:01
  Like, I think that the people that are drawn, the people that are drawn to wanna
• 15:05
  run a hundred miles, you've gotta feel it in your bones that you can do that.
• 15:10
  And I think I think it's possible you'll have doubts, but that's a different thing.
• 15:14
  Because I, I would imagine that when you were a runner, if someone said,
• 15:17
  you wanna sign up for this a hundred mile race, you would've been like, no.
• 15:20
  Like, you enjoy running in a different way, right?
• 15:23
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 15:23
  I watched it from the pub.
• 15:25
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 15:26
  Stevie Delahunt: So I think, I think you're right.
• 15:29
  Like I think but it's just like some people, that's why we are drawn to
• 15:33
  different jobs in the world too.
• 15:35
  Mm-hmm.
• 15:35
  And you know, it in your bones.
• 15:37
  And I think a distance, anything over 50 k really for running you're not really
• 15:42
  gonna attempt to do it unless you feel it, like you feel drawn to do that.
• 15:47
  And I think you're right, there's a million ways to push yourself.
• 15:50
  And it doesn't have to be running, but,
• 15:52
  Rupert Isaacson: okay.
• 15:52
  So, so let's talk about pushing yourself because we are, we
• 15:55
  are beginning to live in a.
• 15:58
  In an, in an era where stress is a dirty word, and I've often
• 16:05
  wondered, is all stress bad?
• 16:08
  Personally, I don't think it is.
• 16:09
  In fact, your chances of getting through, you know, several decades on
• 16:15
  planet earth without stress are zero.
• 16:18
  Yeah.
• 16:19
  And so if stress was by its very nature negative, then life would,
• 16:26
  by its very nature, be negative because life involves stress.
• 16:30
  I believe in resilience and like you say, you, you are type two fun where you come
• 16:37
  through a testing situation, you're full of endorphins, you're glad you did it.
• 16:41
  You're stronger.
• 16:42
  You are also a bit relieved that it's over.
• 16:45
  And you absolutely want to have, you know, feed up on the couch
• 16:48
  for a while before the next one.
• 16:50
  But if you go back to a hunter gatherer roots, this is
• 16:54
  demanded of us all the time.
• 16:56
  And not, of course, not just physical endeavor, but mental and emotional.
• 17:01
  So I think I'm with you that we, we need to be pushed or we dive
• 17:08
  boredom and boredom and loneliness, which I think go hand in hand.
• 17:12
  I feel that they're sort of siblings really, or cousins seems to be
• 17:17
  the ill of our age, or one of them at least within Western society.
• 17:22
  Did you get drawn to push yourself and then to help others push themselves
• 17:29
  if they want to because of a reaction to boredom or because of a instinctive
• 17:41
  feel, feeling that you needed to be tested or somewhere in between them both.
• 17:47
  Talk to me a bit about your childhood and how you grew up.
• 17:52
  Was there a lot of testing and opportunities for resilience?
• 17:59
  Like how did you come into it that way?
• 18:02
  And when people are coming to you, inevitably there's a sort
• 18:07
  of therapeutic angle to this.
• 18:10
  Who are the people that come to you and why?
• 18:13
  You know, so, so if you could put that picture together for us, I'd be, yeah.
• 18:16
  Curious.
• 18:18
  Stevie Delahunt: I had a very privileged only child upbringing.
• 18:21
  And so I can't, I've often wondered like we all carry some sort of traumas with
• 18:26
  us and I've had a pretty good childhood.
• 18:29
  Had all the opportunities in the world, loving parents that supported me.
• 18:32
  Where was that?
• 18:32
  Where
• 18:33
  Rupert Isaacson: did you grow up?
• 18:34
  Stevie Delahunt: I grew up I was born in Germany, but I moved
• 18:36
  into the states when I was two.
• 18:38
  So essentially grew up in Michigan, so the Midwest of the United States.
• 18:43
  Had good old Midwestern upbringing, went to Michigan State University college, and
• 18:48
  that was kind of when I started running.
• 18:50
  But
• 18:50
  Rupert Isaacson: what did you study out of interest?
• 18:52
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah.
• 18:53
  I was I had dual major as French and political science.
• 18:57
  And I had a specialization in democratization in Eastern Europe.
• 19:02
  Yeah,
• 19:02
  Rupert Isaacson: well that was sort of going on at the time, I presume.
• 19:05
  Yeah.
• 19:05
  To some,
• 19:06
  Stevie Delahunt: yeah.
• 19:07
  And graduated from Michigan State University.
• 19:09
  That changed my mind, decided I didn't wanna, I was supposed to go to law school.
• 19:13
  I was teaching the lsat at the time because I was very good at taking tests.
• 19:17
  I was supposed to go to Georgetown Law School changed my mind and ended up at the
• 19:22
  French Pastry School of Chicago instead.
• 19:26
  And yeah, and made ended up having a business in Chicago doing wedding
• 19:31
  cakes for quite a few years.
• 19:33
  And then I was drawn back into horses and it was kind of a big transition.
• 19:38
  So, back into
• 19:38
  Rupert Isaacson: horses.
• 19:38
  Had you grown up with horses?
• 19:40
  Stevie Delahunt: I had grown up with horses.
• 19:41
  I was on the Michigan State Equestrian team in college, so
• 19:44
  horses followed me through college.
• 19:46
  I
• 19:47
  Rupert Isaacson: did your parents ride?
• 19:48
  Stevie Delahunt: My mom had as a kid.
• 19:50
  But they were not big horse people.
• 19:52
  They became big horse people when I was drawn to it as a child.
• 19:56
  But
• 19:56
  Rupert Isaacson: What kind of riding did you do growing up?
• 19:58
  Stevie Delahunt: I did pretty much everything started in western disciplines
• 20:01
  and went into English, and eventually after college, went into the hunter
• 20:06
  jumper world and started fox hunting.
• 20:09
  Rupert Isaacson: Where did you,
• 20:11
  Stevie Delahunt: sorry, what was that?
• 20:12
  Rupert Isaacson: Where did you fox hunt?
• 20:13
  Stevie Delahunt: Chagrin valley hunt in Ohio when I was living there.
• 20:16
  I,
• 20:16
  Rupert Isaacson: I, I know of that one.
• 20:17
  Yep.
• 20:18
  Okay.
• 20:19
  It was
• 20:19
  Stevie Delahunt: a, it is very good hunt.
• 20:20
  Shout out to Solange Ellis, who Drew drew me into fox hunting there.
• 20:24
  And yeah, kind of went through all the different disciplines, sort of
• 20:28
  looking, looking for something that exemplified the relationship between
• 20:34
  human and horse, like that connection.
• 20:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 20:36
  I always found it really interesting.
• 20:38
  I showed horses in the western world for quite a while, and I found that
• 20:43
  it, it was such a weird world in that everyone had been drawn to horses
• 20:48
  because they loved them and they wanted the connection to start with.
• 20:50
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 20:50
  Stevie Delahunt: But it got sort of bastardized into a whole different
• 20:55
  element of just wanting to win.
• 20:56
  It's very, it's very strange how we can change relationships
• 21:01
  when money's involved.
• 21:02
  And I was, I was kind of, Evan can
• 21:04
  Rupert Isaacson: become hell very easily in the human psyche.
• 21:07
  Yes.
• 21:08
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah.
• 21:08
  So quickly and.
• 21:10
  So I, I have nothing against showing horses in different ways.
• 21:13
  It's all about how and why you're doing it, but it wasn't,
• 21:17
  it wasn't the space for me.
• 21:18
  So I ended up traveling through lots of dis different disciplines, including
• 21:21
  like try and polo, which I'm shit at.
• 21:23
  And every, everything in between.
• 21:27
  Eventually though I found endurance, but I found that through the Mongol Derby I
• 21:31
  was reading an article in Outside Magazine and they had published a guy named Will
• 21:37
  who I, now I'm friends with, published an article about the Mongol Derby.
• 21:42
  And instantly I just knew, like I felt this big draw.
• 21:46
  I had always wanted to go to Mongolia.
• 21:48
  I'd known about it as a kid for, as one of the world's best horse people.
• 21:53
  Like read that somewhere else.
• 21:55
  And so when I saw that this race took place in Mongolia through the step, I
• 21:59
  was instantly obsessed with the idea.
• 22:02
  And so it was extremely expensive for me.
• 22:05
  I was a bartender at the time.
• 22:07
  I had given up my cake business and moved to the Ohio area.
• 22:12
  And the idea of paying that much money to do something felt like a lot.
• 22:16
  So I was like, if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do it right.
• 22:19
  And I began training and fox hunting every day.
• 22:22
  'cause I didn't know the endurance world existed.
• 22:25
  I didn't know you could go and ride 50 to a hundred miles on a horse in a day.
• 22:29
  So fox hunting seemed like a good way to prep.
• 22:32
  It's a lot of wild riding through open terrain, and I knew that's what
• 22:36
  I'd be doing on the Mongol Derby.
• 22:38
  And additionally, I felt like I needed to be really fit to do a good job.
• 22:41
  So I started running, and then I started getting into the idea of ultra distances.
• 22:46
  And so it was the Mongol Derby itself was the catalyst for which I started
• 22:52
  to change my life and started to get addicted to that, that type two fun
• 22:55
  feeling and really realized I was coming back to myself through that, like to
• 23:01
  my more wild and free self outside of the paradigms of normal society.
• 23:05
  I was definitely had been looking for something.
• 23:08
  Before we started this podcast recording, we talked briefly about
• 23:12
  what I do, and I mentioned to you that I felt people who go to do the Mongol
• 23:17
  Gouger derbies are on a spiritual journey, whether they know it or not.
• 23:21
  And I, I certainly was on one and didn't realize it, and I was looking,
• 23:28
  I was looking to find myself, but also looking to step outside of the societal
• 23:33
  norms that I didn't feel were right.
• 23:35
  Things like the relationship with horses in the land.
• 23:39
  And that's what I found out there.
• 23:41
  When I did the Mongol Derby, I saw people living in touch with the land.
• 23:45
  I saw a community of people from around the world that also felt the same.
• 23:49
  So all the other contestants that came to ride the gouge,
• 23:53
  or sorry, the Mongol Derby.
• 23:55
  We're all in the same boat of, there was just something off about
• 23:59
  their world and the relationship with horses within their world.
• 24:02
  And I think that's what draws people
• 24:04
  Rupert Isaacson: on the relationship with nature in general.
• 24:07
  Stevie Delahunt: Nature in general, but also horses.
• 24:09
  I think a lot of the people that I now train for Mongol and Gaucho
• 24:12
  derbies, they're really open to the spiritual side of being with horses.
• 24:16
  Like they, they also are pushing up against the idea of like
• 24:20
  winning those ribbons and the money that's involved in horses.
• 24:24
  They're, they're looking for the connection and, and for
• 24:28
  purpose with horses again.
• 24:30
  If that makes sense.
• 24:31
  Rupert Isaacson: And yet the, and yet the Derby is a derby.
• 24:32
  It's still a race.
• 24:33
  Stevie Delahunt: It's still a race, yeah.
• 24:35
  It's still a race.
• 24:37
  Yes.
• 24:38
  Rupert Isaacson: How does the fact that it's still a race not open the way to
• 24:43
  the human ego and get in the way of that spiritual relationship with the horse?
• 24:47
  Stevie Delahunt: You know, I think, I think it does.
• 24:49
  I've seen lots of different derby stories play out.
• 24:52
  And I think oftentimes the people that are up in the front of the
• 24:57
  derby, there's sometimes ego involved, but other times there's not.
• 25:02
  I've seen some really amazing wins.
• 25:05
  There's south African.
• 25:06
  Why have there been
• 25:07
  Rupert Isaacson: a race?
• 25:07
  Why not just make it a journey?
• 25:10
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah, that's a really good question.
• 25:12
  Rupert Isaacson: Request of some sort,
• 25:14
  Stevie Delahunt: and I think it is shied away from, and.
• 25:19
  The idea of winning is shied away from, in a way, there's no big winnings
• 25:24
  if you win, it's just accolades.
• 25:25
  Like you, yes, you were first.
• 25:27
  And this actually gets talked a lot about in endurance riding for A ERC,
• 25:31
  American Endurance Ride Conference which runs e endurance horse racing in the
• 25:35
  US and they talked often it's called their motto is to finish, is to win.
• 25:41
  And a lot of people say, well, if it's all about finishing, then
• 25:46
  why are contestants placed, right?
• 25:49
  Like, if it's all about going out and doing this ride and I think it's really
• 25:52
  supposed to be you against the time clock, not you, against other contestants.
• 25:57
  Rupert Isaacson: Why does that need to be an against?
• 25:59
  What do you think is important about the against what, what,
• 26:03
  what quality does that bring out?
• 26:07
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah, I think it's good to have that stress, as you were saying,
• 26:10
  like putting a stress, a time stress.
• 26:12
  Would I have loved to ride the Mongol Derby and had all the time in the world?
• 26:15
  Absolutely.
• 26:15
  So we could spend time with the families, could have had a whole
• 26:19
  different experience, but that would've been me just going on vacation.
• 26:23
  Would it, I think,
• 26:24
  Rupert Isaacson: or would it have been a a, a quest and an inquiry does, so
• 26:32
  I guess what I'm digging for is I think obviously certain people are
• 26:36
  con competitive by nature and that com, com a competitive nature is.
• 26:41
  In our DNA more in certain people than others, perhaps because of our
• 26:46
  hunting gatherer, you know, nature that therefore to bring down the big
• 26:52
  kill is a necessary thing sometimes.
• 26:56
  And to have the or to jackpot the big, you know, find of natural plants or whatever,
• 27:06
  you know, it, that desire to get the big dopamine boom is in us for, you know,
• 27:17
  good reasons that nature has put in there.
• 27:19
  Like anything.
• 27:21
  But you know, when you say something like, what if I'd just done that ride
• 27:24
  with all the time in the world, I would've been on vacation, I think No, no, no.
• 27:27
  Not at all.
• 27:28
  Not necessarily, but in your mind, yes.
• 27:31
  Why?
• 27:34
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah.
• 27:34
  That's a, it's a good question, and actually I'll circle around to that.
• 27:39
  But I was thinking about how my competitive nature has changed over time.
• 27:43
  And I, I would say when I went and did the Mongol Derby, I originally
• 27:48
  felt that I wanted to try to win it.
• 27:51
  And as I started training for it, I realized I just wanted to survive it.
• 27:54
  That
• 27:55
  Rupert Isaacson: was
• 27:55
  Stevie Delahunt: that.
• 27:56
  Rupert Isaacson: How long ago was that?
• 27:57
  Stevie Delahunt: That was 2014, so that was like 11 years ago.
• 28:00
  Rupert Isaacson: So you've been doing these things for about
• 28:01
  11 years out there in Mongolia?
• 28:03
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah.
• 28:03
  Rupert Isaacson: So.
• 28:04
  Stevie Delahunt: Yep.
• 28:05
  And when I went out there, I wanted to, I thought I wanted to win it.
• 28:09
  And then as I started training, that was like, this was part
• 28:11
  of my spiritual journey.
• 28:13
  I did start asking myself like, why do I wanna win things?
• 28:16
  Why do I have to go about them in, in a way like to be the best?
• 28:20
  And I realized it's part of this quest of like external validation
• 28:26
  that a lot of us go through.
• 28:27
  I think there's a lot of competition is driven by, if I just win this,
• 28:31
  then my dad will approve of me.
• 28:33
  Or if I just win, self esteem
• 28:34
  Rupert Isaacson: is right up that hill.
• 28:35
  Yeah, yeah,
• 28:35
  Stevie Delahunt: yeah, exactly.
• 28:37
  So I started to realize that I was looking to be enough in things outside of me.
• 28:42
  And of course if you place value in things outside of you,
• 28:46
  they can always be taken away.
• 28:48
  And I kind of started to realize that in my training for the derby.
• 28:51
  And then I was like, I just really wanna complete this, like have this experience.
• 28:55
  So it changed from I wanna win this to, I wanna have this experience and to
• 29:00
  see what I'm made of and push myself.
• 29:02
  And it kind of began to shift the goal from outside of myself, like winning to
• 29:08
  who am I gonna be through this experience?
• 29:10
  And that became an internal quest.
• 29:13
  And when, when your goals are internal rather than on an external valida
• 29:19
  validation, it's something that can't be taken away, if that makes sense.
• 29:23
  I don't know if I'm doing that justice, but I started to notice that shift
• 29:28
  in finding, finding myself as enough.
• 29:32
  No matter what the outcome was.
• 29:34
  And there's something I tell a lot of riders that come to compete, I always
• 29:39
  ask them why they're doing the derby.
• 29:40
  Like what are they, I'm, I'm searching to see what their external validation or if
• 29:45
  they're looking for external validation.
• 29:47
  I always remind them that their friends don't care about how they do.
• 29:54
  They only care about how they feel about how they do.
• 29:57
  So, you know, there's so many people that say, I have to win for my family.
• 30:01
  I have to do this.
• 30:02
  No, your family doesn't care if you, you win.
• 30:04
  They, they care if you're happy about how you did.
• 30:08
  And that's, that's a shift we talk about.
• 30:11
  Rupert Isaacson: There were two things which I'd, I'd like, I
• 30:13
  want to circle back to this.
• 30:14
  There's two things I'd like to ask about why cakes and talk to me about boredom.
• 30:20
  Okay.
• 30:21
  So why cakes first?
• 30:24
  Stevie Delahunt: Cakes I really enjoy baking and I love the chemistry of baking.
• 30:29
  It's just a very strict science project every time you bake.
• 30:33
  And that was probably like my least favorite part of it was the baking itself.
• 30:36
  I love the cake decorating.
• 30:38
  And I think it's that people pleasing element of I love creating
• 30:42
  something for other people.
• 30:44
  And seeing the joy when they consume or get to look at such
• 30:49
  beautiful, right, but heart.
• 30:50
  Right.
• 30:50
  But you
• 30:50
  Rupert Isaacson: could, there are many things that you could do that
• 30:53
  are not a cake, that are white cakes.
• 30:55
  Stevie Delahunt: I don't know, I guess it just really ended up, I think it was
• 30:59
  something, one of those things where I was always good at baking and so I
• 31:02
  always got that validation for baking.
• 31:04
  And you just start to associate, just like if you start drawing and everyone tells
• 31:09
  you you're a good draw, you pursue that.
• 31:11
  Rupert Isaacson: So strict rules,
• 31:15
  easily perceived clear structures, external validation.
• 31:22
  These drove you for a while, right?
• 31:25
  Stevie Delahunt: They did, yeah.
• 31:26
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 31:27
  I think honestly, I mean, they drive all of us, so it's, you know, it's, it's,
• 31:31
  one comes by these things honestly.
• 31:33
  And it's interesting that one one might find it through cakes and
• 31:37
  riding horses across Mongolia.
• 31:39
  You know, it, it, it's, it's so random how it can come about.
• 31:42
  It is for somebody else, it's something else.
• 31:45
  But both involve a sort of certain suspense.
• 31:50
  So, you know, you put the cake in the oven, is it gonna come out right?
• 31:54
  Is it gonna be good?
• 31:56
  Is it gonna fulfill expectations?
• 31:58
  I mean, even when we're baking bread at home, one always has that kind of, I
• 32:02
  hope it, you know, it's the same feeling that I think potters have when they
• 32:05
  put the thing in the kiln and they know it, it can implode and it might have
• 32:08
  to start again, or it might be amazing.
• 32:11
  And then if it causes joy, I think there's something celebratory
• 32:15
  around cakes, isn't there?
• 32:16
  You know, that it's sort of a big dopamine hit.
• 32:19
  It's like a big win.
• 32:20
  It's like a, everybody loves a cake and if you show up with a good cake,
• 32:24
  it's like you're the, you're the hero.
• 32:26
  You know?
• 32:27
  Stevie Delahunt: Well, let me tell you, transporting wedding cakes and making
• 32:30
  sure that you don't drop that thing right before the wedding because that is true.
• 32:36
  Real stress.
• 32:36
  So, so what you've
• 32:37
  Rupert Isaacson: got to create is the wedding cake race across
• 32:39
  Mongolia there, where you've got to transport a wedding cake on your
• 32:43
  horse through challenging terrain over two weeks and arrive with your cake.
• 32:49
  Not only intact, but better than it was somehow.
• 32:52
  Or
• 32:53
  Stevie Delahunt: the that's, I would rather run 240 miles
• 32:56
  because there's no way that that cake race wouldn't incite trauma.
• 33:01
  Like that would be type three fun for me.
• 33:04
  There's no triumph in that for me.
• 33:08
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay, so talk to me also about boredom.
• 33:11
  I am a great believer that most of the ills that beset us with
• 33:17
  mental health, myself included I.
• 33:22
  Are largely brought about by boredom.
• 33:24
  And what I mean by that is genetically we are supposed to be in more or
• 33:32
  less constant movement out in nature with a series of skills that make the
• 33:39
  finding of food sufficiently efficient.
• 33:44
  That we also have time for culture.
• 33:46
  There is quality of life in the hunter gatherer context.
• 33:51
  But at the same time, if we're not constantly engaged in series of tasks
• 33:57
  that are basically problems to fix, tracking hunting, identifying wild plants,
• 34:05
  gathering them medicinal, let alone before we go into the spiritual realm, these
• 34:10
  are all problems to constantly solve.
• 34:13
  And when you, when you're out hunting, other things are hunting you, you know,
• 34:16
  you gotta dodge them and weather changes, and now everything has to shift again.
• 34:20
  And when you are gathering wild foods, things are hunting you and
• 34:24
  you've got to be aware of that.
• 34:25
  And you're also maybe trapping a little bit and looking for what are those
• 34:29
  tracks over there and what are those tracks over there that you might then
• 34:31
  go and report back to the hunters?
• 34:33
  Oh, and then you've gotta climb into the tree to shake down the nuts
• 34:37
  and it's very physical, but there's also poisonous snakes in that tree
• 34:40
  and so on and so on and so on.
• 34:43
  And we are not supposed to freak out about this because we're supposed to
• 34:47
  understand our environment and deal with its dangers in a way that's competent.
• 34:52
  So only very occasionally is there something like, oh shit.
• 34:56
  Most of the time it's, it's handleable, but we're still
• 34:59
  supposed to be tested in that way.
• 35:01
  And if we're not and we're not doing it in nature, our organism is not happy.
• 35:07
  And does that manifest as boredom?
• 35:10
  And so if one grows up in suburban London or suburban Michigan, do
• 35:16
  we suffer from chronic boredom?
• 35:18
  And almost the more comfortable the
• 35:27
  family culture, the more of a danger for this?
• 35:30
  There is.
• 35:32
  Absolutely.
• 35:33
  Is.
• 35:33
  Is, is that something that, are you actually a sort of a purveyor of
• 35:42
  the cure for boredom in a way?
• 35:45
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah, I definitely would say I, boredom doesn't sit well
• 35:48
  with me and I can't remember a time in which I was bored, which is probably
• 35:53
  'cause I would rather go running.
• 35:55
  I can be
• 35:55
  Rupert Isaacson: very boring.
• 35:56
  I, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I can rise to that challenge.
• 35:59
  Yeah.
• 36:01
  Stevie Delahunt: I'm not bored yet at all.
• 36:05
  No.
• 36:05
  I think I think.
• 36:08
  Evading boredom.
• 36:09
  Like you said, our our minds are a busy creature and they want us to keep moving
• 36:14
  or our mind wants us to keep moving.
• 36:16
  And yeah, that's where so much creativity comes out of
• 36:20
  boredom, like to evade boredom.
• 36:24
  So I will take time away from screens, away from stimulus when I, when I
• 36:31
  wanna create something like writing, like if I just sit for a little bit,
• 36:35
  almost immediately writing things that I wanna write come up for me.
• 36:39
  And so they say boredom's a good thing, but I kind of, I, I don't agree with that.
• 36:47
  I think it's a good
• 36:48
  Rupert Isaacson: thing if it doesn't last very long.
• 36:49
  Yes,
• 36:50
  Stevie Delahunt: exactly.
• 36:50
  That's what I was gonna say.
• 36:51
  Finds
• 36:51
  Rupert Isaacson: something to do.
• 36:52
  Yeah.
• 36:53
  Stevie Delahunt: Yes.
• 36:53
  And that's, that's exactly it.
• 36:55
  Like immediately I'm, I'm always finding something to evade, boredom and
• 37:01
  Rupert Isaacson: okay.
• 37:02
  What's the, what, is there a, a relationship do you think,
• 37:06
  between boredom and loneliness?
• 37:07
  And if so, what is it?
• 37:11
  Stevie Delahunt: Maybe I would say the relationship between boredom and
• 37:15
  loneliness is if you really are bored, if you really are sitting there and
• 37:19
  nothing comes to you, like you're, you can't find a way to entertain
• 37:23
  yourself, I think you've lost a sense of wonder about the world.
• 37:28
  I think that's often why I'm not bored is that I am so amazed all the time by the
• 37:33
  little things like flowers blow my mind.
• 37:36
  Like, just like the beauty in the world is always, is always
• 37:40
  there if you're looking for it.
• 37:42
  And so having a sense of wonder is really kind of my elixir to boredom.
• 37:49
  And I think if you don't hold that,
• 37:53
  and I keep, I don't wanna keep saying the same sentence, but
• 37:55
  that sense of wonder really is a connection to QE or life force.
• 38:01
  And when you can hold that connection to life force, I
• 38:05
  think things are drawn to you.
• 38:08
  I've found that all my best relationships with sentient, so horses, people, they've
• 38:15
  all come to me in times where I feel really connected to that sense of wonder.
• 38:20
  And, and so I think that if you've lost that, you've also lost your
• 38:24
  connection to yourself, to others.
• 38:26
  So yes, loneliness is, is a lack of feeling of connection.
• 38:33
  Rupert Isaacson: Does, does boredom force you to seek community?
• 38:40
  Stevie Delahunt: I think so.
• 38:40
  I think it would, I think something's really lost if you're bored and
• 38:43
  you're not seeking to fix it.
• 38:46
  Rupert Isaacson: You know, when you're talking about a sense of wonder, the
• 38:48
  word that comes up for me is, or a WE
• 38:52
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah.
• 38:52
  Rupert Isaacson: As opposed to iron ore, ori or the, or with which one might.
• 38:58
  Do a rowboat.
• 38:59
  Yeah.
• 38:59
  So, or, and it's, as you probably know, it's a burgeoning field
• 39:04
  in mental health and psychology.
• 39:07
  And it seems to come back to nature.
• 39:09
  So you are drawn to, you know, Mongolia, I've been in Mongolia and it's, you know,
• 39:14
  an intact ecosystem on a large scale.
• 39:18
  So one is awed by it.
• 39:20
  You, you, you do the gaucho derby and Patagonia.
• 39:24
  I have not been down there, but I can absolutely see
• 39:27
  how one would be awed by it.
• 39:30
  And just while you were talking there, I was on Dr.
• 39:32
  Google I thought, oh, that sounds like awe to me.
• 39:35
  And so in Europe, psychology, the diminished focus on the self or being
• 39:46
  in the presence of big nature, things that are bigger than you in this way,
• 39:50
  increased pro-social relationality.
• 39:55
  See, the idea is it brings you together greater social integration.
• 40:00
  Shit.
• 40:00
  It's a big place.
• 40:01
  We kind of all better fucking be on the same side and a
• 40:04
  heightened sense of meaning.
• 40:07
  And then immediately underneath that comes five additional appraisals.
• 40:13
  Account for variation in the hedonic tone of all experiences.
• 40:18
  Hedonic that must be sensory, right?
• 40:21
  Sensory, emotional.
• 40:23
  Threat.
• 40:24
  So there's that thing of stress.
• 40:26
  Again, beauty, exceptional ability.
• 40:31
  Can I get up that hill, cross that river virtue, that's interesting.
• 40:37
  Not virtue in the my good person or a bad person, but the virtue
• 40:40
  of being able to get out there and deal with it, I guess, and this is
• 40:48
  interesting, and the supernatural,
• 40:53
  how interesting.
• 40:54
  And then I looked at how does it all affect your health?
• 40:56
  Says elevated, elevated vagal tone.
• 40:59
  So that's basically oxytocin, right?
• 41:02
  As you create oxytocin in your gut, which you absolutely would do, say
• 41:06
  riding the horse across there with all that hip rocking, all your organs
• 41:11
  that your vagus nerve would touch, would produce oxytocin together.
• 41:15
  So then it would hit your brain in a sort of join army.
• 41:19
  So elevated vagal tone, reduced sympathetic arousal, so not freaking
• 41:25
  out, increased oxytocin release.
• 41:28
  There we go.
• 41:28
  We talked about that.
• 41:29
  And reduced inflammation.
• 41:32
  And what's interesting about reduced inflammation is that's
• 41:34
  actually a cortisol response.
• 41:35
  And cortisol and oxytocin are often regarded as absolute opposites.
• 41:40
  Like one is bliss and happiness, one is stress, cortisol is stress, oxytocin
• 41:44
  is bliss and communication, happiness.
• 41:45
  But of course, if I'm.
• 41:49
  I, I grew up fox hunting too.
• 41:50
  So if I'm heading in at a big fence going, oh shit.
• 41:54
  Oh shit.
• 41:55
  But a part of me is like going, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 41:57
  Because it's kind of within my comfort zone, but,
• 42:01
  and I absolutely know what can happen.
• 42:03
  I'm in that kind of interplay between ooh shit and Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 42:09
  If it, if the fence is too big, then I'm like definitely an oh shit.
• 42:12
  And maybe I shouldn't be doing it.
• 42:14
  And if it's too small, I haven't got enough.
• 42:16
  Yeah, yeah.
• 42:17
  Yeah.
• 42:18
  And there seems to be a need in the human to be able to sort of run at that
• 42:22
  buffalo and tracker spear and know that it might turn around and have a go at you.
• 42:28
  Stevie Delahunt: It's either trauma or triumph.
• 42:29
  There's actually a Japanese word, and I wish I had written it down
• 42:32
  before, or like looked it up and written it down, but there's a
• 42:35
  Japanese word for attempting something in which you have a 50 50 chance.
• 42:40
  I think it might even be 60 40, like 60% chance of failure
• 42:43
  and 40% chance of success.
• 42:46
  And I feel that you should be doing something on a grand scale every year.
• 42:50
  That challenges that, like that puts you in a space where you
• 42:53
  have a 60% chance of failure.
• 42:54
  I think.
• 42:55
  I think it is that, like that it's supposed to be the absolutely
• 42:58
  chance of failure is higher.
• 42:59
  Rupert Isaacson: I could go, you know, I could actually take myself
• 43:01
  to Mongolia in exactly that.
• 43:02
  I remember riding up into the mountains in Siberia, up by cobs in the very
• 43:09
  north, looking for the reindeer people for a particular shaman who I.
• 43:15
  Would hopefully heal my son.
• 43:17
  And knowing that this would only work if the river that we had to
• 43:23
  cross was not up from recent rains because I only had a certain amount
• 43:28
  of bacon, dried bacon in my saddlebag.
• 43:31
  'cause that was the only protein my autistic son would eat.
• 43:35
  And I had a certain number of days packed, but I knew if I fell out of
• 43:41
  that and if I lost set several days at the river, okay, that would be it.
• 43:44
  Then assuming we got across that river, then let's say we got up
• 43:49
  into the mountains where they are.
• 43:51
  Well, we had to hope that they were in the camps that we were hoping they
• 43:56
  would be in because they might have been a couple of days further in.
• 44:01
  And then if that were to happen and they were in the camps that they
• 44:06
  were, and then we had to hope that the shaman would actually think,
• 44:09
  well, this is something I can handle.
• 44:11
  Because I'd been in situations, for example, in the Kalahari with
• 44:15
  the sun, with the Bushman there, where with healers, where they had
• 44:18
  sometimes said, actually, no, sorry, this is something I, I can't handle,
• 44:21
  or I can't handle it by myself.
• 44:23
  I need to get a co healer to come help me.
• 44:27
  And that co healer lives two days away.
• 44:29
  So let's say the river had come up and they'd not been at the camp,
• 44:32
  and then the heer had said that that would've been a whole other week and
• 44:37
  I wouldn't have been able to make it.
• 44:39
  And I remember that feeling of.
• 44:43
  I was so stressed that this massive cold sore burst out on my lower lip.
• 44:49
  Oh man.
• 44:50
  Like my entire lip just like erupted.
• 44:52
  And so I was sort of dealing with the stress and dealing with
• 44:54
  this pain and dealing with this.
• 44:56
  And also, we are in completely wild country and we know
• 45:00
  doing eight hours a day, it's
• 45:01
  Stevie Delahunt: wild up there.
• 45:02
  I've been up to see the reindeer people as well, and I couldn't
• 45:05
  believe how remote it was.
• 45:06
  Rupert Isaacson: It's, it's, it's, it's bananas.
• 45:08
  And now, now do it with a 5-year-old autistic kid in,
• 45:10
  in the saddle in front of you.
• 45:11
  I hope you enjoyed today's conversation as much as I did.
• 45:16
  If you did, please help us to make more.
• 45:19
  Please like, subscribe, tell a friend, give us a thumbs up.
• 45:24
  If you'd like to support us on Patreon, please go to my website, rupertisakson.
• 45:29
  com.
• 45:30
  And if you'd like to find out about our certification courses with.
• 45:33
  autism, education, horsemanship, everyday shamanism.
• 45:37
  There's a whole range of cool stuff.
• 45:40
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• 45:44
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• 45:50
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• 45:52
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• 45:58
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• 46:00
  com and click on the Patreon link.
• 46:03
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• 46:05
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• 46:10
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• 46:12
  T shirts, hoodies, all that sort of thing.
• 46:14
  rupertisatson.
• 46:15
  com, it's all there.
• 46:16
  I can't wait for our next guest and also to meet you there.
• 46:21
  In the meantime, remember, live free.
• 46:25
  Ride free.
• 46:26
  And I remember there's this one part where I was feeling so stressed and
• 46:30
  I was having a little bit of a pity party with myself and I was like,
• 46:33
  hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
• 46:34
  I heard myself doing that and I was like, Rupert, you are in Mongolia with your kid
• 46:44
  and you are riding up a mountain
• 46:49
  looking for a shaman.
• 46:54
  You lucky bastard, if I hear one more little whiny, bitchy word out of you,
• 47:00
  I'm going to come out of my own body and slap me around because this is absurd.
• 47:07
  You are having the adventure of a lifetime.
• 47:12
  Be grateful.
• 47:14
  And I think what was so interesting for me in that situation was it
• 47:19
  was one of the first within autism.
• 47:23
  Where I really got gratitude.
• 47:27
  I was like, damn, you're right.
• 47:29
  You're right.
• 47:30
  And there was this, again, back to awe.
• 47:32
  It's like I looked around, I allowed myself to look around.
• 47:36
  I was like, I'm in these mountains in Siberia, this is incredible.
• 47:42
  And I'm body to body, heart to heart with my child.
• 47:48
  And in the event it did actually work out.
• 47:52
  But even when we found the salmon, we still had to hope that when we
• 47:56
  got down and we had to cross that river again, again, it hadn't come
• 48:01
  up because the bacon would've run out and that would've been a big problem.
• 48:06
  Lack of protein.
• 48:06
  But fortunately it didn't.
• 48:08
  You go ahead.
• 48:10
  Sorry.
• 48:11
  And then I'm gonna ask, oh,
• 48:12
  Stevie Delahunt: sorry.
• 48:12
  I was gonna say, I love that you articulated such a big tool that I
• 48:15
  talk about all the time with riders, especially in the place of fear, is
• 48:19
  like having that moment of gratitude.
• 48:21
  There's always space for gratitude.
• 48:23
  And like, I, I'm always using this with myself too.
• 48:26
  Like, it's silly things.
• 48:27
  Like you're like, oh, I have to get on this other flight, like flying
• 48:29
  home from Argentina, I was tired.
• 48:31
  And I'm like, wait a second.
• 48:32
  I get to be one of the privileged people that gets on a flight
• 48:35
  like I'm flying through the air.
• 48:37
  Like, how, how insane.
• 48:39
  Right?
• 48:39
  And you're not, you're the airplane not going
• 48:41
  Rupert Isaacson: to some business meeting in Queens.
• 48:44
  You're just effing.
• 48:47
  Patagonia.
• 48:48
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah.
• 48:49
  Rupert Isaacson: Something cool to somewhere else to do something cool.
• 48:51
  Yeah.
• 48:52
  Stevie Delahunt: Is it, and yeah, exactly.
• 48:54
  And I, I'm always catching, there's some, a friend of mine had said,
• 48:58
  wouldn't it be cool if I had a brain that allowed me to enjoy my life?
• 49:02
  And I, I always laugh at that 'cause it's true.
• 49:04
  Like, your, your mind is always like, has something negative to say,
• 49:08
  or oftentimes mine does at least.
• 49:10
  And I love to step in and be like, where can I find gratitude?
• 49:13
  And you can find it anywhere all the time because mm-hmm.
• 49:15
  Exactly.
• 49:16
  That it's like, just the wonder of being alive in this world is always
• 49:20
  accessible and that awe and that joy.
• 49:23
  And even in the tough moments like you were experiencing in Mongolia, yeah.
• 49:27
  That, that does sound stressful to have the possibility, a large possibility of
• 49:32
  failure, but you cannot, you know, it's that glass half full and half empty.
• 49:37
  You can look at the part that's half full and what an amazing experience.
• 49:41
  And there's, there's always a chance for perspective shift.
• 49:44
  So I really, I really like that tool.
• 49:47
  Another way to look at it that I really like to talk to riders
• 49:50
  about when they're doing endurance.
• 49:52
  And it doesn't just have to be riders, runners, anyone going
• 49:54
  through anything difficult.
• 49:56
  I love this little trick of past and future.
• 49:58
  You, so like when you're in a space that's really difficult.
• 50:03
  And you don't feel like you can go forward or you wanna give up,
• 50:07
  you can think about past you.
• 50:08
  That's done so much to get you to that point.
• 50:11
  So for example, if you're doing the Goucher Derby or the Mongol Derby, you
• 50:15
  can, and you wanna give up at some point you can be like, well, past me has worked
• 50:19
  my butt off to get here, both mentally, emotionally, physically, financially, to
• 50:23
  put me in this spot and I can't give up because of past me, what past me has done.
• 50:29
  And then you can look forward and say, and what is future me?
• 50:33
  How is future me gonna judge me in this moment?
• 50:35
  And sometimes it's really helpful to come outta the present moment when the
• 50:39
  present moment is difficult and talk to your past and future self, past me did
• 50:42
  too much work to get me to this point.
• 50:45
  And I have to show up and be grateful for all that work and, and carry
• 50:49
  through and future me is gonna judge me if I give up right now.
• 50:55
  So those are, those are some tools I use that are in conjunction with
• 50:59
  what you're saying of finding that awe and that wonder in the moment,
• 51:01
  Rupert Isaacson: I, I might tell my future meter F off.
• 51:05
  Stevie Delahunt: Right?
• 51:06
  It's a little hard sometimes.
• 51:07
  Go
• 51:08
  Rupert Isaacson: f in the effing effing FF
• 51:13
  Stevie Delahunt: you're not dealing with this right now.
• 51:15
  Like, yeah,
• 51:17
  Rupert Isaacson: hindsight's 2020, right?
• 51:18
  12 2020s.
• 51:19
  The the charm or whatever's the, okay.
• 51:22
  Or, and this feeling of gratitude I feel often comes from mentorship.
• 51:28
  I.
• 51:29
  Who mentors you, who mentor?
• 51:32
  Who's the, who's the Mongolian horseman or woman who has mentored you?
• 51:38
  And you talk about the spiritual side of the horse.
• 51:42
  Talk to me about the practice of spiritual horsemanship in Mongolia,
• 51:51
  or let's talk about it because I feel that there's clues there.
• 51:58
  We, that, that thing we're just reading about or giving you a
• 52:03
  gateway to the supernatural.
• 52:05
  This takes mentorship, this takes somebody showing the way you come in as
• 52:10
  an American girl versed in horsemanship.
• 52:13
  Great.
• 52:13
  And you can run ultra marathons.
• 52:15
  Fantastic.
• 52:16
  Or ultra distances or both, or maybe, or maybe at the same time with a cake.
• 52:22
  And then you arrive somewhere like Mongolia and they're like, well, you
• 52:26
  know, you've come all this way to do this thing, but this is where we live.
• 52:31
  This is us.
• 52:32
  You know?
• 52:33
  I remember when I was in Mongolia there, there was a running joke,
• 52:37
  which was the Mongolians would say, we know that you guys in the West,
• 52:42
  whenever you talk about somewhere being on the ars, end of nowhere,
• 52:47
  you say, it's like in Adam Mongolia.
• 52:49
  It's like, but Adam Mongolia.
• 52:50
  For us, it's like.
• 52:51
  Where we live, it's like, where you guys live, that's outta Mongolia to us.
• 52:57
  And I was like, you know, absolutely, you're right.
• 52:58
  You're right.
• 52:59
  So yeah, talk to me a little bit about that.
• 53:01
  Do you, is there a mentor or ment or Yeah.
• 53:04
  Is there a mentor out there in Mongolia who picks you up or has picked you
• 53:08
  up and has kind of shown you the way?
• 53:11
  Stevie Delahunt: So I would say I probably, out of the two races that I'm
• 53:14
  involved with, with Mongol Derby and Gaucho Derby, I'm actually more connected
• 53:18
  to the race in Patagonia, in Argentina.
• 53:20
  So there's more of a relationship there, but in both places, Mongolian
• 53:24
  and Argentina and at home, my spiritual guides and mentors
• 53:29
  have actually been the animals.
• 53:30
  And for me, I would say the most spiritual experience I had in Mongolia was recently
• 53:35
  doing a trip up to the re reindeer people that sat Tribe through my friend Eric
• 53:41
  Cooper who's had like a longstanding relationship with the same families.
• 53:45
  Going up there, I expected to actually connect with.
• 53:49
  And they were wonderful and lovely, but I had a crazy experience with the reindeer.
• 53:53
  I rode.
• 53:54
  I I've found my way into like connecting with animals and speaking
• 53:58
  with them is the same as humans.
• 54:00
  You, if you take a moment of awe and gratitude for an animal
• 54:04
  before you connect with it or ask them to carry you in this case.
• 54:07
  So I was riding this reindeer.
• 54:09
  I was truly blown away by his antlers and I could tell that he was very proud
• 54:13
  of them and had a moment of gratitude for how he looked and presented himself.
• 54:18
  And we just instantly connected.
• 54:20
  And my connection to him was really, really interesting because I was kind of
• 54:27
  asking his name and he could not give me a name 'cause he could not see himself
• 54:31
  outside of the herd of reindeer, which was a really beautiful and amazing experience
• 54:37
  because then I saw him through the lens of everyone that was living in that area.
• 54:41
  Like the people do not feel that they're separate from the land.
• 54:44
  And there's like such, such less ego identity up there when this like symbiotic
• 54:52
  living creature that is all the creatures together, like including the moss and
• 54:57
  the lichen that the reindeer's eating.
• 54:59
  And I really kind of felt this, and I've had my own herd.
• 55:02
  Tell me this at home, but like if you're digesting something, like say
• 55:07
  you've just taken a mouthful of grass.
• 55:09
  That's inside you.
• 55:10
  How is that grass now separate from you?
• 55:13
  It's within you.
• 55:14
  And at what point did the grass become not become you or
• 55:20
  where, where's the difference?
• 55:21
  And my horses at home are, have been telling me like, this ecosystem
• 55:26
  is all one living creature.
• 55:27
  Just because the grass blades grow separately from the horse, the
• 55:31
  horse eventually consumes them.
• 55:33
  So where is the disconnect in where one living thing starts and one ends?
• 55:37
  And I really felt that again, from the reindeer up.
• 55:40
  The reindeer that I met, he, he had no name because he saw himself as part
• 55:45
  of a hole and not like one individual piece with one own ego identity.
• 55:51
  And just that, that perspective shift in everyone that was up there,
• 55:55
  including the people, was wild.
• 55:58
  It was a truly wild experience to behold.
• 56:01
  And I feel.
• 56:02
  Rupert Isaacson: Why do you think, why do you feel you don't feel that down
• 56:03
  with the horse people in the step?
• 56:06
  Stevie Delahunt: I, I have, but for the most part the, the horse people in the
• 56:10
  step in Mongolia, were at that point when we're interacting, it's much more
• 56:16
  back into the Western world, I guess.
• 56:18
  They're, we're all putting on a race and money's being transacted.
• 56:23
  There's.
• 56:25
  Much more human culture that's be become ingrained there.
• 56:28
  So it was a different world to be involved in the step in Mongolia, in the Mongo
• 56:33
  Derby versus going up to see the reindeer people who are up there connected to land.
• 56:39
  Have you seen
• 56:40
  Rupert Isaacson: out any of the horse shamans?
• 56:42
  Stevie Delahunt: I have not, no.
• 56:44
  Rupert Isaacson: Are you familiar with a concept called the wind horse?
• 56:48
  Stevie Delahunt: I'm not, no.
• 56:48
  Okay.
• 56:49
  Rupert Isaacson: It's an interesting concept.
• 56:50
  So, one of the difficulties you know, when I'm seeking out shamans
• 56:54
  is as you say, ego's a problem.
• 56:56
  And I speak about this as a card carrying egomaniac.
• 57:00
  So we know the issues with ego because we're born with them.
• 57:05
  Nonetheless, we have to try to navigate, you know, and the difficulty
• 57:11
  can often be that peoples who have a, who've kept a shamanic tradition,
• 57:18
  but who have a very strong warrior tradition who've made a lot of warfare.
• 57:24
  Of course warfare is entirely tied up with ego.
• 57:26
  And what we, one knows this about Mongolia, that, you know,
• 57:31
  for a while it was the most violent culture on the planet.
• 57:34
  You know, they w every two generations they would explode out of Mongolia
• 57:39
  and kill everybody, you know, from the Pacific to the Mediterranean.
• 57:43
  And then sort of.
• 57:45
  Run out of energy and, you know, regroup back in Mongolia until the next time.
• 57:49
  And then somewhere in the 17th century, a couple of Tibetan monks
• 57:59
  wandered over the, I'm simplifying it, but basically wandered over the alt
• 58:03
  plateau and started talking to people about this thing called Buddhism.
• 58:08
  And in about a generation, the entire culture of warfare in
• 58:14
  Mongolia went, oh, well I guess we're not gonna do that anymore.
• 58:19
  And it's one of the greatest achievements in human history.
• 58:23
  You, you could argue that the West after World War II was something similar
• 58:30
  where we fought ourselves to a point after 10,000 years of continuous tribal
• 58:35
  warfare, where we kind of went, oh shit.
• 58:38
  Well maybe actually we kind of don't want to actually do this at this scale anymore.
• 58:43
  But only because the scale of the destruction was so great.
• 58:48
  The homeland of Mongolia was never overrun, was never
• 58:52
  destroyed when they went out.
• 58:54
  They destroyed other people.
• 58:55
  They own homeland was so, so, so the fact that they made this shift
• 59:00
  voluntarily, it's extraordinary.
• 59:04
  So the Windhorse is, concept that you get in Tibet, but also in Mongolia
• 59:12
  where it's about, basically it's your luck, your wind horse is your luck, your
• 59:16
  mojo, your soul, your wind horse can be sick, your wind horse can be healthy.
• 59:22
  You can ride your wind horse to the spirit world or to various spiritual quests.
• 59:30
  But you need to do it with the help of a, of a shaman or a healer.
• 59:33
  And there are of course very good shamans among the step people.
• 59:36
  And there are of course shamans who have more ego.
• 59:40
  And as you pointed out, you, you don't find so much of that
• 59:44
  up with the reindeer people.
• 59:45
  'cause guess what?
• 59:45
  They're not warriors.
• 59:47
  And the son, the Kalahari Bushman that I spent so much time with,
• 59:52
  they're not warriors either.
• 59:53
  So their tradition's very pure, but still among the horse people, I would
• 59:58
  posit that you are there to do this spiritual journey and there's a spiritual
• 1:00:08
  tradition there.
• 1:00:10
  And as you said, the derby perhaps less so because money's changing
• 1:00:13
  hands and it's, it's a business.
• 1:00:18
  When you said, if I'd just gone there not for the race, it would've
• 1:00:20
  been tourism, that's where I was like, eh, eh n nah, what's.
• 1:00:25
  What little thing is preventing you, do you think, from seeking
• 1:00:28
  out those human mentors?
• 1:00:30
  You say, oh yeah, I go straight to the animals and a little bit of me
• 1:00:32
  cries BS on that saying, but that's an easy road because humans are more
• 1:00:37
  challenging and you are a human.
• 1:00:38
  And that is our species and that is our, and when these people are showing up there
• 1:00:44
  needing that help from you, why not reach out to and seek the help of that spiritual
• 1:00:52
  tradition that's right there in Mongolia?
• 1:00:54
  Or do you think that that's something that's awaiting you or what, what, where?
• 1:00:59
  Yeah, gimme your thoughts on that.
• 1:01:01
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah.
• 1:01:02
  I, you know, I said I get mentored by the animals and all
• 1:01:05
  these places I go in at home.
• 1:01:06
  I'm also mentored by all the people around me.
• 1:01:08
  I kind of feel like, personally, I feel like the universe speaks to you
• 1:01:13
  however you're willing to listen.
• 1:01:15
  And I think I've just been much more willing to listen to animals
• 1:01:19
  and now I'm actually, why is that,
• 1:01:20
  Rupert Isaacson: though?
• 1:01:21
  Why are you more willing to listen to animals?
• 1:01:23
  What's the resistance about the people?
• 1:01:25
  Stevie Delahunt: That's a good question.
• 1:01:26
  And I'd say it's actually shifting in me now.
• 1:01:28
  I was gonna say, the other people that I really learn a lot from are kids.
• 1:01:32
  So the kids that I teach, I am blown away by the wisdom there because they
• 1:01:37
  are not yet indoctrinated with by paradigms that have been pushed on them.
• 1:01:41
  And they just come up with the most pure, like, organic thoughts that really
• 1:01:47
  blow my mind and remind me of who I am.
• 1:01:50
  And with that shift going from animals to kids, I'm now like
• 1:01:54
  a lot more trusting of adults.
• 1:01:56
  And I think I just had, growing up I just started to learn that adults
• 1:02:02
  didn't always know what was going on.
• 1:02:04
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, we never know what's going on.
• 1:02:06
  Yeah.
• 1:02:06
  None of us do.
• 1:02:07
  Don't either.
• 1:02:08
  I tell the kids that
• 1:02:09
  Stevie Delahunt: all the time.
• 1:02:10
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:02:10
  Stevie Delahunt: I'm like, just 'cause I'm older than you doesn't
• 1:02:12
  mean I know anything more.
• 1:02:13
  So I think that I have shied away from other adult human beings for
• 1:02:19
  quite some time because I started to realize that as at a young age,
• 1:02:23
  that they humans couldn't be trusted.
• 1:02:26
  Rupert Isaacson: Or is it this, that they can be trusted to be human?
• 1:02:32
  Stevie Delahunt: Yes.
• 1:02:32
  They can be trusted to be human.
• 1:02:35
  That's a good, that's a good point.
• 1:02:37
  Rupert Isaacson: And, and when you're a kid, right?
• 1:02:39
  And you're dealing with playground politics, you're having exactly
• 1:02:42
  the same experience, aren't you?
• 1:02:43
  Like, you can't trust the other kids.
• 1:02:45
  That's true.
• 1:02:45
  Or you can trust them.
• 1:02:46
  That's, you can trust them to be themselves, act
• 1:02:49
  Stevie Delahunt: like humans.
• 1:02:50
  Yeah.
• 1:02:52
  Rupert Isaacson: And that this seems to magnify as they get
• 1:02:55
  older, but as we get older.
• 1:02:57
  But yeah.
• 1:02:58
  And then of course it, one can say, okay, well I don't feel threatened by
• 1:03:01
  a child, you know, so therefore I, so it's about you to, is it about threat
• 1:03:08
  and the need to deal with threat?
• 1:03:10
  And so one can throw oneself into extreme physical endeavor.
• 1:03:14
  Type two.
• 1:03:14
  Fun.
• 1:03:15
  All of these things.
• 1:03:16
  But no, I'm not gonna seek out that Mongolian shaman,
• 1:03:20
  even though I'm in Mongolian.
• 1:03:20
  I'm not gonna go for this sort of adult thing because I don't trust him.
• 1:03:24
  'cause I think I might get hurt.
• 1:03:27
  And you're right, you might, you probably will.
• 1:03:29
  But maybe isn't that type two as well, do you not need to be, you know, so,
• 1:03:36
  Stevie Delahunt: so that's a really good question.
• 1:03:37
  Yeah.
• 1:03:37
  I would actually, I'm hoping to seek out a Mongolian shaman.
• 1:03:41
  I just haven't found the right connection to that or a right invitation.
• 1:03:45
  And probably my third mentor, as I was saying, like the universe speaks to you
• 1:03:49
  in whatever modality is pres presented.
• 1:03:52
  I actually a really, I don't know if enjoy is the right word, but
• 1:03:56
  I feel drawn to plant medicines.
• 1:03:59
  So that's often how I speak and connect with the horses.
• 1:04:02
  So I do hero's doses of mushrooms.
• 1:04:05
  I've done that for a while now.
• 1:04:07
  And that's another way that I,
• 1:04:08
  Rupert Isaacson: hero's dose,
• 1:04:09
  Stevie Delahunt: heroes dose.
• 1:04:10
  I think that's like technically for, I, I don't know what the
• 1:04:13
  technicality is, but for me, like four or five grams is more than enough.
• 1:04:17
  So it's a large quantity.
• 1:04:18
  What's dose,
• 1:04:18
  Rupert Isaacson: what's like a microdose.
• 1:04:21
  Stevie Delahunt: I'm not sure of the grams.
• 1:04:23
  But it's a, a microdose would be just where you have a slightly
• 1:04:26
  elevated mood, so like maybe one psilocybin mushroom in of itself.
• 1:04:32
  And to quantify this for people not familiar with it, then it would
• 1:04:36
  be, I don't know, like seven or eight mushrooms taking that many.
• 1:04:40
  Rupert Isaacson: So, and why is it a hero's dose?
• 1:04:42
  Why, why is one a hero if one does that?
• 1:04:44
  Stevie Delahunt: I think it's a allusion to Odysseus in the hero's journey,
• 1:04:48
  which is like all of our stories.
• 1:04:50
  Rupert Isaacson: Right?
• 1:04:51
  Stevie Delahunt: Right.
• 1:04:51
  You have to go out in the world and come back to yourself, um Right.
• 1:04:55
  And
• 1:04:55
  Rupert Isaacson: be tested and get freaked out.
• 1:04:58
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah.
• 1:04:58
  Yeah.
• 1:04:59
  And that's, I would say, those large quantities, you're definitely
• 1:05:03
  gonna, it's holding up a mirror to your soul a little bit, and you have
• 1:05:07
  to travel through that to get to the great stuff on the other side.
• 1:05:10
  So,
• 1:05:10
  Rupert Isaacson: so talk, who introduced you to SLO Sullivan?
• 1:05:15
  Stevie Delahunt: I was a, a random connection in an accident at a party
• 1:05:19
  when I first met my husband and we had both talked about wanting to
• 1:05:22
  try that because we had heard about the spiritual quality of it mm-hmm.
• 1:05:26
  And the realization that maybe there's more outside the, the world
• 1:05:30
  that and dimension that we're in and we were both curious about it.
• 1:05:34
  And our first experience was a really beautiful one that we had
• 1:05:37
  together and that just blew my mind.
• 1:05:39
  I could literally see my thoughts.
• 1:05:41
  Was
• 1:05:41
  Rupert Isaacson: that curated by anybody or, or did you just buy
• 1:05:42
  mushrooms and sit together and do them?
• 1:05:44
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah, we just bought mushrooms, sat together and did them
• 1:05:47
  without any guidance or intention.
• 1:05:48
  Had no idea.
• 1:05:50
  Rupert Isaacson: And what, what happened?
• 1:05:51
  Stevie Delahunt: We ended up giggling for a very long time sitting on the
• 1:05:53
  beach because we could see the awe and wonder and everything and saw
• 1:05:57
  like lots of beautiful geometrics.
• 1:05:59
  Again, I've never had the experience of hallucinating really
• 1:06:02
  beyond what's actually there.
• 1:06:04
  It's just a enhancement of everything that's around you.
• 1:06:07
  So we had sat on the beach and connected and we had connections back
• 1:06:12
  to our parents and just really, it's, it's like a journey through your own
• 1:06:16
  thoughts and really examining them.
• 1:06:17
  It feels like hours and hours of therapy within a minute.
• 1:06:24
  Rupert Isaacson: And, and then you decided to keep going?
• 1:06:26
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah.
• 1:06:27
  After that experience and having enjoying that I continued doing trips
• 1:06:32
  occasionally with the horses and I've just learned lots of really,
• 1:06:37
  I've had some very, when you say
• 1:06:38
  Rupert Isaacson: with the horses, you mean taking SS and riding your horses?
• 1:06:42
  In that being,
• 1:06:43
  Stevie Delahunt: being in their, in their presence.
• 1:06:45
  I have ridden them.
• 1:06:46
  But generally I just am around them and they're, they're very drawn to it.
• 1:06:51
  When we have a joke, actually there's these cushions that we
• 1:06:55
  used to take out to the pasture.
• 1:06:56
  'cause we would lay down and lay out with the horses when we would take
• 1:07:00
  psilocybin to connect with them.
• 1:07:02
  And we call them the cushions of enlightenment as a joke
• 1:07:05
  because the horses are obsessed.
• 1:07:06
  They think the cushions have a connection to like how we get into that state.
• 1:07:10
  And so they will run up and start chewing on the cushions, pawing them, like they
• 1:07:13
  lay down on top of the cushions as well.
• 1:07:15
  Like they're, they can tell the shift in our energy and such a cool experience,
• 1:07:20
  but we have a big joke that they think it's the cushions themselves that
• 1:07:23
  are causing the shift in our energy.
• 1:07:27
  Rupert Isaacson: When you are taking the psilocybin among the horses,
• 1:07:33
  what's coming through from the horses?
• 1:07:36
  Stevie Delahunt: I've had lots of different experiences.
• 1:07:39
  But the first and biggest and most memorable one was I didn't really know
• 1:07:45
  if horses loved the way that we did.
• 1:07:47
  And this was probably the most beautiful experiences.
• 1:07:51
  My mare Sparta, who I'm really connected with, I was just trying to express to
• 1:07:56
  her like, the only message I feel like I'm really good at giving to the horses
• 1:07:59
  at all times is love and gratitude.
• 1:08:02
  And I was sending that to her and sort of like asking, do you love us too?
• 1:08:06
  And she turned and looked at me and I could just feel it her, it
• 1:08:11
  was a felt sense of her thoughts.
• 1:08:13
  It wasn't really in English, but I, my brain translated to that.
• 1:08:17
  And she was just explaining that they have offspring too.
• 1:08:20
  Horses have offspring as well, and love is an evolutionary tool.
• 1:08:25
  And so of course they have the same kind of love that we do.
• 1:08:28
  They love their babies and so, and they love each other and
• 1:08:31
  that's how a herd connects and looks out for its for each other.
• 1:08:37
  And so I just had this realization that they love in the same
• 1:08:39
  way that we do, that we're all sentient beings, we're all animals.
• 1:08:43
  We have the same quality of love.
• 1:08:45
  And that was a very cool, realization and connection that I had on one of the trips.
• 1:08:51
  I had, I've had horses request different foods and and, and had really, like
• 1:08:58
  you, you question it afterwards, right?
• 1:09:00
  Like you, it's only naturally like, did that really happen?
• 1:09:04
  But I've had some like really profound realizations that came from the horses.
• 1:09:08
  Like they asked for slippery elm.
• 1:09:10
  Like one of my horses has had some gut issues and I'd never heard
• 1:09:15
  of Slippery Elm before and it's very common much something Texas
• 1:09:18
  Rupert Isaacson: thing.
• 1:09:18
  We, we had a lot of it growing around us when I lived in Texas.
• 1:09:21
  Yeah.
• 1:09:22
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah.
• 1:09:22
  And I never heard of it, but it just came into my mind and it was
• 1:09:26
  one of our our horses hero actually is his name was asking that we got
• 1:09:30
  Slippery Elm and fed it to them.
• 1:09:32
  And so we did like, just really cool little things like that.
• 1:09:36
  The rest are like the other connections that I've had with them on these
• 1:09:40
  trips are I can actually see.
• 1:09:43
  Energy like in geometrics, and I can send it back and forth.
• 1:09:48
  Our appaloosa Sonic seems to be really good at this, and we, I, I
• 1:09:52
  don't have any idea what's happening.
• 1:09:54
  There's something really strange happening, but we're, I can feel
• 1:09:59
  energy fields around them and have them push that back and forth.
• 1:10:02
  And I know that something's happening because, and I've had a friend film me
• 1:10:06
  while I was on mushrooms and they were not, and I would like push it back and
• 1:10:10
  the horse would lay down and like, I mean, just really crazy interactions
• 1:10:14
  where you can see it without seeing it.
• 1:10:16
  Does that make sense?
• 1:10:17
  So just cool things with energy that I'm not sure that what's going on.
• 1:10:21
  And then having them express like wants and needs to us,
• 1:10:26
  Rupert Isaacson: like,
• 1:10:28
  Stevie Delahunt: just like the slippery elm, like getting supplements
• 1:10:31
  or having, they often talk about how they would like the gates open.
• 1:10:35
  They wanna be able to travel freely around the property and past our property.
• 1:10:39
  And I've tried to explain to them that they, can I let them go on our property?
• 1:10:43
  They actually get to walk all over.
• 1:10:45
  But I have to explain to them they can't leave just the way our roads
• 1:10:50
  are and I don't want them hit by cars.
• 1:10:53
  Rupert Isaacson: What do they say to that?
• 1:10:55
  Stevie Delahunt: They kept the appaloosa.
• 1:10:57
  Sonic is the one that has the biggest issue with being fenced off.
• 1:11:01
  And he says that he knows better and that he would come back.
• 1:11:03
  He keeps saying, I'd come back every night.
• 1:11:05
  I come back every night.
• 1:11:06
  Which that drives me back to thinking about Mongolia.
• 1:11:09
  And this might be mind blowing for a lot of people in the US that have
• 1:11:12
  animals that are always fenced in.
• 1:11:14
  And you would've experienced this in Mongolia.
• 1:11:16
  It's so cool how these herds live wild.
• 1:11:20
  But all the goat herds, all the yaks, all the horses, they come in
• 1:11:24
  at night to be around the people.
• 1:11:26
  And the the horses really do roam with the people over the lands.
• 1:11:31
  Like they don't stray that far away, which is like a really cool validation for the
• 1:11:36
  connection that humans have with horses.
• 1:11:39
  Like they wanna be part of our culture, and they have, they have the ability
• 1:11:43
  to take off and never come back.
• 1:11:45
  And they, they don't do that, which is really an amazing thing.
• 1:11:50
  And I think Sonic would love to be a Mongolian horse without any fences.
• 1:11:54
  Rupert Isaacson: Right.
• 1:11:54
  And I, I, I think, yeah.
• 1:11:56
  So so much of that depends on the human culture that they, the horse grew up in.
• 1:12:01
  If they would know to come back in that way, some might, some might not.
• 1:12:04
  Yeah, I, I remember in Mongol, we, we did actually lose one of our horses to wolves.
• 1:12:10
  Oh wow.
• 1:12:10
  Our journey.
• 1:12:11
  But then again, my feeling is that if you are living in that ecosystem.
• 1:12:19
  You know, from the horse's point of view, is that a, a risk worth?
• 1:12:22
  You know, okay, that might happen, but it's still my environment.
• 1:12:26
  It's still within my remit of my quality of life to be able to, to roam that way.
• 1:12:33
  So I remember asking myself that question.
• 1:12:34
  I'm like, shit, should we have had some sort of corral and thinking, well, but
• 1:12:39
  no, their whole life is, is this, this is sort of, sort of a natural way.
• 1:12:43
  Stevie Delahunt: Freedom.
• 1:12:44
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, freedom.
• 1:12:45
  Freedom.
• 1:12:46
  Stevie Delahunt: And freedom for them.
• 1:12:47
  Freedom sometimes means, you know, risk,
• 1:12:51
  Rupert Isaacson: right?
• 1:12:52
  And you know, back to boredom and quality of life, I, I do think
• 1:12:56
  that people need risk in the same way that they need oxygen.
• 1:13:00
  That one can say, well, I want to test myself or test see how I,
• 1:13:04
  but again, hunter-gatherer life is just, involves a lot of risk.
• 1:13:10
  So if we suddenly take those risks away, our brains don't know that
• 1:13:15
  we're not hunter-gatherers anymore, and our sensory systems don't know
• 1:13:19
  that and they still want us to be.
• 1:13:22
  And surely risk is a part of that.
• 1:13:24
  So we'll do risk taking activities, drive fast in the car, take drugs, you
• 1:13:28
  know, lefa, star, youngie type stuff
• 1:13:34
  because we're driven to do that.
• 1:13:37
  Because we're supposed to go take a spear and see if we can
• 1:13:39
  come back with the wildebeest.
• 1:13:40
  And I, I do think that's clear.
• 1:13:42
  Your, your experiences with psychedelics, do you bring those into helping people or
• 1:13:49
  is this just a private thing that you do?
• 1:13:51
  Stevie Delahunt: I have brought it in occasionally,
• 1:13:54
  especially working with people.
• 1:13:55
  I've worked a lot with people in trailer trauma, so for people that don't own
• 1:14:00
  horses trailering horses is actually
• 1:14:04
  Rupert Isaacson: a whole thing.
• 1:14:05
  Live in trailers.
• 1:14:06
  It's like, it's so traumatic.
• 1:14:07
  That
• 1:14:08
  Stevie Delahunt: Exactly.
• 1:14:16
  So sorry.
• 1:14:17
  So horse trailering getting horses from point A to point B in the western
• 1:14:21
  world, getting them on a horse trailer or horse float is really stressful for a
• 1:14:27
  lot of people, especially, I think even more so women who are a little afraid
• 1:14:31
  to drive large rigs and afraid that something will happen to their horse.
• 1:14:35
  Rupert Isaacson: So you get 'em to drive while they're on
• 1:14:37
  mushrooms and it's all fine.
• 1:14:38
  Yeah,
• 1:14:39
  Stevie Delahunt: yeah.
• 1:14:41
  No, just just the practice of loading a horse.
• 1:14:44
  On and off.
• 1:14:45
  There's a lot of accidents and Yeah, sure.
• 1:14:47
  And trailer loading.
• 1:14:48
  So there's a lot of fear and trauma and I've done a little work there
• 1:14:53
  of having people take low doses to change their mindset and their.
• 1:14:59
  Elevate their mood.
• 1:15:00
  'cause again, as we were saying earlier, I really feel that fear is a vibrational
• 1:15:04
  opposite of love and gratitude.
• 1:15:07
  And so when you're experiencing fear and you'd rather not be like in a
• 1:15:10
  situation with a horse where you're translating and transmitting that
• 1:15:13
  fear and anxiety to the animal if you step back and can have a moment of
• 1:15:18
  gratitude, you can change the situation.
• 1:15:20
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:15:21
  Now we all know it's really easy to say that and almost impossible to do that,
• 1:15:25
  especially if you've had a cycle and pattern of having traumatic events happen
• 1:15:29
  Rupert Isaacson: or if there's some time pressure on you or some external
• 1:15:33
  circumstance that says you need to get this horse on this trailer now.
• 1:15:36
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:37
  Stevie Delahunt: Absolutely.
• 1:15:38
  Especially in a veterinary emergency or whatnot.
• 1:15:40
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:15:41
  So having a low dose situation for the people working with the horse can
• 1:15:46
  help rewrite those brain patterns.
• 1:15:48
  They say taking psilocybin is a little bit like looking at a ski hill, and
• 1:15:53
  you can see all the ski tracks that you usually take down the mountain.
• 1:15:57
  And if you keep taking the same track down the mountain over and over again, you're
• 1:16:01
  making those ruts deeper and deeper.
• 1:16:04
  So that's the loop or the neuro pattern that you're following all the time.
• 1:16:09
  And taking psilocybin is a little bit like fresh snow.
• 1:16:12
  Where there's no tracks now on the mountain to follow down and you can
• 1:16:16
  rewrite how you go down the mountain.
• 1:16:18
  And in that light, having people have this moment to be able to step
• 1:16:23
  back and actually have the ability to be choose gratitude over fear in
• 1:16:28
  the moment can change their energy.
• 1:16:29
  And then when this happens, you can have really successful stories where a horse
• 1:16:34
  that would never load before because the owner had so much anxiety in getting them
• 1:16:38
  in the trailer, suddenly is able to load that horse because they're able to choose
• 1:16:43
  gratitude and presence over the stories in their head about what might happen.
• 1:16:48
  So that's, that's where I've done some work with people.
• 1:16:50
  And
• 1:16:51
  Rupert Isaacson: are you, are you then using the psilocybin in a sort of like
• 1:16:55
  a therapy session away from the horse?
• 1:16:56
  Or are you actually saying, no, let's take a small dose and, and load that horse?
• 1:17:00
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah, we're doing, we're doing both.
• 1:17:02
  Depends on how deep the trauma is.
• 1:17:04
  But generally it's with the horse.
• 1:17:06
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:17:07
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah.
• 1:17:08
  Rupert Isaacson: I'm thinking about that rewriting of neural pathways.
• 1:17:14
  Are you, have you ever worked with peyote?
• 1:17:18
  Stevie Delahunt: I have not.
• 1:17:19
  I would be interested in it, but I have not.
• 1:17:22
  Rupert Isaacson: So our mutual friend, Warwick Schiller and I
• 1:17:26
  found ourselves in a sweat lodge.
• 1:17:28
  With another mutual friend, Joel, who you also know, Joel done that with a,
• 1:17:32
  a, a very good healer, Stephen forth who's in the Lakota tradition and who
• 1:17:37
  I must actually have on the podcast.
• 1:17:40
  And I was going through a pretty major funk.
• 1:17:44
  And Steven who knew me, said, oh, Rupert, you are, you're
• 1:17:48
  on the struggle bus, you know?
• 1:17:50
  I'm like, yeah, yeah, I am.
• 1:17:52
  And he said, I think honestly, I recommend that you do some medicine.
• 1:17:58
  And I said, that's the last thing I need, Steven.
• 1:18:01
  You know, I, I'm just barely clinging onto the cliff face by my fingernails here,
• 1:18:06
  and you want to give me some psychotropic?
• 1:18:07
  No, the answer is not just, no, but bleep, no, you know, it's,
• 1:18:11
  it's the last thing I need.
• 1:18:13
  And he said, you know, Rupert, how long have you known me?
• 1:18:15
  And I said, well, a long time.
• 1:18:17
  And he said, you know, why are you in here with me?
• 1:18:20
  I said, well, 'cause you're a healer and I trust you and stuff.
• 1:18:24
  And he goes, have I ever you know that, you know, medicine, IE peyote is very
• 1:18:31
  much a part of what we do, but have I ever suggested to you to do it before?
• 1:18:35
  Mm, no.
• 1:18:36
  He said, well, I do you, do You trust me as a professional?
• 1:18:41
  That's a gateway.
• 1:18:42
  Yes.
• 1:18:42
  Right, right.
• 1:18:44
  And they said, look, Ru, of course I understand exactly where you are and
• 1:18:50
  there's no way I would deliver a dose to you that would do what you fear.
• 1:18:56
  However, the, the medicine is a medicine and if you can trust me, I and I,
• 1:19:05
  so anyway, after some whining and whinging I did.
• 1:19:10
  And what was so interesting you talking about rewriting the neural pathways
• 1:19:16
  after a certain time had passed and we're in the sweat lodge praying and,
• 1:19:21
  you know, singing and as one does and sweating, I began to feel you, you're
• 1:19:26
  familiar with a PowerPoint presentation.
• 1:19:28
  You had that little red laser dot, it felt like I had a little red laser dot
• 1:19:34
  going up my leg or my right leg where I've got some little bits of tension and pain
• 1:19:39
  and it would just go to the place where there was tension and pain and kind of go
• 1:19:48
  and it would release and then it would go to the next one,
• 1:19:52
  beep.
• 1:19:54
  And it went up like this through my body.
• 1:19:56
  And I was like, well, this is interesting.
• 1:19:59
  And then it went into my brain.
• 1:20:02
  And it went to everywhere.
• 1:20:05
  I had anxiety as like a physical place and just went,
• 1:20:13
  beep, gone.
• 1:20:17
  Did this for a while.
• 1:20:19
  And then
• 1:20:22
  I thought, well, this is wonderful.
• 1:20:24
  However, this is a drug, so it will pass, and then I will be back in the
• 1:20:29
  same position that I was in before.
• 1:20:33
  But it didn't, it never came back.
• 1:20:34
  It never went away.
• 1:20:37
  So it is really interesting.
• 1:20:39
  I, I agree with you how tropic psychedelics, whatever one wants to call
• 1:20:46
  them, that have been pursued by humans for hundreds of thousands of years,
• 1:20:52
  for very good reason, seem to be able to radically change our internal as
• 1:20:58
  whether, and our external environment in a way that gives us a perspective
• 1:21:04
  that allows us to override neural pathways that are no longer helpful.
• 1:21:10
  Provided the person who is delivering to us knows what they're doing.
• 1:21:15
  You know, in the same way that one would hope a doctor knows what
• 1:21:18
  they're doing, if they give us a, you know, a, a pharmaceutical you talk
• 1:21:23
  about being more drawn to Patagonia.
• 1:21:29
  And your gaucho experiences there, the gaucho derby.
• 1:21:32
  Why is that?
• 1:21:33
  Why is it that landscape that has drawn you so much?
• 1:21:38
  As you may know, if you've been following my work, we are also horsey folk here.
• 1:21:43
  And we have been training horses for many, many years in the manner of
• 1:21:47
  the old classical dressage masters.
• 1:21:51
  This is something which is often very confusing for people.
• 1:21:54
  We shine a light on that murky, difficult stuff and make it crystal clear.
• 1:21:59
  If you'd like to learn to train your horse in the manner of the old masters and
• 1:22:04
  really have fun and joy for you and your equine, go to our website, heliosharmony.
• 1:22:10
  com Sign up as a premium member.
• 1:22:13
  and begin to take the Helios Harmony course, which will take you from zero
• 1:22:17
  to the Piaf, where the horse is dancing on the spot in hand on the ground.
• 1:22:23
  And then from there, you can develop out to anywhere you want to.
• 1:22:27
  Heliosharmony.
• 1:22:29
  com to unlock the secrets of the old masters.
• 1:22:33
  And then you also talked, you, you, you alluded to the fact
• 1:22:35
  that you might actually have some human mentors down there.
• 1:22:40
  Talk to us about your experience in Patagonia.
• 1:22:44
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:22:45
  I think again it's funny that in our conversation I've noticed like
• 1:22:50
  my avoidance of humans to a degree.
• 1:22:52
  Oh really?
• 1:22:53
  Rupert Isaacson: Have you noticed that?
• 1:22:53
  I haven't noticed that at all.
• 1:22:54
  It's funny you mentioned that.
• 1:22:58
  Stevie Delahunt: So I, I really my husband's from South Africa and
• 1:23:02
  there's a saying that actually work.
• 1:23:04
  Our mutual friend work Schiller has brought up that a guest of his
• 1:23:07
  headset said that in Africa there's an energy about Africa and every
• 1:23:11
  day that you wake up that everything else is waking up, up in Africa.
• 1:23:15
  Rupert Isaacson: For sure.
• 1:23:15
  What was that?
• 1:23:16
  You feel more alive down there for sure.
• 1:23:18
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah.
• 1:23:18
  You're more aware and more in your body, but because you're a
• 1:23:22
  little bit living in fear mm-hmm.
• 1:23:24
  Like there, it's much more dangerous.
• 1:23:26
  And today could be the day that you die.
• 1:23:28
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 1:23:28
  And you.
• 1:23:29
  Stevie Delahunt: You wake up with that energy and you feel it, but
• 1:23:31
  it's also like a very human energy.
• 1:23:33
  Like there's, there's it, it feels like where humanity came from
• 1:23:38
  is, there's just a deeper energy.
• 1:23:39
  It's
• 1:23:40
  Rupert Isaacson: where humanity came from.
• 1:23:42
  Stevie Delahunt: It feels that way.
• 1:23:44
  Exactly.
• 1:23:45
  And so that the energy in Africa is almost the opposite of what it is
• 1:23:51
  in Patagonia When you're down there, it feels so, such earth energy.
• 1:23:56
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:23:56
  And I think
• 1:23:57
  Stevie Delahunt: it's that volcanic and glacial landscape.
• 1:24:02
  It feels devoid of humans and it's just a deep feeling of this
• 1:24:08
  might be what the earth would look like without people on it.
• 1:24:11
  Just kind of inhospitable at times.
• 1:24:14
  Like a hundred mile an hour winds very often, like just insane.
• 1:24:18
  You're getting closer to Antarctica down there.
• 1:24:20
  It's like at the very tip of Argentina the Patagonia area.
• 1:24:26
  And I think it feels like home to me down there.
• 1:24:29
  There's just a beautiful energy of the earth and being
• 1:24:33
  connected back to the earth.
• 1:24:35
  And I think the landscape itself feels like a mentor to me down there.
• 1:24:40
  And then the people that choose to call it home feel that same way.
• 1:24:45
  And I feel instantly at peace being around around them.
• 1:24:48
  We have a particular family at the Estancia le.
• 1:24:53
  Perseverance.
• 1:24:54
  Yeah.
• 1:24:54
  So that translates as perseverance Ranch, and they're, they're at the
• 1:25:00
  ends of the earth down there and all the whole family that's chosen to
• 1:25:04
  live there has that feeling as well.
• 1:25:06
  Like they feel so connected to that land and so at peace with
• 1:25:10
  the harshness of the earth itself.
• 1:25:12
  And so looking, getting to spend time with them is sort of clarifying and
• 1:25:19
  confronting, if that makes sense.
• 1:25:22
  So
• 1:25:22
  Rupert Isaacson: talk to me about these people.
• 1:25:24
  Who are they and what have they taught you?
• 1:25:28
  Stevie Delahunt: They've, they've kind of, and I actually get this a lot from
• 1:25:32
  my husband who is South African as well.
• 1:25:34
  I think Who you, where do I start with this?
• 1:25:38
  I guess that they are just made of tougher stuff.
• 1:25:42
  I, I really admire people that, you know, you get a scratch on your hand
• 1:25:47
  and they, or, or you're bleeding and they're like, ah, I'm fine.
• 1:25:50
  And they're able to like, push through the small things.
• 1:25:54
  And that, I guess like in the culture I grew up and you get
• 1:25:57
  scratch on your hand immediately.
• 1:25:59
  Your mom's grabbing a bandaid, making a big fuss, like, every little thing that's
• 1:26:04
  small is blown up beyond proportion.
• 1:26:07
  I feel like in our softer, westernized culture and when I'm down in
• 1:26:12
  Patagonia with these people who might get dumped off a horse, you fall
• 1:26:19
  on the ground, you get right back on, you keep riding, no big deal.
• 1:26:22
  There are no, no big fuss is made over the small things.
• 1:26:27
  And I feel like my South African husband is also quite like this.
• 1:26:31
  And I, I think I'm drawn to that, that assuredness and
• 1:26:38
  that confidence of existence.
• 1:26:41
  I don't know if I'm articulating this very well today.
• 1:26:43
  No, no, I
• 1:26:44
  Rupert Isaacson: agree.
• 1:26:44
  The question that comes up in my mind is you live in the Western states, right?
• 1:26:47
  Where do you live again?
• 1:26:48
  Stevie Delahunt: I live in Oregon now.
• 1:26:50
  Yeah.
• 1:26:50
  And you live in South California, the
• 1:26:52
  Rupert Isaacson: high, the high desert.
• 1:26:53
  Stevie Delahunt: That's correct.
• 1:26:54
  Rupert Isaacson: I would, I would presume that there's lots of ranches
• 1:26:56
  around you who you could argue who, who, who would live exactly.
• 1:27:00
  That life that you're talking about in Patagonia know that they,
• 1:27:03
  that they're living out there.
• 1:27:05
  It's a pretty unforgiving landscape.
• 1:27:08
  They probably get dumped off their horse and cut quite a lot and get up.
• 1:27:13
  And what, what's the difference between the people in the high desert in Oregon
• 1:27:19
  and the people down in Patagonia?
• 1:27:21
  Or is it just more to be in a, a new and exotic place?
• 1:27:25
  I.
• 1:27:27
  Stevie Delahunt: Maybe it is the place itself, but I think that
• 1:27:29
  there is a level of toughness.
• 1:27:30
  Like even in Oregon, you can, something goes wrong, you can drive 20 minutes and
• 1:27:35
  you've got every store and chain that you could think of or a hospital mm-hmm.
• 1:27:40
  To get to.
• 1:27:40
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:27:41
  Out in Patagonia, it's, I think it's an eight hour drive to anything.
• 1:27:46
  Yeah.
• 1:27:46
  Where we're at.
• 1:27:47
  And at minimum, I mean, if you're out on horseback, that's like a day or two.
• 1:27:52
  It's, and that's also like an advent of the Mongol Derby as well.
• 1:27:55
  Or being out in Mongolia, there's truly a separation from society and
• 1:27:59
  yourself, which makes you so much that assuredness I'm talking about.
• 1:28:03
  You're so much more self-sufficient.
• 1:28:04
  You're looking, you know, when we have the opportunity to have someone
• 1:28:07
  else take care of things for us, we often are lazy part of our brain.
• 1:28:12
  We'll jump to that.
• 1:28:13
  But if you're the only relaxed to
• 1:28:14
  Rupert Isaacson: conserv energy.
• 1:28:15
  Yeah, yeah,
• 1:28:15
  Stevie Delahunt: exactly.
• 1:28:16
  Yeah.
• 1:28:16
  It's evolutionary.
• 1:28:17
  But when you're the only person that you can look to for things, you become that.
• 1:28:23
  And
• 1:28:25
  Rupert Isaacson: I presume though that when you're, because when you're
• 1:28:28
  doing the derby so we say derby, if we're English, this built into us.
• 1:28:33
  That's right.
• 1:28:33
  Very hard to say Derby.
• 1:28:34
  It's like, I try to say, so there's
• 1:28:36
  Stevie Delahunt: a British company that puts them on.
• 1:28:37
  So is the Derby Darbys,
• 1:28:39
  Rupert Isaacson: the Darbys the, the.
• 1:28:43
  It's effectively tourism.
• 1:28:45
  Admittedly high adventure tourism, but still, if people get in trouble,
• 1:28:51
  you gotta get 'em out of there.
• 1:28:52
  And if, if people get hurt, you've got to tend to them.
• 1:28:55
  So you must have to put in all kinds of infrastructure that
• 1:29:01
  wouldn't normally be there in order to make sure people don't die.
• 1:29:05
  So how do you do that?
• 1:29:08
  Stevie Delahunt: Absolutely.
• 1:29:09
  I think, I think before what I was thinking of the phrase, which ties
• 1:29:13
  into this is radical self-reliance is what you're looking for out there.
• 1:29:16
  I like, and that's actually a principle of Burning Man that I've stolen, but
• 1:29:20
  I use it when I'm training everyone in their Goucher Derby in Mongo Derby.
• 1:29:24
  I'm like, you need to be radically self-reliant.
• 1:29:27
  And I think that that's the quality that it was sort of in.
• 1:29:30
  Rupert Isaacson: But nonetheless, if they fall off and break their leg,
• 1:29:32
  you'll go in there, find them, and
• 1:29:33
  Stevie Delahunt: we'll go and get them.
• 1:29:34
  So yeah, we have actually a really cool team of medics that we bring along that
• 1:29:38
  are horsemen and medic and medics as well.
• 1:29:42
  And.
• 1:29:43
  Yeah, for the MGO Derby, very easy to extract people.
• 1:29:47
  We have road accessibility.
• 1:29:48
  I mean, you've been out there, they can drive a Prius over anything in
• 1:29:51
  Mongolia, which is pretty crazy.
• 1:29:53
  Rupert Isaacson: Drive it across the step.
• 1:29:54
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:29:55
  Stevie Delahunt: I kind of feel like the Prius Toyota's missing an
• 1:29:58
  opportunity there and some great commercials for the Toyota Prius.
• 1:30:02
  'cause I've seen those things.
• 1:30:03
  Ford Rivers do insane.
• 1:30:05
  Yeah,
• 1:30:05
  Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
• 1:30:05
  Andro insane
• 1:30:06
  Stevie Delahunt: stuff.
• 1:30:08
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:30:08
  We've messed them up mountains, but, okay.
• 1:30:10
  But if you, if you, if someone has an accident and they are gonna have
• 1:30:13
  accidents, 'cause it's a dangerous thing.
• 1:30:15
  Let's sit, it's down in Patagonia, eight hours drive from something and
• 1:30:18
  someone is in some critical condition.
• 1:30:20
  So what, what, what's the infrastructure that you put in?
• 1:30:22
  I'm, I'm intrigued.
• 1:30:24
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah, the infrastructure a little bit.
• 1:30:26
  So, like I was saying, Mongolia is much safer because we can, it's
• 1:30:30
  road accessible almost the entire way, but Goucher Derby is not.
• 1:30:33
  And we have to have everyone, entire crew medics, everyone
• 1:30:36
  has to be able to ride a horse.
• 1:30:38
  Veterinarians have to be able to ride a horse.
• 1:30:40
  We have a helicopter on standby, but the winds in Patagonia are pretty
• 1:30:44
  much biblical almost all the time.
• 1:30:46
  So that interferes with the helicopter's ability to come and get people.
• 1:30:50
  My first year, or sorry, the Gaucho Derby, the first year it
• 1:30:53
  ran was a pioneer edition where it was not a fully formed race yet.
• 1:30:57
  And so my husband and I were invited to race and we actually got caught out in
• 1:31:01
  a massive snow storm in the mountains.
• 1:31:03
  And it was very unexpected.
• 1:31:05
  We hadn't, none of us had known where the race was gonna go, so no one
• 1:31:08
  had the equipment to deal with snow.
• 1:31:10
  And we had five people that ended up needing to be life flighted out of the
• 1:31:15
  mountains because they had hypothermia.
• 1:31:17
  But that couldn't happen until the winds and the storm died down.
• 1:31:21
  So yes, there's infrastructure in place, helicopter medics but
• 1:31:26
  oftentimes the weather and the terrain and Patagonia still will
• 1:31:29
  make it impossible to get to you.
• 1:31:31
  So there is an element of, yes, you could really die doing these races.
• 1:31:35
  And that was our, has anyone
• 1:31:36
  Rupert Isaacson: died?
• 1:31:37
  Stevie Delahunt: No one has, knock on wood.
• 1:31:40
  Yeah.
• 1:31:40
  No one has.
• 1:31:42
  Rupert Isaacson: And when these people had hypothermia and they needed to come
• 1:31:45
  out, how did they contact you to say, or how did they contact the helicopter crew?
• 1:31:49
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah, that's, that's a good point.
• 1:31:51
  And what I glossed over in our infrastructure, your
• 1:31:53
  Rupert Isaacson: ability to do things like that, you know,
• 1:31:55
  goes away with hypothermia.
• 1:31:57
  Yeah.
• 1:31:57
  So,
• 1:31:58
  Stevie Delahunt: yeah, luckily, so everyone has an Garmin inReach
• 1:32:02
  which connects to your phone.
• 1:32:03
  So you basically can text message at all times, even without satellite signal.
• 1:32:07
  So when inclement weather's coming in headquarters back in Bristol,
• 1:32:11
  we will send information out, Hey, there's a storm coming.
• 1:32:14
  We need you to take cover, which was the situation there.
• 1:32:17
  And people were able to say, I'm not doing well.
• 1:32:19
  And when they sent out that information, I'm not doing well.
• 1:32:23
  And the storm is happening.
• 1:32:25
  Headquarters came back and gave them GPS coordinates.
• 1:32:28
  So on top of having the Garmin in reach, we also have GPS systems.
• 1:32:33
  They're the older Garmin 64 s and that way you can navigate to certain points.
• 1:32:38
  And they headquarters ended up giving everyone a central location, brought all
• 1:32:43
  the riders together so that they could be extracted by helicopter when the
• 1:32:46
  weather cleared, but also got them into one place so that we could start a fire
• 1:32:50
  and warm everybody up in the same area and have people looking after each other.
• 1:32:54
  And they weren't
• 1:32:54
  Rupert Isaacson: on with hypothermia that they couldn't map the horse and
• 1:32:56
  ride it to that rendezvous point.
• 1:32:59
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah.
• 1:32:59
  They actually made the rendezvous point at the two riders that were the most
• 1:33:03
  Rupert Isaacson: badly not doing
• 1:33:04
  Stevie Delahunt: well.
• 1:33:04
  Yeah.
• 1:33:05
  That
• 1:33:05
  Rupert Isaacson: makes Okay.
• 1:33:06
  That, that's, that's wise.
• 1:33:07
  Yeah.
• 1:33:09
  Stevie Delahunt: So, there's a whole team around the world that's always working
• 1:33:12
  while the races are happening to have constant communication with riders.
• 1:33:17
  And in that case, that's what saved everyone's life.
• 1:33:19
  They're the people who are putting everything together and
• 1:33:21
  getting everyone in one place.
• 1:33:22
  Additionally my coworker Eric, who is also the one that runs the
• 1:33:26
  trips to the sadden people mm-hmm.
• 1:33:29
  He was able to start an emergency fire and get people warmed up and dry.
• 1:33:34
  And I honestly think just starting that fire truly saved lives.
• 1:33:37
  And I was like, we joke about it, but we're like, how cool?
• 1:33:40
  Like we always say, a good barometer for what you're doing is or if what you're
• 1:33:44
  doing in life is what you should be doing would your 8-year-old self approve?
• 1:33:49
  And Eric is laughing and saying, this is always what I dreamed
• 1:33:53
  of as a kid, that starting a fire would save everyone's life.
• 1:33:56
  You know, you as a kid when you go out and go camping and learn to start fires.
• 1:34:01
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, definitely.
• 1:34:02
  And it
• 1:34:03
  Stevie Delahunt: really did.
• 1:34:05
  Rupert Isaacson: I was thinking of a, a ride I did once in Latu in South Africa.
• 1:34:09
  You're probably familiar with it.
• 1:34:10
  And it's very high cold.
• 1:34:11
  I love
• 1:34:11
  Stevie Delahunt: latu.
• 1:34:12
  Rupert Isaacson: And we got caught out in some really bad weather
• 1:34:15
  and our guide started a fire in.
• 1:34:20
  Just a torrential icy rain.
• 1:34:24
  I was like, how on earth is he going to light a fire out of sort of effectively
• 1:34:30
  Fein boss Heather, that he's just pulling outta the ground and, and yet he did.
• 1:34:34
  And yeah, it made the difference.
• 1:34:36
  What did the, what happened to the horses in that, in that situation you would
• 1:34:39
  lift the people out, the horses just turn their backs to the wind and survive?
• 1:34:44
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah, pretty much I was very stressed out
• 1:34:46
  about how the horses were doing.
• 1:34:47
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:34:48
  Luckily I was not one of the people getting hypothermia.
• 1:34:50
  I was very cold and thought I might die.
• 1:34:52
  But I was, I had the wherewithal to be able to check on horses.
• 1:34:56
  We actually ended up leaving the saddles on a lot of the horses 'cause
• 1:34:59
  it was an extra insulation and warmth
• 1:35:02
  Rupert Isaacson: and
• 1:35:02
  Stevie Delahunt: we just brought them to an area that was more sheltered by trees.
• 1:35:05
  And we ended up not tying most of them up because I wanted them to be able to graze.
• 1:35:09
  And I was like, well, if we lose the horses in this
• 1:35:11
  situation, it's probably okay.
• 1:35:12
  Yeah.
• 1:35:13
  Like they, they need to fend for themselves, but they all stuck around.
• 1:35:16
  They weren't familiar with that area, so they knew they should
• 1:35:19
  stay by their humans, but that way they can move around and graze.
• 1:35:21
  And they, honestly, quite a few of them, middle of the snow
• 1:35:24
  storm are just out there grazing.
• 1:35:26
  No, no big deal.
• 1:35:27
  Yeah, no,
• 1:35:27
  Rupert Isaacson: absolutely.
• 1:35:28
  It's, it's amazing.
• 1:35:28
  Our horses, their environment, they used to, they're like, yeah, snow me.
• 1:35:32
  Yeah.
• 1:35:32
  Tornado me.
• 1:35:33
  Yeah.
• 1:35:34
  Yeah,
• 1:35:34
  Stevie Delahunt: exactly.
• 1:35:35
  Rupert Isaacson: They're so tough.
• 1:35:37
  And it's funny, you, you were talking about the hypothermia there and the winds.
• 1:35:40
  I, I remember reading about and I was trying to remember what their
• 1:35:44
  name was, the indigenous people down in Patagonia, who used to travel by
• 1:35:50
  canoe with fires in their canoes.
• 1:35:54
  And that this was written about by British sailors that got shipwrecked
• 1:35:59
  down there in the 18th century and got rescued by these people.
• 1:36:03
  The Yagan people constantly had a fire stoked to keep themselves warm, even
• 1:36:08
  chance, the demise of their transportation by starting them within their bark canoes,
• 1:36:13
  and that they would travel this incredible human technology in a place like that.
• 1:36:18
  And then of course, they all died of smallpox and, you know, after wee
• 1:36:22
  Whitey showed up and colonized it all in
• 1:36:25
  Stevie Delahunt: the, there's actually quite a lot of paintings still on
• 1:36:27
  rocks out there from the Chen people.
• 1:36:29
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:36:30
  In the area that we run the race.
• 1:36:31
  And that's really, really cool to see.
• 1:36:34
  And I believe Chen's actually, so you said the yen, was that the, the,
• 1:36:38
  Rupert Isaacson: yes.
• 1:36:39
  I, I believe here I'm reading it Yagan.
• 1:36:42
  Stevie Delahunt: Mm-hmm.
• 1:36:42
  Rupert Isaacson: But can you, can you, spell TWE t Welcher, did you say?
• 1:36:47
  Stevie Delahunt: I can, I I've only said it conversationally in Patagonia,
• 1:36:52
  but the, to Welchs there's still a lineage of, to Welch and people
• 1:36:57
  that live amongst everyone else.
• 1:36:59
  I mean, they're integrated into the culture.
• 1:37:01
  But they weren't, they weren't eradicated.
• 1:37:04
  Rupert Isaacson: And are they, oh, here we go.
• 1:37:06
  I've got it.
• 1:37:07
  It's T-E-H-U-E-L-C-H-E, te Welche people.
• 1:37:15
  Patagonia.
• 1:37:15
  Here we go.
• 1:37:16
  And are they involved in, in any way in the, in the Derby?
• 1:37:21
  Stevie Delahunt: To my knowledge they're not, but I think a lot of people that
• 1:37:24
  work with us on the race down there probably have some percentage bloodline
• 1:37:28
  back to the native people there.
• 1:37:32
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, it fascinating.
• 1:37:34
  It would be, it would be interesting to find out.
• 1:37:36
  I, I think you're probably dead right?
• 1:37:38
  It would be almost unthinkable that there wouldn't be, you know, indigenous yeah.
• 1:37:43
  Yeah.
• 1:37:44
  Stevie Delahunt: You can see that in a lot of people's facial structure down
• 1:37:47
  there in the color of their skin and hair.
• 1:37:50
  Rupert Isaacson: And there must be a relationship with the land in that case.
• 1:37:52
  So have you, have you, again, are there certain individuals that sort of stand out
• 1:37:57
  in the years that you've been doing this?
• 1:37:58
  It's this old guy or this old lady who's just.
• 1:38:02
  Knows this about the plants and knows this about the mountain.
• 1:38:06
  Stevie Delahunt: You know, actually, because it's such a harsh environment
• 1:38:08
  down there, everyone that lives down there is still connected to the land.
• 1:38:11
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:38:12
  And something I think is really cool I've talked about with people
• 1:38:15
  there is that I've noticed in really harsh environments, the land gives
• 1:38:19
  back during summer in a bigger way.
• 1:38:21
  And what I mean by that is if it's hard to exist in a climate, you'll
• 1:38:25
  see that there's a lot, lot more of the berries and fruits are edible.
• 1:38:29
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:38:30
  Stevie Delahunt: And that's the case down there.
• 1:38:31
  There's something called the el califate berry, and it's a plant
• 1:38:34
  that it looks a lot like something that would be in the fine Bos.
• 1:38:37
  And that, that produces lots of berries every year.
• 1:38:40
  And there's another thing that's colloquially called like horse apples,
• 1:38:44
  but it's like these tiny little berries that are grow along the ground and
• 1:38:47
  the horses actually eat them as well.
• 1:38:49
  But it's much like a LinkedIn berry and the entire pompas are covered with those.
• 1:38:56
  And I just noticed that the land gives back in such a big way in Patagonia
• 1:39:00
  because it has such tough winters.
• 1:39:02
  And I've noticed that living in environments where it snows, there's
• 1:39:06
  often, often things are much more edible.
• 1:39:08
  Whereas if it's a warm environment, you may not get as much back from the land.
• 1:39:13
  And that's, that's kind of talked about in the culture there.
• 1:39:16
  Like the land wants you to coexist.
• 1:39:19
  It's trying to help you make it through the winter by giving
• 1:39:21
  you so much in the summer.
• 1:39:23
  I.
• 1:39:24
  Rupert Isaacson: Well that's an interesting, it's it that raises an
• 1:39:26
  interesting thing, which is that sort of nature is actually always trying to
• 1:39:28
  help one rather than hinder one, right?
• 1:39:30
  Yeah.
• 1:39:31
  Nature's actually always on one side and that point, I think about
• 1:39:36
  places that have brutal winters.
• 1:39:38
  I think it's true in deserts too.
• 1:39:39
  So desert edible plants often are much more nutrient dense, so you can eat much
• 1:39:45
  less of them, but get more nutrients from them than in say, absolutely
• 1:39:50
  Europe or Germany or Eastern USA, where it's sort of more temperate climate.
• 1:39:55
  This business of the nature's actually always on one side except on the few
• 1:40:00
  occasions when it decides to cull one off.
• 1:40:03
  Your journeys with psilocybin have you ha has this come
• 1:40:08
  forward from the land to you?
• 1:40:12
  Are there conversations with the land, not just with the horses?
• 1:40:15
  Stevie Delahunt: Yes.
• 1:40:17
  Yes, there absolutely are.
• 1:40:18
  Tell about
• 1:40:18
  Rupert Isaacson: that.
• 1:40:19
  Stevie Delahunt: I've actually been addressed by this kind of self called the
• 1:40:23
  tree nation and the trees on our property back at home where I did a psilocybin
• 1:40:28
  journey kept telling me disharmony, I kept getting the word disharmony,
• 1:40:33
  disharmony, disharmony and the land was.
• 1:40:37
  Complaining about the management that we had of horses on the, on the land.
• 1:40:41
  Because okay, our large juniper trees were all getting chewed
• 1:40:45
  by the horses in winter.
• 1:40:47
  And I kind of had to connect with the trees in this experience.
• 1:40:52
  And it was, it's sort of wild and I still kind of question it, but
• 1:40:55
  it felt really real in the moment of having this recognition that
• 1:41:00
  these trees are these whole beings.
• 1:41:02
  But it felt almost like the wisdom that you might feel when you're
• 1:41:05
  around elephants, like these large creatures that just looked down over
• 1:41:11
  everything going on around them.
• 1:41:12
  And I had this moment of realization that that's like this trees
• 1:41:15
  experience and how connected the tree was to the land around them.
• 1:41:20
  And I felt like I was being addressed by the trees and they were telling
• 1:41:23
  me to manage the horses better.
• 1:41:25
  It was my fault for keeping them again against sonic's wishes, confined in an
• 1:41:29
  area and that they were chewing on the trees, which was causing disharmony.
• 1:41:33
  And so in that trip I was feeling that I needed to do a better job of speaking
• 1:41:41
  with the horses about what they wanted and about the land with what it wanted.
• 1:41:45
  And it was showing me as well that we have like these thorn plants that grow like the
• 1:41:51
  classic purple thorn plants that come up.
• 1:41:54
  And it was saying, if you see more of these, you know that
• 1:41:57
  this area is being overgrazed.
• 1:41:59
  I.
• 1:42:00
  And, and I've like, so this is the land saying it
• 1:42:02
  Rupert Isaacson: to you?
• 1:42:02
  Or this is research that you did?
• 1:42:04
  Stevie Delahunt: This is the land said it to me first, and
• 1:42:06
  then I researched afterwards.
• 1:42:08
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:42:08
  Stevie Delahunt: And it's kind of, it kind of is a really interesting observation.
• 1:42:12
  People have said like, as the land where there's more prickly plants, it's
• 1:42:17
  kind of the land protecting itself and showing that there's been overgrazing
• 1:42:22
  which I found to be interesting.
• 1:42:23
  And it, it was true like in the pastures that we had the horses in most often
• 1:42:28
  that's where they were coming up.
• 1:42:30
  And so I So what did
• 1:42:30
  Rupert Isaacson: you do?
• 1:42:31
  Did you, did you make a change?
• 1:42:33
  Stevie Delahunt: I did make a change, yeah.
• 1:42:34
  I started, I actually just shut the horses out of the one pasture where the
• 1:42:38
  trees were that they had been chewing on, but like opening up more pasture land
• 1:42:42
  trying to manage where they were better.
• 1:42:45
  We reseeded some of the areas, some of the pastures and have slowly
• 1:42:50
  like tried to, to manage our land better and just use more of it.
• 1:42:57
  Rupert Isaacson: Have the trees given you a thumbs up?
• 1:43:01
  Stevie Delahunt: I, I haven't specifically gotten a thumbs up.
• 1:43:04
  It wasn't as clear as the thumbs down that I got.
• 1:43:08
  Rupert Isaacson: Have you gone back and asked and said, okay, lads, I did it.
• 1:43:12
  Is this good?
• 1:43:12
  Or do I need to do more?
• 1:43:14
  Stevie Delahunt: I, I still feel like that I have to do more.
• 1:43:17
  Okay.
• 1:43:17
  Like, I don't feel like we're where we're at, so I've been
• 1:43:19
  afraid to ask, to be honest.
• 1:43:23
  Rupert Isaacson: So
• 1:43:25
  with the feeling that you have that you would do more.
• 1:43:27
  So what, what are your plans?
• 1:43:29
  I'm actually intrigued by this because land management and the symbiosis of
• 1:43:35
  humans with the land, of course, is exactly how we're supposed to live.
• 1:43:39
  And when it's good, I think we all feel this in intrinsic sense of ease.
• 1:43:49
  And when it's not good, we sure don't.
• 1:43:52
  So if it's still niggling under your skin, like yeah, but I still haven't
• 1:43:58
  quite, you know, done what they like.
• 1:44:00
  Have you, are you putting together a strategy based upon
• 1:44:03
  what the land has told you?
• 1:44:05
  Stevie Delahunt: I am, yeah.
• 1:44:06
  I'm, I'm actually like, I feel like it's a really cool metaphor for how to
• 1:44:10
  deal with coming together as society.
• 1:44:12
  And what I mean by that is it is really strange as Sonic the horse is pointing
• 1:44:17
  out by wanting to be free roaming.
• 1:44:20
  I, I've always thought it's weird to own property, right?
• 1:44:23
  Like we're all part of, I understand why it has to happen in the society we
• 1:44:27
  live in now, like why we have to put up these arbitrary boundaries, but.
• 1:44:33
  It is interesting, like how do you fit what should be into the world
• 1:44:38
  and structure that we live in?
• 1:44:40
  And land management is a little bit of metaphor for how
• 1:44:44
  to come together in society.
• 1:44:45
  Like there's so many benefits of coming together.
• 1:44:47
  But there's so many negatives.
• 1:44:49
  And for example, being confined to one space with your herd is not really
• 1:44:54
  what, how we were meant to naturally be.
• 1:44:56
  We were meant to be like Mongolia where we can travel around and if there's
• 1:44:59
  overgrazing, well, there really isn't overgrazing because the horses move on.
• 1:45:04
  Or if a place does get overgrazed, a horse would die and there would be less horses
• 1:45:08
  and then the, the grass could grow again.
• 1:45:10
  And there'd always be that, that natural seeking of homeostasis.
• 1:45:16
  And now there's so many artificial boundaries and separations that it
• 1:45:23
  makes land management difficult.
• 1:45:25
  And I, I am still researching, trying to figure out how to
• 1:45:29
  manage horses better over land.
• 1:45:30
  And, and to be clear, we have eight horses now, nine on the property that we're on,
• 1:45:35
  and it's 25 acres and it's irrigated.
• 1:45:37
  So there's quite a lot of space and a lot of grass for them.
• 1:45:41
  And I still, and that's like much more than most anyone would have.
• 1:45:44
  And I still feel like I'm ha I'm not able to manage that well.
• 1:45:49
  Rupert Isaacson: It seems that you actually answered your own question
• 1:45:51
  within what you just told me, but I'm wondering if you can decipher that answer.
• 1:45:58
  Stevie Delahunt: Probably, probably not.
• 1:46:00
  I was gonna say, I feel today in this conversation, so I've
• 1:46:03
  just been at a wedding I'm at my friend's wedding now, Uhhuh.
• 1:46:06
  We're up until 4:00 AM this morning.
• 1:46:08
  I was like, great, I have this podcast.
• 1:46:10
  Wait, mushroom be articulate.
• 1:46:12
  So I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to
• 1:46:14
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, what what strikes me from what you just said
• 1:46:17
  is you were saying in a perfect world you would move on and the herd would
• 1:46:22
  move on when the land began to be stressed by the carrying of the herd.
• 1:46:32
  So why not be nomadic with your herd?
• 1:46:36
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah, I'm not sure.
• 1:46:37
  I guess I don't know how to make that happen in the US easily.
• 1:46:40
  Trailers
• 1:46:41
  Rupert Isaacson: and other properties, I should imagine.
• 1:46:44
  Stevie Delahunt: I don't have that kind of money.
• 1:46:46
  Rupert Isaacson: No, but you are connected to community and there's BLM land out
• 1:46:51
  there in the west, and do you think it this might be an interesting project.
• 1:46:57
  Do you think it might be possible to live, and you talk about
• 1:47:02
  community, human community, right?
• 1:47:04
  Yeah.
• 1:47:04
  So you have friends, you know, all over the US and they have properties
• 1:47:08
  and pastures and some of them are in use and some of them are not.
• 1:47:12
  And you can, in the old days, one would've, you know, ridden
• 1:47:15
  one's horses and herded the rest.
• 1:47:19
  But probably a shorter distance.
• 1:47:21
  But perhaps the same number of hours that it would take to go that shorter
• 1:47:24
  distance in your local area you could do with a trailer somewhere else.
• 1:47:32
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah.
• 1:47:33
  Yeah.
• 1:47:34
  I mean actually that, is that a
• 1:47:35
  Rupert Isaacson: potential, you know,
• 1:47:36
  Stevie Delahunt: that is actually what we're looking into.
• 1:47:38
  So to be clear, in summer we have actually too much grass.
• 1:47:41
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:47:41
  Some of our horses even with endurance racing, a couple of our
• 1:47:44
  horses are almost obese, right?
• 1:47:47
  And so managing them is really difficult.
• 1:47:49
  And this is, this problem's arising over winter when they're like
• 1:47:52
  overgrazing what's left on the ground.
• 1:47:55
  And so we have actually talked about, we live in a bus so we rent this
• 1:47:58
  beautiful property from an amazing landlord who lets us be there.
• 1:48:04
  And we live in a bus so we could be totally mobile.
• 1:48:07
  And we've actually talked about this.
• 1:48:08
  We, we wanna go south for the winter for the horse's sake.
• 1:48:12
  They don't enjoy being in the snow and neither do I really.
• 1:48:15
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:48:15
  Stevie Delahunt: So we have looked into that.
• 1:48:17
  And you know, actually the Bend Oregon communities really wonderful
• 1:48:22
  and we've often had people reach out knowing that we have lots of horses and
• 1:48:26
  said, Hey, I have this extra pasture.
• 1:48:27
  Do you need any grass?
• 1:48:29
  Rupert Isaacson: Oh, that's wonderful.
• 1:48:30
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah.
• 1:48:30
  So there is that in the community there.
• 1:48:32
  Rupert Isaacson: That's almost un-American.
• 1:48:34
  Stevie Delahunt: It's very, yeah.
• 1:48:35
  No, it's amazing.
• 1:48:36
  We have bend organs truly Great.
• 1:48:40
  Rupert Isaacson: I guess, you know what, what I'm feeling for here is
• 1:48:45
  people often say, or one read sometimes that humans are naturally nomadic.
• 1:48:51
  And I think it's true.
• 1:48:55
  I think many mammals are including mammals that have fixed territories.
• 1:48:59
  And we are mammals actually with fixed territories.
• 1:49:03
  Humans tend to move in a sort of a square
• 1:49:11
  with each season.
• 1:49:11
  So each equinox is, while there's rain over there, things are growing
• 1:49:15
  over there, and then yeah, dries up and then you go up there and now
• 1:49:21
  things are good in the foothills, and then you go up to the higher
• 1:49:25
  mountains and things are good up there.
• 1:49:28
  For those summer months and then, oops, getting cold.
• 1:49:31
  So then you go back down and there's your autumn camp, and
• 1:49:35
  then there's your winter camp, and then you begin the process again.
• 1:49:39
  And this, whether that is over a geographically smallish area because it's
• 1:49:44
  nutrient dense or whether that's over a bigger area 'cause it's not we and other
• 1:49:50
  animals seem to naturally want to do that.
• 1:49:52
  And yeah, if we can't do that and we don't do that, I do actually
• 1:49:57
  believe our mental health suffers.
• 1:49:59
  And I, I remember getting the feeling sometimes when I was living in Texas,
• 1:50:02
  you know, it's just so ridiculously hot in the summer, like crazy hot.
• 1:50:08
  Yeah.
• 1:50:08
  You know, for months and months and months and months and months and you're
• 1:50:11
  working outside, you know, with the horses and thinking, I don't think
• 1:50:15
  that the indigenous people did this.
• 1:50:17
  I think they buggered off when it got like this.
• 1:50:21
  And absolutely.
• 1:50:22
  Sure enough, yeah.
• 1:50:23
  I started, you know, researching it.
• 1:50:24
  Yes.
• 1:50:25
  The bison would come all the way down to the coast and then they
• 1:50:29
  would go north as it got hotter and you would kind of follow them.
• 1:50:33
  You might not follow them to Alaska, but you'd certainly follow them a certain
• 1:50:37
  distance to higher elevations and, you know, and that would make perfect sense.
• 1:50:42
  And now we don't, now we stick around loneliness, depression,
• 1:50:47
  boredom, where we began.
• 1:50:49
  You know, you
• 1:50:50
  Stevie Delahunt: Well, we stick around if we feel we have to.
• 1:50:52
  Right.
• 1:50:52
  Look at all the people that feel that they have that financial freedom.
• 1:50:56
  Snowbirds almost everywhere, right?
• 1:50:58
  Like they
• 1:50:58
  Rupert Isaacson: migrate.
• 1:50:59
  Absolutely.
• 1:51:00
  Yeah.
• 1:51:00
  Absolutely.
• 1:51:00
  First thing that people do when they get a lot of money, they
• 1:51:03
  buy houses in different places.
• 1:51:05
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah.
• 1:51:05
  Rupert Isaacson: And they sort of seasonally migrate between them.
• 1:51:07
  Absolutely.
• 1:51:08
  They basically just go back to being a hunter gatherer just on a yacht.
• 1:51:11
  Yeah.
• 1:51:12
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah.
• 1:51:12
  No, that's absolutely true.
• 1:51:14
  And you know, my husband and I have talked a lot about our mental health
• 1:51:17
  suffering in winter and we're both, we both feel like we wanna go back
• 1:51:20
  to South Africa in the winter and that's exactly what we did this year.
• 1:51:23
  I went down to Argentina for part of this winter.
• 1:51:26
  But we wanna include our horses in that.
• 1:51:28
  So our eventual move is the idea to be in Bend in the summer and
• 1:51:32
  down south somewhere in winter.
• 1:51:34
  'cause I think have you read the book, the Comfort Crisis by Chance?
• 1:51:38
  I
• 1:51:38
  Rupert Isaacson: have not, but I have heard of it.
• 1:51:39
  But talk to us about it.
• 1:51:41
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah, that's a fantastic book and it talks a lot about
• 1:51:43
  like the origin of humans and happy, basically the pursuit of happiness
• 1:51:48
  by going back to our roots and it talks in there about like how we are
• 1:51:53
  built to be a slow endurance animal.
• 1:51:56
  And when I was reading that, I really made the connection with horses.
• 1:52:00
  It's really interesting that humans and horses have the.
• 1:52:04
  Advantage of sweating.
• 1:52:06
  This sounds crazy and I I was very aware of it when I was riding a reindeer.
• 1:52:09
  So reindeer pant, dogs pant like almo, a lot of animals cool themselves
• 1:52:13
  by panting, which is very limiting.
• 1:52:15
  You can't you can only exert yourself for short periods of time.
• 1:52:19
  Like a, even dogs, like, there's some dogs that are really great at running
• 1:52:22
  distances, but you'll notice that like on hot days, like I have a Belgian Malis and
• 1:52:26
  she is super athletic, but she struggles in the heat because she pants to cool off.
• 1:52:32
  Mm.
• 1:52:32
  Now horses can do things like Tevis which is a big a hundred mile endurance
• 1:52:36
  race, and it can get as hot as 120 degrees of parts of the races,
• 1:52:40
  parts of the race in the canyons.
• 1:52:42
  And the horses can endure that.
• 1:52:44
  So humans and horses have this advantage of sweating.
• 1:52:47
  And in the book it's talk, it talks a lot about how humans
• 1:52:50
  can sweat and travel over time.
• 1:52:54
  It talks briefly about horses being connected to humans over time and this
• 1:52:58
  endurance connection that we have.
• 1:53:01
  And now I've just lost my, or was going with
• 1:53:05
  Rupert Isaacson: this.
• 1:53:06
  Stevie Delahunt: Well, I think it's, it's an interest.
• 1:53:08
  Oh.
• 1:53:09
  Think about the comfort
• 1:53:09
  Rupert Isaacson: crisis.
• 1:53:10
  Yeah.
• 1:53:10
  Stevie Delahunt: Yes.
• 1:53:12
  I think that it's just an interesting realization that we were meant to travel
• 1:53:17
  together and it's cool that these two species, horses and humans have found
• 1:53:20
  each other over time, and that we are the two species meant for endurance.
• 1:53:25
  Meant to, that can do many, many miles over over many days.
• 1:53:30
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:53:30
  Unlike
• 1:53:31
  Stevie Delahunt: most other species.
• 1:53:32
  And so I think we were meant to travel together and, you know, horses and dogs
• 1:53:35
  have been domesticated for so long, and look at how that integration happens.
• 1:53:41
  Like we've, we've domesticated each other, like we've, horses are such an
• 1:53:46
  integral part of our history, and I, I feel that we were meant to nomadically
• 1:53:51
  travel together, just like in Mongolia.
• 1:53:55
  Rupert Isaacson: I kind of agree.
• 1:53:56
  I'm about to do this myself.
• 1:53:58
  So, we, I'm in Germany.
• 1:54:00
  We keep our horses out all year, and right now it's February as
• 1:54:05
  we are recording this, I am.
• 1:54:07
  Several times a day swimming through Poo Lake and climbing Poo Mountain and
• 1:54:13
  hopping from poo ice flow to poo ice flow.
• 1:54:16
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:54:18
  And we were in, we weren't
• 1:54:19
  Stevie Delahunt: meant to live like that Well, or in that
• 1:54:22
  Rupert Isaacson: we are cold adapted and we're heat adapted, we're all adapted,
• 1:54:27
  and at the same time, if we can possibly do what the birds do and fly south.
• 1:54:33
  I, I was watching the cranes flying over the last couple of days.
• 1:54:38
  Climate change.
• 1:54:38
  They're coming earlier.
• 1:54:39
  They are coming earlier than they used to.
• 1:54:42
  This would normally have been more winter than it's been the last few years.
• 1:54:46
  So they're coming earlier and earlier, but nonetheless, they
• 1:54:49
  fly south and then they fly north.
• 1:54:51
  And so that's exactly what we're gonna do.
• 1:54:53
  The land mass of Europe extend south.
• 1:54:56
  So Spain, summer winter, Germany summer.
• 1:55:02
  Why not?
• 1:55:02
  Now someone might say, well, you, how do you do that?
• 1:55:06
  If you have a job, if you have that kind of stability, the only way you
• 1:55:12
  can do that is if you make it your job.
• 1:55:14
  And of course, to be a nomad, to be a hunter gatherer, that is your job.
• 1:55:19
  That's the economy.
• 1:55:19
  Yeah.
• 1:55:20
  And if that's the economy that's, indigenous to humanity, because we
• 1:55:25
  talk about indigenous people, but we're actually all indigenous people because
• 1:55:28
  we're all indigenous to this planet.
• 1:55:31
  And you know, in terms of colonialization, one can say, oh, well there were the
• 1:55:36
  indigenous people in this area that the Europeans or whoever moved to, but the
• 1:55:42
  Europeans are still indigenous in Europe.
• 1:55:44
  And that never changed.
• 1:55:47
  So we're all indigenous.
• 1:55:49
  This semi nomadism, which sort of ended with agriculture about 10,000 years
• 1:55:57
  ago, it seems that the four horsemen of the apocalypse rode in right with that.
• 1:56:03
  And that engendered all kinds of competition and overpopulation and so on.
• 1:56:06
  But to be nomadic means that you do have to give up certain securities.
• 1:56:12
  Easier said than done, particularly in our modern era.
• 1:56:15
  So when people say, well, I can't do that, I absolutely believe them.
• 1:56:19
  And I I say, yeah, no, I get it.
• 1:56:20
  I get, I get that you can't.
• 1:56:23
  Nonetheless, would we be happier if we did and I kind of think we would.
• 1:56:29
  So from my personal point of view, I would trade certain luxuries for that.
• 1:56:36
  But then again, I'm also like your husband.
• 1:56:38
  British, south African.
• 1:56:38
  So it's a little bit in the genetic, I think, to kind of go to other places.
• 1:56:43
  Yeah.
• 1:56:44
  So it's, it's intriguing to me that you're, you're gonna do that.
• 1:56:46
  Where, where down south are you gonna go?
• 1:56:47
  And, and what, what's your, what's your plan?
• 1:56:53
  Stevie Delahunt: Just an aside, as you were saying this, have
• 1:56:55
  you read the book, Ishmael?
• 1:56:56
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes, I have.
• 1:56:58
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:56:59
  It reminded me of what you were saying now.
• 1:57:01
  Rupert Isaacson: In what way?
• 1:57:02
  Yeah, just for, for, for listeners who haven't read it.
• 1:57:04
  Yeah.
• 1:57:05
  Why
• 1:57:06
  Stevie Delahunt: Ishmael talks about what Rupert was just saying talks about
• 1:57:10
  how the restoration of the planet is probably going to come through a return
• 1:57:15
  to that indigenous idea of being more connected to the earth and to the
• 1:57:20
  seasons as we're talking about cycling.
• 1:57:23
  And probably wanting less.
• 1:57:25
  So as you're talking about this nomadic lifestyle, I think that
• 1:57:30
  capitalism has really instilled a belief of scarcity or capitalized
• 1:57:34
  on our brains feeling of scarcity.
• 1:57:38
  And something I've learned to start accepting is abundance,
• 1:57:43
  the law of abundance and the, the belief in abundance.
• 1:57:47
  And it's really interesting that we all think we're not gonna have enough
• 1:57:50
  probably coming from, stemming from the idea that we're not enough, right?
• 1:57:54
  Like it's an internal journey that's externalized, I find that
• 1:57:58
  if you're still alive at this point and you are, if you're listening,
• 1:58:03
  then your life has been abundant.
• 1:58:04
  You have had enough
• 1:58:06
  Rupert Isaacson: sure to be
• 1:58:06
  Stevie Delahunt: alive.
• 1:58:08
  And abundance really means just having enough.
• 1:58:10
  It doesn't mean having an excess and excess comes from, which is
• 1:58:15
  kind of a hoarding situation.
• 1:58:16
  And I think almost anyone living in a, in western society has way more than
• 1:58:21
  they need which is proof that if you have way more than you need, then you have
• 1:58:25
  enough to share with many other people.
• 1:58:27
  So I think this world is really abundant for everyone to exist.
• 1:58:32
  And I think letting go of this idea of scarcity will help us to return
• 1:58:41
  to being our more natural selves.
• 1:58:43
  And, and that's where this nomadic lifestyle, this letting go of these
• 1:58:49
  so-called or, or felt securities ends up.
• 1:58:54
  Grading.
• 1:58:55
  Sorry, I'm just saw your video in the background.
• 1:58:58
  Rupert Isaacson: You got my little sun coming?
• 1:58:59
  Yeah.
• 1:59:01
  That little blonde head.
• 1:59:02
  Stevie Delahunt: Woo.
• 1:59:02
  Yeah.
• 1:59:04
  Yeah, well he's,
• 1:59:05
  Rupert Isaacson: he's, he's busy seeking abundance currently.
• 1:59:07
  Yeah.
• 1:59:07
  Yeah.
• 1:59:07
  Ah, yes.
• 1:59:10
  Stevie Delahunt: One of my favorite activities as well.
• 1:59:13
  Yeah, I think if we let go of this attachment to the, to
• 1:59:16
  scarcity or this attachment to our overall, our suffering, right?
• 1:59:20
  Like we, we think we're not enough.
• 1:59:23
  We think we don't have enough.
• 1:59:24
  If we start to let go of that and just trust in the universe and trust in the
• 1:59:28
  process and the journey we can do things like be nomadic, be more connected, let go
• 1:59:34
  of all these extras that we do not need.
• 1:59:36
  And I think that will make a shift in humanity if we can do that.
• 1:59:42
  And,
• 1:59:42
  Rupert Isaacson: but what is tricky for that and what, what
• 1:59:44
  everyone would say is, I, I presume you're not yet a parent, right?
• 1:59:48
  There was no still my little one there.
• 1:59:50
  So, you know, I think for many people, quite justifiably, the
• 1:59:57
  argument to that is, well, once you've got kids,
• 2:00:00
  Stevie Delahunt: yeah.
• 2:00:01
  Rupert Isaacson: But interestingly, I never bought that.
• 2:00:04
  I got three kids and I always thought, well, yes, it absolutely will
• 2:00:10
  affect the way in which you travel.
• 2:00:12
  I, yeah.
• 2:00:13
  You've got to travel completely with them in mind.
• 2:00:16
  You cannot I tried for like five seconds to travel with my own previous agendas
• 2:00:21
  in travel when I had my first kid.
• 2:00:24
  You know, your ask gets handed to you and you're like, okay, yeah, absolutely.
• 2:00:27
  Got it.
• 2:00:27
  Yeah, yeah.
• 2:00:28
  It will be all about you got it?
• 2:00:30
  Yes.
• 2:00:31
  Yeah.
• 2:00:32
  But let's still go because of course from, from a, from a child's
• 2:00:35
  perspective nomism is also natural.
• 2:00:37
  As long as you're with your people and you're making camp every night
• 2:00:40
  with your people and your people understand how to create abundance out
• 2:00:45
  of what's around, then you're okay.
• 2:00:49
  Yeah.
• 2:00:49
  It's about community, right?
• 2:00:50
  So then, but then we say, oh yeah, but what about schools and what about a job?
• 2:00:54
  And now suddenly, as you say, it's back.
• 2:00:56
  Interesting what you talked about, Ishmael, that that book, it seems that
• 2:01:00
  we may, are we maybe on the cusp of this now that suddenly post Covid digital
• 2:01:04
  nomadism homeschooling online schooling.
• 2:01:08
  I just recently did a, a podcast with an interesting, interesting lady called
• 2:01:14
  Lainey Liberty, who thought she was taking a year off with her kid back in 2008.
• 2:01:20
  And they just kept going.
• 2:01:22
  And now he's all grown up.
• 2:01:24
  But they made a whole economy out of this.
• 2:01:26
  She gave up her business, gave up her.
• 2:01:30
  And invented basically a genre called World Schooling, and now they're
• 2:01:34
  these world schooling conferences.
• 2:01:35
  So it, it is interesting.
• 2:01:37
  I, I think you're right that actually one can do this, but it
• 2:01:40
  takes a paradigm shift internally.
• 2:01:43
  Maybe that's where your psilocybin comes in.
• 2:01:47
  Does it help with that?
• 2:01:48
  Can it help with that?
• 2:01:50
  Stevie Delahunt: I, yeah, I think so.
• 2:01:51
  I feel I feel really connected to what you're saying and having kids,
• 2:01:55
  because I teach a lot of kids and I have some really amazing parents.
• 2:01:59
  And all these, like 80% of the parents are homeschooling their kids
• 2:02:04
  that have their kids riding with me.
• 2:02:07
  And they're, they're rewriting the way they wanna educate their kids.
• 2:02:11
  They want them connected to nature in the outdoors.
• 2:02:14
  Like, there's an amazing family that has five kids and they all
• 2:02:18
  are in riding lessons with me.
• 2:02:19
  And they come out twice a week and they're involved in every
• 2:02:24
  aspect of caring for horses.
• 2:02:26
  And I just so admire how this family is going about their education.
• 2:02:30
  And I think that they're a family that if they could, they would
• 2:02:34
  also be nomadically traveling.
• 2:02:36
  And I think, I think I am seeing a shift, especially in the
• 2:02:40
  culture around where I live.
• 2:02:41
  Like it's a very privileged town to put it nicely.
• 2:02:46
  And so with those privileges, people are looking for the
• 2:02:50
  healthiest way to live, and it is.
• 2:02:53
  Traveling, it is homeschooling.
• 2:02:55
  And with that homeschooling there is, there is living in multiple places.
• 2:02:59
  Even this family of five, they have a home in Hawaii, and they
• 2:03:02
  often travel there during winter.
• 2:03:04
  So they're also chasing the sunlight
• 2:03:06
  Rupert Isaacson: right
• 2:03:07
  Stevie Delahunt: around the world.
• 2:03:08
  And that this whole new idea of educating kids in the world and traveling with
• 2:03:14
  kids in the world really calls to me.
• 2:03:16
  That's what I'm hoping to shift my business into is connecting kids
• 2:03:21
  back to nature through horses.
• 2:03:22
  And I, you know, the book, the Line Trackers Guide to Life, there's a sentence
• 2:03:28
  in there that's Boyd Verdi's book.
• 2:03:29
  Rupert Isaacson: Boyd Vati.
• 2:03:29
  Yeah.
• 2:03:30
  I was wondering if it was him.
• 2:03:31
  Yeah.
• 2:03:32
  Stevie Delahunt: He has a single sentence in there that just
• 2:03:35
  resonated so deeply with me.
• 2:03:36
  And it was a, the restoration of the planet will only come through a
• 2:03:41
  profound shift in human consciousness.
• 2:03:43
  And I think that this environmental concern that I have deep down I is a
• 2:03:50
  realization that you have to change what's in here to change what's out there.
• 2:03:56
  And I've just pointed to my heart and then put my hand out.
• 2:03:58
  So like, you have to change your insides to change the outsides.
• 2:04:02
  And I think in working with kids and connecting them back to
• 2:04:06
  nature, like you can't care about something you don't understand.
• 2:04:09
  Rupert Isaacson: For sure.
• 2:04:10
  And
• 2:04:11
  Stevie Delahunt: so I think
• 2:04:12
  Rupert Isaacson: absolutely.
• 2:04:12
  We, we have a, a, a thing as you know, the, the work I do with
• 2:04:15
  special needs and education.
• 2:04:17
  So we have a, a fun thing we do every fall.
• 2:04:20
  I thought, you know, why, why would, why do kids, why would I
• 2:04:22
  expect kids to care about forest?
• 2:04:24
  Right?
• 2:04:24
  Because they're not in the forest.
• 2:04:26
  Like, yeah.
• 2:04:27
  Yeah.
• 2:04:28
  So though, okay they're in the city, but there are trees in the city.
• 2:04:32
  So what we do now is we go out in the fall sometimes and we fill up bags of
• 2:04:37
  acorns and chestnuts and things that are falling on concrete that will not
• 2:04:40
  get a chance to, to put down roots and then take them out to the country and
• 2:04:46
  gorilla, plant them along, fence line.
• 2:04:48
  Oh, cool.
• 2:04:49
  And all you gotta do is put them in like one inch of your thumb
• 2:04:54
  in, and about 75% of them come up.
• 2:04:57
  It's really interesting.
• 2:04:58
  And we've been doing that for, I started doing it in Texas 20 years ago.
• 2:05:04
  So now they're all these banks along my old fence lines in Texas,
• 2:05:07
  which are like 30, 40 feet high now.
• 2:05:09
  Oh wow.
• 2:05:10
  And you're like, wow, it actually works.
• 2:05:12
  I agree with you that people can only value what they know and what they've
• 2:05:18
  also helped to create a nurture.
• 2:05:20
  So without that relationship with the land, how and why would anybody care?
• 2:05:29
  And then people think, well, yes, but I live in the city, or
• 2:05:32
  I haven't got an access to now I don't own land, or I can't travel.
• 2:05:37
  Or those people have a big house in Hawaii, but it's not about own land.
• 2:05:41
  It's not about having a big house in Hawaii.
• 2:05:42
  You can travel, you can be nomadic within your own continent.
• 2:05:47
  If you change your economy, you can gather acorns from the concrete and
• 2:05:52
  plant 'em along a fence line somewhere.
• 2:05:55
  It's, it doesn't matter the scale.
• 2:05:58
  It seems to just matter for the human heart that we do.
• 2:06:01
  So you talked about a change in here, you pointed to your heart.
• 2:06:04
  So what change are you making in your heart with this would be
• 2:06:07
  sort of a, a, a good closing thing of where, where are we going?
• 2:06:10
  Where, where are you going?
• 2:06:11
  If you, you are looking to make change.
• 2:06:14
  It's hard to make change unless one is making a change in oneself,
• 2:06:18
  otherwise one hasn't really got the tools to lead that change.
• 2:06:23
  Obviously you've made many changes in yourself, but what
• 2:06:25
  change are you working on now?
• 2:06:27
  Stevie Delahunt: Hmm.
• 2:06:28
  That's a good question.
• 2:06:29
  I think I'll just go back to, I have quite a, a few little mantras
• 2:06:35
  I say to myself every morning and I always say, how can I be more kind?
• 2:06:41
  How can I be more loving?
• 2:06:42
  I.
• 2:06:43
  And then I ask myself how I can cherish more.
• 2:06:47
  I've stolen that from my friend Kansas Carradine.
• 2:06:49
  Who got it.
• 2:06:50
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 2:06:50
  She's wonderful.
• 2:06:51
  Yeah, she's
• 2:06:51
  Stevie Delahunt: wonderful.
• 2:06:53
  So shout out to her.
• 2:06:54
  She is a good friend and a bit of a guide.
• 2:06:57
  There's another human that's a guide in my life.
• 2:07:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
• 2:07:00
  Yes.
• 2:07:01
  I, she's a good mentor.
• 2:07:02
  And for those listening there's a podcast with her.
• 2:07:05
  Look for that live free ride Free worth.
• 2:07:08
  Listen.
• 2:07:08
  Yeah, yeah.
• 2:07:09
  Okay.
• 2:07:09
  So she says to cherish, that's interesting.
• 2:07:11
  To cherish.
• 2:07:12
  And what, what do you mean by cherish what?
• 2:07:15
  Stevie Delahunt: I think it ties back.
• 2:07:16
  So again, I also say like, remember your sense of wonder.
• 2:07:21
  And I think to me, cherish is having a sense of wonder about an individual.
• 2:07:25
  Like just truly loving and seeing and like seeing in the sense of really observing
• 2:07:33
  without intent another individual.
• 2:07:37
  And I love, I just love that word because that's what I really feel.
• 2:07:40
  That's
• 2:07:40
  Rupert Isaacson: intent.
• 2:07:40
  That's good.
• 2:07:42
  Without wanting me back.
• 2:07:43
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:07:44
  Like they say like there's two types of love.
• 2:07:46
  The one that's like trading and giving
• 2:07:49
  Rupert Isaacson: transactional Yeah,
• 2:07:52
  Stevie Delahunt: yeah.
• 2:07:52
  Transactional love.
• 2:07:52
  And like you, I actually realized that a lot of love growing up
• 2:07:56
  and for me was transactional.
• 2:07:58
  Like I expected something that, and by the way, nature
• 2:08:00
  Rupert Isaacson: puts it that way.
• 2:08:00
  It's not necessarily a bad thing.
• 2:08:02
  Like people talk about the human ego being a bad thing.
• 2:08:04
  It's put there by nature.
• 2:08:05
  Transactions are put survival by nature.
• 2:08:07
  Yeah.
• 2:08:08
  It's not necessarily bad, but maybe it doesn't nurture the
• 2:08:12
  heart as much as others do.
• 2:08:13
  Yeah.
• 2:08:14
  Stevie Delahunt: And, and I recognize that I am in a place of
• 2:08:17
  privilege, like my needs are met.
• 2:08:18
  Like I'm not gonna probably die easily.
• 2:08:21
  So I have the luxury of being able to have a giving love.
• 2:08:25
  Like I have an abundance of wealth, which means like I'm
• 2:08:29
  healthy and I have resources.
• 2:08:31
  So that puts me at a economic or energetic advantage.
• 2:08:38
  So I have the ability to have a giving love where I don't expect anything back.
• 2:08:44
  And I think there's something in like, repeating this idea of cherishing is
• 2:08:48
  like, I really try to go forward and give that to other individuals in my life.
• 2:08:54
  Here, here's a small example.
• 2:08:56
  I like to give little examples of things people can do every day.
• 2:08:58
  If you can start your day and have your own mantras that make
• 2:09:01
  sense to you a small, very I.
• 2:09:04
  I guess this is very pertinent for our times.
• 2:09:06
  A small thing that I like to do in the morning is I do
• 2:09:09
  use social media for my job.
• 2:09:12
  And I think it's can be a platform for so many negative things.
• 2:09:14
  But I try to genuinely make 10 comments that I genuinely, truly mean.
• 2:09:20
  And I try to send out 10 positive comments on social media every
• 2:09:24
  morning, and then I just turn it off.
• 2:09:26
  Like that's, that's my interaction, like I'm done until I have to do
• 2:09:29
  like some sort of advertising for my own business or interaction.
• 2:09:32
  But I, I try to look, find stories that really resonate with me, see and cherish
• 2:09:38
  that individual for the experience they're having and give them a, a line
• 2:09:42
  of encouragement or just like, I see what you're doing and it's amazing.
• 2:09:46
  And so that's like a small, small little ritual I have every morning, and that's
• 2:09:50
  like, gets me, starts to build that habit.
• 2:09:52
  Trolling, cherishing, what's that?
• 2:09:55
  Rupert Isaacson: Positive trolling.
• 2:09:56
  Stevie Delahunt: Yes.
• 2:09:56
  Positive trolling.
• 2:09:57
  Exactly.
• 2:09:59
  Rupert Isaacson: That's that's lovely.
• 2:10:00
  Yes.
• 2:10:01
  I, I, I so agree.
• 2:10:02
  I, if I, the first thing I look at on social media is something
• 2:10:04
  called Good News Network.
• 2:10:06
  And if I, when I see something good on it, I send it to people, you know?
• 2:10:10
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah.
• 2:10:10
  I, I actually have that too.
• 2:10:12
  Rupert Isaacson: It's, it's a wonderful thing.
• 2:10:13
  I used to go straight on and look at the Ukraine war, and then I realized that
• 2:10:17
  it was depressing me, and I still look at the Ukraine war, but first I look at.
• 2:10:22
  Good news network.
• 2:10:23
  You talked about social media.
• 2:10:25
  How do people find you and if they want to come and do the derby with you, and
• 2:10:30
  if they want to come to Bend Oregon and drop mushrooms with you and talk to
• 2:10:35
  trees and if they want to do stuff with horses with you, how do they find you?
• 2:10:40
  Stevie Delahunt: So, our business because of both the psilocybin and
• 2:10:43
  the horses and the perspective of the ridiculousness of it all, our
• 2:10:47
  business name is intergalactic equine.
• 2:10:49
  So we're at intergalactic equine.com.
• 2:10:53
  But the best way to reach me is through Facebook's.
• 2:10:56
  I'm Stevie Della Hunt, or Instagram is the absolute best.
• 2:11:00
  And that's at adventurous Barbie.
• 2:11:03
  Rupert Isaacson: Adventurous, not adventurous,
• 2:11:06
  Stevie Delahunt: right?
• 2:11:06
  Rupert Isaacson: Adventurist?
• 2:11:07
  Stevie Delahunt: Yeah.
• 2:11:09
  Adventurous Barbie.
• 2:11:11
  And I got that name because I had so many clothes.
• 2:11:14
  Not really 'cause I'm blonde or anything, or have any sort of Barbie proportions.
• 2:11:18
  It's more because I just have an outfit for everything.
• 2:11:22
  Rupert Isaacson: I, I, I, I have aspirations to be an
• 2:11:25
  adventurous Barbie myself.
• 2:11:26
  I'll, I'll see.
• 2:11:28
  Acquire more clothes.
• 2:11:29
  But, okay, so Instagram, adventurist Barbie.
• 2:11:35
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:11:36
  Intergalactic equine.com.
• 2:11:40
  Dot com.
• 2:11:41
  Perfect.
• 2:11:43
  I think I'm gonna come and explore psilocybin in the mountains
• 2:11:46
  of eastern Oregon with you.
• 2:11:50
  That would
• 2:11:51
  Stevie Delahunt: be amazing.
• 2:11:52
  Okay.
• 2:11:52
  Rupert Isaacson: I would,
• 2:11:53
  Stevie Delahunt: I would love to have a conversation on a day.
• 2:11:55
  I wasn't up until four
• 2:11:59
  the night before.
• 2:12:00
  Rupert Isaacson: I'm up for it.
• 2:12:01
  I'm up for it.
• 2:12:02
  Stevie Delahunt: Amazing.
• 2:12:03
  Rupert Isaacson: All right.
• 2:12:03
  Well thank you so much for coming on and I look forward to the next time.
• 2:12:08
  Stevie Delahunt: I do as well.
• 2:12:08
  Thank you so much.
• 2:12:10
  I enjoyed this so much.
• 2:12:11
  Rupert Isaacson: Likewise.
• 2:12:12
  And
• 2:12:12
  Stevie Delahunt: quick shout out to Amanda Marini for connecting us.
• 2:12:17
  She's amazing.
• 2:12:18
  I just wanted to say that.
• 2:12:20
  Rupert Isaacson: Yes, our mutual friend Amanda Menini another nomad
• 2:12:24
  Italian academic living in Colorado and Italy and making people feel
• 2:12:33
  happy and healed all over the world.
• 2:12:35
  I think Amanda,
• 2:12:36
  Stevie Delahunt: ah, she's such a cheerleader.
• 2:12:37
  She is.
• 2:12:38
  Come and done a bootcamp with me and she was just like, you have to talk to Rupert.
• 2:12:42
  Like you guys would connect on so many levels and yeah.
• 2:12:45
  What a wonderful cheerleader of a human.
• 2:12:48
  And there there's a good example of someone cherishing other people.
• 2:12:51
  Rupert Isaacson: I would agree.
• 2:12:51
  I would agree.
• 2:12:52
  And, and and really being able to take pleasure in the achievements of others.
• 2:12:57
  Yeah, that's a rare quality I can imagine.
• 2:13:00
  It really
• 2:13:00
  Stevie Delahunt: is beautiful human being.
• 2:13:03
  Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
• 2:13:05
  Alright, well thank you and yeah, until the next time.
• 2:13:10
  Stevie Delahunt: Thank you so much.
• 2:13:10
  I really appreciate it.
• 2:13:12
  Rupert Isaacson: Likewise.
• 2:13:12
  As you know, if you followed any of my work, I'm an autism dad and we have
• 2:13:18
  a whole career before this podcast in helping people with neurodivergence,
• 2:13:25
  either who are professionals in the field.
• 2:13:27
  Are you a therapist?
• 2:13:28
  Are you a caregiver?
• 2:13:30
  Are you a parent?
• 2:13:31
  Or are you somebody with neurodivergence?
• 2:13:35
  When my son, Rowan, was diagnosed with autism in 2004,
• 2:13:40
  I really didn't know what to do.
• 2:13:42
  So I reached out for mentorship, and I found it through an amazing adult
• 2:13:47
  autistic woman who's very famous, Dr.
• 2:13:50
  Temple Grandin.
• 2:13:51
  And she told me what to do.
• 2:13:53
  And it's been working so amazingly for the last 20 years.
• 2:13:57
  That not only is my son basically independent, but we've helped
• 2:14:02
  countless, countless thousands of others reach the same goal.
• 2:14:06
  Working in schools, working at home, working in therapy settings.
• 2:14:11
  If you would like to learn this cutting edge, neuroscience backed
• 2:14:16
  approach, it's called Movement Method.
• 2:14:18
  You can learn it online, you can learn it very, very simply.
• 2:14:22
  It's almost laughably simple.
• 2:14:25
  The important thing is to begin.
• 2:14:29
  Let yourself be mentored as I was by Dr.
• 2:14:32
  Grandin and see what results can follow.
• 2:14:36
  Go to this website, newtrailslearning.
• 2:14:41
  com Sign up as a gold member.
• 2:14:44
  Take the online movement method course.
• 2:14:48
  It's in 40 countries.
• 2:14:50
  Let us know how it goes for you.
• 2:14:52
  We really want to know.
• 2:14:53
  We really want to help people like me, people like you, out there
• 2:14:58
  live their best life, to live free, ride free, see what happens.