April 17, 2024 • 18 mins
George Noory and author Jonathan Hammond explore his work as a spiritual teacher, how shamans help guide people back into balance with Earth spirits, and how to access universal truths of the spiritual realm to become a better person.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast am on
iHeartRadio and.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nori with you.
Jonathan Hammond is a teacher, energy healer, shamantic practitioner, and
spiritual counselor. A graduate of Harvard University. In the University
of Michigan, he is certified Master Teacher in Shamatic as
well as the Advanced Graduate Study Advisors for the Shamanic
Reiki Worldwide. Teaches classes in Shamanism, energy healing, spirituality, and
(00:29):
huna at the Omega Institute and around the world. And
his book is called Tonight that We're talking about the
Shaman's Mind. Jonathan, welcome to the program.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Aloha George, It's nice to be with you. Aloha from Maui.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
You too, my friend.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Were you at the University of Michigan when Bo scham
Beckler was the coach?
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I you know what, I had that name ringed about
from a long time ago. But yeah, yeah, I believe
I w was.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
He was one of those great football coaches. It's a
great university in ann Arbor's was a wonderful town in
Detroit's my hometown.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Oh, I'm from mont Clemmons. Originally, Yeah, I'm a Michigan boy.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I'm a Median boy.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
You get back there, any family.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
No, everyone moved. Everyone moved, so I haven't been back.
Once I left in h and then went to school
in Boston and then had a life in New York City.
Everyone has since moved, so I haven't been back. It's
been years now.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
My MoMA's sister are still about there. She's going to
be ninety five next month. Jonathan, Oh my god, it's amazing,
it really, it really is. Tell us about yourself. How'd
you get involved in shamanistic work.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Well, I was years ago. I was an actor in
New York. I was a Broadway actor. And I thought
that I had that I was diving into spirituality just
to kind of traverse the difficulties of show business, because
it was, you know, as as you know, I think
you have a you've been around show business as well,
(02:03):
it's just a very tough field. And so it was
just and spirituality just felt like something that I needed
to to just support. And then it just ended up
taking up bigger and bigger space in my life. And
and I had sort of the terrifying realization at a
certain point in my late thirties that that I'm going
(02:24):
to leave what was a kind of successful career behind
and go into healing work full time. And shamanisn't just
spoke to me, because it's it's a very dropped in,
dropped in spirituality. It's very you know, it's very connected
to the material world, to our material live. I also
(02:46):
am a huge fan of nature, and and I've had
really amazing experiences in nature, even even peak experiences in nature,
and so shamanism really became became my path. The earth
based traditions really became my path, rather than something formally
religious or even a religious system. It's really about tuning
(03:09):
into how we can all individually be more natural, how
we can be more like, uh, the way the same
way in which the trees and the plants and the
animals are are unapologetically themselves. I think we all have
healing to do to find that instinctual essence in us
that that will ultimately be the way in which we
(03:31):
are unapologetically ourselves. And I think that's the uh, that's
the journey of of shamanism. And I think it's it's
it's good medicine for today, because today is so about
pulling out of yourself and into someone else's rules and
someone else's paradigm and someone else's story rather than your own.
(03:52):
So it's about coming back to something of the earth
and of ourselves that's instinctual and are true.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
At did you teach yourself these shamanic principles or did
some shaman teach you?
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (04:07):
No. I worked with shamans on four different continents to
South America, Mexico, Latin America state side as well. There's
some wonderful American shamanic teachers. And then I really I
found myself. I kept coming to Hawaii and it was
just very drawn here and then found the Hawaiian shamanic
(04:29):
tradition which is called Huna, which I'm sure we'll talk
about tonight, and that was that was really eye opening
for me. The Hawaiians. I'm also in addition to being
interested in shamanism, I'm very I'm very connected psychology. I
would say that's that's what I do for a living.
I'm a spiritual psychologist, and the Hawaiian tradition is actually
(04:50):
the Hawaiian shamanic tradition is actually quite psychological. That's the
reason why I called my book about the Hawaiian Shamani tradition,
The Shaman's Mind, because it is about a tuning about
these these Hawaiian ideas that are very simple, but at
tuning to them with discipline and uh and letting your
own version of a shaman's mind uh come out of you.
(05:14):
So so I found that it helped me understand how
shamans think, and that came from Hawaii, and I ended
up so called that it was time for me to
move here. So I've I've been living on Maui for
about four years.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
How is Maui since the fires?
Speaker 3 (05:33):
It was it was really harrowing. I live about about
a thirty minute drive from Mahina.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
It was very sad. The hardest part for me as
someone who is so it was so passionate about ecology.
What was hard for me was that afterward I was
so disheartened to not hear conversations about I heard lots
of lots of conspiracy theory conversations that this was you know,
Chinese laser beams and aliens and and government conspiracies. But
(06:03):
I wasn't hearing much talk about fire and air and
human error diverting water away from Lahina Leahina used to
be was considered the venice of Hawaii. It was there
were all these natural fresh water springs and waterways, and
over one hundred years ago they diverted a lot of
(06:24):
that water away for to to to grow sugarcane. And
the town was just very dry, and it's an old town,
and so it was like this little uh you know,
old country kinder box.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
And then there were uncharacteristic winds that uh that uh
that from a from a hurricane over six hundred miles away,
that were so strong here that that with you know,
once there's a spark. It was like, I have a
firefighter acquaintance, and he told me that, imagine a fifty
(07:00):
foot horizontal flame and then winds so strong that it
takes that horizontal flame and brings it vertical plant frame
and brings it horizontal and pushes it. So it was
just like so, I mean, the just the it was
just a perfect storm, quite literally. And and and the
(07:20):
one thing that I just didn't get that didn't have
a lot of airplay except from the native Hawaiians who
kept asking, who kept asking about ecological policy. I'm in
a very delicate ecosystem. I lived thirty seconds from the
ocean and and when when as the earth moves out
(07:43):
of balance, these kind of extreme situations present themselves and uh,
and I think it's a really important conversation. So when
it happened, you know, I kind of had a moment
of you know, sort of existential dread and and then
I just thought, you know, this is what you do
for a living, Jonathan, You're here, it's you know, this
(08:05):
the ecological crisis is is touching you and and it
really uh it focused me in my work even and
uh and it was something that was that was really
motivating for me. So it's still hard. There's still there's
still a lot of people in hotels and vacation rentals
or people who've left the island, and uh they are rebuilding.
(08:26):
There is definitely a sense that fact happening. But uh
uh extreme weather is is is a thing and and
I think we we have to we have to address it.
And again that's so much about my call to uh
call to the earth based spiritual tradition, because we are
revering quite literally, they are rather than just treating her
(08:51):
as a storehouse for uh for what we need and
uh that we are we're so to be in relationship
with her, not not just she's not she's not here
just for us. We're in it. We're in it with her.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
There are.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Everything in nature is an agent, agentive being, just like
we are. And uh and we have to recognize that.
We have to recognize that, uh, that that we are
out of balance. Even even I'm doing a lot of
research for my for my next book, in my next class,
and there's so much ecological evidence about pandemic happening because
(09:34):
of not solely, but but pandemics happening because of ecological
disturbances that that you know, when you when you move
certain animals out of their out of there, you know
they're there.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Normal the environment, you know.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah. So it's it's hard,
but it's hard, but it's still it's still MAUI still paradise.
It's just she's just a little hurt, but she's gonna
make it.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
I'm glad you're okay. When I was younger and I
heard the word shaman, I would always think of a
medicine man. But it's much more than that, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Yeah, shaman is is is a healer, a healer that
holds the community and holds the community in relationship to nature.
Shaman is a healer of relationships, the relationship we have
between our mind and our body, the relationship we have
between ourselves and others, the relationships between others and others,
(10:36):
and the relationships between everyone and the planet. And so
and usually there was in indigenous cultures, someone was identified.
It's a hard path because usually identified through either illness
or some sort of trauma. That's usually how one one
(10:57):
one became a shaman. I consider myself a shamanic tactician
or I'm certainly not not a shaman. And I think
that word is uh. I can leave that alone, and
because I think it's culturally loaded, but it's it's and
it's also it's also someone who is who recognizes that
there is a spiritual component two healings that uh, you know,
(11:20):
I I often I often say that if you break
your arm, you go to the doctor and they set
your arm. If you break your arm, you go to
the shaman and you ask the question why did I
break my arm? And I think, uh, And so it's
so the shaman is is all is about physical healing,
but also the metaphysical aspects. The energetic aspect, even that
(11:41):
the hidden aspect, the unconscious aspects of of of what
needs attention in us.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Who taught the shamans John, or do they teach themselves?
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Uh? The nature? And in fact, in fact, uh, there's
research that you know, there's some called the shamanic journey.
And the shamanic journey is where where it's actually very
simple and easy to do. We actually all kind of
did it as children. But it's where you attune your
mind with let's say, an animal or or a plant
or something like that, and you and you begin a
(12:15):
kind of dream like conversation and you learn from this
being in nature. And in early early early cultures when
language started developing, one of the one of the things
that that that the medicine men and women realized was
that because humans now have language, they can live in
mentally constructed worlds that are away from the organic here
(12:40):
and now. In other words, humans could start lying and
so and telling stories and uh and pulling away from
what's actually true. There is something called a universal truth
in the here and now. And so the shamanic journey
was actually one of the reasons why we developed was
was to keep a tuning to that which would not
(13:03):
turn on itself, which is everything in nature. It's only
humans that tell ourselves stories that we're something other than.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
What we are.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
The dandelion or the lion or the shark doesn't. They
just are apologetically themselves. So so it was nature. It
was nature. Was there a tunment with nature? And I
think there there are tunive with with with the spiritual realms.
The spiritual realms are are uh they're they're you know,
as real as the rainforest from a shamanic perspective. So
(13:34):
I think it was that. And I feel very much now,
you know, after you know, having done so much study
that on some level it's it's the energies that are
that are my teachers now they it's the energies and
and just tuning into the consciousness of the planet, tuning
into the and and cultural consciousness that are are. And
(13:55):
certainly you know with them and reading and all that.
But but you know, they learned from the lab. They
learned from the lab that the nature has a lot
to teach us, and we take it for grammars.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
As we get into the various aspects of shamanism, Jonathan,
what can people generally do for themselves to make themselves
better people.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Well, a couple of things. I think that we all
have a unique gift. And this isn't hyperbole. I really,
I really not least do I believe this, but I
see it in my practice of the very full private practice.
We all have a unique gift. We all have a purpose.
(14:40):
And what I mean by purpose is how our individual
existence in some way served or touches the collective. Doesn't
mean that we're all activists, doesn't mean that we're all
even necessarily healers. But there is some special sauce in
all of us and h and so often that is
that is unique and maybe is contrary to what we've
(15:04):
been acculturated into, either what our families told us or
what the culture tells us is right or possible for us.
And so I think so I think it's about one
finding that purpose because when you do that, you're you're
in the same kind of flow with nature, because that
(15:25):
that nature is is that's what nature is doing. You
just think of you know, a plant. It has a
it has a instinctual appetite and sense of growing beyond itself. Uh,
it's connected to a community, it's uh, it wants to
(15:45):
reach its highest potential. Uh and uh, and it does
that unapologetically. It's wildly interested and that which will help
it do it and wildly disinterested and that which won't.
And I think that we're more like that. And I
think that when we identif by that purpose, that helps
us align with those energies that are in us. So
(16:07):
we might have healing or or in our personal investigative
work to do about who we actually are, not who
not who we are told to be or or or
who we are based on what how we want people
to think of us, but who we actually are. And
(16:28):
and with that then we start giving our gifts. We
start giving our gifts to the world. So you know,
I would say that I would say that that we
really do all have have a gift to gifts, and
we are all really in this together. And and might
a kind of a general cultural cultural some advice would
(16:53):
be to be curious about the person who doesn't look
like you, or doesn't doesn't live like the way you do.
Be curious about that there actually may be it's not
about you becoming something that you're not, but it's about
recognizing that the only way we're going to traverse what's
(17:17):
going on right now, this sort of massive shifting consciousness
is through empathic understanding. And I think right now we're
in a kind of battle between narcissism and sociopathy and freedom,
and I think that or authoritarianism and freedom. I think
that's that's sort of the battle right now. And with
(17:40):
freedom comes the sense of community, comes a sense of
reconnection with the earth, you know, and and the true
recognition that separation is really an illusion. It's just we
are all just part of one organism. We are all
just sells in one giant organism. And if we can
(18:01):
tend to our own individual cells and make it healthy
and well on behalf of the organism, we're doing our part.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
one am Eastern, and go to Coast tocoastam dot com
for more
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast am on
iHeartRadio and.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nori with you.
Jonathan Hammond is a teacher, energy healer, shamantic practitioner, and
spiritual counselor. A graduate of Harvard University. In the University
of Michigan, he is certified Master Teacher in Shamatic as
well as the Advanced Graduate Study Advisors for the Shamanic
Reiki Worldwide. Teaches classes in Shamanism, energy healing, spirituality, and
(00:29):
huna at the Omega Institute and around the world. And
his book is called Tonight that We're talking about the
Shaman's Mind. Jonathan, welcome to the program.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Aloha George, It's nice to be with you. Aloha from Maui.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
You too, my friend.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Were you at the University of Michigan when Bo scham
Beckler was the coach?
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I you know what, I had that name ringed about
from a long time ago. But yeah, yeah, I believe
I w was.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
He was one of those great football coaches. It's a
great university in ann Arbor's was a wonderful town in
Detroit's my hometown.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Oh, I'm from mont Clemmons. Originally, Yeah, I'm a Michigan boy.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I'm a Median boy.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
You get back there, any family.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
No, everyone moved. Everyone moved, so I haven't been back.
Once I left in h and then went to school
in Boston and then had a life in New York City.
Everyone has since moved, so I haven't been back. It's
been years now.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
My MoMA's sister are still about there. She's going to
be ninety five next month. Jonathan, Oh my god, it's amazing,
it really, it really is. Tell us about yourself. How'd
you get involved in shamanistic work.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Well, I was years ago. I was an actor in
New York. I was a Broadway actor. And I thought
that I had that I was diving into spirituality just
to kind of traverse the difficulties of show business, because
it was, you know, as as you know, I think
you have a you've been around show business as well,
(02:03):
it's just a very tough field. And so it was
just and spirituality just felt like something that I needed
to to just support. And then it just ended up
taking up bigger and bigger space in my life. And
and I had sort of the terrifying realization at a
certain point in my late thirties that that I'm going
(02:24):
to leave what was a kind of successful career behind
and go into healing work full time. And shamanisn't just
spoke to me, because it's it's a very dropped in,
dropped in spirituality. It's very you know, it's very connected
to the material world, to our material live. I also
(02:46):
am a huge fan of nature, and and I've had
really amazing experiences in nature, even even peak experiences in nature,
and so shamanism really became became my path. The earth
based traditions really became my path, rather than something formally
religious or even a religious system. It's really about tuning
(03:09):
into how we can all individually be more natural, how
we can be more like, uh, the way the same
way in which the trees and the plants and the
animals are are unapologetically themselves. I think we all have
healing to do to find that instinctual essence in us
that that will ultimately be the way in which we
(03:31):
are unapologetically ourselves. And I think that's the uh, that's
the journey of of shamanism. And I think it's it's
it's good medicine for today, because today is so about
pulling out of yourself and into someone else's rules and
someone else's paradigm and someone else's story rather than your own.
(03:52):
So it's about coming back to something of the earth
and of ourselves that's instinctual and are true.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
At did you teach yourself these shamanic principles or did
some shaman teach you?
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (04:07):
No. I worked with shamans on four different continents to
South America, Mexico, Latin America state side as well. There's
some wonderful American shamanic teachers. And then I really I
found myself. I kept coming to Hawaii and it was
just very drawn here and then found the Hawaiian shamanic
(04:29):
tradition which is called Huna, which I'm sure we'll talk
about tonight, and that was that was really eye opening
for me. The Hawaiians. I'm also in addition to being
interested in shamanism, I'm very I'm very connected psychology. I
would say that's that's what I do for a living.
I'm a spiritual psychologist, and the Hawaiian tradition is actually
(04:50):
the Hawaiian shamanic tradition is actually quite psychological. That's the
reason why I called my book about the Hawaiian Shamani tradition,
The Shaman's Mind, because it is about a tuning about
these these Hawaiian ideas that are very simple, but at
tuning to them with discipline and uh and letting your
own version of a shaman's mind uh come out of you.
(05:14):
So so I found that it helped me understand how
shamans think, and that came from Hawaii, and I ended
up so called that it was time for me to
move here. So I've I've been living on Maui for
about four years.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
How is Maui since the fires?
Speaker 3 (05:33):
It was it was really harrowing. I live about about
a thirty minute drive from Mahina.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
It was very sad. The hardest part for me as
someone who is so it was so passionate about ecology.
What was hard for me was that afterward I was
so disheartened to not hear conversations about I heard lots
of lots of conspiracy theory conversations that this was you know,
Chinese laser beams and aliens and and government conspiracies. But
(06:03):
I wasn't hearing much talk about fire and air and
human error diverting water away from Lahina Leahina used to
be was considered the venice of Hawaii. It was there
were all these natural fresh water springs and waterways, and
over one hundred years ago they diverted a lot of
(06:24):
that water away for to to to grow sugarcane. And
the town was just very dry, and it's an old town,
and so it was like this little uh you know,
old country kinder box.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
And then there were uncharacteristic winds that uh that uh
that from a from a hurricane over six hundred miles away,
that were so strong here that that with you know,
once there's a spark. It was like, I have a
firefighter acquaintance, and he told me that, imagine a fifty
(07:00):
foot horizontal flame and then winds so strong that it
takes that horizontal flame and brings it vertical plant frame
and brings it horizontal and pushes it. So it was
just like so, I mean, the just the it was
just a perfect storm, quite literally. And and and the
(07:20):
one thing that I just didn't get that didn't have
a lot of airplay except from the native Hawaiians who
kept asking, who kept asking about ecological policy. I'm in
a very delicate ecosystem. I lived thirty seconds from the
ocean and and when when as the earth moves out
(07:43):
of balance, these kind of extreme situations present themselves and uh,
and I think it's a really important conversation. So when
it happened, you know, I kind of had a moment
of you know, sort of existential dread and and then
I just thought, you know, this is what you do
for a living, Jonathan, You're here, it's you know, this
(08:05):
the ecological crisis is is touching you and and it
really uh it focused me in my work even and
uh and it was something that was that was really
motivating for me. So it's still hard. There's still there's
still a lot of people in hotels and vacation rentals
or people who've left the island, and uh they are rebuilding.
(08:26):
There is definitely a sense that fact happening. But uh
uh extreme weather is is is a thing and and
I think we we have to we have to address it.
And again that's so much about my call to uh
call to the earth based spiritual tradition, because we are
revering quite literally, they are rather than just treating her
(08:51):
as a storehouse for uh for what we need and
uh that we are we're so to be in relationship
with her, not not just she's not she's not here
just for us. We're in it. We're in it with her.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
There are.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Everything in nature is an agent, agentive being, just like
we are. And uh and we have to recognize that.
We have to recognize that, uh, that that we are
out of balance. Even even I'm doing a lot of
research for my for my next book, in my next class,
and there's so much ecological evidence about pandemic happening because
(09:34):
of not solely, but but pandemics happening because of ecological
disturbances that that you know, when you when you move
certain animals out of their out of there, you know
they're there.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Normal the environment, you know.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah. So it's it's hard,
but it's hard, but it's still it's still MAUI still paradise.
It's just she's just a little hurt, but she's gonna
make it.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
I'm glad you're okay. When I was younger and I
heard the word shaman, I would always think of a
medicine man. But it's much more than that, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Yeah, shaman is is is a healer, a healer that
holds the community and holds the community in relationship to nature.
Shaman is a healer of relationships, the relationship we have
between our mind and our body, the relationship we have
between ourselves and others, the relationships between others and others,
(10:36):
and the relationships between everyone and the planet. And so
and usually there was in indigenous cultures, someone was identified.
It's a hard path because usually identified through either illness
or some sort of trauma. That's usually how one one
(10:57):
one became a shaman. I consider myself a shamanic tactician
or I'm certainly not not a shaman. And I think
that word is uh. I can leave that alone, and
because I think it's culturally loaded, but it's it's and
it's also it's also someone who is who recognizes that
there is a spiritual component two healings that uh, you know,
(11:20):
I I often I often say that if you break
your arm, you go to the doctor and they set
your arm. If you break your arm, you go to
the shaman and you ask the question why did I
break my arm? And I think, uh, And so it's
so the shaman is is all is about physical healing,
but also the metaphysical aspects. The energetic aspect, even that
(11:41):
the hidden aspect, the unconscious aspects of of of what
needs attention in us.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Who taught the shamans John, or do they teach themselves?
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Uh? The nature? And in fact, in fact, uh, there's
research that you know, there's some called the shamanic journey.
And the shamanic journey is where where it's actually very
simple and easy to do. We actually all kind of
did it as children. But it's where you attune your
mind with let's say, an animal or or a plant
or something like that, and you and you begin a
(12:15):
kind of dream like conversation and you learn from this
being in nature. And in early early early cultures when
language started developing, one of the one of the things
that that that the medicine men and women realized was
that because humans now have language, they can live in
mentally constructed worlds that are away from the organic here
(12:40):
and now. In other words, humans could start lying and
so and telling stories and uh and pulling away from
what's actually true. There is something called a universal truth
in the here and now. And so the shamanic journey
was actually one of the reasons why we developed was
was to keep a tuning to that which would not
(13:03):
turn on itself, which is everything in nature. It's only
humans that tell ourselves stories that we're something other than.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
What we are.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
The dandelion or the lion or the shark doesn't. They
just are apologetically themselves. So so it was nature. It
was nature. Was there a tunment with nature? And I
think there there are tunive with with with the spiritual realms.
The spiritual realms are are uh they're they're you know,
as real as the rainforest from a shamanic perspective. So
(13:34):
I think it was that. And I feel very much now,
you know, after you know, having done so much study
that on some level it's it's the energies that are
that are my teachers now they it's the energies and
and just tuning into the consciousness of the planet, tuning
into the and and cultural consciousness that are are. And
(13:55):
certainly you know with them and reading and all that.
But but you know, they learned from the lab. They
learned from the lab that the nature has a lot
to teach us, and we take it for grammars.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
As we get into the various aspects of shamanism, Jonathan,
what can people generally do for themselves to make themselves
better people.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Well, a couple of things. I think that we all
have a unique gift. And this isn't hyperbole. I really,
I really not least do I believe this, but I
see it in my practice of the very full private practice.
We all have a unique gift. We all have a purpose.
(14:40):
And what I mean by purpose is how our individual
existence in some way served or touches the collective. Doesn't
mean that we're all activists, doesn't mean that we're all
even necessarily healers. But there is some special sauce in
all of us and h and so often that is
that is unique and maybe is contrary to what we've
(15:04):
been acculturated into, either what our families told us or
what the culture tells us is right or possible for us.
And so I think so I think it's about one
finding that purpose because when you do that, you're you're
in the same kind of flow with nature, because that
(15:25):
that nature is is that's what nature is doing. You
just think of you know, a plant. It has a
it has a instinctual appetite and sense of growing beyond itself. Uh,
it's connected to a community, it's uh, it wants to
(15:45):
reach its highest potential. Uh and uh, and it does
that unapologetically. It's wildly interested and that which will help
it do it and wildly disinterested and that which won't.
And I think that we're more like that. And I
think that when we identif by that purpose, that helps
us align with those energies that are in us. So
(16:07):
we might have healing or or in our personal investigative
work to do about who we actually are, not who
not who we are told to be or or or
who we are based on what how we want people
to think of us, but who we actually are. And
(16:28):
and with that then we start giving our gifts. We
start giving our gifts to the world. So you know,
I would say that I would say that that we
really do all have have a gift to gifts, and
we are all really in this together. And and might
a kind of a general cultural cultural some advice would
(16:53):
be to be curious about the person who doesn't look
like you, or doesn't doesn't live like the way you do.
Be curious about that there actually may be it's not
about you becoming something that you're not, but it's about
recognizing that the only way we're going to traverse what's
(17:17):
going on right now, this sort of massive shifting consciousness
is through empathic understanding. And I think right now we're
in a kind of battle between narcissism and sociopathy and freedom,
and I think that or authoritarianism and freedom. I think
that's that's sort of the battle right now. And with
(17:40):
freedom comes the sense of community, comes a sense of
reconnection with the earth, you know, and and the true
recognition that separation is really an illusion. It's just we
are all just part of one organism. We are all
just sells in one giant organism. And if we can
(18:01):
tend to our own individual cells and make it healthy
and well on behalf of the organism, we're doing our part.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
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