The Peaceful Warrior and the Three-legged Stool: Paul Andersen and the Huts for Vets Methodology

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello. My name is Skippy Mesereau, coach, former
elected official, and lifetimepublic servant. Welcome to
Healing Our Politics, the showthat shows you, the heart
centered public servant andpolitical leader, how to heal
our politics by starting withthe human in the mirror. It is
my job to sit down or stand upwith the best experts public

(00:36):
service experience, providingyou actionable, practical,
tactical tools that you can testout today in your life and with
your teams. I will also talk toleaders across the globe with a
self care practice, getting toknow them at a deeply human and
personal level so that you canlearn from their challenges and
journey.

(00:57):
Warning. This is a post partisanspace. Yes. I have a bias. You
have a bias.
We all have a bias. Everybodygets a bias, and I will be
stripping out all of theunconscious cues of bias from
this space. No politics,partisanship, or policy here
because well-being belongs toall of us, and we will all be

(01:20):
better served if every human inleadership, regardless of party,
ideology, race, or geography,are happier, healthier, and more
connected. This show is aboutresourcing you, the human doing
leadership, and trusting you tomake up your own damn mind about
what to do with it and what'sbest for your community. So as

(01:42):
always, with love, here we go.
Welcome to the Healing OurPolitics podcast, the show that
shows you, the heart centeredleader, how to heal our politics
by starting with that human yousee every day in the mirror. In
today's episode, I sit down withexpert in veteran rehabilitation

(02:06):
and renowned historian, PaulAnderson, and Paul is amazing.
Paul has been a writer andjournalist for over forty years,
more years than I have been onthis planet. He has penned
literally thousands of newscolumns. He has written 15 books
and over a dozen movie and IMAXfilm scripts.

(02:31):
Paul created Nature and Society,an executive seminar at the
fabled Aspen Institute, and in2013, after observations on the
institute campus, founded Hutsfor Vets. Huts for Vets is a
nonprofit dedicated to offeringhealing experiences for veterans
in the wilderness of Aspen,Colorado using the tenth

(02:53):
Mountain Division HUT system.Huts for Vets incorporates the
principles of the Aspen idea atthe center of its programming,
which focuses on a convergenceof philosophical readings,
physical activity, andconnection to peers, nature, and
spirit. By doing so, it providesa space for psychosocial,

(03:14):
emotional healing, processing oftrauma, post traumatic stress,
traumatic brain injury, andmilitary sexual trauma. In this
episode, we dive into so much.
The power of nature andphilosophy to heal, the Aspen
idea. What is it? How does itwork? And how can you use it as

(03:35):
a guide for your own life andservice? Shinroku or the art and
practice of Japanese forestbathing.
The science of nature exposure,the power of connection and
disconnection on our mentalhealth, the history of PTSD and
moral injury, the power of asolo, transcendence as

(03:57):
understood to the world's majorreligions, and how history and
environment shape ourexperience, ourselves, and so,
so much more. So I hope youenjoyed this grounded,
connected, and soulfulconversation with Paul Anderson.

(04:20):
I'm so excited to talk to youabout so many different things.
I had no idea how prolific youare writing for the paper since
'77, is that right, in CrestedButte?

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Right.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
So thousands of columns over the years.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Columns, feature articles, news coverage. I was a
one man show in Crested Butte,was the editor of the paper
there, so I did everything.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
15 books?

Speaker 2 (04:44):
15 books. Yeah. Screenplays, treatments for
feature films. In fact, I wasjust in Hollywood Two Weeks ago
to walk the red carpet atGrauman's Chinese Theatre for a
global premiere of a film Iwrote the treatment for twenty
three years ago. Wow.
Television scripts, poetry,songs, you name it, I've written

(05:06):
it.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
Wow. And you have also concurrently lived a life
in two places that I know adecent bit about Crested Butte,
later Aspen, places that justhad an explosion of community
and vitality and intellect. Andfrom my perspective, you got a
front row, highly concentratedseat into what community is and

(05:28):
isn't, how it shifts. And thenyou go on later in life to found
Huts4Vets, a, maybe you shoulddescribe what Huts4Vets does.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Huts4Vets is a nonprofit founded in Colorado in
2013. And so eleven years ago, Iread a statistic that alarmed
me. The suicide rate among USVeterans was eighteen per day,
and that seemed to be anindictment on our whole system

(05:59):
of defense, governance, thatthese men and women were being
abandoned by the system thatthey serve, by the society that
they served. These servicemembers, men and women, were
being abandoned by the verysociety that they defended. And
I took it upon myself to createa program based on the Aspen
Institute seminar experiencewhere there's a notebook of

(06:21):
readings and discussions tobring veterans into the
wilderness to the tenth MountainHut system for healing
opportunities, for trauma,traumatic brain injury.
Moral injury is probably themost predominant crisis that a
lot of veterans face. So takingveterans into nature, nature
based therapy, the place where Ilove to go and sharing my love

(06:45):
of that place with them.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
And there's like this beautiful integration that I see
amongst all of these parts ofyour life. You had undoubtedly
heard any number of troublingand horrific things in your time
studying, working at theInstitute, teaching seminars.
Why did this cause stand outamongst the others?

Speaker 2 (07:08):
When I came of age, when I graduated high school in
1969 in a suburb of Chicago, Iwas prime draft bait for the
Vietnam War. It was only astudent deferment that allowed
me not to go to Vietnam. That'swhat brought me to Colorado to
live initially in 1969. And Ifelt a need to pay back. I

(07:30):
didn't serve, but others did andfriends of mine.
Two particular friends of mine,both were infantry in Vietnam.
And so I always felt a littlebit uneasy about not having
served, and yet there's no way Iwould have served in that war
because I found it completelyunjust and indefensible. So I
did the right thing in myopinion, but how could I serve?

(07:54):
The way I could serve is bysharing my love of nature, my
love of solitude, of wildplaces. And that's what I did
with Hots four Vets is justbring people into my world who
could reorient and gain a newperspective on their lives by
associating with something muchbigger than themselves, much

(08:14):
bigger than human society even,the whole of creation, if you
will.
And really a cosmic view is whatwe ultimately provide at HUTS
for Vets.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
Certainly I hear a lot of stories now around people
who protested the war, chose notto go, whether they were
students or had some medicalreason, at least in the common
conversation, it's really thefirst war with mass refusal to
participate. Did that feel trueat the time?

Speaker 2 (08:47):
Definitely. I would call myself a hippie in those
days. I had long hair. Ibelieved in peace and love more
than I believed in war, that'sfor sure. Never been a violent
person.
I see peace in myself andradiate that wherever I can. But
those who get caught up in themilitary dynamic, those who are

(09:08):
forced for one reason or anotherto do things and see things that
violate their deepest moralprecepts, I feel sympathy for
those people. And a lot of themreally had maybe little choice
in the matter. Some were draftedand had to go, or face a jail
sentence. Some felt obligated bya social contract.

(09:29):
Others came from legacy militaryfamilies, and it was the right
thing to do for their family. Sothe choice was not necessarily
there for a lot of people whosuffered inordinately from their
contact with violence. Andthat's what military action is.
It's organized, orchestratedviolence on a grand scale that
we're still seeing today. Andunfortunately we will for some

(09:51):
time to come, I'm afraid.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
Later in life, you have sort of this recognition of
the tragedy of war on the backend and because you haven't
served, there's part of you thatfeels like now is your
opportunity to give back tothose who made a different
choice from you maybe back inthe day or between then and now.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
Right. I have a strong motivation for social
justice. I abhor unfairness, andI see it in the world almost in
every sector of life. And when Irecognized what these veterans
were enduring and coping with,and many of them failing to
because of the high suiciderate, which by the way now is

(10:31):
twenty to twenty two per day,which is still just an it's a
shameful statistic for the forour country. I feel the need to
do whatever I can to help peoplein dire straits.
Those people had just happenedto kind of jump out at me with
my approach to nature in a anemotional and intellectual, a

(10:51):
physical and spiritual context,which came over my whole
lifespan, really, developingthat that, affiliation with the
natural world. And I knew thepower of nature for myself and
and thought this is a perfectdemographic to share that with.
I approached two veterans in thevalley, both Vietnam Veterans,

(11:14):
and it was tough for me toapproach them because I hadn't
served and they had and theywould know that. But I was
honest with them and told themmy plight that I wanted to offer
a program that might help theirpeers. And they said, well,
let's do it.
How are you gonna pay for it?And I said, I'll raise the money
for it. These veterans shouldnot have to pay a cent for
healing opportunities on publiclands. So I went to a a couple

(11:37):
of friends who could make acontribution, and that's what
started the journey with hutsfor vets to the tenth mountain
hut system and to the absolutebeauty and sublime comfort of
our wilderness here.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
What is it that you think they saw in you to jump on
board in that, like you said,you know, you're not a veteran.
In fact, you avoided the war,legally and above board, but
chose that path, self describedhippie. At that time, you know,
don't have any, maybe you do,but I don't think you have any
professional experience in liketrauma work or, mental health.

(12:17):
So what do you think they saw inyou that had them so quickly
say, Yeah, we're in?

Speaker 2 (12:22):
My motivation was not self aggrandizing. It was to
serve others. And I think if youcan project that authentically,
which I did to these two men,Colonel Dick Merritt is one.
That's a good man. And DanGlidden is another one.
I told them I wanted to do thisbecause I thought it was the

(12:43):
right thing to do. It's a moraland ethical obligation for me.
They recognize that in me andthey saw that the cause was
good. It was needed and no onehad done it like we did it. So,
yeah, let's try it.
Let's experiment and see how itgoes. And after that first trip
in 2013, we recognize somethingin the participants that was

(13:07):
enduring. It was atransformation that took place
because once someone is broughtup to an experience that changes
the way they see the world,they, I don't think ever quite
go back to the way they werebefore. There's a beautiful
saying by Oliver Wendell Holmes,once a man's mind is stretched
beyond its original dimensions,it never goes back to that same

(13:29):
dimension. So stretching someonewith, first of all, a rigorous
hike in the outdoors, almost 10miles up to the hut at 2,700
vertical feet up to the MargiesHut, and that physical rigor set
the stage for then a comingintellectual and emotional and
spiritual rigor throughdiscussions with peer groups of

(13:52):
qualified listeners, so tospeak.
When I saw the results, in thegratitude that these veterans
showed to us, I knew somethingimportant was happening, but
mainly hearing their laughter atthe hut over dinner, talking,
joking, and having a sense ofjoy and pleasure. And for a lot

(14:15):
of these veterans, this was arare outbreak for them. But to
know that they could stillbecome happy, regenerated people
gave them something I think tobase the rest of their lives on.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
I found this quote when doing some background
research that I think maybedescribes what you're talking
about, that expansion. I'venever seen the Milky Way the way
I did on that mountain. I bothsurrendered myself and found a
version of myself that I hadlong forgotten about. I'd lost
my wild, quote, unquote, but thetrees and forest returned it to

(14:48):
me. The mountains have a way ofstripping from us what we no
longer need and gifting us achance to explore beyond the
ridgeline, disconnected from therest of the world, left with
only the sound of our voice forcomfort.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
And what's that trim, Skippy? Can you tell me? Not
right off.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
I found a number of quotes in going back through
both your writing and some ofthe writing of people that have
graduated the program. And I'venoticed that there is a
seemingly high number ofindividuals who had no, at least
traceable online writingpresence, who following Hunts

(15:26):
for Vets, begin writing,blogging, and sharing. I
actually really wondered aboutthat.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
That quote you just read, I mean, I couldn't say it
any better. That's a beautifulstatement of, I think, an
awakening. And what it revealsis that once you get a
philosophical concept going andthe invitation to speak and
think philosophically, veteransbecome the ultimate
philosophers. They fronted thebig questions, life, death, and

(15:57):
the meaning of existence. Andthat accommodates them with a
philosophical bearing that Ithink is very unusual in today's
culture where contemplativethought, quiet reflection is so
buffered by devices and constantinputs.
But after a three day wildernessexperience with no devices

(16:19):
because we're offline the wholetime, once the conversation gets
going, they take off. And youhear them on the trail, you hear
them at the hut around thecampfire. They are engaged
suddenly in reflective thought.And that's probably the biggest
gift we offer. The

Speaker 1 (16:40):
I don't know if you'd call it program methodology that
you guys use. There's thephysical aspect. There's the
nature aspect. There's also anintellectual aspect, and I would
hazard to say a spiritualaspect. Can you kind of share a
bit more about what someone isdoing on one of these retreats?
And if my assumption about theactivation of the Aspen idea is

(17:03):
correct, maybe describe forpeople what that is and how it
shows up in these programs.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
Hudson Vets was inspired by my work at the Aspen
Institute, where I created aseminar program called Nature in
Society. And the idea was totake thought leaders, corporate
executives, educators intonature with a context of a
notebook of readings, discussingthose readings and engaging the

(17:29):
intellect. So what is the Aspenidea? It's the cultivation of
the whole person, body, mind andspirit. And if you look at it
like the three legs of a tripod,the human being is supported
when those three legs are givenequal measure.
Without equal measure, we becomeimbalanced. So to attempt to

(17:52):
cultivate the body mind spiritexperience for veterans, first
again, by a rigorous hike in themountains that takes a level of
fitness and determination,intellectual rigor by reading
and discussing text and thinkingabout text and sharing ideas

(18:13):
with one another. And then thespiritual experience, I would
call it, of being in a naturalsetting that is sublime and
beautiful. And as that readingstated, to see the Milky Way in
a night sky at 11,300 feet is atransformative experience. It's

(18:34):
something that Thoreaurecognized as a transcendent.
So accommodating veterans withthose kinds of inputs, trying to
balance their tripod of what itmeans to be a human being.
That's the ultimate goal of theprogram. And sometimes it takes
them months or even years tounderstand that they had

(18:56):
received those inputs. Sometimesa veteran would leave the
program and I thought, you know,we did not reach that person. We
failed with that person.
Months later, sometimes yearslater, I would get a call or an
email and the veteran would say,Paul, I've been thinking about
the program a lot, and I'd liketo come back for a refresher. I

(19:17):
realized maybe I didn't quiteopen myself enough to it, but I
would like to now again. Sobringing veterans back on a
return trip to act as mentorsfor new veterans on the program,
veterans serving veterans endsup being one of the most healing
opportunities there is for thesepeople.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
The Aspen idea is something that has deep
importance to me in my life hasbeen a grounding principle for
how I've thought about my life.In fact, in my intentions every
morning, I, I read it, or apiece of it every day, and I've
never heard it described as astool. And I think that's really

(19:57):
interesting because it gives mesuch a clear visual about the
importance of balance, even ifall three things are well tended
to. And so we can imagine thatas the legs being long, if we
are over index on one, we'rejust gonna fall off the stool.
I've never thought about it thatway.
And I wonder how would youdescribe the importance of
balance?

Speaker 2 (20:18):
Balance, or I would call it equilibrium, is what
grounds us to a stability that Ithink reduces stress. When we're
in balance, we find a sort ofharmony with gravity and that
harmony is essential to, Ithink, being a calm, well

(20:38):
reasoned, thoughtful, caringindividual. It allows us to
weigh our life experiencesagainst these three aspects of
our being. And taking the timeto do that, to focus on that, to
realize the importance of it isa first step to actually
cultivate it and achieve it is alifelong ambition.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
And I think about my own journey and the way I've
arrived at the moment I'm in,which I think is probably the
first period of my life whereI've really been in balance. And
my path really was body first,dealing with my own issues with
weight and fitness and kind ofbuilding that leg. And then into

(21:25):
maybe my 20s, sort of built theintellectual leg. And then when
I was around 30, something feltvery missing and it was clear
that it was no longer external,it was internal, and that's when
the spiritual leg really beganbegan to grow. And I've, I
think, just recently come intobalance that way.
But when you're working withveterans or if you're just

(21:47):
speaking to leaders on the otherend of this podcast, do you feel
as though the path to balance,the sequence to balance is
important? Is it better to tryto work all three things
simultaneously? You know whatI'm getting at? Is there have
you seen things that are more orless effective?

Speaker 2 (22:03):
The methodology at Hutts for Vets is a notebook of
readings that I curated. Thesyllabus is a progression. It
begins with a quote by HenryDavid Thoreau. He said, I went
to the woods because I wish tolive deliberately, to front only
the essential facts of life andto see if I could not learn what

(22:26):
it has to teach and not, when Icome to die, discover that I
have not lived. That's the startof our hike.
From there, we walk into thewilderness, and our introduction
is first to the physical and ourphysical relationship to nature.
One of the mantras of HutzRavets is shinrin yoku. You got

Speaker 1 (22:49):
there first. I was so curious about this.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
A Japanese expression that translates literally to
forest bathing. This is amedical prescription in Japan.
We're probably the mostoverstressed industrial
workforce in the world and needstherapeutic experiences in
nature. And so they're assignedshinrin yoku by a physician.
They go to an old growth forestthat's designated for that, and

(23:15):
they go there to just be, not todo, to be.
We're human beings, not humandoings. So the first leg, if you
will, of huts for vets is towalk in the woods with our
sensory systems opening, andthat takes time. There's a three
day effect to wilderness that wefind. The first day, it's almost

(23:38):
hard to break through thebarriers of our industrial
information based lives andreally find our rhythm in the
natural world. The second day ismore of an adjustment to that.
By the third day, I think mostpeople can be at peace and find
the the conduits are openbetween them and the natural

(23:59):
world. So this is a progressionthat goes throughout the whole
program, but then the program,the readings delve into more
intellectually based readings tochallenge the mind and engage
the mind and to do so withintervals while we're walking
gives this beautiful mix abalance of physical,

(24:22):
intellectual, physical,intellectual and it goes on from
there. The final pieces that weread and discuss are very
spiritually based. ViktorFrankl, Man's Search for
Meaning. Some of the selectionsthat I have from there talk
about Frankl's recognition thateven in the most difficult

(24:48):
circumstances, spirit can beawakened.
Spirit can grow. He discoveredthat in Auschwitz. If he could
discover that at Auschwitz, wecan discover that with veterans
after their service in ourbeautiful public lands. So by
the time the program ends, wehave touched on all three with

(25:10):
the idea of developing all threeand melding them together for
this cohesive experience that iswhat Hots for Vets is about and
why it's still going elevenyears later.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
Spirit can be found in hard situations. I would go
farther, which is say spirit isoften the result of hard
situations. And I don't know ifyou would agree with this. I'm
I'm curious, but the way Iunderstand it, mental illness,
and of course, there are somethings that are biologically
precept, but most of them arethe result of experience. And I

(25:44):
view many forms of mentalchallenges as different
presentations of the same corecondition of disconnection and
isolation.
And I often think that veteranshave this especially high
prevalence to these conditionsbecause they were in such tough

(26:05):
situations in the field. Andbecause of that, their sense of
connection and spirit was sostrong. And then to come back
into a world that doesn'tunderstand what they've been
through and is on our devicesand so disconnected, the delta
between what they felt and whatthey now experience is so much

(26:26):
greater. And we learn incontrast. Is that what you find?

Speaker 2 (26:31):
Junger wrote a book called Tribe where he describes
military units as being anextension of family. And, I
mean, this goes all the way backto Plato. The the foundation of
any state, any society is thefamily. The military unit
becomes a family for veteranswho maybe didn't have a strong

(26:52):
familial experience in theiryouth. They find it in the
military where they're trainedto rely on one another.
The self is absorbed by thegroup. Isolation after service
is what takes lives. One percentof The US population serves in
the military. One percent. Whenthey're finished with their

(27:16):
service, they're given a pat onthe back, good luck, and sent
out into a me world instead of awe world.
And they don't know how to reactto that shift. In fact, they're
inadequate to it because theyhave so valued the connectivity
of a unit as opposed to theindividuation of society,

(27:39):
especially a capitalist society.So they come out of the service
alone, and they often don't havethe opportunity to be brought
into groups of veterans. So theymire in loneliness and a sense
of helplessness from a lack ofpurpose and a lack of meaning.
And that just leads them todespair and that ends up taking

(28:04):
a lot of their lives.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
I mean, in so many ways, if you think about the
things that are most requiredfor just the survival of society
let alone the thriving or thejoy of it but it's eating and
drinking, it's shelter and justdefense, right? Those are the
three things that you reallycan't live without as a society

(28:26):
and they're ugly businesses inmany ways. I mean, it can be
beautiful, you can have anorganic farm, whatever, but
they're hard work and in so manyways, modern industrial society
has very intentionally createdsystems so we don't have to do
or relate to those things. Wedon't have to know how the cow
was slaughtered. We don't haveto know how our country's

(28:48):
borders are being protected.
We don't have to know how ourwater is being treated. And
while that's a greatconvenience, it's actually a
huge cultural, emotional,communal deficit in so many
ways.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
Again, Plato. So philosophy, I became interested
in philosophy through the AspenInstitute. Can we

Speaker 1 (29:11):
just say what the Aspen Institute is for someone
who doesn't know?

Speaker 2 (29:13):
So the Aspen Institute is a nonprofit founded
in Aspen in 1950. And the ideais to cultivate enlightened
leadership through a study ofphilosophical ideas. So the
Great Books of WesternCivilization became the canon
for the Aspen Institute at thevery beginning that was

(29:34):
published by Britannica. It's a48 volume set that goes from
Homer to Freud. And the idea isto read philosophy and discuss
it with others.
I mean, you can struggle to readPlato fifteen times to try to
understand what he meant, or youcan have 15 different people
read Plato and share theirideas. So there's a synthesis

(29:55):
that becomes very enlivened in aseminar room where the
discussions are facilitated byinquiry, not lectures. It's
inquiry, a good moderatorelicits the salient ideas of any
given text through questioning.That means that the participants
have to dig deep into their ownthoughts to answer those

(30:16):
questions. That's how HUDs forVets is based.
The idea of society beginningwith the individual, but the
linkage to the family and thento groups of families, a
village, the individual and thefamily are the building blocks
of the whole social structurethat we live in today. Today.

(30:36):
John Donne, the British poet,wrote a poem, No Man is an
Island. And that was the ideathat he got to in that poem was
that we're all interdependent,whether we like it or not. We
can distance ourselves from eachother to protect ourselves or
for whatever reason, but we aresocial beings and that social

(30:57):
connection is essential to ourwell-being.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
If we as leaders or just humans don't want our
veterans to suffer as they are,if we are uncomfortable with the
level of suffering, I mean, justto put a finer point on it, like
you said, twenty two veteransuicides a day, There will be
multiple veteran suicides duringthe time you listen to this
interview. Just let that sinkin. I read, tell me if this is

(31:25):
true, but the the wall that yougo to in DC, the Vietnam
Memorial, that there are nowmore than three times as many
veterans who have taken theirown lives and there are names on
that wall.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
Right. The Vietnam Veterans had a much rougher
time, returning from theirservice because it was, first of
all, regarded as as criminal bya lot of people who protested
that war. And, unfortunately,the veterans carried the burden
of a lot of that and withextreme guilt. And, yeah, the
number of Vietnam Veterans tohave taken their lives since the

(31:59):
end of that war, over a 50,000.And, yeah, three times the
number of names on that memorialin the Washington Mall.
And it's stunning to considerthat the effects of war are so
dire, and yet we keep launchingmore and more. That is, to me,

(32:19):
the most absurd notion that Ilive with today is trying to
understand how that continues topass muster among the population
at large. But then a lot of thepopulation has never served or
understood veterans. One of thecatch phrases that civilians are
taught by society to tell aveteran is thank you for your

(32:41):
service. It's a very simple sortof a platitude, but a lot of
veterans bristle at that becausethey regard it as just a
dismissal of who they are.
And they will say, you don'tknow what my service was. You
don't know what I did. You don'tknow what I saw. How can you
thank me for something of whichyou have no understanding?

(33:04):
Veterans have to soften theirapproach as well as civilians
do.
They have to understand thatcivilians don't know how to
speak to veterans. So how do youaddress a veteran? I think just
by simply talking, caring on avery human level, asking them
what branch of the servicethey're in, did they deploy,

(33:26):
what's been their experience,more open ended questions than a
dismissive gratitude. Thatwould, I think, start the
conversation.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
What else could we do as leaders or citizens to really
love and include and welcome ourveterans, whether we agree with
the theater they were in andtheir mission or not. If we
don't wanna see these outcomesof despair and suicide, what can
we do actively as humans to helprepair and love?

Speaker 2 (33:58):
Number one would be to wage peace so that we don't
have any more war veterans,reduce the number of veterans
who are in theaters of war,otherwise to care about a
veteran. When I would contact aveteran for Hutts for Vets and
invite them to the program, thefirst thing they would say is

(34:19):
thank you for caring. They feeloften uncared for and
unrecognized, in fact,invisible. To make them visible
by acknowledging who they are,just acknowledging that they are
human beings on the planet is astep in that direction.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
I would imagine that there are people who would want
to do that, but may have somefear around that because they
could think, gosh, am I gonna bebasically telling this veteran
that I think there's somethingwrong with them or something
that needs to be fixed?

Speaker 2 (34:54):
Often they just need to talk. They just need to be
listened to, if not bycivilians, then by other
veterans. And that's whatHutster Vets does, is to bring
small groups of veterans, nomore than 12, together so that
they can convene. And whathappens is a story will be told
around the campfire, around thetable, in in the hut, and

(35:17):
another veteran will raise hishand and say, me too. That that
happened to me too.
And suddenly, they're not alone.They have qualified listeners to
understand their experience, andthere's a huge sense of comfort
for feeling like you havecompany, and you are not alone.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
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Speaker 2 (38:04):
The Hats Revett's methodology ended up being
exported to Ukraine, through aconnection I made with the Aspen
Institute. One of theparticipants in a seminar, this
was about six years ago, was ahigher up in the US Forest
Service and the US ForestService has an international
arm, I didn't understand this atthe time, but she represented

(38:27):
this international outreach todeveloping countries who are
trying to manage their naturalresources. The Forest Service
ends up offering them guidanceand consultation. And the
Department of State in The UShas been working with Ukraine
for a long time and decided toattach itself with the forest

(38:49):
service in an effort to workwith veterans who had been
fighting the Russians on theEast before the war broke out to
introduce nature based healing,which is the Hats Revets
methodology.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
A lot of people will hear nature exposure, reading
philosophy, and think of it assoft, squidgy, unhelpful.
Certainly had you come to me tenor twenty years ago and used the
word spirit, my eyes would havegone so far back into my head
that you get lost in my throat,and yet these things work. And

(39:25):
so I'm wondering if you canspeak to some of the results or
the science around theinterventions that you use and
why an authority as specific andon the hook for, you know,
public accreditation as thefederal government and forest
service would be interested inimplementing some of these

(39:45):
things.

Speaker 2 (39:47):
Science is showing more and more that exposure to
green plants is a calmingexperience. It reduces the the
hormone cortisol. At House forVets, we decided we had better
perform a scientific studybecause the Department of
Defense and the Veterans Affairsfolks will not recommend to a
program unless there'sscientific metrics that show

(40:09):
that the program is effective.So we launched a program about
five years ago through theUniversity of Southern Maine and
did an empirical study of ourgraduates of the program and
then a control group. And it wasvery clear, overwhelmingly, that
those who had come through theprogram had a much stronger
sense of peace and calm thanthose who did not go through the

(40:33):
program.
It's a very nuanced idea tothink that traditional medicine,
in other words, medications, maynot be as effective as something
that they could find it on theirown, like being in a natural
setting. But, to sit beneath atree and, I mean, it does sound

(40:53):
woo woo. It is finding manyadvocates now in the medical
profession who cannot deny theoutcomes that are measured
today. In hospital rooms, forexample, where patients have a
window overlooking a forestedarea or a grassland or a park or

(41:14):
even a a courtyard, they healfaster from the same wounds or
injuries that another patientwho has no outdoor windows heals
from. And these statistics areavailable and very clearly point
out the the positive effects ofnature.
There are certain wounds that nopills can reach, And that's

(41:38):
where I think nature comes in invery nuanced, esoteric ways that
we need to stretch as a societyto offer those as antidotes to
the otherwise technologicalmedical treatments that most
people are consigned to andmaybe don't benefit that much

(42:00):
from.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
Yeah. It just reminds me that trauma is not the thing
that happened. It's ourrelationship to it. And while
there certainly are cases wherewe are extremely lucky to have
pharmacological intervention andthose are the way to go or
sometimes they're the bridge tohealing without them, there's a
contemplative space that thosemedicines often not only don't

(42:24):
allow but often suppress as ameans of suppressing symptoms
and so you can moderate theeffect of the symptom while
being stuck with the root causewhere something like time and
nature exposure and esoteric,like you said, you know,
exploration of the mind andrelationship have the
possibility but not guaranteedto truly heal. I'm curious, when

(42:47):
you guys did your studies, whatdid the control group do?

Speaker 2 (42:51):
The control group was made of veterans who had similar
military experiences to theparticipants that we served.
They just simply did not go onthe program. They had applied,
but some, had a conflict orthere was a waiting list and
they were unable to attend. Sowe asked them then to be part of
the control group simply by nothaving done the program.

Speaker 1 (43:13):
They just went about their normal lives? Yep. Right.
Got it. And do you have arecollection of the significance
of the benefit or the effects?

Speaker 2 (43:23):
The benefits throughout the individual's life
experience, I suppose you'd say,a stronger sense of self and I
think a stronger sense of thevitality of life, which is, I
mean, really what the naturalworld teaches is that, we're all
part of this vital expression oflife And to honor that belonging

(43:45):
to the biosphere, to Gaia, to abigger life expression is what
it comes down to.

Speaker 1 (43:51):
Do you have a sense so you have these multiple
components and, you know, we'redoing this interview on a
microphone that works beamingthings across space to make it
happen. So we're very lucky tohave had, you know, an epic of
reductionist science, but thedownside to science is that it
can often fail to see networkedeffects, and so I wonder if you

(44:14):
have a sense of the constituentparts in your programming, the
philosophical readings, thenature exposure, the kind of
intentional cultivation ofcommunity or connection or
family as you said. In yourexperience, do they amplify to
something more than the sum oftheir parts through the
unification of those modalities?

Speaker 2 (44:34):
The ultimate benefit in my mind and informing the
program is self realization. AndI'll I'll tell you a quick
anecdote. We give our veteranson the program hour long solos.
Often, we do it up on a highridge overlooking a sea of
mountain peaks. And, thatperspective, 360 degree view of

(44:57):
a mountain setting is so grandand amazing that it can inspire.
But on one program, it wasstorming, and we were unable to
be up high because of lightning.So we we hiked down to a big
meadow. It's called SawmillPark, and it's surrounded by
thick trees. So I directed allthe veterans to go around the
meadow and find a place under abig spruce tree to be. And it

(45:18):
was just lightly drizzling, butit was cold and overcast.
So off they went and went intothe trees. And about five
minutes later, one of theveterans came out, and his name
was Dan. And Dan, a bigstrapping six three marine corps
veteran, he comes out of thewoods and moves to the middle of
the meadow and just standsthere. And I recognized that he

(45:40):
was having a problem beingalone. I almost went to him to
comfort him, but I told myself,no.
Let him work through theprocess. He ended up sitting
down in the in the meadow,pulling up his hood on his
jacket, and lasted out the restof the solo in quiet, but
visible so I could see him. Ididn't talk to him about it

(46:02):
afterwards. But the next morningwhen we were ending our trip, we
do a round table sharing of whatthe takeaway will be of the
program. And and it came to Dan,and his eyes messed it up and
his voice quivered.
And he said yesterday during thesolos, he said it was the most
frightened I've ever been in mylife. And this is a marine corps

(46:26):
veteran of combat. And tearsstarted to roll down his cheeks.
And he said yesterday at thesolos, I I I just couldn't take
it, and I came out of the woods.And there, I sat down, and I
felt better because I knew allof you men were around me to
protect me.
And everybody, you know, gavehim a nod. And he said, when I

(46:51):
was sitting there, I made twodecisions, three, actually, that
I would get married, that Iwould have a family, and that I
would live in Montana. Thosewere his three visions of his
future. Time went by. A yearlater, I got a call from Dan,
and I said, how are you, man?

(47:13):
And he said, I am great. Guesswhere I live? I said, I I where
are you? He said, I live inMontana. I'm married.
We have a daughter. I have afamily. I'm doing what I saw
that I needed to do on yourtrip, and thank you. And so I
was brought into aninternational outreach to

(47:35):
Ukrainian mental health workersand veterans, and then the war
broke out and everythingchanged. Suddenly, the whole
focus of the nation andeverybody was on defense of
Ukraine, and the healing ofveterans had to be put on the
back burner.
It will come to the fore if thiswar ever stops. There will be a

(47:56):
huge need to help not onlyUkrainian veterans of war, but
the entire civilian populationthat has been terrorized by
Russia. Healing ends up being anenormous social need for many
walks of life, but war,especially.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
You know, it's funny as you were saying that, one,
being amazed by the workcrossing continents, but also
thinking about the uncomfortablething to think about, which is
the necessary healing from thesoldiers on the aggressor side
as well, and the power of beingable to even heal and connect

(48:37):
with your enemy.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
That happened in Aspen. Aspen's history has been
a fascination for me ever sinceI got here, as a reporter in
1984. The first assignments Ireceived was to interview quote,
old timers from Aspen who hadlived in part during the mining
era or the end of the miningera, or certainly in the Quiet

(48:59):
Years era. After the silvercrash of eighteen ninety three
up through the advent of cultureand skiing in about the 1940s, I
began to ground myself in Aspenhistory, which was essential for
me to understand Aspen. Thefurther back I looked, I
recognized something.
Aspen's First pioneers came overIndependence Pass dragging

(49:22):
sledges that weighed 200 pounds.They were in harness, two men
per sled. And they would do thisat night over the spring
snowpack, and they did it atnight because at night it gets
cold and forms a crust. And thatallowed them to reduce the
friction on these 200 poundsledges and drag these things
over a pass at over 12,000 feet.And you wonder who were these

(49:44):
guys?
Aspen has three primarycemeteries, each of which has
grave markers of civil warveterans. And it led me to think
that a lot of the prospectorswho were dragging sledgers, who
were driving freight teams,horse teams over the past, who

(50:05):
really founded Aspen very likelycame out of the civil war. The
most brutal industrial warfareat that time took place and the
the emotional scarring of botharmies, north and south. In
1865, when that war ended, overa million soldiers were
discharged from the service, andthey flocked to the West to

(50:27):
reinvent themselves, to distancethemselves from the war fields,
to seek a piece of the Americandream. Ferdinand Hayden, who
came through here with the firstsurvey team of the US Geologic
Survey in eighteen seventythree, seventy four, had been a
field surgeon with the UnionArmy.
John Wesley Powell lost hisright arm at the Battle of

(50:49):
Shiloh and went on to explorethe Colorado River. Custer and
his entire command were civilwar veterans. What the civil war
did was to put a population onthe American frontier that was
honed by war to be brutal andviolent against nature, against

(51:10):
the native Americans of whichgenocide was enacted, to
decimate the buffalo almost toextinction just for sport. There
was a brutal conquest of theAmerican West.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
And just to illustrate the specific, because
the word genocide gets thrownaround a lot these days and I
would argue in a lot of placeswhere it probably doesn't
belong, it is the intentionalerasure of a particular people,
a particular gene set, and thecounty that our that we live in,
Pitkin County, Governor Pitkin,the order was given officially

(51:45):
from the governor's office,right, which is to the Indian
tribe, the Utes who are here,either leave or face
extermination. So when you usethat, you're using it in the
specific.

Speaker 2 (51:55):
Right. Frederick Pitkin eighteen eighty one
issued that decree that thesewould either be removed to
reservations or exterminated.And, of course, later that would
have been called the finalsolution, which we saw in Nazi
Germany. But that's the way thethinking went then. In part,
that was fueled by the Meekermassacre of eighteen seventy

(52:16):
nine where the Utes rose up andsaid no more to the Indian agent
Nathan Meeker who was trying toconvert them into farmers.
They were hunters and gatherers.They would not farm. That was
not their nature. Meeker wasintent on forcing them into a
role that they could simply notagree to. And the final straw

(52:39):
that broke the Ute's back wasthe plowing up of their horse
race track into furrows forplanting, and that was it.
They rose up and revolted andkilled Meeker and 12 of his
agency staff. And then Meekerbecame this martyr to the cause,
and that allowed Pitkin twoyears later to make that

(53:02):
declaration with some kind oflegitimacy. The patterns of
settlement were changed afterthe civil war, I'm convinced.
Aspen partook in that. There isa monument at the courthouse
here in Aspen that is dedicatedto service members of the civil
war, not just union, butsoutherners as well.
It's both sides of that war cametogether here.

Speaker 1 (53:26):
I get curious about the evolution of trauma, the
history of wounds of war goingback to ancient times. I'm
curious how that has evolved andhow we might see it evolve from,
you know, back in the day whenyou were literally eye to eye
with somebody to fast forward inhistory to the sniper scope, to

(53:52):
the cockpit of an airplane, andincreasingly on a joystick
through a screen like a videogame. How have you seen that
progression affect theexperience of veterans post war
and how might we expect to seethese internal injuries shift
and change as a result of that?

Speaker 2 (54:13):
It's a complex thing to look at the history of war
and the psycho emotionaleffects. If you read the Iliad,
the Battle of Troy, there is adepiction of post traumatic
stress where Ajax, a greatwarrior, takes his own life
because he was unable to endurethe moral injury that he took on

(54:38):
in those battles. And I call itpost traumatic stress. I don't
call it post traumatic stressdisorder. That's another thing
that veterans taught me.
Yeah. This is not a disorder toreact this way to violence. It
is a natural human reaction.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
So post traumatic stress is the word I use. It has
occurred, I believe, through allwars and the trickle down of war
in every culture, I think, canbe plotted by sociologists. So
in the civil war, it was calledwounded heart, where you've lost

(55:14):
the willingness to live. InWorld War I, it was battle
fatigue or shell shock. Andthen, came more nuanced,
descriptions of it.
But, what's the currentvernacular now is moral injury.
And a lot of studies have beendone on moral injury. How do you

(55:34):
heal moral injury? I think byrestoring somehow one's moral
precepts and, allowing them towalk a moral path and restore
their own sense of theirpersonal integrity. The
Department of Defense has been abit remiss in forming ideas on

(55:55):
that.
The military establishment ismuch quicker to train people to
kill than it is to heal soldierswho have done so. So there has
to be, on the outtake ofmilitary service, an equal
emphasis, at least an equalemphasis, on a return to a

(56:16):
civilian life and a return tothe way of a peaceful warrior.
And that's not an easy thing todo, but one thought of mine is
that all newly conscriptedveterans should be run through a
program like Huts for Vets tointroduce them to the healing
powers of nature before they gointo a war zone. Then they might

(56:37):
have a grasp on a place thatthey can go afterwards that can
restore them. But without evenknowing that such a place
exists, I don't think they'reequipped to cope with it after
they finish.

Speaker 1 (56:52):
I love the reframe of PTSD to just PTS because you're
right. I mean, the humanorganism is smart. And when
under life and death situation,the acuity of one's senses, your
hypervigilance is what keeps youalive. You learn and embed that

(57:13):
pattern after a significantamount of time in combat in
harm's way. When you come home,it just doesn't turn off.
It's not dissimilar from apsychological standpoint, from,
you know, any number of normalpatterns that you learned as a
child to receive approbation andlove from your parents. Maybe

(57:34):
you learned that you had to be,perfect or the good boy or girl
to get love in your family, andthat was your survival strategy
as a kid. But as an adult, whenyou're running that program,
say, in leadership, well nowI've got 50 things on my plate,
but I have to do them perfectlyor I won't receive that love

(57:55):
unconsciously. And now I'm notgetting things done and I'm not
performing and I'm not showingup in my role. I mean, it's
really a similar dynamic butjust heightened because of the
nature of the heightenedexperience.
And so to recognize that there'snot something wrong with you,
there's something right withyou, and our opportunity is to
just evolve into a new way ofbeing that reflects the new

(58:18):
physical and threat environmentthat you're now in. Yeah. So
valuable. You mentioned thatthere's no cost to this program,
and you had some initial donorsthat helped. Where does the
funding come from now?
And is it still free foreveryone always?

Speaker 2 (58:36):
Yeah. It is. Even transportation. So we fly
veterans in from all around thecountry, even Hawaii and Alaska.
The first two funders were theAspen Institute and the John
McBride Family Foundation.
They got what I was after andwere willing to invest in that

(58:57):
methodology. Then there's thetenth Mountain Division
Foundation that has given. Thereare a number of them, but, a lot
of small donors as well, whichin my opinion is really the
heart and soul of it. AspenChapel, every Valentine's Day,
they would give Valentine's toveterans and they would raise

(59:19):
money. It wasn't a lot, but itcame from a wholehearted
community endeavor.
And that's where community is soimportant to any healing
experience. If you can feel thatthere's a unified group
supporting you, you have abetter chance of accepting that

(59:40):
with the most value you can giveit.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
I would think with a scientifically proven program
and enjoyable of challengingexperience and a zero cost, is
it the case that you have a verylong waiting list?

Speaker 2 (59:57):
It's becoming so, yeah. First it was, it was
really a challenge to convinceveterans that this was something
they wanted to do. It's out ofthe box. No one's done it. No
one has done it.
I mean, there are a lot ofoutdoor veteran programs or
programs that serve veterans.Outward Bound does it. And there

(01:00:18):
are other outdoor experiences,rock climbing, equine therapy,
backpacking, things like that.Not many, if any, use any kind
of intellectual content. So tohave, again, the three legged
approach of the body, the mindand the spirit, that's what
differentiates Hutts for Vetsfrom the others.

(01:00:38):
But to try to tell a veteranthat this is gonna be a benefit,
a lot of them are askance andthey're frightened. Veterans
don't wanna commit to somethingthat they don't fully
understand. They did that onceand they don't wanna do it
again. And by that once, I mean,serving in the military. A lot
of them didn't know have anyidea what they were getting
themselves into.

(01:00:58):
When they came home, they'redifferent people.

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
I also wonder just to interject, you know, a lot of
military service and fightingtheaters happens in wilderness.
And I wonder if there's somefear around that as a potential
trigger in some way.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
Not so much in the mountains, but the deserts. So,
what we've done then is trainingprograms in the Canyonlands Of
Utah and taking veterans whohave already been through the
mountain program who want to betrip leaders and moderators and
support for future huts for vetstrips, handpicking a group of

(01:01:35):
those veterans to take them tothe desert. And this was
something we had to, we had togo through with our first group
that we did this with. What isis this gonna trigger you? Being
in a desert environment, is thisgoing to trigger you to what it
was like in Iraq?
They actually, I think, foundthe immersion in the desert to

(01:01:55):
be a really gratifying sort ofrevisiting of their experience
without trauma.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
How long did it take to go from we are actively
seeking or convincing veteransto we're filling programs to we
have a wait list?

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
Critical mass of word-of-mouth referrals. When a
veteran comes out of the programand totally enjoyed it, they're
gonna tell their fellowveterans. Another thing I should
say as the evolution of thisprogram, we started out with
only male veterans. This was myignorance. I just assumed that
it was only the male combatveterans who really needed this

(01:02:35):
exposure.

Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
Why did you think that?

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
Because I just forgot that women are also in combat
zones. And what I learned later,even in noncombat zones, women
are confronted with a lot moreegregious traumas, sexual
trauma.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
From within the service?

Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
From their own unit members, rape and sexual abuse.
A lot of women have suffered.And one of our board members,
Marine Corps veteran, Amber, shesaid, we've got to open this to
women. And she said, look at thestatistics, how many women serve
and that these women need ittoo. So we opened it to women

(01:03:14):
and now do both all women tripsand co ed trips.
And the co ed trips are reallyrevealing because a lot of the
male veterans have no idea thata woman can be as much of a
warrior as they are. And when itgets to talking about the
literature that we discuss onthese trips, there is a serious

(01:03:36):
warrior mentality that comes outon a lot of these women who
served for the same reasons themen did. And it it it brings
them together in a veryinteresting way.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
This is a very strange question in the form of
an observation, but with theprevalence of sexual assault or
rape against women in theservice, first off, I would
think that it also happens formen, but probably is just way
underreported. Is that true?

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
It is true. And some have acknowledged that to me,
some men who have been sexuallyabused.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
So here's the weird part of this observation, which
is a big driver of the mentalhealth challenges on the back
end of service is going fromthis very tight knit community
to isolation. Now if you havethe experience of being sexually
assaulted, obviously, you'regonna have trauma associated

(01:04:29):
with that which would need to beaddressed in any case, but it
would strike me that thatexperience would keep you more
separate from your group. You'dhave like less of that intense
family dynamic. And in someweird way, is that a partial
inoculation against some of thetraumas of war?

Speaker 2 (01:04:47):
It can be. I mean, to to say that veterans come out of
our program healed is I I can'tsay that fully. There are a lot
of traumas that simply do notheal, and post traumatic stress
or moral injury is probably oneof them. It's it becomes instead

(01:05:07):
tools for coping. And I thinktrying to offer those tools as
part of a dialogue is theultimate challenge of a really
good moderator on the on thesetrips to try to recognize when
that opportunity exists betweenmen and women on a co ed program
or not on a co ed program, butthat this topic comes up or any

(01:05:30):
topic.
So ask the other veterans, howdo you deal with it? How do you
cope? What are your mechanisms?And that's another roundtable
discussion that can get veryenergized and then veterans
really come alive sharing theirpursuits. And a lot of them have
found physical activities to beessential to that.

(01:05:53):
A good physical purge with asport like mountain biking or
rock climbing or surfing, takingon nature in a way, but pitting
yourself against some reallychallenging physical things is a
way to sort of purge some ofthose things. A lot of them also
self medicate with marijuana andnow psilocybin, and there's a

(01:06:17):
whole array now of, psychotropictreatments that are coming to
the fore for veterans.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
So I let us get a little sidetracked because
that's just how my brain works.But coming back to the wait
list, at this point, there's asignificant number of people
waiting. And what's the limitingfactor between where you are and
getting all the veterans whowould like to experience this?

Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
Funding remains a big challenge. My son, his name is
Tate. He's 31 years old. He hasbeen with me since the start of
the program. He is now writinggrant applications and going
after funding that would allowthe program to expand to the
point where more can be served.
In fact, this year will be, agrowth of the program for

(01:07:08):
probably the first time in sinceCOVID because COVID shut it down
completely. So expanding theprogram through more funding,
more venues, these trips couldbe held anywhere that there's
public lands that havefacilities. One of our
limitations is a base camp. Wehave a base camp here where we
bring veterans after they fly inor drive in. And it's on land

(01:07:32):
given to us by the McBridefamily.
And we have a teepee, a big 20foot teepee that is the meeting
place. We also have a food truckthat my son built on a trailer,
and we serve locally grownorganic, mostly vegetarian food.
So we support local farmers andsupport the health of the

(01:07:54):
veterans we serve. We believethat the it should start right
at the beginning with a gooddiet, with a place where there
is no cell service, and we canthen have a tranquil place to
bring these veterans. We wouldneed a bigger facility that
could house more and that couldaccommodate veterans who are so

(01:08:16):
severely wounded that they can'thike up to one of the mountain
huts.
This is possible. We've hadamputees on the program before,
but it's a challenge. So wewould need enough funding to
actually acquire a piece of landto do this in Pitkin County, in
the Roaring Fork Valley. That'sa challenge.

Speaker 1 (01:08:35):
If there were others who listened to this and felt so
inspired, Sierras, is thissomething that could be taught
to others to do in other places?

Speaker 2 (01:08:49):
Absolutely. They would be trained as moderators,
as trip leaders. They wouldbasically have to be outfitters.
They'd need vehicles to haulgear and food. They would need
places to go that are naturebased and that are removed from
distractions.
And that can be a bit of achallenge too. But in the

(01:09:10):
Mountain West, especially wherethere's so much public land,
there are plenty of places to gothat can afford that opportunity
for solitude that is so needed,so essential to have quiet
places to just let people thinkand be.

Speaker 1 (01:09:24):
Mhmm. I genuinely hope that there is someone or
someone's out there who can helpspread this because it's just
such a beautiful, beautifulthing that you've built and
serves in such a needed way. Forthose of us who aren't veterans,
but who are in positions ofleadership that come with their
own types of stress, their ownisolation, their own field of

(01:09:49):
misunderstanding. What are someof the constituent parts of your
programming that somebody couldimplement or try on their own to
bring a bit of what you offerinto their own life, a bit of
that peace and equilibrium andnature.

Speaker 2 (01:10:06):
Go out with your friends, go out with your
family, take a group out thatmaybe you normally wouldn't
socialize with, but go out withthe idea of connecting deeply
with the natural world. And youcould do that with any number of
readings that you could takeout. Just a single poem can fuel

(01:10:26):
a conversation that can last allday. But offer opportunities for
quiet and reflective time solosare a beautiful thing to do. So
offer opportunities forreflection, and I think that
most people will be grateful.
When I take my institute groupsout, I don't have all day. I

(01:10:48):
usually only have two or threehours, and I give them solos
that are twenty minutes long.It's not much time, but some
have a struggle even being quietwithout a device for twenty
minutes. The ones who can do itand who get it, when I come back

(01:11:08):
to collect them from the solos,they don't want to leave. They
want to be there longer.
So once you open that channeland see how beautiful it is to
just be quiet and peaceful. It'shabit forming.

Speaker 1 (01:11:24):
I will say I'm someone who's very fortunate to
live blocks from amazing trailsand I'm out in wilderness in
some way, almost every day butI'm guilty as anyone of having a
book in, having a podcast in,being on a run, what's my time
and I had this experience at aHoffman process which is like a

(01:11:44):
process by which you go intofamilial history. It's relevant
to the story but you're in azone like huts for vets where
there's no technology, you don'thave phones, you haven't. You've
been in deep work with otherpeople and one of the things we
did was a, I think it was twentyminutes, maybe thirty, go out
into nature, into the trees.You're in, Northern California,

(01:12:05):
kind of Bay Area, so just thesebeautiful serpentine trees on
the bluffs and no noise, right,just try to be as present and
observational as you can. I wasshocked by the level of

(01:12:25):
connection and transcendencethat I found in those twenty
minutes simply for having takenout all of the things that would
normally be distracting orsplitting energy.
It's really amazing. And I'm andagain, I'm I'm someone who does
this all the time, so I wouldimagine for someone who doesn't

(01:12:45):
have access to nature, probablyseveral fold that experience.

Speaker 2 (01:12:50):
Those transcendent experiences mark the leaders of
the big three religions. JesusChrist, forty days in the
desert, withstanding thetemptations of the devil alone.
Buddha sitting under a tree insolitude, the first shinrin yoku

(01:13:12):
practitioner. Mohammed alone ina cave, meditating and finding
the quiet. I mean, Moses did notclimb to the top of Mount Sinai
for a selfie.
Moses went to the summit formoral clarity. He came down with

(01:13:32):
a code of behavior. The prophetElijah went out to the desert to
see the face of God and a stormcame up. And Elijah thought the
voice of God was in the thunder.The face of God was in the
lightning.
The wind was the power of God.And then he realized, no. He was

(01:13:54):
wrong. God came in what hecalled the still small voice
that followed the storm. Thatstill small voice is conscience,
and it's consciousness.
And maybe that's as close to thedivine as we can get, but we
have to recognize it first andhonor it as divine.

Speaker 1 (01:14:15):
And that so tracks with my experience. So for the
subsection of the audience, andthere will be some out there who
might be allergic to the wordgod, maybe that's something to
look at as well, The innervoice, the inner knowing, that
connection to a self that isbeyond time, that need no

(01:14:36):
explanation, that you simplyknow when you know. And if
you've never felt that or havenever experienced that it's
available to you. It's notreligious but it's so clear and
it's a beautiful thing so giveit a shot. Just try it out, see
how it feels, treat it as anexperiment.

(01:14:58):
You may be amazed what, whatcomes through.

Speaker 2 (01:15:01):
And, oh, you know, with that thought, reaching
beyond the constructs of sociallife is, I think, a necessity
for us to become the individualsthat we wanna become. I
mentioned earlier that HenryDavid Thoreau is one of my
heroes. So is John Muir, so isEdward Abbey. People who stepped

(01:15:21):
out of their social constructsand began thinking on their own.
Original thought, that's what isbirthed there is original
thought.
And we are all capable of beingour own thinkers. I think so
often being programmed by socialmores, by the past, instead of

(01:15:45):
creating the future through theendless and boundless creative
energies that we have as humanbeings. That's our ultimate
responsibility. In 1949, whenAlbert Schweitzer came to Aspen
to address the GoetheBicentennial, which was the
beginning of Aspen's Renaissanceas a cultural community. Albert

(01:16:08):
Schweitzer basically channeledthe spirit of Johann Wolfgang
Goethe, a German dramatist andpoet.
And he talked about not Goethe'slife past. He talked about the
spirit of Goethe. And he saidthat our role as human beings is
to convert matter into spirit.And I've read those words and I

(01:16:32):
thought about them for years. Iwondered, what does he mean by
this?
It's not alchemy. What he'stalking about is perception. Can
we recognize spirit, theethereal other in ourselves, in
each other, in the living world,and even in the the non animate
world? Can we see spirit asessence in the world around us?

(01:16:57):
That I think is the leap thatneeds to be taken if we're
really to push into anotherevolutionary level of humanity
because that is a linkage ofspirit that can really become
this coherent expression ofexistence.

Speaker 1 (01:17:17):
This has been amazing. What I've heard here,
and I think will be supervaluable for leaders listening
to this, is a recognition offirst and foremost building
balance in one's life, theimportance of prioritizing not
just the intellect as we're alltold we need to, but the body,
our physical health, and spiritor connection to something

(01:17:40):
greater than ourselves. And thatwhen we have those things in
equal measure or near equalmeasure that the platform from
which we lead is stable. Andwhen we lead from a stable
platform, we create stablecommunities. Stable communities
have the safety and opportunityto be self evolving and to be

(01:18:03):
self supportive and to haveagency.
We really empower our citizenryand our communities and that's
the place that people buildtheir own internal sense of
purpose and worth and agency andconnection and so our choice to
do our work as leaders, toinvest in our own mental
well-being through this balanceis what sets the table for our

(01:18:26):
communities to do the same,whether they're veterans or
otherwise. And that's ourresponsibility and I just thank
you so much for putting this insuch clear terms, and taking us
on this this journey of thisamazing work that you do and I
hope that there are others outthere who would like to help
support what you're working on.I just wanna close with a little

(01:18:50):
bit about you. Before we got onand started recording, you
talked about the importance ofliving your values. From the
outside looking in, you're doingthat in spades.
And I wonder if you could justclose us out with a thought
about that.

Speaker 2 (01:19:06):
Coming to my own consciousness didn't happen for
me until I was about 18 yearsold. I had grown up in a suburb
of Chicago, beautiful treeshaded street that I lived on.
Parents were both loving people.I grew up in a loving family,
very fortunate for that. And notsuper affluent, but I mean, by

(01:19:30):
comparison to the world,affluent.
And then I came west to Coloradoto go to college in a town
called Gunnison, and the timingwas not right for me to be in
higher education. I I needed tobe out in the world, but I
didn't realize that. And inpart, I was in school because
the draft board was gonna bebreathing down my neck if I
didn't have a student deferment.I really went to school, stay

(01:19:52):
out of Vietnam. I was inclassrooms and struggling,
against what really my innerself was telling me that this
was not the right timing for meto be in an academic setting.
And I had an epiphany in aclassroom where I felt this
cacophony of sound welling upwithin me. It was like an

(01:20:13):
orchestra tuning and gettinglouder and faster and louder and
faster. It was a crescendo ofwhich I had no control. And I
was literally gripping my desk,and sweat was coming out. And I
was about to scream, and thebell rang, ending the class.
I gathered my books. I ran outinto the commons where I could

(01:20:34):
stand under a blue sky. And atthat moment, I said, that's it.
I'm not living for anyone else.I'm not living for any other
value set.
I'm living from my values. I'mnot going to function for
anybody else's pleasure. I'mgonna function for my own. And

(01:20:55):
not just pleasure, but my ownsense of being, sense of self.
And that's when I became an anindividual with choice.
Animals live by necessity.Humans have choice. From there
on, I became my own agent in howI would operate my life. And I

(01:21:17):
had a foundation in morals andethics through various
educational systems, mainly, Ithink, through my family. My
parents are both liberal people,pacifists.
My father served in World WarII, but was never really a
warrior. So I had certainsensibilities that came from my

(01:21:38):
religious upbringing too. I wasraised in a Methodist church,
but I took those those lessonsand applied them to, or tried
to, applied them to everything Idid. And that translates today
to living as much of a nonmaterial life as I can in a
material culture in fosteringpeaceful conversation, trying to

(01:22:03):
foster peaceful relations amongpeople, trying to be a a
peaceful warrior, I guess. Thatis what I live up to, and I
can't do otherwise because if Idon't, then I lose my integrity.
And without integrity, how can Ipossibly feel good about myself
or the things that I advocatefor? That's the rudder by which

(01:22:25):
I direct myself through life.I'm 73 years old and moving into
the last years of my life whereI really want it to matter. So
doing things like huts for vets,the Aspen Institute, any
interaction I have is anopportunity for furtherance of
growth. And so I take everyhuman interaction as important

(01:22:49):
to me and I don't minimize itwith triviality.
So there's a quote I have andI'll close with this. It's a
quote from Goethe. Since we areso miraculously met, let us not
lead trivial lives. The idea isto give meaning to every
interaction and positivemeaning. And I think if that

(01:23:11):
could be a prescript forhumanity, think of where we
could go.
We can do a lot better thanwe're doing now if we can
advocate that level of meaningin our lives.

Speaker 1 (01:23:26):
It's beautiful. It's beautiful. If people want to
find Huts for Vets or you orparticipate or support in any
way, how do they find you?

Speaker 2 (01:23:36):
They can go to huts4vets.org and get a real
look at the whole organization.It's a beautiful website. The
current executive director, EricV. Cinar, is an army veteran of
both Afghanistan and Iraq. He'sthe real deal, and his life was
changed by the program.
And so he's now changing otherlives, and he's a great guy. So

(01:23:58):
that would be the first outreachwould be to, to go to the
website and email Eric and talkto him.

Speaker 1 (01:24:04):
So good. When you're saying that last bit about
aligning to your values, I wasthinking about in in our
coaching practice, the way wethink about mental health is
being aligned, connected, andsafe with self, others, and
environment. And that alignment,safety, and connection to self
is the first one and many peoplemay project onto that

(01:24:29):
selfishness etcetera but it'sactually a prerequisite to being
selfless for a long time and Ithink you have a lifetime of
exemplifying that. So I'm notsupposed to say it, but thank
you for your service.

Speaker 2 (01:24:45):
And thank you for yours, Skippy. No, thank you
very much for having me on theprogram. I really appreciate it.
There's so much to talk aboutand being with someone like
minded is an absolute pleasure.

Speaker 1 (01:24:56):
Ditto. Thanks for coming. I appreciate it. Thank
you so much for joining ustoday. If you wanna put what
you've heard here today intopractice, sign up for our
newsletter, the leader'shandbook, where each month
you'll receive just one emailwith a curated selection of the

(01:25:16):
most useful tools and practicesdiscussed on this podcast today
and over the course of the lastmonth, delivered in simple how
to worksheets, videos, and audioguides.
So you and your teams can tryand test these out in your own
life and see what best servesyou. And lastly, if you wanna be
a vector for healing ourpolitics, if you wanna do your

(01:25:39):
part, take out your phone rightnow and share this podcast with
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(01:26:00):
beautiful day.
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(01:26:23):
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(01:26:45):
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(01:27:09):
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(01:27:31):
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