July 9, 2025 • 50 mins
What if spirituality wasn’t just a belief system but a project—an ongoing journey of discovery, connection, and personal growth? And what if there was a tool designed specifically for those of us who don’t fit into traditional religious spaces?
Exploring the notion that spirituality transcends mere belief systems, we delve into the concept of spirituality as an ongoing journey of personal discovery, connection, and growth. In this discourse, we consider the Empyrean Deck, a tool specifically crafted for individuals who find themselves at odds with traditional religious frameworks.
Our guest, Dr. Asher Walden, a former Zen Buddhist monk, brings a wealth of knowledge from his extensive studies in religion, psychology, and the human experience. His creation serves not merely as a set of divination cards but as a profound gateway to understanding relationships and the intricate dimensions of human nature. Join us as we engage in a conversation that intertwines spirituality beyond convention, the philosophy of neurodiversity, and the potential of the *Empyrean Deck* to catalyze personal and communal transformation.
SHOW NOTES
A profound exploration of spirituality unfolds as we engage with Dr. Asher Walden, a former Zen Buddhist monk turned philosopher and educator. We delve into the notion that spirituality transcends mere belief systems; it is an ongoing project characterized by discovery, connection, and personal growth. Dr. Walden introduces the *Empyrean Deck*, a meticulously crafted tool designed for individuals who find themselves outside the confines of traditional religious structures. This deck serves not merely as a set of divination cards but as a gateway to understanding oneself and one’s relationships within the broader tapestry of human experience. Throughout our dialogue, we navigate the intersections of spirituality and neurodiversity, challenging preconceived notions and emphasizing the importance of inclusivity in spiritual practices. The discussion hones in on how the *Empyrean Deck* facilitates personal and communal transformation, offering a fresh perspective on what it means to engage with spirituality in a modern context. We examine the philosophical underpinnings of Dr. Walden's work and how his unique life experiences inform the creation of this innovative tool, ultimately inviting listeners to reconsider how they approach their own spiritual journeys in a world that often feels disjointed and chaotic.
Takeaways:
- The concept of spirituality as an ongoing journey emphasizes personal growth and discovery.
- The Empyrean Deck serves as a unique tool for individuals seeking spiritual understanding beyond traditional frameworks.
- Dr. Asher Walden's diverse background informs the design of the Empyrean Deck, integrating various spiritual philosophies.
- Neurodiversity plays a critical role in how individuals experience spirituality and connect with communities.
- The conversation highlights the importance of building supportive relationships and communities for personal development.
- The Empyrean Deck is not merely a divination tool; it encourages deep introspection and accountability in one's spiritual journey.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hey, one more thing before yougo. What if spirituality wasn't just
a belief system, but aproject, an ongoing journey of discovery,
connection, and personalgrowth? And what if there was a tool
designed specifically forthose of us who don't fit into traditional
religious spaces? Stay tuned.We're going to have a conversation
about spirituality beyondtradition, the philosophy of neurodiversity,
(00:23):
and how the Empyrean Deckserves as a guide for personal and
communal transformation. I'myour host, Michael Herst. Welcome
to One more thing before yougo. Today we're sitting down with
(00:45):
a guest whose path has beenanything but conventional. Dr. Ashton
Walden is a former ZenBuddhist monk turned philosopher,
educator, and creator, and hasdedicated a lifetime to. To studying
religion, psychology, and thehuman experience. With a doctorate
in world religions andextensive training in spiritual direction,
(01:05):
he's worked acrossuniversities, churches, corporations,
and hospice care, all whilenavigating the unique perspective
of being neurodivergent. Theircreation. The Empyrean Deck is more
than a set of divinationcards. It's a gateway to understanding
ourselves, our relationships,and the deeper dimensions of human
(01:25):
nature. Welcome to show.
Thank you so much for having me.
What an amazing journey thatyou've been on. I appreciate what
you do for the world. Thankyou for being here.
Yeah, it's been. It's been anunfolding mystery. You know, for.
For much of my night, for muchof my life, I just didn't know. I
just really didn't know what Iwas doing. You know, I had things
(01:47):
that I was interested in andI. And things that I pursued, but
I. I just always struggledwith. With sort of the big picture,
but I was always looking for aproject. I was always trying to figure
out what that goal was. Andover my lifetime, it's gotten clarified,
clarified, clarified. And Ifeel like this product. Right. The
Empyrean Deck is so satisfyingbecause I feel like I've succeeded
(02:12):
in kind of pulling togetherall these different threads. And
so I just really hope thatother people find it useful too.
I think it's a big approach. Ilove the background that you've got
with regard to Zen, Buddhistand Buddhism, in that both philosophies.
Actually.
(02:33):
Zen is usually considered akind of subtype or a specific kind
of Buddhism. But there's someways in which Zen is sort of idiosyncratic.
It's a little bit differentfrom most of the rest of the Buddhist
tradition. And for. For acouple different reasons. One. One
is just the. The fact that itfocuses so narrowly on meditation
practice, particularly the wayZen has been taught in America to
(02:57):
Westerners has really beensort of kind of back burnering the
sutra study, the philosophy,the. The moral, ethical, social practices,
and really focusing very, verynarrowly on your direct experience,
just doing this very, verysimple practice. And that has its
(03:18):
benefits, but it also has itsdrawbacks. So ultimately, although
I felt like I got so much outof my time at the Zen center, it
wasn't sort of the be all, endall for me. I really felt like I
had to keep on exploring otherpaths, other traditions, in order
to kind of fill in the blanksand learn the other things that I
(03:39):
needed to learn.
Well, I always like to startat the beginning. Where did you grow
up?
I grew up in Massachusetts. Apretty. Pretty ordinary kind of suburban
childhood. I was good inschool, I guess. Good enough in school.
I got good grades. But Ialways felt lonely and I always felt
(04:06):
left out. And I always feltlike I did not really understand
what was going on around me.And these kinds of things I learned
later are expressions ormanifestations of autism.
How did that change your lifein those around you? Did it make
a significant impact.
(04:27):
At the time? At the time, Ididn't know that that's what was
going on for me. I just knewthat I was interested in what I was
interested in, which, whichwas really spirituality and philosophy,
and I just wasn't reallyinterested in anything else. And,
and the way that I studiedthose things at first was primarily
(04:47):
through. Through texts, rightthrough. Through reading, because
I did not have a good time. Itwas hard for me to connect with people,
let me put it that way. Ididn't really know how to make friends
or. Or what to do with friendswhen I had them, because it seemed
like a lot of the things thatpeople talked about and a lot of
(05:08):
things that people didtogether, it just wasn't all that
interesting to me. And I justdidn't really understand why people
did what they did. So I waspretty kind of isolated. And it wasn't
until I joined the Zen centerthat was. This was after college
in my 20s, that I felt like Ihad something like a community or
(05:31):
that I knew. I started tounderstand what it meant to be part
of a community and why thatwas so important. So, yeah, that
was a big kind oftransformation. But I really, you
know, I didn't actuallyrealize that I was autistic, that
that's sort of what my sort ofsituation was until just a few years
ago. And it was actually atthe same time that I was developing
(05:54):
the empyrean deck,interestingly, that this That I was
realizing and reallyintegrating what it meant for me.
Because, you know, justbecause you're autistic, that doesn't
answer all your questions.Because different people are neurodivergent
in diverse ways. Right. And soreally the project is sort of understanding
sort of generalities aboutsort of how your mind works and how
(06:16):
that pans out. And like Isaid, over the last couple of years,
as I've been integrating myparticular neurotype, I guess I've
been really understanding whyI was interested in the things I
was interested in, why Ifunction the way I function, why
my relationships andfriendships and romantic relationships
have gone the way they'vegone. So, yeah, it's been a big difference
(06:41):
for me to be doing that work.And it's an ongoing thing. I feel
like I've done so much workand so much clearer about how I work
and why I do the things that Ido. You know, it's ongoing.
Tell me more about that. Ihave relatives that are on the spectrum,
so I understand that from thatperspective, but nothing that's close
(07:04):
into my family. I think thatwe all should have a better understanding
of exactly what neurodiversity means.
Oh, sure, That's a reallytough question, and it's hard to
summarize easily. The way weusually talk about neurodiversity
is just to put side by sidetypical ways of functioning for neurotypical
(07:29):
people and typical ways offunctioning for neurodiverse people.
I guess the first thing that Iwould say is that it has to do with
how we learn about the worldand how we engage with the world.
Neuro typical people primarilyengage with the world and learn about
the world socially. There's akind of social epistemology. So the
(07:54):
way we figure out how tospeak, how to behave, how to kind
of learn the things that arereally important in terms of values
and forms of life, what goalswe should have, how we should relate
to each other. Most peopleprimarily get that information from
(08:15):
other people. They just, they.They believe what they believe everybody
else believes, right? So if Ibelieve that everybody else believes
that gay people are cool, thenI'm like, okay, fine, gay people
are cool. But if I believethat everybody else believes that
there's something weird orwrong with gay people, then I'm probably
going to believe that there'ssomething wrong with gay people.
(08:36):
And that's true even if I turnout to be gay myself, right? And
that's what's so kind ofshocking and weird about neurotypical
people, is that if there's adistinction or a. Or a conflict,
let's say, between what theyperceive everybody else believes
and their own personalexperience. Neurotypical people will
assume that there's somethingwrong with them and that they're
(08:56):
the problem. And there's thissense that it's a matter of loyalty
and a matter of humility toconform, I guess, in terms of your
beliefs and your values. Forneurodiverse people, the proportion
is different. Right. Everybodylearns through kind of social interaction,
(09:17):
social cues, and also throughtheir own personal experience. But
for neurodiverse people, thevolume, I guess, of internal experience
is much, much louder. And it'sreally hard to drown out. My experience
is my experience, and it. Andit kind of overwhelms whatever I
get from the outside worldabout how I'm supposed to behaving
(09:38):
or what I'm supposed to say.So it's a lot harder for me to pick
up on social cues. And it'snot because I'm deaf to social cues.
It's just because my internalexperience is so loud that it sort
of overwhelms everything else.And so that ties into spirituality,
ties into religion, ties intovalues, ties into ethics, ties into
(10:03):
all these different dimensionsof how we behave. Because our experience,
our sense of what the world islike and what's important is different.
Does that make sense?
It absolutely makes sense. Igrew up Catholic. I'm not a practicing
Catholic because I feel thatthey were too stringent in certain
(10:23):
rules and certain beliefs. AndI needed to step outside that box.
I evolved from that to a morespiritual perspective. So I appreciate
what you're doing because youand I both know that there's a larger
expanse of what's available tous in the universe. I think especially
in regard to religion andspiritual perspectives. I love your
background in all things Zenand Buddhism.
(10:47):
Yeah. So I grew up. We're Jew,my family's Jewish. But we weren't
practicing. We weren'tobservant Jews. We're sort of identified
as cultural Jews, I guess. Buteven from a young age, I can remember
being interested inChristianity, being interested in
Eastern spirituality, beinginterested in mythology and fantasy
(11:11):
and science fiction. So I wasalways very kind of imaginative.
And I was always reallyinterested in this idea of this kind
of imaginative other world.And I always saw religion and spirituality
as the way to explore or learnabout and maybe even eventually enter
into that other world, thatsort of sacred space, which I wasn't.
(11:35):
Which I really wasn't gettingfrom my family. I mean, maybe if.
If. If we'd been, you Know,going to temple every week, maybe
then I would have become arabbi. You know, things. Things might
have gone very differently,but as it was, I didn't grow up with
it. And so I was alwayssearching for it through reading
about, you know, readingWestern philosophers, then, you know,
(11:57):
picking up a copy of the TaoTe Ching when I was in high school,
then later on Buddhism, lateron Christianity, later on. And that
was. So that was really, youknow, sort of the defining point
of my journey, I guess, was.Was the fact that I. My origin was.
So I didn't have the storythat I needed. I didn't grow up with
(12:17):
an origin story or a sense of,kind of where I was coming from.
So I was always sort oflooking for a sense of my own spiritual
and religious identity.
How has your experience as aZen Buddhist monk and your studies
in world religion influencedthe design and purpose of this deck
we're about to talk about?
(12:38):
Yeah, sure. So, like we'vetalked about, I've spent a good chunk
of time studying a number ofdifferent religious traditions and
also some kind of more modernspiritual practices as well. I did
sort of training in Reiki andwas interested in the Enneagram and
(13:01):
a couple other modalities, Iguess. And I. And I was always sort
of putting these thingstogether. I always had this sense
that I was learning a lot,that whatever it was I was studying,
I was. I was. That there wasreal value there, that there was
really important insights thatwere being preserved in these traditions.
(13:25):
But I didn't have the feelingthat any one of these traditions,
at least as I was experiencingthem, had all the answers or had
a complete system. And I nowthink that maybe the problem was
not that they weren't completesystems, it's that they were complete
systems 100 years ago or 500years ago or 2000 years ago. And
(13:45):
that the problem is just thatour language and our experience and
our. Of expectations and ourpolitics have changed so much that
we don't. We aren't able toaccess in some way the wisdom that
these traditions preserve,that the signal is being drowned
out by the noise of theeconomics of the institution, the
(14:06):
politics of the institution,whether it be the Catholic Church
or whether it be Israel orwhether it be. You know, even. Even
Buddhist monastic and layorganizations in America have had
their own problems, and theyhave their own doctrines and they
have their own sort of rules,right? Just like the Catholic Church.
(14:27):
They have rules, they havedoctrines, they have these structures.
And the importance of thestructure is really to maintain the
institution, right. Ratherthan, you Know, with the idea being
that it preserves the wisdom,but the wisdom that's being preserved
is actually being corruptedby. By the institution itself. So
in a way, I guess really whatI wanted to do was find a way to
(14:48):
bring together everything thatwas good and valuable and important
about what these religioustraditions and spirituality, these
kind of spiritual systems weregetting at, and to organize it in
such a way that it wascomplete and accessible and as much
as possible avoided problemsof, like, an institutional setting.
(15:14):
And, and part of that, not thewhole thing, but part of that was
a matter of accessibility.Right? I'm. I'm not going to go to
a church. I'm not going tofeel welcome in most churches, you
know, most churches, you know,not. Not just because I'm autistic,
but for a number of, you know,political reasons. There's. There's
going to be reasons where I'mnot. I'm not going to fit in well
in those places. And so manypeople are, you know, are hungry
(15:39):
for community. You know,there's a lot of people who are interested
in tarot decks, astrology,spirituality, and again, there's
a lot of wisdom there. Butwhat they don't have is a community.
They don't have a group ofpeople that are keeping them on task,
right. Keeping them focused,keeping them accountable. Because
that's one thing thatreligious institutions in principle
(16:02):
do provide. They. They providesome friction so they can say, you
know, your. Your spiritualityhas gone out of whack. It's gone
off track. So I think. I thinkthat community is important. I think
a common language isimportant. I think there has to be
a way to balance yourexperience of what's important to
you, of where you. Where youmost typically encounter the sacred,
(16:28):
but at the same time balancesor contextualizes your experience
within a language that's.That's communicable, right? That
you can say, well, this iswhat I've experienced, and someone
else can say, well, this iswhat I've experienced. And then you
can. And you can talk aboutit. Because just because, you know,
just because spiritualexperience is meaningful and important
doesn't mean that you'vegotten it right. Right? Doesn't mean
(16:50):
that you've integrated.Integrated it in a way that's sort
of healthy. So this is sort ofa. This is sort of a tangent, sort
of a long way around the deck.The idea of the deck is that it's
a language. The idea of thedeck is that it's. That the cards
are placeholders for differentkinds of spiritual experiences, for
different Ways in which weencounter the sacred. And it's. And
(17:13):
it's meant to be sort ofcomplete, right? It's meant to cover
all the kind of diversity ofspiritual experience, the diversity
of the things that we thinkare important. But does it in such
a way that says what the. Theway you encounter this, if you're
encountering this, truly isvalid, right? So it's. It's. It's
meant to sort of get that. Getthat balance, get the book.
(17:37):
It works. And I think overall,at least to me, what I've just heard
is the philosophy behind theperiod. The Imperium deck is kind
of reflects the structure ofour human psyche from all these perspectives.
Yeah, that was reallyimportant to me all the way going
(17:57):
along. So along with the stuffin kind of spirituality and, you
know, traditional religions, Iwas also reading a lot of empirical
psychology, always readingstuff in, you know, economics, things
that network theory.Information theory has been really
interesting to me lately as asort of a. As a kind of applied mathematics
(18:20):
of everything. So I think thatthere's some really exciting stuff
going on there. And the ideabasically is that the diversity of
the ways in which weexperience the sacred just is the
diversity of the ways in whichwe experience the world. The world
is sort of structured in acertain way. And because the world
(18:40):
is structured in a certainway, our perceptual systems, our
cognitive systems are adaptedaround the way the world is structured.
And because our perceptual andcognitive systems are adapted around
the way the world is, the waysin which we experience the sacred
are kind of like channels orshortcuts or circuits whereby we
(19:04):
get to sort of cut through thenoise, right? Cut through the kind
of chaos of house of the sheerquantity of data that we're getting
around the world. We get tokind of focus all that data, focus
all those perceptions,memories, desires, interests around
these sort of key points thatserve as anchors. And when we find
(19:26):
those anchors, we experiencethem as sacred because those are
the. Because that's where thesignal is, right? That's where we
see where the real patternsare that reflect, again, how the
world itself is structured. Soit's not. I think a lot of people
have this kind of matrixmentality that there's sort of a
(19:46):
fundamental divide or divorcebetween how we experience the world,
which is like a simulationversus the real world. And that's.
And that's a product of, likea very particular kind of Cartesian
history in Western philosophy.Right. But it's not true. Right.
The reason we experience theworld is because there's a relationship
(20:06):
between our experience and.And the world itself. And so when
we encounter the sacred, whenwe encounter something that seems
intrinsically valuable,valuable, intrinsically true, intrinsically
good and right, that's like a.That's like a flare that the psyche
is sending up that we'regetting something right. So the idea
(20:27):
is that the more we organizeour language and our culture and
our desires and kind oforganize our lives around those key
anchors, the more we'll getright, both in terms of the objective
truths of the natural world,scientifically, mathematically, culturally,
but also in terms of our placein the world, what it means to be
(20:52):
human. And that's. And that'swhere all of this kind of comes to
a head. That's sort of theultimate result. What does it mean
to be human? How do weunderstand our place with respect
to this very complex andstrange world that we live in? And
the answer is that we can sortof find it to the extent that we're
looking for it, that we knowwhere to look for. And we have good
(21:14):
tools, right? Good tools, goodlanguage. And again, that's what
the religious traditions aresupposed to provide. Good tools,
good language, good wisdom forattuning us to what's right and important
and good. And that's. Andthat's our compass, right? That's
our sense of direction abouthow do I. How do I live? How do I.
(21:36):
You know, I've just lost myjob, I've just retired, I've just
been injured, I've just beendivorced. What do I do now? How do
I. How do I get my bearings?
And we all need thatopportunity to kind of experience
that, I think from differentperspectives. It gives us a better
understanding of how we areall connected and connected with
(21:57):
the universe. You describebeing human as a project rather than
an identity. How does the decksupport this idea? And I think it
fosters community and peersupport, especially for those who
feel disconnected from thetraditional religious spaces. So
(22:17):
am I to understand that thedeck incorporates elements of divination,
cooperation, gameplay, andpersonality exploration? I think
it's an opportunity for us tomaybe kind of get a better understanding
of ourselves on how to readthese answers correct?
I hope so. There's noquestion, I think, and this is maybe
(22:41):
a peculiar belief, but I thinkthat cultures can be more or less
good. You can have a culturewhich serves as sort of the software
or the, you know, thelanguages, which provides people
the wisdom and guidance thatthey need, or you can have a culture
(23:03):
that is so materialistic, sokind of infused with money and Corruption,
it's so kind of distorted, Iguess, that culture is no longer
doing its job, right? Theculture is no longer helping us find
a place in society, helping usfind our sense of meaning, helping
(23:27):
us find those greaterprojects, those greater aims and
goals that give our livesmeaning. Helping other people, building
something, creativity. They'revery specific things and very well
known things that actuallymake humans happy, that actually
make humans feel fulfilled.But our culture is really encouraging
(23:49):
us not, not to do any of thosethings because it, because it doesn't,
it doesn't, it doesn't makethe right people enough money somehow,
right? What our culture isencouraging us to do is something
else which makes them money.Maybe it's good for the economy,
maybe, but it's notsatisfying, right? It's not just
(24:10):
killing us. So a good, a goodculture, I think, just is a culture
in which these basic ideas,right, the, the ideas that I've sort
of encoded and summarized andcatalog in the cards with the help
of the Jungian archetypes,these are things that won't surprise
anybody. It's not going tosurprise anybody. I mean, just to
(24:33):
give a couple of examples ofthe cards, there's one that's about
intimacy. It's no surprisethat that makes people happy and
gives our lives value. There'sone that's about hospitality. There's
ones about reciprocity, abouthaving good relationships that are
sort of economic and fair.There, there are cards that relate
(24:55):
to more broadly, kind of whatwe think of as ethical things. But
there's also cards that relateto pleasure. There's cards that relate
to. There's one that's music,there's one that's just music because
music is so important, right?There's another one. And there's
also cards that relate to oursense of self, being independent,
(25:16):
being being able to drawboundaries, I guess in our relationship,
saying this is what I am, thisis where I am. And, and, and this.
And, and I will go no further,right? This, this is what I'm willing
to put up with. And this iswhere I say, no, I, I dissent, right?
So there are all theseelements that once you, once you
look at these cards, you, youwon't be surprised by any of them,
(25:36):
probably. But, but what you,what you may be surprised by is that
we spend so much time doingother things, that we spend so much
time doing things that arejust not fulfilling. And it's sort
of mysterious why we do thatwhen there are so many things that
we could do that are so cheap.Go out for a walk in Nature, right?
(25:56):
There's so many things that wecould do that are so cheap, that
we have access to, that are,that are so fulfilling. Why, why
aren't we doing those thingsinstead of all the stuff that sort
of makes us miserable?
I agree with you. I think thatthe pandemic was kind of a double
edged sword. It allowed us toreconsider what our major life situation
(26:19):
is and to kind of appreciatewhat we've got. When the COVID took
place and they shut everythingdown, we had the opportunity to redefine
what our place in society was.My wife used to drive 45 minutes
to an hour every day to work,45 minutes to an hour every day.
(26:40):
Home was stressed and soforth. And during that time period,
she got to work from home fortwo years. Now she works a hybrid
schedule. We used to go on theback patio, grab a cup of tea, sit
down, listen to the birds,watch the hummingbirds go from flower
to flower. We enjoyed nature.We got to understand the balance,
the work life balance that weneed in order to function in society
(27:03):
in a better way. And shebecame more productive at work, I
became more productive at homeand our relationship improved.
You're being lazy, you are notbeing productive, you are not earning
money, you are notcontributing to the economy. You,
you should not be doing thatstuff. Right? Well, we have these
voices, you're not goodenough. You need to be accomplished
(27:23):
or something. With thesevoices in our heads that are kind
of downloaded from, from, fromthe society, from, from our culture.
So the good news, again,hopefully, is that when people recognize,
when people feel, feel thatthe culture is sort of collapsing
around them, and I think a lotof people are cognizant of that.
I think a lot of people havethe sense that we're at a moment
in our society of decline.Right. America has been growing,
(27:47):
America has been producingwonderful science, wonderful art,
has been at the cutting edgeof human rights. And now we're in
this state of. We've hit thehigh mark, we've hit the zenith of
the American empire,economically, creatively, politically.
And now we're in decline. Andso people are sort of aware of that.
(28:08):
People are looking for a new,not necessarily new, religion, right.
They're not necessarilylooking to join a cult, although
some people are. For somepeople, that's sort of the answer.
What we're really looking foris sort of a new way to make sense
of things so that we can kindof remember where we got off track.
Right. Remember whatever itwas that we forgot.
(28:31):
I agree. Or whatever thesepeople fit into I think collectively
I would like to revisit thestatement that you made where you
describe people as being humanas a project. I'm kind of really
interested in how that playsout and how does that relate to all
of what we just talked aboutin trying to, or find ourselves.
(28:54):
Yeah, yeah. So to be a humanis to be in motion and to be in,
to be going in a direction.And there's a number of different
ways to sort of flesh thisout, right? That we, we, we humans
understand that we, we aremoving towards enlightenment or financial
(29:20):
success, moving towards socialjustice or kind of utopia moving
towards that. The way wefunction well is as sort of vector
quantities, right. We can'tjust be hanging out. We need to be
(29:40):
kind of deepening, exploring,learning, remembering, synthesizing,
putting things together. Soagain, what that looks like in people's
lives may be pretty diverse,right. Some people are doing ocean
science or marine biology.Other people are devoting their life
(30:02):
to helping people, right?Through being a doctor or a nurse
or a teacher. Caregivingrules, Parenting, right? Parenting
is, Parenting is not justkeeping your children alive. Parenting
is, is, is a ideal about whatkind of world the children are going
to live in and how, whatthey're going to do to make that
(30:23):
world possible. Everything wedo. Well, so much of what we do is
this can be described in termsof the direction that it's going
towards. And generallyspeaking, that direction is synthesis,
putting things together. Ihave, personally, I have some kind
(30:43):
of pretty tactical, worked outideas about what that's going to
look like or what that haslooked like in the human project.
And we don't necessarily haveto go that deep into that unless
you're interested. But, butbasically it's this idea that we're
going for some kind oftranscendence and when we forget
that, when we stop moving inthat direction, you know, whether,
(31:07):
you know, again, we don't haveto phrase it for ourselves in a religious
or spiritual way. Could be ina more kind of social or political
way. There's a number ofdifferent ways, or an artistic way,
being on the cutting edge ofscience or applied mathematics. If
we lose the sense of wherewe're going, if we lose that kind
(31:28):
of intuitive connection thatthere's something there that we're
reaching for or if we give upor if we just think we're not going
to reach it. I think thathappens to a lot of people. People
we just sort of give up on theidea that we'll ever reach or accomplish
the thing that we, that wewant. Then, then we Founder. Right.
And, and we kind of. We feel aloss, we feel confused, and we replace
(31:53):
that with, with somethingthat's easier to grab, easy to buy,
easy to do. Whether or notthat's really what we want, whether
or not that's really healthyfor us. So, yeah, being, being a
human is, is finding thatdirection, identifying that direction,
clarifying that direction andmoving in that direction.
I think society and culture aswe know it, just for that reason
(32:16):
alone, we as a community, wealways want to be able to support
each other and to be able tounderstand that there are people
there for us when we needthem. We don't always recognize that
or want to ask for that kindof help. I relied heavily upon community
and peer support during myrecoveries, during my accident, during
(32:38):
everything. The times I was ina wheelchair, the depression, the
anger, the resentment, thehaving to go through all eight operations,
the rehabilitation, and all ofthis. During that time period, I
think I felt that I failed mycolleagues, I failed my family, I
failed society because I putmyself in a position that I got injured,
(33:01):
and then these people that Ihad to rely on were forced to be
able to do that. So from thatperspective, I do understand that
community. I think we have tofoster that community of peer support,
and I think we need torecognize it and foster it. I should
say. Can the Emporium deckhelp with something like this? That
(33:25):
for us to be able to gaincommunity again, to commit to retain
or obtain or recognize thecommunity that we have for us to
continue to support us.
I think that the Empyrean deckcan help in two ways. One is that
(33:48):
one is that a number of thecards are, are specifically about
our relationships with otherpeople, right? Because it's, it's,
it's so basic, so intrinsic tohow we function, not just as humans,
but everything in theuniverse, right? This is sort of
a basic Buddhist idea thateverything is what it is precisely
(34:09):
in and through itsrelationship with nearby others,
right? That includes yourfamily and friends, but it also includes
all the, all of the networksthat we are engaged in. Ecological
networks, social networks,economic networks. So again, this
(34:30):
is just a matter of payingattention to what's important. So
if you. The. The idea of thecards, again, is to sort of focus
in on those places in yourlife, wherever you find them, whatever
they are, where you can makethese sorts of connections, where
you can find these sorts ofrelationships. Because when you do
(34:50):
that, you get this energy, youget the support, you get protection,
you get a good feeling, right?You get reinforcements for the ideas
and the insights and thewisdom that help you get a clear
perspective. Because it's notjust. It's not just about feeling,
(35:12):
right? It's about the truth ofthe matter. Right? The truth of the
matter is that you are not afailure. The truth of the matter
is that you did not let peopledown. Now, maybe there are other
situations or other aspects ofyour life in which the other thing
is true, right? And if that'strue, well, then you need to know
that truth as well. And again,there's actually cards in the deck
(35:35):
that. That can. That can helpyou kind of face up to that one.
One thing about the deck isthat it's not. It's not designed
to make you feel good, atleast not immediately. My. My experience
using this deck, you know, andI have experience, you know, playing
with the tarot deck and havingtarot readings done for me and. And
(35:56):
other forms of, you know,astrology and other forms. Forms
of other modalities, I guess,for. For wisdom and for insight.
And sometimes this isn't kindof universal, but sometimes people
really use these things justto get a good feeling, right? It's
sort of a kind ofcommercialized spirituality. This
(36:17):
deck doesn't do that. Myexperience with this deck is that
it's sort of bossy and thatit. It may, you know, because insofar
as it's drawing your attentionto the things that are important,
some of those things that areimportant are things that you are
trying your best not tonotice, trying your best not to pay
attention to. So whatever itis that you need to pay attention
(36:39):
to, whatever it is you need tokind of focus on in your life to
get closer to the truth of whoyou are and where you are and where
you're going and what you needto do. The cards can help with that.
And like I said, a lot ofthat, you know, 50% of that just
is in and through yourrelationships with other people,
in and through how you'veplugged into a specific community,
(37:02):
you may find that onecommunity isn't working for you.
That one community is reallysort of. Is sort of holding you back
or even doing damage. Maybewhat you need is to draw some boundaries
and leave that community andfind a new community. Community,
you know, community isn'tuniversal good. You have to be a
part of the right community.You have to be part of the right
network of people who aremutually supportive and sincere and
(37:29):
authentic.
So how does your deck compareto a tarot deck? Are they similar?
Was that your launching, kindof your idea to launch it this way?
What basically brought you tothe. Creating this design and this
type of deck.
(37:49):
Sure.
Yeah.
It was a launching point inthe sense that it's a deck of cards.
That's. That's. That's prettymuch the whole thing. Right there's.
For me, you know, I. You know,as I was. As I've been doing this
reading and doing this workand doing this writing over the years,
I always sort of wanted tocreate a great work. I always wanted
to write a book, a Magnusopus. Right. And at different points,
(38:12):
I thought, well, I. I'm justnot going to be able to do that.
I don't have the discipline.And in other points, I thought, well,
maybe I could do it. But evenif I did, who would read it? Especially
since so much of the writingthat I had been doing, especially
while I was still in schooland while I was teaching, was academic.
It was academic prose for anacademic audience. And I wasn't really
(38:33):
interested in doing all thatwork. So at some point, it hit me
like a bag of rocks. A deck. Adeck of cards. And so as soon as
I had that kind ofrealization, then I was sort of using
the Tarot deck as a. As a kindof background. But I. I think that's
pretty much where thesimilarities sort of start and end.
(38:54):
I will say that there are.There are cards in the Tarot deck
that are very, very similar tocards in the Empyrean deck. And that's
not coincidence either. Right.I mean, the. The way the human. I
mean, to the extent that theTarot deck works, and I think it
works pretty well, it'sbecause it. It gets right. The archetypes,
it gets right these sort ofbasic anchors of how. Of our experience.
(39:18):
So it's not at all surprisingthat there should be correlations.
And there's also correlationsbetween my deck and other systems
that I've studied, othersystems that I've learned about the
Enneagram, the I Ching. I wasinterested in Norse runes for a little
while. You know, I'm not surehow much of that made it into the
deck, but, you know, maybe alot. So, yeah, all those stuff. All
(39:41):
that stuff is there becauseit's. It's there because it's. It's
sort of objective features ofhow our mind works, of how we experience
the world. Yeah. So the ideaof the blog is to sort of flesh out
some of the. Some of the morephilosophical stuff, you know, some
(40:01):
kind of more. But also kind ofpractical application. The cards
just by themselves don't say alot. Right. I mean, you could have
one of the cards just, is justjourney. And it's a picture of a
path, and it just saysjourney. Doesn't say you're on a
journey. Doesn't say youshould go on a journey. It's just
journey. Right. Because theidea of a journey is really important
(40:24):
to us. Like, it's a basic kindof aspect of how we function.
Your blog, Spirituality on theSpectrum, explores Buddhist, Taoism
and Jungian perspectives. Howdo these philosophies intersect with
the themes of the deck? Andhow can that relate to both kids
as well as adults?
(40:45):
So the idea of the blog isjust to sort of flesh out kind of
the background philosophy,background ideas. I do take time
to make some connectionsbetween stuff that's in the deck
and some of the sources, Iguess between that and Buddhism,
Taoism, the Jungianarchetypes. But more, at least that
(41:07):
was the idea. A lot of whatI've ended up using the blog for
is, is really more reflectionson neurodiversity and the relationship
between neurodiverse peopleand neurotypical people and really
just taking some time toreflect on my own experience.
How has your personal journeyof discovering your neurodivergence
(41:30):
shaped your understanding ofspirituality in the human experience?
Yeah, yeah. As I said, the.The. The time period, I guess, was
the same. Right? It's reallybeen over the last three years that
I. That I started working onthe deck and putting it together.
And it's really been aboutthree years, give or take, that I've
(41:52):
sort of been starting torealize and accept and integrate,
I guess, my ownneurodiversity, my own autism and
learning about what thatmeans. And, and so that's, again,
it's one of those things thatdoesn't necessarily make it into
the deck in, in any explicitway, but there's. There's ways in
(42:16):
which I would say the deck ishelpful because it's really. It's
about being human. Those,again, those. Those of us who are
on the spectrum really have ahard time understanding how humans
work because we feel left out.We feel like. I think part of the
(42:36):
neurodiverse experience for meis like, there's like a song playing
over the loudspeakers. It'slike the Smurf song or the song in
that Lego Movie. And everybodyelse is. Is moving in time to that
song. Everybody else is justmarching along, doing their thing,
because they are. And they'reall like, in time. They're all coordinated
because. Because they'recoordinated by the music, because
they're all just Listening tomusic, and they're all. And they
(42:57):
all know the steps, right? AndI feel like I'm sort of deaf to that
song. I'm sort of deaf to thatmusic. I can see people marching
in time, and I can watch whatthey're doing and kind of march in
the same ways, but. But I'mnot actually hearing the music. So
I look like a really clumsyperson who can't dance, right? And
that's tough. So what autisticpeople do when they're high masking
(43:21):
like me, is they. Is theyfigure out the patterns. They figure
out by observation and trialand error what other people doing
what other people are doing.And they sort of learn to recognize
the cues as best they can. Andsometimes we do that well, and sometimes
we do it not so well, andsometimes we give up and just stop
(43:42):
trying, right? Which isactually. Actually the healthier
thing to do.
It turns out the current chaosin the world today must have some
kind of an impact on you aswell as it does with the rest of
society. I think we all aregetting caught up and lost in the
noise and the chaos and thenoise, and we want to shut it out.
(44:05):
We want to be able to kind offeel part of something good. But
sometimes the chaos gets inthe way. What advice would you give
to someone who feelsdisconnected from the traditional
spiritual practices, butseeking a deeper sense of meaning
and connection or something different?
Well, the short answer isdon't give up. The short answer is
(44:28):
that you can find community ifyou look for it. And if you give
yourself the time to find it,you may kind of plug into one community
and find that it's not a goodfit. Okay, try again. Don't give
up. And more generally, withour sense of meaning, with our sense
(44:48):
of direction, with our senseof place in the universe, don't give
up. Right. I really believethat we as humans are hardwired.
This is why the archetypesshow up again and again and again
and again and again. Not justin mythology, in contemporary religion,
contemporary culture, Marvelmovies, romance novels. You know,
(45:11):
the thing. The same patternsshow up because. Because we are attuned
to them quite naturally. Andso I. I think that we are hardwired
to be able to find. Find theanswers that we're looking for. If
only we can phrase thequestion in a clear way. If we can
do the kind of internal work,the internal reflection, to say,
(45:34):
well, what is it that I'mlooking for? What is it that might
actually make me happy? Why isit that I'm. That this is Not a good
fit for me. I think thatasking the questions is, that is
sort of the first and the mostimportant step by far in reattuning
yourself, readjustingyourself, kind of resetting the life
(45:55):
levels, resetting the knobsand the dials on the machinery to
kind of get a result withinyour life that answers those questions.
That, that gives you thatsense of community, gives you a sense
of direction and purpose,gives you the sense of being worthwhile,
of understanding that, youknow, you're not a screw up, you're
(46:16):
just different. Right. Youhave a place where you fit in. You
have a place where you canconvince, contribute your unique
gifts to the world. And whenyou find that place, the world will
benefit and you will benefitin such rich ways. And you can spend
all of your life kind ofgetting closer and closer and closer
(46:39):
to that fire, closer andcloser to that perfect spot. And
every time you make a step inthat direction, you experience it,
you feel it, you say, yes,this is better. This is better than
where I was before. This is abetter thing than what I was doing
before. So do that, Listen tothat, ask those questions.
(46:59):
That's brilliant. Verybrilliant. As Bruce Lee says, every
failure is a stepping stone tosuccess. So don't be afraid to fail.
You learn how to make itbetter or you learn how to change
it.
Or how to avoid that, how notto go there. Don't do that, because
that didn't work.
(47:21):
This has been great. How caneverybody find you in the Empyrean
deck?
Sure. So the, the, the quickand easy answer is just as it's listed
on the screen there. It'swww.empyreanproject.com. the idea
of the project is to developthe deck and share the deck and get
(47:42):
it out there, but also to usethe deck as sort of a stepping stone
for the teaching that I'mdoing. Right. Like on, on shows like
yours and elsewhere, toencourage people to explore spirituality
and to give people a tool ormaybe even a couple of tools to do
that effectively and clearlyand successfully. So empyreanproject.com
(48:07):
will have within the month alink to a publisher. You can order
the deck and the other and thebook and the sort of pieces that
go with it. You can order itdirectly from them through that website.
The website also has the blog,if people find that interesting.
And it has sort of a generalintroduction to my philosophy, my
(48:29):
spirituality. Yeah. And italso has ways to get in touch with
me. I'm, I'm, I'm open forpeople just to, to shoot me in an
email if they have questionsabout the deck or questions about
life. And I don't, I don'tcharge for that right now. It's,
it's just, it's just me andI'm just, you know, available.
And that's amazing. I'll makesure that everybody has everything
(48:52):
they need to get in touch withyou by clicking a button. It's an
easy way to find you. So Iappreciate the journey that you've
been taking. I appreciate yousharing your wisdom, your experience,
and everything about you inregard to helping others move forward
in a very positive way. Sothank you very much. It's been a
pleasure to meet you. Pleasureto have a conversation with you.
(49:15):
Thank you so much for havingme. It's been a pleasure.
This is One More Thing beforeyou go. So do you have any words
of wisdom that you haven'talready said?
Don't give up.
So again, thank you very muchfor coming on the show. Thank you
very much for sharing yourwisdom and experience and thank you
for everyone else out there. Iwant to make sure that the connection
(49:39):
link will be there foreveryone else for them to reach you
out to you. Thanks forlistening to this episode of One
More Thing before you go.That's a wrap for today's episode.
I hope you found inspiration,motivation, a few new perspectives
to take with you. If youenjoyed this conversation, be sure
to, like, subscribe and followus. It really helps us continue bringing
you incredible stories andinsights. This show thrives because
(50:02):
of this amazing community andI appreciate each and every one of
you for being part of it. Sountil next time, have a great day
and even better week andremember to keep exploring, learning
and growing. Thanks for tuningin to One More Thing before you Go.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of One More Thing before
you Go. Check out our websiteat beforeyougopodcast. Com. You can
(50:25):
find us as well as subscribeto the program and rate us on your
favorite podcast listening platform.
Hey, one more thing before yougo. What if spirituality wasn't just
a belief system, but aproject, an ongoing journey of discovery,
connection, and personalgrowth? And what if there was a tool
designed specifically forthose of us who don't fit into traditional
religious spaces? Stay tuned.We're going to have a conversation
about spirituality beyondtradition, the philosophy of neurodiversity,
(00:23):
and how the Empyrean Deckserves as a guide for personal and
communal transformation. I'myour host, Michael Herst. Welcome
to One more thing before yougo. Today we're sitting down with
(00:45):
a guest whose path has beenanything but conventional. Dr. Ashton
Walden is a former ZenBuddhist monk turned philosopher,
educator, and creator, and hasdedicated a lifetime to. To studying
religion, psychology, and thehuman experience. With a doctorate
in world religions andextensive training in spiritual direction,
(01:05):
he's worked acrossuniversities, churches, corporations,
and hospice care, all whilenavigating the unique perspective
of being neurodivergent. Theircreation. The Empyrean Deck is more
than a set of divinationcards. It's a gateway to understanding
ourselves, our relationships,and the deeper dimensions of human
(01:25):
nature. Welcome to show.
Thank you so much for having me.
What an amazing journey thatyou've been on. I appreciate what
you do for the world. Thankyou for being here.
Yeah, it's been. It's been anunfolding mystery. You know, for.
For much of my night, for muchof my life, I just didn't know. I
just really didn't know what Iwas doing. You know, I had things
(01:47):
that I was interested in andI. And things that I pursued, but
I. I just always struggledwith. With sort of the big picture,
but I was always looking for aproject. I was always trying to figure
out what that goal was. Andover my lifetime, it's gotten clarified,
clarified, clarified. And Ifeel like this product. Right. The
Empyrean Deck is so satisfyingbecause I feel like I've succeeded
(02:12):
in kind of pulling togetherall these different threads. And
so I just really hope thatother people find it useful too.
I think it's a big approach. Ilove the background that you've got
with regard to Zen, Buddhistand Buddhism, in that both philosophies.
Actually.
(02:33):
Zen is usually considered akind of subtype or a specific kind
of Buddhism. But there's someways in which Zen is sort of idiosyncratic.
It's a little bit differentfrom most of the rest of the Buddhist
tradition. And for. For acouple different reasons. One. One
is just the. The fact that itfocuses so narrowly on meditation
practice, particularly the wayZen has been taught in America to
(02:57):
Westerners has really beensort of kind of back burnering the
sutra study, the philosophy,the. The moral, ethical, social practices,
and really focusing very, verynarrowly on your direct experience,
just doing this very, verysimple practice. And that has its
(03:18):
benefits, but it also has itsdrawbacks. So ultimately, although
I felt like I got so much outof my time at the Zen center, it
wasn't sort of the be all, endall for me. I really felt like I
had to keep on exploring otherpaths, other traditions, in order
to kind of fill in the blanksand learn the other things that I
(03:39):
needed to learn.
Well, I always like to startat the beginning. Where did you grow
up?
I grew up in Massachusetts. Apretty. Pretty ordinary kind of suburban
childhood. I was good inschool, I guess. Good enough in school.
I got good grades. But Ialways felt lonely and I always felt
(04:06):
left out. And I always feltlike I did not really understand
what was going on around me.And these kinds of things I learned
later are expressions ormanifestations of autism.
How did that change your lifein those around you? Did it make
a significant impact.
(04:27):
At the time? At the time, Ididn't know that that's what was
going on for me. I just knewthat I was interested in what I was
interested in, which, whichwas really spirituality and philosophy,
and I just wasn't reallyinterested in anything else. And,
and the way that I studiedthose things at first was primarily
(04:47):
through. Through texts, rightthrough. Through reading, because
I did not have a good time. Itwas hard for me to connect with people,
let me put it that way. Ididn't really know how to make friends
or. Or what to do with friendswhen I had them, because it seemed
like a lot of the things thatpeople talked about and a lot of
(05:08):
things that people didtogether, it just wasn't all that
interesting to me. And I justdidn't really understand why people
did what they did. So I waspretty kind of isolated. And it wasn't
until I joined the Zen centerthat was. This was after college
in my 20s, that I felt like Ihad something like a community or
(05:31):
that I knew. I started tounderstand what it meant to be part
of a community and why thatwas so important. So, yeah, that
was a big kind oftransformation. But I really, you
know, I didn't actuallyrealize that I was autistic, that
that's sort of what my sort ofsituation was until just a few years
ago. And it was actually atthe same time that I was developing
(05:54):
the empyrean deck,interestingly, that this That I was
realizing and reallyintegrating what it meant for me.
Because, you know, justbecause you're autistic, that doesn't
answer all your questions.Because different people are neurodivergent
in diverse ways. Right. And soreally the project is sort of understanding
sort of generalities aboutsort of how your mind works and how
(06:16):
that pans out. And like Isaid, over the last couple of years,
as I've been integrating myparticular neurotype, I guess I've
been really understanding whyI was interested in the things I
was interested in, why Ifunction the way I function, why
my relationships andfriendships and romantic relationships
have gone the way they'vegone. So, yeah, it's been a big difference
(06:41):
for me to be doing that work.And it's an ongoing thing. I feel
like I've done so much workand so much clearer about how I work
and why I do the things that Ido. You know, it's ongoing.
Tell me more about that. Ihave relatives that are on the spectrum,
so I understand that from thatperspective, but nothing that's close
(07:04):
into my family. I think thatwe all should have a better understanding
of exactly what neurodiversity means.
Oh, sure, That's a reallytough question, and it's hard to
summarize easily. The way weusually talk about neurodiversity
is just to put side by sidetypical ways of functioning for neurotypical
(07:29):
people and typical ways offunctioning for neurodiverse people.
I guess the first thing that Iwould say is that it has to do with
how we learn about the worldand how we engage with the world.
Neuro typical people primarilyengage with the world and learn about
the world socially. There's akind of social epistemology. So the
(07:54):
way we figure out how tospeak, how to behave, how to kind
of learn the things that arereally important in terms of values
and forms of life, what goalswe should have, how we should relate
to each other. Most peopleprimarily get that information from
(08:15):
other people. They just, they.They believe what they believe everybody
else believes, right? So if Ibelieve that everybody else believes
that gay people are cool, thenI'm like, okay, fine, gay people
are cool. But if I believethat everybody else believes that
there's something weird orwrong with gay people, then I'm probably
going to believe that there'ssomething wrong with gay people.
(08:36):
And that's true even if I turnout to be gay myself, right? And
that's what's so kind ofshocking and weird about neurotypical
people, is that if there's adistinction or a. Or a conflict,
let's say, between what theyperceive everybody else believes
and their own personalexperience. Neurotypical people will
assume that there's somethingwrong with them and that they're
(08:56):
the problem. And there's thissense that it's a matter of loyalty
and a matter of humility toconform, I guess, in terms of your
beliefs and your values. Forneurodiverse people, the proportion
is different. Right. Everybodylearns through kind of social interaction,
(09:17):
social cues, and also throughtheir own personal experience. But
for neurodiverse people, thevolume, I guess, of internal experience
is much, much louder. And it'sreally hard to drown out. My experience
is my experience, and it. Andit kind of overwhelms whatever I
get from the outside worldabout how I'm supposed to behaving
(09:38):
or what I'm supposed to say.So it's a lot harder for me to pick
up on social cues. And it'snot because I'm deaf to social cues.
It's just because my internalexperience is so loud that it sort
of overwhelms everything else.And so that ties into spirituality,
ties into religion, ties intovalues, ties into ethics, ties into
(10:03):
all these different dimensionsof how we behave. Because our experience,
our sense of what the world islike and what's important is different.
Does that make sense?
It absolutely makes sense. Igrew up Catholic. I'm not a practicing
Catholic because I feel thatthey were too stringent in certain
(10:23):
rules and certain beliefs. AndI needed to step outside that box.
I evolved from that to a morespiritual perspective. So I appreciate
what you're doing because youand I both know that there's a larger
expanse of what's available tous in the universe. I think especially
in regard to religion andspiritual perspectives. I love your
background in all things Zenand Buddhism.
(10:47):
Yeah. So I grew up. We're Jew,my family's Jewish. But we weren't
practicing. We weren'tobservant Jews. We're sort of identified
as cultural Jews, I guess. Buteven from a young age, I can remember
being interested inChristianity, being interested in
Eastern spirituality, beinginterested in mythology and fantasy
(11:11):
and science fiction. So I wasalways very kind of imaginative.
And I was always reallyinterested in this idea of this kind
of imaginative other world.And I always saw religion and spirituality
as the way to explore or learnabout and maybe even eventually enter
into that other world, thatsort of sacred space, which I wasn't.
(11:35):
Which I really wasn't gettingfrom my family. I mean, maybe if.
If. If we'd been, you Know,going to temple every week, maybe
then I would have become arabbi. You know, things. Things might
have gone very differently,but as it was, I didn't grow up with
it. And so I was alwayssearching for it through reading
about, you know, readingWestern philosophers, then, you know,
(11:57):
picking up a copy of the TaoTe Ching when I was in high school,
then later on Buddhism, lateron Christianity, later on. And that
was. So that was really, youknow, sort of the defining point
of my journey, I guess, was.Was the fact that I. My origin was.
So I didn't have the storythat I needed. I didn't grow up with
(12:17):
an origin story or a sense of,kind of where I was coming from.
So I was always sort oflooking for a sense of my own spiritual
and religious identity.
How has your experience as aZen Buddhist monk and your studies
in world religion influencedthe design and purpose of this deck
we're about to talk about?
(12:38):
Yeah, sure. So, like we'vetalked about, I've spent a good chunk
of time studying a number ofdifferent religious traditions and
also some kind of more modernspiritual practices as well. I did
sort of training in Reiki andwas interested in the Enneagram and
(13:01):
a couple other modalities, Iguess. And I. And I was always sort
of putting these thingstogether. I always had this sense
that I was learning a lot,that whatever it was I was studying,
I was. I was. That there wasreal value there, that there was
really important insights thatwere being preserved in these traditions.
(13:25):
But I didn't have the feelingthat any one of these traditions,
at least as I was experiencingthem, had all the answers or had
a complete system. And I nowthink that maybe the problem was
not that they weren't completesystems, it's that they were complete
systems 100 years ago or 500years ago or 2000 years ago. And
(13:45):
that the problem is just thatour language and our experience and
our. Of expectations and ourpolitics have changed so much that
we don't. We aren't able toaccess in some way the wisdom that
these traditions preserve,that the signal is being drowned
out by the noise of theeconomics of the institution, the
(14:06):
politics of the institution,whether it be the Catholic Church
or whether it be Israel orwhether it be. You know, even. Even
Buddhist monastic and layorganizations in America have had
their own problems, and theyhave their own doctrines and they
have their own sort of rules,right? Just like the Catholic Church.
(14:27):
They have rules, they havedoctrines, they have these structures.
And the importance of thestructure is really to maintain the
institution, right. Ratherthan, you Know, with the idea being
that it preserves the wisdom,but the wisdom that's being preserved
is actually being corruptedby. By the institution itself. So
in a way, I guess really whatI wanted to do was find a way to
(14:48):
bring together everything thatwas good and valuable and important
about what these religioustraditions and spirituality, these
kind of spiritual systems weregetting at, and to organize it in
such a way that it wascomplete and accessible and as much
as possible avoided problemsof, like, an institutional setting.
(15:14):
And, and part of that, not thewhole thing, but part of that was
a matter of accessibility.Right? I'm. I'm not going to go to
a church. I'm not going tofeel welcome in most churches, you
know, most churches, you know,not. Not just because I'm autistic,
but for a number of, you know,political reasons. There's. There's
going to be reasons where I'mnot. I'm not going to fit in well
in those places. And so manypeople are, you know, are hungry
(15:39):
for community. You know,there's a lot of people who are interested
in tarot decks, astrology,spirituality, and again, there's
a lot of wisdom there. Butwhat they don't have is a community.
They don't have a group ofpeople that are keeping them on task,
right. Keeping them focused,keeping them accountable. Because
that's one thing thatreligious institutions in principle
(16:02):
do provide. They. They providesome friction so they can say, you
know, your. Your spiritualityhas gone out of whack. It's gone
off track. So I think. I thinkthat community is important. I think
a common language isimportant. I think there has to be
a way to balance yourexperience of what's important to
you, of where you. Where youmost typically encounter the sacred,
(16:28):
but at the same time balancesor contextualizes your experience
within a language that's.That's communicable, right? That
you can say, well, this iswhat I've experienced, and someone
else can say, well, this iswhat I've experienced. And then you
can. And you can talk aboutit. Because just because, you know,
just because spiritualexperience is meaningful and important
doesn't mean that you'vegotten it right. Right? Doesn't mean
(16:50):
that you've integrated.Integrated it in a way that's sort
of healthy. So this is sort ofa. This is sort of a tangent, sort
of a long way around the deck.The idea of the deck is that it's
a language. The idea of thedeck is that it's. That the cards
are placeholders for differentkinds of spiritual experiences, for
different Ways in which weencounter the sacred. And it's. And
(17:13):
it's meant to be sort ofcomplete, right? It's meant to cover
all the kind of diversity ofspiritual experience, the diversity
of the things that we thinkare important. But does it in such
a way that says what the. Theway you encounter this, if you're
encountering this, truly isvalid, right? So it's. It's. It's
meant to sort of get that. Getthat balance, get the book.
(17:37):
It works. And I think overall,at least to me, what I've just heard
is the philosophy behind theperiod. The Imperium deck is kind
of reflects the structure ofour human psyche from all these perspectives.
Yeah, that was reallyimportant to me all the way going
(17:57):
along. So along with the stuffin kind of spirituality and, you
know, traditional religions, Iwas also reading a lot of empirical
psychology, always readingstuff in, you know, economics, things
that network theory.Information theory has been really
interesting to me lately as asort of a. As a kind of applied mathematics
(18:20):
of everything. So I think thatthere's some really exciting stuff
going on there. And the ideabasically is that the diversity of
the ways in which weexperience the sacred just is the
diversity of the ways in whichwe experience the world. The world
is sort of structured in acertain way. And because the world
(18:40):
is structured in a certainway, our perceptual systems, our
cognitive systems are adaptedaround the way the world is structured.
And because our perceptual andcognitive systems are adapted around
the way the world is, the waysin which we experience the sacred
are kind of like channels orshortcuts or circuits whereby we
(19:04):
get to sort of cut through thenoise, right? Cut through the kind
of chaos of house of the sheerquantity of data that we're getting
around the world. We get tokind of focus all that data, focus
all those perceptions,memories, desires, interests around
these sort of key points thatserve as anchors. And when we find
(19:26):
those anchors, we experiencethem as sacred because those are
the. Because that's where thesignal is, right? That's where we
see where the real patternsare that reflect, again, how the
world itself is structured. Soit's not. I think a lot of people
have this kind of matrixmentality that there's sort of a
(19:46):
fundamental divide or divorcebetween how we experience the world,
which is like a simulationversus the real world. And that's.
And that's a product of, likea very particular kind of Cartesian
history in Western philosophy.Right. But it's not true. Right.
The reason we experience theworld is because there's a relationship
(20:06):
between our experience and.And the world itself. And so when
we encounter the sacred, whenwe encounter something that seems
intrinsically valuable,valuable, intrinsically true, intrinsically
good and right, that's like a.That's like a flare that the psyche
is sending up that we'regetting something right. So the idea
(20:27):
is that the more we organizeour language and our culture and
our desires and kind oforganize our lives around those key
anchors, the more we'll getright, both in terms of the objective
truths of the natural world,scientifically, mathematically, culturally,
but also in terms of our placein the world, what it means to be
(20:52):
human. And that's. And that'swhere all of this kind of comes to
a head. That's sort of theultimate result. What does it mean
to be human? How do weunderstand our place with respect
to this very complex andstrange world that we live in? And
the answer is that we can sortof find it to the extent that we're
looking for it, that we knowwhere to look for. And we have good
(21:14):
tools, right? Good tools, goodlanguage. And again, that's what
the religious traditions aresupposed to provide. Good tools,
good language, good wisdom forattuning us to what's right and important
and good. And that's. Andthat's our compass, right? That's
our sense of direction abouthow do I. How do I live? How do I.
(21:36):
You know, I've just lost myjob, I've just retired, I've just
been injured, I've just beendivorced. What do I do now? How do
I. How do I get my bearings?
And we all need thatopportunity to kind of experience
that, I think from differentperspectives. It gives us a better
understanding of how we areall connected and connected with
(21:57):
the universe. You describebeing human as a project rather than
an identity. How does the decksupport this idea? And I think it
fosters community and peersupport, especially for those who
feel disconnected from thetraditional religious spaces. So
(22:17):
am I to understand that thedeck incorporates elements of divination,
cooperation, gameplay, andpersonality exploration? I think
it's an opportunity for us tomaybe kind of get a better understanding
of ourselves on how to readthese answers correct?
I hope so. There's noquestion, I think, and this is maybe
(22:41):
a peculiar belief, but I thinkthat cultures can be more or less
good. You can have a culturewhich serves as sort of the software
or the, you know, thelanguages, which provides people
the wisdom and guidance thatthey need, or you can have a culture
(23:03):
that is so materialistic, sokind of infused with money and Corruption,
it's so kind of distorted, Iguess, that culture is no longer
doing its job, right? Theculture is no longer helping us find
a place in society, helping usfind our sense of meaning, helping
(23:27):
us find those greaterprojects, those greater aims and
goals that give our livesmeaning. Helping other people, building
something, creativity. They'revery specific things and very well
known things that actuallymake humans happy, that actually
make humans feel fulfilled.But our culture is really encouraging
(23:49):
us not, not to do any of thosethings because it, because it doesn't,
it doesn't, it doesn't makethe right people enough money somehow,
right? What our culture isencouraging us to do is something
else which makes them money.Maybe it's good for the economy,
maybe, but it's notsatisfying, right? It's not just
(24:10):
killing us. So a good, a goodculture, I think, just is a culture
in which these basic ideas,right, the, the ideas that I've sort
of encoded and summarized andcatalog in the cards with the help
of the Jungian archetypes,these are things that won't surprise
anybody. It's not going tosurprise anybody. I mean, just to
(24:33):
give a couple of examples ofthe cards, there's one that's about
intimacy. It's no surprisethat that makes people happy and
gives our lives value. There'sone that's about hospitality. There's
ones about reciprocity, abouthaving good relationships that are
sort of economic and fair.There, there are cards that relate
(24:55):
to more broadly, kind of whatwe think of as ethical things. But
there's also cards that relateto pleasure. There's cards that relate
to. There's one that's music,there's one that's just music because
music is so important, right?There's another one. And there's
also cards that relate to oursense of self, being independent,
(25:16):
being being able to drawboundaries, I guess in our relationship,
saying this is what I am, thisis where I am. And, and, and this.
And, and I will go no further,right? This, this is what I'm willing
to put up with. And this iswhere I say, no, I, I dissent, right?
So there are all theseelements that once you, once you
look at these cards, you, youwon't be surprised by any of them,
(25:36):
probably. But, but what you,what you may be surprised by is that
we spend so much time doingother things, that we spend so much
time doing things that arejust not fulfilling. And it's sort
of mysterious why we do thatwhen there are so many things that
we could do that are so cheap.Go out for a walk in Nature, right?
(25:56):
There's so many things that wecould do that are so cheap, that
we have access to, that are,that are so fulfilling. Why, why
aren't we doing those thingsinstead of all the stuff that sort
of makes us miserable?
I agree with you. I think thatthe pandemic was kind of a double
edged sword. It allowed us toreconsider what our major life situation
(26:19):
is and to kind of appreciatewhat we've got. When the COVID took
place and they shut everythingdown, we had the opportunity to redefine
what our place in society was.My wife used to drive 45 minutes
to an hour every day to work,45 minutes to an hour every day.
(26:40):
Home was stressed and soforth. And during that time period,
she got to work from home fortwo years. Now she works a hybrid
schedule. We used to go on theback patio, grab a cup of tea, sit
down, listen to the birds,watch the hummingbirds go from flower
to flower. We enjoyed nature.We got to understand the balance,
the work life balance that weneed in order to function in society
(27:03):
in a better way. And shebecame more productive at work, I
became more productive at homeand our relationship improved.
You're being lazy, you are notbeing productive, you are not earning
money, you are notcontributing to the economy. You,
you should not be doing thatstuff. Right? Well, we have these
voices, you're not goodenough. You need to be accomplished
(27:23):
or something. With thesevoices in our heads that are kind
of downloaded from, from, fromthe society, from, from our culture.
So the good news, again,hopefully, is that when people recognize,
when people feel, feel thatthe culture is sort of collapsing
around them, and I think a lotof people are cognizant of that.
I think a lot of people havethe sense that we're at a moment
in our society of decline.Right. America has been growing,
(27:47):
America has been producingwonderful science, wonderful art,
has been at the cutting edgeof human rights. And now we're in
this state of. We've hit thehigh mark, we've hit the zenith of
the American empire,economically, creatively, politically.
And now we're in decline. Andso people are sort of aware of that.
(28:08):
People are looking for a new,not necessarily new, religion, right.
They're not necessarilylooking to join a cult, although
some people are. For somepeople, that's sort of the answer.
What we're really looking foris sort of a new way to make sense
of things so that we can kindof remember where we got off track.
Right. Remember whatever itwas that we forgot.
(28:31):
I agree. Or whatever thesepeople fit into I think collectively
I would like to revisit thestatement that you made where you
describe people as being humanas a project. I'm kind of really
interested in how that playsout and how does that relate to all
of what we just talked aboutin trying to, or find ourselves.
(28:54):
Yeah, yeah. So to be a humanis to be in motion and to be in,
to be going in a direction.And there's a number of different
ways to sort of flesh thisout, right? That we, we, we humans
understand that we, we aremoving towards enlightenment or financial
(29:20):
success, moving towards socialjustice or kind of utopia moving
towards that. The way wefunction well is as sort of vector
quantities, right. We can'tjust be hanging out. We need to be
(29:40):
kind of deepening, exploring,learning, remembering, synthesizing,
putting things together. Soagain, what that looks like in people's
lives may be pretty diverse,right. Some people are doing ocean
science or marine biology.Other people are devoting their life
(30:02):
to helping people, right?Through being a doctor or a nurse
or a teacher. Caregivingrules, Parenting, right? Parenting
is, Parenting is not justkeeping your children alive. Parenting
is, is, is a ideal about whatkind of world the children are going
to live in and how, whatthey're going to do to make that
(30:23):
world possible. Everything wedo. Well, so much of what we do is
this can be described in termsof the direction that it's going
towards. And generallyspeaking, that direction is synthesis,
putting things together. Ihave, personally, I have some kind
(30:43):
of pretty tactical, worked outideas about what that's going to
look like or what that haslooked like in the human project.
And we don't necessarily haveto go that deep into that unless
you're interested. But, butbasically it's this idea that we're
going for some kind oftranscendence and when we forget
that, when we stop moving inthat direction, you know, whether,
(31:07):
you know, again, we don't haveto phrase it for ourselves in a religious
or spiritual way. Could be ina more kind of social or political
way. There's a number ofdifferent ways, or an artistic way,
being on the cutting edge ofscience or applied mathematics. If
we lose the sense of wherewe're going, if we lose that kind
(31:28):
of intuitive connection thatthere's something there that we're
reaching for or if we give upor if we just think we're not going
to reach it. I think thathappens to a lot of people. People
we just sort of give up on theidea that we'll ever reach or accomplish
the thing that we, that wewant. Then, then we Founder. Right.
And, and we kind of. We feel aloss, we feel confused, and we replace
(31:53):
that with, with somethingthat's easier to grab, easy to buy,
easy to do. Whether or notthat's really what we want, whether
or not that's really healthyfor us. So, yeah, being, being a
human is, is finding thatdirection, identifying that direction,
clarifying that direction andmoving in that direction.
I think society and culture aswe know it, just for that reason
(32:16):
alone, we as a community, wealways want to be able to support
each other and to be able tounderstand that there are people
there for us when we needthem. We don't always recognize that
or want to ask for that kindof help. I relied heavily upon community
and peer support during myrecoveries, during my accident, during
(32:38):
everything. The times I was ina wheelchair, the depression, the
anger, the resentment, thehaving to go through all eight operations,
the rehabilitation, and all ofthis. During that time period, I
think I felt that I failed mycolleagues, I failed my family, I
failed society because I putmyself in a position that I got injured,
(33:01):
and then these people that Ihad to rely on were forced to be
able to do that. So from thatperspective, I do understand that
community. I think we have tofoster that community of peer support,
and I think we need torecognize it and foster it. I should
say. Can the Emporium deckhelp with something like this? That
(33:25):
for us to be able to gaincommunity again, to commit to retain
or obtain or recognize thecommunity that we have for us to
continue to support us.
I think that the Empyrean deckcan help in two ways. One is that
(33:48):
one is that a number of thecards are, are specifically about
our relationships with otherpeople, right? Because it's, it's,
it's so basic, so intrinsic tohow we function, not just as humans,
but everything in theuniverse, right? This is sort of
a basic Buddhist idea thateverything is what it is precisely
(34:09):
in and through itsrelationship with nearby others,
right? That includes yourfamily and friends, but it also includes
all the, all of the networksthat we are engaged in. Ecological
networks, social networks,economic networks. So again, this
(34:30):
is just a matter of payingattention to what's important. So
if you. The. The idea of thecards, again, is to sort of focus
in on those places in yourlife, wherever you find them, whatever
they are, where you can makethese sorts of connections, where
you can find these sorts ofrelationships. Because when you do
(34:50):
that, you get this energy, youget the support, you get protection,
you get a good feeling, right?You get reinforcements for the ideas
and the insights and thewisdom that help you get a clear
perspective. Because it's notjust. It's not just about feeling,
(35:12):
right? It's about the truth ofthe matter. Right? The truth of the
matter is that you are not afailure. The truth of the matter
is that you did not let peopledown. Now, maybe there are other
situations or other aspects ofyour life in which the other thing
is true, right? And if that'strue, well, then you need to know
that truth as well. And again,there's actually cards in the deck
(35:35):
that. That can. That can helpyou kind of face up to that one.
One thing about the deck isthat it's not. It's not designed
to make you feel good, atleast not immediately. My. My experience
using this deck, you know, andI have experience, you know, playing
with the tarot deck and havingtarot readings done for me and. And
(35:56):
other forms of, you know,astrology and other forms. Forms
of other modalities, I guess,for. For wisdom and for insight.
And sometimes this isn't kindof universal, but sometimes people
really use these things justto get a good feeling, right? It's
sort of a kind ofcommercialized spirituality. This
(36:17):
deck doesn't do that. Myexperience with this deck is that
it's sort of bossy and thatit. It may, you know, because insofar
as it's drawing your attentionto the things that are important,
some of those things that areimportant are things that you are
trying your best not tonotice, trying your best not to pay
attention to. So whatever itis that you need to pay attention
(36:39):
to, whatever it is you need tokind of focus on in your life to
get closer to the truth of whoyou are and where you are and where
you're going and what you needto do. The cards can help with that.
And like I said, a lot ofthat, you know, 50% of that just
is in and through yourrelationships with other people,
in and through how you'veplugged into a specific community,
(37:02):
you may find that onecommunity isn't working for you.
That one community is reallysort of. Is sort of holding you back
or even doing damage. Maybewhat you need is to draw some boundaries
and leave that community andfind a new community. Community,
you know, community isn'tuniversal good. You have to be a
part of the right community.You have to be part of the right
network of people who aremutually supportive and sincere and
(37:29):
authentic.
So how does your deck compareto a tarot deck? Are they similar?
Was that your launching, kindof your idea to launch it this way?
What basically brought you tothe. Creating this design and this
type of deck.
(37:49):
Sure.
Yeah.
It was a launching point inthe sense that it's a deck of cards.
That's. That's. That's prettymuch the whole thing. Right there's.
For me, you know, I. You know,as I was. As I've been doing this
reading and doing this workand doing this writing over the years,
I always sort of wanted tocreate a great work. I always wanted
to write a book, a Magnusopus. Right. And at different points,
(38:12):
I thought, well, I. I'm justnot going to be able to do that.
I don't have the discipline.And in other points, I thought, well,
maybe I could do it. But evenif I did, who would read it? Especially
since so much of the writingthat I had been doing, especially
while I was still in schooland while I was teaching, was academic.
It was academic prose for anacademic audience. And I wasn't really
(38:33):
interested in doing all thatwork. So at some point, it hit me
like a bag of rocks. A deck. Adeck of cards. And so as soon as
I had that kind ofrealization, then I was sort of using
the Tarot deck as a. As a kindof background. But I. I think that's
pretty much where thesimilarities sort of start and end.
(38:54):
I will say that there are.There are cards in the Tarot deck
that are very, very similar tocards in the Empyrean deck. And that's
not coincidence either. Right.I mean, the. The way the human. I
mean, to the extent that theTarot deck works, and I think it
works pretty well, it'sbecause it. It gets right. The archetypes,
it gets right these sort ofbasic anchors of how. Of our experience.
(39:18):
So it's not at all surprisingthat there should be correlations.
And there's also correlationsbetween my deck and other systems
that I've studied, othersystems that I've learned about the
Enneagram, the I Ching. I wasinterested in Norse runes for a little
while. You know, I'm not surehow much of that made it into the
deck, but, you know, maybe alot. So, yeah, all those stuff. All
(39:41):
that stuff is there becauseit's. It's there because it's. It's
sort of objective features ofhow our mind works, of how we experience
the world. Yeah. So the ideaof the blog is to sort of flesh out
some of the. Some of the morephilosophical stuff, you know, some
(40:01):
kind of more. But also kind ofpractical application. The cards
just by themselves don't say alot. Right. I mean, you could have
one of the cards just, is justjourney. And it's a picture of a
path, and it just saysjourney. Doesn't say you're on a
journey. Doesn't say youshould go on a journey. It's just
journey. Right. Because theidea of a journey is really important
(40:24):
to us. Like, it's a basic kindof aspect of how we function.
Your blog, Spirituality on theSpectrum, explores Buddhist, Taoism
and Jungian perspectives. Howdo these philosophies intersect with
the themes of the deck? Andhow can that relate to both kids
as well as adults?
(40:45):
So the idea of the blog isjust to sort of flesh out kind of
the background philosophy,background ideas. I do take time
to make some connectionsbetween stuff that's in the deck
and some of the sources, Iguess between that and Buddhism,
Taoism, the Jungianarchetypes. But more, at least that
(41:07):
was the idea. A lot of whatI've ended up using the blog for
is, is really more reflectionson neurodiversity and the relationship
between neurodiverse peopleand neurotypical people and really
just taking some time toreflect on my own experience.
How has your personal journeyof discovering your neurodivergence
(41:30):
shaped your understanding ofspirituality in the human experience?
Yeah, yeah. As I said, the.The. The time period, I guess, was
the same. Right? It's reallybeen over the last three years that
I. That I started working onthe deck and putting it together.
And it's really been aboutthree years, give or take, that I've
(41:52):
sort of been starting torealize and accept and integrate,
I guess, my ownneurodiversity, my own autism and
learning about what thatmeans. And, and so that's, again,
it's one of those things thatdoesn't necessarily make it into
the deck in, in any explicitway, but there's. There's ways in
(42:16):
which I would say the deck ishelpful because it's really. It's
about being human. Those,again, those. Those of us who are
on the spectrum really have ahard time understanding how humans
work because we feel left out.We feel like. I think part of the
(42:36):
neurodiverse experience for meis like, there's like a song playing
over the loudspeakers. It'slike the Smurf song or the song in
that Lego Movie. And everybodyelse is. Is moving in time to that
song. Everybody else is justmarching along, doing their thing,
because they are. And they'reall like, in time. They're all coordinated
because. Because they'recoordinated by the music, because
they're all just Listening tomusic, and they're all. And they
(42:57):
all know the steps, right? AndI feel like I'm sort of deaf to that
song. I'm sort of deaf to thatmusic. I can see people marching
in time, and I can watch whatthey're doing and kind of march in
the same ways, but. But I'mnot actually hearing the music. So
I look like a really clumsyperson who can't dance, right? And
that's tough. So what autisticpeople do when they're high masking
(43:21):
like me, is they. Is theyfigure out the patterns. They figure
out by observation and trialand error what other people doing
what other people are doing.And they sort of learn to recognize
the cues as best they can. Andsometimes we do that well, and sometimes
we do it not so well, andsometimes we give up and just stop
(43:42):
trying, right? Which isactually. Actually the healthier
thing to do.
It turns out the current chaosin the world today must have some
kind of an impact on you aswell as it does with the rest of
society. I think we all aregetting caught up and lost in the
noise and the chaos and thenoise, and we want to shut it out.
(44:05):
We want to be able to kind offeel part of something good. But
sometimes the chaos gets inthe way. What advice would you give
to someone who feelsdisconnected from the traditional
spiritual practices, butseeking a deeper sense of meaning
and connection or something different?
Well, the short answer isdon't give up. The short answer is
(44:28):
that you can find community ifyou look for it. And if you give
yourself the time to find it,you may kind of plug into one community
and find that it's not a goodfit. Okay, try again. Don't give
up. And more generally, withour sense of meaning, with our sense
(44:48):
of direction, with our senseof place in the universe, don't give
up. Right. I really believethat we as humans are hardwired.
This is why the archetypesshow up again and again and again
and again and again. Not justin mythology, in contemporary religion,
contemporary culture, Marvelmovies, romance novels. You know,
(45:11):
the thing. The same patternsshow up because. Because we are attuned
to them quite naturally. Andso I. I think that we are hardwired
to be able to find. Find theanswers that we're looking for. If
only we can phrase thequestion in a clear way. If we can
do the kind of internal work,the internal reflection, to say,
(45:34):
well, what is it that I'mlooking for? What is it that might
actually make me happy? Why isit that I'm. That this is Not a good
fit for me. I think thatasking the questions is, that is
sort of the first and the mostimportant step by far in reattuning
yourself, readjustingyourself, kind of resetting the life
(45:55):
levels, resetting the knobsand the dials on the machinery to
kind of get a result withinyour life that answers those questions.
That, that gives you thatsense of community, gives you a sense
of direction and purpose,gives you the sense of being worthwhile,
of understanding that, youknow, you're not a screw up, you're
(46:16):
just different. Right. Youhave a place where you fit in. You
have a place where you canconvince, contribute your unique
gifts to the world. And whenyou find that place, the world will
benefit and you will benefitin such rich ways. And you can spend
all of your life kind ofgetting closer and closer and closer
(46:39):
to that fire, closer andcloser to that perfect spot. And
every time you make a step inthat direction, you experience it,
you feel it, you say, yes,this is better. This is better than
where I was before. This is abetter thing than what I was doing
before. So do that, Listen tothat, ask those questions.
(46:59):
That's brilliant. Verybrilliant. As Bruce Lee says, every
failure is a stepping stone tosuccess. So don't be afraid to fail.
You learn how to make itbetter or you learn how to change
it.
Or how to avoid that, how notto go there. Don't do that, because
that didn't work.
(47:21):
This has been great. How caneverybody find you in the Empyrean
deck?
Sure. So the, the, the quickand easy answer is just as it's listed
on the screen there. It'swww.empyreanproject.com. the idea
of the project is to developthe deck and share the deck and get
(47:42):
it out there, but also to usethe deck as sort of a stepping stone
for the teaching that I'mdoing. Right. Like on, on shows like
yours and elsewhere, toencourage people to explore spirituality
and to give people a tool ormaybe even a couple of tools to do
that effectively and clearlyand successfully. So empyreanproject.com
(48:07):
will have within the month alink to a publisher. You can order
the deck and the other and thebook and the sort of pieces that
go with it. You can order itdirectly from them through that website.
The website also has the blog,if people find that interesting.
And it has sort of a generalintroduction to my philosophy, my
(48:29):
spirituality. Yeah. And italso has ways to get in touch with
me. I'm, I'm, I'm open forpeople just to, to shoot me in an
email if they have questionsabout the deck or questions about
life. And I don't, I don'tcharge for that right now. It's,
it's just, it's just me andI'm just, you know, available.
And that's amazing. I'll makesure that everybody has everything
(48:52):
they need to get in touch withyou by clicking a button. It's an
easy way to find you. So Iappreciate the journey that you've
been taking. I appreciate yousharing your wisdom, your experience,
and everything about you inregard to helping others move forward
in a very positive way. Sothank you very much. It's been a
pleasure to meet you. Pleasureto have a conversation with you.
(49:15):
Thank you so much for havingme. It's been a pleasure.
This is One More Thing beforeyou go. So do you have any words
of wisdom that you haven'talready said?
Don't give up.
So again, thank you very muchfor coming on the show. Thank you
very much for sharing yourwisdom and experience and thank you
for everyone else out there. Iwant to make sure that the connection
(49:39):
link will be there foreveryone else for them to reach you
out to you. Thanks forlistening to this episode of One
More Thing before you go.That's a wrap for today's episode.
I hope you found inspiration,motivation, a few new perspectives
to take with you. If youenjoyed this conversation, be sure
to, like, subscribe and followus. It really helps us continue bringing
you incredible stories andinsights. This show thrives because
(50:02):
of this amazing community andI appreciate each and every one of
you for being part of it. Sountil next time, have a great day
and even better week andremember to keep exploring, learning
and growing. Thanks for tuningin to One More Thing before you Go.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of One More Thing before
you Go. Check out our websiteat beforeyougopodcast. Com. You can
(50:25):
find us as well as subscribeto the program and rate us on your
favorite podcast listening platform.
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