September 3, 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?
The *Empyrean Deck* represents a transformative tool designed for those seeking a spiritual journey beyond traditional religious frameworks. In our conversation today, we have a conversation with with Dr. Asher Walden, a former Zen Buddhist monk who has redefined his path as a philosopher and educator.
With his extensive background in world religions and neurodiversity, Dr. Walden offers profound insights into the nature of spirituality as an evolving project of personal growth and connection. He elucidates how the *Empyrean Deck* not only serves as a means of self-exploration but also fosters community engagement and support for individuals who often feel alienated from conventional spiritual spaces. Join us as we delve into the intricate interplay between spirituality, neurodiversity, and the collective human experience.
Takeaways:
- The concept of spirituality as an ongoing journey emphasizes discovery, connection, and personal growth.
- The Empyrean Deck serves as a tool specifically designed for individuals outside traditional religious spaces.
- Dr. Asher Walden's unique perspective as a neurodivergent individual enriches the discourse on spirituality.
- The deck offers a framework for understanding spiritual experiences through relationships and community involvement.
- Community is essential for personal transformation, providing support and accountability in one's spiritual journey.
- The integration of diverse spiritual traditions is crucial for creating a more inclusive spiritual practice.
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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 Hirsch. Welcome
to One more thing before yougo. Today we're sitting down with
(00:44):
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 studying
religion, psychology, and thehuman experience. With a doctorate
in world religions andextensive training in spiritual direction,
he's worked acrossuniversities, churches, corporations,
(01:07):
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
nature. Welcome to show.
Thank you so much for having me.
(01:28):
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 net, for muchof my life, I just didn't know. I
just really didn't know what Iwas doing. You know, I had things
that I was interested in andI. And things that I pursued, but
(01:49):
I. I just always struggledwith. With sort of the biggest, big
picture. But I was. I wasalways looking for a project. I was
always trying to figure outwhat that goal was. And. And over
my lifetime, it's gottenclarified, clarified, clarified.
And I feel like the. This.This product, right? This, The Empyrean
Deck, it's so satisfyingbecause I feel like I've succeeded
(02:11):
in kind of pulling togetherall these different threads. And
so I. I just. I just reallyhope that I. Other 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.
(02:32):
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,
(02:56):
to Westerners has really beensort of kind of back burnering the
sutra study, the philosophy,the that, the moral, ethical, social
practices, and really focusingvery, very narrowly on your direct
experience. Right. Just doingthis very, very simple practice.
And that has its benefits, butit also has its drawbacks. So ultimately,
(03:21):
although I felt like I got somuch out of my time at the Zen center,
it wasn't sort of the be all,end all for me. I really felt like
I had to keep on exploringother paths, other traditions, in
order to kind of fill in theblanks and learn the other things
that I needed to learn.
Well, I always like to startat the beginning. Where did you grow
(03:43):
up?
I grew up in Massachusetts. Apretty, pretty ordinary kind of suburban
childhood. I was good inschool, I guess. Good, good enough
in school. I got, I got goodgrades, but I always felt lonely
(04:04):
and I always felt left out andI always felt like I did not really
understand what was going onaround me. And these, and these kinds
of things I, I learned laterare, are expressions or manifestations
of autism.
How does that change your lifein those around you? Did it make
a significant impact.
(04:26):
At the time? You know, at thetime I didn't, I didn't know that
that's what was going on forme. You know, I, I just knew that
I was interested in what I wasinterested in, which, which was really
spirituality and philosophyand I just wasn't really interested
in, in anything else. And, andthe way that I studied those things
at first was primarilythrough, through texts, right through,
(04:48):
through reading because I, Idid not have a good time. I, I, it
was hard for me to connectwith people, let me put it that way.
I didn't really know how tomake friends or, or, or what to do
with friends when I had thembecause it seemed like a lot of the
things that, that peopletalked about and a lot of things
that people did together just,it just wasn't all that interesting
(05:09):
to me. And I just, I justdidn't really understand why, why
people did what they did. So Iwas pretty kind of isolated. And
it wasn't until I joined theZen center that was, this was after
college in my 20s, that I feltlike I had something like a community
(05:30):
or 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, 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
(05:53):
the empyrean deck,interestingly, that this, that, 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, the project is sort of
understanding sort ofgeneralities about sort of how your
(06:14):
mind works and how that pansout. And, and like I said, over the
last couple years, as I'vebeen integrating my. My particular
neurotype, I guess I've beenreally understanding why. Why I was
interested in the things I wasinterested in, why I function the
way I function, why myrelationships and friendships and
romantic relationships havegone the way they've gone. So, yeah,
(06:38):
it's been, it's been a bigdifference for me to, to. To kind
of be doing that work. And,you know, and it's an ongoing thing.
Like, I feel like I've done somuch work and so much, so much clearer
about how I work and, and whyI do the things that I do. But, you
know, it's. It's ongoing.
Tell me more about that. Ihave relatives that are on the spectrum,
(06:59):
so I understand that from thatperspective, but nothing is close
into my family. I think thatwe all should have a better understanding
of exactly whatneurodiversement means.
Oh, sure, That's. That's areally tough question, and it's hard
to summarize easily. The, theway we usually talk about neurodiversity
(07:22):
is, is just to sort of putside by side kind of typical ways
of functioning forneurotypical people and typical ways
of functioning forneurodiverse people. The typical.
And I guess the first thingthat I would say is that it has to
do with how we learn about theworld and how we engage with the
world. So neurotypical peopleprimarily engage with the world and
(07:47):
learn about the worldsocially. There's a kind of social
epistemology. So the way wefigure out how to speak, how to behave,
how to kind of learn thethings that are really important
in terms of values and formsof life. What, what, what goals we
(08:08):
should have, how we shouldrelate to each other. Most people
primarily get that informationfrom other people, right? They just,
they. They believe what theybelieve everybody else believes,
right? So if I believe thateverybody else believes that gay
people are cool, then I'mlike, okay, fine, gay people are
cool. But if I believe thateverybody else believes that there's
(08:29):
something weird or wrong withgay people, then I'm probably going
to believe that there'ssomething wrong with gay people.
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 conflict, let's
say, between what theyperceive everybody else believes
and their own personalexperience, neurotypical people will
(08:53):
assume that there's somethingwrong with them and that they're
the problem. And there is thissense that it's a matter of loyalty
and a matter of humility to,To. To. To conform, I guess, in terms
of your beliefs and yourvalues. For neurodiverse people,
the proportion is different.Right? Everybody learns through kind
(09:15):
of social interaction, socialcues, and also through their own
personal experience. But forneurodiverse people, the volume,
I guess, of internalexperience is much, much louder.
And it's really hard to drownout. My experience is my experience.
And it. And it kind of, kindof overwhelms whatever I get from
(09:35):
the outside world about howI'm supposed to behaving or what
I'm supposed to say. So it's alot harder for me to pick up on social
cues. And it's not because I'mdeaf to social cues. It's just because
my internal experience is soloud that it sort of overwhelms everything
else. And so that ties intospirituality, ties into religion,
(09:58):
ties into values, ties intoethics, ties into all these different
dimensions of how we behave.Because our, our. Our experience,
our sense of the. Of what theworld is like and what's important
is different. Does that make sense?
It absolutely makes sense. Igrew up Catholic. I'm not a practicing
(10:19):
Catholic because I feel thatthey were too stringent in certain
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 inspiritual perspectives. I love your
(10:42):
background in all things Zen,in Buddhism.
Yeah. So I, I grew up. We'reJewish, my family is Jewish, but
we weren't practicing, weweren't observing. Jewish Jews were
sort of identified as culturalJews, I guess. But even from a young
age, I can remember beinginterested in Christianity, being
(11:02):
interested in Easternspirituality, being interested in
Mythology and, you know,fantasy and science fiction. So I
was always very kind ofimaginative and I was always really
interested in this. In thisidea of this kind of imaginative
other world. And I always sawreligion and spirituality as, as
(11:24):
the way to explore or learnabout and maybe even eventually enter
into that other world, thatsort of sacred space which I wasn't.
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
(11:47):
it. And so I was alwayssearching for it through reading
about, you know, readingWestern philosophers, then, you know,
picking up a copy of the DowdyJing when I was in high school, then
later on Buddhism, later onChristianity, later on. And that
was. So that was really, youknow, sort of the defining point
(12:08):
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
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.
(12:28):
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?
Yeah, sure.
So.
Like, like we've talked about,I've spent a good chunk of time studying
a number of differentreligious traditions and, and, and
(12:50):
also some kind of more modernspiritual practices as well. I did
sort of training in Reiki and,and was interested in the Enneagram
and, and. And a couple othermodalities, I guess. And I, and I
was always sort of puttingthese things together. I always had
this sense that I was learninga lot, that whatever it was I was
(13:13):
studying, I was. I was. Thatthere was real value there, that
there was really importantinsights that were being preserved
in these traditions. But Ididn't have the feeling that any
one of these traditions, atleast as I was experiencing them,
had all the answers or had acomplete system. And I now think
(13:34):
that maybe the problem was notthat they weren't complete systems,
it's that they were completesystems 100 years ago or 500 years
ago or 2000 years ago. Andthat the problem is just that our
language and our experienceand our kind of expectations and
our politics have changed somuch that we don't. We aren't able
to access in some way thewisdom that these traditions preserve.
(13:58):
That the, that the signal isbeing drowned out by the noise of
the economics of theinstitution, the politics of the
institution, whether it be theCatholic Church or whether it be
Israel or whether it be, youknow, even. Even Buddhist monastic
and lay organizations inAmerica have had their own problems
(14:21):
and they have their owndoctrines and they have their own
sort of rules, right? Justlike the Catholic Church, they have
rules, they have doctrines,they have these structures. And the
importance of the structure isreally to maintain the institution,
right. Rather than, you know,with the idea being that it preserves
the wisdom, but the wisdomthat's being preserved is actually
being corrupted by theinstitution itself. So in array,
(14:44):
I guess really what I wantedto do was find a way to bring together
everything that was good andvaluable and important about what
these religious traditions andspirituality kind of spiritual systems
were getting at and toorganize it in such a way that it
was complete and accessibleand as much as possible avoided problems
(15:09):
of, like, an institutionalsetting. And part of that, not the
whole thing, but part of thatwas a matter of accessibility, right?
I'm not going to go to achurch. I'm not going to feel welcome
in most churches, you know,most church, you know, not. Not just
because I'm autistic, but fora number of, you know, political
reasons. There's. There'sgoing to be reasons where I'm not.
(15:31):
I'm not going to fit in wellin those places. And so many people
are, you know, are hungry forcommunity. You know, there's a lot
of people who are interestedin tarot decks, astrology, spirituality,
and, and again, there's a lotof wisdom there. But what they don't
have is a community. Theydon't have a group of people that
(15:52):
are keeping them on task,right? Keeping them focused, keeping
them accountable. Becausethat's one thing that religious institutions
in principle do provide. They.They provide some friction so they
can say, you know, your. Yourspirituality has gone out of whack,
it's gone off track. So Ithink, I think that community is
(16:12):
important. I think a commonlanguage is important. I think there
has to be a way to balanceyour experience of what's important
to you, of where you. Whereyou most typically encounter the
sacred, but at the same timebalances or contextualizes your experience
within a language that's.That's communicable, right? That
(16:35):
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 about itbecause, just because, you know,
just because spiritualExperience is meaningful and important.
Doesn't mean that you'vegotten it right. Right. Doesn't mean
that you've integrated.Integrated it in a way that's sort
of healthy. So this is sort ofa. This sort of a tangent, sort of
(16:55):
a long way around the deck.The idea of the deck is that it's
a language. The idea of. Isit. Of the deck is that. It's. That
the cards are placeholders fordifferent kinds of spiritual experiences,
for different ways in which weencounter the sacred. And it's. And
it's meant to be sort ofcomplete. Right. It's meant to cover
all the kind of diversity ofspiritual experience, the diversity
(17:18):
of the things that we thinkare important. But does it in such
a way that says what. The wayyou encounter this, if you're encountering
this, truly is valid. Right.So it's meant to sort of get that
balance, get the. But it works.
And I think overall, at leastto me, what I've just heard is the
(17:40):
philosophy behind the period.The imperial deck is kind of reflects
the structure of our humanpsyche from all these perspectives.
Yeah, that was reallyimportant to me all the way going
along. So along with the stuffin kind of spirituality and traditional
(18:02):
religions, I was also readinga lot of empirical psychology, always
reading stuff in, you know,economics, things, network theory.
Information theory has beenreally interesting to me lately as
a sort of a. As a kind ofapplied mathematics of everything.
So I think that there's somereally exciting stuff going on there.
(18:24):
And the idea basically is thatthe. The. The diversity of the ways
in which we experience thesacred just is the diversity of the
ways in which we experiencethe world. The world is sort of structured
in a certain way. And becausethe world is structured in a certain
way, our perceptual systems,our cognitive systems are adapted
(18:45):
around the way the world isstructured. And because our perceptual
and cognitive systems areadapted around the way the world
is, the ways in which weexperience the sacred are kind of
like channels or shortcuts orcircuits whereby we get to sort of
cut through the noise, right.Cut through the kind of chaos of
(19:09):
the sheer quantity of datathat we're getting around the world.
We get to kind of focus allthat data, focus all those perceptions,
memories, desires, interestsaround these sort of key, key points
that serve as anchors. Andwhen we find those anchors, we experience
them as sacred because thoseare the. Because that's where the
(19:30):
signal is, right? That's wherewe see where the real patterns are
that reflect, again, how theworld itself is structured. So it's
not. I think a lot of peoplehave this kind of matrix mentality
that there's sort of afundamental divide or divorce between
how we experience the world,which is like a simulation versus
(19:51):
the real world. And that's.And that's a product of, like, a
very particular kind ofCartesian history in Western philosophy.
Right. But it's not true.Right. The reason we experience the
world is because there's arelationship between our experience
and the world itself. And sowhen we encounter the sacred, when
we encounter something thatseems intrinsically valuable, valuable,
(20:14):
intrinsically true,intrinsically good and ripe, that's
like a. That's like a flarethat the psyche is sending up that
we're getting something right.So the idea is that the more we organize
our language and our cultureand our desires and kind of organize
our lives around those keyanchors, the more we'll get right,
(20:39):
both in terms of the objectivetruths of the natural world, scientifically,
mathematically, culturally,but also in terms of our place in
the world, what it means to behuman. And that's. And that's where
all of this kind of comes to ahead. That's sort of the. The ultimate
result. What does it mean tobe human? How do we understand our
(21:00):
place with respect to thisvery complex and strange world that
we live in? And the answer isthat we can sort of find it to the
extent that we're looking forit, that we know what to look for.
And we have good tools, right?Good tools, good language. And again,
that's what the religioustraditions are supposed to provide.
Good tools, good language,good wisdom for attuning us to what's
(21:25):
right and important and good.And that's our compass, right? That's
our sense of direction abouthow do I live? How do I. You know,
I've just lost my job, I'vejust retired, I've just been injured,
I've just been divorced. What.What do I do now? How do I. How do
I get my bearings?
(21:46):
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
the universe. You describebeing human as a project rather than
an identity. How does the decksupport this idea? And I think it
(22:08):
fosters community and peersupport, especially for those who
feel disconnected from thetraditional religious spaces. So
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 and how to readthese Answers correct?
(22:30):
I hope so. There, there's noquestion. I think, and this is maybe
a peculiar belief, but I thinkthat cultures can be more or less
good. You can have a culturewhich serves as sort of the, the
(22:50):
software or the, you know, thelanguages, which provides people
the wisdom and guidance thatthey need. Or you can have a culture
that is so materialistic, sokind of infused with money and corruption,
it's so kind of distorted, Iguess that culture is no longer doing
(23:14):
its job, right? The culture isno longer helping us find a place
in society, helping us findour sense of meaning, helping us
find those greater projects,those greater aims and goals that
give our lives meaning.Helping other people, building something,
(23:35):
creativity, right? 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
us not to do any of thosethings because it, because it doesn't,
it doesn't, it doesn't makethe right people enough money somehow,
(23:57):
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 feeling
this. So a good, a. A goodculture, I think, just is a culture
in which these basic ideas,right, the, the ideas that I've sort
(24:19):
of encoded and summarized andCate cataloged in, in the cards with
the help of Jungianarchetypes, these are, these are
things that won't surpriseanybody, right? It's not going to
surprise anybody. I mean, justto give a couple of examples of the
cards, there's one that,that's, that's about intimacy, right?
It's no surprise that thatmakes people happy and gives our
(24:41):
lives value. There's onethat's about hospitality. There's.
There's ones about RAreciprocity about, about having good
relationships that are sort ofeconomic and, and fair. There, there
are cards that relate to morebroadly, kind of what we think of
as ethical things. But there'salso cards that relate to pleasure.
There's cards that relate to.There's one that's music. There's
(25:04):
one that's just music becausemusic is so important, right? There's
another one. And, and there'salso cards that relate to our sense
of self, being independent,being being able to draw boundaries,
I guess, in our relationship,saying this is what I am, this is
where I am. And, and, andthis. And, and I will go no further,
right? This, this is what I'mwilling to put up with. And this
(25:26):
is where I say No, I, Idissent. Right. So there are all
these elements that once you,once you look at these cards, you
won't be surprised by any ofthem, probably. But what you, what
you may be surprised by isthat we spend so much time doing
other things that we spend somuch time doing things that are just
not fulfilling. And it's sortof mysterious why we do that when
(25:50):
there are so many things thatwe could do that are so cheap. Go
out for a walk in nature,right? There's so many things that
we could do that are so cheap,that we have access to, that are,
that are so fulfilling. Why,why aren't we doing those things
instead of all the stuff thatsort of makes us miserable?
I agree with you. I think thatthe pandemic was kind of a double
(26:13):
edged sword. It allowed us toreconsider what our major life situation
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
(26:36):
to an hour every day to work,45 minutes to an hour every day.
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 background,
(26:58):
balance the work life balancethat we need in order to function
in society in a better way.And she became more productive at
work, I became more productiveat home and our relationship improved.
You're being lazy, you are notbeing productive, you are not earning
money, you are notcontributing the economy. You, you
should not be doing thatstuff, right? We all, we have these
(27:20):
voices. You're not goodenough. You need to be accomplished
at some, these voices, voicesin our heads that are kind of downloaded
from, from, from the society,from, from our culture. So the good
news, again, hopefully, isthat when people recognize, when
people feel that the cultureis sort of collapsing around them,
and I think a lot of peopleare cognizant of that. I think a
lot of people have the sensethat we're at a moment in our society
(27:43):
of decline, right? America hasbeen growing. America has been producing
wonderful science, wonderfulart, has been at the cutting edge
of human rights. And, and, andnow we're in the state of. We've,
we've hit the high mark, We'vehit the zenith of the American empire.
Economically creativelypolitically, and now we're in decline.
(28:05):
And so people are sort ofaware of that. People are looking
for a new, not necessarilynew, religion. Right. They're not
necessarily looking to join acult, although some people are. Some
people. For some people,that's sort of the answer. What we're
really looking for is sort ofa new way to make sense of things
so that we can kind ofremember where we got off track.
(28:26):
Right. Remember whatever itwas that we forgot.
I agree. Or whatever thesepeople fit into. I think collectively,
I would like to revisit thestatement that you made where you
describe people's. If beinghuman as a project, I'm kind of really
interested in how that playsout and how does that relate to all
(28:49):
of what we just talked aboutin trying to refine ourselves?
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
(29:10):
understand that we, we aremoving towards enlightenment or financial
success, moving towards socialjustice or kind of utopia, moving
towards that. We, we. The waywe function well is as sort of vector
(29:35):
quantities, right. We, wecan't just be hanging out. We need
to be kind of deepening,exploring, learning, remembering,
synthesizing, putting thingstogether. So again, what that looks
like in people's lives may bepretty diverse, right. Some people
are doing ocean science ormarine biology. Other people are
(30:00):
devoting their life to helpingpeople, right through being a doctor
or a nurse or a teacher.Caregiving rules, Parenting, right?
Parenting is. Parenting is notjust keeping your children alive.
Parenting is ideal about whatkind of world the children are going
to live in and what they'regoing to do to make that world possible.
(30:25):
Everything we do. Well, somuch of what we do is this can be
described in terms of thedirection that it's going towards.
And generally speaking, thatdirection is synthesis, putting things
together. I have, personally,I have some kind of pretty kind of
Hector. Worked out ideas aboutwhat that's going to look like or
(30:47):
what that has looked like inthe human project. We don't necessarily
have to go that deep into thatunless you're interested. But. But
basically it's this idea thatwe're going for some kinds of transcendence.
And when we forget that, whenwe stop moving in that direction,
you know, whether, you know,again, we don't have to phrase it
(31:09):
for ourselves in a religiousor spiritual way. Could be in a more
kind of social or politicalway, could be. There's A number of
different ways, or an artisticway, being on the cutting edge of
science or appliedmathematics, if we lose the sense
of where we're going, if welose that kind of intuitive connection
(31:29):
that there's something therethat we're reaching for, or if we
give up, or if we just thinkwe're not going to reach it. And
I think that happens to a lotof people. We just sort of give up
on the idea that we'll everreach or accomplish the thing that
we. That we want. Then. Thenwe founder, right? And. And we kind
of. We feel a loss, we feelconfused, and we replace that with.
(31:53):
With. With something that'seasier to grab, easy to buy, easy
to do, whether or not that'sreally what we want, whether or not
that's really healthy for us.So, yeah, being. Being a human is
go, you know, finding thatdirection, identifying that direction,
clarifying that direction, andmoving in that direction.
I think society and culture aswe know it, just for that reason
(32:15):
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
(32:37):
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.
(33:00):
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 that? For
(33:24):
us to be able to gaincommunity again, to retain or obtain
or recognize the communitythat we have for us to continue to
support us.
I think that the Empyrean deckcan help in two ways. One is that
(33:47):
one is that a number of thecards are specifically about our
relationships with otherpeople. Right? Because it's so basic,
so intrinsic to how wefunction, not just as humans, but
everything in the universe,right? This is sort of a basic Buddhist
idea that. That everything iswhat it is precisely in and through
(34:09):
its relationship with nearbyothers. Right. That includes your
family and friends, but italso includes all the. All of the
networks that we are engagedin ecological networks, social networks,
economic networks. So again,this is just a matter of paying attention
(34:31):
to what's important.Important. So if you. The. The idea
of the cards, again, is tosort of focus in on those places
in your life, wherever youfind them, whatever they are, where
you can make these sorts ofconnections, where you can find these
sorts of relationships.Because when you do that, you get
this energy, you get thesupport, you get protection, you
(34:54):
get a good feeling, right? Youget 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,
right? It's about the truth ofthe matter, right? The truth of the
(35:15):
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. So which the
other thing is true, right?And if that's true, well, then you
need to know that truth aswell. And again, there's actually
cards in the deck that, thatcan. That can help you kind of face
(35:36):
up to that one. One thingabout the deck is that it's not.
It's not designed to make youfeel good, at least not immediately.
My. My experience using thisdeck, you know, and I have experienced,
you know, playing. Playingwith the tarot deck and having tarot
readings done for me and otherforms of, you know, astrology and
(36:00):
other forms of othermodalities, I guess, for wisdom and
for insight. And sometimesthis isn't kind of universal, but
sometimes people really usethese things just to get a good feeling,
right? It's sort of a kind ofcommercialized spirituality. This
deck doesn't do that. My, Myexperience with this deck is that
it's sort of bossy and thatit. It may, you know, because insofar
(36:25):
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
to, whatever it is you need tokind of focus on in your life to.
To get closer to the truth ofwho you are and where you are and
where you're going and whatyou need to do, the cards can help
(36:48):
with that. And like I said, alot of that, you know, 50% of that
just is in and through yourrelationships with other people,
in and through how you'veplugged into a specific community,
you may find that onecommunity isn't working for you.
One community is really sortof. Is sort of holding you back or
even doing damage. You maybe.Maybe what you need is to draw some
(37:11):
boundaries and leave thatcommunity and find a new community.
Community. You know, communityisn't universal good. You have to
be a part of the rightcommunity. You have to be part of
the right network of peoplewho are mutually supportive and sincere
and authentic.
So how does your deck compareto a Tarot deck? Are they similar?
(37:35):
Was that your were launchingkind of your idea to launch it this
way? What basically broughtyou to the creating this design and
this type of deck?
Sure. Yeah. It was a launchingpoint in the sense that it's a deck
of cards. That's. That's.That's pretty much the whole thing.
(37:56):
Right. There's. For me, youknow, I. You know, as I was. As I've
been doing this reading anddoing this work and doing this writing
over the years, I always sortof wanted to create a great work.
I always wanted to write abook, a Magnus opus, right? And at
different points I thought,well, I'm just not going to be able
to do that. I don't have thediscipline. And in other points,
I thought, well, maybe I coulddo it, but even if I did, who would
(38:19):
read it? Especially since somuch of the writing that I had been
doing, you know, especiallywhile I was still in school and while
I was teaching was. It wasacademic pros for an academic audience.
And I. And I wasn't reallyinterested in doing all that work.
So at some point it hit me,you know, like a bag of rocks. A
deck. A deck of cards. And soas soon as I had that kind of realization,
(38:43):
then I was sort of using theTarot deck as a. As a kind of background.
But I think that's pretty muchwhere the similarities sort of start
and end. I will say that thereare. There are cards in the Tarot
deck that are very, verysimilar to cards in the Empyrean
deck. And that's notcoincidence either, right? I mean,
(39:04):
the. The way the human. Imean, to the extent that the Tarot
deck works, and I think itworks pretty well, it's because it.
It gets right the archetypesit gets right these sort of basic
anchors of how. Of ourexperience. So it's not at all surprising
that there should becorrelation correlations. And there's
also correlations between mydeck and. And other systems that
(39:25):
I've studied, other systemsthat I've learned about the Enneagram,
the I Ching. I was interestedin Norse runes for a little while.
You know, I'm not sure howmuch of that made it into the deck,
but, you know, maybe a lot.So, yeah, all those stuff, all that
stuff is there because it's,it's there because it's. It's sort
of objective features of howour mind works. Works of how we experience
(39:47):
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
kind of more. But also kind ofpractical application. The, the cards
just by themselves don't say alot. Right. I mean, you could have
(40:08):
a. You know, like one of thecards just is just journey. Right.
And it's a picture of a pathand it just says journey. Doesn't
say you're on a journey,doesn't say you should go on a journey.
It's just, it's just journey.Right. Because the idea of a journey
is really important to us.Like, it's, it's. It's a basic kind
of aspect of, of how we function.
(40:29):
Your blog, Spirituality on theSpectrum, explores Buddhist, Taoism
and Jungian perspective. Howdo these philosophies intersect with
the. The themes of the deckand how can that relate to both kids
as well as adults?
So the idea of the blog isjust to sort of flesh out kind of
the background philosophy,background ideas. I do take time
(40:52):
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
was the idea. A lot of whatI've ended up using the blog for
is, is really more reflectionson neurodiversity and the relationship
(41:14):
between neurodiverse peopleand neurotypical people and really
just taking some time toreflect on my own experience.
How has your personal journeyof discovering your neurodivergence
shaped your understanding ofspirituality and the human experience?
Yeah, yeah, as I said, the,the, the time period, I guess was
(41:42):
the same. Right. It's reallybeen over the last three years that
I, that I studied working onthe deck and putting it together.
And it's really been aboutthree years, give or take, that I've
sort of been starting torealize and accept and integrate,
I guess, most ownneurodiversity, my own autism, and
learning about what thatmeans. And, and so that's, again,
(42:06):
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
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
(42:30):
work because we feel left out.We feel like. I think part of the
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 moving in time to that song.
Everybody else is justmarching along, doing their thing
because they all. And they'reall like, in time. They're all coordinated
(42:52):
because. Because they'recoordinated by the music. Because
they're all just listening tomusic and they're all. And they all
know the steps, right? And Ifeel 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 I'm notactually hearing the music. So I
look like a really clumsyperson who can't dance. Right. And.
(43:14):
And that's tough. So whatautistic people do when they're high
masking like me is they. Isthey figure out the patterns. They
figure out by observation andtrial and error what other people
doing what other people aredoing. And they sort of learn to
recognize the cues as bestthey can. And sometimes we do that
(43:36):
well, and sometimes we do itnot so well, and sometimes we give
up and just stop trying.Right? Which is 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
(44:00):
noise, in the chaos and thenoise, and we want to shut it out.
We want to be able to kind offeel part of something good. But
sometimes the chaos gets inthe way. 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?
(44:23):
Well, the short answer isdon't give up. The short answer is
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. I. And more generally,with our sense of meaning, with our
(44:47):
sense of direction, with oursense of place in the universe, don't
give up. Right. I reallybelieve that we as humans are hardwired
this is why the archetypesshow up again and again and again
and again and again in. Notjust in mythology, in contemporary
religion, contemporaryculture, Marvel movies, romance novels,
(45:10):
you know, the thing. The samepatterns show up because, because
we are attuned to them quitenaturally. And so I, I think that
we are hardwired to be able tofind the answers that we're looking
for. If only we can phrase thequestion in a clear way. Way, if
we can do the kind of internalwork, the internal reflection to
(45:33):
say, 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 the, is sort
of the first and the mostimportant step by far in reattuning
yourself, readjustingyourself, kind of resetting the levels,
(45:54):
resetting the knobs and thedials on the machinery to kind of
get a result within your lifethat answers those questions. That,
that gives you that sense ofcommunity, gives you a sense of direction
and purpose, gives you thesense of, of being worthwhile, of
understanding that, you know,you're, you're not a screw up. You,
(46:15):
you're just different, right?You, you have a place where you fit
in. You have a place where youcan control, contribute your unique
gifts to the world. And whenyou find that place, the world will
benefit and you will benefitin, in, in, in such rich ways. And
you can, you know, spend allof your life kind of getting closer
(46:37):
and closer and closer to thatfire, closer and closer to that perfect
spot. And every, and everytime you make a step in that direction,
you experience it, you feelit, you say, yes, this is better.
This is better than where Iwas before. This is a better thing
than what I was doing before.So do that. Listen to that, Ask those
(46:57):
questions.
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 in the cs, if nothing
else, don't do that, becausethat didn't work.
(47:20):
This has been great. How caneverybody find you in the Empyrean
deck?
Sure. So the quick and easyanswer 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
(47:41):
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
(48:06):
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.
That website also has theblog, if people find that interesting.
And it has sort of a generalintroduction to my philosophy, my
(48:28):
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.
It is amazing. I'll make surethat everybody has everything they
(48:51):
need to get in touch with youby 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
a very positive way. So thankyou very much. It's been a pleasure
to meet you. Pleasure to havea conversation with you.
(49:14):
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
(49:38):
link will be there foreveryone else for them to reach you
out to you. Thanks forlistening to this episode of One
More Day before you Go. That'sa 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
(50:01):
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
youe Go.
Check out ourwebsite@beforeyougopodcast.com youm
(50:23):
can find us as well assubscribe to the.
Program and rate us on yourfavorite 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 Hirsch. Welcome
to One more thing before yougo. Today we're sitting down with
(00:44):
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 studying
religion, psychology, and thehuman experience. With a doctorate
in world religions andextensive training in spiritual direction,
he's worked acrossuniversities, churches, corporations,
(01:07):
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
nature. Welcome to show.
Thank you so much for having me.
(01:28):
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 net, for muchof my life, I just didn't know. I
just really didn't know what Iwas doing. You know, I had things
that I was interested in andI. And things that I pursued, but
(01:49):
I. I just always struggledwith. With sort of the biggest, big
picture. But I was. I wasalways looking for a project. I was
always trying to figure outwhat that goal was. And. And over
my lifetime, it's gottenclarified, clarified, clarified.
And I feel like the. This.This product, right? This, The Empyrean
Deck, it's so satisfyingbecause I feel like I've succeeded
(02:11):
in kind of pulling togetherall these different threads. And
so I. I just. I just reallyhope that I. Other 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.
(02:32):
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,
(02:56):
to Westerners has really beensort of kind of back burnering the
sutra study, the philosophy,the that, the moral, ethical, social
practices, and really focusingvery, very narrowly on your direct
experience. Right. Just doingthis very, very simple practice.
And that has its benefits, butit also has its drawbacks. So ultimately,
(03:21):
although I felt like I got somuch out of my time at the Zen center,
it wasn't sort of the be all,end all for me. I really felt like
I had to keep on exploringother paths, other traditions, in
order to kind of fill in theblanks and learn the other things
that I needed to learn.
Well, I always like to startat the beginning. Where did you grow
(03:43):
up?
I grew up in Massachusetts. Apretty, pretty ordinary kind of suburban
childhood. I was good inschool, I guess. Good, good enough
in school. I got, I got goodgrades, but I always felt lonely
(04:04):
and I always felt left out andI always felt like I did not really
understand what was going onaround me. And these, and these kinds
of things I, I learned laterare, are expressions or manifestations
of autism.
How does that change your lifein those around you? Did it make
a significant impact.
(04:26):
At the time? You know, at thetime I didn't, I didn't know that
that's what was going on forme. You know, I, I just knew that
I was interested in what I wasinterested in, which, which was really
spirituality and philosophyand I just wasn't really interested
in, in anything else. And, andthe way that I studied those things
at first was primarilythrough, through texts, right through,
(04:48):
through reading because I, Idid not have a good time. I, I, it
was hard for me to connectwith people, let me put it that way.
I didn't really know how tomake friends or, or, or what to do
with friends when I had thembecause it seemed like a lot of the
things that, that peopletalked about and a lot of things
that people did together just,it just wasn't all that interesting
(05:09):
to me. And I just, I justdidn't really understand why, why
people did what they did. So Iwas pretty kind of isolated. And
it wasn't until I joined theZen center that was, this was after
college in my 20s, that I feltlike I had something like a community
(05:30):
or 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, 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
(05:53):
the empyrean deck,interestingly, that this, that, 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, the project is sort of
understanding sort ofgeneralities about sort of how your
(06:14):
mind works and how that pansout. And, and like I said, over the
last couple years, as I'vebeen integrating my. My particular
neurotype, I guess I've beenreally understanding why. Why I was
interested in the things I wasinterested in, why I function the
way I function, why myrelationships and friendships and
romantic relationships havegone the way they've gone. So, yeah,
(06:38):
it's been, it's been a bigdifference for me to, to. To kind
of be doing that work. And,you know, and it's an ongoing thing.
Like, I feel like I've done somuch work and so much, so much clearer
about how I work and, and whyI do the things that I do. But, you
know, it's. It's ongoing.
Tell me more about that. Ihave relatives that are on the spectrum,
(06:59):
so I understand that from thatperspective, but nothing is close
into my family. I think thatwe all should have a better understanding
of exactly whatneurodiversement means.
Oh, sure, That's. That's areally tough question, and it's hard
to summarize easily. The, theway we usually talk about neurodiversity
(07:22):
is, is just to sort of putside by side kind of typical ways
of functioning forneurotypical people and typical ways
of functioning forneurodiverse people. The typical.
And I guess the first thingthat I would say is that it has to
do with how we learn about theworld and how we engage with the
world. So neurotypical peopleprimarily engage with the world and
(07:47):
learn about the worldsocially. There's a kind of social
epistemology. So the way wefigure out how to speak, how to behave,
how to kind of learn thethings that are really important
in terms of values and formsof life. What, what, what goals we
(08:08):
should have, how we shouldrelate to each other. Most people
primarily get that informationfrom other people, right? They just,
they. They believe what theybelieve everybody else believes,
right? So if I believe thateverybody else believes that gay
people are cool, then I'mlike, okay, fine, gay people are
cool. But if I believe thateverybody else believes that there's
(08:29):
something weird or wrong withgay people, then I'm probably going
to believe that there'ssomething wrong with gay people.
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 conflict, let's
say, between what theyperceive everybody else believes
and their own personalexperience, neurotypical people will
(08:53):
assume that there's somethingwrong with them and that they're
the problem. And there is thissense that it's a matter of loyalty
and a matter of humility to,To. To. To conform, I guess, in terms
of your beliefs and yourvalues. For neurodiverse people,
the proportion is different.Right? Everybody learns through kind
(09:15):
of social interaction, socialcues, and also through their own
personal experience. But forneurodiverse people, the volume,
I guess, of internalexperience is much, much louder.
And it's really hard to drownout. My experience is my experience.
And it. And it kind of, kindof overwhelms whatever I get from
(09:35):
the outside world about howI'm supposed to behaving or what
I'm supposed to say. So it's alot harder for me to pick up on social
cues. And it's not because I'mdeaf to social cues. It's just because
my internal experience is soloud that it sort of overwhelms everything
else. And so that ties intospirituality, ties into religion,
(09:58):
ties into values, ties intoethics, ties into all these different
dimensions of how we behave.Because our, our. Our experience,
our sense of the. Of what theworld is like and what's important
is different. Does that make sense?
It absolutely makes sense. Igrew up Catholic. I'm not a practicing
(10:19):
Catholic because I feel thatthey were too stringent in certain
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 inspiritual perspectives. I love your
(10:42):
background in all things Zen,in Buddhism.
Yeah. So I, I grew up. We'reJewish, my family is Jewish, but
we weren't practicing, weweren't observing. Jewish Jews were
sort of identified as culturalJews, I guess. But even from a young
age, I can remember beinginterested in Christianity, being
(11:02):
interested in Easternspirituality, being interested in
Mythology and, you know,fantasy and science fiction. So I
was always very kind ofimaginative and I was always really
interested in this. In thisidea of this kind of imaginative
other world. And I always sawreligion and spirituality as, as
(11:24):
the way to explore or learnabout and maybe even eventually enter
into that other world, thatsort of sacred space which I wasn't.
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
(11:47):
it. And so I was alwayssearching for it through reading
about, you know, readingWestern philosophers, then, you know,
picking up a copy of the DowdyJing when I was in high school, then
later on Buddhism, later onChristianity, later on. And that
was. So that was really, youknow, sort of the defining point
(12:08):
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
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.
(12:28):
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?
Yeah, sure.
So.
Like, like we've talked about,I've spent a good chunk of time studying
a number of differentreligious traditions and, and, and
(12:50):
also some kind of more modernspiritual practices as well. I did
sort of training in Reiki and,and was interested in the Enneagram
and, and. And a couple othermodalities, I guess. And I, and I
was always sort of puttingthese things together. I always had
this sense that I was learninga lot, that whatever it was I was
(13:13):
studying, I was. I was. Thatthere was real value there, that
there was really importantinsights that were being preserved
in these traditions. But Ididn't have the feeling that any
one of these traditions, atleast as I was experiencing them,
had all the answers or had acomplete system. And I now think
(13:34):
that maybe the problem was notthat they weren't complete systems,
it's that they were completesystems 100 years ago or 500 years
ago or 2000 years ago. Andthat the problem is just that our
language and our experienceand our kind of expectations and
our politics have changed somuch that we don't. We aren't able
to access in some way thewisdom that these traditions preserve.
(13:58):
That the, that the signal isbeing drowned out by the noise of
the economics of theinstitution, the politics of the
institution, whether it be theCatholic Church or whether it be
Israel or whether it be, youknow, even. Even Buddhist monastic
and lay organizations inAmerica have had their own problems
(14:21):
and they have their owndoctrines and they have their own
sort of rules, right? Justlike the Catholic Church, they have
rules, they have doctrines,they have these structures. And the
importance of the structure isreally to maintain the institution,
right. Rather than, you know,with the idea being that it preserves
the wisdom, but the wisdomthat's being preserved is actually
being corrupted by theinstitution itself. So in array,
(14:44):
I guess really what I wantedto do was find a way to bring together
everything that was good andvaluable and important about what
these religious traditions andspirituality kind of spiritual systems
were getting at and toorganize it in such a way that it
was complete and accessibleand as much as possible avoided problems
(15:09):
of, like, an institutionalsetting. And part of that, not the
whole thing, but part of thatwas a matter of accessibility, right?
I'm not going to go to achurch. I'm not going to feel welcome
in most churches, you know,most church, you know, not. Not just
because I'm autistic, but fora number of, you know, political
reasons. There's. There'sgoing to be reasons where I'm not.
(15:31):
I'm not going to fit in wellin those places. And so many people
are, you know, are hungry forcommunity. You know, there's a lot
of people who are interestedin tarot decks, astrology, spirituality,
and, and again, there's a lotof wisdom there. But what they don't
have is a community. Theydon't have a group of people that
(15:52):
are keeping them on task,right? Keeping them focused, keeping
them accountable. Becausethat's one thing that religious institutions
in principle do provide. They.They provide some friction so they
can say, you know, your. Yourspirituality has gone out of whack,
it's gone off track. So Ithink, I think that community is
(16:12):
important. I think a commonlanguage is important. I think there
has to be a way to balanceyour experience of what's important
to you, of where you. Whereyou most typically encounter the
sacred, but at the same timebalances or contextualizes your experience
within a language that's.That's communicable, right? That
(16:35):
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 about itbecause, just because, you know,
just because spiritualExperience is meaningful and important.
Doesn't mean that you'vegotten it right. Right. Doesn't mean
that you've integrated.Integrated it in a way that's sort
of healthy. So this is sort ofa. This sort of a tangent, sort of
(16:55):
a long way around the deck.The idea of the deck is that it's
a language. The idea of. Isit. Of the deck is that. It's. That
the cards are placeholders fordifferent kinds of spiritual experiences,
for different ways in which weencounter the sacred. And it's. And
it's meant to be sort ofcomplete. Right. It's meant to cover
all the kind of diversity ofspiritual experience, the diversity
(17:18):
of the things that we thinkare important. But does it in such
a way that says what. The wayyou encounter this, if you're encountering
this, truly is valid. Right.So it's meant to sort of get that
balance, get the. But it works.
And I think overall, at leastto me, what I've just heard is the
(17:40):
philosophy behind the period.The imperial deck is kind of reflects
the structure of our humanpsyche from all these perspectives.
Yeah, that was reallyimportant to me all the way going
along. So along with the stuffin kind of spirituality and traditional
(18:02):
religions, I was also readinga lot of empirical psychology, always
reading stuff in, you know,economics, things, network theory.
Information theory has beenreally interesting to me lately as
a sort of a. As a kind ofapplied mathematics of everything.
So I think that there's somereally exciting stuff going on there.
(18:24):
And the idea basically is thatthe. The. The diversity of the ways
in which we experience thesacred just is the diversity of the
ways in which we experiencethe world. The world is sort of structured
in a certain way. And becausethe world is structured in a certain
way, our perceptual systems,our cognitive systems are adapted
(18:45):
around the way the world isstructured. And because our perceptual
and cognitive systems areadapted around the way the world
is, the ways in which weexperience the sacred are kind of
like channels or shortcuts orcircuits whereby we get to sort of
cut through the noise, right.Cut through the kind of chaos of
(19:09):
the sheer quantity of datathat we're getting around the world.
We get to kind of focus allthat data, focus all those perceptions,
memories, desires, interestsaround these sort of key, key points
that serve as anchors. Andwhen we find those anchors, we experience
them as sacred because thoseare the. Because that's where the
(19:30):
signal is, right? That's wherewe see where the real patterns are
that reflect, again, how theworld itself is structured. So it's
not. I think a lot of peoplehave this kind of matrix mentality
that there's sort of afundamental divide or divorce between
how we experience the world,which is like a simulation versus
(19:51):
the real world. And that's.And that's a product of, like, a
very particular kind ofCartesian history in Western philosophy.
Right. But it's not true.Right. The reason we experience the
world is because there's arelationship between our experience
and the world itself. And sowhen we encounter the sacred, when
we encounter something thatseems intrinsically valuable, valuable,
(20:14):
intrinsically true,intrinsically good and ripe, that's
like a. That's like a flarethat the psyche is sending up that
we're getting something right.So the idea is that the more we organize
our language and our cultureand our desires and kind of organize
our lives around those keyanchors, the more we'll get right,
(20:39):
both in terms of the objectivetruths of the natural world, scientifically,
mathematically, culturally,but also in terms of our place in
the world, what it means to behuman. And that's. And that's where
all of this kind of comes to ahead. That's sort of the. The ultimate
result. What does it mean tobe human? How do we understand our
(21:00):
place with respect to thisvery complex and strange world that
we live in? And the answer isthat we can sort of find it to the
extent that we're looking forit, that we know what to look for.
And we have good tools, right?Good tools, good language. And again,
that's what the religioustraditions are supposed to provide.
Good tools, good language,good wisdom for attuning us to what's
(21:25):
right and important and good.And that's our compass, right? That's
our sense of direction abouthow do I live? How do I. You know,
I've just lost my job, I'vejust retired, I've just been injured,
I've just been divorced. What.What do I do now? How do I. How do
I get my bearings?
(21:46):
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
the universe. You describebeing human as a project rather than
an identity. How does the decksupport this idea? And I think it
(22:08):
fosters community and peersupport, especially for those who
feel disconnected from thetraditional religious spaces. So
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 and how to readthese Answers correct?
(22:30):
I hope so. There, there's noquestion. I think, and this is maybe
a peculiar belief, but I thinkthat cultures can be more or less
good. You can have a culturewhich serves as sort of the, the
(22:50):
software or the, you know, thelanguages, which provides people
the wisdom and guidance thatthey need. Or you can have a culture
that is so materialistic, sokind of infused with money and corruption,
it's so kind of distorted, Iguess that culture is no longer doing
(23:14):
its job, right? The culture isno longer helping us find a place
in society, helping us findour sense of meaning, helping us
find those greater projects,those greater aims and goals that
give our lives meaning.Helping other people, building something,
(23:35):
creativity, right? 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
us not to do any of thosethings because it, because it doesn't,
it doesn't, it doesn't makethe right people enough money somehow,
(23:57):
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 feeling
this. So a good, a. A goodculture, I think, just is a culture
in which these basic ideas,right, the, the ideas that I've sort
(24:19):
of encoded and summarized andCate cataloged in, in the cards with
the help of Jungianarchetypes, these are, these are
things that won't surpriseanybody, right? It's not going to
surprise anybody. I mean, justto give a couple of examples of the
cards, there's one that,that's, that's about intimacy, right?
It's no surprise that thatmakes people happy and gives our
(24:41):
lives value. There's onethat's about hospitality. There's.
There's ones about RAreciprocity about, about having good
relationships that are sort ofeconomic and, and fair. There, there
are cards that relate to morebroadly, kind of what we think of
as ethical things. But there'salso cards that relate to pleasure.
There's cards that relate to.There's one that's music. There's
(25:04):
one that's just music becausemusic is so important, right? There's
another one. And, and there'salso cards that relate to our sense
of self, being independent,being being able to draw boundaries,
I guess, in our relationship,saying this is what I am, this is
where I am. And, and, andthis. And, and I will go no further,
right? This, this is what I'mwilling to put up with. And this
(25:26):
is where I say No, I, Idissent. Right. So there are all
these elements that once you,once you look at these cards, you
won't be surprised by any ofthem, probably. But what you, what
you may be surprised by isthat we spend so much time doing
other things that we spend somuch time doing things that are just
not fulfilling. And it's sortof mysterious why we do that when
(25:50):
there are so many things thatwe could do that are so cheap. Go
out for a walk in nature,right? There's so many things that
we could do that are so cheap,that we have access to, that are,
that are so fulfilling. Why,why aren't we doing those things
instead of all the stuff thatsort of makes us miserable?
I agree with you. I think thatthe pandemic was kind of a double
(26:13):
edged sword. It allowed us toreconsider what our major life situation
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
(26:36):
to an hour every day to work,45 minutes to an hour every day.
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 background,
(26:58):
balance the work life balancethat we need in order to function
in society in a better way.And she became more productive at
work, I became more productiveat home and our relationship improved.
You're being lazy, you are notbeing productive, you are not earning
money, you are notcontributing the economy. You, you
should not be doing thatstuff, right? We all, we have these
(27:20):
voices. You're not goodenough. You need to be accomplished
at some, these voices, voicesin our heads that are kind of downloaded
from, from, from the society,from, from our culture. So the good
news, again, hopefully, isthat when people recognize, when
people feel that the cultureis sort of collapsing around them,
and I think a lot of peopleare cognizant of that. I think a
lot of people have the sensethat we're at a moment in our society
(27:43):
of decline, right? America hasbeen growing. America has been producing
wonderful science, wonderfulart, has been at the cutting edge
of human rights. And, and, andnow we're in the state of. We've,
we've hit the high mark, We'vehit the zenith of the American empire.
Economically creativelypolitically, and now we're in decline.
(28:05):
And so people are sort ofaware of that. People are looking
for a new, not necessarilynew, religion. Right. They're not
necessarily looking to join acult, although some people are. Some
people. For some people,that's sort of the answer. What we're
really looking for is sort ofa new way to make sense of things
so that we can kind ofremember where we got off track.
(28:26):
Right. Remember whatever itwas that we forgot.
I agree. Or whatever thesepeople fit into. I think collectively,
I would like to revisit thestatement that you made where you
describe people's. If beinghuman as a project, I'm kind of really
interested in how that playsout and how does that relate to all
(28:49):
of what we just talked aboutin trying to refine ourselves?
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
(29:10):
understand that we, we aremoving towards enlightenment or financial
success, moving towards socialjustice or kind of utopia, moving
towards that. We, we. The waywe function well is as sort of vector
(29:35):
quantities, right. We, wecan't just be hanging out. We need
to be kind of deepening,exploring, learning, remembering,
synthesizing, putting thingstogether. So again, what that looks
like in people's lives may bepretty diverse, right. Some people
are doing ocean science ormarine biology. Other people are
(30:00):
devoting their life to helpingpeople, right through being a doctor
or a nurse or a teacher.Caregiving rules, Parenting, right?
Parenting is. Parenting is notjust keeping your children alive.
Parenting is ideal about whatkind of world the children are going
to live in and what they'regoing to do to make that world possible.
(30:25):
Everything we do. Well, somuch of what we do is this can be
described in terms of thedirection that it's going towards.
And generally speaking, thatdirection is synthesis, putting things
together. I have, personally,I have some kind of pretty kind of
Hector. Worked out ideas aboutwhat that's going to look like or
(30:47):
what that has looked like inthe human project. We don't necessarily
have to go that deep into thatunless you're interested. But. But
basically it's this idea thatwe're going for some kinds of transcendence.
And when we forget that, whenwe stop moving in that direction,
you know, whether, you know,again, we don't have to phrase it
(31:09):
for ourselves in a religiousor spiritual way. Could be in a more
kind of social or politicalway, could be. There's A number of
different ways, or an artisticway, being on the cutting edge of
science or appliedmathematics, if we lose the sense
of where we're going, if welose that kind of intuitive connection
(31:29):
that there's something therethat we're reaching for, or if we
give up, or if we just thinkwe're not going to reach it. And
I think that happens to a lotof people. We just sort of give up
on the idea that we'll everreach or accomplish the thing that
we. That we want. Then. Thenwe founder, right? And. And we kind
of. We feel a loss, we feelconfused, and we replace that with.
(31:53):
With. With something that'seasier to grab, easy to buy, easy
to do, whether or not that'sreally what we want, whether or not
that's really healthy for us.So, yeah, being. Being a human is
go, you know, finding thatdirection, identifying that direction,
clarifying that direction, andmoving in that direction.
I think society and culture aswe know it, just for that reason
(32:15):
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
(32:37):
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.
(33:00):
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 that? For
(33:24):
us to be able to gaincommunity again, to retain or obtain
or recognize the communitythat we have for us to continue to
support us.
I think that the Empyrean deckcan help in two ways. One is that
(33:47):
one is that a number of thecards are specifically about our
relationships with otherpeople. Right? Because it's so basic,
so intrinsic to how wefunction, not just as humans, but
everything in the universe,right? This is sort of a basic Buddhist
idea that. That everything iswhat it is precisely in and through
(34:09):
its relationship with nearbyothers. Right. That includes your
family and friends, but italso includes all the. All of the
networks that we are engagedin ecological networks, social networks,
economic networks. So again,this is just a matter of paying attention
(34:31):
to what's important.Important. So if you. The. The idea
of the cards, again, is tosort of focus in on those places
in your life, wherever youfind them, whatever they are, where
you can make these sorts ofconnections, where you can find these
sorts of relationships.Because when you do that, you get
this energy, you get thesupport, you get protection, you
(34:54):
get a good feeling, right? Youget 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,
right? It's about the truth ofthe matter, right? The truth of the
(35:15):
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. So which the
other thing is true, right?And if that's true, well, then you
need to know that truth aswell. And again, there's actually
cards in the deck that, thatcan. That can help you kind of face
(35:36):
up to that one. One thingabout the deck is that it's not.
It's not designed to make youfeel good, at least not immediately.
My. My experience using thisdeck, you know, and I have experienced,
you know, playing. Playingwith the tarot deck and having tarot
readings done for me and otherforms of, you know, astrology and
(36:00):
other forms of othermodalities, I guess, for wisdom and
for insight. And sometimesthis isn't kind of universal, but
sometimes people really usethese things just to get a good feeling,
right? It's sort of a kind ofcommercialized spirituality. This
deck doesn't do that. My, Myexperience with this deck is that
it's sort of bossy and thatit. It may, you know, because insofar
(36:25):
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
to, whatever it is you need tokind of focus on in your life to.
To get closer to the truth ofwho you are and where you are and
where you're going and whatyou need to do, the cards can help
(36:48):
with that. And like I said, alot of that, you know, 50% of that
just is in and through yourrelationships with other people,
in and through how you'veplugged into a specific community,
you may find that onecommunity isn't working for you.
One community is really sortof. Is sort of holding you back or
even doing damage. You maybe.Maybe what you need is to draw some
(37:11):
boundaries and leave thatcommunity and find a new community.
Community. You know, communityisn't universal good. You have to
be a part of the rightcommunity. You have to be part of
the right network of peoplewho are mutually supportive and sincere
and authentic.
So how does your deck compareto a Tarot deck? Are they similar?
(37:35):
Was that your were launchingkind of your idea to launch it this
way? What basically broughtyou to the creating this design and
this type of deck?
Sure. Yeah. It was a launchingpoint in the sense that it's a deck
of cards. That's. That's.That's pretty much the whole thing.
(37:56):
Right. There's. For me, youknow, I. You know, as I was. As I've
been doing this reading anddoing this work and doing this writing
over the years, I always sortof wanted to create a great work.
I always wanted to write abook, a Magnus opus, right? And at
different points I thought,well, I'm just not going to be able
to do that. I don't have thediscipline. And in other points,
I thought, well, maybe I coulddo it, but even if I did, who would
(38:19):
read it? Especially since somuch of the writing that I had been
doing, you know, especiallywhile I was still in school and while
I was teaching was. It wasacademic pros for an academic audience.
And I. And I wasn't reallyinterested in doing all that work.
So at some point it hit me,you know, like a bag of rocks. A
deck. A deck of cards. And soas soon as I had that kind of realization,
(38:43):
then I was sort of using theTarot deck as a. As a kind of background.
But I think that's pretty muchwhere the similarities sort of start
and end. I will say that thereare. There are cards in the Tarot
deck that are very, verysimilar to cards in the Empyrean
deck. And that's notcoincidence either, right? I mean,
(39:04):
the. The way the human. Imean, to the extent that the Tarot
deck works, and I think itworks pretty well, it's because it.
It gets right the archetypesit gets right these sort of basic
anchors of how. Of ourexperience. So it's not at all surprising
that there should becorrelation correlations. And there's
also correlations between mydeck and. And other systems that
(39:25):
I've studied, other systemsthat I've learned about the Enneagram,
the I Ching. I was interestedin Norse runes for a little while.
You know, I'm not sure howmuch of that made it into the deck,
but, you know, maybe a lot.So, yeah, all those stuff, all that
stuff is there because it's,it's there because it's. It's sort
of objective features of howour mind works. Works of how we experience
(39:47):
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
kind of more. But also kind ofpractical application. The, the cards
just by themselves don't say alot. Right. I mean, you could have
(40:08):
a. You know, like one of thecards just is just journey. Right.
And it's a picture of a pathand it just says journey. Doesn't
say you're on a journey,doesn't say you should go on a journey.
It's just, it's just journey.Right. Because the idea of a journey
is really important to us.Like, it's, it's. It's a basic kind
of aspect of, of how we function.
(40:29):
Your blog, Spirituality on theSpectrum, explores Buddhist, Taoism
and Jungian perspective. Howdo these philosophies intersect with
the. The themes of the deckand how can that relate to both kids
as well as adults?
So the idea of the blog isjust to sort of flesh out kind of
the background philosophy,background ideas. I do take time
(40:52):
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
was the idea. A lot of whatI've ended up using the blog for
is, is really more reflectionson neurodiversity and the relationship
(41:14):
between neurodiverse peopleand neurotypical people and really
just taking some time toreflect on my own experience.
How has your personal journeyof discovering your neurodivergence
shaped your understanding ofspirituality and the human experience?
Yeah, yeah, as I said, the,the, the time period, I guess was
(41:42):
the same. Right. It's reallybeen over the last three years that
I, that I studied working onthe deck and putting it together.
And it's really been aboutthree years, give or take, that I've
sort of been starting torealize and accept and integrate,
I guess, most ownneurodiversity, my own autism, and
learning about what thatmeans. And, and so that's, again,
(42:06):
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
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
(42:30):
work because we feel left out.We feel like. I think part of the
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 moving in time to that song.
Everybody else is justmarching along, doing their thing
because they all. And they'reall like, in time. They're all coordinated
(42:52):
because. Because they'recoordinated by the music. Because
they're all just listening tomusic and they're all. And they all
know the steps, right? And Ifeel 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 I'm notactually hearing the music. So I
look like a really clumsyperson who can't dance. Right. And.
(43:14):
And that's tough. So whatautistic people do when they're high
masking like me is they. Isthey figure out the patterns. They
figure out by observation andtrial and error what other people
doing what other people aredoing. And they sort of learn to
recognize the cues as bestthey can. And sometimes we do that
(43:36):
well, and sometimes we do itnot so well, and sometimes we give
up and just stop trying.Right? Which is 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
(44:00):
noise, in the chaos and thenoise, and we want to shut it out.
We want to be able to kind offeel part of something good. But
sometimes the chaos gets inthe way. 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?
(44:23):
Well, the short answer isdon't give up. The short answer is
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. I. And more generally,with our sense of meaning, with our
(44:47):
sense of direction, with oursense of place in the universe, don't
give up. Right. I reallybelieve that we as humans are hardwired
this is why the archetypesshow up again and again and again
and again and again in. Notjust in mythology, in contemporary
religion, contemporaryculture, Marvel movies, romance novels,
(45:10):
you know, the thing. The samepatterns show up because, because
we are attuned to them quitenaturally. And so I, I think that
we are hardwired to be able tofind the answers that we're looking
for. If only we can phrase thequestion in a clear way. Way, if
we can do the kind of internalwork, the internal reflection to
(45:33):
say, 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 the, is sort
of the first and the mostimportant step by far in reattuning
yourself, readjustingyourself, kind of resetting the levels,
(45:54):
resetting the knobs and thedials on the machinery to kind of
get a result within your lifethat answers those questions. That,
that gives you that sense ofcommunity, gives you a sense of direction
and purpose, gives you thesense of, of being worthwhile, of
understanding that, you know,you're, you're not a screw up. You,
(46:15):
you're just different, right?You, you have a place where you fit
in. You have a place where youcan control, contribute your unique
gifts to the world. And whenyou find that place, the world will
benefit and you will benefitin, in, in, in such rich ways. And
you can, you know, spend allof your life kind of getting closer
(46:37):
and closer and closer to thatfire, closer and closer to that perfect
spot. And every, and everytime you make a step in that direction,
you experience it, you feelit, you say, yes, this is better.
This is better than where Iwas before. This is a better thing
than what I was doing before.So do that. Listen to that, Ask those
(46:57):
questions.
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 in the cs, if nothing
else, don't do that, becausethat didn't work.
(47:20):
This has been great. How caneverybody find you in the Empyrean
deck?
Sure. So the quick and easyanswer 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
(47:41):
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
(48:06):
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.
That website also has theblog, if people find that interesting.
And it has sort of a generalintroduction to my philosophy, my
(48:28):
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.
It is amazing. I'll make surethat everybody has everything they
(48:51):
need to get in touch with youby 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
a very positive way. So thankyou very much. It's been a pleasure
to meet you. Pleasure to havea conversation with you.
(49:14):
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
(49:38):
link will be there foreveryone else for them to reach you
out to you. Thanks forlistening to this episode of One
More Day before you Go. That'sa 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
(50:01):
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
youe Go.
Check out ourwebsite@beforeyougopodcast.com youm
(50:23):
can find us as well assubscribe to the.
Program and rate us on yourfavorite podcast listening platform.
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