Symbolism and Self-Discovery Through Shamanism

Episode Transcript
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Jeffrey Brunk (00:02):
Hello everyone and welcome to another edition
of the Everyday Shaman.
I'm your host, jeffrey Brunk.
Today I have with me guestDaniel Thrasher.
Daniel was born and raised inupstate New York in a
non-denominational church andended up walking away from the
faith after watching twochurches implode.
He learned some hard lessonsabout people and getting burned.
During that time, dan had areawakening of sorts after he

(00:24):
returned from invading Iraq.
He ended up stumbling uponshamanism, received some
training from great people inboth shamanism and psychic
healing, and Daniel studiedpsychology and any modalities he
could get his hands on Alongthe way.
He ended up getting divorcedand remarried to an amazing
woman.
Dan has survived manylife-altering events emotionally
, physically and spiritually andI'm extremely grateful to have

(00:48):
him with me here today.
So, daniel, welcome, great tohave you here.
Thanks for having me, jeff.
It's been a couple of years ormore I guess, since we first
spoke and it sounds like you'vehad quite a bit go on in the
last few years.
So what's been going on withyou, your investigations into
shamanism and other modalities?

Daniel Thrasher (01:05):
been going on with you at your investigations
into shamanism and othermodalities and oh, yeah, yeah,
we had.
Uh, when I reached out to you,I was in, uh, I was in a pretty
rough place.
I just wrapped up a messydivorce that worked out,
honestly, better than itprobably should have.
I was by myself, hadn't reallygot my feet back underneath me,
didn't really know where to gofrom there and didn't entirely
understand my life falling apartthe way it did, and I just I

(01:26):
needed to touch base withsomebody and I found you and
it's.
It's been a journey since thento just refocus and kind of
rebuild my life and kind ofreset in a sense, you know.

Yeah.
What were the contributingfactors in in getting to
investigation of shamanism anddifferent are they healing
modalities?

Most of it's healing modalities.
I really enjoy doing healingwork with people, whether it's
talking through stuff with themthat they just haven't been able
to wrap their mind around, orif it's actually doing like
healing journeys or psychicjourneys, introducing them to a
plant that might help them withsome kind of medical issue that
they're having.
That's probably my biggestenjoyment out of this type of
work is just seeing people getbetter, whether it's, you know,

(02:09):
life-wise or physically.

Yeah, I can relate.
I've done a lot of journeys andI don't know afterwards what
goes on.
Some people will tell me,sometimes three, four years
later, and I'll find out oh,this happened, and this happened
, yeah.
But, it's nice to know.
I believe that's part ofsetting ego aside.
So it sounds like you've beenable.
It's not easy for a lot ofpeople to do so.

(02:33):
To be able to do that, itsounds like you have.

Yeah, it's a.
Uh, ego is a is a brutal,fickle master.
Um, you, you really like causeI'll catch myself and the, the
ego part, and that's not justlike when we're.
When we're talking about ego, Ifeel like we're not just
talking about like the, beingcocky or like proud of yourself.
There's a, there's an aspect ofself that creates it definitely

(02:58):
has its negative sides you knowthe, the, the cockiness and
stuff like that but there's alsothe side that is protective.
Your ego responds to things andI think that that's very
strongly linked to in myexperience to PTSD is an egoic
response to a traumaticexperience.
But you can't really do healingwork when your ego's on the
front of that.
So you have to, you have tolearn to kind of strip that to

(03:20):
the side and set it to the sideand do your work, and it's a
lovely thing to look at oneselfsometimes.

Yeah, I um, I don't know about you, but when I
do work for others, it's fairlyeasy for me to set my ego aside
.
But when I do, or if I attemptto do, work for myself, it's
more difficult.
Or it has been up until thelast year or so even, I don't
know why, but whether it'sfeeling like, oh, I don't

(03:50):
deserve this, or I don't need it, maybe a male thing.

Yeah, and we tend to overthink a lot of stuff
too, especially in Westernsociety.
Our minds get so far ahead ofus that we're judging ourself on
stuff that doesn't even matterand or other people haven't even
noticed, you know, and we thinkit's this terrible thing and
it's uh, it definitely keeps youon your toes.

Yeah, you made a good point about the ego.
I bring that up a lot as far assetting the ego aside without
thinking how others mightperceive ego, because you can
think of it as like dead ego,super ego, yeah, that type way.
Oh, you know, however peoplelook at it, but it's really just
setting aside the sense of allright, what's going on with me?
I just am going to put thataway until I work for this other

(04:35):
person.
It's really for the bettermentof the person and be able to
focus with intention on them.
How did you get to a pointwhere you were able to set that
aside and work for other people.

That's a really good question to try and think
through the process of it.

Well, let me ask did you make practices of
quieting the mind first, whetheryou realized it was happening
or not?

Yeah, that was probably the first part of it
when I learned a journey, justbeing able to quiet down your
mind.
But I think after I'd gottenback from Iraq and I was dealing
with the issues I was dealingwith PTSD and a lot of anger
issues, a lot of feelingstagnant and resentment, things
like that.
One of the things that helpedme kind of start digging out of
it was, you know, studying thepsychology so I could understand

(05:22):
the way I was thinking a littlebetter.
And then after that I readEckhart Tolle's book A New Earth
.
That is a lot to chew on.
I can read 300 pages a week easyand it took me three weeks to
get through 80 pages of his book.
There's just so much in therein that book specifically is the

(05:42):
ego and setting the ego asideand realizing that the things
that are happening to us, thatshape us, are simply events that
we're passing through.
They're not things we have tohold on to and that kind of let
me start separating my mind fromthe things around me and I'm
definitely not perfect at it,but it gave me kind of a
handhold to start kind ofgetting my mind under control
when I needed to be undercontrol on things and realizing

(06:04):
what it was.

Yeah, and that's great.
It sounds like in a lot of waysthat you quieted your mind, or
learn to quiet your mind, sortof without even recognizing it,
through reading.
Yeah, it was.

I had.
I had a background in somemartial arts so I'd learned a
little bit of meditation growingup.
It was mostly combat oriented,but you still.
It's a very similar place to gothat, that empty space, the
non-self.
My first martial artsinstructor, oddly enough, was
very what's the right word?
He was very.
He drove the fact that when youwalk into a classroom to learn

(06:38):
like a martial art, you need totreat it like you've never
learned anything and thatseparates the self from your
learning and I kind of.
That's kind of always stuckwith me in a sense, I guess.

Yeah, that's setting the ego aside when you
do that, going into anything,like you may know everything
about it or think you do.
Yeah, but setting all of thataside just to say or to think
there's something else that Imight learn or need to know.

Yeah, that's definitely not something I'm
perfect at, but the more I gothrough life now, especially as
I'm getting older, the more I'mable to be like but there might
be a different perspectivecompletely.
That's going to show mesomething I would have never
thought of.

Yeah, and doing this type thing, learning never
ceases.
There's always something new.
It's like you're given as muchas you need or can handle during
those times.
It's like taking steps you know, and then, once you've gotten
to that point, you're given aperiod of time where you work
with that.
There's a break, yeah, and thenyou feel it when it's time to

(07:38):
learn something new.

Oh yeah.
Yeah, it's very interesting toothat the more I talk to people
that do this stuff, like you andI have have had some great
discussions the representationsyou see when you're journeying
are are different than the onesI see when I'm journeying.
I think a lot of shamanism thatI like about it is it's
tailored specifically to theperson who's doing the journey.
So these are the symbols thatyou are going to be able to

(08:02):
interpret easier than like.
If I saw some of the symbolismyou see, I wouldn't know what to
do with it.
Like I wouldn't understand itthe way you do.
Whereas some of the symbolism Iget is more mine's, more animal
based, yours is more shadow,light and shadow based.
From what I've heard from youand I think that's the it has to
do with the best way for us tounderstand what the information

(08:23):
is that's trying to be given tous.

Yeah, there are a lot of animals within my
journeys, but they do havedifferent representations or
different meanings.
There's a flip side to everyanimal symbolism.
If you see a snake, you see aspider.
Whatever the animal may be.
They have different meaningsand every culture has meanings,
but there's a core elementwithin all of those.
That's true for every culture.

(08:45):
But they have a good and a badside to them.
Right, Right and people tend togravitate towards this is the
good, Right and then really shyaway, say if it's something that
symbolizes potential death.

Yeah, one great example of that is the coyote
specifically is a great, crafty,adaptable, incredible animal.
It really is an incredibleanimal.
So there is this whole positiveside of the coyote.
But if you talk to NavajoIndians, they don't like the
coyote at all because theirhistoric past has to do with

(09:18):
skinwalkers and the kind ofanti-shamans, the people who use
this stuff against people theyhave a different name from in
South America.
I can't remember it right offthe top of my head but, um, so
if they see someone with acoyote pelt in their house it
used to be they would justoutright kill them.
So the coyote has a verynegative representation inside
that culture.

Yeah, I've encountered coyote and within
journeys several times, thefirst being a journey for my
wife.
She wanted to know her spiritanimal and it was a coyote Nice
and it was good.
But recently I've encounteredit several times but they've had
very, very negativeconnotations in some and very
protective connotations withinothers.

(09:59):
But they're tricksters.

But they're also super family oriented, pack
oriented.
They have long pack memory.
They're a really cool animal.
The more I learn about them.

When I've encountered them as tricksters,
it's been really within theshadow and the dark journeys.
Right, the shadow was actuallywithin a journey, trying to get
me in my ethereal self tocapitulate to it.

Yeah.

Using the coyote it's funny how, for instance,
doing a journey, and I call themthe divine essences.
Yeah, for me, raphael was oneof the first and he approached
me in a way that made mecomfortable.

Right.

So that I was able to get the messages that I
was given.
And I'm sure you know theydon't give yes and no answers.
I give yes and no answers.
That would be too easy.
Yeah, that'd be too easy.
You know everything.
Yeah, what's the point?
I'm done.
You know Other people that haveencountered, whether it be
Jibreel or whoever it may be.
They approach them or theyencounter them and they have a

(10:59):
different countenance WithJibreel.
He's very stern withcommunication and discernment.
There have been.
I know at least one otherperson that's come to me and
he's humorous and I'm likereally he's not humorous with me
.
I mean, there's been a few timeshe said little things that are
sort of borderline yeah like hedoesn't know how to do it yeah
but it's neat how that happensand because we're all different,

(11:21):
but we're all made of the samething.
The divine, or the light, orGod, or whatever you choose to
call it, knows exactly what weneed and how we're to be able to
receive it in order tounderstand it and use it for
ourselves and for other people.

Yeah, I think you're touching on one of the
subjects that I enjoy a lotabout shamanism, but I'm also
very careful to try to impart topeople is everyone has a
different way of labeling things.
You call things divine essences, I usually call them entities,
and that's one of the thingsthat I love about shamanism is
we're not stuck on definitions,like you don't use this term and

(11:57):
this term only for somethingand it limits linguistic control
of your spiritual path.
In a way, You're not worriedabout having a ritualistic
labeling, but you're also notstuck with interfering with
someone else's labeling, like ifsomeone says well, god, and the
next person says the universe,you know that's completely okay.

(12:18):
I try to be respectful of thosedifferent uses of language and
a lot of people, especiallyinside organized religion,
there's specific words they'resupposed to use for specific
things and I think it in a wayclouds their experience.
Yeah, and it starts the ritualbefore you've even done anything
, you know.

Yeah, that's a big reason why I don't use the
word angel.
I use divine essence becauseit's more an element of light.
But you tend to picture, if yousay angel, the winged beings
with the chubby cheeks or the.
You know the paintings that you, you know, and although I have
seen them with wings of somesort at some different times,

(12:57):
they're nothing like the quote,unquote angels that if you've
grown up in religion, that youwould picture, or you see them
on paintings or TV or whatever.
So I don't use that.
And the same goes for titlesReiki, master.
I don't like it's an ego thingand I shy away from even calling
myself a shaman.
I don't like that because Iknow it's a very revered title

(13:20):
and I don't want to.
I don't know it's an ego thingtoo.

Yeah, it's almost presumptuous to label
yourself as a shaman Like that'show it feels to me it's a, and
traditionally it's beensomething that other people
called like oh, this guy's ahealer, this guy's a shaman.
Other people would call youthat.
Um, I ran into one lady.
I was at a, at an event, just abunch of different modalities
of healing and stuff like thatand and her, her table was set

(13:45):
up and she had some shamanicstuff there.
So I stopped and talked to her,because I'm always looking for
anyone I can train with or learnsomething else from, and she
was more bent on how long shehad trained under this guy.
And then, you know, that's thereason why I can put up my
shingle and the comment just satlike off with me and I was like
I don't think, that's like justbecause.

(14:06):
And the comment just sat likeoff with me and I was like I
don't think.
That's like just cause youtrained with someone for 12
years doesn't make you a shaman.
I know people in the army thattrained for 12 years and they're
they are.
I wouldn't trust them with aspork, you know.
So so I don't think and I andthat's not to like I never I
didn't have a really long timeto get to talk with her or see
her practice.
So I'm not judging her as faras her ability to help people,
but just the phrasing of thatcomments was off for me and it

(14:28):
it let me know immediately thatI probably wouldn't train well
with her.
Not that I couldn't learnsomething from her, but that
definitely wasn't the personthat was going to teach me, and
I knew it as soon as she saidthat I was like okay you're not
my teacher.
That's not saying she can't helpsomebody.
It's not saying she's extremelygood at what she does.
It was just the phrasing of itis kind of what you were talking
about.
That almost feels weird to saythis is who I am, you know.

Yeah, well, I use an example when I finished
Reiki training, four years tookthat amount of time because I
wanted to take time in betweeneach level.
But as soon as I finished, ornot long after I finished, I
went to a Reiki master for asession for myself.
I expected to have that personbe in the same mindset as I was.

(15:10):
I ended up being sick for aweek afterwards.
I literally was sick because itwas.
She arrived late, her energywas all over the place.
Just frenetic stood behind meand she banged a gong behind
like a little.
It wasn't a gong, but it was.
I didn't see it coming, I didn'tknow she was going to do that,
scared the crap out of me, goton the table and then she
started.
You know, when I do hands-onit's very light.

(15:35):
A lot of times I don't even doyou know there's, there's hardly
any touching at all.
But she is like a deep tissuemassage and my shoulders it hurt
.
Yeah, I mean it really hurt,and but she, her energy, I don't
know.
I didn't know it at the timethat it was the energy
transference the way it was,because my intention had always
been, when I was learning, thatyou're supposed to be in a good
head place, right, and shewasn't.
And so many people are notfocused or they're doing it for

(15:59):
the wrong reasons.

Right, when I'm doing like smudging and stuff
like that, I barely ever touchpeople.
I rarely have to.
You can feel their energy,sometimes from feet away.
Oh yeah, it's.
Yeah, it's interesting You'dsay that I've seen some people
that just have a very differentmethod.

And like modalities.
There's no one way, Right,right.

To do something .
It is what works for me.
I'm built different than thisother person, so this is what
works for me.
And in these modalities I findthe same thing.
Like I'll see one thing fromsomebody and be like, oh, I like
the way that works, I think Ican use that.
And then I'll see other stuffthat I'm like no, that's not
going to fit with with how Iwork, but I appreciate learning
it and everything's a process,but it, those those little

(16:50):
pieces, those little differences, I think is what makes us
amazing.
But it also makes it so thatyou have to be a little careful
about who you're having to workwith you, because certain,
certain energy sets just don'tdo well together.
Not that they're not thatthere's a negative aspect to
that, but they just they don'tfit quite right and you want to
find that person that fits withyou?

Yeah, that's so true.
You know, I was turned away bya Reiki master one time saying,
oh, I don't have enough, I don'thave room, I'm not taking on
new clients.
And I thought no, I didn'tthink it, I actually said it how
can you turn people away whoare coming to you when they need
?

help.

I've had one person no, two people, aside
from the one that made me sickthat I've ever allowed to do
work for me, but it's because Ilearned something from the one
when I got sick, right, right,but it's more of a knowing and a
feeling of that energy.
Even if it's just over thephone Now, it's the same.
Like you mentioned, takingyears to train to become a
shaman Well, there are culturesthat do that, you know,

(17:50):
especially if, if it runs withina family.
Yeah, it's almost like anapprenticeship, yeah, but it's
not the only way that thathappens.
There's also.
Everyone has it within them todo a certain amount of these
things.
But it's for myself and Ibelieve, probably for you it's
going through a set of traumasand getting to a place of almost
being broken that allows you toopen up and accept when you
finally accept that you'rebroken.
That's when, boom, there's this,this awareness that comes

(18:12):
around, that just floods throughyou and things change like
overnight it seems.

Yeah, that's yeah, that's a really great way
of putting it too.
So I had started studyingshamanism and then I went
through this.
I got a phone call from someonefrom high school that I hadn't
talked to in 20 years.
She's like I think you'resupposed to do the psychic
healing class with me and we'llgo into it in another
conversation but all the piecesfell into place for me to end up
in this class and it was almostimmediately after that class

(18:40):
that my life exploded and Ithink in that process I was left
with nowhere to hide myselffrom people, lost friends, but
it feels like you're gettingstripped down to your bones and
I took away the whole.
If you don't live your lifewhere you have to keep secrets,
then you don't have to keep anysecrets.
If you are doing things thatyou feel like you should hide

(19:03):
from somebody, don't do thethings you feel like you should
hide from somebody.
It's a super simple answer, youknow.

It is.
It's a simple answer, but it'snot a simple answer in our
society, especially for guys.

Yeah, but it literally broke my life until I
was living in a trailer with Ihad a bed, I had my tools for
work and I had a table andchairs that I got from an
apartment at the apartmentcomplex that I was working at
and that's where I had to startrebuilding from.
It's a.
It's a brutal experience andnot everyone goes through that.

(19:35):
I don't think.
I think people who learn how todo this kind of stuff and it
works for them but they're notgoing to be moving on to like
doing a bunch of work healingother people I don't know if
they entirely go through thatwhole, but there's a certain
amount of that learning process.
I think with people who aresupposed to be doing a lot of
work with other people or takingon the responsibility of
actually being under the apronof a shamanic practitioner or a

(20:00):
shaman, there's a differencebetween the two.
If you're going to startlabeling yourself as a shaman or
being labeled as a shaman, Ithink that the stripping of your
life is a lot more intense.
You had a name for it.

I think For me it was hitting rock bottom.
It's like losing everything togain everything.

Yeah, yeah.
I was literally sitting at acomputer looking at a loaded 45
going.
I looked at that 45 and Iunderstood immediately why
people feel like that's the onlyanswer.
Yeah, I was to where I was likeoh, I know how people get here,
Like I actually saw it for thefirst time personally.

Yeah, it wasn't.
It wasn't a 45 or a gun for me,but it was waking up on suicide
watch in the hospital a coupleof times.
Yeah, yeah, um.
I wasn't aware of what all wasgoing on, right, right, but it
was so overwhelming that, at thesame time, life kept going on
and it's like I'm freaking catNine lives kept coming back.
It's like, all right, there's apurpose for this.

Well, and there were some days where it was
just getting up and going towork and I don't know how I got
to work, like I don't know how Imade myself do that and then
the next day you do it again andyou're a little bit better, or
you learned a little bit more,or, you know, you find yourself
a month later being able tostart putting a couple pieces
back together or examineyourself a little more or, you

(21:18):
know, do a journey.
It took me a while to journey.
I was so, my life was sochaotic.
I felt at the time that it wasdifficult to quiet myself enough
to journey.
But I constantly had thoseconversations in the back of my
head where you're havingconversations with your spirit
guides or with your, you know,with God, or however you want to
define it.
You're talking to somebody inthe back of your head and you

(21:39):
get that, you're gettingintuitive answers, but you're
not able to, like, sit down andreally quiet yourself down
enough to journey while you'reworking through that process or
for me it was.
It was difficult, yeah.

To admit.
That is huge, because if youtell someone now you're talking
to someone in your head, it'slike we have a pill for that.
Yeah, no.
So people don't want to admitthat and most people won't admit
that, and especially guys won'tadmit that, but it happens,
lord knows.
I go around our property and Ismudge the property and I give

(22:11):
blessing, but I actually talkout loud to guides and to the
land, right, I guess that wouldmake me crazy in a lot of
people's eyes.
I had one young man that came tome and he drove two hours just
to sit and talk and he said hehears these voices talking to
him, right.
And I asked him.
I said what are they tellingyou?
Are they telling you thingsthat are bad, harmful things?

(22:32):
And he said no, they're veryencouraging and I'm on the right
path.
I said keep listening to them.
I don't care if anyone tellsyou that you know you're crazy
or you need help or you needmedication, as long as you're
not thinking of doing things orthe voices aren't telling you
bad things or getting you intothat paranoid space.

That's something different.
Having those conversations withyour spirit guide or God, you
know, which is essentially whatyou do when you pray.
There's a difference betweenthat and that paranoid like
something's talking to me.
It's uncomfortable.
I'm starting to seeuncomfortable things in my life.
You get people who start goingoff on the on the we.
We define it as schizophrenic,like paranoid schizophrenic, and

(23:15):
and that's a very differentinteraction and I think in my
experience, I think those aretwo very different situations,
but they're also.
They're both from one foot inthe spirit realm at all times.

Yeah, and even with schizophrenics.
Now I know I'm not going broadwith every person that's
diagnosed as were labeled.
There are some people that arejust labeled.
With me, I was labeled bipolarby a physician's assistant
without any testing when all ofthis was going on with me.
But there are people that areso sensitive and so open that

(23:46):
these elements of darkness anddivine essences are talking at
the same time.
Not everyone can be lumped into.
Okay, he's schizophrenic, he'sbipolar.
I think society labels us thatway.
There's a lot of reasons forthat.

I shared with you a little bit about my
brother and his struggle withthat, and I've talked to my mom
extensively about it.
She's shamanically trained aswell.
She's a Reiki master andseveral other modalities of
healing work, and we've had somegreat conversations just
discussing the possibility thatschizophrenics, as a general
statement, might have a channelthat's open, that they don't

(24:22):
know how to close, or was forcedopen and can't be closed, or
they don't know to close it, sothey have stuff talking to them
all the time and it starts towear on your brain.

Sort of the same with people that are on the
spectrum of autism Right.

I think there's a fascination with people on
the spectrum of autism.
You get these genius levelresponses all the way down to
not not being able tocommunicate at all and then like
going into the study of thatstuff, that's all.
That's a whole rabbit hole toget get into it, but it is.
It is fascinating the differentreactions you get.
Some people who who have thosethings start talking to them and

(24:57):
they're very comfortableexplaining it.
They found a way to deal withit.
They know what it.
You know.
They only kind of have acomfortable way of explaining
what it is for them.
So a podcast with a guy that hehe's an artist and he draws some
of the stuff that he sees, buthe was very forward about.
You know, hey, the whole timewe've been doing this podcast,
that wall over there has beenall over the place and there's

(25:18):
things talking through it and hegoes.
I've just learned I know that'snot what other people are
seeing that that's somethingfrom a different place, but he
had an excellent way ofexplaining it all.
It was very fascinating.

Yeah, and being out in nature, I've had, I've
had experiences where I will seeeven and people think this is
really crazy because they wouldkill it in a heartbeat but it
was a black wood, a spider, andit was under a bucket and I took
it and I didn't kill it.
Yeah, it was almost like it wastalking to me, right?
I named it Scarlet Nice.

Yeah, yeah.

And took a stick and played with it.
I didn't let it crawl on me oranything, because I didn't want
to take that chance, but then Iset it free.
There was a message that it had, and at that time there were so
many spiders that would justseemingly come out of nowhere.
I'm sitting on the front porchone day and there was one little
furry white spider.
It was the cutest little thing.
It was on my leg, yeah, and I'dnever seen one around here like

(26:11):
that.
And I'm out in the middle ofthe freaking woods and there's
spiders everywhere, but I'd notseen one like this.
And later that day I wassomewhere else on the property
and there was another one.
I don't know if it was the sameone or not, but it was the same
type spider.
It's the only two times fiveyears we've lived in this home
that I have seen that spider,but during this time, they were
showing up everywhere and theyhave so much meaning and at the

(26:34):
same time, I was getting, duringjourneys, images that it wasn't
of spiders all the time, but itwas webs and the connectedness
of things.
That was the message I wasbeing given webs and the
connectedness of things yeah,that was the message I was being
given was there are people thatare part of this web that are
meant to actually help regainand maintain balance in this
world between the light and thedark and the shadow, and the

(26:54):
shadow being what we embodywithin us.
That's where the ego is.
That's the part of the ego isthe shadow.

Yeah, there was a.
You're saying the interconnect,the interconnected part of us.
There's a, there's a journeyyou can do to see your true self
.
It's it's an intense journey.
The first time you do it,especially looking at what is my
ideal true self, show me thatperson.
And part of that journey for mewas after I had seen myself.
It kind of like zoomed out ofearth and I could see all these

(27:24):
lights like little dots all overthe place and as I got closer
and closer, all those dots hadlines connecting all these other
lines to all these other people.
I didn't realize it was peopleuntil I got closer and closer
and closer and then I saw thoselights are inside people's
chests and all those lines areconnecting to all the people
that are around them.

That's wild, because I have had that exact
same experience.
It's almost like a satelliteview of America, with all the
lights on at night yeah.
Yeah, I've had that exact sameexperience within a journey,
seeing that and also seeing itin the sky as spider webs.
But yeah, that's wild thatyou've had that same being drawn
away so far.

Oh yeah, it's not like you're in space it's,
it's in another realm, yeah.
Yeah, there's.
It wasn't a feeling of space,it was a feeling of just that
like an observational point.

With me, it's whenever I'm drawn up into those
realms, those really higherrealms, and given images like
that it's usually a very deep,meaningful message that you're
being given.
It's not that that happens allthe time.
More times than not, I'm doingwork on this realm or the lower
realms.
When it's taken up into thehigher realms like that, it's

(28:38):
special, it's very meaningful.

I'm trying to think of a good way to phrase it
.
I think there's a difference.
When you're journeying to healsomeone specifically, or for
yourself specifically, withintentions on very set points,
you're not looking at largerevents Like that's not the
intention of that journey.
But on that specific journey Iwanted to see true self, high
self, and that's why it yankedme out that far, and it was kind

(29:02):
of like someone snapping theirfingers at you, like hey, you
need to pay attention to this,because this isn't like your
microcosm of your neighborhoodor your friend group.
This is something far largerthan that and you need to
understand the scope of this.
I think, is how it felt to meanyway.

Yeah, you're spot on with that.
I've been drawn so far out.
It's not just this universe,it's seeing multiple, multiple
universes and theinterconnectedness of them.
At one time I was shown how andwhere.
You know the small little spotwe're in.

Yeah.

And the vastness of everything that is is off
kilter and it's veering in.
The frequencies that are withineverything, within space,
within the universe, withineverything are off and just it's
like when you go in the oceanand swim, you go in in one spot
and then you look around and yourealize, oh man, I'm 200 yards
from.

I'm not even near there anymore.

Yeah, yeah yeah, that's bizarre, bizarre.
First time I've ever heardsomeone describe a journey image
for image that I've had.

Yeah, that's confirmation, and it is, it is
fascinating when someone is likeoh, or, or you, someone else is
talking and they describesomething that you've seen a
hundred percent and you're justlike I know that place, like
it's, it's amazing and it and itreally helps lay to rest.
One of the difficulties whenyou're learning shamanism at
first is am I making this up inmy head, am I seeing this animal

(30:26):
for real or is it?
Am I making this up?
I have had a lot of people askme those questions, but we did.
When I was doing the psychictraining, there was seven or
eight of us in that class andone of the last things we did
was a journey together and we wewere at each asked after the
journey was done what they sawon that journey.

(30:46):
And I saw a flower that openedup and each one of the points of
the pedals was one of thepeople from the class, and
someone else described it asseeing a constellation of stars,
and each person was one ofthose stars, but it was very,
very similar, just described inthe way that they can see it.
Another person was really goodat seeing colors, so everything
was all in colors.
I don't see a ton of colors.

You see, I do and I'll see.
It's like with my guides whochange.
I go into a journey with asingle intention and I do call
upon certain guides forprotection and discernment and
things like that, but I neverknow what might show up or who
might show up.
But I'd see a lot of colors andsometimes they are not there in

(31:31):
form, sometimes it's telepathic.
I'll get messages sort of likethe, you know hearing the voices
in the head but in a lot oftimes it's colors, and this
colors could be within, like yousay, flowers, even the colors
of an animal's eyes.
Yeah, one recently was a blacksnake with a blue underbelly.
I'm like, okay, I know who'sthere with me with the, because
of the blue and being able tointerpret that, but, um, I do

(31:55):
get a lot of colors.

Yeah, see, that's incredible to me.
I see, I see shades from whiteto dark, and then probably the
only color that I have that thatis recurring is gold.
That's a good one I was doingsome work on a person and while
I was doing the smudging likethis gold cape was down their
back.
It was absolutely amazing.
There's another one where I didsome work and there were some

(32:18):
entities in this person's lungsand when I put energy in them
cause I try not to destroy stuff, I don't think that's our place
really, but for me personallyanyway when I put energy into
them, they changed from a verydark color to gold.
It was just incredible.
So gold is one color I see, butthere's people who hear music.
There's people.
It's amazing.

(32:39):
But yeah, colors are not theway I get most of my information
.

I can't remember hearing music.
I do get smells.
Oh nice, nice.
At times you talk aboutdestroying things.
You can't destroy energy, right, right.
And this is interesting and Ihave to let you know.
I don't know if you were awareof this, but when I journeyed
for you, that was one of thevery first times, if not the
very first time, that Iencountered elements of darkness

(33:02):
.
Right, they weren't the lowestleveling elements of darkness,
they were.

You were a little alarmed when you got in
touch with me.

Yeah, that was one of the first times ever
since then more and more andmore and it's gotten deeper.
It's almost.
It's strange.
It's the elements of darknessrealized the imbalance, but the
elements of shadow did not.

Yeah, that's an interesting look.
I'll have to file that one awayfor later.

I want to do a podcast at some point on ghosts,
because that's a big thing.
There's so many doggone ghostshows on now, but those are
elements of shadow, or there area lot of those.
I see orbs around here all thetime, even in the daytime.

Yeah, there's somewhere in the in-between
space.
Yeah.

But they're a mixture of light and dark and
you can't destroy energy, butyou can transmute the darkness
part or set free the light part.
Right, there's still an elementof consciousness in these
things.
Yeah, yeah, there's still anelement of consciousness in
these things?
Yeah, yeah.
But when I approach, like whenI'm smudging outdoors, and I
know that there has beeneverywhere you go, there's been
some sort of event or some sortof trauma, Because everybody

(34:09):
goes through something.
It may be minor, it may bemajor, but I don't approach
anything with a sense of angeror like you see on those shows
get out of here you're banished,which is stupid.
You can't banish energy, but Ido it with a sense of acceptance
and gratefulness for the thingsthat were contributed by,
whether it be an animal or aperson that is passed on, but I

(34:33):
do it with a firmness.

Yeah, there's also an authority element, like
for you to walk in and tell anentity that's been living there
for a hundred years that youcan't be here anymore.
You need to leave.
If you don't have the authorityto do that, it's not gonna go,
it's gonna torment, it's gonnamess with you even more.
Um, that's why gettingpermission from people to do
healing work is so important.

(34:55):
That's why, thank you, yeah,yeah, so, like and then like we
just bought a house, we'reactually closing on it on the
second.
So I'm accepting stewardship ofthat property.
I don't consider it ownership.
I'm accepting stewardship ofthat property and once I sign
those papers, I'm now thesteward of that property, that I

(35:16):
will go in and clear thatproperty, because I'm now the
one who is in charge ofprotecting, improving, repairing
, if needed, whatever needs tobe done there.
And there's going to be thingsthat I will allow to be around
that property and there's goingto be things that I'm not going
to allow.
And if it's one of those thingsbecause I am, I have been
assigned stewardship of thatproperty I have the authority to
say you don't belong hereanymore.

(35:38):
If it's something that'srelatively neutral, you need to
find somewhere else to live.
However those journeys go, whenyou run into them, every one of
them is a little bit different.
I've never run into twoentities that were the same.

No.

There's no magic formula or any weird stuff
like that.

What I found on this realm.

Yeah, yeah.

The closest thing I can compare them to are the
imp in uh lord of the rings, butit's much smaller.

They're like the dumbest of the shadow
elements, but as they get darkerthey're very intelligent oh
yeah, the shadow elements willtry to exploit vulnerabilities
yeah, they're also very good atdoing what they're meant to do,
because that's all they've donelike they have way longer
experience lines than we do.
They're seeing our world from adifferent perspective than we

(36:24):
are, and if their drive is tocreate fear, they know all kinds
of channels to create fear,even lulling you into a sense of
security, so that they cancreate another fearful moment
later.
It's fascinating.

Yeah, and they can take the most inane fear
that you have, or not even afear.
Oh yeah, all these differentthings.
So fear is sort of at the rootof almost every shadow, illness
or emotional problem, physicalissue, whether it's a rational
fear or not.
Fear is a good thing, a fightor flight yeah, it's a motivator
, but it's also a motivator onthe other sort of like the

(37:00):
animals it's.
There's a flip side to it.

You know it's a positive thing, a negative
thing.
Yeah, there's a differencebetween fear and caution.
Fear owns you.
Caution is exercising theability to prepare for things to
possibly go wrong, and there'sthere's a there's a world of
difference between those twowords.

And there's a world of difference between
those two words.
Yeah, but even with caution, Ithink people that are like super
preppers, that's not caution,that's fear.

I don't know anyone who does any prepping
work.
I used to work.
Oh, I do, I work for a guy.

I do too.
I worked for a guy and his wife.
They were ex-military, yeah,and were in Iraq and their shop
it was a outdoor preparednessand funny, they also sold
doTERRA oils, which I love, butthat's what they did, that's
what they sold, and I workedthere for quite a while.
Super nice people, but ultrapreppers, yeah, and there's an

(37:55):
element of fear that goes alongwith that, the ultra prepping.
There is an element of fearthat goes along with that, the
ultra prepping.

Yeah, so there's a massive body of
psychological research currentlybeing done and having been
found in the process ofexamining PTSD and soldiers
who've been through combat and avery large number of the combat
arms guys, the actual infantry,the people who do the shooting
and the blowing things up.

(38:20):
There's almost a paranoia in usand someone was asking me about
that because a lot of them doturn into preppers or they're
very they're outspokenlyanti-government or they're
subtly hiding things in theirhomes, things like that.
And someone asked me about thatand I said well, listen, we
personally and very viscerallyexperienced places that the

(38:42):
government went out of controlor disappeared and everything
was lost.
We have seen the worst of whathumanity can do to each other
and because of those experienceswe've learned don't trust your
government because they can turnon you.
We've learned if you don't haveextra food at your house and the
grocery store doesn't have food, what are you going to do?
We've learned those experiencesbecause we've literally walked

(39:04):
through them and it kind ofshapes.
Some of those people definitelytake it too far, but anything
can easily be taken too far andI always tell people like you'll
never prepare for everything,but if you learn how to make
your own food.
You have the stuff you need tohunt with.
You have the stuff to maintainyour property, whatever that is,

(39:25):
and you have the stuff tocommunicate, then you're going
to be so much better off thaneverybody else and you'll be
able to help other people.
You cannot prepare foreverything.
That's impossible.

And I won't lie.

Build a community and a network.

I'm not going to lie.
When we moved here, and evenbefore this, I mean I've got to
go back and or a bug out back, Idon't, I don't think I'll need
it here, have some food.
And before we had our generator, we went through several days
without power in the winter,with storm.
But we were ready, had waterlights, everything we needed.

(39:54):
It was actually kind of funbecause, you know, sitting
around by candle lighter.

I have a weird obsession with buying candles.
I do too, I do too.

We don't need any more candles.
Like yeah, we do, cause I usethem all the time.
I light them, you know, when Ijourney I have even a process of
the color candles that I useand where they sit and how I
light them in order.
So I go through a lot and thenwe light one every night on our
hearth in our living room, nice,and let's say we're opening the
door now because we've seen somany orbs with all night vision

(40:26):
and they're not bugs, they'redefinitely orbs.

Yeah, there's something else yeah.

And watch them go to the candlelight.
It's so cool to see and we'llclose that door, you know when
we go to bed, and but some willsometimes have that candle
burning for hours and hours.

So we go through a lot.
We go through a lot, yeah, yeah, it's uh, I think I think I
told you a little bit the lasttime we talked after Iraq.
I, I didn't like people, Ididn't want to be around people.
The world was not a happy placefor me.
And now, um the process ofgetting back to where I love
people's stories and I lovethere's a fascination and an
amazement to the world we livein.

(41:01):
I define that again Like it'snot just your nine to five job
and going to work and payingyour bills.
There's a whole nother aspectof just take five minutes and
really look at what's around youand just take that in and it
changes your entire world.

Yeah, man.
And there's so much more.
Even with our eyes, there's somuch we miss, but there's so
much around us that we don't seeor refuse to accept that we
know it's there to the worldaround you.

That's shamanism, that's spirituality,
that's a.
That's a.
That's a spiritual connection.
It doesn't have to be learninghow to journey.
It doesn't have to be somethingyou feel like you don't, can't
do or you're not trained to do.
It's a simple connection to theworld around you, like go

(41:50):
outside with no shoes on andjust stand in the grass.
That feeling for five minutesis unbelievable.

Yeah, you literally start to buzz, vibrate
.

Yeah, and it's, but it's that simple.
I said uh, one of my friendswas, he's an atheist and uh, and
he goes well.

I don't believe that to me.
If you're an atheist, if you,if you believe in nothing, you
have to believe in something,right yeah?

Well, I said.
Well, he said you know I'm anatheist.
I said is that?
Is that something that you'veconcluded?
I said cause I can take you outback and show you God in five
minutes.
He's like what I was, like Ican show you God in five minutes
and he's like that's not goodand like we had a great
conversation and he knew Iwasn't trying to bash on him or
anything, but like there's,there's this Was there's this.

Was he expecting?
A guy with a white beardsitting on the patio?

drinking a bud.
I think that's what it was.
He was picturing the stylizeddescription of the Christian God
, and that's not necessarilywhat you're going to get.
No, how about this?
Those little jumping spidersthat you see all over the place,

(43:03):
like that little white spider?
Just take a second, get reallyclose to it and look at how
intricate it is.
Don't try to describe it, don'ttry to figure it out, just look
at it and all of a suddenyou're in another place.
You know, it's that simple.

For a spider's web.
Some look like someone you know.
The spider got up drunk andjust threw it up.
But some are so precise andjust gorgeous and when the sun
hits them they shine like aprism all these different colors
.
The prism is the way I'll try toexplain the light and how it
splinters into these differentessences or entities, as you

(43:33):
call them.
Looking at spiderwebs is so Idon't know.
There's something about it thatjust speaks to me and it's.
I think it would speak tohumanity If people would just
look at them and see how, howmuch patience the spider has for
that.
You know, it takes the time tocreate a web, not knowing
whether or not it's even goingto catch anything to eat.

(43:53):
The patience that it takes.
It waits and waits, but itcreates this beautiful pattern.
Yeah, it's sort of a euphemismfor all the interconnectedness
and the human nature within usas well.
I think maybe that's why I seeso many.
I've seen so many spider websand spiders yeah.

Well then, when you start taking time.
My daughter was terrified ofinsects for a little while when
she was younger and we ended upshe had a collection of over 200
insects.
Um, I learned how to pin mothsbecause of her.
We would go through, we wouldgo on hikes and just take
pictures of insects, and themore you start to notice that,
the more you take that time.
They're everywhere, everywhere.

(44:32):
Yeah, you have to take the timeto notice them and it's, it's
fascinating and so many peopleget wrapped up on on.
It's not.
It's not the end of the journey.
That is the point, is thejourney.
That's the point.
So don't get overwhelmed, don'tfeel like you have to do all
these little performance thingsin the process, like it's the
little steps and those are theright steps for you.

(44:55):
Don't feel yourself by otherpeople, Just that calmness.
It lets you kind of reflect.

It's very well said and it's easier said than
done.
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah.

Especially.
I'd say all that.
I'm going to mess it up today,so it'll be fun.

Yeah, Especially in our society, where there's
expectations and there'sprocesses for everything.
You know how you live your lifefrom birth to death.
Right, and you know I think ofit as you come into this world
alone, you go out of this worldalone, and what you do in
between is up to you.
I mean, there's things that youneed to be taught, but not how
to live your life and what pathsyou take.
This society now is even moredifficult to live your own life,

(45:36):
to be your own authentic self,because you're bombarded
constantly with the static ofeither news or social media and
people setting expectations onhow you should look, how you
should dress, how you should actand they don't realize that
none of it actually matters inthe long run.
No, no, so I have to ask?
first say how great it is tohave you as another man on here

(45:59):
to admit these things and a manthat has gone through the rigors
of being in the military and inIraq and the war and the things
you must have seen and had todo.
I won't even ask about that.
But were there things I knowthat to have PTSD?
There were things that happenedthat caused trauma but to get

(46:20):
you to where you are, I'm surethat played that time in the
military played a huge role inbreaking you down to where
you're able to accept thesethings about yourself now those

(46:44):
events that kind of fixed theimportance of helping people, of
creating a better path in mymind.

Like it fixed it in my mind so that I can see
things a little differently.
I mean literally getting to seethe worst things people can do
to each other.
It shapes you and you caneither get stuck in that place
and start to resent people forit, or which I did for a long
time or you can take thoselessons and do whatever you can
to help maybe prevent that fromhappening to one person or 10

(47:09):
people, you know, like kind ofshape, help steer things away
from those places.
You know, that's kind of whatI'm choosing to do with it now.

Um, I resent realization and doing that Did
they, did it?
Come in steps for you?

Yeah, yeah, and it's at a lot of little steps,
like I started with.
Like, hey, I'm going to studypsychology, just so I know
what's going on with me and myfriends.
You know, like so many of myfriends were not well a lot of
alcoholics, some suicides, a lotof anger issues, divorces.
So like just to startunderstanding that and then, you
know, starting a journey to, tofind some kind of a spiritual

(47:45):
path again, cause I, like yousaid in my bio, I had walked
away from the church, theChristian church, for a very
long time due to thoseexperiences.
And then just I neededsomething to put my feet on,
cause I was not doing well, Ifelt like I was floating, I had
nothing underneath me to standup on, and it's just you know.

(48:06):
So I started reading.
Reading is always somethingI've been really good at and
really enjoyed.
So, like the golden rule in theChristian Bible is the same
thing as karma in the Hindibeliefs it's just worded
differently for a differentculture.
The same as Buddhist belief.
Whatever energy you put out, asthe energy you get back.
So when you start seeing thesecertain principles start to come

(48:28):
in, and then like each step islike well, if this is said over
and over again in all thesereligions, that might be a very
important principle.
So why don't we start with thatand just start there?
And it was like building theselittle tiny.
Sometimes it felt like I wasn'tgoing anywhere and then
something would just hit me, oryou know, like when I got the
journey with you, and or, youknow, someone would.

(48:51):
I would be in a class andsomeone would just make a point
and it would just bring allthese pieces that I'd been
rolling around in my brain wouldall of a sudden stop rolling
around and they would be likeall in line and I'd be like, oh,
that's what that means, yeah.

And you tend to get those realizations.

Epiphanies yeah .

Exactly when you need them.
Yeah, yeah.
Now have you worked with othersthat were in the military that
you know, like you werementioning, that had the
problems with alcoholism orsuicidal, you know inclinations
or whatever it may be, becauseit sounds like you would be
really really good person tocome to, having been through
that and recognizing that inothers you know, not just in the

(49:30):
military but especially youknow just, you've seen it
firsthand with those that you'veserved with Right, right, and a
lot of it too.

So I'll bump into.
We're in a part of Virginiawith one of the best VA
hospitals in the country, sothere's a lot of vets here and
I'll run into them.
You're in Virginia, yep, yep.

I'm in between Charlottesville and Richmond.
Yeah, just a few hours down theroad.

Yeah, yeah, I'll run into vets and one of
the first questions I have forthem, like yeah, they'll'll be
the oh yeah, you know whatbranch were you in?
Stuff like that.
And I'll be like, how are youdoing Some of them?
It'll just short circuit them,like they'll.
They'll kind of blanket me Likewhat do you mean?
And I'm like, how are you doing?
Like here's my number.

(50:13):
If you need to make that twoo'clock in the morning phone
call, you call me.
I don't care that we don't know, I don't care that it's that's
two in the morning.
I know how important that phonecall is and you need someone to
pick up at the other end.

Yeah, Well, that leads me to a question about how
you do, how you go about,because you and I are on the
same page with this stuff.

You know I've journeyed for people at 3am and
6am and you, you know I put onmy website 24 hours a day.
I don't turn anyone away, butif someone does call you, how do
you?
What's your process as far asgoing about helping someone
where they're thinking, do they?
Are they at the point wherethey're?
Are they drunk, sitting therewith a loaded gun and calling me
at two in the morning Causethey have nothing else to talk,
like they have no one else totalk to?
That is a much more direconversation than I'm having a

(51:12):
really bad day.
I'm struggling with some stuff.
Are you drinking?
No, I'm not drinking.
You're sitting on my back porch, like okay.
Then we have a different kindof conversation and you kind of
have to gauge them allindividually.

Yeah, because every situation is different.

And trying to get them in touch with a local
group is super important.
That's always the long-termhelpful solution If they're
close to me and they needsomething immediately.
I'll literally get in my carand drive for two hours to get

(51:46):
to somebody if I need to, that's.
I mean.
I've done it for friends ofmine before and some of those
guys you can tap into thetraining because we're taught
mission orientation and we'retaught following through on your
word, like if you say you'regoing to be at a point at a
certain time, you're at thatpoint Like you don't want to let
your brothers down.
You know that kind of stuff.
So sometimes you can tap intothat and you know, have a
conversation with them and thenat the end of the conversation

(52:06):
finish it off with we're havingbreakfast tomorrow morning, I
expect you to be there, likeyou're telling me you're going
to be there and you make it.
You make it that honor code,you.
You kind of tap into that honorcode and use it.
Sounds wrong to say that youuse it to your advantage, but
you use it to give them a reasonto be at that appointment in
the morning, you know.
And then that's one step andthat's if you can get them to do

(52:26):
that, then.
Then they realize that they'renot completely lost, that
there's steps they can take.

But that's so important.
That's so important becauseit's it's the same principle of
when I work with anyone.
It's having them either themcall, contacting me directly, or
going on my site.
That's the first step thatshows that they are open to
receiving help.

Yeah.
So to do that with and itdefinitely helps, having been
through the same kind oftraining and kind of
understanding how that mind istrained to work.

Yes, and your training.
I'm sure you didn't realize itat the time, but your training
with the military I'm sure youdidn't think is what's going to
create this sense of empathy.
Yeah, in such a way that it'snot only allowing you to be of
service and to providebetterment to people that have
also served, but to anyone.
But they have to be willing toaccept it.

(53:21):
I mean willingly accept it, notprodded into accepting it.

Yeah, and there's those phone calls at two
in the morning are one thing,and then you get guys that'll
have, you know, a little moresurfacy conversations about you
know, yeah, I struggle with thisand this and no, I know the
PTSD thing, and then they kindof tuck it back in a corner.

Do you ever find frustration with people that
they're really searching, butthen you don't hear from them
and it's waiting on them?
They have to be ready to makethat step for themselves, but
you know so badly that they needassistance.
They need something that youcan help them with.
But you can't do it unlessthey're willing to receive it

(54:00):
and say they want to receive it,or show that it's even more
intense when you can like see aclear path out of where they are
.

Yeah, like you make two simple decisions and
it'll completely change yourlife kind of thing, you know?
Um, I used to get frustratedwith that.
I will occasionally catchmyself still getting frustrated
with it.
Now it's more of a we're havingthe conversation.
I'm planting a whole bunch ofseeds, or giving them a whole
bunch of pieces of informationthey can digest later and maybe,

(54:28):
just like with me, someone elsewill come along and say one
sentence and all of those piecesfold into place and they have
their epiphany.
So I don't I feel like some ofthat frustration.
It's not wanting to say Goneaway, yeah, I don't want to see
you keep going through this.

Why can't you just do this?
Yeah, yeah, for me it's thatfrustrating.
I get frustrated sometimesbecause I see where they're
headed and, having been there, Idon't want to see them get to
that point.

Yeah, start wanting to hand out helmets.
You're going to need this in afew days.
Yeah, and it's.

The frustration for me is that I can't do
anything about it.
It's, it's in their time, it'swhen they're ready but you see
it coming and you're going.

Oh, come on please and that's one of those.
That's one of those egoresponses, not not because we
want to be the ones who helpthem, but because we feel like
they should know this.
But that's our ego, that's'sour human side.

Yeah, yeah, that's.
That's our human nature, that'sdefinitely.

That's definitely one of the struggles
is like you go through all thiswork, you journey for somebody
and some of those journeys arethey will wipe you out, like you
will be exhausted when you'redone.
So I've had a couple ofjourneys go multiple hours and
those are they're exhausting.
At the end of the day You'rewiped out, you, you're spaced
out and then you you writeeverything up and you go over

(55:47):
everything with them and havethis long discussion with them
and talk things through withthem, and I always send a copy
of the journey to them as well,so they have that record, which
you do the same with your stufftoo.
And then um, and then you neverhear from them again or you
hear through someone else thatthey're still doing the same
things, like nothing changed.
That that's kind of frustrating.

Or they do something to better themselves
in the near term.
They might go a few weeks or afew months and then, as life
goes on, you know you havethings thrown at you right and
left, and to deal with thosethings but and part of our, our
responsibility is as healers,doing this kind of work is to
understand that it's okay forthat energy not to be

(56:28):
reciprocated.

That doesn't reflect on us.
So we have to be okay with thefact that sometimes we're going
to expend energy that's notgoing to get returned.
We have to and we, we acceptmost of us by and large, except
that I do believe in in thereciprocation, but it doesn't
have to be financial.
No, no, no, not not financial,but just like the, and it can be
as simple as as finding out ayear later that they did listen

(56:53):
to something you said.
Yeah, it did change somethingfor the better for them.
I don't need them to pat me onthe back or say thank you or
anything like that, but to knowthat that energy was put out
there and that information wasgiven to them and it was used
and it helped them, like that'sto me more important than any
other, like I don't.
The finances are yeah.

Yeah, I feel kind of weird when people thank me,
but there does need to be areciprocation of an energy flow.

It's not a one-way street, right, right,
and I'd almost rather not bepersonally like have them call
me back and be like, hey, man,this really helped me.
I'd almost rather hear itthrough the grapevine, because
then I feel like it's lesslikely to cause a prideful
situation for me personally.
Yes, yeah.

At the same time.
It's when you do get those, beit years later, yeah yeah, and
you hear that someone has itstill, reading the summary and
picking out new things in it andhow it's helped.

It does feel good to know that you've helped,
and it's less about me, it'smore about the like that is
awesome to hear that they'redoing better, like that's,
that's it, but it is a slipperyslope to get prideful with what
you do.
Um, uh, and that's.
That's one of the things that Ilearned early in my life, not
even necessarily like eventhrough the church.
When I was still in the church,there was a lot of things that

(58:11):
I did that I was trained to doand taught to do, and if you
make it about you, it loses you.
You might still be able to doit, but there's an element that
gets lost and it's not you.
Should be able to be completelyremoved from the situation, and
that energy, that healingprocess, still works just fine.
And you have to remind yourselfthat it's not you.

You're just the mouthpiece of the, just the
vessel and the messenger.
Yeah, yeah, that's really true.
Um, yeah, that's really true.
That's why I don't put anyinterpretations of my own within
journey summaries, because it'snot for me.
Nothing within there is for me.
A lot of times I'll know whatcertain colors are, who's there

(58:53):
with me, what the messages couldbe, but that's my
interpretation, right, may notbe the interpretation that they
get.

That's an interesting thing.
So I share what I findshamanically when I journey.
I'll share a hundred percent ofit and if I get like a specific
feeling or sentence or like andyou and I both know one of those
sentences will carry paragraphsof information, so I try and
write as much of what was beingtold to me as I can come up with

(59:20):
, like whatever steps of claritycome through, like this
sentence actually meant thesethree other things too.
I'll try to write those down asmuch as possible, but as
information being conveyed, notas an interpretation.
Yes, like this is, this is howthe information came to me, this
is what it seems like it says,this is, this is, or sometimes

(59:41):
like, especially, I imagine,with colors.
These are what these colorshave meant to me in the past.
They may mean the same thing toyou.
You know that that kind ofstuff kind of is helpful because
you, you do have the experienceand you do have that well,
interpretational experience thatcan help somebody who's never
seen that kind of stuff before.

Yeah, don't completely count it out, but at
the same time, yeah, I willalways let people know that
after they have read the summaryseveral times, not just once.
You know when people contact me20 minutes after they receive
it and read it the first time,like no, read it, research
everything in there, researchthe colors if there's animals.

(01:00:22):
You know everything in there.
You're led to research or letresonate with you and then I'll
answer my journeys.

Daniel Thrasher (01:00:28):
You got most of my journeys in notebooks and
occasionally I'll pull one ofthe old notebooks out and I'll
go read through stuff and I'llbe like I totally forgot about
that, you know.

Jeffrey Brunk (01:00:36):
Yeah, I'm the same way.
I've got.
I've got so many journals here,boxes of them, but now I I've.
You know, I send all of mysummaries via email, so I have
hundreds of them in a folder.
Yeah, yeah, we do things a lot.
We see a lot of the same thingsand have a lot of the same
experiences with journeying.

(01:00:57):
Now, do you do, do you have apractice that you do, Do you?
You know I don't advertise.
I have my website.
I've started advertising alittle bit, but for the podcast,
because that's what I've beenled to do to reach a greater
number of people.
But do you have a anything setup where people can contact you
or a place where you do, if youdo hands-on work, or where you

(01:01:19):
do?

I think that's something that's coming in the
future.
It's always been somethingthat's really been on my mind is
how to help as many people aspossible, but I've never had a
place where I could really setthat up.
So now that we're buying thishouse, we're going to have nine
acres of land.
It's beautiful.
Like I've been struggling thelast couple of years with you
know, when does my the that nextchapter of my life start?

(01:01:42):
Like, when do I get my foreverhome?
I don't like renting becauseI'm just dumping money into
someone else's pocket, um, and Ifeel like I can't move my life
along as well, you know, and Ifeel like that's that's changing
now.
But I also got to the pointwhere I was finally like, if
we're buying our house now, thepeople that are supposed to be
in my life need to drop into mylife now, like and I've

(01:02:03):
literally had that conversationout loud- and they will.
And people have started showingup.
And then I started you know, wewere looking at this house and
there's a bunch of stuff thathas to do with it and one of the
guys at the church we go tobecause my wife finds her
spirituality, her spiritualconnection, through church so I
go and I support her with that.
But one of the guys walks up tome and he's like hey, man, if
you have anyone that needsstonework done at one of your

(01:02:26):
jobs because I run a handymanservice he's like you know, give
me a call, I'll help him out.
I'm like awesome, but Irealized like there's two
electricians in that church,there's a plumber, there's the
stonemason, there's contractors,there's farmers, there's all
these people that are in place.
There's a couple of guys thatgo to church that have been
shamanically trained Really yeahyeah.

(01:02:47):
And one of them is fascinating.
He's a prior service militaryand some of the training he did
in the military was shamanicallydone was shamanically done Wow,
one of his scouting courses.
by the end of the course theyblindfolded everyone in the
course and they had to walk overa mile through the woods to get
to a specific point.
And they could do it and notlike feeling out in front of
their hands.

(01:03:07):
They'd be walking at normalspeed and there'd be a tree in
front of them and they'd justwalk around the tree like they
knew it was there.
It was awesome.

It's using the connected really well.
Yeah, it's using your othersenses and and navigating
through the unseen?

yeah, but he is .
He's a fascinating guy, justvery calm about everything, and
if he goes out and goes campingin the woods, he said, society
hurts.
When I come back, because, Ican see the lights flickering
like what you consider likesolid, steady light.
He goes, I'll see it flicker.
Yeah, it's my head.
And like it's too loud.
He says this real deepconnection to the world around

(01:03:44):
him.
It's amazing, but that's great.

It sounds like you're surrounded by some really
good people that you need to bearound and should be around
that, yeah, if, um, I mean, Ihave Daniel's handiiwork on
instagram.

That's the only social media I have right now,
so if someone felt like theyreally needed to connect with me
, they can always send me amessage there okay, daniel's
handiwork, yeah, okay and uh,yeah, it's just that, it's yeah,
it's a h-a-n-d-i.
Yeah, it's just a, it's a worksite, so I just post, you know,

(01:04:20):
things that I do in my handymanwork.
But if someone needed to getahold of me, they're more than
welcome to do it there.
I think I think before too long, probably in the next couple of
years, I'll definitely havesome stuff set up at my place.
I want to start seeing if I canorganize groups of people to
get together and like havesomeone come in that's trained
in doing something you know.
Come in and you know sit allthe sit around a fireplace and
have a class.
I want to get back into.

(01:04:42):
I love smudging because it'spart conversation, part healing
work and I I just super enjoythat.
So I might do a couple smudgingthings at some of the holistic
events that are in the area.

Yeah.

Just kind of like reattach myself that way.

Don't be surprised if you get thrown in
it faster and more intenselythan you might think.

And I recognize that that's a distinct
possibility, and my only caveatto that is like I need to make
enough money to pay my bills.

That's what's so cool about this.
I was told when we weretraveling to country you know,
my wife had retired, she was FAAfor 30 years and we were
traveling and Northern Virginiawas way too expensive.
We didn't know where we wantedto be, so we went around, we had
in a fifth wheel and lived in acouple of years and in that and

(01:05:31):
we were kind of placed where weneeded to be.
Yeah, but I was told at onepoint by Gibraltar.
I was like financially orotherwise, you'll be taken care
of, is what he said, and therewere times where that happened
and it still does.
Oh, yeah, things are needed.
Don't know where they're goingto come, boom, they appear or
they come to us in unexpectedways, but it's in order to keep

(01:05:55):
going forward with helping toregain and maintain that balance
.
And that balance comes from usand that connection we all share
with the earth and everythingelse outside.

Yeah, I really struggled for a long time with
charging people for healingservices too, like, if you're
asking for a certain amount ofmoney for the time that I put in
, then I don't have to go work,a job which leaves me with more
time to help more people.
And also, I've discovered thatpeople don't they don't act on

(01:06:30):
what they learn from a journeyor experience as much if they
don't have skin in the game.
So if it costs them something,whether it's like you know, I
had these steaks in my freezerI'll bring them over and trade,
for that Is that cool,absolutely.
If they put something in it inan exchange, then they're more
likely to use that informationin their life.

(01:06:50):
Yes, Do something for free.
They're like oh, that was cool.
And then they walk away andforget about it.

Yeah, yeah, I had that same issue, and every time
I've put prices on my site I'vestruggled with it, right,
because I don't look what I doas a business, right.
But I do believe that peopleshould contribute in some way.
So at the very least atestimonial on the site, right.
But I've had people sendeverything from handmade jewelry

(01:07:17):
and paintings and books to find, you know, to monetary
donations, something that showsthat they are invested, because
it's not as much for me whenthey do that as it is for their
continued healing and bettermentas they go along.

Right.

You know they have, like you said, to get in
the game, no matter how small,because not everyone can afford
to donate.
I've had donations monetarilyas low as $ small, because not
everyone can afford to donate.
I've had donations monetarilyas low as $10, but that's all
they could do, and that's finewith me.

But I'd also accept, like I mean, we're
getting ready to do a ton ofwork on this property.
It was originally built in 1820.
So there's a lot of work to doIf they come out and help me
shovel some dirt, or if theycome and help me like clean
stuff out of the barn, likewhatever.
It is like that the point isthe the exchange of effort and
energy, not the exchange ofmoney as much.

And that is money , is a two line that we do use.
Yeah, we need it, unfortunatelyin this world, but the way, the
way you're approaching it andthe way I approach it and I know
one other person, one other sheis one of the only ones that
I've allowed to do any work forme and she just moved from.
She was in Mexico and now justmoved back to States, but has

(01:08:30):
the same mindset in that it'snot about what you get, but
you're.
What you're talking about isexactly the way the shamanic
healers or the medicine men, thefellow we were talking about
earlier.
He called me a witch doctor onetime because he didn't know
what his comment was.
It's the way that they alwaysoperated was.
It wasn't about getting money.

(01:08:51):
It was about people would bringgoats or food or whatever it
could be, if there was.
It was expected.
They knew that they needed toand it's not.
They felt it was an obligation.
It was a something that theywanted to do.
And that showed that they werereally wanting to have that
healing, of whatever nature itmight be.

Yeah, it adds a seriousness, and in some cases
almost a sacredness, to thatexchange between doing the work
for you and the person receivingthe work.

Yeah, that is very well said.
Now, that's great.
I'm going to start using it.
There's a sacredness to it,especially for people that are
still kind of mired in church.
That word will resonate withthem.

Yeah, yeah.

And they'll understand.
It's sort of like passing thebasket.

Yeah, and I do want to say that I don't want
people to misunderstand myissues with religion as opposed
to someone's spiritualrelationship through church.
Yeah, there is a big difference.
There's a massive difference,and I do not disrespect anyone's
mode to get to God.
God's a pretty big dude.
He can work with whatever yougive him.

(01:09:57):
I don't worry about that.
That's something I had to letso many worries go so that they
weren't eating my head, eatingme up in my brain.
At two o'clock in the morningI'm laying in bed sweating.
So I'm not disrespectful toanyone's belief system that
leads to that relationship withGod or the universe or however
they choose to divine it.
Because I started in the sameplace.

(01:10:20):
My journey led me to where I amnow.
Their journey might never leadthem to the same place I go to,
but I'm glad they're on thejourney.
You know there's never adisrespect meant with when I
talk about the Christian churchor religion as opposed to the
relationship you know.

Yeah, you know, if you're just following the
mandates and going through themotions without intention, like
praying without intention, orwhat gets me is the Lord's
prayer without intention, whichI was always taught was the
mother load of prayers but ifyou're just listening and you're
there to be seen and all thatand the first 20 minutes are
financial statements and blah,blah, blah, then organized

(01:10:59):
religion can be not exactlygreat, but the spirituality
aspect of it Right, right it's,that's not.
That's actually very positive,because you can glean something
from basically anything.

Yeah.

If you're open to listening, and not with your
ears, but with your heart ears,but with your heart.

I also discovered, too, that the people
who are on a healthy spiritualpath tend to have the attributes
talked about in the newTestament love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, long.
Those aren't what you hear inthe world today are they?
Right, but those are.
Those are traits that you can'tfake for very long, and there's
really only one place that theycome from outside of self.
You know like you have to.
You have to find those fromsomewhere to grow them in
yourself.

(01:11:38):
So if someone's exhibitingthose traits, even when they
stumble, fall, pick themselvesback up, start over, do it again
.
They're on a path with somekind of relationship with with
God or a higher power, howeveryou want to define it.
Yeah, and if you don't, I haveno right to judge how they're
doing that path you know?

Yeah, and if you don't stumble and fall and fail,
are you really learning?
No, you're not.
You know you have to have those.
They keep your ego in check.

So humans?
Yeah, humans have a terribletime learning things without
some kind of conflict.
We tend to, due to the factthat our brain likes to preserve
energy, our body likes topreserve energy.
If we're in a comfortable place, we won't make ourselves grow.
It's very difficult to makeyourself grow, but if there's

(01:12:30):
difficulties that come up workdifficulties, financial
difficulties, healthdifficulties they force you to
develop some kind of growthpattern and without those,
humans become stagnant,depressed and they, they don't
ever grow, they don't change.
Yeah, I saw it firsthand, thoseissues are good, yeah, during

(01:12:50):
COVID.

It's wild because not a single.
I had so many people thatcontacted me during COVID and
out of all the people I workwith and there were some days I
was doing two, three journeys aday for five, six, seven days a
week None of them, not a singleone, had COVID.
But it was way from that hecticlifestyle.
You know, going to work,sitting in traffic, you know,
whatever it may be, they startedto hear these whispers, yeah

(01:13:18):
Right, they started to hearthese whispers, yeah yeah, and a
lot of them being youngerpeople.
And that's that's when beingtaken out of that and hearing
these things, that voice startedspeaking to them in a way that
allowed them to startrecognizing things about
themselves.

Yeah, they got that little itch going in the
back of their head.
And it's about our life is notright.
And now that we're taking thissecond, where we're not running
back and forth to work every dayand that's not our drive,
people started to notice thatthings were out of place.
Yeah, within themselves, withinthemselves, within the world
around them, the socialstructures we've created to run

(01:13:53):
a society, like.
People started noticing like isthis weird?
Like just crazy questions?
Like I find it weird that blah,blah, blah and it's stuff that
person never would have talkedabout before.
And I'm like, yeah, I find itweird too.

Yeah, yeah, but it's, it's good, it's
frightening, it could befrightening.

Oh yeah, I won't you know look at how many
people are still walking aroundwith masks, despite the report
saying masks do nothing andthey're angry and paranoid and
they won't let people near them.
They're riding around in theircar by themselves with a mask on
and gloves on and I'm like thatlevel of fear is that's a
problem?
Like, yeah, I feel really badfor those people.

Yeah, well, it's frightening too when, like
during that time, these peoplewere gaining that awareness,
that self-awareness, and thatworldwide, you know the broad
awareness around them.
Yeah, that it was frighteningto them because a lot of you
know it's hard to accept a lotof things about yourself, yeah,
and to accept who you might beand that you're in the wrong

(01:14:54):
place or you're in the wrong jobor whatever it may be.

It's finding out you're 50, 60 years old and
and most of your life up to thenis was not worth the effort you
put into it.
That's a that's a terrifyingthing.

Yeah, you spend most of your life at work.
You better be, you better enjoyit, not just feel like all the
things that you thought wereimportant are not important.

Yes, when you get the glimpse into that and
you're just like, oh, like allthose cars, you have all that,
the house, you have all that, itdoesn't like none of that
stuff's important.
Could I do what I do out of a,out of a studio apartment?
Yep, I would love to be asteward of this property, though
, and I'm really excited aboutgetting it.
I would rather do that.
That's a more comfortable placefor me, but can I do it

(01:15:37):
anywhere?
Yeah, yeah, that's important.
I've lived out of a backpack,for it was almost a year in Iraq
.
I lived out of a backpack whenI was in Kosovo for six months,
like, what we think we need isnot.
We need very little compared towhat we think we need.

Yeah, everything we need and everything we need
to know is within us.
We just have to recognize that.
Yeah, well, I'm going to wrapwhen we should wrap this one up
and we'll go.

We can keep going, but I'd love to have you
back on.
Oh, it'd be fun.
It'd be fun yeah.

Yeah, there's so much more I think we could touch
on and this has been great.
I think it's going to resonatewith a lot of people.

Good.

Good, so you might want to look at a website.

Yeah and I'll, and that's something that that
maybe maybe this podcast was meneeding to get pushed in that
direction of like, hey, it'stime to start actually getting
this stuff done bud when ithappens.

It'll happen Boom so fast, but you're aware
enough to know when it and whenit happens, okay time to do this
.

And this is a great setting too, cause I love
conversational setting.
I love you and I've talked.
I think when we connected acouple weeks ago or a few weeks
ago, we talked, for I think itwas almost three hours, yeah, so
, like, and I and and you and Iboth love that conversation and
getting into those ideas andkind of, then the more people
are interested in it, the morelike, if someone had questions,
I'll gladly come back on andwe'll have a whole entire talk
about whatever question they had.
It's fun.
If it helps somebody, it'sawesome.

(01:17:05):
Yeah, yeah, I definitely wouldthat exchange of ideas makes me
feel like what we're doing isimportant.

Yeah, I would love, definitely like do another
episode and have you back on.

That completely gets me back on track.
It's awesome so this is great.

back on.
That completely gets me back ontrack.
It's awesome.
So this is great.
Oh yeah, I'll be in touch withyou, but we'll definitely plan
on another episode.
I do so much.
Appreciate you being here.

Oh, absolutely.
Thank you for inviting me.

Yeah, I'll talk to you soon.
So I want to thank everyone forjoining us for this episode and
to Daniel Thrasher, my guest.
We'll have him back on andanyone has any questions for him
.
It's DanielsHandyworkH-A-N-D-I-W-O-R-K.
Yes, sir, on Instagram, untilhe gets a website.
Yeah, I think we'll probablysee you later.

(01:17:49):
Feel free to contact him.
He's a great resource.
I think you picked that up fromlistening to everything he said
here, so I want to thank you.

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