00:02:28.080My daughter says people know us incorrectly as Navajo.
00:02:32.460So I'm reading you in our traditional way by telling you my clans.
00:02:36.840And I was also adopted into the Lakota spiritual way of life.
00:02:43.020So I've been on that road and that's been such a blessing and I would say the main informing spiritual element in my world for the last 28 years or so.
00:02:54.000And I'm coming to you today from beautiful northern New Mexico, Taos, my house in Taos up here in the land of the Red Willow people, Taos Pueblo.
00:03:04.540So just very happy to find myself here with you today.
00:03:08.160thank you so much for grounding us in this moment and where you are and
00:03:17.420i've heard you speak about how this moment in time biologically speaking the plan on earth
00:03:27.760is very much to continue to live and i'd just like to start here because i think for so many
00:03:34.580of us who are in movements for environmental justice or climate justice, we find ourselves
00:03:41.100entangled in narratives that focus on extinction, loss, a lack of time, and just a tremendous amount
00:03:48.420of misanthropy. But looking at the world around us shows us that our more than human kin are giving
00:03:56.060birth all of the time. They're not ceasing their lineage of their own volition. So I wonder if you
00:04:03.140could clarify the inherent truth that life wants to exist it is this current paradigm that does not
00:04:10.240well i had the deep honor of having a conversation with joanna macy recently
00:04:15.480and um we were talking about um i guess a film that's coming out um that's really supposed to
00:04:26.740be very hard hitting with the, with the facts about climate change. And anyway, she, some of
00:04:34.000her work was, was being included and she was just feeling tender about it. And so I think I've said
00:04:40.700this in, in different ways at different times, but sort of the way it kind of is coming out for
00:04:45.160me at the moment is to say that, you know, I often say that modern world paradigm is very
00:04:52.420intellectual, intellectually driven. I mean, we're, we're very, very much taught to rely
00:04:59.040almost exclusively on intellect. And so I say, you know, what the intellect, you know, we do
00:05:07.220need intellect. I'm not trying to propose that there's no, no use for intellect, but I think
00:05:11.360we're way over reliant on it. And what I say is that the intellect is what the intellect is
00:05:17.340especially good at is making the airtight case for something or against something I mean if you
00:05:24.020you set two people down and say give them any kind of inspiration to say you know even though
00:05:30.540you've never thought about this before I want you to take this position and you over here you take
00:05:34.220the opposite position boy they could probably go at it all day and all night you know because
00:05:38.380that's what the intellect loves to do and knows how to do and so if we're only being centered as
00:05:46.740a human being only an intellect then you know we we make the airtight case for things and right now
00:05:55.780there's a huge faction of us that wants to make the airtight case for doom
00:06:01.500and I know that the the impulse for such films as as whatever the one was that's coming out I don't
00:06:08.500I don't know there's probably several coming out you know the the idea is that if we can impress
00:06:13.660deeply upon the people enough that you know doom is certain unless unless we do x y and z
00:06:22.140you know it's supposed it's supposed to be an inspiration of sorts and i it's not that i0.80
00:06:27.860disagree with that completely but my own experience and i'm going to say that as an indigenous woman
00:06:34.560And as a woman who, you know, along my journey, I started out being raised to be very intellect-centered.
00:06:46.700You know, the plan was for me to go to Ivy League schools and to hopefully have some fame and fortune in that way before this life was over.
00:06:58.680But I went, my heart and my spirit were not going to go along with that plan.
00:07:03.420I was not, even though I was a great student, let the record show, my heart and my spirit
00:07:12.180were not up to that life and that way of looking at life, and I was suffering very greatly.
00:07:19.080And so I started out in that realm, and when I was about 27, 28 years old, I got called
00:07:26.200into my very first indigenous ceremony it was kind of a maybe a late start for for me some
00:07:33.620might say but um you know my parents and my grandparents were taken into the dutch christian
00:07:38.100reform missionary boarding schools and so in those places they were not allowed to speak our
00:07:43.320language or practice any of our traditions or culture um and so by the time i came along that
00:07:49.380was that was very absent in my immediate family and um so it's only been a little bit later in
00:07:55.320life that I've come back to this well called my great homecoming and I say that that's my greatest
00:08:01.040gift to the world is describing that journey because I really do feel like humanity is on
00:08:06.160that exact like that exact same journey of a return to earth and a return to well maybe not
00:08:12.840a return but an inclusion of of of a knowing of how to be human that is beyond this modern world
00:08:21.360paradigm outside of this modern world paradigm. Indigenous peoples have been really putting1.00
00:08:27.180forth their own paradigm, their own worldview, their own value system against all the forces0.98
00:08:35.560of the modern world paradigm. But they're seeking something outside of modern world paradigm. And
00:08:42.520I feel like all of this intensive search on the part of social justice folks and environmentalists
00:08:49.100and all. They're looking for something outside of this current paradigm as well. So in that we are
00:08:55.220aligned. But I guess what I want to say is that I have found opening up what I'll call a broad
00:09:04.860spectrum of ways of knowing that all of my spiritual practice has afforded me and allowed
00:09:11.120me to experience. And what I have come to know and what my elders have told me is that the
00:09:17.600intellect is the least reliable way of knowing anything you know and and i and i guess i'll add
00:09:23.220here right away that you know the proof is in the pudding so to speak in that you know i say if
00:09:29.320if sustainability is the is the highest and most sought after technology on the planet who should
00:09:34.880we be talking to we should be talking to those peoples who've known how to live in one place
00:09:39.400over an extended period of time say a thousand years or five thousand years or ten thousand years
00:09:43.780or 20,000 years in relative health, harmony, and happiness.
00:09:47.940And we call these people indigenous peoples.
00:10:34.440Is it an accident that all these peoples who have such a broad spectrum of ways of knowing,
00:10:39.860their way of knowing includes ceremony their way of knowing includes the song and the dance
00:10:45.640their way of knowing includes seeking vision and seeking input from the larger community
00:10:53.120the larger community of life and also the spiritual community you know it was it was
00:10:58.300through opening all of those modalities that a human being has and and i'm going to say every
00:11:03.120human being has them the question is have they been cultivated have they been have they been
00:11:08.220pointed out to us but indigenous peoples you know i'm going to say that having a broad spectrum of
00:11:13.580ways of knowing and sustainability go hand in hand for a human being so it's not that i discount or
00:11:21.420dismiss the science entirely i'm just saying that that i don't believe that that can be the whole
00:11:25.880story and part of the way i say that is uh you know try having a romance with intellect only
00:11:31.440and see how far you get and see how enjoyable it is and that's really kind of what we're what
00:11:38.100we've been brought into in modern world paradigm is proposing that you know that we can have this
00:11:44.020incredible deep powerful relationship with this exquisite earth and all these exquisite beings
00:11:51.140that surround us here uh the you know beyond human and that we are to do this without the
00:11:58.060romance that we're to do this with intellect only and um i suspect that there are many other
00:12:05.860possibilities if we were to open up together in exploring what it would mean to have to expand
00:12:15.500our spectrum of ways of knowing at this time together and so I'm I'm going to stand for what
00:12:23.660the people stand for the people the nations that I've been brought into culturally born into or
00:12:31.600or called for you know and that's what we always say we do this so that the people can live the
00:12:37.420reason I'm speaking with you here on this interview is I do this so that the people can
00:12:41.540live we want to live with all of our relations in a good way and so that's what we say with all of
00:12:48.720our endeavors placing life at the center ideally and so I think we are still that that's something
00:12:56.820that we're finding in common is we we do want to live and we do want to live with all our relations
00:13:02.760in a good way no matter what culture or background we come from and so perhaps now we're coming to a
00:13:10.000convergence of understanding that was not possible until now oh thank you so much pat that was
00:13:19.840really comforting to hear. And I do see so many humans in the sustainability movement.
00:13:30.960It feels kind of like running around in a cage. And I can see people wanting so badly to
00:13:40.280intellectually find the answer, so to speak. But we feel so far from it in those spaces.
00:13:48.200even with all the ideas and the analyses and it it just feels like we're going to be
00:13:57.700running around in a circle forever under this thought process and you know in talking about
00:14:05.360paradigms as choices we get to make I've heard you raise the question of who would we be in
00:14:12.060another paradigm. And this has landed very deeply in me as I also think about the many people who
00:14:19.680are lost and suffering in this current paradigm. Those who are deeply grappling with addiction,
00:14:26.860mental illness, and loneliness. And I wonder who they would get to be. And so your question is so
00:14:34.420powerful because it encourages us to get excited about choosing a different paradigm while also
00:14:40.660extending grace to those who are deeply misfitted for this current one. So how do you see a thriving
00:14:48.380life paradigm reinstilling the honor of being a human?
00:14:56.240Well, I think that's a gigantic proposition. And I think I'm pretty sure I'm the one who
00:15:06.000proposed it and just those words so here i am caught out in the open but uh
00:15:12.340but i guess first of all what i'll say is you know for myself where i start getting very battered
00:15:20.180by this time is when i start trying to take the whole thing on myself
00:15:28.420So when I start wanting to attend to all the environmental issues and all the issues of mental health issues and anguish of the young people and all of the economics and even what's happening with the water in my own home here in Taos, New Mexico.
00:15:47.120And when I start getting into that mode that wants to attend to all of it, I get beat up right away and I get diminished.
00:15:59.160And so I want to say that I have this image of me before I was born, you know, in the spirit world.
00:16:10.820And I'm like tugging on spirit sleeve and saying, put me in, coach, put me in.
00:16:27.520And so, so one, I, you know, as I have that image for myself, I have it for everybody
00:16:31.920I meet and I think, wow, just think about choosing to come in right now, choosing to
00:16:38.460come and walk this earth right now as human being, you know, and I, and I say this to
00:16:43.500the young people that I encounter as I say, man, I just have so much respect for you right off the
00:16:50.360bat, just that you're here, that you're coming in right now. And I have total faith as I do for
00:16:57.360myself that I came here for purpose. There's something for me to do here. And perhaps it's
00:17:04.500only that only I can do, or perhaps I am a part of some kind of constellation that is destined
00:17:11.980and to come together. Lately, it's been feeling like that. And I offer my peace and, and we are
00:17:18.960greater than the sum of our parts. And so I have to stay focused that way in what it really deeply
00:17:26.200and what is mine to do. Otherwise, I do get completely run over and battered by by by the
00:17:33.640situation. So what I am equipped to do here is to, like I said, you know, is to use this
00:17:42.240incredible privilege. I mean, my people's history is harrowing. You know, the United States
00:17:49.220government ordered every male member of my people to turn themselves in or be captured or murdered
00:17:55.600in the mid-1800s, and we barely survived that. We were walked hundreds of miles to a
00:18:04.500concentration camp in the southern part of the state. So the fact that I am here,
00:18:11.160and that I was put into East Coast boarding school, and I lived on Stanford campus when
00:18:18.740my father was getting his PhD there. You know, I've thought a lot about how meticulous spirit
00:18:25.100has been with my education. And my education has had very little to do with the schools I was a
00:18:31.560part of, actually. I mean, it gives me the mannerisms and the vocabulary and the language
00:18:38.460to be able to be heard by those who, you know, who are also embedded in those institutions
00:18:45.680and were given that as their platform or being their education.
00:18:52.500But I'm going to argue for every single one of us
00:18:55.320that there has been like the real school running along side by side with that.
00:19:01.320And that has to do with all of the experiences,
00:19:04.140the families we were born into, the people,
00:19:07.280the ethnicities we were born into, the gender we were born into,
00:19:11.540all of that, you know, because as I look at my own world,
00:19:15.520I just see that I have been meticulously, meticulously prepared for the role I am to play.
00:19:23.320And a large part of that role is doing exactly what I'm doing right here, right now, which is describing my journey from being a modern world paradigm human to a human that is more or less outside of that at this point and observing.
00:19:40.980I'm observing and I'm describing that journey.
00:19:43.300so um i don't know that i can say what the whole picture would be like of the thriving life
00:19:51.360paradigm i feel like there have been groups of humans who have been operating from an ethic
00:20:01.280you know this is this is the way i've been thinking about it lately that you know when i
00:20:07.200look at the sacred hoop of life so maybe some people have seen the medicine wheel this this
00:20:12.060circle. And we say that every single member of all living things gets to have a seat on that hoop,
00:20:20.640including human beings. We're not the whole hoop. We get to have a seat on the hoop.
00:20:25.960And that every single member is really called on to uphold its part of that sacred hoop of life.
00:20:35.080And when any member does not uphold that part, then the integrity of the hoop begins to fail.
00:20:39.960and i and i do believe that's what we're seeing i do believe that earth is suffering because
00:20:45.060humanity has forgotten to place life at the center of every single one of its endeavors
00:20:51.420other things have come before that and we are experiencing the consequences of that
00:20:56.620which is why i'm sure you know my people are very very clear and say with every endeavor we do this
00:21:04.920so that people can live, so that we never lose sight of what's actually the plan around here.
00:21:09.960The plan on earth is life. Clearly, everything is doing one thing. It's making more life,
00:21:14.960making more life. She's always trying to find the way to push life up and out.1.00
00:21:21.640And so the amazing thing about this circle of life, well, there's so many amazing things about
00:21:26.960it, but the one that I've been thinking about lately is that every single other member apart
00:21:32.960from humanity every single other member on that hoop knows you know just by their very existence
00:21:40.540just by their very being their way of being the fruit of their seed that every generation
00:21:48.500going back as far as you want to go and forward i think as far as we want to go to every single
00:21:55.440being their the way they live their life contributes to supports upholds every other
00:22:03.940member on that sacred group of life i mean that's incredible like we we we look at that prospect as
00:22:11.300a human being right now and it's completely overwhelming and baffling to us how would we
00:22:16.040do such a thing we ask ourselves but i want to point out that we have all these other beautiful
00:22:23.400relatives I say elders the trees the stones the waters the birds I had a pair of hawks doing their
00:22:31.400mating ritual right over my head a couple days ago outside of my house it was just astonishing
00:22:37.540but just to think that every single one of them the way they live supports every other form of
00:22:43.620life and so I have to believe that we also have that capacity I don't believe we could be placed
00:22:51.240here i don't believe we could be given a seat on that sacred hoop of life if we didn't have that
00:22:56.820ability somehow somewhere some way so right now as much as you know you're saying we want to know
00:23:02.800of course we want to know that's that's the intellect's way right it's not happy if it can't
00:23:06.820know and if it can't really know it starts to make something up but but we we don't know right now
00:23:12.740And that's an uncomfortable place. But what I have learned is that when we can fall in front of that great mystery door with true humility, with true willingness, with true love for this life and for all the life around us, for the next generation's lives, you know, because that is a place that we find in our ceremonies.
00:23:37.800When we are able to meet that place with true humility and willingness, astonishing vistas open when that door swings open and shows us things that we never could have conceived of before.
00:23:52.500So perhaps it's actually a necessary place for us to be to encounter and to really be confronted deeply by that mystery at this time.
00:24:37.360Don't leave beside the fire, tell me why you're wondering.
00:24:52.460When I came in the door, you saw me looking for a minute.
00:24:59.060You brought it to my lips, gave me a little sip, gave me a little sip of a minute.1.00
00:25:08.200I'd like to move into a conversation to look at how gender behaves in this paradigm.
00:25:14.180And I've heard you acknowledge that this is a very difficult conversation to have right now, but it's also desperately needed.
00:25:22.740And so often when we think, you know, or when we talk about gender, we talk about the harm that the binary does, with many pointing out how the gender binary itself is a colonial construct.
00:25:34.200So I'm curious to enter into this topic with you in a way that holds the necessity of the non-binary, while also exploring how gender behaves differently in different paradigms, and how gender has been held in very sacred ways as well.
00:25:51.580So how can we have gendered counterparts without the oppressive nature of a binary?
00:25:57.320so um in in this power over paradigm in which might makes right uh men are going to dominate
00:26:06.520which is what i see because it's really about brute force it's really about you know overcoming
00:26:12.080another and so this is to me why men are dominant in this paradigm and have been dominant in in this
00:26:22.120on the earth for some time now by and large and so we associate that power and the way it is used
00:26:33.400that overcoming that overpowering of others with masculinity and and there is truth in that there's
00:26:41.740there's no question about that but again as as you say i ask myself who would men be if they were
00:26:50.400not in a paradigm that required of them to overcome others in order to have what they need
00:26:56.720and in order to be that provider for the life bringers the children and the elders0.87
00:27:01.760who who would they be then and and so then I feel like I also have to ask so those who appear female
00:27:11.840not identify as female they are then also held in a certain position within that paradigm and
00:27:20.220And for me, I feel like it's very hard for us to take a look at gender without fully acknowledging the extent of the paradigm, that power over way, and how anybody, whatever gender, whatever race, you know, is going to behave when you have people that are going to overpower you and make it next to impossible for you to get what you need to live.
00:27:46.380the same dynamics are going to arise and they are arising we're seeing it arising
00:27:51.260politically we're seeing it arise racially we're seeing it arise in gender you know that that's
00:27:59.520been going on for for however you know forever for not forever but for a very long time thousands0.96
00:28:04.040of years and so so I think that that's the first place that I always want to start in having any
00:28:11.140conversation about gender is how can we really know so i will agree that that the current gender
00:28:21.560constructs are a human construct well they're they're a product of this paradigm and so i don't
00:28:30.800think i can even really know who i am as female outside of that paradigm and that's what you know
00:28:38.440i think that's what you're quoting for me is that the spirit said to me you think you know what
00:28:42.260masculine is but you don't and you think you know what feminine is but you don't all you know is how
00:28:47.040those two energetics behave in a power over paradigm but if you were to plug them into a
00:28:53.540different paradigm they would behave in a completely different way so i know i notice
00:28:59.440that when i am engaged in my cultural spiritual practices gender is held in very particular ways
00:29:10.180and and i will say that that the patriarchal way the power over paradigm way in which men are
00:29:17.000dominant has definitely infiltrated into indigenous culture it's quite convoluted there i find but
00:29:25.100so it's it's not that there's perfection going on there but i do notice and i can feel how the
00:29:31.040ceremonies call upon gender in very different ways than we're accustomed to in modern world paradigm
00:29:37.880and so i can just say for myself as someone who identifies as female and woman and who also
00:29:46.040menstruate who also menstruated i should say i don't menstruate anymore um there was a very
00:29:52.900particular spiritual capacity that i had that was based upon my biology
00:29:57.620and there i don't know how there can be a a human construct around that capacity
00:30:08.620that um in other words i feel like that was as natural of a female being as i've ever known how
00:30:17.920to be, was to be going into the practice of dismantling, acknowledging that I'm dismantling
00:30:25.780the holy altar of life once a month, and that I have the opportunity to offer that gift to the
00:30:31.180Mother Earth. And that when I do that, she responds. She responds to me so deeply and actually
00:30:39.880blesses me in very particular ways as the female of our kind and and also gives me
00:30:48.480vision and instruction about how to be on this earth at this time and so based on that very
00:30:55.800personal experience I extrapolate quite a bit and I ask myself so so if that is what my biology
00:31:04.820can afford me to contribute you know i'm going back to what we were talking about earlier i've
00:31:11.260had it with genius i've had it with brilliant ideas i want to i want to be led i want to be
00:31:20.380called by life itself to action because i don't think we know what we're doing all we can keep
00:31:26.860doing is operating out of the same you know the same modern world paradigm it's very hard for us
00:31:33.480to know. Even as an indigenous person with a full-on living example of how one could be a0.73
00:31:41.380human being in a completely different way, it's still really difficult. And then many people1.00
00:31:47.160don't have that privilege, don't have that opportunity to participate in a paradigm other
00:31:52.980than the modern world paradigm. So it's quite challenging. But I'll say that for me to be able
00:32:01.120to to hear in that way to be able to receive instruction is so profound and so that makes me
00:32:08.800ask myself then so what what do all the other genders hold for us what do what is the whole
00:32:17.360spectrum of gender hold for us the biology of the two-spirit the biology of of the men and the
00:32:25.580masculine. I think that there is a huge amount of resource for understanding how to be human
00:32:36.740in such a way that we can cause all other life to thrive by being able to, instead of
00:32:44.840seeing gender only through this, through the eyes of this terrible, terrible power play
00:32:51.380going on to begin to ask you know how what is my perfect design for thriving life
00:32:59.180that I am meant to fulfill here and how does my gender whatever gender I'm claiming
00:33:05.700how does that afford me that possibility to do that
00:33:10.020thank you Pat for going there with us and yeah I'm thinking0.78
00:33:21.380In terms of the wounds of gender in this paradigm, I think about the shame and trauma that colonization has inflicted upon men both here and in Europe and how that trauma in Europe begets what unfolds here in indigenous communities.
00:33:39.960And I know that this is a topic that doesn't always land softly, because under this paradigm, it can be so much to ask women and non-binary folks to step into this approach of understanding men's participation in violence and abuse, or their silence in movements for safety and physical return of those who have gone missing or been harmed by men.
00:34:08.000but as difficult as it is it's worthy of noting the cycle of trauma that arises and I know that
00:34:17.440this is a question that perhaps really needs to be addressed to the men in our lives but as someone
00:34:23.620who has traced what the witch hunts of Europe set in motion I wonder if I could ask you about
00:34:30.500the importance of factoring this part of the story in terms of healing the masculine and feminine
00:34:36.960and how it's also embedded into the trauma that exists between European settlers
00:34:42.440and indigenous people in settler colonial countries.
00:34:52.160I'm going to begin by saying that at one point,
00:34:56.100my spirit guides told me that I, as the mother of the children that I've birthed,
00:35:06.960I am their first medicine woman and that I can orient my people to life by orienting
00:35:22.960the babies and the toddlers and the young children to life, to what makes life,
00:35:33.200to the principles of life, to the original instructions.
00:35:36.960And that I actually guide the destinies of the people in that role of being this first medicine woman to the people.
00:35:47.200And that it's not until they get to the place of the coming of age, so as they're heading into puberty, at that point, I've already been with them 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 years, and been able to give them instruction.
00:36:05.580and orientation and so at that point it's correct for me to perhaps turn them over to the medicine
00:36:13.500men of the community for initiation um and and i imagine there are there are women who can also do
00:36:22.500those initiations of course too but but it was explained to me in that way and that and that
00:36:28.420and it was also just added that women's nation has been tricked into giving up that
00:36:34.500capacity by turning our children over at very young ages to kind of random strangers honestly
00:36:45.900and that has to do with economics and such but but i was but it was pointed out to me that that
00:36:52.040that is a possibility for who i could be as the as the mother the mother the mothering being
00:36:59.160to the future generations so first of all i'm going to say that these men who are doing harm
00:37:11.480they were raised by mothers who had been harmed also they didn't just arise out of nowhere
00:37:19.660and that's a that's a really hard thought for me but i have four cents
00:37:25.040and uh it's really something to watch how they how they view women how they
00:37:35.220how they view other humans and to see you know what what stirs violence in them
00:37:44.120what stirs harshness and hard-heartedness in them it's very very humbling to watch my own sons
00:38:23.200I'm very proud of their stand for life.
00:38:27.800I'm very proud of their stand for Earth.
00:38:30.500All of them, all of them would go to great lengths and have gone to great lengths to protect Earth.
00:38:39.780When my sons returned from Standing Rock, they had a new thing, a new way about them.
00:38:46.660And that way was, you know, anytime that they were going to take action, environmental stance, and take action here in our community, they felt like they needed to have the presence, the blessing, the guidance, the prayer of an elder woman.
00:39:06.400so i really give congratulations to the women of standing rock for instilling in these young
00:39:13.800warriors you know and of all the groups of humans they are some of the most intimidating to me
00:39:20.160the young warrior men intimidating in the sense that you know i i don't ever want to get heavy
00:39:28.240handed i feel like if i had to get heavy handed there well you know i would and in that sense
00:39:32.960i'm not intimidated but but i don't ever want it to come to that with them i want it i want
00:39:37.660i want something another kind of relationship with them and so i've been thinking a lot about
00:39:43.400this at this time um as i come into my elder womanhood ship as i say you know i think in our
00:39:50.940old societies pre-colonization you know we we went to war at times with different our different
00:39:58.840tribes surrounding us for different reasons and i i believe that it was most likely the
00:40:06.860elder women who had the final say about when we go to war as as being you know i call myself
00:40:14.060holy earth surface walker life bringer life bearer and i stand with the full authority
00:40:19.300of the mother earth with me behind me as me and i am always have the i'm always in the position
00:40:31.060and have the authority to speak on behalf of life in every situation so that's how i claim my gender
00:40:38.080and and so to have these these young men
00:40:45.760asking you know as they watch the world be torn asunder to have them pause and stop and ask
00:40:56.120what do what do our elder women have to say about our actions that is really some powerful1.00
00:41:03.540medicine woman work that was done there so i acknowledge that
00:41:08.640and i and i asked myself how do i know how to give that guidance to these young warrior men
00:41:17.480i need that that is a piece of training that i have missed in this life between these two paradigms
00:41:24.880but i but i want to know the answer and actually that's one of the conversations that joanna macy
00:41:30.080and I were having is how do the elder women reclaim that role to be a guide to be a voice
00:41:38.220to be a help and potentially to be that final permission what do I need to do to really know0.99
00:41:46.300how to do that with these young voyermen so I don't think I've ever answered this question in
00:41:51.880this way before but I it's coming out this way today and I guess what I'm trying to say here1.00
00:42:00.000is we women have an enormous influence in this world not through the power over paradigm0.99
00:42:12.200but through the actual real life authority which is this mother earth1.00
00:42:17.580she is the final authority there's no bigger authority than her you know we're not living
00:42:24.840on mars we're not living on jupiter we're living on earth and it's going to be her way or not at
00:42:29.520all we think we're going to bend her way to our will we're not impossible cannot it's not going
00:42:36.860to happen so we have one choice and that is to align with her way her thriving life way
00:42:45.860and uh and we're being confronted with that very deeply right now and so you know to stand with
00:42:54.400that authority is is huge there is no greater authority that i could stand with and that could
00:43:04.600be moving through me so at this point um you know i've i've said it in other ways in other talks you
00:43:11.860can go look for those other other explanations around this or other other discourse but here
00:43:17.140today i'm just going to say that i have to accept my responsibility as a as the female of our kind
00:43:22.920of the five-fingered ones standing on this earth today with the full authority of mother earth
00:43:28.740and speak on behalf of life and and those young men who are here to defend life
00:43:37.360i need to find my way to speak to them too and i have to be a woman fair or unfair
00:43:46.760I have to be a woman who can raise a young boy into a man who knows how to honor life, which means they also know how to honor women's nation and elders and children and other men.
00:45:20.880i'm not so sure it is i mean if indeed it is a power over paradigm in which one must overcome
00:45:31.060another in order to have what you need to live that pretty much demands that you're going to
00:45:38.960overcome someone else whether they give you consent or not and by and large they're probably
00:45:44.840not going to give you consent, right? So that's where the violence of this paradigm is deeply
00:45:53.900rooted. You know, I think about when I try to feel into what would it be like for me to be a human
00:46:06.300being that causes all other life to thrive? My very presence does. One, it might be hard for us
00:46:12.660to imagine. So I'll take us on a little side note here, which is that my daughter, some of you may
00:46:18.360know, Lila June Johnston, is getting her PhD in Indigenous land management practices, traditional
00:46:26.300land management practices. And she told me this really fabulous thing that I just love,
00:46:35.460which is that, you know, they're doing, taking these core samples out of the earth, which1.00
00:46:39.980honestly for indigenous people is a little bit problematic to be just gouging holes into the0.85
00:46:44.600earth just because we want to know something but um but but they have been taken and and so what we
00:46:53.080what they're looking for is the deeper down you go into the earth the farther back in time you go
00:46:57.540because we have these this sediment sedimentary layers of of not only rock but life and and
00:47:05.380actually human activity shows up and so when you go back you know a very long ways say even here in
00:47:13.200the south southeastern united states for instance you'll find that the plant life the diversity of
00:47:20.420life here was was might be very minimal like three or four major species around and then we find that
00:47:28.160as human beings arrive on the scene suddenly the biodiversity just explodes and so we have a way
00:47:38.420of doing a kind of agriculture I guess we'll say because there's an intention
00:47:42.860to cause things to fruit and flower such that we will be able to benefit from them
00:47:49.360in a in a somewhat predictable way so that will be my definition of agriculture in this instance
00:47:56.340right and so but the way that we did it wasn't about changing the whole landscape it wasn't about
00:48:03.300making curves into straight lines it was another another way and so we had we did have controlled
00:48:09.840burns um we had anyway we had a huge number of possibilities for managing land and so
00:48:18.480lands were managed for you know tens and hundreds of square miles by a people
00:48:25.220and so while they want to call us hunter gatherers there was actually quite a bit more going on there
00:48:31.520and science modern science is just being beginning to catch up with that and part of the reason it's
00:48:36.780been hard to see is because you can't actually see it on the landscape because the idea is to
00:48:41.480is to not leave a mark to not leave a monument to yourself to not show i was here and i did this
00:48:47.840it was to be in that very deep harmony with this symphony of life and so you know when i think
00:48:56.660about that and i think wow so we actually are that's what gives me faith in this new prayer
00:49:03.540that i have we we actually could cause places to thrive to explode in biodiversity in a way that
00:49:11.440was not harmful in a way that was welcome and so it's it's given me this this new perspective on us
00:49:17.060as a species because i think right now i say we have low self-esteem as a species that we're that
00:49:23.160everything we touch we destroy well that hasn't always been the case and it really hasn't been
00:49:27.420even all that long ago relative to the age of earth and actually the age of human presence
00:49:32.300on earth which science hasn't quite caught up with yet either but but they keep making discoveries
00:49:37.220that keep pushing that time further and further back don't they we're saying hundreds of thousands
00:49:42.280of years and so when i see that and i think wow we we have that capacity but what was that what
00:49:49.400was at the root of it and i'm going to say what was at the root of it is this understanding of
00:49:55.020the sovereignty of all beings that when we acknowledge every being again as having not
00:50:01.680only the right to be there but as actually a necessary part for my own well-being and the
00:50:07.820well-being of every other life form. I mean, that's what every plant is, is it's there
00:50:16.240supporting all the rest of the life. So yes, I have to think very carefully about what I'm going
00:50:21.620to do if I'm going to interfere with its trajectory of what it has to offer. And so to me, this idea
00:50:28.260of consent, having consensual relationships. So here we are bound by a deep law of consent,
00:50:37.000of the acknowledgement of the sovereignty of all beings. And we're all required to eat each other.
00:50:42.880I mean, it's the craziest setup, right? Like we all have to eat somebody, whether it's a carrot
00:50:49.760or a venison or whatever it's going to be, right? We're going to interrupt a life. So
00:50:56.200that means that we have to come into some kind of place of consensus and consent. We have to
00:51:03.760have a consensual relationship so this is why we make offerings when we're going to take
00:51:09.880plants plants for medicine we ask permission where who wants to come who who really needs
00:51:17.880to stay and we make sure that we take only one out of every three or four you know so that because
00:51:24.540because those beings have to continue on in order for everything to be well in a region right
00:51:29.500so consent is inherent to this place that we live in so your question is do i think consent can
00:51:36.800exist in that paradigm in modern world paradigm i'm going to say i don't think it can but i do
00:51:41.740know that we do have to come into a place of consent and consensual relationship with this
00:51:49.180creation that we have been placed in if we want to continue on thank you for sharing your personal
00:51:57.980experience. And yeah, I'm thinking about how Western narratives around environmentalism and
00:52:06.900climate change, you know, they fix it on humans as these great destroyers, which we've been
00:52:11.980discussing in this conversation. And I think many of us have a hard time challenging that notion
00:52:18.800because we know that the behavior of some is indeed driving many kin to their extinction.
00:52:24.120but I've also been reminded by many leaders that change is inevitable and the universe is always
00:52:31.800in flux so I'm wondering how do you balance our responsibility to uphold the integrity of the
00:52:38.140circle of life as we know it while also revering transformation and change even when it appears
00:52:45.160in the form of destruction well i think what helps me hold that is culturally we say that
00:52:57.180we have already been through several worlds so sometimes you might hear indigenous people talk
00:53:03.720about the the fourth world or the fifth world or the sixth world or the fifth sun or such like that
00:53:09.040and so we're talking about this very very long history that i alluded to earlier hundreds of
00:53:14.540thousands of years of humanity being human presence here and and there have been rises and
00:53:20.960falls with it we've we've lost worlds you know my clan grandfather says that the reason we lost
00:53:27.700the last world which was with the flood was because men and women believed they could live
00:53:33.060separate from each other so some cultures even say we know we know how we lost our worlds and
00:53:39.920had to begin again and then we had um you know some benevolent uh relatives you know for us we
00:53:48.080say it was the dragonfly that led us through the hollow reed through the water to be able to come
00:53:54.220to the upper world again and begin again so so you know those stories is that everybody likes to call
00:54:00.760myths as though i don't know i'm not sure what that word means anymore but it implies to me that
00:54:08.720it's not it's not real it's not a true quote-unquote story it's um it's a some kind of
00:54:14.000moral teaching or a flight of fancy but I'm gonna say not so and so I think for me again I have to
00:54:23.880go back to what is what did I come here for what is my my reason for being here now and what what
00:54:34.700can I do and you know I went through a period that I know many people I encounter go go through
00:54:43.360and might still be going through and certainly young people are thinking it over that I encounter
00:54:48.140which is you know is it too late is it too late and what's the point or whatever like that and
00:54:54.840then I feel like the way that that got sort of resolved for me is to say you know I
00:55:00.900I feel that my work is either going to help with this fantastic wake up that we all hope will somehow happen in the midst of all of our dogmas and, and hoarding and all the many addictions we have to ways of life that destroy life.
00:55:27.420But we nevertheless hold out that there's going to be this wake up. So either that will happen, and my work will contribute to that, or my work, I feel like some of the work I get called to do is to, so for instance, when I was called to do the work around the witch hunts in Europe, and that was named an Archetypal Wounding of Humanity,
00:55:49.260to realign our course there to retell the truth of this of the matter and the stories
00:55:56.360about what that really was and what really happened there and how that altered the course
00:56:01.220of humanity to really spend the time there and to come to the understanding and to be willing
00:56:08.480to be instructed and even torn asunder and reassembled which is pretty much what happened
00:56:13.900to be there. And then to be able to tell the story in a new way, they said it will automatically
00:56:20.700change your trajectory into the future. And so I trust that. I believe that. I believe that is
00:56:26.800what happened at the time when we did the ceremony and it's still unfolding now.
00:56:32.160um but i feel like uh that that reconciling was
00:56:41.340was almost um a moral realignment and my sense is that that level of healing and realignment
00:56:52.760plays out along the line of time even if we end up losing this world and only some of us
00:57:01.680get to begin again, that that bit of work somehow sets us up to be in a better place than we would
00:57:15.120have been had that work not been done. So that's probably as literal as I've ever been. I've ever
00:57:22.000spoken about that, but that is how I feel about it. So our forgivenesses, our reconciliations,
00:57:30.500Our acknowledgments of traumas that we have inflicted upon each other, all those are so important. They're so important. I don't think we can begin to understand how important they are.
00:57:43.700And I was shown during the time of doing the ceremonies in Europe around the witch hunts that, you know, my job is to hold the faith.
00:57:52.420My job is to hold the light, perhaps over hundreds of years.
00:57:56.700And the prayers that were made by the women and men and children that were suffering during the so-called witch hunts, they're being answered today, some of them.
01:00:04.080Where people die lonely, afraid and lost in the dark
01:00:11.560With nothing to hope for and nothing to dream
01:00:19.100A dragonfly loses her wings to fly0.98
01:00:34.080Wow. I really needed to hear that. I've been struggling with forgiveness, and
01:00:50.220what you just shared was really powerful.
01:00:57.400In a post titled Native on Native Studies, you write, quote,
01:01:02.100i was given a deep caution by my spirit helpers they said to me that it was crucial to be cautious
01:01:09.920about making a study of ourselves as indigenous peoples that we by doing this we could endanger
01:01:17.180our own understanding of who we are and how we are in the same way that the academy tried to
01:01:24.120make our life through their studies of our culture logical linear and intellectual we by
01:01:31.280participating in this academic methodology, we ourselves might reduce our way of life
01:01:37.200into the same two-dimensional understanding, end quote.
01:01:42.300And I think this continues to happen in environmental spheres through the
01:01:49.120fetitization of indigenous knowledge. But the other side of this is that the only people who0.59
01:01:55.920have a successful record of living in relative harmony with the earth are, of course,
01:02:01.260indigenous people, which we spoke about earlier. And so I have this question swirling for all of
01:02:07.820those who have a vested interest in sustainability around how to best support rekindling all of the
01:02:14.960knowledge that has been stripped from so many indigenous people in so many different ways.
01:02:21.120well i feel that you know this this land back movement taking place in the united states
01:02:34.220in maybe an unprecedented way and by that what do we mean we mean returning lands that were
01:02:42.880traditionally belonged to indigenous peoples for to be back under their care again
01:02:48.720and so that's happening with gifts of land in some instances sometimes funds are gifted to
01:02:59.400the indigenous peoples in order to be able to purchase lands so it's coming back in different
01:03:05.920ways and I actually to my surprise am being called to participate in something like that and
01:03:14.700And so I think that this is a very powerful way and a pretty daunting prospect, honestly, because our lives have become quite complicated, meaning indigenous peoples.
01:03:32.640so we have we have members of certainly my tribe all over the board from phds to traditional
01:03:40.580medicine singers to i don't know just everybody doing lots of different things in lots of
01:03:47.280different ways so for a land to be returned to quote my people there's lots of different ideas
01:03:53.320about about what that could be used for maybe it's going to be used to reenact our old lifestyles or
01:04:01.560maybe it's a way to get a jump on some kind of, you know,
01:04:25.880I feel that when we raise that possibility, that there is this possibility of, you know, because we, it's hard for modern world to understand what it means to be so closely tied to a very specific location for thousands of years.
01:04:44.880it's almost beyond our imagining it's almost beyond my imagining but to have that kind of
01:04:50.560relationship to truly be a symbiotic in a symbiotic relationship with place where you are causing you
01:04:58.420know in an ongoing endless cycling of benefit co-benefit that's the engine of sustainability
01:05:06.320that we have known an example we can point to so can that be recreated can can we continue on
01:05:15.780and do that so when we're not able to be in the places that we had that relationship with
01:05:20.620in many instances we can't really truly be the full nature of our people of our culture
01:05:29.040you know i say the mother earth uh you know culture isn't a human construct culture is the
01:05:36.460mother earth expressing herself as human being in any given place so to get that level of
01:05:43.320relationship going is going to take a lot and i think indigenous peoples can do this i think it's
01:05:50.200i think we still hold enough of our ceremonies we could say it's literally in our blood in our dna
01:05:56.640You know, my blood and my DNA is built for desert, high desert. I don't do well in tropical humidity. I mean, I enjoy it for short periods, but it's not that easy for me to thrive there. I mean, it's literally in my DNA to be in this part of the earth, the southwest of what we now call the United States.
01:06:15.240And so to help these indigenous peoples begin to make those relationships again, sometimes the land that's being returned might have to do with our initiation processes.
01:06:27.500Maybe we haven't really been able to hold our initiations as deeply as we once did.
01:06:33.960And maybe by returning that land and allowing us that possibility, we can recreate those really profound relationships with earth.0.99
01:06:45.240And that, you know, what I want to point out is, yes, I know that some of my relatives feel that my Euro descent relatives feel like they really need that part that says, yes, I am doing this because of what my ancestors did to your people.
01:06:58.220and so you know i i acknowledge that it is a form of of justice and and restoration
01:07:06.900and conceivably reconciliation but i also want us to consider that it's going even beyond that
01:07:14.840which is to say that when we when we have human beings enacting those old relationships of the
01:07:22.880most profound sustainability i mean i don't even like that word in that context the most profound
01:07:28.240mad love affair with earth is really what we're talking about um and and not then not only earth
01:07:36.040but but with cosmos so earth has her destiny she has a role to fulfill in our solar system and in
01:07:43.720the cosmos and she's on her way to do that in in in her unfolding and i don't think she's going to
01:07:49.740let us get in her way of doing that but we could be a tremendous ally and help to her in doing that
01:07:56.020so for us to support these land back endeavors i think right now is one very tangible concrete way
01:08:03.440to to help indigenous peoples as for conceptualizing
01:08:10.700it's very conceptualizing our cultures very interesting to hear those words read back to
01:08:20.080me right now but it's it's hard enough for us to hold on to the truth of our
01:08:29.120i mean i want to say ceremonial life our spiritual life but but that is implying as
01:08:35.880though it was somehow separate from our day-to-day life and it's not to be you know the closest I can
01:08:42.140come is knowing what happened when I went into prayer and ceremony during my menstruation
01:08:47.540and really had visions unfold for me one after another about what I could do what a good
01:08:56.580direction would be who what people would be involved even the ceremonies we did for the
01:09:03.040human reunion ceremonies in Europe to address the witch hunts that was all given to me so it's
01:09:07.620it's a collaborative and co-creative relationship with all the rest of the sacred hoop of life
01:09:15.620and for those of us who are able to and can I'm going to extend that out to a spiritual
01:09:21.600community of helpers that have been surrounding the earth and have been collaborating with human
01:09:27.700beings and earth for I don't I don't think we can even say how long the white buffalo calf woman
01:09:34.220the blue corn mothers I'm sure there are other entities in other parts of the world but but just
01:09:38.800to name those ones you know to come into that kind of deep collaboration is is hard for us to
01:09:46.780come by in some ways in indigenous culture we're really fighting to preserve that and so this also
01:09:53.180is a part of this question about co-opting culture and misusing a culture so that's something that
01:10:01.400people may not realize is when there's all this because it's very hard to make that jump it's
01:10:08.960very hard to make that jump from intellect into the true meanings of indigenous ceremony very
01:10:16.320very hard and i know that at this time modern world is really seeking that and really trying
01:10:23.900to do that and one of the one of the ways i think they feel like is the easiest way to do that is
01:10:28.380through plant medicines because that will definitely alter your consciousness in ways that
01:10:32.880that nothing else will and that you can't explain and there and things happen during that time
01:10:38.780but honestly i feel like those ways are like way advanced way beyond most human beings on the
01:10:47.460planet at this time until in order to really work with them in a way that is beneficial to life and
01:10:53.040to even your own self um you know in the Lakota way of prayer we say we pray with our own juices
01:10:59.660you know so we're not we're not involved in hallucinogenics we we come into vision through
01:11:06.120fasting generally um and prayer and song um and and to drop into that place is so precious so
01:11:15.620so to for folks to come along and want to hop right in just just notice i'm not saying it
01:11:21.640should never happen i'm probably more open than than many indigenous people you'll meet but i do1.00
01:11:27.980see that it's it's a little bit hard sometimes with this clamoring of people using these ways1.00
01:11:34.220when they're coming out of intellect at the same time as we are desperately trying to hold on
01:11:41.180to what we hold not only for ourselves but for the balance of the whole planet of the whole earth
01:11:48.420for ourselves so that we can keep that straight so that we can have that relationship that is
01:11:55.920necessary for human beings to have with earth sometimes all of that extra stuff to navigate
01:12:04.320by people coming into our cultures and wanting to participate can can make it difficult so it's
01:12:10.920just something to keep in mind as people keep asking me about about that question co-opting
01:12:16.820culture i don't again i don't say never do it don't want it don't you know i i can't say that
01:12:23.500but I can't just point out some of the stuff that makes it difficult so that
01:12:27.220hopefully we can be aware and collaborate.
01:12:33.840I think that's really important for all who are listening to hear.
01:12:39.940And this has been such an incredible conversation.
01:12:44.620I'm so grateful for this time with you. And as we come to a close,
01:12:49.400I have one last thought and that is that both prophecy and science have given us certain
01:12:59.240timelines for radical change when it comes to the habitability of the planet and I think
01:13:05.740definitions of radical change might look very different depending upon who you are speaking to
01:13:12.600You know, maybe not, but I've been thinking about this messaging lately and how daunting it can be that we may have only about five years to, quote, turn things around.
01:13:26.720So, you know, we kind of spoke about this a little earlier, too.
01:13:30.400But to close our conversation, I'd like to ask you what radical change means for you in your day-to-day life.
01:13:38.620well what I'm noticing and I think this is something that this quarantine has given
01:13:47.300everybody an opportunity is to understand where do you get your food from
01:13:51.500and what does that mean and what happens when your food supply is chain is cut off
01:14:02.200and for that matter your toilet paper chain and
01:14:05.960um so we've all hopefully had a good chance to think about that and and and and maybe go so far
01:14:14.360as to say that that getting a bigger storage house and storing more is probably not going to cut it
01:14:20.140um and so i'm i'm no exception so my my job i feel like legitimately has been to to voice some
01:14:30.360of these things like i'm sharing with you right now and so i've been called on to do that in in
01:14:35.200all different parts of the world at different gatherings. When lockdown happened in the United
01:14:39.640States, I was just coming from Israel, Jordan, and Palestine. I was going to wash my clothes and
01:14:44.880maybe get some sleep and then take off for Australia and London and Ireland two weeks
01:14:50.260after I got home. In those two weeks, everything came to a halt. That was my lifestyle. I had to
01:14:57.140think a lot about it, about my carbon footprint and et cetera, flying. I kept hearing that I
01:15:04.520I needed to do that. And I also needed to be a part of drawing, like drawing an energetic web
01:15:13.560onto the planet with the prayers that I was carrying as well. So that's how I, I guess we
01:15:21.000could say justified that life. It has been really hard to just come to a screeching halt as I know
01:15:28.700was for many many of us um and so i'm confronted with myself pretty deeply you know what was i
01:15:37.780you know a question really came up early on what what were what were you in it for really
01:15:42.380and um so i've had to gain clarity about that again and and now um like i say this land back
01:15:50.960piece is coming up there's there's a uh some folks who have land at the base of one of our
01:15:56.920four sacred mountains that is is pretty much all private land at the base so we haven't really had
01:16:01.880much access to that mountain for our own ceremonies and such and now they want to sell it and they
01:16:07.700they really would like me and my family to be the keepers of it and um and they've always wanted
01:16:14.940dine people to have access to the mountain so that's like a pretty radical turn for me like
01:16:20.940i've been asking spirit lately seriously so now now it's time for me to be like a homesteader
01:16:26.160You know, like I wish you'd brought this up when I was in my 30s, because now I'm coming up on 60 and it's not going to be that easy.
01:16:34.040And and the truth is, it's not going to be that easy for me to just, you know, put my head down and do it all myself, which is unfortunately a little bit of my MO.
01:16:45.120But but no, so it's forcing me like if I'm really going to listen to that call, which I have always to the best of my ability answered every single call that spirit has ever given to me.
01:16:56.160what I'm standing in the front of this one going, wow, this is a big one to go live out in a very
01:17:01.900remote place and to begin to build community that is based on spiritual values and principles that
01:17:09.380I hold now and that I'm going to come in to learn from my own people. And again, to also be able to
01:17:16.200say, you know, you know, I don't, I don't want, I don't think, I don't think it's necessary either,1.00
01:17:22.820but I don't see the need for having tribal government involved with this0.98
01:17:26.480endeavor, even though it is to benefit ultimately Diné people.
01:17:31.060So it'll probably be held as a private transaction.
01:17:34.820But it's, it's radical. It's a totally different lifestyle,
01:17:39.260totally different way of being. And I just feel like as,
01:17:47.100it's really like an overwhelming prospect and other days I'm very excited about
01:17:51.600it um but but i really feel like we each one of us has to have an ear out for such a radical
01:18:02.480calling at this time uh because the life that we have been living cannot be lived much longer
01:18:09.620it just cannot and already you know as as the spirit said to me by the time all of the chaos
01:18:19.040the chaos of the earth hits first world nations it's going to be late late late late in the game
01:18:27.120and so I feel like this is where we're at we're seeing you know a lot of our relatives have
01:18:32.580already been deeply overcome by all the changes and are already in that position of trying to
01:18:38.660understand what in the world to do and and some of them were maybe trying to prepare but probably
01:18:44.480many of them were not and so I was told you know to to not necessarily go into this sense of shame
01:18:51.400and guilt that that wasn't going to serve but to really ask myself why am I in this position so
01:18:57.380here I am an indigenous woman who's who is not even supposed to be here the plan was genocide
01:19:02.940I was supposed to be exterminated but but my ancestors lived through that and I'm here and
01:19:08.760I'm living here in a first so-called first world nation and what does that mean what what am I able
01:19:16.580to do from this place who am I able to be as you say and as I've been saying to uphold the honor
01:19:22.500of being human being now and so this is the calling that's coming for me in conjunction
01:19:29.220with working with a lot of other people who are who are involved in similar endeavors so
01:19:34.800I feel like we are looking for our place to create is as one of my favorite authors back when I used
01:19:43.300to read pre pre-menopause I read Joseph Chilton Pierce's The Biology of Transcendence and he
01:19:50.280talks about you know maybe the goal isn't to to try to create global change but the goal maybe
01:19:57.200is to create lifeboats of coherence and that if we create these lifeboats of coherence
01:20:04.520that when structures fall when chaos hits that the new will begin to coalesce around these
01:20:13.820lifeboats of coherence and so that's another teaching that I that I take forward into my
01:20:20.760life right now is and I feel like whatever this calling is that the mountain it's actually the
01:20:25.600mountain calling is calling for a certain kind of lifeboat of coherence there and I'm doing
01:20:32.480everything i know including yesterday crying my eyes out to be you know i don't have to know how
01:20:41.220it's going to happen i just have to be i just have to not say no that's what the spirits tell
01:20:46.560me as long as you don't say no we will see this through it will happen so i'm doing all in my
01:20:53.240power to be able to at least not say no and working very very deeply on being able to say yes
01:21:04.400thank you pat for sharing that and everything that you have opened us up to in this conversation
01:21:16.980And I'm really glad you're saying yes, and I feel confident for you and excited for the radical changes in your life and feeling very certain that they will inspire radical changes in others that get to come into connection with you.
01:21:39.300wow i'm really so moved by this conversation and i feel like i'm definitely gonna spend
01:21:48.640the whole weekend just letting it sink in thank you well well thank you thank you for having me
01:21:57.900and i'm really grateful to have this conversation um there's uh things that i've said today that i
01:22:05.140don't think i've ever said so i find that very satisfying thank you for listening to for the
01:22:13.840podcast the music you heard today was by the range of light wilderness violet bell and sea stars
01:22:20.020for the wild is created by ayana young erica ekram francesca glassbell and julia jackson