Getting Naked: The Podcast - The Art of Attention

Episode Date: July 1, 2026

Drew Sams is back, and this time they're going through all seven. Pastor, ultra runner, and outdoorsman Drew walks Val through the seven natural landscapes he believes can teach us to pay better attention — to ourselves, to each other, and to what actually matters. The sky. Mountains. Rivers. The desert. Forests. Fields. And the ocean. Each one carries a lesson, and this conversation carries a lot of heart. You'll never look at low tide the same way again. Full Reveal available exclusively for Valerie's Place members.

So before we get into today's episode, I just want to give you all a quick reminder to stay tuned for the full reveal. The full reveal, that's a special segment for Valerie's Place members. So if you want to be able to access the full reveal, then head on over to Valer's Place.com. And we have an app now, so you can do that too. Okay. Sorry. This is your single over here. Hi.

Hi, single. Hmm. Hmm. I have a really fun recipe for you today. You saw how easy that was. Look at all that flavor we packed into chicken breasts. I love the flavor of maple syrup, especially for these kind of muffins. I see all of your comments. I swear I do. You are wondering, where's my show? This is so dang delicious. Smells divine. That's a jalapeno popper.

Oh my god. It's so good! Yes, I'm back and I am cooking for all of you. All right, Sophie. What are we reheating today? Welcome to Now Vow's cooking. Guess what we're gonna make right now. We're alive. Hi, everybody. How are you? You have to go to Valerie's Place. That's where you can see our book group, this podcast. That's where you can go for all the cooking that you want to see. Oh, yes.

I've missed cooking for you. I'm glad I finally get to do it again. I'm dancing. That's how good it is. So head to Valerisplace.com and go ahead and sign up. You guys are the original members and I can't thank you enough. It's happy time. So I have a familiar guest here today, a familiar face.

I was so blown away by our conversation. The last time he was here that I had to have him back immediately because we didn't even get a chance to cover everything. I just, he's a very interesting man, has great thoughts about how to make our lives better by just paying attention. So let's get a little bit into that. Drew, here you are again. Thanks for having me back. It's so nice to have you. Drew is a pastor. He's an ultra runner and an avid outdoorsman, which kind of is appropriate for where you've taken this because you've spent a lot of time outdoors. My whole life I've spent outdoors, but growing up, I just thought that's the fun side of

life. And then as I got older and as I got into work and my vocation, especially as a pastor in Los Angeles, I think I wrongly separated the two. As odd as that sounds. Yeah. Well, no, but it's not odd because I think that we tend to categorize and compartmentalize our lives. And sometimes you don't have to. No, and I found that in my own life, I found the most peace, the most residents in my life, not indoors, not in church buildings, but as I would say, in the cathedrals that God built, out in creation, under a wide open vast sky in the mountains alongside the ocean. Which is your favorite? Like, I know there's, there are people that, Because I happen to absolutely adore the mountains.

I love the beach too. The beach gives me something. Those negative ions are interesting. But if I had to pick one place to spend the rest of my life, it would be in the mountains. I would say the mountains. Even though I love to surf, love the ocean, my parents had a cabin in Big Bear. So for those that aren't familiar, there's a mountain range that is to the north of Los Angeles. We have a little bit of everything.

We do. We absolutely do. We have the deserts. And I heard recently that Los Angeles is one of the most mountainous cities in Los Angeles where people live in the mountains. Because a lot of areas in the U.S., there are mountains, but there's not as many neighborhoods in the mountains. So when you consider the Hollywood Hills, the whole stretch of the Santa Monica's. I live in the hills. Right?

So that's a fascinating stat that L.A. is more. You would, right? Yeah. But there are mountains that you see, but mountains that you don't live in. And the same with Salt Lake City. Very true. Salt Lake is in, yeah, even though I had a house in the mountains in Utah, which I live. So what is it about the mountains for you that you just, if you were to really unpeeled out?

Yes. It's, I had a home that was, that it was at 7,000 feet. So it took a couple days to acclimate every time I would go and visit and stay there, drinking a lot of water and just learning how to breathe again. And I think there's something about learning how to breathe again, which we could all put towards our life. Because we, even it's such a natural, it's something we all do not thinking,

but sometimes we just need to remember to breathe. Yes, absolutely. These things that we can so easily take for granted, breathe in and breathe out, and to remember that we're part of an ecosystem, that as we breathe in the oxygen, that's been given to us by the vast biodiversity on the planet, the forests, the plants, the trees. And as we breathe out, we give to them.

And that interconnectedness, I think it's so easy for us to take that for granted. Oh, God, yes. And to get isolated to think that we're just moving throughout life in our own little bubble. And to forget to take care of this beautiful Earth that God gave us to live on for a short period of time. Which is interesting. The first command in scripture is to care for and cultivate the earth. Isn't that amazing? Interesting.

The very first thing is to care for it. Wow. Ooh. We're much more eye down. My tongue is going to start bleeding by biting it because I would just love for all the Christians out there to listen to what you just said. Well, that's the thing. All the ones that want to just destroy our beautiful earth. Yes.

Because money is to be made. Yes. So I think there's two extremes that we can veer off into, and I'm trying to bring us back into a holistic. So the two extremes are either we dominate it, we subdue it, we exploit it, we just take from it, we conquer it, nowhere in Scripture, or really in any faith across the globe. Does it recommend that? Exactly. In fact, there's a passage in scripture that says, if you must go to war, make sure you don't cut down the trees. That's in the Bible. A lot of Christians overlook that. But isn't that amazing? If you must go, which God doesn't want us to commit violence. But if you must. Blessed are the peacekeepers. Yes. Don't cut down the trees. Yeah. And then the other end, I believe, is we worship it. Maybe we give it too much. divinity, too much power. And I think then we end up finding ourselves aiming a little too low for, for my vantage point, just as a pastor, the one who made it. But I think you're right. I think there's always, you're finding, you're trying to find the fulcrum of anything. There's always swinging too

far left, swinging too far right. But when you find the great middle ground, there's a lot to be mind right there for earth and for us. And that's, I think, why we're here is because we give and take. Or as human beings, towards the earth, towards animals, towards any living being, that's what we're supposed to do. So the work that I'm doing now essentially is kind of that in-between, which is there's seven landscapes that are found throughout scripture. And you call this the art of attention. The art of attention. Yes. And I believe that the best environment where we can come back to learning how to pay attention to each other, to ourselves, to the things that are so important in life, is not indoors. It's not under artificial. It's not under artificial.

lighting, which is interesting. We live more indoors than we ever have in human history. We're more removed from nature than any point in human history. You're right. We are. And so much of the medical community is actually prescribing people to get out into nature. So I believe the best landscape or the best environment, I should say, for us to return to a life of attentiveness, of noticing, of paying attention is simply getting outdoors. So these seven landscapes. No matter what the weather. No matter what the weather.

If it's raining, if it's cloudy, if it's sunny, it doesn't. So I know a lot of, I like to go outside during the first morning light just to get that morning sun. Sometimes the sun's not out, but it still feels amazing. Yes. That time of, and I've learned as a surfer, there's astronomical twilight, there's nautical twilight, and there's civil twilight all before sunrise. So if you were to get up early enough, you. You're hurting my brain. It's wild.

So astronomical twilight is the movement from true night into the first, first dark, dark, dark, blue part of the day. And then it moves into nautical twilight. That's the first time you can see the horizon. So for sailors, that's when they could finally see, you know, the horizon. And then it moves into civil twilight. Most people never see this in their lives because they sleep in past the sunrise. But if you ever, oh, it's so amazing in the shades and just every moment is different. And the creativity of how we see the world through the rays of light, you know, every green, every color on the planet changes every minute.

Every minute with the shifting of the sun. It's tremendous. It's quite beautiful. If you've never gotten up before the sun, I just do it once in a while. It's just sometimes I will sit outside with my coffee and just watch the sky change. And I like to do that at night too. Yeah. It's just they're both completely different, but so beautiful in their own right.

So I want to take, I want you to take us through the seven landscape ideas because you're writing a book on this. Yes, I am. Thank God, because I want to read this book. So take us through the seven and let us know what they all mean and how we can pay attention. Wonderful. Wonderful. And what's so beautiful is. Everyone knows what a sky looks like, regardless of your faith background, whether you believe in a God or not, whatever, you know, everyone knows what a sky is.

So let's start with the sky. And the sky is one of those things that completely reframes our perspective. So if we spend so much of our lives indoors and the scale of things indoors, you know, I'm above this coffee mug, I'm above my phone, in terms of scale, I am bigger. than most of the things in my life. I can hold pens, I can be on the computer, and when we have that sense of scale 24-7, 365 days a year, we can begin to have an inflated sense of ourselves. Subconsciously.

Subconsciously. We're not even aware of it. And then if everything is an object of which I use for my life, we can begin to treat other people the same way. And you basically have power over. Yes. I have a really fun recipe for you today. You saw how easy that was.

Look at all that flavor we packed into chicken breasts. I love the flavor of maple syrup, especially for these kind of muffins. I see all of your comments. I swear I do. You are wondering, where's my show? This is so dang delicious. Smells divine. That's a jalapeno pauper.

Oh my God. It's so good. Yes, I'm back, and I am cooking for all of you. All right, Sophie. What are we reheating today? Welcome to Now Vow's cooking. Guess what we're going to make right now. We're alive. Hi, everybody. How are you?

You have to go to Valerie's Place. That's where you can see our book group, this podcast. That's where you can go for all the cooking that you want to see. Oh, yes. I've missed cooking for you. I'm glad I finally get to do it again. I'm dancing. Let's how good it is. So head to Valerie's Place.com and go ahead and sign up. You guys are the original members, and I can't thank you enough. It's happy time. So I find that when I step outside, and I love how you said it, regardless of the weather,

It could be raining. It could be sunny. It could be clouds. Getting under the sky reframes my perspective. And sometimes that reframe is to humble me if I'm getting too proud. Maybe it's to reframe and give me hope where I feel completely overwhelmed, where it feels like the walls are caving in on a situation. I get outside and I look up at the sky and the vastness.

And I try to imagine, you know, I had a friend saying, to me recently, many people talk about how every snowflake is unique. There's no two snowflakes are the same. Someone else said, there's no two clouds that are the same. I've never thought of that. I much more frequently see clouds than I see snow. And so even that reminder of, wow, there is, there's a newness every day. There's a uniqueness. And in the same way that those clouds are unique, okay, I'm on the planet. I don't need to be somebody else. I don't not try to compete with somebody else

or be like somebody that God has incurred me to be, okay. And it just reframes my perspective. So you're talking about the morning or the evening. And when you think about the sky, what comes to mind for you? The awe and wonder of it. It just takes my breath away sometimes if I just sit and go, wow.

because it's, it's unending. Yes. There is, my brain can never wrap around, there is no finite point to the sky. Yes. And what's fascinating is if you study various faiths around the world, and especially Native American spirituality, there is so much that's said about the sky, reorienting you, reframing your perspective. And in the Hebrew scriptures, or the Old Testament,

or the Christian scripture is often the New Testament. For example, the book of Isaiah says, as high as the heavens are from the earth. So, God, your ways are higher than our ways. So sometimes it's like, okay, God, I'm just going to, there's so much that I need to just let go. I'm going to hand this over. I'm going to hand this over.

As some friends say, this is above my pay grade. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So the sky just kind of reframes things for me in the best possible way. So the encouragement can be, next time you're driving, notice the sky a little bit more. Next time you're inside, look out the window.

Yeah. Even better, like you said, get outside and look up at the sky. What's so beautiful about the sky is that there's nowhere on the planet where the sky is in a landscape that you can access. You can't always be around the ocean. It's true. You can always be around mountains. Even when I'm in the middle of New York City, I can look up and see the sky. I can still, I can see the full, like I literally went out.

one day, one evening, because I knew it was going to be a beautiful full moon. And I just popped on my shoes and I said, I'm just going to walk towards the park until I can see the moon. And I did. And it was just like, ah. Yes. So you can even see it in New York City with all those tall buildings. Absolutely. And then coming back to what I shared last time, the art of attention. So A-R-T, attention, reflection, transformation. So attention around the sky can be, you know, what are some things that you notice today about the sky? Oh, it's some mixed clouds. Or it might be, wow, I've never looked up and really seen just how many birds there are. My goodness.

Or it could be, wow, I'm actually seeing stars. I don't remember the last time I saw stars. Or it could be, like you said, the full moon. Or I love the little sliver of the moon. Yes, the crescents. Yes, my favorite. So beautiful. Or, like, as a child, I don't know if when you were a kid that you would just lay on the grass in your front yard

and just look at the clouds and say, oh, that looks like a dog. There's a bird. There's a dinosaur, you know. It's interesting how kids naturally do this. But it's almost as if we grow up. We're taught almost to not notice things the way kids do. And I think we can learn a lot. Or get serious, right?

And I think we can learn a lot from what kids notice about this guy. So the attention is, you know. Did you notice that happen to yourself? Because I know once I had Wolfie, I know that I started to look at the world. through his eyes in a child's eyes again. Isn't that wild? Which made me feel so, it gave me a brand new perspective on life at 30 years old, 32 years old. Did you feel the same way when you looked at, when you look at the world through your children's eyes?

Very much so. Very much so. And it was at the perfect time because I was almost getting immature in my maturity by, you know, getting serious. Yes. Which is really not helpful. And it was a perfect timing to have Judah, who's now 14. Oh. And I would put him on my backpack, you know, one of those carriers.

And I had a neighbor. And every morning we'd get up and we'd meet at 6.30. And before work, we would go in a little walk around our neighborhood. And this neighbor, Mike Foxworthy, had the ability to notice things. He knew the name of every tree. And he would say, that's a Peruvian pepper tree. And he would grab the leaves, pulled off, rub it in his hands. He'd say, smell this.

and it smelled like fresh pepper. I love that. So I would grab the pepper tree. I'd go like this. You know, before my son could talk, I said, you know, pepper tree. And I remember the first time, however old he was, pepper tree, you know. And even now, so where we are, you know, there's some pepper trees around. And when he's been up in this area, you know, he'll say, that's the pepper tree, isn't it?

It's wild how we remember these things. Yeah. And I would suggest to anyone out there that even if you don't have children, Look at your cat. Look at your dog. Look at the way they look at the world. Just take a moment. And I mean, I'll see my cat just staring outside for a while, and it's not just at the birds.

Or my dog will just be, like, looking outside, and it's not for a squirrel. It's just they just know how to rest and just be. And to really be in the environment in a symbiotic sort of way rather than domineering. And if that helps slow you down by watching someone else do it, take it. Absolutely. So just paying attention to the same. sky and then reflecting. So some of the questions can be, you know, where in my life do I need a new perspective? You know, where is my thinking too small? Where am I limiting myself? Where am I judging

myself too harshly? And let the sky expand the possibilities give you hope. Yeah. You know, the limitlessness of the sky. That's what's amazing about science is. They can't find the edge of the universe. No. They're still trying to figure out and it's expanding. So that's where, starting with the sky is tremendous. And I think transformation flows out of simply paying attention and reflecting on that landscape. So that's sky.

And then mountains, which we talked about before. You know, what's so interesting about mountains is they seem to reveal. So if the sky reframes your perspective, the mountains reveal. things that you couldn't see or didn't know before. So I know when I drive up to Big Bear, for example, the higher I get, the farther I can see. And if I'm down in, you know, upland before I drive up, I can't see the coast. But there's a turn that I know as I go up to Big Bear where I look to my left. And if the sun's at the right angle, I can see the glow of the sliver on the ocean.

That's crazy. for people that don't live in California. It's hard. Very far away from Big Bear. Yes, so far. And so I find that sometimes when I'm, I love how you said in New York, when you're in the city, you know, I can see a block or two, if that. Sometimes there's so many people in cars and delivery trucks and it just are, this, again,

our perspective can be very limiting. But mountains or the high places give us a greater vantage point. Yeah. And so what's also fascinating in Scripture, mountains are the most frequently named landscape in Scripture. Really? More than anything else. And I don't know if you've ever considered this.

I've brought this up over the last three months to every Christian I know. And they're like, I didn't know that. But the Garden of Eden, when you picture the Garden of Eden, do you picture it on a mountain? I don't. And here's what's wild. So there's a book in the Old Testament, Ezekiel, and it says in it explicitly, you were in the Garden of Eden on that Holy Mountain.

And then Genesis 2, where it talks about the garden, it says, and a river flowed from the garden, not into the garden, from the garden, and it formed the four headwaters of the Tigris and the Euphrates and two others that I can't remember right now. But do rivers flow uphill or downhill? Downhill. Yeah. And so you can actually trace the story. of scripture from the mountains all throughout.

And there are always a place of encounter, of scale, of majesty, of revealing who we are, who we're called to be. And it's amazing when people can get to those higher places. It's not easy to get to. It's a bit of work, isn't it? Yeah. Even like you were saying, I mean, how luxurious that we can... I climbed emotionally in the last few years.

So even that metaphor that we use. See, this is what I found really resonates with people, regardless of your background. Mountains are sometimes insurmountable. They're steep. They're treacherous. And they require work. The best way to climb a mountain is to do so in community. Yes.

Even though free solo, if you saw that documentary with Alex Honnold. Oh, my gosh. My hand's sweat talking about it. But, you know, they say. that when you can do it in community, you're much more likely to make it to the top. Yeah. I mean, I know as a young child and, you know, as a young adult,

I skied a lot because we lived, you know, in the mountains. And it was always much more fun to go up with family members than to just be alone. Yes. I mean, I've skied alone, but it's much more fun to ski with people. Absolutely. And what's interesting, too, about the thinness of the atmosphere at elevation like you were saying, you had to acclimate to it. Learn how to breathe.

Yes. And what's so fascinating is that there's this phrase that I hear in mountaineering, in ultra running, which I do in skiing. You're crazy. Yeah, I know. I say it's either a lot of miles or it's a lot of bourbon. So it's one of the two. So I'll take the miles. I'll take the miles, right?

It's just, it's how I process stress in life. But when you approach it as I'm going to conquer that. mountain. That's a very different perspective than I'm going to learn from this mountain. Ah. And I believe that if you- One is war. One is war. One is not. Yes. And my whole framework is not about crossing oceans and conquering this and ascending to those things because it puts us in the place of power, subduing everything else. But a reminder of when we come humbling and open, we can learn so much about our finiteness. We need the help when you get up to scale of, my goodness,

I'm so used to optimizing everything in my life. That's the new thing right now. You know, your morning optimized routine. I don't think mountains care about our optimized routine at all. No. And we can prepare all we want, but we find the end of ourselves often in mountainous places and having community come alongside it.

So the attention, again, of, you know, what can I see from up here that I can't in the valleys? What is it about this mountainous experience that puts me back at scale, you know, and then the reflection of, you know, where do I need a vaster view in my life? Kind of like the sky. Where do I need to open my eyes in my life? Exactly. Where have I been neglecting and not appreciating the power of what is around me?

Yes, yes. And if the mountains are all about the ascent and the work and the rising to it, rivers, number three, are the complete opposite. Because rivers flow down. They come to you. And rivers are all about restoring. What's the source of your strength, your peace? Rivers, you can't force. And there's this.

Beavours have tried. Beavours have tried. You know, and so what's so fascinating about, Rivers as I stand on the edge of a river, as I float in a river, it's this unforced movement. How do I get into the flow of the river? And when you look around the globe and when you look at the history of humanity, there is life that exists close to rivers. Yes.

That's where they've developed agriculture over time. When you look at the Nile and the Euphrates, you know, various cultures have popped up, Of course, near oceans, but especially alongside rivers. Rivers are a source of life, of vitality. And so if the sky reframes and if the mountains reveal, the rivers restore. So to pay attention to what's the source of this river? I can't even see it. So I think about my family history.

I think about your, I don't know your family history. If we were to think about our family histories, we are the sum total of everything that's come before us. And in the same way, a bend of a river isn't where that water and all the life that is in that river started. It's somewhere hundreds, thousands of miles away in some cases. It's good for me to remember, well, I should give thanks to whoever invented indoor plumbing. Whoever invented, you know, like all these things that are so easy to take for granted. Oh, my goodness, yes.

So rivers are not ponds. So part of it is receiving, you know, how do I receive with gratitude, this food on my plate, the clothes on my body, somebody else made this, somebody else grew this, somebody else prepared this. I mean, it's really remarkable when I begin to open myself up to receive with gratitude the things in my life, but also I'm not a reservoir. I want it to flow through my life to other people. So how do I, with gratitude, be a generous person?

And the rivers, I think, can teach us that. That's beautiful, yeah. And also, be like a river. Be like a river. And there's passages in scripture. You know, even Jesus says, you know, when you come to me, streams of living water will flow through you. I mean, what a powerful image.

Oh, yeah. Being thankful for where all of this comes from as it flows through you and then generously give it back to whoever needs it. Yes. Yeah. So not a reservoir, not a pole. not a pond were rivers, rivers of gratitude, rivers of generosity. And so when we move from that into what I historically did not like deserts.

Oh, okay. Why don't you like deserts? Well, as a kid, I always thought, they're hot. And they're chilly at night. Right? And I just, I wanted to avoid deserts at all costs. I didn't think they were beautiful. I thought they were deserted.

didn't. Why would you ever go, in my mind, to the desert? And over time, I began to deeply appreciate the small beauty in the desert. And part of it was my parents ended up getting a home at Rancho Mirage. It's just a little east of Palm Springs. And we found ourselves going out there and then going up to Joshua Tree and catching the super bloom for the first time in the desert and seeing colors that I've never seen before, plants that I've never seen before. I don't know if you've seen the movie Dune or Dune too. Even in that movie.

My parents lived in Arizona for quite a while, and I've never, I mean, the beach comes of beautiful sunsets, but the Arizona sunsets are not to be, they're just like, unlike anything else. It's unbelievable. And so if the skies reframe and the mountains review, along the rivers restore, the desert refines really what is essential in your life. So the deserts all throughout history have been a place where people go to remember really what matters.

And if you actually study different faith traditions, and even within Christianity, there was this movement for hundreds of years called the desert mothers and the desert fathers. They would withdraw the desert. and they would be reminded of the excess in their life. Is because of the harshness of the desert? Yes. It takes a lot to live in the desert. It does.

Yeah. And there isn't luxury. There isn't comfort. And I find that in the desert, it refines the things that I think I need. There's one to need, right? Yes. I want a lot of things, but do I really need all those things? and I've had times where I go out camp in the desert

and I bring all these things out there to make myself comfortable and some of them don't work and I have to find myself in this place of, okay, now what do I do? Am I going to make it? And I do. And it really, there was this old Latin word via negativa and it was this practice that people would go out in the desert

via negativa is Latin for the negative view, which doesn't sound very positive, does it? No, it sounds like the opposite of what I'm trying to do. Right? Yeah. So, but via negative, it actually gets to positivity because what it does is it looks at a desert landscape and says, what isn't here? There isn't convenient stores.

There isn't rivers in some cases. There isn't all these things, but where do I find the beauty? Mm-hmm. And I find that when I get into the desert and I notice the simplicity, and I notice the beauty, the hidden beauty, the subtle beauty. And I reflect on, wow,

there's even beautiful things in these places that there really isn't any place on the planet that is dead. So therefore, is there really anybody on the planet that we can't find beauty in? Oh, yeah.

Is there really any relationship that we can't find a spark of hope of beauty? And I think that our culture is so good at writing people off, dismissing people. Oh, especially, these days. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. And so I think the desert teaches me to notice the simple beauty

of a smile. Yeah. Of making eye contact with somebody else, you know. I'm just in my mind. I'm just in my mind. I'm like, the only thing that scares me mostly about deserts are scorpions. Yes. But in their own way, because I am a Scorpio rising, I'm finding beauty in scorpions. I mean, the, the way that they live. I mean, their bite is fucking scary. It is. It is. But they need that protection.

They do. They do. And what's fascinating is in the desert all throughout scripture, that it was daily provision. So the Israelites in the wilderness, there was what was called manna. And it was this daily gift given to them that sometimes we want to plan everything out. A year in advance, you know, a decade in advance. That's how you make God, like that's a sense of humor.

Right, totally, I doubt, yeah. But sometimes it's okay, you know, Jesus, one of the famous prayers, you know, our Father who art in heaven, hell will be the name, that kingdom come, they will be done. On earth is in heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread. That was an echo back to the Israelites and the wilderness. So sometimes in the deserts we say, okay, I just need enough for today. What's today?

What's the phone call I need to make today? what's the act of love I need to make today? What's the self-care that I need to do today? Whatever it might be. What's the chapter that I need to read today? What's the podcast that I need to share today? It's that daily and the desert for some reason. The daily feeding of something.

Yes. And really what you need and not just what you want. Because sometimes we think that whether it's retail therapy or just the next vacation is going to fill. They don't need that extra bottle of perfume. No, I want it. I want it. Sometimes it just refines those things. It's true.

It does, though. Do you really, and I have begun to tell myself that at certain things. I'm like, I really want this. I really, yes, you want it, but do you really need it right now? Right now. And that even will sometimes be enough to put it off for me. Like, maybe not right now, Val. Yes, yes.

Just think about it next week and if it still feels that way. And usually I can put it off enough to where it's like, I don't need it. Absolutely, absolutely. Okay, so we've done Sky, Mountain, River, Desire. are now we're going to move into the forest. And what's so amazing about the forest is there's such a interconnected ecosystem of forests. And even though- And the roots talk to each other.

Yes. So I've become fascinated with this whole study of root system. So I always mispronounce it. So I'm sure somebody will catch me and, you know, can maybe send me an email on how to pronounce it. I think it's called- Yeah, I think it's the myocelum web. Okay. If I pronounce it correctly.

So this is how, this is the root system. and all the interconnectedness of trees, and like you said, they can communicate with one another. The recent studies have also found that when there's a disease that exists in one tree, and there's communication within this mycelium web, the root system, they can send extra nutrients to the other tree.

And the redwood trees, by the way, which are some of the tallest trees in the world, I remember as a kid, we would go up to the redwoods visiting my grandparents, and there was this great big sign. I still can picture it. It said redwood tree root system. And it had a picture of these giant, you know, 400 plus trees, you know, foot high,

thousand plus year old. And it says you might think that these roots go down as deep as they are tall, but they don't. They go down 20, 15, 20 feet, which seems pretty shallow. It does. But what they do is they go out hundreds of feet. Oh, it gives themselves a base. Yes. and they interconnect with all the other redwoods.

And underground, there's such a community of roots that the winds and the storms that have blown through for a millennia don't topple them over because they have such strength below the surface. Now, that's a very different picture than if you drive by a tree farm where you buy trees and they're all standing there in their individual pots. And I often think of this as an interesting metaphor, because proximity and community are two very different things. Yes.

So at a tree farm, all those trees are in proximity with one another, but they're all in their own soil, in their own pots. They're not rooted in the same ground. They can't communicate. They're not connected underneath the ground with one another. And I've driven past some of these tree farms after huge wind events. You know, in Southern California, we've got these big Santa Ana wind events. because sometimes can be hurricane near forest winds.

And these trees are toppled over. But no, you know, there's branches might fall, maybe a tree or two might fall, but nothing compared to a tree farm. I have a live oak in my backyard that has been there for hundreds of years. It's wild. And you think about that root system that you can't see under the surface. So I think what we often do is we confuse proximity for community. We're around people But if we're not opening up

If we're keeping it surface level If we're not getting below the surface See the metaphor just keeps going If we're not if we don't have people that we're rooted with In our lives If we're not asking for help If we're not sharing the highs and lows The Good the Bad and the Ugly of Life

We're just trees next to one another In our own posts Social media Social media Unless we really start to communicate and be vulnerable with another. There's this great John Mayer, one of my favorite lyricists of all time. He could treat women better.

He absolutely could. No commentary on his relational, but as a lyricist, you know, there was this one line, being lonely in a crowded room. Oh, yeah. You know, so that's proximity without community. Yep, it's true. And I think a lot of people feel that a lot. Yes, I have this memory without going into two.

many details. I was a student at USC and I had experienced a huge loss in a relationship, a girlfriend, and not by my choice, by the way. And I was inside the stadium, the Los Angeles Coliseum, huge stadium, packed, and it was USC versus Notre Dame. Wow. So it's a big game, right? And I found myself in the student section. So I'm a student in one of the biggest games of the year, one of the biggest stadiums in the U.S. In proximity with nearly 100,000 people, so lonely.

Aw. And everybody was standing up and cheering, and I sat down, kind of overwhelmed with grief, and I realized that I had invested all my relational capital into that one relationship and not into all the friends that were around me.

I was in proximity with them. We went to classes together. I was on the soccer team. I joined a fraternity. We were around one another. but no one knew what I was going through. And that one tree, the girlfriend, had become uprooted. And I ended up just walking out of the stadium because I'm like, I can't.

It was the opposite effect. Yeah. So I realized I need to get in a healthier community with more people. And sometimes in codependency, we can put all of our roots into one other tree. So there's a whole bunch of things. So the forest is a place. Or if we pay attention, we can notice, wow, what we can't see is all the things under the surface. And imagine the ecosystem that's here.

Who in my life am I connected to? Do we share some common interests, common soil where we can be rooted together? And, you know, how can I... You can feel the people, like, I can feel the roots, even though my son and my brother are 5,000 miles away. Europe right now. I feel our roots are connected. I feel that connection with them. That's why community transcends

proximity. Yeah. You don't need to be in the same room to be in a deep communal. There are invisible strings connecting me and my daughter-in-law is in Utah right now. And my girlfriends who are a couple miles away, I feel that root system. And I would encourage

anybody else to think about, just sit quietly and think, where does your root system go? Yes. What a lovely thought. Isn't that amazing? Yeah. So we've moved from all those.

Now we're going to get to canyons or valleys. I love that. Yeah. So when you say you love that, what do you love about canyons? Well, I live up on the hill, and I can see everything going on, and I can see the world below me, and I'm always curious as to what's happening in that world. I also picture the Grand Canyon where I've been multiple times, and the beautiful times, and the beauty of that canyon showing the different ages of the earth and everything it's been through.

So I just see the saunder of people's lives. Like everybody is connected in a way and everybody has a pure, interesting, integral, fascinating life all their own. Yes. Like everybody is the main player. Yes. There are no NPGs. Yes. Yes, I love that.

They just aren't. I love that. And when you think about canyons, and you use that line all that it's gone through. So when you think about the millions of years of erosion, of all those layers being created. And what was happening in the world for those how many thousands, millions of years while all that was settling? It's wild. You can even see that in Rome, there are cities on top of cities on top of cities because of the way. that, yeah.

So complex, so multi-layered, and you get a sense of history, like you were saying. I had a friend recently say we were on the edge of the Grand Canyon, on the North Rim, something I've never done before. I got right to the edge, and it was not a huge drop off. It was about a 10-foot drop, and then it came out, and then it went down. So we felt safe, and I wouldn't encourage this anywhere else, but we actually got to the edge and sat on the edge and had our feet dangle off. because it was just a 10-foot drop.

And it went way out and then it went down. And from that place, right on the edge, as we were looking out, this one friend said to me, he says, gosh, you know, one way you can think of this is that canyons are like the scars on the planet. Hmm. But they're beautiful. And that prompted a conversation of, you know, sometimes we want the mountaintop experiences to be all that we experience. But sometimes we have valley experiences. We have low points. We have scars in our lives.

And sometimes in the history of our lives, if we heal through that in a healthy way with community, something beautiful can't happen on the other side of it. And we were just reflecting and we were sharing about wounds in our lives that have been used for good. So my wife and I, I can't remember, I think I mentioned the first time we were together about years of it. fertility. And just, you know, if I could say, you know, that was a hard season. Those were low that did not feel like mountain top experience at all. It was a low, low, low. And yet, friends and our faith in God and some of the circumstances that flowed out of that, which I shared in the first episode. So if people have it listened, they can go back and listen to it, brought us on the

other side of such a beautiful story. But it wasn't all easy. And high points. It was like the Grand Canyon of a beautiful story through a very difficult trial. And now we find that so many people in our lives have come to us sharing their stories of infertility, of their miscarriages. And it's become kind of, now we'll use a different metaphor, a river, this experience that has flowed into our life, we can be present. We don't give easy answers.

We don't say, oh, just do this and I'll do that. There are none. There isn't any. But a ministry of just presence. creates a beautiful canyon. One of my favorite Psalms in Scripture, which is one of the most famous of all, Psalm 23, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

There are four landscapes that are described in that Psalm. See, I'm seeing scripture in a new way when I'm seeing it through landscapes. And the first three landscapes are really positive landscapes. And the last landscape, which is the one people most frequently remember, the valley of the shadow of death is not a good landscape, but something happens in that psalm. There is a pronoun that the psalmist uses to describe God, and it shifts from the nice landscapes

to the negative landscape. It starts off and says, he leads me besides quiet waters. He restores my soul, leads me into green pastures, he leads me down right paths. So he is a, third person pronoun that we might use when we talk about people that we know about, but don't know personally. And then it says, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. It shifts from the third person pronoun to second person. To bring you closer. And I believe that something happens if we open ourselves up to it where concepts become intimately personal. In this case, God, we might know about him as a comforter.

We experience in a very real way comfort. And some people experience that through a friend where through the trial of cancer, you get to know somebody in a deeper and more intimate way. There's somebody walking with you through a divorce, the loss of a loved one, loss of a job, whatever it might be. those valley moments can actually become very, very beautiful and transformational. And this is where, I believe, the valleys reform things that are unfinished in our lives. I would take that even a step further. Please do. And in every sense of the way, I do believe that death is a gift. Just as a death

of a relationship, a death, a true death where that person leaves us, it doesn't feel like a gift to us. Funerals and the grieving, that's for the people left behind that miss you. But for the person experiencing the death, that is a gift, just like it is a gift to experience a hardship. Because the things you learn, the scars you get from them, don't harden you. They bring you to a point of knowledge where you know that burns. I'm not going to burn myself on that again. I don't want to re-burn this scar. So I do believe that death is a gift.

I don't think there's a lot of people that would agree with me on that because it hurts so bad when someone you love dies and it's not comfortable. But for them, for the people that are no longer with me in my life, their death was a gift for them. They are in a better place. I miss the fuck out of them. I wish they were here. but I don't miss what's happening for them. For them, yeah. And what's interesting, that phrase that you said about,

and I'm paraphrasing, a lot of people might not agree with you, I would say in the West, many people are really uncomfortable with death. Yeah, I don't want to die anytime soon. Of course not. I'm having a good old time here, and I've left to learn. But if I do, it will be a gift for me. Yes, but it's interesting. But I also don't want to lead because I have grandchildren I need to take care of at both point.

A lot to get done and enjoy. But it is interesting how other cultures, especially in the East, they have such a different view of death. And there is, I think, such a loss in the human experience when we try to remove ourselves from it so much. I want to take the fear away from it. Yes, I think fear is the right. You know, and that reminds me, I remember, and this might sound odd coming from a pastor, I always feared being around somebody when they died. Really?

And I would visit people in hospitals, and it was pretty rare. So sad. It hurts. It is so sad, yeah. And I have this very personal experience where my mom's mom, amazing woman, Dorothy, who I was so close to. She, my parents moved her out from the East Coast to live with us here in Los Angeles. And so they essentially converted their dining room into a place for hospice care. And there was a weekend in which it was my mom's birthday.

And my mom's mom, my grandma, encouraged her to stick with the plans that she had made with her and my stepdad to go up to Santa Barbara to celebrate her birthday. And my mom was going back and forth because my grandma was really, you could tell getting towards the end. But my grandma was like, no, you have to go at your birthday. I want you to go. I want you to go. So my sister and I stayed and we were in the home. And it got towards the tail end. And my mom, when we called her, you know, was frantically trying to drive back. And I'm on the phone, speakerphone, hearing my mom have a conversation with her mom as she's breathing her last breaths.

and my sister and I were there bearing witness to this love that you can't put into words. It is bigger than life, right? And the moment that I was so afraid of was one of the most sacred and beautiful moments. And there's a lot of mystery, but it seemed like, as odd as this sounds, it felt like she leapt into eternity. she bounded into and the veil is so thin and having witnessed that all the fear left. So what you're saying, I think is such a profoundly beautiful reality that if we can open ourselves up to, to be aware of, to explore, to not avoid, because often what I find is people will say, oh, I don't want to be around somebody in their last moments and I don't want to visit

I don't want to, what am I going to say? It doesn't, words just don't mean anything in those moments. I've been, I was with Ed when he passed, holding his hand, Wolfie was holding his other hand. Yeah, it's beautiful justice doesn't seem like a word that does it justice. None of us wanted him to go, but we don't have control over that. No. I would encourage anyone. if they have the chance.

And I hope this doesn't sound like I'm listening anything, but I've held my animals when they have passed multiple animals throughout the years. And I haven't been there for others, and I wasn't there for my mom or my dad passing. I would choose being there for their passing over the other 100 million times. that I got to held Dexter as he passed in my arms. There was something so beautiful about it. I held Nelson.

I don't like it. I don't want to have to do it. But I prefer that over it. I didn't want Ed to pass, but I'm so grateful I was holding his hand and telling him how much I loved him when he did. I wish I had been there from my dad, but he let me know that he was passing.

I got a message from him electronically. and then 20 minutes later my brother called and said, Dad passed. I said, I know. Yeah. And people don't always have the opportunity or the ability to be there, right? So there's, I think, for people to give themselves grace if they can't, right? But I think this opportunity to, when given the opportunity, to not run away from it.

Right. And maybe it's- I think you might surprise yourself with how it, I don't think it helps the, that might be wrong, it may help the grieving process. I'm not sure. It's an individual thing. Yeah.

So it really, everybody, we're all so different and we're also alike. So much so. And we all have different ghosts that we bring with us through childhood all the way to adulthood that may change our grieving process. But, and who were grieving at the time, too. I felt like Ed didn't get enough time with his son, and I'm so frustrated by that. And I know if there was anything he could have done to do that, stay around longer for Wolfie, he would have. But that's what I'm grieving.

I'm grieving a father and son having that experience while Wolfie is thriving. So for me, it's not about me and Ed. It's about Wolfie and Ed. But, and I think animals leave us far too soon. Absolutely. We don't get anywhere near enough time we need to get with our animals. Let's just take a pause a minute on grieving and death. for those who are, I hope you're not uncomfortable listening to this and talking about this,

because I think it's something that should be discussed. I think, and maybe it just may be my age, and I'm more comfortable speaking about it at this age, but I don't think, you're way younger than me, and you have a lot of comfort speaking about it. So I think maybe that may help, but I'm going to stop us right now and encourage you to stick around for the full reveal. That is it for getting naked, the podcast. but if you are a member of Valerie's Place, you can listen to the full reveal. If you want to become a member of Valerie's Place, you can go to Valerie's Place.com

or to where you download your apps, and we are on an app now. Okay, so let's get to the full reveal. Let's get to that final one. I have a really fun recipe for you today. You saw how easy that was. Look at all that flavor we packed into chicken breasts. I love the flavor of maple syrup, especially for these kind of muffins. I see all of your comments.

I swear I do. You are wondering, where's my show? This is so dang delicious. Smells divine. That's a jalapeno popper. Oh, my God. That's so good. Yes, I'm back, and I am cooking for all of you.

All right, Sophie. What are we reheating today? Welcome to Now Vow's cooking. Guess what we're going to make right now. We're alive. Hi, everybody. How are you? You have to go to Valerie's place.

That's where you can see our book group, this podcast. That's where you can go for all the cooking that you want to see. Oh, yes. I've missed cooking for you. I'm glad I finally get to do it again. I'm dancing.

That's how good it is. So head to Valerie'splace.com and go ahead and sign up. You guys are the original members and I can't thank you enough. It's happy time.