Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #318 Grow Your Own Supply w/ Ryan Sprague

Episode Date: August 30, 2023

We have Ryan Sprague back yall! If you missed our first convo it’s linked below. Ryan works with Cannabis in a way that most people associate mostly with psychedelic plant medicines. The intention and awareness that Ryan brings to Cannabis use comes through in all of his life. In this convo we get into his practice of growing both Cannabis and your typical garden.    ORGANIFI GIVEAWAY Keep those reviews coming in! Please drop a dope review and include your IG/Twitter handle and we’ll get together for some Organifi even faster moving forward.   Connect with Ryan: Website: www.highlyoptimized.me  Instagram: @therealryansprague    Show Notes: "One Straw Revolution" -Masanobu Fukuoka  Huberman Lab AMA #9: Kratom Risks, Does Infrared Sauna Work and Journaling Benefits Spotify Apple Kyle Kingsbury Podcast #270: Ryan Sprague Spotify Apple   The Dimming Documentary(YouTube) - Geoengineeringwatch.org EROWID.ORG PhoenixTears.ca - Cannabis and Cancer Kyle Kingsbury Podcast #311 Neurohacking Longevity w/ James Schmachtenberger Spotify Apple   "Breath" -James Nestor    Sponsors: Organifi Go to organifi.com/kkp to get my favorite way to easily get the most potent blend of high vibration fruits, veggies and other goodies into your diet! Click that link and use code “KKP” at checkout for 20% off your order! Manna Vitality To get the absolute number one mineral replenishment in my arsenal head over to mannavitality.com and punch in “KKP” at checkout for 12% off! Neurohacker Collective Run these guys Qualia Senolytic, a two day per month cleans to flush out all your “zombie” cells. Head to neurohacker.com/kkp for 50% OFF and use “KKP” at checkout for an additional 15% off your first order!  Hostage Tape Nasal breathing is some of the lowest hanging fruit for your health. Head to hostagetape.com/KKP for your third month worth of tape free!   To Work With Kyle Kingsbury Podcast   Connect with Kyle: Fit For Service Academy App: Fit For Service App  Instagram: @livingwiththekingsburys - @gardenersofeden.earth  Odysee: odysee.com/@KyleKingsburypod  Youtube: Kyle Kingbury Podcast  Kyles website: www.kingsbu.com - Gardeners of Eden site    Like and subscribe to the podcast anywhere you can find podcasts. Leave a 5-star review and let me know what resonates or doesn’t.

We're back, y'all. The return of Ryan Sprague. Ryan's one of my favorite people. I met him at Paul Cech's birthday two years ago. Had him on the podcast. Actually, I met him before the birthday at the Monolo workshop. I got to hang with him at the birthday as well. He's a guy with a heart of gold. Every time I see him, he's got a giant ear-to-ear grin, and maybe that's the cannabis, but I actually think that's just his soul speaking through his face. Um, I always feel better in his presence, even if it's online. And this one was online, but we had a great podcast. Ryan's really into a lot of the same things that I'm learning as fast as I can. Um, regenerative agriculture, permaculture, K and F Korean natural farming. Um, so many good things. I'll, I'll link to a book here

called the one straw revolution and introduction to natural farming. And this is by Manasobu, uh, Manasobu, Fukuoka, Fukuoka, Fukuoka. There we go. Fukuoka. If I sing it, it works. I don't think it works either way. Anyhow, there's fantastic stuff in here. And Ryan last time on the show was teaching us about ceremonial use of cannabis, ceremonial use of kratom, different ways to optimize these plants, which are very common now in different places. And I think it's important because anything you use can have a tendency for overuse. Andrew Huberman talked about that on a podcast. He had an Ask Me Anything Q&A I'll link to in the show notes. And really, he was connecting the link between kratom and different opiates and things like that.

And his final take on it was, if you're not taking it, don't start. And if you are taking it, try to wean off. And the main knock against it was that it's addictive. Well, everything's addictive. Alcohol's addictive. And he gives a good point. Is cannabis better than alcohol? Sure.

Is Kratom better than alcohol? Sure. That doesn't mean you should just wholesale take it. Now, my thought is to expand upon that. You're right. You're right. You can't just compare them one-to-one, but at the same time, if I'm looking for an altered state, that's not going to leave me feeling like shit the next day. Kratom and cannabis do a pretty fucking good job of that. And either, or right. You don't have to stack them and they're available. It's another thing. That's cool. Right. A lot of places, uh, this is still unavailable, but in many, many places now, it is available. Even in Texas,

we can get some, they call it microdose THC, but it's full spectrum CBD and things like that. And you take enough of it, whammo, you're on a ride. So more than I would appreciate for just speaking personally, because I have a low tolerance for THC. But all that said, Ryan is looking to the things that are most applicable to us. He's a checky, as I said, so he understands health and wellness inside out and he's applying, how do we alter our minds?

How do we jump into this altered state of consciousness that's not quite going to Sultara and doing ayahuasca, right? It's not the same thing. But if I do wanna have respect and reverence and I do wanna be able to ask questions and understand a little bit more if I look under my own hood, Ryan's got great techniques for that. That's what we went over in our podcast before this one. We'll link to that in the show notes if you want to catch up on it. We talk a wide variety of topics in this one, and I always enjoy having Ryan on, so we will do it again for sure. We'll link to

that book, One Straw Revolution, and any of the websites that Ryan mentions. He has a badass forum that you can sign up for. And I highly recommend checking that out because it's a group of like-minded individuals all learning how to do this shit correctly. Share this far and wide. Share it with friends and family. Share it with anybody you think will dig this episode, anybody that's into gardening or any forms of that, anybody that's into plant medicine, anybody that's into health and wellness, I think will dig this one. And leave us a five-star rating with one or two ways the show's helped you out in life. Organifi all year long, at the end of every month, we'll select one winner via iTunes or Spotify who's left a five-star rating. And it's the best. It's the best review.

Simple as that. It's not random. It's not a roll of the dice. You leave a great review and an honest review. It doesn't have to be long, but just an honest to the point review of how the show's helped you out in life and you're entered to win. Organifi is going to be giving away one of my favorite products that could be the Organifi Red. It might be the Organifi Green Juice. It might be their new product, Peak Power. One of my favorites. It was co-developed by the homies at Mind Pump Media in partnership with Mind Pump Media. And no doubt, I talked to Drew Canole, the Organifi founder, and he said it was Sal DiStefano who's phenomenal, been on this podcast as well. And Sal is a genius. And so they're

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It just didn't work that way. And that's why I've gone into other things to help heal that. The truth is, we all want that. And it's only when we lose it that we actually say, holy shit, I didn't realize how important that was. Paul Cech is famous. One of my favorite quotes is when he says, sooner or later, your health will be your number one concern. Sooner or later, you can either make it your number one concern now, or it can be through injury, crisis on your fucking deathbed. At one point or another, it's going to become your number one priority. Why not make that the number one priority right now?

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from a very young age. So my mouth was already formed, had to do a lot of shit with him to reconstruct that. And if you're an older person listening, which many of you are, odds are you've got to reverse engineer as best you can. But one of the ways we do that is by having the tongue firmly pressed to the roof of the mouth while we sleep. And in order to stay that way, if I sleep on my back, odds are I either need a mouth appliance or some tape on my mouth. Now, James Nestor

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and help you while you have your mouth taped. So total package here, hostage tape.com slash KKP to claim your free offer. Again, you can have to use the link H O S T A G E T A P E.com slash KKP to claim your free offer. Check it all out. Love these guys and love what they're doing here. And without further ado, my brother, Ryan Sprague. Ryan Sprague, welcome back to the podcast, brother. Dude, thank you so much, Kyle. It's a pleasure to be back. It's amazing. Last time we did in person, this one's virtual. I love it, man. So stoked to be here. Yeah, fuck yeah. This is good. Well, we've been talking, we were talking a little bit before the podcast about growing cannabis and Korean national farming and all sorts of good shit.

Where do you want? We got an hour to jump in, but I don't want to take up too much time. We've already got your background. If people miss that, I'll link to it in the show notes so people can dive into who you are and what you're about. But tell us where you want to talk about today, brother. Yeah, man. So since the last time I've been on, one of the big things that I've shifted is instead of doing individual courses, right? Because I found that a lot of people that wanted to learn how to connect with cannabis, right? And like form a healthy relationship with the plant. Well, they also wanted to grow it. And the common theme amongst all of them was they wanted to have people around them to talk to about it, right? You know, being a farmer, a lot of the best tricks you learn are from other farmers, right? From other individuals. And whether it's exercise,

whether it's health, whether it's whatever realm, right? Some of the best tips come from just conversation, right? So since the last time we chatted, I started the Conscious Cannabis Collective, which is now a year-long mastermind do. We got about 100 people in there. It's amazing. We're all sharing tips. We got a buddy in there who is very advanced in Jadam, which I'm not super big into. It's like, I think the guy, Master Cho's son, who made KNF, he created Jadam, which is basically like, hey, do you like KNF, but you don't want to wait? You can use other things to make Jadam, right? So I've been learning a bunch about that. So it's amazing. And I tell people all the time, it's called The Collective because it's not The Ryan Show. It's not The Alex

Show, my business partner. It's really being able to bring people together to talk about not only cannabis and these things, but also explore the awareness that comes forth when you connect with cannabis, right? About how we can start growing our own food, right? How we can start dealing with the lack of connection epidemic we're dealing with, right? So it's been really fun, man. There's been a lot happening real quick and a super excited to dive in with you about farming and all the things, man. So that's a little update on me, what I've been up to. Um, a lot of the things I've been excited about and, uh, yeah, we're really excited, man. We're starting to do retreats next year and just got a lot of stuff on the pipeline. So really stoked about it. That's so fucking cool. Um,

yeah, I think that is something too. And I was just talking with, um, I'm not sure if you've met him, but Jason Bodine is, is a phenomenal dude. We met. And I was just talking with, I'm not sure if you've met him, but Jason Bodine is a phenomenal dude. We met him. I met him first with Aubrey down at Spirit Quest at Don Howard's. And Don, before he passed, actually gave Jason, you know, I think he saw the Southern boy in him,

you know, Don being from Kentucky and Don Howard being from Kentucky and Jason being from Louisiana. I think he saw that and he saw a little bit of himself in him, but he hooked him up with his recipe. And, you know, since, since that time, I think 2018, like Jason has just grown immensely and it's been really working with Wachuma. He traveled to, and Wachuma is completely legal to grow to in all 50 states, by the way. So if you're wondering about that, totally cool. And Huachuma, you know, being a part of the mescaline-based plants family, San Pedro cactus, same thing.

And similarities there. There's different saints. There's San Miguel, San Gabriel. So all the fucking, all the different varieties, just like cannabis. But this particular type of cactus, really cool. And he's been deep diving that. And that's one of the things he said. He actually came out and brought us a bunch

to the farm to grow. And these guys are awesome. They grow like fucking antenna. You know, like they call that the Lansone. When you're in Chavin, they'd have these giant concrete structures that acted as a pillar to connect you between heaven and earth,

to hold you, to hold the space when you're on a journey, on a Machuma journey. And I think those are so cool because they're actually mimicking how the plant grows itself. You know, like a giant saguaro. It's just like, ding, just an anchor point straight up and down connecting that energy to the ground. So I've been picking his brain on that kind of stuff too, because he's saying the same thing. Like people get into growing cactus just because they love it. And then all of a sudden they're like, oh man, this makes me think about the soil and about relationship about what the plants actually want to have next to them and what other plants work with them. And

what are the best ways to compost and what things grow in well-drained soil, because Wachuma needs to have a very well-drained soil. So there are other things that I can, that I can partner this up with and, and, you know, create more biodiversity within the land and a better ecosystem. And I think this is cool because when you're talking about cannabis or wachuma, yeah, these are absolute plant medicines. At the same time, they're beautiful plants. They're absolutely gorgeous. And just from a gardener's perspective, I was thinking about that. From a psychedelic standpoint, peyote, there's been a big warning signs that we were going to

eat more peyote than we produce because it takes 20, 30 years for buttons to really mature. And there's some ways around that. You can graph peyote, wachuma, and things like that, and it'll grow a little quicker. But one of the things that I found interesting was Japan per capita has the most peyote out of anywhere in the world because as a culture, they love succulents, right? So they have all this peyote flown in from the Southwest and they're being cared for like Master Miyagi cared for his bonsai, right? The most intimate relationship with people,

you know, families that love the peyote that lives just as long as they do, you know, like it pops out. And so we might be, you know, people in the Southwest, if we run out of peyote, we might be going to get it back from Japan in the future to bring it back home. But so much of that, we think about as we work with things that are in front of us, as above, so below, as within, so without, that expanse, it's reconnecting us to ourselves in a way, and then also broadening from a bird's eye view, what we can do, how we can engage with our

relationship with nature that I find so fascinating. Oh, it's absolutely amazing, man. And I'm glad you brought that up too. You know, it's funny, I've heard about the peyote challenge that you were speaking to. And I also heard that a lot of it is destroyed each year just by, you know, tilling and all of these things that I know both you and I are both very adamant about coming out against, right? And not only, you know, does it destroy a lot of the land and a lot of the peyote and these kinds of things, especially down in your area, but it's also just more fucking work, right? And like, you know, gardening is already enough work. Farming is already enough work, right? You shouldn't go looking to be able to work more,

right? And that's what I really like about Jim Gale's project, you know, food forest abundance and his stuff down in Florida. And what you guys are doing at the farm is it's like, and it's really the same way I cultivate. It's like, let's do less and just take the best parts of nature, you know, indigenous microorganisms, ferments, things like that, give it back to the land and just really try to be a steward, right? Rather than try to outsmart nature, which is completely impossible, right? But when I look around at a lot of the farming methods with cannabis, you know, regardless of what you look at, right, whether it's just big ag in general, it's like this underlying belief system that we can outsmart nature. And I think that's one of the challenges that I see happening a lot right now is that, you know, by thinking we

can outsmart nature, we've killed most of the topsoil in the entire country, right? And, you know, then the runoff from that is going into the water supply, which is then hurting the fish, and it just all goes downstream, pardon the pun, right? And, you know, I think that really one of the best parts about, you know, learning polyculture and all these different things is that what do you learn? You're like, oh, wow, when there's more diversity, right, things do better. And that's exactly what I found is like, as within, so without to human beings, right? Like, and that's why I've been so big on creating community now and bringing people together.

And I know that gentleman, I forget his last name, but Daniel from Virginia that you guys- Daniel, yeah, Daniel Griffith. Yeah, I went out to his farm with Mark England. Dude, what a gangster that guy is. I mean, you know, Mark's saying is he's a philosopher that just so happened to play the hat of a farmer in this lifetime. You know, like that's his story. And he's so amazing, but he was very big on the same thing. Me and him were nerding out

on, you know, all of these different, you know, parallel universes that we're both a part of, of like bringing people together, talking about these things, rehashing what words like regenerative mean, right? You know, really allowing people to have a whole new re-imagination of what these things are and whether it's just with cannabis, whether it's anything going on right now, I really think that's what the world's going through overall is just like kind of an overhaul, right? Of like, okay, let's take a step back, let's zoom the fuck out and let's see like how we can actually create harmony, right? Rather than trying to domineer and conquer, let's create some harmony. And that's what I love so much about what you guys are doing down at your

farm. You know, it's what I'm so passionate about in the community and just all the different people I've been chatting to. It really feels like if we were in a Star Wars movie, it'd be Return of the Jedi right now, right? Like, you know, just when it seems like we're down and out, the light wins. And so it's been really cool, man. Yeah, that's definitely the case. You're still based, you know, just when it seems like we're down and out, the light wins. And so it's been really cool, man. Yeah, that's definitely the case. You're still based, you're in the Northeast, is that correct? Yeah, that's correct. Not too far, but I was trying to think of where you guys had to come from to get to Mark's place and then out to Wingina.

I was chatting with Mark about that. And he was, I was like, where do you live in Virginia? It finally dawned on me that he might be near him. And he was like, oh, I'm out in such and such space. It's kind of central. And I was like, and I sent him a picture of Wingina and he showed me on his ways that it was 20 minutes away. And I was like, oh, you have to meet Daniel, dude. This is what I was hoping for.

So it's such a cool thing. You know, you could go like out in the cuts in the middle of nowhere and you're like, I actually know somebody 20 minutes from here. You know, it's just a weird, weird kind of deal there. Yeah. Daniel, Daniel is in, you know, my opinion of him is that he is, he's a true polymath, you know, like he, he's somebody, you know, he's the modern day Renaissance man,

whatever you want to call it, but he's brilliant in so many things. He's a brilliant math student and, and, and brilliant at football. It's an athlete and brilliant in the land and brilliant in all these different avenues and anything he touches, he's brilliant. There's a brilliance in his writing and his poetry, right? Both of his last two books are just like, holy shit, dude. This guy gets it, right? He's pointing to something deeper than just soil quality. He's pointing to something deeper than just improving our relationship to nature. He's pointing to something deeper than just improving our relationship to nature. He's pointing to nature herself, you know, and that's a beautiful thing. So you're up in the Northeast and something we were talking about, it's really pertinent

because whether you're into, you want to grow cannabis or wachuma or food or any of those things, one of the things you find is that, you know, depending on your climate and the brittleness of your soil, that all fucking matters. It matters a bunch. It matters more than people think. And, you know, I was spoiled when I lived in California at my mom's house, got out here to Texas and, you know, Austin's had decent rainfall until the last two years. You know, it was like pretty, pretty, pretty lush, pretty green. Even through the summertime when it got hot, we'd have a week worth of rain in June, a week in July and a week in August. And it kept things green, kept things wet enough to

stay alive. And now, you know, the last couple of years of the droughts, it's been a hell of a lot worse. And it's been a head scratcher. If you've watched a documentary like The Dimming, if you haven't seen that, I'll link to that in the show notes. That'll make you start thinking twice about the weather. But not to even go down that rabbit hole, it's just like there's so much you have to pay attention to. And really that's a process of listening, right? It's a process of listening. I think that it's easier to step outside

of the thinking mind and into our listening and intuitive space when we have an access point, whether that access point is meditation, fasting, darkness, you know, some of the, all these different avenues or some mind altering substance that can connect us in that way. Talk about your relationship. I, you know, we don't need to rehash the whole thing, but I would love for you to talk about how your relationship has changed via the plants to what you put in your body. And, and, you know, we have a very common ally and mentor in Paul check who's shaped

that for us, helped to shape that for us. Uh, I was joking, you know, he was wearing, I love dirt shirts fucking 20 years before anyone was talking about soil health. So, so he had a leg up on, on many of these, many of these new, new, uh, new springboards everybody's into. Yeah. He's, he's an OG. I mean, and you know, he was talking about it exactly like you said before it was cool. Right. And you like now it's becoming cool because people are like, oh, even in the fitness world, like, oh, you mean I can get bigger muscles if I care about where my food was grown? Okay, now I care.

I think everyone's starting to find, let's say, even if they're service level reasons, at least people are starting to realize there's a connection between the health of our soil, the quality of the food, and therefore the quality of our lives. And I know for me, one of the biggest things that shifted for me is growing up being a left brain dominant individual and then also being really big into bodybuilding, these kind of things. It's just like getting so much food into me and these kinds of things that I wasn't really conscious with it. And, you know, in forming a new relationship with cannabis, where I'm actually able to listen and hear what the plant is illuminating for me and actually take action on that too, which is a big part of what I work with people on is like how to actually form this relationship with cannabis, ensure it's healthy. And then actually like, what do you do

with it? Right? Because most people, they don't need more ideas. They need action and accountability, right? But once I started tuning into that, it was very interesting because the way I think about it is cannabis is the bridge between me and my soul. And there are definitely ways I can get there without cannabis. But as you know, when you're really busy, when you've got a lot of stuff going on,

when you've got family and all these things happening, sometimes it can be really hard to spend three or four hours doing breath work, meditating, et cetera. And yet at the same time, you might feel a certain cue of like, I'm off right now. I need to be able to get some insight. And so being able to dive in with cannabis and illuminate that really helped me form a whole new relationship with the food I eat, with the relationships I have, and literally anything. Like, you know, it really wasn't as within, so without type thing. Like as my within changed, my without completely transformed, right? And so whether it's food, whether it's cannabis, etc., the main thing that shifted is just being aware and conscious of not only the quality,

not only how it's grown, etc., but why, right? Like, why am I choosing to connect with this thing? Does it feel in alignment? Or is it just like a checklist type item? And I think a lot not only how it's grown etc but why right like why am i choosing to connect with this thing does it feel in alignment or is it just like a checklist type item and i think a lot of people will be able to resonate with this you know especially people that are into fitness or people that just have very busy lives right like when's the last time you asked why you're specifically eating as much as you're eating or why you're connecting with as much cannabis as you're connecting right like there's a deeper why to everything. And I think that one of the challenges of the modern day world when we're all used to

being so overstimulated is we don't really have the necessary space or that's, I mean, a story too, but you know, there's a lot of clear evidence like, well, I am really busy and things like that to ask these questions and actually like go on our own inner love story with ourselves, right? Like if you were on a first date, you'd be asking why about everything. Like, oh, why'd you go to school for that? Oh, when did you first learn this? Oh, what were your parents like, right?

But when was the last time we asked ourselves those things, right? And it's kind of paradoxical. And I think that's one of the many reasons why I think psychedelics are becoming so popular right now. I mean, there's many reasons. It's obviously multifaceted. And one of the challenges is people don't integrate. But, you know, if we look at just like the ultimate thing, like why they're becoming popular, I think it's because we're in a meaning crisis, right? And part of

that meaning is we don't know who we are, you know, we don't know why we're doing what we're doing. We don't really give it much thought, you know, I know, at least for me, I won't project on anyone else. I know I didn't. And so being able to learn how to connect with cannabis in this way, as within, so without, right? So it really started with me wanting to connect with myself more. And I did that through being able to connect with the cannabis plant to a deeper level. And as soon as that happened, it was almost like a windshield got cleared for me. And I was able to face a lot of hard truths, you know, and I think this is a lot of reason why many people get anxiety, paranoia, undesirable results, quote unquote, with cannabis is that that's kind of what it's meant to do. It's meant to illuminate things for you like a mirror that you can look at.

Now, sometimes those things are like, oh my God, celebrate a win. I did really good today, et cetera. But all too often, they're also like, hey, I'm not showing up for myself. I'm not showing up for my family. I'm not showing up for these types of individuals. And I think that's one of the things that a lot of people try to stray away from. But when you dive into that, that will blossom and bloom just like a garden in full bloom into something incredible and something very useful that you're then able to actually take and do something with and create something with. And I think that's overall really what this connection to myself that was able to be had through cannabis opened up for me with regards to farming and all of these things. After that, I really started asking myself, why am I choosing to cultivate in this way? Why am I choosing to

eat certain foods? Why am I choosing to go to a supermarket instead of a farmer's market? And it wasn't to put blame on myself or anything. It was just like, yeah, why am I doing that? You know, like, you know, and then certain things started coming up like, well, I don't have the time to go to a farmer's market. It's like, oh, really interesting. So I don't have the time to make sure that I'm leaving the garden of earth green. And then when I found it, very interesting. Okay, where did that story come from? And so from that one quest, there was a million mini quests that came out. And I imagine your story is very similar, right? Like when you start farming and you start realizing like, you know, not only growing organically and things like that, but also like the connection you form with these living entities, it is powerful. And I think that most of us in the world, we understand that with animals,

like, oh yeah, there's a connection. We want to make sure they're raised in a beautiful way and things like that. But plants are very similar. They might not have the same level of consciousness, but they're still conscious. And they really care how they're cultivated and why they're cultivated. And so that's kind of like an expose, if you will, of what this has done. And we can definitely dive deeper into any one of these areas. But I wanted to give kind of like a zoomed out view of just what this has done. And we can definitely dive deeper into any one of these areas, but I wanted to give kind of like a zoomed out view of just what this has done for me and what it continues to do, because it's opening up more and more every single time I connect with myself

through cannabis or whatever means necessary through my food, et cetera. But it's been a really wild man. And it's kind of like, you know, the analogy I give is it's like Independence Day where they go down in the bunker and they're like, oh, what's going on down here? And the guy's like, well, you know, it's the most exciting time. All these buttons are turning on. And they're like, what the hell, man? The world's ending, right?

But, you know, it's kind of like that. Like there was a lot of shadow stuff that came up as a result of me connecting with these aspects. But as I started to dive in and really jump into them, I started realizing like, oh, man, this is great. I'm like getting weight off of me, so to speak, right? I'm becoming more me. I'm allowing more of my man, this is great. I'm like getting weight off of me, so to speak, right? I'm becoming more me. I'm allowing more of my true essence to come forth.

And that then allows me to be more conscious with the decisions I make, how I cultivate, whether it's cannabis, whether it's food, et cetera, where I buy from, et cetera. And so it's really been like an interesting journey of being able to connect deeper to all aspects of my life through focusing on connecting first to myself through the power of cannabis. So it's been wild, man. And it continues to open up

every day. Yeah, it's such a massive one. You covered a number of things that I want to dive into. But one of the things that you mentioned was that you can realize that cannabis is giving you great ideas and then you continue to go back for getting more great ideas, right? And I don't know if it was Bruce Lee or somebody long, but likely somebody long before Bruce Lee, but it's not enough to know we must do, right? So like we get these insights and it's like,

oh, that feels really good. This tracks, right? There's a resonance feel within the body of the truth coming in. And you're like, fuck yeah, more of that, right? But it's not necessarily putting pen to pad. It's not putting something in the ground. It's not doing anything yet.

And I think for a lot of cannabis users, myself included for years when I first started working with it, that was the thing I was searching for. Insight, a good feeling, laughter, you know, or no insight, like turn my fucking brain off, please. And it would work for me. You know, it worked for me that way in my early twenties.

And then, you know, the same can be said for plant medicines. We talk about that too. Like everyone's met. You go to enough ayahuasca circles or mushroom journeys and you're like, man, half these people here have the same intention they did last year. What happened in between last ceremony and this ceremony that you're at the same place with the same intention

and you haven't done it? It doesn't look like you've done anything. And maybe that's just my own judgment. It doesn't look like you've made progress in between there, right. And if I get really clear, if I see it outside me, I can look in and say, oh, where have I done that? How many times have I gone to the wishing well and thrown a fucking quarter in and said, tell me what I need to know right now, please. And it gives me some information and I, hey, yay, it gave me the

information. All right, let me go back next month. Throw the fucking wishing well in. It's like, it keeps saying the same thing here. Why does it keep saying the same thing? Because I haven't actually changed anything yet. And Godsey and I have been really clear on what integration actually means is habit change. It's as simple as that. And how does it change my life? It doesn't have to mean how I change logistically my schedule. It could mean how I change my reactions when I'm in an argument or a tough conversation with my wife, or one of my parents does something they did when I was a kid and I'm immediately triggered. How does that change me in those circumstances? That's the habit change I'm looking to change. My response, the way that I show up in the world.

And once we grasp that, that's the hard pill to swallow you talked about, right? Because there you get to see it. There you see yourself in the mirror and you go, fuck man, I was creating this. I had the steering wheel in this thing. And I'm the reason this relationship is where it is right now. And it's only when we admit that or realize that, that we have any power to change any of it. But like you, similar trajectory. It was ayahuasca that really reconnected me to nature. And at that point, I was in my mom's garage fighting in the UFC and I just had to put shit in the ground. I didn't know what. So I just thought, well, I love oranges. Let's try that. I love plums. Let's try that. I just started grabbing fruit trees that I loved. And then I saw

there's a whole strip in her long driveway. She only had a quarter acre, but there's a big strip of vines. And I was like, can I demolish this and plant like a raised bed? And she's like, sure. So I came through. I dug shit out by hand. I just ripped it all to shreds. I came back. I layered it.

And it was great. I had a raised bed for a year. The year after that, all the fertilizer and goods, not fertilizer, but organic compost and goodies, bat guano, fish heads, all the shit that was in the, God, what's that company? Fox Farm Organics. All the goodies that were in the Fox Farm bags, right? After those annual plants died, the vines came back more rigorous and more badass than ever. And I was like, all right, you guys win. You guys win. I won't take you out again. But it is a consistent theme. When you think of trip reports, if you go on arrowid.org, which is a fantastic theme. Like when you think of trip reports,

if you go on arrowid.org, which is a fantastic site, when I was first getting into plant medicines, I was like, oh, there's whole articles here on people's experiences with ayahuasca or DMT or wachuma or any of these things, cannabis, meth even, they got people writing trip reports on meth or fucking Oxycontin, like shit that I'll never want to take, right?

Those are wild. Do not enter here, right? Exactly. And so you get a taste for those things. But in a lot of them, you know, like why they call ayahuasca the vine of the soul or the vine of the dead, there's a common theme that at some point, if you're working with that medicine, you might die and realize you're not your body, that whatever consciousness you are lives beyond the body.

And that's a fundamental understanding that we all come back to remembering, right? And that plant in particular is very good at exercising that remembrance. But I think whether it's cannabis, wachuma, ayahuasca, or any of these things, even just a vision quest, four days, no food, no water in nature, nature comes alive again.

And you start to see it firsthand that what indigenous peoples all over the world talked about with animism and not just, you know, nature worship as some Christians would call it, but actually seeing that whatever's animating me is animating all things. The tree is lit with the same spark of the infinite that I am.

The grasses, the soil, everything's alive and awake and conscious. And when we kind of understand that, that should change, hopefully, our relationship to it. How do I interact with that? How do I work with that? And that's been such a magnificent draw for me. And at first, and I think with anybody, and Joel Salatin talked about this, like 1.5 million people in the last two years have become homesteaders. That's a lot. And a lot of them now are a year into it going, what the fuck did I do? I don't know what to do, right? I don't know what to do. It's you bite off. Did I bite off more than I could chew? Whether it was five acres or 50 or 500, a lot of people are scratching their heads

now. And that's because we're forced to listen again. We're forced to know that I'm not in control of this thing. But if I pay attention, I listen, and I learn from the greats that have been in it for 30 years, 50 years, 100 years, then I actually have a chance at working with it in the right way. Oh, 100%. I agree wholeheartedly. And also, it's almost like a lot of, obviously, nature is very feminine in a lot of ways. It has both, but let's think about how bastardized feminine energy had become over the last, let's just even say 100 hundred years. Right. Obviously it goes back farther than that, but let's just put it in that context. When you think about nature, like there is nothing you can do. Right. And especially as men, what do we want to do when, you know, our partner has an issue,

we're like, we're going to solve it. Right. And, you know, even us that are in this realm of self-development and all of these kinds of things that are now understanding like, okay, probably just better to, you know, hold space. Um, it's still hard, right? When Rachel goes through something, I want to try to solve it. I won't anymore because I've learned, but it's like that feeling comes out. And so when you're in nature and something's going wrong and you want to solve it, there's those shiny bags at the store, just get rid of the spider mites, right? Just poison them, right? And all those things. But what you learn over time is that there's going to be children that, you know, have to live in this world long after you're gone, right? And what kind of example do you want to leave

behind? And that for me is something that, you know, I wouldn't say haunts me, but that might be the best terminology to use. I wouldn't put it in a negative sense. It's like something that's very big for me. It's like leaving the garden of earth greener than when I found it. And I'm aware at this point in my journey that there's not really anything I need to do to do that, right? The best thing I can do is take nature and be able to apply it back to nature, right? And that's what I love about KNF. That's what I love about biodynamic farming. All these different modalities is that all you're really doing is like taking nature, multiplying multiplying in some way, being a steward, right? And then giving it back. And as a result, right? Like I always tell everyone that, you know, takes my grow course

and everything. It's one of the modules that they finish up with is like, when you cultivate in this way, the world will be better off as a result of you being there and having cultivated within it. And that is the goal. Because if we can all do that little tiny part, right? Imagine if those million people that were homesteading got to, let's say, 100 million in America, right? Like one in three people, right? Like what would that do? Who knows? But at the end of the day, right? Like all of us being able to do just our little part will really add up. And I think that's one of the things that I'm so passionate about, about having these kinds of conversations, because I know for me, and I'm not sure if you were the same, but when I first started thinking about growing cannabis, I thought,

oh my God, this is going to be so hard. I was learning about chemical salt nutrients and pH pens and taking PPM and all these different things. And then my first plant ever, I was about, I don't know, 18. I had just graduated high school. And my mom and dad's house is right on wetlands, right? And super fertile area, especially in the area of the world I'm in too. It's like, I mean, it literally feels like Costa Rica in the summer. It's amazing. And so I just threw some bag seed out there, forgot about it.

And a couple of weeks later, I brought my cousin out there because I didn't even know what a cannabis plant would look like when it sprouted. And he was like, dude, you got one, right? Like that's one right there. And I was like, oh, cool. Ended up being female. This plant grew 10 feet tall, gave me probably like four ounces off of it. And I was like, wow, that was easy, right?

So then what I did was I tried indoor with my father. And this is like part of the story I never tell about this part. I finally convinced him to purchase me a grow kit. And I was like, this is gonna be easy. I did it out there. It's super easy. And I tried to use chemical salt nutrients because I just didn't know. Right. I was like 18 and and failed fucking miserably. Like I dude, it was so funny. Like the cannabis that I grew, you could touch it and it would just turn to dust. And that was when I was, I mean, I had like a whole dark night of the soul

because I had started going to cannabis school at this point. I was like, this is what I want to do. And then like to fail that bad was definitely like an ego hit. And then I remember I met this guy, Pat, at the school and he was going over to Korea. I didn't even know what the hell he was going over there for. He's like, oh, I'm learning Korean natural farming. I'm like, what the hell is that? Why do you have to go over to Korea to learn that?

No idea. Then he started teaching me about building my own soil, mulch layers, very basic stuff, but stuff that changed my life. Then I switched to that method, and I never looked back. I tell everyone, I've only grown with chemical salts once because it was fucking challenging. Like, I don't want to be a mad scientist down there trying to measure out chemical salts and everything. Plus then knowing that that runoff and that water is going to get into a water supply and potentially kill fish and, you know, all the downstream effects, you know? And so being able to really think about that, I think has been something that's really, you know, shaped my life is like, how am I going to leave the garden of earth?

How am I choosing to leave the garden of earth? Because like you said, right, like a lot of the things that cannabis, plant medicines, et cetera, can show us can be challenging. And that's, I think, for a lot of people, why they don't take action on the integration. At least for me, that's what happened is, you know, I'd love the amazing experiences. Then when a bad one came up, I'd be like, oh, just forget about that. Right. And I think now it's like, it's not as sexy to talk about integration.

Right. But if you talk about the fruits of integration, that can be pretty sexy. You know, and I was just talking to a mutual friend of ours yesterday who's in town, Ryan Anderson. Oh, yeah. Dude, I love Ryan. Dude, we just. Ryan hooked me up with Robert Forte.

Yeah. And I hooked up Paul Cech with Robert Forte. They're going to have a podcast to release. Three hours, that's coming up. I'll make sure to link to it on my podcast when it comes out. I can't fucking wait to hear it. Ryan's great though. Ryan's awesome.

Ryan's fucking awesome. He came in for the sugar fight because he was fighting in Boston and I was meeting up with Tim and him. But we did an amazing podcast yesterday and we talked about a lot of these different aspects, you know, and we talked a lot about Robert Forte too. I was like, you know, he's an hour from here, right?

Like hit him up tomorrow because he's still in Boston right now. I was like, go hang out with him, you know? And imagine my surprise, another go on a side tangent, when I met Robert, like I had no idea who this guy was. My friends, Jill and Madhava,

who I met through Ben Stewart, they were like, yeah, come up. Our friend's hanging out, cool. And I'm like, all right, awesome. I go up there. He's like, hey, would you like to make a bag with me? I'm like, sure. So I break out my cannabis. I'm showing him it. And he just starts name dropping like, oh, I used to know Terrence McKenna, Alexander Shulgin, Timothy Leary. And he talks about all of them. And I'm like, wait a minute, who the fuck is this guy? And so that's the side quest story I wanted to tell on that becausebert is such a humble guy um he didn't even tell me after we did the episode that he started

the microdosing movement straight up started it i i actually read it through my buddy's profile he was posting a um he's like a mushroom uh medicine man from mexico and he was posting the story of microdosing so i'm just sitting there uh drinking my coffee reading it and it goes over like so and so um was having creative block and asked his colleague, Robert Forte, what to do. Robert suggested he had a small amount of psychedelic mushrooms and there microdosing was born. I text Robert.

I'm like, dude, you never even told me you're the one that is credited with starting microdosing. He's like, oh, I must've slipped my mind, you know, but it's really interesting, you know? And so whether you're talking to Robert, Ryan, me and you right here, it's very interesting how these conversations have come up a lot about like, Hey, like these plants are here, right. To illuminate things, to make you the best fucking version of yourself. And they can be challenging to see, but when you take action on them and you start actually repairing these things, everything in your world changes and not just your world, but you change, you come with more joy. And that could be you just holding a door for someone and it changes their whole life because you smile at them. And maybe no one

has smiled at them. I was at a music festival, uh, electric forest, uh, in June. And there was a gentleman who was clearly in some dire straits, right? And he fell down next to where we were sitting. And some people I was with were kind of a little like, whoa, what's up with this guy? I mean, arguably so, right? And I just smiled at him. And he was asking for a hit of the joint. I was like, dude, you can take it, man. I was like, no big deal. And he was like, oh, you're the first smiling face I've seen all day. And that kind of shocked me. I'm like, we're at a music festival with like 50,000 people. This is very interesting. But these are the kind of things that whether you're talking about integrating, whether you're talking about whatever, it's like,

this is how we become the best versions of ourselves. Not necessarily only with plants, but with anything, right? Surrounding ourselves with that community, going after what our heart is desiring, right? Getting curious about where we learned certain patterns, right? If I'm being short with Rachel, what's going on there? Where did I learn that? Just loving ourselves as much as we choose to love Instagram and these kind of things, right? And I'm not here to judge, but at the end of the day,

like, you know, this can really help. And I think that when we talk about farming, it's clear that it's going to take a village, right? We can't depend on big ag to like make these changes. But if we start to make these changes, and then we demand with our higher level of consciousness to say, hey, this is the quality we want. So we're not against buying from big ag, whatever, but you got to shift how you're doing it. That could potentially change the way they do it. And that to me is the best way to do it. I'd rather not just be like, oh, fuck big ag. It's like, well, no, they got a lot of money. And if we could shift their point of

view and show them that actually like, hey, you can save a lot of money growing this way. It can work out for you. Your main value is money. We can help you out with that too. It's going to take that village effort. And that's why it's so important to get these conversations out there, whether it's just about farming, plant medicines, et cetera, it's all related to the same hole, you know? So I'm fired up to talk about this stuff, man. It's exciting. Yeah. Fuck yeah. You know, the point you brought up was such an excellent one. They did in the documentary food Inc a long time ago, finished that Joel Salatin's in, and he's a lot younger. A lot of great people are in that documentary, but the thing they finished with is you vote with your dollar, right? And, and the

evidence of that was at the end of the documentary they had shown, because it took a few years for them to put it out. Enough people had demanded organic food that Walmart started carrying organic yogurt. And you could, you know, obviously we understand biodynamics and KNF is a different layer than just making something organic. And even organic, you know, has been bastardized in a certain sense of the word now, especially when we compare that to like organic beef versus regenerative beef. There's their night and day differences there, which can get a little annoying for the consumer standpoint, but point being with enough education, the dollar is going to drive that, right? And the dollar can drive that all the way to the source. And I just had a great podcast with AJ Richards. He's homies with a lot of same guys we know. And one of the things that he's working on is connecting smaller

farmers with the public, straight to consumer, and allowing them to choose and figure out, you know, like, here's the gradient. This is how I grow my food. And let them know, like, he's not even going to say, like, this has to be regenerative only. Like, you could do a grain finish, but you're going to state that you do a grain finish. You're going to state this was finished at a feedlot. You're going to state these things so that they know what they're getting. And I think that's one way we can work around. But if there is financial loss, that's going to get people talking, right?

Like, holy shit, why aren't people buying from Tyson? Why aren't people buying from Cargill? How come sales at Costco are down? Anything that affects that is going to affect their desire to learn and grow. And we know that regenerative and certain styles of farming are good for the all. They're good for all factors within that. They're good for the soil. They're good for the climate. They're good for the plants. They're good for the animals. They're good for us, right? And I think if we start dreaming in ways like that and we're educated in ways like that, that eventually that is where it lands. It'll land in the hands of big agriculture. It'll land

in the systems that we deem as evil and they won't be able to look away from it. They're going to want to be in on that. 100%. That's what I tell everyone about cannabis too. I'm like, guys, you can start throwing, you can keep throwing your fist up. Like why does, you know, big cannabis, if you want to call it that, why they grow this way it's like well because they clearly think that's the best way to make money which they are valuing over the things we value which is like leaving the garden of earth greener than they found it right like these kind of things so it's a value mismatch so if we start taking our money back by cultivating our own and this is why i'm such a big fan of cannabis watch human is very similar to it's like these things you can grow in your backyard.

You can cure your own cancer with them, right? Like for anyone who's unaware of cannabis and cancer, that's a whole rabbit hole, right? Look up Phoenix Tears, Rick Simpson's work. I mean, this is like something that's very big. Not to mention the fact that all the other aspects that cannabis can help with just physically, right? Glaucoma, IBS, I mean, the list goes on and on.

Then to also be able to increase spiritual health, right? Glaucoma, IBS, I mean, the list goes on and on. Then to also be able to increase spiritual health, emotional awareness, mental acuity, all these different types of things, mindset, right? Because what is mindset? It's the language we use and the stories that that language creates out of, you know, your mind, right? And so when you start being able to illuminate these stories, and one of the best ways cannabis does this is by slightly dissociating you so that you can actually look at these things without it being all consuming, you can really start to understand why I tell everyone to grow their own. I'm like, listen, guys, you really don't need to understand a lot of soil science or anything

to understand just the constituents to put together to cultivate your own. And many places now in the US and Canada, you can cultivate your own, even if it's just a couple of plants, right? And so by being able to honestly save money by growing your own and also have a superb quality of medicine grown by you for you, not only do you do the aspects of leaving the Garden of Earth greener than when you found it, saving money etc but you also have medicine grown by you for you and food works the very similar way right like you know when you're the one putting your love into that food well you get to reap what you sow figuratively and literally you know and i think that you know in a world that is lacking connection i think one of the easiest ways or maybe the simplest way i won't say easy

because it can definitely get challenging but one of the easiest ways or maybe the simplest way, I won't say easy because it can definitely get challenging, but one of the simplest ways to increase connection in your life is to connect yourself back to nature, right? Whether it's just going for walks, but also like try growing some stuff in your backyard, right? Like, you know, nature doesn't really need a lot. Like, you know, I've, I, I talk to people all the time. Oh, I don't have a green thumb. I'm like, where did you learn that you had to have a green thumb? Like nature knows what to do. The best thing you can do is just make sure you're washing it. No animals get to it. You know, like you're just being its protector, you know? And I think that's one of the biggest like, um, realizations I had in my journey of learning the farm and,

you know, whether it's cannabis, food, et cetera, is like, oh man, like how egotistical of me to think I needed a green thumb to grow anything, right? Like if anything, you just need discipline and consistency because plants don't take days off. I tell everyone that's the most challenging part of growing cannabis, food, etc. It's like, no matter if you're sick or not, your plants need watering, right? Like, things like that are much more challenging than having to know soil science and whatever. Now, of course, you can nerd out on that stuff. You can definitely dive into, you know, teaming with microbes, teaming with nutrients, teaming with fungi. Those books are great for that.

Dive into some of Joel's work. It's like you can dive into that stuff, but you don't need to, to be able to start. And that's why, again, I'm so big on saying just start. Fail forward. At the end of the day, nature can be very forgiving so long as you get curious. And that's one of the best parts about the community too is you're able to ask questions, things like that. I answer people's questions all day on Instagram. I just love it. You know, like for me, this is my way to give back. And it's also, you know, my way to be of service. And it's just so much fun, man.

And I know you feel the same way with the farm and what you guys are doing. It's fucking kick ass. I'm really excited to have land myself to do something like that with, because what you guys are doing down there. I mean, when I got to tour the farm with you which was god that was last september i think um so a while back i can't even imagine what it looks like now but it was so cool man to see all the different systems you guys are doing um all the different you know uh utilizations of different technologies and things like that it's really fucking cool man it's awesome yeah so it's a 118 acre canvas you

know that we get to paint in three dimensions with, right? I mean, it's, it's, and the goal of that, you know, like I've said this before and it can strike people the wrong way. I usually say it. And then the trust tree of fit for service or something like that, or somebody that I'm coaching, you know, that my, my body is a work of art. And I mean that on every level, I'm not talking about aesthetics. I mean, every facet of it is art to me. And I am the creator of that art, how it moves, how it flows, how it responds to stress.

What are its operating functions? You know, what can it do? What can it not do? All those things matter as a part of that art. And I think one of the beautiful things for anybody that's getting into homesteading or even just growing in your backyard, like that's where I started

for seven years in my mom's backyard. That's all I did. I worked on a quarter acre, right? It doesn't have to be a ton. We had a 10th acre here. We've been working for three years and it's gorgeous. And, but cultivating of that is, you know, that's your Zen in the garden time.

And that's the time where you create what however big or small it is, you make that your own artwork and that becomes your sanctuary. You know, like you go out there to tend that and look over it and it's speaking to you just as much as you're speaking to it, right? Like you feel that relationship begin and holy shit,

it didn't matter that it was a 10th of an acre or a quarter acre, 118 or a thousand, right? Because you had that relationship with it. And I think that's been one of the greatest teachings that I've fallen into since starting to garden and work with things on a very small level is just like, yeah, man, it's conscious and aware of your inputs and that your care, and even just the love that you give to it and the attention you give to it to a degree where it recognizes the recognition. It recognizes that you're viewing it and working with it. And it responds to that recognition.

And it slows you down. Like, you know, that's one of the best parts I've found about farming, you know, and that's one of the things I talk about a lot with a lot of the people that take the courses because they're typically like a very fast moving individual. And I say, Hey, you know, you don't want to necessarily use cannabis every day and become dependent on it, right. To relax, even though people know it can work really well for that, you know, but what do you do, right? How do you have your cake and eat it too? Well, if you grow your own plants, and it doesn't matter if it's cannabis or anything else, you know, like if you can get home from whatever craziness has gone on in your day, and then go into your garden, do a little pruning, do a little weeding, maybe you got your kids out

there with you, maybe you got the dog out there with you, your wife or partner out there with you, maybe you got some music going, maybe you don't, right? It can give you some time to just tune back in. I was joking with Ryan yesterday about biohacking these days, and some of the biggest things they talk about are like, all right, guys, here's what we're going to do. We're going to do this crazy technology called earthing. Anyone heard earthing before? Yeah, it's like when you put your feet on the grass, people are like, whoa. And it's like, all right, next you got to get sunshine in your eyes. You know, it's super important. It's like so funny. So like you can get a lot of those new biohacks by cultivating your own medicine, food, et cetera. And, you know,

especially if you're someone who has kids, I do not, but I see the utilization of it. It's like how much fun, man. I mean, I know you've got kids, like how much fun is it to be able to pass on and like have young kids learn how to work with the earth? I mean, it's a skill that no matter where you are, it's going to be very necessary, right? And like you were mentioning too, it's beautiful. Like, you know, every single day is a different painting you can place on your canvas and watching those plants grow and learning the different phenotypic variations of its cannabis or other plants as well,

it's so much fun because what I've noticed is even if I throw down, let's say, 12 of the same seeds, well, of course, you get phenotypic variation. And every one of them has a little bit different of a personality, right? When you're done and you harvest them and you connect with them, some of them are like really wise, right? Then some of them are like a jester. They just want to make

you laugh and have you like these ideas coming through like, what? How does that even make any sense, right? Some are like deep emotional healers, you know? And when it comes to food, I imagine it's very similar, right? Like, you know, very similar to you. I got my start at my mom's house too. I. We live on wetlands, like I was mentioning. And so my dad would grow tomatoes and whatnot. And that's when I really got into cannabis school and started just messing around with raised beds and whatnot. And it was so much fun. Every year we had more tomatoes than we knew what to do with, more peppers than we knew what to do with, more cucumbers, more eggplants. It was wild. And this

wasn't a big area. So that's why I tell everyone, even if you don't think you have the space, you probably do. It doesn't take a lot. And that's why I love about what you guys are doing, Jim Gale, et cetera. You guys are showing it doesn't take a lot of room to do this. If you have more room, awesome. But at the end of the day, just like we did in, I don't know, I always get the war confused if it was World War I or World War II, but people went back to backyard gardening and people would trade. I got tomatoes, you got cucumbers, right? And it's fun because then you get to know your neighbors. And in a world, once again, that is lacking connection, imagine if you had a bunch of different vegetables and whatnot, your neighbor did,

their neighbor did, and so on down the street, and you all got together and you all formulated plans and maybe did Thanksgiving together or whatever, right? Like, you know, this is how we actually start connecting more. And that's like my entire mission, right? Like that's why I named everything connect with cannabis and these kinds of things, because I talk often that even though it faced value in a 3d sense, it might look like everything I do is cannabis. It's much deeper. It's learning how to connect more to yourself first, and then everything without a view, which is your loved ones, your important work in the world, and the world at large. Because when I see big ag, when I see oil fracking and all of these things, I don't see necessarily evil. I just see people that are completely disconnected from

themselves and everything external to them. And so for me, I'm like, well, we have plant medicines, we have these different things. And if we start actually learning how to connect more, right, then even those kind of people will start being like, hey, these people look super happy. Maybe they have a friend or something like, man, what have you been doing? It's like, well, I've been connecting more. I've been like growing my own food in this way and these kind of things. And, you know, again, you know, it takes a village, but I really think that's, what's going to be able to start shifting some of these mindsets because everyone wants to be in a state of joy. Everyone wants to be truly happy. And I think at the end of the day, if you're disconnected, you're never going to be

able to have that. They're like opposites, right? They're antitheses of each other, you know? And so the more you're able to connect, whether it's through gardening, whether it's through having conversations with your partner, whether it's through throwing your phone to the side and hanging out with your kids, whatever it is, the idea is let's learn to connect more again. Let's remember what we truly are and then allow our actions in the external world to reflect that knowing. And I think when we start doing that and we start being the embodiment of that and continue to be the embodiment of that, certain people will start catching on and then they'll tell two friends

and they'll tell two friends and it goes onward. And that's like the dream that I see happening and the dream that I want to wish into reality more than anything, you know? And it's just fucking cool too. You know, it really feels like Return of the Jedi. Yeah. Oh, and it's the answer. Yeah. And it's the

answer, you know, it's, it's the answer to centralization, you know, like what does decentralization mean? It means that we empower the individual, but the individual is always going to be interrelated and interdependent with, with others around it. So how do we create that in local level? Right. So you keep doing that locally and then it's like, all right, you can't get, you know, we're not getting bananas from Panama this year, but that's fine. We have everything else we need. We still have all of our high quality stuff that grows locally. We still have other things. And yeah, if bananas come from Panama, cool, but it's not necessary. You know, we have what we need here. And I think there's a degree of sovereignty that comes with that, that is very special when you know, like, hey, if I

don't, I don't, and perfect example, I've mentioned this before on the podcast, we don't do pig and we don't do meat birds, but Jesse Elder does. And Jesse's a homie. You know, he does pig and meat bird exclusively. He doesn't have eggs. He doesn't have beef. He doesn't have lamb and sheep.

We do that. So we can swap there. And even at our farm, like we're building a little farm stand, we can have his products there next to ours. And now somebody can walk in and lock heart and say, there's everything I need here. Right. And vice versa, we can carry our stuff at his place. And people will walk in and say, cool, I've been coming here for the pork, but now I see you've got really good regenerative beef and really good lamb and

really good other things. Right. So that's a way everyone, you know, gets to come into a greater sense of community and also scratch each other's backs. And it is empowering. It is, it does provide hits against, you know, the frail, the frailty of what we've seen over the last three years when it comes to supply chains and all the shit that we can say is wrong, re-engineered in a way where we're bulletproof to that stuff. And I think that's a real possibility. Yeah, 100%. And at the end of the day, I'm not going to say that I haven't done it because at the end of the day, like, you know, I'm not going to say that I haven't done it, right? Because at the end of the day, you know, if you spot it, you got it, right? That's why I'm able to call it out. But what's more empowering, right? Yelling and protesting about why things should be different or actually fucking doing something about it, you know? And again, I know, guys,

for anyone listening, this can be triggering, right? But at the end of the day, I've gone through it too. And you don't need to start gigantic. Like, that's a mind trap. Like, well, if I had 10 acres, then I would start. I've had all this money, then I would start. It's like, well, what can you do right now? Because if you're living into an if this, then that, if I had this, then I would be able to do that. Well, good luck because in 10 years, you'll be exactly where you're at right now. And you'll still be saying, well, yeah, if I could have that, then I'd have this. And if we stay stuck in there, if I stayed stuck in there, I wouldn't be on the screen with you right now. If I stayed stuck

in there, I wouldn't be able to do the things I do. And I wouldn't have been able to help the people I've helped. And I wouldn't be able to have them help the people they've helped, right? It's all a, this is, I think, why every great spiritual text talks about being of service, right? Like, you know, it's not necessarily for you. It's something done by you to be able to influence other people and be able to turn them back on and be a lighthouse, right? Like be a lighthouse that can charge people's batteries, that can open up new possibilities. And I think that's, again, exactly what psychedelics do, right? What do they do? They open up possibilities, they open up opportunities, right? But we still have to ultimately take them.

And I think that's why, again, I've noticed community matters so much. That's why I started the mastermind, et cetera, because I was realizing like having different courses was cool, whatever. But, you know, I really wanted to bring people together because again, people can learn information. They can go to medicine ceremonies, et cetera. But when they come back into their old environment, if they don't have support, if they don't have accountability, they're just going to fall back into the same thing. And then they're going to go back to the wishing well, right? And they're going to mistake the finger as the moon or sun, right? The finger that points you towards the moon or sun, aka cannabis, wachuma, a coach, a

course, et cetera. They're going to mistake that as the thing, right? It's like, no, you got to go do something with this after, right? And be something from this. And that's like, you know, something that I've been fortunate enough to experience in my own life. So now I can speak about it, you know, and yeah, man, it's absolutely wild. And, you know, I just feel very grateful to be alive during this time. I really think it's one of the best and most wild times in history. And, you know, it's, it's big wave surfing. I mean, there's a lot going on, you know, and never a dull moment.

And it's just amazing to be able to be surrounded by people like yourself that are doing such amazing work. All of your listeners that are choosing to spend their time charging their batteries, getting inspired, going out and do something about it. You know, that's the stuff that inspires me and keeps me going too. And I think the more we can do all this, the best like side effect is that like, yeah, we're all getting fucking inspired the whole time too. It's really a win, win, win, win, win situation. It's amazing. Yeah. There is a, there's like a self-perpetuating

inspiration that comes from doing the right thing. You know, like you're, you're, when you know, you're in right relation and right action that, that starts to build momentum, you know, and as that increases, it's, it's really easy to stay on track and easy to keep going in the same direction. Yeah. I love that. Talk a bit, I mean, you, you were coming, we're coming to an end here, but talk a little bit about, um, we've only, you know, we talked about it early on and things like that, but what are some of the main takeaways you've, you've started, you have the courses, you still have the courses available to people that want to deep dive this stuff. Um, what else have you really gained from the community? Because the community is new. There's 100 people, which is fantastic, right?

So you're learning from a lot of different people. Where can people get a hold of that, get into it? And then what would they expect if they joined the community? Yeah, this is a great question. So you can go to highlyoptimized.me. It's pretty much just one page. We made it super simple. You can read all about it.

You can book a call there with me. I take all the calls personally. I hand select everyone for the community because what I found is that when you're doing work with cannabis, right, especially after Aubrey's show and things like that, certain people were reaching out like, can I get high with you? And I'm like, well, first of all, I wouldn't want you to pay money to just get high with me. Second of all, that's not really what I'm about.

So I field every single call myself. And so hop on there. Happy to have a conversation. I don't convince or persuade. That's not why I'm there. You know, I'm there to answer questions and make sure that we're the right fit for each other, right? And so within there, you have all three courses. You have seven calls a week. You can hop on with me. You get to meet guest presenters. We had Hamilton Souther coming through a couple of weeks ago. We've had Mark England coming through. So like, you know, my job is to make sure that anyone I have found beneficial and powerful in my life,

I want everyone in the community to know about them too, because it's much more than just cannabis. And that's the challenge with marketing is that, yes, it's about cannabis, but it's really not at all. Even the cannabis plant is like, what are you going to do with the awareness I give you? And so that's really what you can expect in there. You can expect powerful ability to connect with the plant ceremonially and get integration support

from me on what comes out. We have a tracker you fill out after every ceremony. You then come to the calls and you actually ask like, you know, really good questions about yourself, right? And I help field that. We have office hour calls where you can come and leverage the entire community for any questions, right? So we have a certification program too, if you want to be a certified cannabis coach, educator, and facilitator. And so you guys know, right? Like, of course, as well, that when you want to start your own thing, it's like, well, it's really who you know, how are you going to network? How are you going to get on podcasts, et cetera. We got all that set up in there as well. We got our marketing team coming through all the time. And then I host a live two-hour

ceremony once a month in there called Breathe With Cannabis, where you're going to actually see exactly how I do it. And also for most people to join, they are the person in their friend group that's always sharing all the things, giving all their energy away. And so this is for all of those individuals to be able to actually go have some time with themselves by themselves to go through the ceremony. And so yeah, we got got the connect with cannabis course in there for your own personal relationship to the plant. We got grow with cannabis to learn everything about cultivating. And then we got coach with cannabis in there. So it's, it's really amazing. People can find it going to highly optimized.me. They can also find it. If you just want to hit me up on Instagram

at the real Ryan Sprague, I'm also the one getting back to all my DMS. You'll know, cause I voice note everyone once Mark England showed me voice noting, I don't think I've ever sent a regular text since. So it's super fun. So guys, reach out. I'm happy to field any questions. This is obviously something that is a little far out there. I haven't met anyone else doing this. And so I know you guys are going to have some questions. Happy to answer. I'm happy to offer you support. Also, Kyle, I can definitely throw you the Conscious Cannabis Guide. It's our free PDF. It's going to go into the entire highly optimized way, which is our four-step process for connecting with cannabis consciously. And it's also going to go into some great context about the three ways to understand the way in which cannabis works

within the human system. And so that's going to give people a lot to chew on. We dive into a shit ton more when it comes to the programs in there, but that will give anyone who's just curious, a really great insight into our world. So that's where people can find it. That's what it's all about. And I'm really excited, man. You know, it's like at the end of the day, we had all of our European students the other day, this was like, this was like a proud dad moment for me. We had all of our European students decide to arrange a meetup. They all flew to Amsterdam, met up with each other. I didn't even know it was happening. I'm like, that is perfect because that shows me that people are really taking initiative in there, right? Like they

don't need me to do it for them. They don't need me to organize those kinds of things. And that's my vision is bringing leaders together to have challenging conversations, to celebrate each other's wins, to get curious, and to really know that we're supported in community. Because when we go out into the world and we start talking about anything from going against conventional farming, to conscious cannabis, to plant medicines, to the financial system, to cancer culture, whatever it is, we're going to face adversity. And so we need a battery charging docking station that we can go and make sure that we are supported, right?

And that's really what the Conscious Cannabis Collective is all about, right? Like come to this place. We have amazing people there. I feel that every single person, we talk about deep, deep stuff. Sometimes we agree to disagree. Sometimes we have amazing, amazing conversations

that we all agree on. But regardless, you get your battery charged and you're able to go out and do your sacred work, right? And you're actually able to figure out what that is too, if you're someone who doesn't know yet. So yeah, man, it's super fun. My battery gets so charged being on the calls. It's amazing.

Fuck yeah, brother. Well, that's awesome to hear. It's been awesome having you back on and I'll be in your ear for sure on growing guides and all that good stuff in the near future, brother. Hell yeah. Thanks for charging my battery, Kyle. You're the man. You got it, brother. Thank you.