Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #448 The Art & Science of Human Connection w/ Michael Trainer

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

Kyle Kingsbury welcomes back Michael Trainer for a wide-ranging conversation about nature, healing, rites of passage, and connection. Trainer recounts being violently jumped at 12 in Spain, developing obsessive-compulsive behaviors, and choosing extreme “exposure therapy” by moving to Sri Lanka during civil war, where he was mentored by a seventh-generation healer in a secret Ayurvedic shamanic tradition and witnessed trance, ceremony, and what he describes as inexplicable phenomena. He discusses subsequent men’s work and grief practices, including guidance from Martín Prechtel and a four-year men’s group, plus synchronistic experiences with animals and indigenous ceremonies. Trainer introduces his forthcoming book, “Resonance: The Art and Science of Human Connection,” using music and coherence to address modern loneliness and help people “tune” themselves and find their community, while Kyle also shares about his “Kingdom Within” community and shares a plant-based approach to Texas cedar allergies.   Connect with Michael Trainer here: Instagram All Links   From Kyle: The Community is coming! Click here to learn more   Our Sponsors: Let’s level up your nicotine routine with Lucy. Go to Lucy.co/KKP and use promo code (KKP) to get 20% off your first order. Lucy offers FREE SHIPPING and has a 30-day refund policy if you change your mind. These are the b3 bands I was talking about. They are amazing, I highly recommend incorporating them into your movement practice.   Connect with Kyle: I'm back on Instagram, come say hey @kylekingsbu Twitter: @kingsbu Our Farm Initiative: @gardenersofeden.earth Odysee: odysee.com/@KyleKingsburypod Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Kyle-Kingsbury Kyle's Website: www.kingsbu.com - Gardeners of Eden site If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe & leave a 5-star review with your thoughts!

Welcome back to the podcast. We've got my good buddy, an old friend Michael Traynor in the house. Michael Traynor was on this podcast many years ago when I first got to On It, I believe. Out of Venice, I think he was living. So a really good crew out there back in the day. And I think Michael's coming here. So we rehash. You don't have to go back and listen to the old podcast.

I'm like, give us the quick report of what your life's work was. And we go freaking deep in this podcast. His story and what he's been up to has been absolutely incredible. he's been on one hell of a journey since we last spoke and I can't wait to see what this dude has written as an author. I mean, I'm literally chomping at the bit as a guy who devours books. I have had a lot of friends write books and fortunately they've been pretty damn good books, at least not boring. They've been informative, you know, and they've been funny. This one I think is going to hit, I think it's going to strike the heart like an arrow. So super, super proud of Michael.

He's an awesome person. Tall too. He's fucking taller than I am. Just a great guy. Great guy. all the way through and through, and he's doing great work in the world. Share this with your friends and enjoy. Michael Traynor. Let's go. Michael Traynor, the return. Thank you for coming on the podcast. This is so cool getting you have you here at the farm for the first time.

Man, I've been hearing about it, and I'm honored to be here, I'll say. I love seeing you deeply immersed in nature. Is there no better place? There's no better place. No. It's church. Yeah. I mean, even here, like in the office, I love this office.

To me, it's a library more than it's an office. you know, it's like the study. Yeah. I called the office, but it's the study, you know, if we were playing clue. But you see the plants in here are just like, I just love these guys. I had these vines are the first, for some of the first house plants we got. We moved to Texas. We're these guys right here.

Yeah, they're super healthy. I mean, I think that's the thing, right? These are like plants, and I think we as well, we're kind of like thermostats, you know, for our environment. And it's like, when you see this plant and it's shiny and happy, you know it's in a good place. I feel like with people, unfortunately, we don't pay as much attention, but this is well, well maintained and well loved. That's for sure. Yeah.

Well, the nature piece is the best part of it. You know, I think that's what I was getting to is like even in an office space or whatever you want to call it, bringing nature in. Yeah. It's such a big component to my sense of well-being, getting to hang with these little guys. They're here working with our heart chakros right now as we're shooting the shit and catching up. Yeah, it's amazing how much plants. just affect our overall, I feel like, psychology, but also just our physiology, right?

We're talking a little earlier about allergens. Like, I just escaped. Part of the reason I left Los Angeles was because of the mold, and the plants were what saved me. The plants were, you know, kept me in a good way. Yeah. But without that, I was stuffed. So you just moved here?

Is that correct? Yeah. Okay, in the process? Yeah, I'm in the process. To be frank, actually, this is quite beautiful because I've been in the proverbial cave, not a literal cave, but proverbial cave for the last few years writing this book. And so to me, I've been in my own little space. I've gone, like, deeply internal.

I've done some deep work as well, some medicine work. But yeah, this is honestly, seeing you is kind of my first little coming out of the cave moment. Well, it's a fucking honor. Yeah, man. That's great. Well, I just feel like you're such a heart-centered, beautiful human, you know? And so, yeah, it's always an honor to be in your presence. And I was like, all right, you know, if I'm going to come out of the cave, let's go see Kyle.

But yes, long story short, I've been on a bit of a walkabout. Fuck, that's fantastic. We're going to dive into that as like the meat and potatoes of this podcast. But give people a, it's kind of hard to say what you do. It's kind of hard to say what is in the LA sense of like, oh, what do you do? You know, it's very hard to say, like, what you do? I know some of your accolades and things that you've done. And I can say, well, like, you know, he knows the Dalai Lama and he knows this and that, you know.

But it's kind of hard to say, like, what do you do? So tell us what you do and then tell us like where did that start to shift where you wanted to give birth to this thing? Because that's really what it is. It's funny. It is not the same as giving birth to a child. Nothing can be the same as that. However, writing is creating a business, creating any of these things can be the micro dose for a man of what that takes, right? That level of commitment, that level of nurture, that level of time and energy and resources being devoted to one thing.

Right. And so like while it's not the same, it is similar in that it requires many. of the same things, right? And it can take you on a ride in many ways the same way, right? Where like emotions run high and holy shit, I don't know if it's going to work and second guessing yourself and all that. But I'd love for you to break down for people, what have you been doing? And then what led you to the impetus of, hey, I have to give birth to this thing. I got to get this out. Yeah, it's a beautiful question. I think I'll give you the sort of the top line and then I'll go into the nuance. The top line is I feel like I've been in a process of

initiation for the better part of my life. I was invited into a very rare mentorship by seventh generation healer in Sri Lanka when I was 19 years old after being jumped by a gang at 12 years old and developing some neuroses. And the challenge was how can I go as deep into my fear as possible to transcend the neuroses of the fear that became the great medicine of my life, which is the thing I love the most are people and how we connect beautifully. and adventure, nature, travel, being of the world. My top line, I would say, is I'm a bridge between what I've been fortunate enough to bear witness to and to participate in through this initiatory process, from doing men's business with

Aboriginal elders in Australia to studying with a seven-generation near Keeler in Sri Lanka in a secret form of Ayurvedic shamanism to the honor of hosting the Solanus Dalai Lama. If I were to give the professional context, the thing that I'm most known for is starting a music festival called Global Citizen, which hosts 70,000 people on the Great Lawn in Central Park. We've had everyone from Beyonce to Cole played and raised now to date over $40 billion for programs serving the world's poor. And I can obviously go deeper into detail there, but what I've been doing for the last, I would say, five years is making sense of the early formative experiences I started sharing, being jumped.

and being invited into these circles that I didn't know why I was being invited into. Let's unpack that a little bit, too. To describe the setting, because when I was young, you know what, blew my mind when I made it to the UFC, how many guys didn't fight growing up that were in the UFC? I was like, you got to be fucking kidding me. You never fought growing up until a pro fight or until an amateur fight. That was, it wasn't everyone, but it was a way or higher percentage than I ever would have thought. And I was like, damn, what drew you here?

Like, you guys didn't fight growing up. That's crazy. and now you're here. This is awesome. Tell me about that, you know. But I bring that up because even in that sport, not everybody fought growing up, right? And so like, there's plenty of people on this planet. So when I thought he was speaking directly to me at Chuck Palnuck in a fight club, has never been a fight before. How do you know anything about yourself? Right? And I was like, man, so many people. When I watched, I was 19 years old, it was like so many people, I have no idea. Yeah. They remember had that. And getting jumped is a completely different experience. I got

jumped when I was 17. I still have a scar on the back of my head. I show my kids. Because like, oh, Daddy, your hair doesn't grow there. I was like, yeah, it's from a beer bottle getting smashed in my head and having like 12 dudes kicked the crap out of me on a bush and I just covered up and ate it. Yep. It's like, why don't you get him? And I was like, well, Daddy was drunk. Daddy couldn't fight back and it was too many guys. I just had to take it. I had to take it. And thankfully, they didn't go extra, you know, they could have done a lot worse. But they beat my ass and I went home and because I'd been drinking, the beer bottle cut was deep enough like it wasn't going to heal on its own. So I got up at 3 a.m. to go to the bathroom and I

lean down over the thing. I'm super lightheaded. While I'm going pee, I can see blood dripping from my head in the toilet. And I was like, oh, no, that's still going. It's been like four hours later. So I was like, mom, she's like, huh? What's up, boy? I was like, I think I got to go to the hospital. She's like, what'd you do? I was like, well, so she felt terrible, you know? I was like, I was an idiot and got smashed with the beer bottle and I need stitches. Anyways, lesson learned there. But I'm curious to see, like, for me, the fight was something that drew me into it because it was my first experience a flow. It was my only experience that I could access no mind. Right. And there wasn't no names for flow or anything like this growing up, but it was just like, oh, I feel peaceful.

I remember telling a therapist this when I was seven. I was like, I feel peaceful when I'm fighting somebody because nothing else matters. Nothing else in the world is happening. Nothing else is more important. Only this, only survival is the thing that I focus on. And I'm 100% in that moment and there's nothing else on earth they can give me that yeah and so i always tracked that remember stealing fire and i was like that's why i fucking loved fighting it was the quiet button right it was just like shh 100% presence 100% now nothing else matters and it was something that drew but it because i had that relationship with it i drew me back like i wanted to i wasn't trying to go pick fights with people but i was raised you know if somebody picks a fight with you you can stand your ground if you

want and it was always like all right let's go you know like it's i'm happy time now you're took him in my happy place. Getting jumps a little different, right? And what that can encode in you, right? Especially as a young person is incredibly different, incredibly different in how, you know, your sense of safety, your sense of, and, you know, we're just listening to this right now. There's no video here.

Michael, you're a big dude. You're as big as me, right? You're a big fucking guy. And it's taken me a lot of work, medicine work as well, to be able to relate to someone like my wife, who's 13 inches shorter than me and weighs half my weight. And it's like, oh, dude, her experience in the. the world is way fucking different than my experience in the world. Her experience in the world as a woman dressed up dancing in a pre-bay or something like that in Vegas and then trying to make it

to her car at night is 100% different than me leaving the club going to my car at night. Right. Fucking world of difference. Yep. But having this piece at 12 years old, that starts to encode differently as well. Unpack that. Yeah. I mean, I think what you said is powerful, right? I mean, there's so many layers. totally interesting to think about how our trauma, like what you said about fighting and being present really stuck with me because I think there's something about, and this is now over years of reflection, but the actual essence of the story was I was 12 years old, it was my first time leaving home. So it was my first time away from the proverbial nest. And I went to Spain. I remember the last thing they said is we're getting on the plane was don't get in any

trouble over there because things work differently. Were you in Europe already? Like where did you go up? We flew into Spain. I went to a language academy. So I grew up going to a public school. I grew up in the city of Chicago in the heart of the city. And I studied Spanish from kindergarten. And so it was our first, my first experience ever leaving the country. I was in

Michas in the Costa del Sol in the southern coast. And it was the first night out and we went to a club. And my host brother was, they were drinking. I wasn't drinking, but they were drinking. He went out. He had a Coke. And I saw getting accosted by this guy. And I basically went to go have his back.

I didn't know the guy, of course, but I was staying in his home and basically went up. And there was this guy basically accosting him for his drink. And I stood up basically for this guy. And what I didn't know is the guy that was accosting him wasn't one guy. It was 30 guys. He was the town. I don't know if it was a gang. I don't know what you'd fully call it.

But the next thing I knew, I got a right hook to the jaw. And then, bam, like I was just being jumped by 30 guys in a country. never been to first day in. It was so intense that they actually forbade me from actually going to school because this guy was like so feared that they were like, even though I was there on a study abroad program, I couldn't even go to school. And then he found me again down at the beach. And they threw, you got a bottle. I got a rock basically taught through a rock in my head and had a bunch of people come chase me and beat on me. I actually held my ground and was okay. And the shopkeeper kind of stopped it. But in essence, what it did was it made me.

me deeply imprinted this notion that travel and other people were not safe. And what wound up happening was when I kind of got to the latter part of high school, this kind of switch flipped and I developed basically an obsessive compulsive personality. I was like checking doors. I was checking the lock, check in the lock, check in make sure the burners were off. And in Western psychology, they were like, you have an obsessive compulsive disorder, take this medicine, what have you. And I was like, yeah, if I want to actually get rid of this, what do you do? And they were like, well, what you do is called exposure therapy. You basically slowly, you know, confront the things that scare you. So if you were scared of a snake, instead of getting 10 feet away, you go nine feet away. And you slowly try to get

a little closer and confront your fear. And this is not dissimilar from initiatory practices that boys have had, as they've been shepherd into manhood since time immemorial, but we just don't have those rights of passage. And so that's been part of my deep inquiry over the years. But in essence, what I did was I said, all right, if basically exposure therapy is the way out of this fear or this neuroses or this unwellness, how do I do that? And not being, I think you and I are probably similar this way, not being much for the little by little. I was like, all right, well, how can I take this all out of once? And basically I wound up, I was like, okay, I grew up in Chicago, where is as far from my reality as possible? And I wound up going to Sri Lanka, which is literally

on the longitudinal line other side of the world, a place where you and I, six foot four, you know, not small men stand out like a sore thumb. And I lived in a village amidst the civil war. So the country was at civil war at the time. So you have this paradox of a Buddhist country, predominantly Buddhist country amidst the civil war. So like on the end of every corner, there's pillboxes, sandboxes with, you know, guys with AKs, large caliber machine guns. Was this a religious conflict? It was without going to great detail. It was religious. It was basically the legacy of colonialism. When the British were there, they exalted the minority, which was the Tommels, into positions of sort of the middle class to manage down, which they did

across a lot of the empire. And then when they left, they left the legacy of democracy or voting, but then the previously suppressed majority, there was now tension after that. That makes sense. And so it led to a civil war, far more complex than that. But in essence, it was, it kind of mirrored the paradox that I felt within within myself, right? There was this element of like a deep peace and yet at the same time this tumult. And so I wound up going to this place because it felt like, it felt like the snake. And I was like, okay, I got to go dance with the snake. Didn't want to, but I was like, that's what I got to do. That's what I got to do. And I wound up going there and it was, I mean, I haven't really shared much of this. I mean, I'm still processing it now 20 plus

years later, but I saw things and witnessed things that you cannot. I mean, you can proximate, and you've dealt deeply in the medicine world. You know, there's lots of worlds beyond our world, but I saw things that, you know, to this day, I cannot explain. You know, people in trans, speaking languages, they should not speak, know how to speak, you know, literal magic. And I wound up going to the, my very first day going to the ocean. I was 18, 19 years old. I go to the edge of the ocean. It was like something on a National Geographic, this 16-year-old brown, beautiful brown kind of Sri Lankan young man with a spear and an octopus that literally looked like a tiger comes out of the crystal blue turquoise waters. And he's got nothing on but shorts and

some goggles. And he hands me the goggles. And I was like, all right. So I guess we're swimming. I don't know where we're swimming, but we're swimming. And we swim out to this island. And it was wild because this was technically a Buddhist temple, but on the island you enter into the liminal space, and it was where they practiced certain practices that weren't, that were pre-Buddistic, shall we say. And I climb out of the water with this boy with a spear and a tiger octopus, and there's a man basically crushing garlic and chilies, and a woman literally shaking, like, condoomblee, like, intrance, and she's a Tamil woman speaking classical singly.

It's like if I came into your house and I all of a sudden saw you like shaking and invoking and speaking fluent like ancient Greek or Latin or some language you never even studied. And the reason I know that is because there happened to be like one of the foremost linguists on that island with me that I was studying.

They took the boat out. And right after that moment where I was introduced to what's called Bohutavidia, which is the occult form of, of Ayu Vedic shamanism. I wound up being invited to study with this man. I wanted to study mask carving because my great-grandfather was a wood carver. And so for me it was like, okay, I'll do like a week. I'd love to do an apprenticeship with this guy around studying masks. And lo and behold, the mask was just the, it was the tip of the snake. I had no idea what I was getting into. But basically

when, so in their worldview, you know, there was no word for privacy and there was no word for possession. So what happened when I got jumped was there was a fundamental break for me in the usness of life, right? It was like now me and, you know, I can't, I've never been in an octagon, you know, I think there is something I would imagine deeply present, ladies you shared about, about that confrontation, that existential, you know, there's a brotherhood, but also an existential confrontation. And for me, it was like I got stuck, I had gotten stuck in the existential confrontation and I needed to find me usness again, right? And in Sri Lanka amidst this civil war, what I found with this man who invited me, he was a seventh generation healer, he didn't

have a son, he had two daughters. And it was like, when I say that this is unusual, like, I've met people who were like, and I didn't even know how unusual it was. They were like, you studied behutavidia? And I was like, yeah, they're like, how did you find it? I said, you found me? They're like, oh, I've gone. I spent 10 years looking for, we couldn't find. I real people, right? And I was like, wow, okay. And it's basically, like, the seal team six of when you need to bring shit back together. Like, when the container's getting real fucked up, and you need, you need, like, the, the, the real ones to come in, that's what he, that's what he was. That's what this man was. You know, like, we would say someone's a master of something. He was a

master of, like, 17 things, not egoic at all, because, but that's what it took to keep the the container right, you know? Yeah. And so, When someone was out of balance, which for them health was or well-being, wellness was balance. It was his role to spend weeks preparing the space. They would literally talk about plants. They would build an entire, basically, city out of palm fraud. They would make elaborate structures, flowers everywhere. And they would put that person in the center of this circle.

And then from sunset to sunrise, they would create a whole ceremony. where that person was brought from the fringes, you know, the outer lands, you know, where they were lost. They would literally, spiritually and physically, bring them back into the heart of the circle and seal their collective usness together. You know, like that was, that was the medicine of this place. And by the way, no entheogens, but people were deep in trance. Like a level of, a level of wizardry, a level of wizardry, a level of, a level of, of magic that I still can't do justice to, but somehow in the two years that I live with him, I went from, I danced with the snake.

I was no longer, I was no longer afraid in that way, right? Like I had, I think, you know, since time of memorial, young men have had, have been shepherded into manhood by other men, often through this existential confrontation, right? Like the kind you may have had in the octagon, for me, it wound up materializing in different. ways, but I was taken from boyhood, confronted my greatest existential fear, and through that was shepherded into a manhood, a different, a different initiatory aspect of myself. All right, guys, quick break to tell you about my brand new community that is launching this year, the kingdom within. This has been many years in the making. I've had a lot of iterations

of the things that I've learned about and wanted to teach through fit for service for six or seven years. coaching one-on-one clients, literally thousands of people that have come through my coaching and been shaped by me and who have shaped me. So what is it about? It's about the body. The body is a doorway. It opens up all systems. The body is the temple. It's about the mind as a system. How do we categorically learn how to use the mind so it can sit in the passenger seat, not in the driver's seat? And then how do we connect to ourselves, right? How do we connect to each other? How do we connect to our parents? How do we connect to nature? How do we connect to God in a safe way, right? All of these things are critically important, but it starts with the body, and then we lead in with the mind, and then we dive into connection. And the community is a field. It is a container actively that supports this. Everybody who joins this community is going to be

thinking along the same lines. You will come there for your own reasons, but everybody is coming with a willingness to grow and a willingness to learn. And with that, you have a container that leads for potential transformation. At the very least, the knowledge of is going to be palpable. And so I'll be teaching once a month on their webinars on some of the most important, potent things that I think working from body to mind to connection and beyond. And of course, every other two weeks, there will be a Q&A that will go, which will just answer each and every one of your questions. A huge resource list of every book that I've ever read, the why behind it and where I think you should start, because a lot of times people get overwhelmed.

You get recommended two different books on sleep, two different books on health, whatever the thing is, where do you start? Well, that's an important piece. only you can answer, but I can help you with that. And through a little Q&A and active back and forth, you will have all the help necessary to launch yourself into the best direction you've ever been, from a health standpoint, from a mental standpoint, and from a life standpoint,

because life is about connection. It's about relationship and how I relate to myself as well as others. It's the name of the game. All right, please join us at the kingdom within. All you got to do is go to kingsboot.com, and you can sign up right there, and I look forward to seeing you guys.

You want to learn more. We'll link to it at the top page of the show notes, and now back to the podcast. I'm just picturing like you, your soul called you to like Dr. Strange. Totally. Get his training in, you know? Dude, it was, I mean, one day I'll tell you more, man.

But this, this, the things that I saw with, with this man, I, yeah, even now having been very fortunate to sit in some pretty rarefied circles, I still cannot believe. Like, it's, it was, and that's, and that's, unfortunately, I think what we're losing, right? Those, that occults, like that occults, there are masters around the world and all these different traditions, right? And, and they still exist.

But I think there's a good question on that. Is this guy not going to pass on his legacy because he has two daughters and no sons? Well, okay, it's more nuanced than that. It wasn't like, by the way, I don't want to paint a picture that he wasn't. Like, we traveled to India. His daughters went deep into dance and they were, they were still absolutely part of the tradition. I see.

But, you know, then I won't go too far afield. You know, there was a lot of existential forces, which we're seeing around the world now. His mother, for example, forbade him from dancing. Like, his father was the foremost, one of the foremost dancers in the country. And he had to teach himself dancing by watching his father teach other children. His mother actually burned. So the traditional scriptures in that tradition, like the traditional writing, was all these beautiful palm fraud manuscripts.

they would take from palm trees and they would handwrite. Like the monastic trist. You go to Tibet now, you know, and there's these ancient scriptures, right? She literally burned them because she was so entrenched in the colonial mindset. She wanted him to be a doctor or a lawyer. She wanted him to go into a Western verified, you know, something that would be appreciated by colonial society. She didn't want him to be, you know, in this Ayu Vedic, shamanic lineage. Yeah, she didn't think much of it.

Correct. So he had to, his, he was also a defiant. So his defiance was in spite of that resistance initiating in that path and then and going deep down. That's the soul's calling. I mean, you hear the same story with our Lakota elders. You hear it with people in the Amazon, you know, if you're fortunate enough to make it down there. And most of the people that I've worked with the Amazon come are generational healers. So it might skip a generation like this guy I met.

The youngest I've ever worked with is a guy named Leinard. He was only 25, but he started with tobacco at five years old. his parents weren't into it, but his grandmother was. And so, you know, grandmother, parents are out hunting doing their thing. And then grandmother saw that he had a knack for it. So she started working with him, tobacco. And the parents didn't squash it. But by 21, this guy was one of the best shaman in the world. To this day, I have, I, there are ayahuasca ceremonies that I've had, and there's a three with him. Like, the three with him were on just a whole different wavelength. And I mean that from the songs, to the instruments to like

what this guy could do. He had, never seen. He said as a gift, bring, so he was somewhat non-traditional for a Pouka-a-Capibo shaman in that he said, bring me every instrument you can. It's like, that was the deal. If you wanted to bring him a gift, bring it an instrument. And he played each of them at different times when he was called to in the three nights. He had only seen a drawing of a harmonica. And this dude on the harmonica made Billy Joel look like it was his first time. It was fucking unreal, dude. And you'd never, like you'd never think like, Monica during a ceremony. Trust me, like, it was perfect. It was flawless medicine. And that, and that just

came through him, you know, like he was such an incredible person, but he would say a lot of people that are younger, because I see this, dude, he's in Levi's and like a t-shirt. And I'm like, oh, you're dressing like us, man. Is that how it is? And he's like a lot of the young guys dress normal, you know, like he dressed like Westerners. And a lot of them want to leave the area and to get wealthy, you know, because there's no real wealth there unless you have, I don't know, it's kind of like fighters wanting to start a gym, but not having the money to start a gym. You know, the only people making money in the Amazon are the ones that have, like, retreat centers that are decked out for the most part are people like Elinara who get flown

around. But I could see that. I could see Chase Ironize has been on this podcast and been here to pour sweat for us. You know, his uncle was the main medicine man for the Lakota when JFK and Bobby Sr. were working with him on some different things from an environmental standpoint. And so when RFK ran for president, Chase tried to get him to come out, but he couldn't do it. He was too old. He said, I'm not going to come out, but you are, because Chase had followed, his nephew had followed. His son did not. His son decided to, you know, go to college and do something else. Chase got a degree as a law degree from a major university, and in addition to that, like, wanted to hold onto all the

medicine he could from his medicine people. So he's a unique blend of both. But yeah, more and more, the attraction of doing the way with the old and not really and the problem too with colonialism is one of the main problems is that you don't see

the reverence and the respect for those gifts that these people have right? You don't understand like that there's a medicine there that's far beyond anything allopathy can touch

it's far beyond I mean I would if anyone I had a serious cancer with the last place on earth that I'm going to fucking go to is some hospital figure that out

the last fucking place on earth I would I would take any shaman from around the world and test to see like where, where, you know, who has had success in this arena before. And, and I have seen people cure cancer. I have seen people that, you know, for the, for legit, nasty stage four stuff, come back and are perfectly cool. And it took them hard work.

It took them digging deep into themselves with the right practitioner, but they are free of it, you know. My buddy, Dr. Nathan Riley had the holistic OBGYA and he's a huge Steiner study and studying in antipasophic medicine. and he's also got his Western education and degree in his MD. He said the more he looks into it, the more convinced he is that there's no such thing as an only physical ailment

that everything is tied to the emotional body, the astral body, the atheric body, the spiritual body, whatever layers beyond our physicalness exist, that these are the originating points. Right, if we want to root something, it's not rooted in the body. It is expressing in the body

and we can take things to help, help with that expression and changing and healing, but ultimate healing that must come beyond the body. And so that to me really, really resonates in things of that nature. 100%. I mean, I just, this is a little, it's going to seem far afield, but I've just been going deep into oral health, right, which is like, no, I hear no one talking about. It's not a sexy topic, but lo and behold, realize that periodontal disease has profound consequence on our heart health, right? and incidents of heart attacks on brain health, you know, and also, you know, obviously our mouth, metaphorically, like the entry point from the outside world to the inside world.

It's in many ways our closest proximity to nature, right? Because it's how we put our food, our medicine into our bodies. It's also how we speak out our words to the world, right? And the last year, I'd say the thing that I've focused on the most is oral health. Dude, Weston A Price, you've heard of him? No. He wrote nutrition and degenerative disease. He was a dentist who went all over the planet in the 1930s.

And he studied indigenous cultures. You put his books right next to you. You would love that book. And so in reading, you know, Paul Checks, one of my mentors, he quotes him all throughout how to eat, move, and be healthy, shows pictures, you know, so these indigenous cultures who had not been introduced to modern food had perfect teeth. Yes. They didn't have a word for cancer.

They didn't have a word for heart disease. None of those things existed, right? They didn't have high cholesterol. None of that existed, right? They didn't need those names because they just didn't happen. And as soon as you introduced, you know, the four white devils, which were refined sugar refined table salt, pasteurized, homogenized milk, and refined

flour, that changed everything. Right? And how their teeth expressed, they're all health problems, right? Even in cats, they had a price did a thing with Francis Pottinger. You can look it up, it's called Pottinger's cats. And as soon as these guys go off raw meat and milk into homogenized

cook stuff and cook food, like they're within three generations. They can't see. They're blind. They have, you know, all their teeth fall out. Like, they're fucked. That's just with cats. Right? Because something is complex as a human, you know, like, how far can we go, you know, in wondering about our fertility?

How far can we go down this road before we catch it and see what the issues are here? But I think Price was on in this a long time. He's actually in the Price Institute, which is mostly about food and the medicine of nature and ancestral wisdom was birthed out of this guy's understanding of that. And he said it didn't matter if you, you know, you were an Inuit living on 80% fucking fat and maybe only had blueberries once a month in a whole year or a pygmy tribe that was 80% yams but then had grubs and different things and worms to get their protein different sizes different parts of the planet perfect health until you introduce the standard american diet

and that that the pictures don't lie i mean that's something that like will imprint in your mind seeing the importance of that and it was really cool that it was a dentist that exposed that but yeah i've been big and i've had a holistic biological dentist you know that i work with that have had on the podcast, even just get into like the breathing mechanics and things like that. So much of our American faces are distorted because we weren't given the right foods at a young age. We weren't taught how to hold our tongue to the roof of our mouth that like we wouldn't meditation, like sit properly.

And that affects your airway. It affects all sorts of shit. Absolutely. And there's cool workarounds for that, you know, but it's, you know, books like Breathe by James Nestor, James Nestor, Oxygen Advantage, Patrick McCown. God, who was the other one? The jaw was another one, I think they got into. like all this therapy that you can do or fall on a guy now that does like these own manual

presses into the roof of his mouth to try to space that and you can see his before and after in six months is wild dude how manipulatable that is dude you do jaw work i don't know if you ever done that's it'll make you cry like nothing else it is unbelievable yeah i i went to the human garage cats and did like an eight-week protocol the first one was was the jaw manipulation and they put the gloves on and went it went to work for like an hour i mean i mean tears just flow flow right under my eyes. I'm trying to keep it together and trying to breathe and just just running like waterworks turned on.

That's right. Unbelievable pain. Yeah, because you said, you know, the body keeps score and it does. And we are obviously spiritually, emotionally, all connected biologically. There is no separation, right? That's a great fallacy. There's a great text that I think you would love that it just came to mind, which is the jewel net of Indra.

And it's an ancient Yian Buddhist text. and it talks about the interdependence of all things and how the world is a cosmic web and at each node of the meeting is kind of a gem and that gem is the reflection of all things, right? So that notion of the microcosm is the macrocosm, which can be articulated in many ways in many traditions, is 100% the case.

And so whatever microcosm we choose to look at, like you said, like Sambour, see like the, you know, the generation of grandparents, perfect teeth, like you said, and now with the introduction, it shifted, right? Like, we can see, and that's the physical change we can see. The inquiry that I've been on even lately is looking at the social and sociological impacts, right? Because the piece that I saw, for example, in Sri Lanka, where you see in the Amazon, you know, I just hosted the No Kikoi. It was her first trip ever out of the Amazon. And I host, I hosted them in Venice.

And I remember them talking about homelessness, right? Which is wild because, you know, you travel to other places. Like I was just in Indonesia and Bali. There's no homeless. That concept doesn't exist, right? And in these traditional and tribal cultures, there was no homeless. Because, and that's what I learned in Sri Lanka, right? If one person's out of balance, the entire collective, the entire community is out of balance.

And so what the No Kekoi said that was so powerful, I remember asking him a question. Because obviously, you know, walk around Venice, you're seeing, we were there, we were there a few years back. You know, you're seeing people who were on methamphetamine, all kinds of, you know, mental illness, etc. And basically he was like, yeah, there's a lot of people here with their spirits moving outside of their body. And it was such a profound and simple but powerful articulation. And that's the piece now where it's like, I've been an inquiry around. like how do we how do we get back to re-appreciating and reconstituting the whole that is the collective that the whole that is our social health because just as we as individuals right it's it's our mind body and our spirit are all there's also then as you scale out right as you go in the jewel net then it's also our family unit right like so beautiful to see you and and your partner and your children right then you scale out then you're you're a farm the ecosystem that you're a part of right yeah yeah

And then, you know, the community. And we've had, we're in like the brave new world in that regard, right? Because since time and memorial, we've been a tribal culture, right? Like our well-being, our wellness has been oriented socially. And I think it's Terrence McKenna who had a quote that since 1992, our world has changed more than it did in the previous thousand years, right? But biologically we haven't, and psychologically, we haven't caught up to. that, right? Like, you get up in the morning and read the newspaper, all the, I mean, we won't go

into it, but all the, no matter what day you're listening to this, you know, all the crap that's happening around the world, right? And there's a lot of it. And it's deep, man, it's heavy. And we also don't have containers for grief, by the way. That's a whole other conversation, right? Like, traditionally, we had a place where grief could live and be born witness to. There's a fantastic book real quick on that from Martine Prectile. Yes. The smell of rain on dust. I've got it on my phone. Yeah. I just want people to have that resource because he,

Martine is like one of my greatest teachers from afar. Yes. They've never met the guy. I've done deep work with him. Dude, fucking, I know, I'm not surprised. Yeah. He is such a special human though. My favorite from him is, is the unlikely piece at Kuchama Keek.

Uh-huh. My boy turned me on to that one. Christian pity. Shout out to you, buddy. Unlike the piece of Kuchemakekeek, I've listened to multiple times. And it's a fucking, there's so many gems baked into that book that I grab something new each time. But his understanding on grief and how to work with it was why I brought him up was like in the smell of rain on dust. It's like to me it felt kind of elementary, you know,

and then I was like, well, why have everybody hyped about this book? It was like, oh, most people have been grieved. That's right. Most people have been coming to contact for that. And thankfully, the plants helped me to recognize like, oh, if I need to move something, I have to move it. I can't fucking constipate myself emotionally. I have to let that flow. Yes. Whether that sadness, anger, any of these things in a constructive way, right? Doesn't mean like, you did this to me like none of that shit but like like letting those emotions come up and feeling all of it not shooting them away not saying i'll deal with it later but actually dealing with it as it arises and letting that move and then it's like oh now the fucking rainbow comes yeah right there's the

light at the end of the tunnel but i had to go through that whole process to get to the end right and if we if we have forgotten as a culture to allow for that through through all kinds of conditioning men and women right but that but the importance of that cannot be overstated man it's so beautiful you bring that up because I actually saw I have that on on my phone I'm listening I've been listening to it the audio book and martin prechtel came to me during one of the most pivotal moments my dark night of soul ostensibly I had moved across the country with my girlfriend at the time we'd been together two and a half years without getting into the depth of the narrative moved like literally left everything my community talk about social I was I was performing capoeira I was I had like my

deep social bonds I was existed submitting in a gallery. I had a great job. My family was there. Left all that to be with this partner. Moved us across the world to a place I knew, or across the country, a place I knew no one. And within two weeks, she didn't come home for three nights. She basically was cheating on me. And that led me into this deep depth of darkness, right? Like, you look under my sink, the number of beer bottles, you know, like anything I could do to numb myself, basically. I did. And two things happened that were pivotal. One is my father saw what was happening. And grace of God took me through an initiatory weekend where...

How old were you when this happened? This was, I was probably 24. So I'd come back from... That was the other piece. I came back from Sri Lanka after having this incredible mind-bending experience. But like psychologically, it was like I had swam in the deep end. You know, it's like I was... And I didn't yet have the full...

You know, I had some tools. But I was still contending with, you know, like, it was like on one level I had been thrown into like the maximal, the maximal training, you know? And I'd say still in some ways I'm processing that. But in essence, that relationship was the grounding force. And then I lost that ground, right? And so my father, who had done early men's work actually did something called the New Warrior Training, which was based on the sort of mythopoetic men's move. which I highly recommend. I think now it's called the Mankind Project.

That would have been like guys like Robert Bly. That's right. That's right. That's right. And for me at the time, it was integral because it was exactly what we're talking about. So I did two things. I did some deep work with Martine Prechtel, so I did some ceremonial work with Martine. And he said to me, which I want to share on this podcast, because because you invoked it,

and I think it needs to be shared, he said to me, pain is the horse that beauty. rides. Pain is the horse that beauty rides. And for those who don't know, Martin went through, he literally bore witness to genocide. He lived in Guatemala. He was,

research his story, but he had gone through it. And the other thing he shared with me, which was super powerful, was he talked about sort of revolutionary work and the impetus to want to change systems, right, because he was also a deep activist.

He was a spiritualist, but he was also an activist. And he said, said to me, you know, before I wanted to confront the forces, you know, like, I don't know, the vision I have in my mind is like a Brock Lesterner just coming at, you know, like, all in like a guns ablaze and, you know, like, but he's like, and we had this notion of that's how we confront, you know, we go after the forces, the evil forces. He's like, now I want to be the grass that grows through the cracks in the concrete. And I was like, wow, you know, like, okay.

So he was given me little pieces that I've held to this day. And he said, that the shit in life, the things you're experiencing right now, if you process through the pain, if you ride that horse that beauty rides, that is the compost for the garden. That is the compost for the garden. And so my father, seeing what I was going through flew out in that context of that training. He was the only father there. And he, only father of men who were going through that initiatory weekend. And he paid to volunteer. tear to be there. The degree to which that inspired other men in the work was not to be

underestimated. And, you know, he grew up basically, you know, supporting, like, he had guys in his group who were in Vietnam and, like, witnessed, you know, grenades being thrown in their helicopter and watching eight of their best friends. I mean, like, talk about deep grief, you know, and, like, shame and some of the deepest emotions, right? And in that context, I finally had a container. I won't go into the specifics of what we did that weekend, but a conclusion.

but a container to confront that pain and be witnessed in the grief, you know, naked, like, exposed. And to do that work and having now witnessed, you know, been with the Cosa and South Africa, literally men covered in white powder about to be circumcised in the, in the Netherlands, you know, like by the, you know, the elders of the community to be shepherded into manhood, you know, being witnessed to other processes of individuation, I think one of the things that were so lacking, and we now either have the grace to find in ourselves, which I would argue you've done beautifully, you know, from my knowledge of you, from your confrontation and courage both externally in your courageous acts, but also internally in your courageous acts.

But if we don't have a community or a place where that's celebrated and borne witness to, I think what we find then is culturally and socially is we have a lot of man boys. We have all these like unindividuated men that are. And by the way, you know, this context of course exists for women as well, but I'm speaking in this personally that are lost, right? They're still in the hinterlands. They haven't been brought back, as I saw in Sri Lanka. They haven't been brought back through the gauntlet, by the way. Right.

Like being brought back is not a gentle process. You've got to, it's an existential reckoning. Like you've got to confront your greatest fears and potential death. But on the other side of that gauntlet, like you shared earlier, right, there is that rainbow. But in my experience, if you don't ride the horse, if you don't ride the pain, if you don't actually look at it, like square in the eyes and not existentially numb out, right? Not spiritually bypassed, not, you know, as I was doing at that time, you know, drinking or smoking or whatever. whatever it is, whatever your preferred numbing agent is, then you're stuck, right?

Your body keeps score. You're proverbially, so maybe that materializes as body ailments, overweight, you know, like you said, like metastasizes as a cancer. Socially, you've got discord in your life, right? Like in my view and what I learned from my teacher in Sri Lanka, right? He said basically that health is the rhythm of the heart. It's the heart rhythm, right? in all of our hearts, right, from the moment, from our mother, the first nine months, right,

all we know is the beating of the heart. That's the drum. That's the existential drum that we come into being with, right? And we're in the darkness, right? We're in the darkness. All we have is the beat of that heart. And the beauty of when, you know, ceremonial work like you're sharing, right? Like, you're reminded of that beat.

You're like brought back into that or deep lodge work, right? Like you're brought back into that womb, into that darkness. and you're reminded of who the fuck you truly are, right? All right, guys, quick break to tell you about lucy.com. Lucy offers 100% pure nicotine, as always tobacco-free. Lucy breakers are nicotine pouches with an extra surprise. Each pouch holds a capsule that can be broken up to release extra flavor and hydration. Set yourself up with a subscription and have Lucy delivered straight to your door.

My favorite Lucy product is the bangers is what I like to call them, The mint pouches. Throw that in. I like the 12 mig, but I started with four migs and worked my way up. Don't be a campus hero and bite off more than you can chew.

It feels like you've been on the merry-go-round too long, if you know what I'm saying? So just work your way up slowly over time. Nicotine is fantastic. It switches to bring on like very few other things can, and I absolutely love it. Lucy is the only lasting pouch that gives you long-lasting flavor

whenever you need it. Get 20% off your first order when you buy online with code KKP. And if you don't want to, want to wait, just head to Lucy.com slash stores to find Lucy near you and grab it today. And here comes the fine print. Lucy products are only for adults of legal age and every order is age verified. Warning, this product contains nicotine.

Nicotine is an addictive chemical. All right. It's addictive because it's awesome. It is fantastic. You will love it. I promise. Lucy.com. KKP at checkout.

Unless we're willing to courageously, you know, lodgework's not easy. Unless you're willing to courageously confront the things that are your greatest pain, then you're forever stuck in that stuckness, right? You haven't metabolized it, as Martine says, into that compost, right? It's still the shit that you're carrying on your shoes or wearing on your jacket or whatever. And so I share that to say, whatever you can do in my experience for those listening. And Martin Prect-Tel is a great research. source. I love that you brought up.

The other, two other books I would recommend of his that I love, Secrets of the Talking Jaguar. And there's a ancient Mayan text called the Disobedience of the Daughter of the Son. I've got that one too. That was awesome. It's so good. It's so good.

And he, at some point, he actually has like a mystery school called Bolod's Kitchen in New Mexico. If you, at some point you get a chance to do ritual work with him, I highly recommend it because to sort of bring this that that aspect so I did this deep men's work with my father and then I filed that up with four years of integration so for four years I got together

with five other men once a week and we witnessed each other in our deepest shame guilt grief and it was free the commitment was to each other and it from me it was a sea change like in the four that four year process that dark night of the soul lost boy Michael to, you know, that's when I want to getting a full ride to Columbia, move to New York, launch Global Citizen, you know, hosted all these incredible, you know, figures and world leaders, presidents, prime ministers. That would never have been feasible if that four-year arc of deep confrontation hadn't happened.

And Martine was a huge reason for that. But both in terms of intellectually, but spiritually, like, we actually literally create, created offerings, right? And there was a place where he talked about going to a place where the river meets the ocean, which for me is, and I imagine for many is a deeply sacred place. But I've had several of these synchronous experiences, and I'm sure you have as well, Kyle. But I remember going and placing my spirit house, this thing I had made through the course of the weekend that was made to live through my tears, right? It was an offering of all that I had let go and released and also all that I was stepping into.

And I went, it was in Northern California, in Mendocino. I went to this river as the sun was setting, and I placed this spirit house. And as soon as I placed it on the ground, I kid you not, Kyle, not a foot in front of me. A sea lion came up, poked its head up, looked at my house, gave me what I perceived to be a smile, but might have just been the expression on its face. But like kind of gave this kind of like popped up, witnessed, and and then went back through the river to the ocean. And I've had a few moments like that,

but you're like, wow, okay, when it, when it, when it, when it, when it, when it, when it, when it, when it, when it, when it, when it, when it, when it, when it, when it, when it, went it, when you get a God nod like that, um, it's, it's such a deep verification. of the presence of spirit and that you're held and that you're getting the nod like yeah you're doing it right you get the fucking thumbs up dude you're doing it like that that is that is uh it's incomprehensible to the non-believer right it's just a coincidental type thing but it's like there's no such thing as coincidence

you know you can tell me the timing of that with everything that fucking went into it you know and how many other times you've been in places like that where you didn't have a sea line pop its fucking head up right next to you you know like that just like it it happened at that exact time because it was that exact time that it was supposed to happen. 100%. There was one, I'll share this also with you because I think you'll appreciate it. There's a group that you were talking about Chase Iron Eyes and the sort of, which I have a deep,

I like when there's kind of the bridge, what I would call the bridges, right? They have deep training in Western culture, but they haven't, they're still deeply in reverence for their indigenous roots. He's a friend of mine who's Comanche. And I got in the mail in Eagle Feather. which is the most sacred, an invitation to the birthday, 50th birthday of the chairman of the Menominee people, which is actually where I come from from the Midwest, where I live in Chicago. That used to be Monominee land at his ranch in Sia, in a place called Sia in Cyril, Oklahoma.

And again, it was kind of a magical thing. I don't know why I was invited, but I was invited. And I showed up and had this incredible gathering. I mean, like, Wilma Man Killer was there. I think I might have conducted the last interview before she passed into the spirit world with her. And I was just volunteering, helping him out, doing some media stuff.

And at one point, I had no intention or, you know, like I wasn't there to do necessarily ceremony work. I was just there for what I perceived to be a birthday. And this man who holds the space in, at Sia, he's Comanche but he went to Cornell and he's a scientist so he literally chips

the plumage of all these birds and he single-handedly reintroduced the golden eagle into the Smoky Mountains he's an eagle whisper he breeds birds literally like Javier Bardem

and Penelope Cruz reached out to him to reintroduce the Spanish imperial maybe not reintroduced but strengthened the population in Spain so like he has

literally on property harpy eagle So he's a scientist. He literally has figured out how to breed birds and reintroduce them into their native ecosystems where they've been lost. He's also fought the government. He now is the repository for indigenous people to hold their feathers because some ceremonies were interrupted violently 100 years ago

and that ceremony needs to close. But it used to be the indigenous had to literally petition the U.S. government to get the plumage for the feathers necessary to complete that ceremony. Now, outside of Eagle Feathers, he holds the right to ship those feathers to whatever indigenous communities needs them. He also holds the medicine bundle of Kwanah Parker and holds the spiritual tradition. He's one of the guardians. And I knew a little bit of this, but I wasn't fully familiar. And there was a moment where I was creating some contents just to help them out, their nonprofit.

it and for whatever reason he had his bundle with him and the thing that I've slept under for many many years of my life I was gifted a dream catcher with three redtail feathers and I share that because I'm surrounded by these eagles and I was also given a golden eagle feather outside of Temescal in Mexico so like I'm again following these synchronous signs but I get step two with the medicine bundle and he just starts to stoke the smoke and he starts to bless me with the bundle

and I kid you not Kyle a wild redtail hawk flew five feet above my head as he approached me with the bundle and

again no entheogens it was not literally just a prayer and a blessing with the smoke. I couldn't talk for, at least now. I literally had to be walked to integrate. Like it was one of the deepest medicine experiences of my life,

and there was no exogenous substances consumed. Like this was solely blessing, prayer, and this man's medicine, you know, or his connection to the lineage. It was one of the most special experiences of my. my life. And it was so powerful because it was bearing witness to those who have, who have the wherewithal to know how to work in this world, but are still alive and well in the next, in the other worlds, you know, and bridging those two. And I think we need more of that. Yeah, masters. Yes. Masters of both. That's incredible. Yeah. Man, that's, it gives me chills.

You heard you say that. I just got my first redtail feather for starting the vision quest. here in the farm from my brother, Ken Conti, brought us, brought us something. So I got on my walking stick right behind you. We were talking about the red tail. Oh. Right up top there. Amazing. Yeah, that's, at least for me, that's a deep messenger.

Oh, yeah. You know, hummingbirds I'll see out here or from back to, like, certain places. When I see the red tail, I'm like, I take a pause. It's like a moment to pause and reflect on, like, what's wanting to be shared right now. Mm-hmm. Absolutely, brother. That's, that's incredibly, incredibly beautiful. Take it continuous on your journey with a, now I'm just popping.

I'm like, remember, you know, hummingbird stories and coming to talk to me when my son was born, just all sorts of fun, fun shit that people probably think I'm a psycho for, but it's like, it's no question, you know, when it happens, no question. Continuous on your journey, you know, like, and is this, and I want to lead to like the impetus of writing this and then talk about, let's talk about what this is all about. Okay, beautiful. So, this is the first time speaking. about it. So I've consolidated some of these stories and honestly it's been my best attempt at taking

the medicine of this first 40-something years of life and some of the extraordinary experiences and processing them, you know, kind of in the kitchen for the last five years and trying to cook something that would be nourishing, you know, for the people. And I wrote a book. It's called resonance, the art and science of human connection. And it's about the music that wants to live in the space between us and how we become instruments for that song. And that, what I just shared, for example, though it's not in the book, that story of the space being, you know, what happened with me with The Red Tail was the space between was, was respected, and it was danced with. And that, that, what happened was, what I call in the book, The Moore, was made

present. And the more is that existential possibility that I believe is possible at all times. Within each of us, but I think, and this is especially relevant in this day and age, but also in the medicine of us connecting, right, in the medicine of human connection and the collective. And what I've been gifted with is rare insight into these cultures and societies, which I know you have a huge shared reference for as well, wherein the integrity of the collective is still whole. And unfortunately, I think many of us, including myself in predominantly Western cultures, are now deeply lonely, you know, deeply, deeply lonely. And I've gone from moments of feeling profoundly connected to dark nights of the soul, you know, like really confronting

some heavy shit and feeling totally alone. And this is kind of a roadmap. You know, I think There's a lot of writing out there about why we're lonely. This is a how. And not like a prescriptive, like, do X, Y, Z. And for 10, 90, not like, it's not like that. It's using music as a metaphor to call you home. You know, it's, like, you talked about the harmonica. I know, I know, I know that song.

I've listened to it. And it's like, there's certain resonances. There's certain frequencies that speak to us. And so what I share is how we listen to the music, that wants to live through us and how we listen to the music between us to know which songs are meant for us and who is our band

right I'm now in your band I'm I come in your house and I'm embraced by your beautiful daughter greeted graciously by your beautiful son your incredible wife right you have which I deeply long to call into my own life but you've created this beautiful

family right and there that's that's your band that's and you have multiple bands but that's your band, right? There's also your symphony, right? Like there's, there, there are, how do you find the people that are, that are, that are, you know, I'll ground it for a moment. Think about the Beatles, right? Just because everyone knows the Beatles. John, Paul, Ring, they're all incredible musicians. They all had, like, you know, they all could have been incredible solo artists in their own right, George Harrison. They were. But somehow, the alchemy of their song together created something

more. And that more is the Beatles. And all of us have been. touched by it. And I think there's something undeniable, whether you're a Beatles fan or not. You think of the music that is most resonant to you. And when you're, I created a music festival, see 70,000 people, you know, all enraptured by an incredible artist, whether that be Coldplay or Beyonce, all deeply present in that moment is something you can't proximate, right? One of the beautiful things about music is it transcends all boundaries, right? It's like, we can, can all appreciate a good song. And with the Beatles, they created, they were listening, what I talked about in the book is they were listening. They were in the listening for the more, you know.

Miles Davis has a beautiful quote, which he says, music is what lives in the space between the notes. And in my belief, our people, the people that are meant for us, are the people that listen to our music. They're the people that are present for the space between our notes. and when we're when we synchronize like a great jazz musician we can improvise and create something beautiful

something more you know and it also depersonizes because I think the other thing that's not really talked about is some people aren't meant for us right like a lot of times

you know people are like oh that person doesn't like me I think now in the age of which we you know we can't we can go down that road but you know social me all the all the highlight reels all the proximate connection

the artificial sense of, which only furthers that sense of loneliness, there's this, there's a lot of noise, more noise than we've ever faced existentially as human beings, right? What resonance is about is finding signal, right? And holding to signal and not being distracted by the fray of the noise that's trying to throw you off your signal and finding the others. finding the others because it's it's literally physics and i actually break down just like we talked about the deep indigenous stories but also the research and the science right like and how they they come

together right coherence how we how our nervous systems i'm talking about breathwork how our nervous systems literally come into syncopation how they sink you know resonance in physics on a bridge if soldiers are actually lockstep on a concrete bridge and all marching in exact synchronicity they can actually break and collapse a concrete bridge, right? Like, that is an example of the more, right? Like, it's not just, it's not one plus one equals two. It's something exponential. And to me, a Beatles is a great example of that, right?

Because those four created something more than either one of them individually. And it's my belief in what I write about in the book. I think each of us, just like our fingerprint, has a unique song that wants to live through us. Not everyone gets to that song in this life, you know? It's like the saying, you know, everyone dies, but not everyone really lives. And so what I dedicated the book to was how can you as an individual realize that fingerprint, that song that is uniquely your own, and how can you sing it such that the symphony that is

meant to support you beautifully can find you and that you can find your people, the people that truly see you, the people that truly appreciate you, the people that like Miles talks about can listen to your notes, but also the space between and find ways to dance beautifully with those notes, you know, and to create something together that is more. And I know I'm speaking kind of musically or mythologically, but what I then go into is sort of the micro to the macro. So how does one first tune their own instrument individually? And then from a place of tuning individually, how can we then slowly move out? How can we start our band? You know, how can we, from a band, how can we move into family relationships, work relationship?

So, and to the point of symphony, like, what is our unique contribution? What is our, and it goes into purpose, right? Like that idea of how do we step into that thing that is the more that wants to live through us, right? Stephen Presfield, Elizabeth Gilbert. Presfield, actually, who doesn't even read other people's work, read it. I was shit, to be honest, shitting myself. He agreed to read. And he, so he's the, he actually, he said it was outstanding.

He said I wouldn't change a word. And that's my favorite, he said, it's, yeah, it's my favorite living author on the planet. So that to me was like, okay, I can share it now. But yeah, but basically it's, it uses the metaphor of music as a way to help you sing your unique song. That is absolutely incredible. I mean, I'm juiced to get, my hands on a coffee. They're coming off of printer, my brother. It's going to launch May 5th, and of course, it can link to it,

but you can find resonance. It's on Amazon, on Barnes & Noble, whatever, but I'll get you on for sure. Thank you, brother. And I'll happily buy some to support because that's, you get you, and then I can make a review. Please. Help, help you help you in the game. Dude, so much what you've covered is stuff that's resonated with me over the years and thinking how I think about kind of the larger game at play, you know, coaching and

fit for service, it was almost always like, hey, you're the most physically fit of all of us. you know the most on the body, you're going to teach this shit, you know, and that's where that'll be your corner. And I got to teach plenty of other things and the things that I'm drawn to are far beyond the body, right? They're the conversations that we're having. They're, the exploration of consciousness, the exploration of indigenous wisdom and practices. And how do those practices help us make communion with God and make communion with nature on a regular basis so that, you know, the I self is expanded in a different way. The I self can relate in a different way. but to your point, you know, I've always said the body is a tuning fork.

Yep. And until you're tuned correctly, you will not interface with the external in a way you want. Right. I mean, same thing, different language had a buddy Mark England on who's an MLP guy and he was just saying that, you know, in the NLP, anyone who perpetuates the idea of being wronged will remain the victim. Their life will continue, through the law of attraction or whatever you want to call that, continue to bring them back up against victimhood by giving them new reasons to be a victim still, right, until they transcend that and move beyond it, right?

I've talked about this before, but like, you know, everyone knows the story of, you know, a woman who dates guy after guy who's the same guy, different avatar, always abusive, you know, and it's only when she changes herself, does she transcend that and then doesn't have that experience again? She doesn't fix those guys, right? she fixes herself and it's not that she had a problem like right i'm gonna be honest like it wasn't her fault for getting any of the shit that happened but as soon as she levels up that doesn't that that's no longer a part of her experience yeah right and again that just goes back to like what is ours versus

what is theirs if it's happening to me i've called it in and if i take that level of responsibility for it then i'm not a victim i have the power to change it yes right i have to power to change it through working on changing me and then in that of changing me i have the ability to create new new experience in my life that is more in alignment with what my thinking mind would say that's what I want to have right yep um and and and that goes into manifestation and all the stuff too on in terms of like wanting something versus believing it as if it is already there and uh you know taking that in like when you change your what what that actually means is I'm changing who I am internally I'm changing my frequency at two to abundance or to happy I'm changing my frequency to being fulfilled in relationship

even if I don't have the relationship yet, because then from that place I call in the partner who mirrors that and says, oh, yeah, you're my person and I'm your person, right? And ask me how I know that. You know, that was one of the biggest pieces going through Despenza's work was calling in my amazing wife. Yes. And, man, perfect medicine for me.

We've grown so much together. Oh, I bet. There is so much together in 14 years. Fucking wild. But yeah, you know, I think about like the heart coherent. from heart math and, you know, Bucchenko breathing, you know, it's equal parts in, equal parts out, we'll raise HRV. And you're like, well, what's HR?

Well, fuck HRV. That raises heart coherence, right? That means that field is going to open. That's it. It's going to expand. And when I'm around people and I want to have this nice expanded field, it's going to interact and engage and bring up other people to have that open, expanded heart field. That's it.

Right? And that's something that's such a cool thing to think about. Last podcast I was talking a bit about, is it Veda Austin? The water stride? The waterway. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. You know, Alex Zek turned me on to her work and I was just blown away.

But we talked about, you know, the photographing of frozen waters, nothing new, right? That comes out of Japan. But what she was doing is she was taking that to living things. Like you can freeze egg white, right? And so as a farmer here with eggs, and I just told this story. So apologizing for bringing it up again. But she found, you know, an egg factory farmed egg that had never seen real sun and photographed that after four hours, the egg white.

Then she found like a pasture raised happy hand. She got that egg and she showed that and they were completely different, no different than the original photos of water where the waters hated or the waters loved, right? That level of difference between the indoor egg versus the pasture raised outdoor egg. What's cool is she takes the one egg that is of the higher frequency and puts it next to the other egg overnight. And then in the morning, both of them have now raised their frequency. And she sees how far can this go? She puts the one pasture-raised egg in the middle

and 12 factory farm digs on the outside. And the next morning, all 12 on the outside are as good as the interior. And the interior is actually improved because of the feedback of helping everything around itself. It has improved itself even better. That's right. And like, that's the fucking game, dude.

Zach told me that. I was like, damn, dude. That is the game we're in. It is the game we're in. And, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of things there. Like when you, it resonated to when you talk about like, some people aren't your people. And Paul Selig would say, like, we're totally allowed to have preference, you know, let go of judgment, but absolutely have preference, right?

That's a part of our personality. It's a part of what we're drawn to naturally. There's nothing wrong with that. Totally. And as Selig said, anyone you hold in the dark, a part of you must stay there holding them in the darkness, right? If I condemn somebody, if I won't forgive somebody, if I say like, that guy is X, Y, and Z, and it's dark, part of my consciousness remains.

in the cave holding their hand there. Right? And so like forgiveness is about me more than it's about letting someone off the hook. It's about relieving me of holding someone in the dark. You know, so many of these things kind of thread together when you think of the game being played and heart coherence and still having a choice in the matter of what we prefer and what we wish to call in, but also, you know, what resonates with us? What is what is playing on that, you know, handpants? Like who's got two C note handpants, right? Can't play an A and a D, right? We got them, we need, they need a match if we're going to play together. It's like that makes sense too, even from a sound perspective. I'm just stoked, dude. There's so many points you brought up there. I was like, oh, this is

fucking right in the life. This is awesome. This is awesome. Yeah, I think what you just, I mean, you nailed it on so many different. I mean, talk about cymatics, right? Like, with the notion of frequency and that being visualized in water, which is, which is life force. But yes, absolutely, across all biological. Now the research, which I talk about in the book, but like the research around coherence is profound, right? Like, we know we've heard the research, right? Like, the equivalent, loneliness is the equivalent of basically smoking 15 cigarettes a day, like health-wise.

Like, there are profound consequences to our loneliness. And unfortunately, we're living, I think, you know, not to get into whatever we just went through, but I think the true pandemic that we're living through is this epidemic of loneliness, right? I think people feeling surrounded, more connected, like, theoretically, like in terms of social media than ever before, but actually more disconnected than we've ever been ever in the history of humanity. And of course, there are, you know, there's great resources now, especially around biological aspects, you know, Huberman to on down, you know, in terms of things we can do.

And there's still an assaults, obviously, which we could talk about on our biology, but there are things we know to do to preserve to, you know, I don't love the word biohack, but to to, hack our biology such that we can be resilient. What I don't think. people are talking about enough and I hope resonance is the medicine for is how do we socially approach that dis-ease. And that's what I saw with my teacher in Sri Lanka. That's what I've seen, you know, in terms of the success of global citizen and how we were able to create a collective and witnessed across all these wisdom traditions, right? Is what are the ways that, I mean, you look at any, and I know you and I share a deep reverence for, you know, authentic ceremony.

you look at any ceremony what is the heartbeat of that ceremony it's the music you know and it's it's it's it's again bringing it back to what my my teacher shared and also you know what we go back biologically right our connection fundamental connection the first nine months of our life is with our mother in the womb and it is it is guided by that heartbeat right and and what I realized was in the dis-ease of the mental illnesses the the loneliness that is also part of, unfortunately, our modern society, we've got to find our way back to that rhythm, to that music, right? To that, to that heartbeat that brings us together and recognize also what, what is, and I think that's the other piece, right, the discernment, like you said, beautifully, right? Like some people are, are not going to be in resonance.

Sometimes you're going to hit dissonance, right? Like, and how do we act? But how do we like Martine Prechtel shared with me, how do we turn the dissonance into resonance? How do we, like you said, how do we not stay holding someone in the dark, but actually move into, as a ceremony does, move into the light of the morning and actually be back in the grace of our song? And I think that's the piece, right, is how can we not just see ourselves as islands, but see how we exist with the entire geography around us and be, you know, I'm mixing metaphors now, but we're at your beautiful farm, right? One of the things I loved was the phase of my life where I studied permaculture and Bill

Mullison and closed loop systems, right? The corn, beans, and squash and how when we're in right relationship, when we're in the places, I mean, even just being here, man, like my nervous system, I mean, if I actually think about it, like I woke up, I feel, I feel exponentially better. One, connecting with you, just, I think connecting with true friends. two, connecting with two friends, true friends in nature, right? Like, that's one of the principles I talk about in the book, too, is where are the places where you can find your center?

Because it's only from our center that we really truly can hear that which is meant for us, right? And I myself have lost my center on multiple occasions, you know? But like, I know for me, exactly this. Connect with the real ones. Connect with the people who, like, you feel seeing, heard, loved, appreciated, like people like you. also you're so which I want to just acknowledge you you're such a yeah you're a big fucking dude but you're also such a your heart is so huge you know you you're you're super smart but you but what i love about you if someone asked me one word to describe calc kingsborough i'd say heart because you've got

such a big heart for the world you know my father had that and and it's why i had such a deep deep deep deep deep deep love for him right it's like people would just light up around him like he was just like kids, animals, like they just, he had resonance. He was carrying that signal. And, and he showed up from me when I was out of tune, you know, when I was in, when I was in dissonance, and he reminded me of the music. And that's the thing that true people do. That, I call them the true people, you know, it's like, and the true, I don't love the war, healer, shaman, it's now been so ubiquitized, but I call them true people. The true people remind us of the rhythm, right, of our mother's heart. They remind us of who we are.

and where we can meet, where we can find the others. You know, where does that song live powerfully? And so, yeah, my hope is that the words shared will remind people of where their rhythm lives and who are the people around them that carry that song. Yeah, beautiful, brother. Dude, it's been so great, catch that. Likewise, dude. Well, we'll link in the show notes to websites, all that fun stuff.

and what are you doing now? You moved here? What's the deal here? Keeping a real talk, dude. I just booked the tickets to Mexico just because I shared with you. And this is a powerful, like, pragmatic thing. And not having anything to do, I love Austin. But this last month has kicked my butt because I, until now, I may have the antidote in terms of,

but this Cedar, I've never been allergic to anything. And I was, I was, dude, I was feverish. I was, I could not talk about HRV. Yeah. My HRV in, I was in Bali last month, was. 60 something. My HRV has been under 20. Yeah, let's break this down real quick. It's like a closing gift for everybody that comes here. Because I don't mind. Like, there's a lot of people that have come to Austin and it's like, yeah, it's, the allergies kill you.

You should really leave and head back home. But people like you that I love and I want here for the first people that I love and want to stay. Dr. Will Tagle actually turned me on to this. And it makes perfect sense if you've worked with plants and with respect and reverence in different ways. You're just like, oh, of course. But I needed to hear it from them. Basically, you have. male plants and female plants female junipers you can take a berry if it's easy enough to just pull out without effort if it's stuck on there don't yank it off if it's ready to pop off in your hand that's a berry you can suck on don't need to swallow it put it in there talk to the plant introduce yourself to the plant and see you know you want to stay here for a while you'd like to do good things here in this place may have permission to be here as for permission uh with the male plant which has a

shit ton of pollen don't pull off the tree green stuff brown brown piece of will fall to the ground plenty of times a year. You pick up something brown off the ground. You light it like you would sage and you just run that through your oric field. You run it around your body, under your palms, your armpit, basically like you'd sage yourself. And then holding it, you know, down here at the Don Tian, praying and speaking to that master plan as well, saying, my name is Kyle Kingsbury. My name is Michael trainer. I'm here now living this wonderful place. You are the master teacher here. Will you allow me to be able to work with you? Will you allow me to be able to not have these allergies so I can remain here and do good good good work that I need to have that I'm here for whatever that

prayer looks like just that communication line and the the opening of intention and the in the respect that you have for that plant once that is received it is like we don't have cedar allergies at all we don't we don't my son my son got it real bad both of us grown you know born and raised in california um my wife even too it took her a little longer took her like a whole year of working with it, but eventually there's no cedar problems for any of us. You know, and my daughter was born here, but no cedar problems. So, you know, it's a, it's a cool thing to think about. You'd be like, oh, yeah, you could have cedar tea.

It doesn't kick your ass when we're in ceremony burning cedar in the lodge, but. Definitely not. It's actually one of the most healing things around. Right. But at the same time, you know, this time of year is a different, it's a different thing. And for outsiders, like, it will fuck you up, dude. It's a whole, I mean, I know people that were born and raised here or lived here, their whole lives that always leave for the winter,

excuse me, just because of that, instead of working with the plant. But I'd rather work with the plant and have that done. I just didn't have access, and I'm so grateful you shared it, right? Because that makes total sense to me, right? Like, I even saw just on another level, not necessarily a biological level, but just being in Indonesia, one of the things I loved about being in Bali, you know, without making a huge story, but the authentic embodied spirituality of the

Balinese people, right? They're making offerings every morning, you know? like they're, you know, they're, they're using the flowers with the water. They're invoking the elements. And in my own belief, yeah, exactly that, right? When you're in a place, and I do my own offerings, but, you know, make offerings to the place, to the, you know, we are inhabiting the land. We are ideally just guardians, you know, shepherding on other, other people's land. Caretakers. Oh, caretakers, exactly. Other people, other beings, et cetera. So, so to do so with reverence. But unfortunately, as we shared earlier, I mean, I would have loved to have grown up in an herbalist-oriented culture.

There's a school I actually just got tuned into called The School of the Sacred Wilde, which I'm going to go check out. But yeah, I wish there's so much wisdom. I wish I had known, like what you just shared is so profound. I'm sure there's natural antidotes to any dis-ease. 100%. You know? 100%. There is no question.

You were with an Amazonian elder You walk through They don't see just You know It's like they're seeing You know Think about like Even just like

How did the Chakuna How did they The level of depth of wisdom To know which plant Alchemizes with which plant To just date which result How we're in right relationship In reverence

That is That is the goal we should all have Yeah that well And that's it's the possibility right I think for you to have Your experience In Sri Yalan must have just mind-fucked your brain in a way where you were like,

holy shit, this is possible. Yeah. Right. And because you saw what was possible, it changed what you could expect from the world, right? It changed what you could experience in the world. And I think for a lot of people that are so like, they're certainly not listening to this podcast, but a lot of people would say, ah, that's bullshit. You know, smudge yourself with this freaking plant.

It's not going to do anything, right? And it's like, but to have experienced it already, right? On the other side of that, then you understand to have had to talk with plants on plant medicine. That is another way. Like, I recognize your word conscious. I can't talk to these vines right now and hear words coming back to me, but I can still talk to these vines right now and know they're listening to every word that I'm saying, right? I know they do have something to tell me, and I can still tune into them to feel into that. Anyhow, the world is, you know, possibility has changed. I think that's one of the best pieces that I've gotten from my medicine journeys is just

seeing what's possible having that so expanded and, you know, really recognizing, you know, when they say, ahoh, you know, Mataku Yasin, all my relations, it is all my relations, everything I'm related to.

It's not all my relatives that have Kingsbury or Whitrock or whatever the last names my family's carried. It's like all, everything I'm related to. The ground I'm on,

the air that I breathe, every tree and plant that I bring into this house, all of it, all relatives. You know, like, what does that relationship look like?

And so I love the fact that you're diving into this stuff in residence, brother. It's going to be fucking awesome. I can't wait to read it. Thank you, my man.

It's such an honor to be here. And yeah, I think just to close it out, what you just said in All My Relations, it's like if we actually, like we've actually won the lottery, you know, like I think what I get a lot of times, what I'm gifted with when I'm really listening is that, you know, I don't like the word personally awakening, but I like the idea of remembering, right? Like what the indigenous, which I have such deep reverence for hold in that All My Relations, right, is they remember that jewel net, that interdependence, that interconnection. that we have with each other, but also with all that is. And I think a lot of the ills that we face are because we've forgotten. But my hope with the book is that it's an offering to help us remember. Beautiful, brother. Thank you so much, Michael.

Thank you, brother. Always a pleasure.