Rev Left Radio - Mind & Nature: Meditation, Psychedelics, and Eco-Grief

Episode Date: February 18, 2020

Mexie (@mexieYT) from Vegan Vanguard joins Breht to have a wide-ranging and deep discussion on Nature, Meditation, Psychedelics, Dialectics, and much, much more! Find Mexie's YT channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/Mexie Find the Vegan Vanguard podcast here: https://veganvanguardpodcast.com/ Outro music 'Crow' by Mount Eerie Find his music here: https://pwelverumandsun.bandcamp.com/album/a-crow-looked-at-me ------- LEARN MORE ABOUT REV LEFT RADIO: www.revolutionaryleftradio.com SUPPORT REV LEFT RADIO: www.patreon.com/revleftradio Our logo was made by BARB, a communist graphic design collective: @Barbaradical Intro music by DJ Captain Planet. --------------- This podcast is affiliated with: The Nebraska Left Coalition, Omaha Tenants United, FORGE, Socialist Rifle Association (SRA), Feed The People - Omaha, and the Marxist Center.

Hello everybody and welcome back to Revolutionary Left Radio. On today's episode, we have quite a treat for you. It's one of my personal favorite conversations I've had in a long time. It is a very long conversation, but it's absolutely worth it. We cover so much. I have on Mexie from YouTube and from Vegan Vanguard to talk about a wide range of things, from the great outdoors, activities, hiking, camping, to meditation, psychedelics, et cetera.

It's a wonderful conversation. I'm really happy to share it. It's a little different than what we usually do, but I think it's different in the best way possible, a really unique conversation that touches on things that often get neglected, I think, on the left. And since I've done previous episodes on my winter camping trips and on meditation, people really respond well.

They really want to hear this sort of content. And after a few episodes where we really got into some very heady stuff with psychoanalysis and Marxist philosophy, This episode sort of brings us back down to earth and is something that all people can listen to and engage with and understanding and hopefully get a lot out of. This will be released on both our podcast as well as on Vegan Vanguard, so you can share or listen to the episode on either platform. And we hope you really enjoy it. So without further ado, let's get into this conversation on a wide range of topics with the wonderful Mexie from Vegan Vanguard. Enjoy.

Hi, I'm Maxi. I have a PhD in geography. I basically look at political economy and environmental issues and teach about that in Toronto. I have a YouTube channel called Mexie, M-E-X-M-E-X-I-E, where I discuss politics and just everything related to what I call Total Liberation. and I have a podcast also that I co-host with the amazing Marine from A Privileged Vegan. And once again, it's called Vegan Vanguard, but we talk mostly about, you know, politics and everything to do with human liberation and animal liberation. Yeah, absolutely. I love your YouTube channel. I've been listening to a lot of Vegan Vanguard episodes, partially in prep for this episode, but partially because there's so many wonderful topics that you all cover. And so I'll plug all of that in the show notes and people can go check you out. if they don't already know who you are, but you've been on Rev Left before. People that are really into the media left have probably almost certainly come across to you in

one form or another. So I think people are pretty much familiar. But if not, definitely go check out Mexie and her work. It's amazing. Thank you. For sure. And this will be, and I think we'll say this in the intro, but this will be released on both of our platforms as well. So make it easier for both our audiences to engage with this discussion because, you know, it's a pretty unique discussion. I recently put out an episode talking about all my interests and outdoor stuff. and me sort of wondering how I could fit it into a left-wing discussion. And as I was thinking through the possibilities, you know, obviously your name came to mind and I was like, that would be the perfect guest.

And then I just sort of went from there. And then we figured out a bunch of different ways to just talk about being a human being. And I think that's applicable to being on the left, right? We don't have to shoehorn stuff into the left. I think we're just human beings and talking about this stuff naturally informs our politics, you know. Yeah, absolutely. I'm honestly so thrilled to be able to talk about all this. with you. And I'm so thrilled that this might sound weird, but I'm so thrilled to have someone who

identifies as a man talking about this. Because all the stuff we're going to get into, I think it's so great. I love that you did an episode with Michael Brooks on meditation and Marxism and kind of this, kind of the immaterial stuff, right? I feel like as a woman, when I try to talk about this kind of stuff in leftist spaces, you know, I get a lot of pushback about, you know, it's just about the materialism and this is all new agey crap this is useless this is frivolous this is uh you know this is whatever um but i always just think you know if you're especially if you're a marxist right like how can you talk about the base without the superstructure right like like all of this stuff informs the world that we're living in and it doesn't make sense to talk about one

without the other right it's not to say that one it's not to say that the material conditions don't matter, but that there's so much more to being a human and there's so much more that goes into building the world that we live in that, that it doesn't make sense not to talk about it, right? And I don't think we should talk about it as if there's something, there's one of more importance or one of lesser importance, right? It's really just that you can't talk about these things separately or you can't have transformation and kind of like the superstructure without transformation in the base as well, right? Does that make sense? Absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, I always say the opposite of dogma.

is dialectics, and there is a dialectical relationship between the objective material world and the subjective internal world. And so to dismiss one or try to cut that duality in half and throw away one side of it is, you know, at the very least, anti-dialectical. So that'd be my Marxist response. Yes, yes. Thank you. Yeah. Well, yeah, let's just go ahead and dive into it. We're going to cover a lot of interesting stuff, I think, today. So let's just start talking maybe about our experiences outdoors, what kind of basically activities and whatnot. So what kind of activities do you personally engage in when you're in the outdoors? And how did you initially get into these activities? Oh my goodness. Well, I grew up really kind of in the outdoors. Like I grew up

camping and hiking and all the rest. My parents, my parents' best friends have two kids and I have a sibling as well. Um, and, um, one of their kids, um, has a disability. And so, uh, it was, you know, we didn't really do a lot of, um, trips. I mean, we, we, we did, but we, you know, we did things like camping. Um, yeah, just, just getting outdoors, um, because that's something that was, A, affordable and, and B, it was more accessible, I guess, to, to all of us. Um, so, yeah, I really would spend my summers just kind of in the woods all the time. This family that I'm talking about that we did all of this with, they ended up buying like a small piece of property way, way up in the boonies. And they didn't have enough money to build a house on it or anything. So we just

built like a very small like shack, basically. And we would just go up and stay there or just camp there. So yeah, I've just done it. I guess. since I was young and I really just fell in love with it and I've always been kind of a I guess an environmentalist at heart but really it's just I've always felt that really deep connection to nature or the universe or whatever it is that you want to call it just kind of that connection to that like life force so then in my uh in my like master's and PhD work um I I I look at conservation. So I was lucky enough to be able to do some research in Thailand and national parks in the north, kind of just way in the middle of just the forest up there. And that was

really an amazing experience. And then I also did work in Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada, which was also amazing. So I guess what I like to do most is like hiking, camping, canoeing, kayaking, all the rest. You know, I like doing backcountry stuff and I used to do it a bit more, but I think now, yeah, I mean, the first thing that it says on my Patreon is that I have chronic illness and I have way too many jobs. So like now, you know, if I can just find a weekend and just go up north to like just a campground, like a front country campground or something like that or even to a cabin or something, I just, yeah, that's what I like to do for sure the most. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, you know, I got into it really, I mean, as a kid, my stepdad was sort of a fisher and a hunter

and I would go on like a hunting trip or a fishing trip, but that sort of fizzled out as he got a little older and I entered my, my early teens, you know, that kind of stopped. And so, you know, really through my teens, I really wasn't looking to outdoor stuff. I was more interested in like girls and partying and drugs and stuff so that stuff sort of fell to the wayside um but at the end of my teens i i had a depressive episode i was hospitalized for it my dad was living in montana at the time and when i got out of the hospital after a week of in-house depression treatment um my dad was convinced that i needed a change of environment and get away from some of the you know the drugs and the and the circles i was running in at that time to sort of you know find my anchor again and so

going up to Montana, having only really lived in Nebraska, never being, you know, rich enough to travel. I got to see sort of a whole new eco landscape. I got to see mountains. I got to camp in the mountains, you know. I got to just, I was with a girl up there whose family owned a bunch of medicine horses. And I got to engage with them. I had my own medicine horse called Shaman for a while. Wow. Yeah, it was really cool. And I came back after about nine months, came back to Omaha, reintegrated into my regular life. But that sort of not. nine-month experience in Montana instilled in me not only my love for meditation, which I've talked about before, but also the love for the outdoors. And I came back, a lot of my buddies from

high school where they got into camping together. Originally, it was really just going out in the winter, throwing up a tent, getting drunk, having fun, just letting loose, you know, in the woods when nobody else was around. But as I got older, you know, that transformed into me started taking camping trips alone and then really recently I've gotten into backpacking and fishing ice fishing specifically but I'm going to do a lot of summer fishing as well and so these things are are building up I want to get eventually into into kayaking canoeing as you said I've never done that and it looks absolutely fascinating and it's a great thing to combine with camping and backpacking and fishing right it's sort of all these things go together and they sort of pile up and you can have a really

amazing experience when you combine all these activities. And so I'm constantly looking for ways to develop new interests, but importantly new skill sets in the outdoors so that I can have a well-rounded, wide-ranging ability to be out in the backcountry, in the wilderness, and survive, but not only just survive, but to thrive and have fun and engage with nature, you know. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's where I'm at, too. I really want to learn more, I guess, skill sets and be able to, I really want to work on, like, identifying plants and medicines and different things a lot better and get, get to know more of kind of the, you know, the indigenous area that I'm in right now, right? So, yeah. Yeah, I'm really interested in learning about the flora and fauna and then studying the indigenous people that are originally from this area and learning how they lived on like, you know, like on the Platte River, this river that's huge in my life, you know, the Missouri River on

the banks of these two rivers where they meet is kind of where I live. And, you know, there's a long indigenous history of, you know, indigenous people inhabiting this place and living in balance with it. And, you know, Nebraska right now is obviously heavy agriculture. So these lands are really, you know, in some sense, destroyed to grow corn for feeding cows and factory farms, you know. And it's sort of sad to see that. Yeah, I mean, yeah, of course.

It's terrible. Yeah. Let's talk about specific experiences or maybe like personal anecdotes regarding your trips into the wilderness. I think people find this interesting and can relate to it when we really get into the details of maybe specific experiences that we've had in the wilderness. So you can take that question in any direction you want. Yeah.

This is probably like one of the hardest questions that I was preparing for because I was like, oh my gosh, like I could take this in so many different ways. I could talk about, I could talk about all the dicey moments I've had, you know, like running into animals or like canoeing trying to get out of my campsite and canoeing through, you know, horrible thunderstorms or, you know, hiking. alone and that kind of stuff. But, I mean, it's interesting that you brought up kind of your depressive episode because I think for me, I mean, yeah, I wouldn't even know where to start necessarily for specific experiences, but I think I can talk a bit about, like, the most memorable

kinds of experiences for me. And so I also, like, I was always like a really depressed kid. with, like, suicidal ideation and all of that stuff, um, struggled with a very serious eating disorder, uh, which actually contributed greatly to my chronic illness. Um, just struggled with, uh, you know, I guess I know you're also into Buddhist philosophy. So when I say grasping, kind of like grasping at, at everything, grasping at life and that kind of thing. Um, and from a really, early age, like, I hated the system, but I didn't have a language for it, right? Um, um, and, I hated the thought of working for a company. I hated, you know, I just, I looked around and I thought, God, you know, all we have to do is actually just grow food and share it and then and build shelter for one another and take care of one another.

Like, that's all we have to do. So what, what is all this? Like, what's going on? And it's destroying the earth. It's destroying everything. So for me, even when I was a kid, like being in the, in the woods. like when I was younger, me and this guy that's in like this family friend I was talking about, we would just like take compasses out and we would just go walk into the woods and we were just

pretend that we lived there, you know, like I would just pretend that I would just imagine myself just staying and living in a tree and just not going back. And I think that for me, even now, like when I go off into the woods, it like, it does. does kind of feel like this place that is, you know, I guess a bit of an escape from like wage servitude, but it just kind of represents kind of like the freedom from that, right? It's like a place where wage servitude and this whole kind of capitalist system that we have, like it's where that can't really touch you, you know what I mean? And I haven't actually read this book, but I really want to.

Adrienne Marie Brown just wrote a book on pleasure activism. And I've heard her speak about it a lot. And I think it is really, really important that we have these kind of spaces and these connections and these feelings and these moments that, you know, we're not free, right? Like, we're all shackled by wage servitude. We're all, you know, part of this really violent, repressive state. but that, you know, we can still find connection to things that are bigger than ourselves and we can still find pleasure and kind of states of freedom within ourselves kind of, even though we're still part of this bigger system that's like not free, right?

I think that's really, really important for us to do, to not only like know what we are fighting for, but to also know that like there are places where like they can't they can't touch us right um so for me like a lot of my most memorable experiences in the woods all really revolve around healing um and i know we're gonna talk later about like meditation and psychedelics and all of that stuff but for for me like that's all really kind of combined right um so yeah kind of going back to the like depressive uh situation um it really became really transformative for me when I started to going out, going out into the woods alone. And for me, that was after a breakup with my ex-fiancee, which was several, several years ago. But yeah, at the time, I was just in a really, really dark place. And I had already been, I had already gotten into like Buddhist philosophy and meditation and things like that. but um and i don't know if this is how you feel about it for but for me uh i feel like even though i've been into that stuff for so long it's like it's one thing to read it um and to think that

you know what the wisdom is that you're soaking up and then it's another thing to like i'll like i'll read stuff um about you know ego and selflessness and fearlessness and um kind of being present in the moment and like how transformative that can be for you and you think that you understand it or you think you understand this idea of voidness or whatever. But then the more that you practices, I guess the more that it kind of comes true for you or comes alive for you. And so, yeah, for me, after that happened, I just, I had so many amazing experiences just going out in the woods by myself and staying there for days, totally alone, not talking to anybody else, just deeply, deeply connecting to what I call the universe.

And I recognize that it's really hard to talk about a lot of this stuff because a lot of it is, you know, it's like an experience that you have to have. It's not necessarily something that you'll understand if I just say the universe or like the source or, you know what I mean? But yeah, I think those moments were really, really transformative for me and really help me to be a better person in terms of kind of working through my own trauma so that like I can show up in the world in a way that's a lot more productive and loving and, you know, in a way that I'm communicating with others and

relating to others and just a more productive way. But also in terms of like my politics and my activism to know, you know, like this is what I'm fighting for kind of thing. Um, so yeah, so I don't, I don't know, I don't even know, like, the most memorable experiences, but, um, there are too many, yeah, there, there are too many, but I think just, yeah, I think that's just, like, kind of what it means to me. Um, and, like, even though I've had so many amazing experiences, like, all throughout my life. And I've been in some really amazing places, um, and done some really amazing hikes kind of globally as well. Um, and, um, I think just like the best times that I can even remember are just kind of post this breakup, me feeling just really, really empowered to go out there and to be able to deal all of that on my own and to be able to have these experiences on my own. And really just like love my own company and like love, like not being afraid of it just being like me in the universe. You know, sometimes you can meditate and I've heard people say, like, they'll meditate and they'll actually kind of get afraid because then everything's just quiet. It's just you and your thoughts and like you're alone and you kind of tap into that kind of like voidness of, you know, the voidness that's inherent in like everything. And it feels scary, right? And for me, I think especially during that kind of depressive episode, it was feeling very scary because I felt really lonely or I felt really. like unlovable and all that stuff. But yeah, just, I don't know, just being there and tapping into that connection was just so incredibly liberating. And it really, really kind of changed, yeah,

like who I am and my outlook on life and kind of energized me to be a better activist, right? Yeah, how about you? What are some of your really? memorable experiences, I guess. Yeah, no, I totally agree with that. And I really like the emphasis on the sort of healing power of being out in nature on your own. And in fact, how I got into going out alone was after my sort of mental breakdown, my depression, you know, it was really going out there, trying to meditate in nature. And then every time I'd come out, I had this inexorable pull within me, like, when is the next time I can be back out there? And at this point, it was just like me walking through the wood, just that.

And just had this healing effect of, you know, the beautiful green trees, the birds chirping. It would really help my mental and emotional state. And then the other thing you said is learning to love your own company. I think when you're really in society fully, you know, especially in today's world with social media and our phones, you can easily never have to sit in silence. You can easily escape your thoughts constantly, you know, close out of this app, open Instagram, open Twitter, turn on the TV. talk to my friends you know you can you can sort of keep the the quiet moments away and that ultimately

i think is is unhelpful and what i found through the empowerment and and through sort of loving my own company is a sort of confidence a confidence like you said in my ability to be out there and take care of myself but just to slowly become comfortable in my own skin when when you're out in nature you're not performing for anybody you're not playing out a social role you are alone with your yourself in nature. And, you know, there is a sort of empowerment and a happiness and getting used to just being with your own thoughts that I think is really helpful. And the other thing you said that is really important is understanding some, and we'll get into meditation more, as you said, but understanding something intellectually versus understanding viscerally or

experientially, you know, in Buddhism, they warn against the intellect. The intellect might be the thing that gets you into Buddhism, but it ultimately becomes a sort of obstacle to progress because you can over-intellectualize everything. You can intellectualize your own experiences to the point where you're sort of standing back from them and commenting on them instead of actually having them in a first-person sense. And so that distinction between intellectual understanding

and visceral experience I think is crucial for meditation and really important when we're talking about, you know, experiences broadly outside, you know? Yes. No, I completely agree. and I've had so many experiences since I've started going out alone that, you know, it's like this ancient Buddhist wisdom that I had read about that I thought that I kind of understood what they were saying, but then I would be out there and I would just feel it in this really real way. And I would be like, oh, you know, that's what these ancients were talking about. You know what I mean? I'd be like, oh, you know, they were really on to something, right? But, you know, it took like, what? 12, 13 years for me to actually, um, experience some of these things in a way that I thought, I get it now, right? Like, I get, I get what it means to be fully in the moment. I get what it means to, um, be so far into the present moment that you actually tap into like infinity and like

your body just disappears and you are inseparably one with all that is. You know what I mean? Um, and I, it's something that you can't even really. explain to people. And this is why I always get frustrated because people will be like, oh, you know, that's, that's ridiculous. That's new agey, spiritual kind of crap. And they always want to bring it back to the material. But it's like, honestly, I honestly, these are experiences that human beings can have and we should be having them, right? Like, we are animals here on this earth. And there's so much that we can tap into and so much that we can open ourselves to. and so much wisdom that we can access if we do that, right?

And I think that you're completely right about this idea of just feeling good in your own skin and how that can create a kind of like calm confidence. It's a confidence in knowing that like you are enough and you are good, right? Like maybe you're not good in your life. Like I'm not good in my life. I'm struggling. I have too many jobs. I have chronic illness.

I'm in pain all the time. but like I'm good right like there's always a place for me in nature there's always a place for me in the universe I don't have to struggle or try to be anything more than what I am and that's like that's really important I think yeah it's it's so liberating to know that you're always home and you don't have to strive to be something in society's eyes you know all that shit really falls away when you really engage with the wilderness especially alone and you know speaking of speaking of the Buddha. I think Buddhism, meditation, a lot of the traditions that come out of Eastern philosophy and religion are some of the best beautiful inventions that humanity has ever come up with. And to the

sort of people that say, this is woo-woo, this is nonsense, let's talk about let's get down to the material reality. The thing about Buddhism and meditation that I like, and again, we're getting a little ahead of ourselves, but that's okay, is that, you know, the Buddha gives you the information to experiment and see these things for yourself. It's one thing to, like read it as like a philosophy student or something and like okay this I have a criticism of this you know why is this not backed up with evidence blah blah blah and that's again intellectual engagement but if you're really genuinely curious about meditation there is a way to go out and test it for yourself it's not nothing in meditation I mean all the cultural flourishes aside nothing in the

core experience of meditation dictates to you that you have to believe something without evidence you know it just says here is what you can do and go out and try and try it and see for yourself if I'm right or wrong. And that's like the brilliance of Buddha himself and all of the other teachers and spiritual adepts that come out of that tradition. And I think for anybody that's really interested or skeptical about these things, we don't want anybody to just to take these things on our word. There is a methodology you can employ and learn for yourself. That's beautiful and that's pretty rare. Absolutely. Yeah. And not even just through meditation like a lot of the philosophies right um if you like like about fear or anger or ego or

things like that right if you really dig into them and then you kind of try to step back and think about your own life and the way that you um react when you're in certain situations and when you're feeling certain emotions and like uh and what where that's coming from right like it's just so the tools are just so amazing for both self discovery but then also um yeah liberation and transformation. And I personally think that, yeah, if we're going to build a better world, you know, we need to change the material conditions, but we also have to be the kind of people who are going to be able to live with each other in this radically new way. And that takes a lot of work that people don't maybe appreciate as much. But, yeah, I could not agree

more. Okay, so let's go ahead and move on. And we've been talking about going out into to nature alone. kind of want to hover on this idea for a second because I do think it's important and it is different than going out with a group of people. And I find that, you know, I have two very different experiences when I go out with friends versus when I go out alone. Can you talk about the differences there in your experience, your thoughts on what is different and what shift is really occurring between going out with people and really going out alone? So, yeah, I mean, I love going out with people. I think that to me, both experiences represent kind of freedom and kind of this freedom that I feel like I'm escaping kind of the world of capitalist wage slavery for a while and just kind of entering a place where that kind of thing is really unnatural, right? So I think both represent kind of a freedom in a way. And when I'm with other people, it's more of kind of, you know, bonding, playful, kind of party, just enjoyment, right?

Right. Like just we don't we don't need anything else. We just need each other and like the landscape. And I think it can still be really like connecting and yeah, really, really bonding also for the people who go together. But going alone is, there's just there's not there's not much like it. I don't think. It's it's really, I don't know. Yeah. For me, I always feel this kind of. confidence. I always feel the sense of kind of accomplishment or kind of like, I always feel proud of myself. It sounds weird, but I always feel really proud of myself kind of going out alone and being there and, and enjoying my own company and facing, you know, facing the universe and being, like, proud to be there and have that as like a mirror. And yeah, it really is, it kind of just it shows you who you really are right um and for me it's what it's very humbling as well again just kind of connecting to this thing that to me is is bigger than all of the rest of what we're doing it's kind of like this pale blue dot kind of idea right um where you just kind of connect to the

reality that um you know not to say that what's going on in kind of capitalist society is not important right like politics is really everything in terms of dictating the conditions of our lives and also the conditions of the lives of non-human kin and the environment and everything. But, you know, no matter how much kind of like unnatural shit they can trap us in, right, it just kind of reminds you that like all of this is just the trappings of, you know, some really disturbed minds, right? Like some pretty greedy disturbed minds kind of came up with this whole system and then called it just and fair and, you know, desirable. But it's not real, right? Like, money's not real like it is. I hope people know what I'm saying here. It's just that

it has nothing to do with like nature or the universe or, you know, and if you can kind of connect to that and realize that like we're all bigger than this. And this has only been a small blip in like earth's history or natural history, anything like that, right? And I think for people who think that it's, there's no other way, there's no other system, right? Like, we're just going to be stuck with this forever. Like, no system that humans have come up with has lasted more than a couple hundred years, right? And we're already kind of pushing that boundary here. So anyway, yeah, I think just being out alone, it really helps me to to ground myself, to really heal myself. And I'm just present out there in a way that I'm not

present in my real life, you know, like I'll, like a tripmunk will come into the campground and I'll just be like, so immersed in this chipmunk and like this interaction I'm having or like birds or anything like that, just like really enjoying the company of just non-human nature. And yeah, I don't know how to describe this kind of, like, deep connection I feel with, like, what I'm calling the universe. But, like, it's really, really, it's really healing and it's really strong when I, when I'm out there by myself. I guess it is just kind of this idea of, like, the self kind of, like, melting away and, like, feeling like I am the universe, you know? And again, it's one of those things where it's like, I can explain this to you, but you kind of have to go practice it and like see how you feel. But yeah, what about you?

How do you think it differs between being alone and being with other people? Yeah, yeah, I'll definitely get to that. I just want to touch on something you said, which is just sort of how it puts things in perspective and allows you to see the sort of smallness, really, of our culture and its incentive structures. and I think the thing that does that is when you're out there, you know, by a river, in a forest, in the mountains, it gives you a sense of deep time. You really are sort of forced to contemplate that this stuff has been here millennia, millions, billions of years before you, and it'll be here way, way after you. And with that sense, when you really grasp that reality viscerally, for me at least, at a young age, it was one of the first breakthroughs I had with seeing the absurdity and, contingency of our broader culture. It really put everything into perspective. And the bottom side of that, the underside of that is it showed me that these things can change. You know,

change is the only constant. Everything is in a constant state of flux and alteration and morphing. And that's just as true of our societies as it is for our rivers and our planets and our solar systems. And once you really see that, you can see like immediately, really, through these bullshit arguments about you know capitalism being human nature or this is just the way things have always been etc you can see that that can't be true and and once you see the society and the culture that we live in from such a sort of bird's eye view you can see how silly it is and how how we must fucking dedicate ourselves to changing it um another thing you said is is being lost in the beauty of nature and you know i'll really find myself honing in on uh the smallest things out there

like, you know, maybe a frog's eye, a bug I've never seen, holding a leaf really close to my eyes and sort of seeing the patterns and the designs in the leaves and how they resemble the patterns in the frog's eyes or the patterns of an empty winter tree against the sky. And, you know, that sort of neural network formation design is fascinating and it appears in so many different elements in nature. But specifically about the being alone versus going with others, I totally agree with what you said. And one thing that I've found is not only are you out there testing your skills and your knowledge and stuff, but it's actually very psychologically challenging, even if you think that you're anchored and rooted in yourself and you can be by yourself alone, there's something deeply, I think almost evolutionary about the fear and sort of primal unrest that you feel when you're out there alone in the sunsets, right? I've been in situations where especially younger trying to camp alone, the first like couple

efforts of me trying to camp alone ended with me really just getting too freaked out, 2 a.m. in the morning, I hear coyotes. One time when I was very young, the first time I think I ever went out and tried to camp alone, I was hearing these coyotes howling, getting closer and closer. And then all of a sudden my dog, who I had at the time, sat up and would just like low growl, looking into the dark wilderness. And I was like, are the coyotes going to come attack? my dog like well you know uh very scary and then just even recently um i've had situations where

i've hiked in like really like a mile or two into the to the woods and you know been out there by myself in the woods alone in the winter and camping in like three a m i couldn't fall asleep and like this anxiety settled over my chest um of like oh fuck like if something happened like you couldn't get out of here like what are you doing and you know the meditation really comes in help there because you can sort of watch these emotions rise and follow way of their own accord without necessarily getting tangled in the web of those emotions. And so I really do think there's this, not only this testing of your physical and survivalist skills when you're out in nature, but really the underrepresented or understated test is testing your psychology, testing your

mental toughness. And again, I think it has deep evolutionary roots, because if you think of ancient humans, you know, hunter gatherers, which we've been for 99% of our existence, you know, being alone in the dark was always something that would be a fearful thing because, you know, communal, social, you know, tribes, villages, when the sun went down, you'd huddle around to fire, you'd come in and close in with your communal family and friends. And that would be how you know that you're safe. But if a human being was alone out in the wilderness when the dark hit, you know, you're very susceptible to being prey, getting injured.

And so there's some deeply ingrained sort of sense of. fear i think when the sun goes down and the darkness descends and you're alone in the woods and that's been a struggle for me and overcoming that um is one of those things where you walk away and be like damn i'm actually really proud of myself i didn't get up i didn't get up at 3 a.m when that anxiety was hitting and run out you know i i stuck it out and it was fine and the next morning i woke up and i was very happy that i stayed you know absolutely yeah i remember one time i was out and it must have been a raccoon or something like that, but there's this animal, like, pretty close to my tent that was just, like, low growling. And I couldn't figure out what it was, because I hadn't heard

a raccoon, like, growl or anything like that. And I honest, I don't even know if it was a coyote or, like, or a raccoon or what. But, yeah, I was freaked the fuck out. Um, but yeah, I started, I just, like, banged around a bit and it was just like, okay, because it wasn't a bear, but I was just like, I don't know what's going on. I was terrified. It's like really, it's really scary to like wake up to something like that. Oh yeah. The smallest, the smallest animals sound like gigantic, you know, dinosaurs. Yeah, I'm like, what's that? Um, but yeah, no, I completely agree. Uh, yeah, it's definitely, definitely psychologically testing. Um, and for me, it's always, as well, like, psychologically, like, I'll unearth a lot of stuff that maybe I've been, like,

keeping inside me or like, I'll unearth a lot of stuff that, you know, maybe I, some, trauma from like you know high school or you know like just trauma from like my child or something like things that things that I haven't thought about for a long time right because you're so deep in thought the entire time right um and for me as well like sometimes I'll do like some psychedelics out there or whatever um and so you're just constantly kind of like digging into yourself and and kind of unearthing kind of all this pain from like years and years gone by um and it's really really beautiful right i i think it's a it's a really um it's a really challenging space but it's also somehow a really safe and comforting space to like get all of that kind of out of you because you're

just like again like yeah the the universe has me like um i'm not i'm not i don't have to be anything or prove anything to anybody right now like i can just kind of like delve into this so i think like psychologically on like a number of levels it's like quite challenging but rewarding yeah absolutely yeah but rewarding absolutely um so i want to get into meditation and psychedelics in a bit but one more question before we do um i know you know you are a vegan you're the co-host of vegan vanguard we've had you on before i think to talk about veganism um with other stuff as well but that was a big part of our discussion and you know i've experimented a lot in my life with going vegetarian or attempting to go vegan um you know i think my longest streak was like nine months of being a vegetarian but you know lately

I have gotten very interested in ethical and conservation-based fishing and hunting as a means to provide for my family, be outdoors, but importantly to participate less and less in factory farming. Because I think whether you're vegan or not, I think most people that have any idea of factory farming and how we produce meat in this society and under capitalism, I think almost everybody, once you are tuned into it, are repulsed by it. And, you know, we all try to find how can we not engage with this thing in our lives? And, you know, people come to vastly different conclusions, of course. But I just really kind of wanted to get your thoughts on, you know, ethical hunting as an alternative to factory farmed meat and what your position as a vegan is on

hunting and fishing broadly. And not the Elmer Fudd, asshole, pull over the side of the road, shoot a deer, shit, right? Because hunters and fishers hate that shit. So like, just like the most ethical and thoughtful and reflective forms of hunting and fishing. yeah so this is an extremely difficult question for me um mostly because i'm i'm still kind of working a lot of this stuff out for myself and kind of the idea of like quote unquote what's ethical i think is like really really tricky um and so like obviously a lot of vegans positions are that you know it's it's never okay it's never ethical to take a life and all of that um but obviously i so most of my work I do with indigenous nations in Canada.

And so for me, I mean, I get called, I always, you know, take a shot at any vegans who are like shitty towards indigenous peoples and their rights and traditional livelihoods or whatever. So I get called like a cultural relativist a lot of the time. But so anyway, but yeah, having said how difficult this is for me, I think I'm not going to be able to give like perhaps a satisfactory answer, but I think at least I can start like giving some food for thought or working this out a little bit. So, yeah, first of all, in terms of like factory farming, it's actually interesting because I have friends who live

in rural Ontario and I was at a wedding out there. I'm there quite a bit. And this woman, I guess, was talking about how she was teaching, like, her five-year-old son to hunt, like, he learned how to hunt squirrels. But he was hunting, like, he knew to, I can't remember. There was some, like, rules to it or whatever. Like, he couldn't just, like, kill a bunch of squirrels. Like, if he killed one squirrel, then, like, he would have to, like, eat it or whatever. Like, you couldn't just, there was some kind of, like, way that they were doing this that was, to make him realize like the gravity of like taking a life and that you only do it um because you need to or whatever anyway my mom my mom who uh you know very much participates in just buying meat from

the store and thinks like veganism is she doesn't she doesn't think's ridiculous i mean like she cooks all my vegan food and everything but like she she just for some reason it's just like oh it's not for me and she just kind of looks away right so she was appalled appalled that this like young kid would be shooting these squirrels. She said, like, oh, he's going to turn into like a psycho killer or whatever, you know, like those kids who just like torture animals for the sake of it. And so like, interestingly, I was on the other side, like arguing against my mom and saying that, you know, actually like the sign of a more disturbed society or like it's, it's a lot more insidious to just teach them that, you know, you just go to the store and you

pick it up there and like just to have all of that brutality out of sight out of mind and like have no connection to the fact that like you're taking this life like you know for me it's like this is the ultimate infringement on another being's bodily autonomy right like that's like the ultimate way that you can like violate their bodily autonomy is to take their life and if you're not even you have no connection to that and then you're just buying some sanitized thing from the store, like that's, that's way worse than, like, having this appreciation. So anyway, she didn't really feel me on that. But, um, but yeah, so, so I take that position, um, there's like a number of caveats. I think there's, there's so many facets to this. Um, and I struggle to talk about

a lot of it in ways that don't seem like essentializing to indigenous peoples, um, because there are, well, there's some like, there's some nuance here. So, um, so again, like, lot of the indigenous people that I work with, you know, they will practice. They'll live like in the far north, right, where you can't cultivate things. It's like the tundra. And, you know, a lot of their livelihoods are rooted in this idea of reciprocity where you have, you have an intimate relationship with the entire ecosystem. So not even just like one species that you want to hunt. Um, you actually have a relationship with the entire ecosystem and you understand how different parts of that ecosystem are in relationship. And, um, you know, it's a really complex

thing. Um, you know, a lot of like the hunters will, um, you know, quote unquote get, not get consent, but there are ways that, um, it's not just like, oh, I'll go out and I'll just take whatever animal, like, there are hunters that will go and sit there and, like, wait all day for, like, an animal that presents itself to them in a way that's, like, they're offering their life to me kind of thing, you know? And I know a lot of vegans will hear that and be like, that's not consent. Like, how can you tell that's consent or whatever? But at least there's, like, there's an attempt. There's a relationship. There's, like, there's, there's reciprocity in the sense that, like, they are also participating in, like, facilitating that environment.

that then enables those animals and right so there's there's a lot of there's a really complex relationship there um and for me um i guess like for me like this whole idea of like taking life um and like getting consent or like violating bodily autonomy is like really difficult like so for me like my partner and i don't need to eat meat or animal products for any reason right and like we're not living off the land um So like if I don't need to take lives, then like for me, it's like, well, when, when is that ever ethical, right? Unless it's like a need. And then it's like, and then there's the whole question of like, you know, at what point do we consider it a need? And like those are questions that I don't, I can't really fully answer. You know what I mean? And like my answer will be different than like other people's answers. And it's also like conditional upon like, you know, these people that I was talking about who live in rural Ontario, like, um, Yeah, like they're not living in a place where they have access to a lot of, like, great food or, you know what I mean? So it's like, okay, that's a different situation than me.

So, like, who am I to say that, like, them hunting or fishing wouldn't be ethical, right? Like, there's, like, you know, class and everything plays into, like, what is ethical and what's not. And I'm not sure that I can even answer, like, what's ethical hunting versus what's not ethical hunting because, like, I think that would be really difficult in, like, context, context specific. But as well, I think like, I guess in terms of like settler hunters and fishers, I think there's also a big issue around like, I don't really know the history of where you're living, but like in a lot of places in Canada, like settler hunting and fishing rights have historically come at the expense of like indigenous people's treaty rights. and like they're like the treaties guarantee them rights to like hunt and fish and everything but they're also supposed to have inherent rights to self-determination and and that is really threatened by I mean everything that we're doing to destroy the environment but also like a settlers kind of like infringing on their territories and like taking animals and things like that right so I think

That's another thing to think about, like, as settlers on indigenous land, like, how do we, like, ethically insert ourselves into that kind of legacy? Yeah. So, and then, you know, there's a lot of, as you said, like, there's a lot of culture around, like, hunting, I mean, especially a lot in Ontario where, like, it is really, like, I'm sure that they would say that they're doing it in line with, like, conservation and that kind of thing. Again, it's like, okay, conservation based on, like, settler law and like, and, like, indigenous people are kind of not allowed to, to practice their treaty rights here. But, but also there's a lot of culture that kind of really furthers, I guess, kind of like a white and patriarchal kind of, like, relationship to not only the environment, but then also to, like, indigenous nations and things like that, who have a different way of living.

and hunting and fishing on that land. And so, yeah, Af and Silco kind of talk a lot about this idea of, like, they write about speciesism. Everyone should read actually Afin Silco's book called Afroism. And it's really, really interesting, like, about speciesism and about how, like, Europeans largely, like, you know, like the concept of race was largely created through, like, colonization, but also it also created this concept of the animal and that like different people are animalized to greater extent and certain people are humanized to greater extends and that like

they really defined this idea of the human like the ideal human as being this like cis white able-bodied man who then is able to like take or kind of oppress or uh or whatever anyone's kind of below that. And then, um, the extent to which you kind of diverge from that ideal, the more that you are animalized, both like you're called an animal, but you're also treated like an animal in that like, um, we don't need your consent to like violate your bodily autonomy. We don't need your consent to like, um, to harm you or to take away your rights or anything like that. Um, and so like a lot of like settler haunting culture, like I know you're like not talking about this, but, like, you know, like, taking trophy pictures with, like, you know, deer heads that

you've shod and, like, um, and that whole thing where it's like, you know, uh, it's kind of, like, passed down, like, the dad takes out the son to go on a hunting trip and the son's like, dad, I don't want to kill this animal. And they're like, well, you got to do it. It's like a, it's like our patriarchal right of passage to be like, I can dominate this. You know what I mean? Lots of machismo for sure, yeah. Lots of much use. And so for me, it's like, okay, like, obviously, obviously there's a line, like, like, that's really far away from, like, a lot of, like, what more quote unquote ethical hunting and fishing is all about. But, like, where, at what point do we move from that, like, toxic colonizer, like, white supremacist hunting culture into, like, a more ethical culture, like, on indigenous land. And, like, I don't know, these are, like, really difficult questions for me. Like, I have not actually worked out. So all I can really say for myself is that, like, obviously I don't live on the land,

so it's not something that, like, I need to do. But for me, like, if, if I was going to try to, you know, live more off the land, I guess I would try my best to live off, like, the three sisters or something like that, like before anything else. But, like, having said that, like, I'm certainly not going to judge, like, I'm certainly not going to judge, like, indigenous people or indigenous people or traditional livelihoods, and I'm certainly not going to judge, like, anyone who, yeah, who lives more rural and who wants to do that instead of engaging in animal agriculture, like, I don't

think that's on, like, me or really a lot of, like, frankly, white vegans to, like, say anything about, but, um, but yeah, I mean, it's just, I, it's such a, such a complex, interesting issue for me that I, yeah, I'm sorry if that wasn't, like, super satisfying. It's just, uh, something that I, I, grapple with because I do kind of get questions like this a lot and I don't I don't know how to quite talk about them um especially since people are like oh well you're just giving a pass to indigenous people but not to settlers or something you know um and I'm like maybe I maybe that's true um yeah that's a good side to air on I guess you know but yeah no I think that was I mean just indicative of just the complexity of your thought, the nuance, the insight, the, the anti-dogmatism.

Like, you really are trying to see things from different perspectives and specifically your focus on, you know, settler colonialism and indigenous people when it comes to these discussions is something that I think is absolutely fundamental and doesn't get talked about in these conversations nearly as much as they, as it should be, you know. And I do think there's a huge culture of not only machismo and patriarchy and, like, trophy hunting, which I agree is disgusting. But even like going back to philosophy, like, you know, René Descartes, you know, the father of modern philosophy,

the first person you learn about when you go into philosophy undergrad, you know, his view of animals and really his view of humans as like this separate mind and body thing, this dualism of Descartes, his view of animals were that they were just clockwork. They were basically machines, that they didn't feel pain, they didn't have sentience. And even though science has, you know, destroyed that argument, I think a lot of that sort of cultural, philosophical,

baggage is left over in people's minds. And I think that's why you could kill something so beautiful as an elk or a white-tailed deer and then hold it up and smile with its corpse next to you. I mean, it's sort of grotesque. I do think it falls out of this sort of European history of, you know, really Cartesian understandings of mind and body, which I think is sort of a side issue, but interesting to think about. And I just also think it's worth saying that, you know, when the European settlers came over to North America, quote unquote, North America, right? One of the mechanisms by which they perpetuated genocide was to devastate the bison population, specifically on the Great Plains, by eradicating, and there's pictures you can Google.

We've talked about on other episodes of settlers standing on, you know, mountain, a mountain of bison skulls sort of proudly, which I think is like the original form of the trophy hunter. smiling with his deer, right? But that was a part of the genocide. It was because there is this deep, deep connection and relationship between the plains, Native Americans and the bison, you know, to eradicate the bison was an act of eradication of those Native Americans and those indigenous peoples. And I think that doesn't get talked about enough, you know. But my whole thing, my impulse, I think, that comes when it comes to hunting and fishing, you know, I feel like I can't force it on veganism or vegetarianism. I can't force it on anybody else. My wife and my kids, they're

autonomous. They come to their own decisions. And I said, well, as long as our family is going to be consuming meat, I feel like the process of going out and actually, you know, seeing what this process is, this death and, you know, taking of a life, it's almost, at least it's more like almost honest than like, you know, outsourcing that torture and murder. And then like, you know, your mom who is eating chicken nuggets or whatever and then saying these hundreds, are disgusting like that that sort of that's an untenable position you know absolutely yeah no i i very much agree with that um so yeah i i don't i don't have anything to say about whether that's like ethical or i'm not like you know that that that's not even really the question i think it's just

kind of like everyone has to kind of grapple with that themselves and i guess that's my only point is that like yeah here's here's some food for thought that people should grapple with because I know that, like, a lot of the more toxic culture, like, they still couch that in like, oh, well, we're doing this for conservation. Like, we're doing this in a good way. So it's like, there's a lot of ways that there could be kind of like overlap where it's like, yeah, you're maybe doing this for conservation or you're, I don't know, like, you know, you're in some ways doing something that's progressive and moving away from the kind of, you know, capitalist species. oppressive system that we're living under, but then there are other ways in which you're replicating what's behind that system, like white supremacy and patriarchy and all that kind of stuff. So just stuff to grapple with, I guess. No, totally, totally. I totally agree with that. And that actually gives me a lot of food for thought

because, again, I'm just getting into this. I went ice fishing a few times. I haven't really hunted yet. And I'm still struggling with, you know, what is the ethical, proper, you know, decision here and that it's difficult i mean especially when you have kids and you got to think about like you know a four-year-old kid like what is veganism to a four-year-old is it possible is you know how much information do i have to have in order to do that and am i imposing something on on my children that's unfair and i don't have answers to those questions but yeah as a father those are things i wrestle with uh Melanie joy would say kind of like kind of flip thought on its head and say like well like carnism or like you know speciesism is something that

we also impose because like that's kind of that comes from the the colonizing framework that we're living under kind of this like white supremacist capitalist species system that treats animals as property and treats animals as commodities and kind of thing and so like she'll argue that um you know a lot of kids are born with that kind of empathy and like if a kid finds out like oh like this this burger is like this cow or like this sheep that I love like oh but I love them you know what I mean And, like, there's so many, there's so many videos of, like, kids who realize what they're eating and then get really upset. But then we kind of beat that out of them. We kind of say, like, no, like, dogs are who you love and cows are who you eat.

And, you know what I mean? And we kind of, um, so that's like a, that's a system of oppression that you are, um, that you, that is also imposed that like, people think it's the opposite that like, oh, but you're imposing your values. Um, but it's like, but this is a value system. Yeah. in itself great great point i mean that's a great point and i think that really does speak to like you know this whole idea of imposing something on your kids you're always imposing something i mean even if you're not aware of it i mean you know it's just it's interesting and funny you say that about kids and their meat because i've done that with both my kids um as they were you know young like

my my son is four and that's about the same time i had this discussion with my daughter where i just come out and say like you know those chicken nuggets that that was a real chicken, like that meat that you ate, that hamburger came from a real cow. And when I first told my kids this, their minds are really blown and they did recoil from it. And like my son, even like just a couple days ago, I did this thing with him. And he sort of refused to believe it. He was like laughing and think I was joking because it's so, it's so alien. And children have this innocent view of the world that is, you can sort of test cultural things against it.

And like when a kid, when a kid reacts so, I mean, kids react so consistently to that information. They were sort of horrified and confused and not sure if you're being serious. That's sort of a universal response by children and that says something, you know. Yeah, yeah, I agree. For my part, though, I do want to say, like, again, I've only done fishing, but I really don't at all enjoy the act of killing. Like, you know, I even, I'm not a particular fan of spiders, but I don't want to, I don't even like killing spiders. Like I sort of only do it like if they're in my house or like, you know, I can sort of justify like you've walked into the lion's den, you know, stupid shit like that but like out in nature and stuff i'm very very careful not to hurt anything not

to upset anything like even just somebody walking down a street and kicking over an ant hill is like infathomable to me you know so there is that tension and when i do fish and i i catch fish it doesn't fucking feel good like it feels weird and i'm not really sure what to make of that yeah it's it's always tough and like i'm the same way i'm hype like in my house like i will take bugs outside. Like I will try to capture them and bring them outside to avoid harming them. Like the only thing that I kind of go ham on

are the the mosquitoes. When I'm out camping, I'm like, okay, I'm like, I'm sorry, you're done. But yeah, it is, it's a really difficult thing. And I mean, I kind of have to grapple with that because like if I go up to a lot of these territories, like

it will be fairly challenging. for me to like be vegan um so yeah but but as i said it's like well i don't know like i'm not gonna i'm not gonna say anything or think anything that that people up there are being unethical in any way right so um yeah it's it's it's a weird it's a weird question and things that i need to work through more but same yeah same and i really appreciate your insight it does give me a lot to think about as I move forward and sort of take these moments to really contemplate what the implications of my actions are. And it's rooted in this attempt to be a better person overall and to live in a healthier, more balanced way. And maybe sometimes that leads to conclusions that are

incorrect. But I'm struggling and I appreciate your insight there. Yeah, absolutely. All right. So now let's go ahead and shift into the second part of this discussion. And we've talked a little bit about meditation and gestured towards psychedelics. So I want to cover both those things. specifically with their relation to, you know, being in the outdoors. So let's start with meditation. What is your experience with meditation broadly? How long have you practiced? And is there any particular Eastern tradition that you operate in or sort of forms the foundation of your practice?

Yeah, I guess I started to really get into Buddhist philosophy in my early 20s. And that's when I kind of started to dabble in meditation. I guess in terms of traditions, I don't, I don't know, I don't really follow any one per se, but I guess like, Vipassana, I'll do like maybe, yeah, I'll do mantra meditations, I'll do just mindfulness meditations as well, I suppose. I guess those are kind of the most frequent that I'll do. And yeah, so I know that you and Michael Berks talked about how you went on a lot of like retreats and things like that. I've never actually done that. I kind of just have mostly done it myself, kind of in my own home. I'll do guided meditation sometimes or I'll just kind of put on some nice meditation music and just kind of sit for a while and do either, yeah, just the breathing kind of Vipasana kind of stuff.

or, um, yeah, sometimes mantras. But, um, yeah, my experience with it, it's, uh, yeah. I mean, just like the outdoors, just like everything. I mean, it all kind of goes together, right? Like, just this, this transfer transformation that I think I've really felt in my life and that was very, very needed in my life. Um, because I really did feel, uh, yeah, I was just always grasping for something. I was always longing for something. I was always feeling like I needed something to like soothe, right? Just like soothe the suffering of existence, right? And I think that's what really drew me to Buddhism in the first place was that, you know, the very first noble truth was that life is suffering and that you're not going to escape it.

So stop trying. And that that resonated so hard with me. So yeah. So, you know, lately what I do, I'll wake up in the morning and I'll do, like, maybe probably a 20-minute meditation. And with my chronic illness, it actually really, really helps my health as well. So I'll, I'll start working. And then when I start to feel like I'm getting a lot of pain or a headache or something like that or that my energy is getting away for me, I'll just kind of stop what I'm doing. Luckily, I work from home most of the time so I can do this. So I'll I'll stop and then again I'll go into like maybe like 20 minute meditation or something like or do kind of breathing work. I like to do kind of like pronayama work as well. And that really,

really, and not only helps my energy, but it's kind of like pain management for me as well because a lot of my pain is related to like the cortisol, like my hormones and stuff like that. So, so yeah, that's kind of how I practice most. days. And yeah, I mean, what it's meant for me is just, just everything, really. Just really teaching me, I guess, once again, just to love my own company and to really let go of things like fear, to let go of things like anger, to not let that stuff really, like, poison me as much as it used to. Because I'm someone who's really, really affected by the world. And I think I felt this a lot last week where, you know, you had the whole Bernie Sanders thing and, you know, the Democrats very obviously just gaslighting everyone and making a whole mockery of that.

That was infuriating for me. And then a couple days later, now in Canada, we have the RCMP moving in on unseated, wet, sweat, and territory at Unistotent Camp and arresting people and brutalizing people. And it's just, you know, I, it's, I just get very, very affected by all of that stuff. And I think that's natural. And I think it's important, like, you know, righteous anchor does fuel my activism. But it also, it also takes away from my activism in the sense that, like, it takes away from my actual health and not just my mental health. It takes away from my physical health. Like, I can't, like, I was not productive at all last week. I could not, honestly, do anything. I just wanted to be in my bed all the time. I had a constant headache and just like constant out, like, I could feel myself in my like adrenal state where it was just painful, um, just nothing was, nothing was going right, right? So I feel like meditation for me. Um, it's something that I practice kind of in a, in a proactive way to work on myself, but then it's also something that I do a lot to make sure that I'm not expending all of my energy. on just hurting myself, which isn't helping anyone, you know, and kind of channeling that

maybe anger or whatever that I feel into things that are more productive and that are going to be more transformational in the world, I suppose. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I'll just like maybe talk a little bit about, you know, answer that question for myself. I do agree with you that this sense of never feeling fully satisfied. You know, when I first read that life is suffering, you know, Duka, a constant sense of unsatisfactoriness, never really arriving, right? Always like, oh, in the future, I'll be happy. When this happens, I'll be happy. When I get this job or when I find this partner, you know, when I get this much recognition, then I'll finally be able to be happy.

And I think people find again and again that when you get the thing that you think will make you happy, it doesn't. And you just start wanting and desiring a different thing. And that really was very apparent to me when I started getting into this stuff. And I could see the outline. I could see people around me that lived unfulfilled lives, family, parents, siblings, cousins, uncles, people that on the outward, they got through. They were functional, right? They weren't, like, completely depressed or whatever. But you could tell that they were never really fully satisfied.

And I didn't want to be that. I was trying to find anything to get out of that cycle because it scared me so much from a young age. and I was really introduced to meditation and ultimately Buddhism when I was hospitalized at age 17 for depression one of the nurses gave me a little booklet on Taoism and it was the first time I had ever heard anything about Eastern philosophy didn't really know anything about it and I got really interested, read the entire book and I was like oh wow

there's something here I wasn't quite sure what it was and then when I got out and my dad took me to Montana the girl that I became very involved with there her mother was a practicing basically she called herself a yogini but you can think just sort of a vague Hindu Buddhist practitioner she was living with a Christian mystic an older Christian woman who was a Christian mystic and they actually had two Tibetan Buddhist monks who lived with them and they didn't speak English they wore their own orange robes everywhere so I'd like wake up in the morning and get ready for school and you'd have these Tibetan monks basically doing walking meditation through the

hallways, you know. That's so cool. Fascinating. Yeah. So those two things, like being introduced to Taoism in the hospital and getting out of the hospital, basically within a month I was living in this house. Like, wow, you know, that totally blew my mind wide open and that's what got me into this stuff. And the two traditions I really operate in is Vipasana, as you said, insight meditation. And then I combine that with what is called Zogchen, which is like a pointing out meditation, which, you know, it sort of supplements the, the mindful meditation of the vipasana with this searching for the self. Like, you know, when you're, when you're outdoing something, you know, who's the one looking? Look for the person looking. Look for the person who

hears. And, you know, you sort of punctuate not only your meditation practice, but your daily life with these moments of looking for the observer, you know, finding the person who feels the feelings and when you have a calm mind and you look maybe even just for a split second at first you can see the the inherent selflessness of existence you can see that there is no self and it's very hard to maintain that of course and so you practice more to sort of cultivate that sense of selfless awareness where the the contents of yourself your thoughts your emotions your sensations in your body you no longer identify with them you watch them dispassionately almost as if they're occurring in somebody else.

And then in that moment when you say, okay, now who's looking, who's actually experiencing? You look in and find nothing. Only thing you find is the world, right? It's, again, language fails here. Language, yeah, it really fails to, you, I'm somebody that's pretty good with language, but when I start talking about this stuff,

you hit these limitations because there's only so much you can do intellectually and linguistically before you just have to experience it viscerally. Yes. So, yeah, that's the thing. And then just the help. that meditation has given me with my emotions and my thoughts and not having to identify with them has been amazing when I feel rage or when I feel sadness or when I feel some negative emotion

to be able to immediately just sort of stand back from it and watch it come and go of its own accord and not feed it with thoughts has been beyond helpful for my life. I think my meditation practice has perhaps been the single most beneficial and life-changing activity that I've ever personally participated in. And the last thing I'll say before I toss it back over to you is I do think when it comes to meditation that this ethical, an ethical component, a sort of ethical dimension of your practice is really essential to tie yourself to compassion, which I think is a fundamental feature of really getting into meditation and expanding your sense of compassion for other people. And, you know, I mean, I think I cry pretty much every day on some level over the

suffering of complete strangers. Anytime I see another human being suffering, anytime I see another human being crying, I am moved tremendously. That Chegg quote, like, if you do tremble with indignation at every injustice, I fucking tremble, you know? Yes.

And that connection between the radical, radical expansion of compassion that I've found through my meditation practice and my political commitments, I find that they really assist one another, they compliment one another and that compassion that surging unrestrained compassion I feel and the the absolute visceral urge to end unnecessary suffering on innocent people then gets translated into you know what is considered a radical politic but you know in the face of radical suffering radical conclusions radical politics radical confrontations with that structure of suffering I think need to happen and so these two things really push me you know they sort of compliment each other and push me in a similar direction absolutely yeah oh my gosh i have so much to say that was really well said you are very good with language um but yeah no i think a lot of people will will look at buddhism and they'll take that really surface level analysis of it or they're they'll kind of treat it as like the secret or something

like that um and say that oh it's it's just uh individualist it's it's anti-revolutionary because it teaches you to just like accept the status quo and be happy with what is and to to not try to change things. And I'm just like, okay, you obviously have not delved into this, you know, or you're just, you're taking, I guess, the most possible, the most like uncharitable reading you could possibly take here. Because for me, you know, it does teach you, like I said, it teaches you to be good. It teaches you to be satisfied in a world that, never wants you to be satisfied, right? And I, you know, I'm not, like I said, I'm not good. Like, I'm struggling, right? Like, I'm very open with that. Like, I'm, I'm struggling. But I'm also good.

You know, like, I'm also like the, like being a satisfiable person. This is how Adrian Marie Brown says that. Actually, I should link, we should link a podcast that she just did in the show notes because it was absolutely beautiful. And she has a real, real way with language that she could really, um, these things, but, you know, being a person that can be satisfied in this world is truly important because that's part of, and you talked about this a bit in your episode on psychoanalysis about like desire and the lack and how capitalism capitalizes on this lack that we have inside of us. And so being a person that can be, feel really satisfied, right? Like that's liberation. That's freedom within the confines of not being.

free. Like that's something that they can't take from us, right? Like they can force us to do their their dirty work and whatever, but they can't take that from us if we're, if we're grounded in that, like if we're grounded in something that that is bigger than us and that allows us to feel like, you know, we're good, right? And so I think like that is really radical. And Robin Wall Kimmerer talks about this as well in the book Braiding Sweetgrass, just about this idea of gratitude and how actually radical that can be in a world that, like, tries to take everything from you and that in a world that's based on, um, this idea of needing to amass more and more and more and of needing to be the winner and of needing to do all these things, right?

Like gratitude, um, with what you have, but also like gratitude for like what deeply satisfies you and like gratitude for all those little things like you were talking about like a frog's eye and like you know like a leaf and all these things like that is actually really radical in this world and so you combine that with what you were just talking about about this kind of like radical compassion and this radical um you know love like deep love for all beings combine those two together and like now you're a person who I mean they can touch you like they can touch your material conditions but like they can't touch you like in your mind they can't touch you spiritually so you're a person now that's good like you have that

confidence you have that grounding you have that settled feeling and you're walking into the world with that compassion with that you know righteous indignation and trembling with indignation at all that's happening and now you're there like you know like you're ready to be like an agent of change you're ready to be an agent that helps to liberate others and to bring them to that standard where they can also feel free and fulfilled and satisfied as they fight to bring others into that fold and to make sure that everyone has what they need. And I think it also is important because I talk a lot about like the idea of like revenge and things like that and how, you know, a lot of people, the way that they talk about revolution is coming from a place of wanting

revenge or like wanting to hurt. And even though that's a really understandable feeling, I think like meditation and these kind of these deeper philosophies can help us to understand that like revenge, revenge as a driver, like actually harms ourselves more than it could potentially more than it could potentially more than it could harm the other person because whatever. But, you know what I'm saying? Like it actually also costs us something. And I think that all of this stuff and what you were talking about about, you know, compassion and merging that with your political project. I think that all of this stuff allows us to be truly, honestly, people who are coming from a place of wanting to help and to love and to heal, not to hurt, right? So like, you know, when when people are doing terrible things, like a lot of people's first response to be like, oh, I want to hurt them. I want to punch them. I want to make them suffer. I want to, whatever. Whereas like my first instinct is, maybe my first instinct is I want to hurt them. I want to make them suffer. But like, you know, like stepping back a bit and again, kind of like

watching the observer of like where those emotions are coming from and like where those thoughts are coming from and kind of taking a step back for a minute, then I can step forward and be like, no, you know, like that that's not how like I want to heal, right? Like I don't want to hurt. Like maybe I have to hurt because they're going to hurt me or they're going to hurt other people. But like my impulse is to heal and to love and to transform. And I think like that's the place where we need to come from if we're going to achieve like a really deep transformation of our world. Yeah. Beautifully, beautifully said. And, you know, like that whole idea of like I really have consciously after my last existential like sort of crisis where I was really sort of hyper depressed

for like many months like probably five years ago I came out of that and I rededicated I consciously thought to myself like I'm dedicating my life to helping others by any means necessary and the first thing I try to do is become a firefighter that did not work but I was constantly looking for like what can I do in this world that can help other people I do not give a fuck about myself I don't care about wealth or status I got to take care of my family of course it's my first responsibility but beyond that I just want to dedicate myself doggedly to reduce innocent people's needless suffering in whatever way I can. Of course there's a political dimension to that. There's an introspective dimension to that. There's a therapeutic and

sort of maybe even psychoanalytic component to that. I just want to have all the tools possible to be able to help others. And the first thing that I've come to realize is like helping yourself through these practices, you know, coming to terms with yourself, your own trauma, your own weaknesses, your own flaws, and really becoming, being able to embrace and love yourself in spite of your your shortcomings and then having all of the other sort of capacities that meditation over a long period of time grant you with those are tools that I can then turn around and help others and to really help others you have to help yourself you have to be the sort of person that you can show other people that they can possibly be open up those horizons you can't

like I always say this you can't be a shitty greedy petulant egoic self-obsessed asshole and fight for liberation at the same time. Pick one. And so this internal work is not immaterial, pseudo-scientific woo-woo. It's really allowing your building up your own capacities, building up your ability to deal with your own chaos, to help other people, you know, help them deal with their own chaos. All that stuff is very connected. And, you know, this idea, like you said, of being satisfied and content with yourself, really truly being okay inside, not needing to fill that void with anything external to yourself is functionally a radical rejection of capitalism. No, I don't need that makeup to feel pretty. No, I don't need that

workout thing or that new bod to feel okay with myself. I don't need that card to convey my status symbol. I don't need your fucking wealth or your fucking things to feel okay. And that they don't want, I mean, capitalism broadly does not want a population of people that feel that because that would sort of from the inside out, undermine the entirety of the system. They need to keep you insecure. They need to keep you desiring. They need to keep you feeling like there's a void in your soul that you have to fill with something external. And that is a sort of the engine of the brutality of capitalism. So those things are really important to keep in mind. And the last thing I'll say when it comes to radical compassion, I talked about this with a past guess,

about the limitations of compassion because you're right about anger and you're right about revenge. I mean, Buddha talks about anger. He says, anger is like holding a hot coal in your hand with the intention of throwing it at somebody else. You're the one that gets burned.

And, you know, there's a lot of truth in that. But with the radical compassion also leads to like a fiery, I don't want to say hatred, but a sort of disgust at people who hurt innocent people. Like, it doesn't lead me to feel compassion for the neo-Nazi and for the imperialist and the capitalist. I'm sure on an individual level, we can talk about, you know, childhood trauma and their own feelings, and we don't want to individualize the brutality of

capitalism. It is a system. And to some extent, even capitalists are operating within a system they don't control. But that radical compassion for innocent people makes me feel something like a radical disgust at people who hurt those innocent people. And I will do anything, including, you know, giving my own life or taking a life to defend innocent people from unnecessary suffering, from bullies, from fascists, from people who want to dominate and destroy and kill them, from killer cops. I mean, we can go down the line. And so my radical compassion has its limitations, and I think that's okay. There's one way in which you can understand that perhaps the Nazi or the cop or the capitalist and sort of think through what led them to

be like that. But in the real material political world, I don't have time to sit down and hold the Nazi's hand and say, why are you broken? I got to fight you in the the fucking streets if it comes down to it, you know. Oh, yeah. I mean, like, yeah, a lot of that stuff is like situational. You know, you're not going to be like, okay, yeah, let's sit down and have a therapy session right now when you're in the street and whatever. But I think what radical compassion does is that it does help us understand, you know,

systemically kind of the way that, and Gabor Matte talks about this really, really well, just kind of this idea that capital. capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy. These are all traumatizing systems that like traumatize us. And then, you know, a lot of people who are acting out are people who don't have coping mechanisms with that. And then when you think about like neo-Nazis, it's like, well, why don't they have those coping mechanisms? And it's a lot of that time. It's because of patriarchy. Like they don't have close friendships. They don't feel like they're able to express themselves. They need to be a certain way. You know what I mean? So. I think obviously that doesn't mean we need to allow them to harm people and not step in. But I think that it also shows us like where the healing work, like where the healing has to happen and kind of like the work that we have to do to create a society in which these kinds of people aren't, I guess, created or and they're, the way that they are in the world isn't like, encouraged or enabled kind of thing, right? So, and I think that a lot of that has to do with obviously the material conditions, but I think also, like, I think if we can have that empathy, we can understand that,

like, you know, like, I don't want to hurt that Nazi. Like, it's not, I'm not going to get off on, like, watching them get, like, hurt. You know what I mean? Like, um, because for me, like, I, like, I still think it's important for us to have that, like, radical empathy response. you know what I mean? Octavia Butler actually talks about this in the parable of the Sorish in this universe. There are people who are like radical empaths.

And so if they like punch another person, they feel that punch like in their gut. Like if they or if they see another person getting hurt, they feel that. And I think that a lot of like a lot of what we watch, like I can't watch like really brutal stuff because I'm like, oh my God, I'll have such a strong empathy response. So like even if it's like a bad guy, I'm like, I can't. watch that. So it sounds like I would like get off on that. Like I'll again like I'll do it to protect people. Um, but like what I would much rather see happen is to like have that person be healed, like have that person be a truly happy individual, someone who is truly satisfied

and okay to the point that they don't need to other anybody else. Um, they don't need to oppress anybody else. Like I would, that's what I would want for them most, right? And I think that's where the radical compassion comes in and if you can kind of remember that because it's easy it's easy to kind of fall into like us versus them mentality when you think like oh they're just evil like they're just like they're just terrible people there's no saving them they're just whatever um and you know they're doing a lot of evil shit so it's obviously understandable to think that way but i think that if you can i guess just kind of step back a second and think like you know like what do I really want to happen here? Like, do I want another living being to suffer or do I want them to

be healed so that they they can act in a compassionate way towards other people and not harm others? You know what I mean? Yeah. So anyway, I don't know if that made sense. No, absolutely. Hurt people, hurt people, right? And a Nazi, a capitalist and imperialist, somebody that devastates and brutalizes and attacks other people that they don't know. I mean, those people can't be happy. A confident, happy, content human beings. does not go out and beat up immigrants or bomb fucking children. I mean, you are broken fundamentally if you go out and carry out those actions in the world. So I totally see your point there. I think that's important to keep in mind. So let's go ahead and move on. And I want to talk

about basically meditation specifically out in the wilderness. So what is your experience with meditation out in the backcountry in the wild and nature, etc? And what do you think it adds to your experience when you're out there? I know we talked about this a little bit, but maybe we can really, you know, hone in on this. Yeah. So I guess I guess I'll talk about what it adds. I feel like it adds presence, um, because I again, like I never feel more more present in the here and now than when I'm just out there and there's, there's not all these distractions. There's not my phone. Like, there's no, um, you know, there's no reception out there. So I'm not, you know, I'm addicted to my freaking phone and like Twitter and all this up. Like none of that is happening. Um, so,

it adds presence. It adds like just, just this intangible kind of grounding, connected feeling with like my source or the universe or whatever. And when I say that, it's just like, you know, like we are, we are such miracles. Like we are made of stardust and also like, you know, we have bones and all these different, you know, at the smallest level of our being, we are just like absolutely miraculous. And I think that it allows me to really kind of like dive into that infinity moment, really, you know, like to be there, to be so present in the moment that it feels like you've reached infinity kind of thing. And for me, yeah, it's just really a place where all of these insights from Buddhist philosophy kind of can come alive, right? So that moment or that feeling

of selflessness or kind of ego death and all these things that I find it really hard to actually explain what it is that I'm talking about. But for me, yeah, I just feel like it's facilitated in that kind of environment where I feel kind of more close to home or I feel kind of like you said before that I just I don't have to pretend anything or anything like it's just me in the universe and that's all there there has to be. And I just kind of feel connected to like, I don't know, like just like this life force. Like the, just the universe. It's so incredibly hard to really talk about this.

But yeah, I think it actually adds quite a lot. And I think, again, just like the solitude of it, kind of being alone with your thoughts for several days is really important because so many things. I guess can get unearthed during that time because it's just it's just you yourself and your thoughts. And I think it's also a good place to focus on what you're talking about, about kind of focusing on kind of being the observer and looking at who is it that's thinking, like who is it that's feeling these thoughts kind of thing. Yeah. How about you? How would you put it, I guess? Yeah, no, definitely. I think that's great. Before I give my answer, I do want to, to just mention, you know, Mexies mentioned infinity. People that don't know Buddhism probably hear

things sort of like passively, where, you know, like be in the present moment or, you know, be in the now. All we have is the eternal now. And a lot of that shit can sound very woo-woo to people that haven't had these experiences, but just to try to intellectualize it for people to help them understand, when we say that be present, be in the now, what we're really saying is like dropping the conceptual apparatus. Because whenever you're thinking, whenever you're talking to your yourself in your head. You are taking yourself out of whatever immediate experience you're having and you're either thinking about the past, projecting into the future. Anxiety is projecting into the future. It's always like catastrophic thinking is future oriented. The mind

is always looking for a way to wriggle out of the present moment, to wriggle out of the now and to look back or to look forward as a sort of coping mechanism. But if you can quiet the mind, if you can get to the point where that veil of thought is sort of lifted and you're sort of experiencing the world directly. And it's very hard to obtain and it only lasts for a few seconds, really. But when we say infinity or eternity, it's because that's constant looking to the past and the future of the mind has dropped away. And the present moment is the only moment we ever really have. And when you're in that mindset, when your conceptual apparatus drops even for a fleeting moment, the past and present cease. to exist as a conceptual thing in your mind, there is an infinity or an eternity, and it's not

a temporal linear, like, horizontal eternity. It's almost like a vertical depth of eternity, if that makes sense. And again, we're hitting the boundaries of language, but I hope at least that's somewhat helpful for people to understand what we mean by these terms. But going to your question back at me, I totally agree about, you know, really ego deconstruction when you're out there, specifically when you're out there alone. I've talked about not having to perform your social roles. Being out there by yourself allows you to, I think, you know, the boundaries of the ego start to loosen a little bit.

You're not performing for anybody. You don't have the gaze of somebody else on you, right? Like think of Sartra looking through the people and he hears a noise behind him and he immediately conceives himself through the eyes of another. That's what we do when we're in society. We're constantly doing that. We're playing roles. We're seeing ourselves through the eyes of other people.

Do we compare well? how do we stack up to that person? Why is my life not as good as that person? But to be out in nature, there's nobody to perform for. And so over time, those boundaries start to loosen a little bit. And that's what Mexie, I think, is gesturing towards when she talks about melting into nature, you know, really just being inseparable from it. It's the collapse of subject and object, really. You're so much better at talking about this than I. I thought about it a lot. And then the second element of ego deconstruction, I think, is, especially when you're out in the wilderness alone is hubris.

Hubris is a liability. When you're out there, even hiking, really in the backcountry away from your vehicle, you can't really deal with being arrogant. First of all, there's nobody to be arrogant for, but second of all, hubris will get you hurt or possibly killed. If you're hiking, even something as simple as hiking, which is literally just walking, right? But you're five miles away from the parking lot or the nearest human being. You step in a hole of some sort and break your ankle.

right um what happens now well you should have been watching you should have been very careful about what you're doing out there um i've heard a story a survivalist story he was a guide and he's an expert in the outdoors he was guiding um some boy scout troops through a northern minnesota canadian border area um through like kayaking and hiking and he was looking for the next portage which is basically a little hiking trail between lakes you carry your canoe jump back in the lake etc um and he got up to a rock to sort of get a better view and he saw another rock and it was a better view and so he tried to jump from that rock and he slipped hit his head and this whole survivalist situation then unfolds that's a tiny little error and that really is a product of i can make that jump i've done it a

million times right and so to really put your your ego and your hubris into question and really think deeply about the dangers that you could possibly fall into i think also helps with sort of deconstructing the ego and then the last thing i'll say is when you're walking anywhere and i've notice this in the woods time and time again animals smell you you're a big loud creature they scatter you know you don't even know they're scattering but they're moving away from this smelly loud thing chomping through the woods right but if you sit down and you stay silent and stay still in a meditative state or just sitting and relaxing and you be very quiet you'll see nature flood back in it's almost like you know parting the red sea and then the sea comes back in like squirrels will come up

close to you. I've had birds like perch on a, on a branch like two feet above my head. You know, deer will come around all of a sudden. And so if you're quiet, you can sort of see the rhythms of nature and the animals flooding back into an area that they previously scattered from because they heard you coming. And that experience alone is, is kind of profound. You know, I really get a lot out of that specifically. So I don't know. What are your thoughts on that? Oh my goodness. Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up like that. Yeah, it's, it's magical. really and I think that like I'll honestly be sitting there and I'll just be gritting from ear to ear because it's just like you feel like you're part of that magic right and you kind of remember

that you are right like we are animals we just don't remember that we are right we don't remember that we're part of like that whole magic the whole magic of being and the whole magic of like the whole ecosystem and how everything interacts with one another but yeah I think that that's really like a good point that um yeah i've had so many great experiences just being totally quiet and then having the animals come back around and then i'm just i'm just grinning for you like you can't like you can't not be like ecstatically happy in those moments you know um i feel like snow white yes yeah absolutely um and i i love the the way that you explain like the infinity moment that was way better i i really struggle to to talk about this these things but you um you really explain that

beautifully. It honestly feels like you're just for a short amount of time in this kind of new dimension where like time doesn't exist, like the construct of our time doesn't actually exist. And you're just kind of, you're just kind of in this new plane. And it's so beautiful. And I also love the the way you talked about kind of like the eyeballs on you and how they're not on you out there. And sometimes I think about like the universe as like, sometimes I anthropomorphize kind of like the force that I feel kind of out there. and that I feel connected to, but, like, if that's the only thing that's looking at you, right, is kind of like the, this life force that connects everything that is, then, like, in that, in those eyes, like, you're perfect. Like, in those eyes, like, everything is perfect, right? And so I think there's just such a, like, it can be scary, right? Like, kind of dropping into that infinity moment can be scary because you also kind of realize that, like, there's magic and there's beauty and everything that is. And, and, and, and, the way that we're all interconnected, but there's also, you know, like you're talking about

the voidness, right? Just the inherent emptiness and the inherent emptiness of the self and things like that. And that can be kind of scary to drop into, too, but if you can kind of embrace it, like, if you can kind of realize that, like, because of this kind of emptiness, because of, because of this nothingness, because of this, I don't know, yeah, eternal voidness, like, everything is possible. And I have nothing to fear and I have nothing to hide and nothing to be ashamed of. I think that's, that's like a real, that's happiness, right? Like, that's just like a really happy, free moment to experience. If you can kind of get past the like, oh, this is scary. I'm lonely. I'm, I'm, what am I tapping into here? It's, it's overwhelming, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah,

well said. And it is the fear of really letting go. I mean, there's comfort in the myopic ego. There's comfort in that self-identification with thoughts and emotions it's what you know and so letting go of that is scary but you know we're all going to have to let go of it at death you have to you know say goodbye to yourself your ego at death and so if you can learn to do that before death death itself stops being a thing and I don't want to get too far afield here but the whole question of how death is perceived by meditative you know really masters way above I think you or I you know like really enlightened people the fear of death ceases as just like a natural outcome of the practice and of letting go of the ego, which is this little trembling

thing that is constantly worried and searching for comfort and desiring new things and wanting things, et cetera. So, you know, letting go is like being on a roller coaster, like, if you give into your fear, if you're like clenched up and you're holding on and you're, you're so scared, you know, you don't want to let go with those handlebars, that's one experience. But even if you're scared and then you just say, you know what, fuck it, I'm going to let go, I'm going to throw my hands up. I'm going to trust in this rollercovers. and I'm just going to let my fear go for a second and just engage with this experience. That letting go is scary, but once you do, there's a profound reward for it.

And there's a similar analogy to meditation. And I will say also there is this thing in meditation, which people can look into if they're really interested, called the Dark Night of the Soul. And it is like at a certain point in your meditative practice, there is this common experience where people really get sort of disturbed, unsettled. I mean, and this is higher, more advanced stuff than I've been able to accomplish, but for people that are interested in sort of the downside or one of the least obstacles of a full-fledged meditation practice,

I think you'd find some really interesting shit if you look into the dark night of the soul. It shouldn't be a thing that prevents you from getting into it, but, you know, we can't say that meditation is all rainbows and lollipops. There are aspects of it that are troubling. And Mexie was saying earlier, things bubble up, like trauma bubbles up, emotions you've suppressed and distracted yourself from your whole life. bubble up. It's necessary therapeutically, but it can be very scary and disturbing. And I would also say people with mental disorders, specifically schizophrenia, there's a lot of evidence to

suggest that perhaps meditation might not be the best way to go if you're struggling with very specific mental illnesses. And so I'd also throw out that caveat for people just to not paint too rosy of a picture and to give some caveats and some nuance to the limitations of meditation. absolutely and you might have to go I mean I'm glad that you threw that caveat about people that it might not be for for everyone certainly but also for people who aren't necessarily struggling with specific mental illnesses like you may have to go through a number of experiences like like I did like I went through a number of experiences where I was very scared and I did kind of enter close to that kind of infinity moment but kind of step back from it because I was terrified of it. And so you might have to kind of tiptoe your way there and you might not get it for a while, right? And then one day you will and you'll be like, oh, all the wisdom was right. There's nothing to be scared of the whole time. Right.

Right. All right, well, let's go ahead and shift into a conversation about psychedelics. This is a long, intense conversation, but I love it. So, I mean, I don't really care. Yeah, me neither, yeah. Yeah, but so let's just go ahead and talk about that. So what are your thoughts on and experiences with psychedelics? Alex, both indoors and outdoors and both with people and alone.

We'll get to specifically sort of, I don't know. I guess you can talk about whatever you want. If you want to talk about doing outdoors, that's fine too. You can take it any direction you want. Oh, yeah. So I absolutely love plant allies, as I call them. And I think that they are, they've been a really important part of me also kind of accessing this wisdom and living this wisdom viscerally.

And so I guess my first experiences, I mean, I guess like weed or whatever, but I didn't really, like when I used to do weed when I was younger, it was kind of just like for fun or just like to party or whatever. And I think I didn't do mushrooms until after I did San Pedro. So I went to Peru and I really wanted to do ayahuasca, but my partner at the time wasn't comfortable with doing that. So we did San Pedro instead, which is kind of like peyote. It's like mescaline. It's a cactus that you kind of cook down and then drink this really disgusting drink.

And so I did it in Peru and with this like shaman and it was just the most incredible experience. And I went into it. I won't read all these because I don't know. It's getting kind of like a long conversation. But I wrote down because the whole thing was that it wasn't like a party drug, right? Like obviously you're doing this very intentionally. And the whole idea was that San Pedro, really does like unearth all of the stuff that's inside you that you're trying to hide or that

you're trying to keep down or that you haven't dealt with like any pain or suffering or anything that you haven't fully dealt with. That will be unearthed and you're supposed to go into it with a number of questions that you want to ask, I guess, Sam Pedro to help you, you know, access that wisdom within yourself. And so I went into it with a number of questions about like, you know, how do I be like a better activist? How do I show up for people better? How do I move towards like fearlessness and all the stuff that I wanted to get to? And it was just so amazing. I remember I wrote notes throughout it. So like at one point I was having a conversation with a flowering plant and like this flowering plant was imparting so much important wisdom onto me. You know what I mean?

And I just felt so like the feeling of like pure love. I can't. I can't really explain that feeling other than just saying, like, pure love and pure connection with, like, the soil, the ground, the roots, like everything, like, just like, just really feeling that dissolving of the self and, like, feeling like you are just, like, part of nature and feeling like so much love to be part of that. So anyway, I enjoyed that experience so much that when we came home, we ended up like ordering San Pedro for a while from Peru. And there is this really beautiful park in Toronto. And we would just go and spend the entire day there just like on San Pedro and like talking to the trees and like and working through shit. Like working through like I said, I had a really

serious eating disorder for almost like over 10 years. And it was really coming from a lot of like dark places within me that, like, that I would really just work through and, like, that would just be unearthed through using this, like, I call it medicine, you know, like using this medicine and connecting to these bigger things and accessing this wisdom that could be useful to me. And then I think after that, it just became, like, really hard to order this stuff. So I kind of moved more into just, like, mushrooms and, like, yeah, like, I'll smoke weed. Like, like, a lot of times I'll smoke weed or do mushrooms.

rooms. And then, like, meditating in that space is always, like, really, really beautiful and really magical. And I think it's easier, I think, in those moments to kind of access the feeling of, like, ego death and, like, the infinity moment and all that stuff. But it also, yeah, like, it also just, like, I'm able to tap into my creativity in a really real, real way. And I'm able to tap into, or I guess, like, access just, like, with that is within me that I don't, that I, that I, that it's easy to forget, I guess, when things are busy or when I'm having a lot of distractions or on social media or the rest of that stuff. Um, so yeah, I just, I love it. And in terms of like outdoors versus indoors,

like I, I love doing it indoors as well. Um, it, it really connects me to, um, I guess the place that I am. Like when I, when I moved into a new apartment, like, again, like this was way back when, like, after that breakup, like, one of the things I did was, like, have a mushroom ceremony in the house to, like, connect myself to the physical place that I was in and, like, feel like, I don't know, love and connection for that, that space. And, like, and I haven't done it in here. I've moved again. I would like to do that here as well. But for me, it's always really, really introspective and, like, medicine. And, like, like just like groovy like I just feel like I have like some my best thoughts uh on psychedelics so yeah I don't know like what about you like what is your experience and how do you feel about it yeah I mean I think we should do like an entire episode just about psychedelic experience because like I have a lot to say on like MDMA and the feeling of universal love a DMT trip that I had relatively recently a Nina Simone episode was actually conceived in an LSD trip.

while I was listening to Nina Simone, so that whole episode came out of an acid trip. And I remember even back in the day when I lived in Montana, we didn't have a lot of good connections or a lot of good money. So we went into the mountains one time to the very top of like a mountain lake and we robo-tripped like Robitussin. Wow. Yeah, not actually great in retrospect. It was like we were throwing up and like trying to get down and you're discombobulated

and shit. But I'm just saying there's lots of shit to talk about. So if people are interested in this, we'll definitely maybe do some more work on that. But just to sort of confine myself to a few points here, I think with psychedelics, there is a nice metaphor, like a nice metaphor when you're comparing psychedelics and meditation. And the way I think about their relationship to one another is that, you know, the best experiences on psychedelics where you do have moments of ego death, where you get through some trauma or addictive behaviors or the subject object collapse occurred. you know, it's really like being rocketed to the top of a mountain and then ripped back down after a couple hours. Whereas meditation is the slow, steady hike up the side of that hill. And when you get to the top, you can stay there, right? And so there's a difference there.

There's a certain temporality of fleetingness to psychedelics that, you know, might point the way, might say, hey, there's something here that you should, you know, try to figure out more of. But it can't really by itself, I think, completely result in the sort of, of really beneficial transformations that can happen with a deep meditation practice. So that's just something to keep in mind. But I do want to tell one story of when I was very young. I was probably 15 or 16. I hadn't even started smoking weed yet.

I think I'd only drink an alcohol once at this point. But me and my buddy decided we were going to try mushrooms. And we got an eighth each, right? Again, this is when I was 15. I'm 31 in a week or so. So this is a long-ass time ago. But I always remember, I didn't understand it at the time, and it was only later that I understood it. But we were going to do these mushrooms, so we went and we got them.

And it was, you know, I had an eighth. My friend had an eighth. My friend backed out at the last second. We're with a bunch of other friends, like five of us. And it was supposed to be me and my other friend. And then the other three guys were going to like basically babysit us. And they were too scared to do it, whatever. So my friend backed out last moment.

I said, you know what? I'm not going to let this shit go to waste. So no experience. I'm not even on weed. I took a quarter of mushroom. And we were, 15, so we didn't have a house. We were, like, driving around.

One of my friends had just turned 16 and was driving his mom's van. So, like, we had to go to this movie theater parking lot to do the drugs. And the shit hit me so goddamn quickly. I was walking, I was walking back from having went into the theater just to get a drink of water. And we're walking back to the van. And it just, it overwhelmed me. I basically laid down in the grass sort of median between, you know, different parking spaces. And I stared up at the sky.

And it felt, it felt, it felt, or. It felt as if I was watching the stars in the night sky fall into me. Like the distance between me and the stars ceased to exist. My friends seeing me making an ass of myself and I mean, families walking in to see their Friday night movie and shit, they got out of the van. They all grabbed me. They jerked me out of my sort of, you know, state of mind, threw me into the back of the van. Like, Brett, you're going to get us all in trouble if you keep acting like this, you know?

And that turned my trip into a very bad one. Like I saw snakes and spiders crawling out of the vents. When I vomited, I was convinced it was blood and something was crawling around in it. Like, it took a really negative turn. Later, it kind of chilled out. My friends got me home safe, you know. And then later when I was doing meditation, thinking about enlightenment, thinking about the collapse of subject and object, only then did I eventually realize that what I had

experienced in that moment was a collapse of subject and object. Like the stars didn't exist out there and I was in here, but we were one. And that was the orgasmic experience. orgasmic, for lack of a better word. It wasn't sexual, right? But it was like, it was beyond just normal pleasure. It was it was exhilarating to, to an extent that I've never felt really since. And it's only in retrospect that I could piece it together and say that, oh yeah, it was a subject, object collapse. And that is sort of the point of meditation, of selflessness, of getting to enlightenment. And so I got a taste of it. And that's really interesting. So take that for

what it is. But it was a huge experience for me. And then I will say one thing about we before we move on. Lots of people smoke weed, especially this good ass weed we have these days. I remember buying like brown frown back in the day like that shit with more seeds than fucking weed, you know? And that's just completely been eradicated, thank goodness. But a lot of people will smoke this very intense marijuana and they'll say, I don't like it. It makes me too, it makes me too paranoid. I get very insecure. And even as a quote unquote veteran smoker myself, I'll still have moments where I'd overdo it a bit and that feeling of like, like hyper self-consciousness of double-thinking everything you said that day,

thinking that your friends or, or, you know, your comrades don't like you, like that weird sort of unnecessary insecurity, it's enough to turn a lot of people off. But what I've come to develop in myself is like, oh, this is an opportunity. Like, you know, it's pointing out something. And sometimes it's true. Sometimes it's not. But to be able to sit with that paranoia, to not try to run from it, to not freak out, to not let it make you collapse into paranoia and like fear.

but to sit there and say, oh, something's coming up and examine it and work through it and to deal with it. I think there's something potentially helpful in those states where it's presenting you with deep insecurity, which is just the underside of ego, right? Like the opposite end of ego is insecurity. You can't have one without the other. Look at Donald Trump. He's the most egoic person you can imagine. He's also radically insecure, and that's not a coincidence. So the paranoia of weed, if you can not let yourself freak out, you can sort of, to be presented with some internal shit that you can work through and be better and stronger

for it. And then when you have that anxiety or that paranoia next time, it's not so much, oh, my God, I need to get away from this as fast as possible. It's like, oh, here's a challenge. How can I navigate these waters? What is what is myself telling me really, you know? And so there's something interesting there. But yeah, I'll toss it back over to you. Yeah, I think so too, absolutely, because we just kind of like amplifies anything that you're feeling, right? And so it's a really great time to explore like wow yeah you know this this is what i'm feeling right now and it's being amplified times like 10 right um and i think that's a really great i i agree like i i still do get kind of you know those feelings will creep in or um things will feel really really heavy but then

that's the kind of the perfect time to practice um you know this awareness of your thought patterns and then how your thought patterns turn into emotions and and things like that and then to to think like, okay, yeah, like, look at the, look as the observer and like, where are these thoughts coming from and, like, can I, um, can I break this down? Like, can I sit with this? But can I also like break this down and maybe, um, and maybe shift my state, like shift my thought patterns and shift, um, when, when I shift my thought patterns and like it, I shift my emotion, my, my emotional state as well. Um, and I think if you can practice at that time, then it really helps you also, um, in your, I guess, quote unquote waking life when you,

you're when you're not high. But yeah, I think everything you said was, was on point. That sounds like a really intense experience that you had for your very first time. But yeah, I think it does. It gives us these glimpses of things. But I think that I wouldn't have gotten so much out of the experience if I hadn't already been into meditation and already, you know, because then that allowed me to be like, oh, this is what the wisdom was talking about. This is what I'm feeling. and to be excited about that, whereas if you're kind of going into it, especially if you're going into it when you're just like partying or whatever. Like unfortunately, most of my experience with MDMA was just like pure partying.

So I didn't really, yeah, I don't have as much like good connections with that one. But I can understand, I guess, like how one could. But yeah, I think that I think that it is important to kind of give us these glimpses and kind of take us into these new states. these new ways of thinking that we can really develop and nurture more with meditative practice. Totally. And I wish we as a society were more open-minded about the healing, transformative properties of many psychedelics instead of being scared as a pearl-clutching society. Imagine a world in which there were professionals who understood these chemicals and understood the trip and could guide you through it and places you could go to have these experiences.

There's lots of empirical scientific evidence that suggests that, you know, you know, psilocybin, the active ingredient in mushrooms, can do a lot when it comes to end of life anxiety and sort of re-perceiving your ego in relation to your own death, lots of stuff with MDMA possibly treating forms of PTSD. So, you know, by being deprived of these, by criminalizing these wonderful plants, you're really, you know, doing harm. I mean, you're blocking out an entire avenue of possible healing, radical healing properties in these plants. And ayahuasca, for example, is well known for its possible role in overcoming deep addiction. These things shouldn't be tossed aside as like, oh, you know, hippies just want to get high and see cool

colors. Fuck no. This shit is way, way, way deeper than that. And if you're engaging with these chemicals, I find the best trips I have, yeah, you can have wonderful experiences with friends and stuff. But when you're with other people, sometimes you want to externalize the experience. Let's watch this cool thing with these colors or let's go out and try to see something. something cool, but when you do it alone, you're really forced into introspection and nothing else

is really pulling you out of that. And that can be very productive, I think. If done right and done respectfully, like these aren't things just to get fucked up on. You can get fucked up on them, but that's a dangerous way to engage with these things. I think having some sort of ritualistic approach to them, having real respect for the power of these plants and engaging in such a way where you are really focused on getting something therapeutic and wholesome out of the experience can do wonders in putting your mindset in the right place to take these drugs, because if you're not in the right mindset and you drop acid or take too much shrooms or, you know, do ayahuasca, you're going to have a bad time. Yeah. It can get really dangerous, you know? Yes. Yeah,

absolutely. Yeah, I always try to approach it as like a ceremony, you know, so that it's something that is taken really seriously. And yeah, I love what you said there as well, kind of engaging with these things like there's a reason why you know hippies are so demonized and a lot of that has to do with like you know refer madness and all this stuff where um i mean first of all there's a racial component to that um but also it's like capitalism does not want us to be people who are exploring other dimensions and you know doors of consciousness you know what i mean like capitalism wants us to be uh you know workers that are productive and that are you know ready to obey and things like that. And so I think it's also kind of like radical to explore these different ways of being a

human that we can access because we're animals and because different like flora in the world turns on different parts of our brains. Like that's that's a really, I guess, animalistic experience that again is like not only outside of, well, I guess it has been commodified, but like it can be an experience that it's like, again, outside of capital or that like that they can't really touch and that they don't want you to go there because it challenges like the kind of capitalist egemony, you know? Absolutely. Yeah, there's nothing less productive than rolling around in the grass and having a star orgasm. Yes, exactly. Get up and clock in, boy. So I want to just come to one last question before the conclusion and the plugs. And that's the concept of eco-grief.

In fact, I actually hadn't heard of this until your show. I know you did an episode on it, and you mentioned as something you wanted to cover in this conversation. So can you just explain what is eco-grief and what role does that play in sort of the relationship we have towards the wilderness that we've discussed so far today? So, I mean, I guess just very simply, eco-grief is just the grief that people are feeling knowing and basically just, watching the earth be, you know, destroyed and watching all of these species go extinct and everything as capital just marches on, right? And so it's just, it's the real, it's the feeling of grief and knowing that, that, you know, future generations, they might not actually even get to see the earth as it is now. There might not be, you know, certain species around that we know that

that they'll get to see. And just just the grief over kind of the magic and the beauty of this world being systematically destroyed by capital is what I think of as eco-grief. And I just thought to bring it up because I guess lately, lately I've been feeling that more. And when I went out recently, I guess it was last summer, I went out alone camping. And I was reading the raiding sweetgrass at the time. And it's a beautiful, beautiful book that I recommend to everybody. But she was talking about this idea of reciprocity and this idea of, you know, giving as much as you're getting and being part of that relationship with your environment. And I felt really like, I felt really guilty, I guess. I felt really like I was sitting there like meditatively connecting

to the universe. It was just like me in the universe. um, looking back at one another. And, um, yeah, I was just experiencing a lot of grief and a lot of guilt, I guess, because I felt like, you know, I'm here, but I live in the city most of the time. And in the city, like, I don't, I don't have any reciprocal relationship to the environment that I'm in. Um, like I might as well not even be in my environment. Like, everything that I consume, I just get from the store. Um, it's coming from halfway around the world. I have no relationship with the actual like biome that I'm in other than just like consuming energy and disposing of trash, right? And I was out in the woods and I was feeling connected and I just thought like,

God, like what can I give as an offering? Like what can I like how can I make this more of a reciprocal relationship and not just me like out here camping like having a good time and then going home and continuing to kind of like watch the earth like die you know and so like it got kind of grim and I I don't know it was just kind of it turned out to be kind of beautiful because I started to do kind of like I don't know more just like meditative ceremonies I guess and um just really um like I apologized to the earth this is to be like who the hell is this like what kind of a guest is this? Like, I literally, like, apologize to the earth and, like, to the moon and, like, to the trees and stuff. And I was, like, deeply, like, I cried. Like, I was just like, I, you know, like, I'm sorry. And then I, it was hard to you because I felt like, well, apologies, like, apologies without action are meaningless. And so, you know, I very much am committed to, like, activism committed to, to tearing the system down. But, and I guess in that way, it was invigorating and kind of like reminding me of, like,

what I'm fighting for. But yeah, I just wanted to bring that up that like, especially in this time, I think a lot of people don't really talk about eco-grief or they don't really talk about like the grief of like watching this whole system just like cave in on itself and like destroy everything. You know what I mean? And that like that is also an experience that you might have in nature and like, because a lot of people will ask, like, well, how do you, how do you deal with the eco-grief or whatever? And I'm just like, I don't know. Like, it's not something that I really want to, like, shove away or,

or, like, um, mask or like, you know, do some self-care and forget about it. Like, it's something that I kind of actually enjoy, not enjoy, but, like, that, like, is kind of powerful and healing to kind of work through out there alone in the wilderness and to kind of really connect to the earth and be like, man, like, I see you. I feel you. Like, I'm sorry. like I need to I need to fix this relationship you know and I need to restore like we as a society need to restore our relationship so that we are living in reciprocity and we are one part of this broader ecosystem and like we have a positive role to play in that ecosystem because we we do like we're just not doing that so yeah no I mean I yeah when you're saying like

that you would outwardly express like apologies to the earth and stuff like that's not weird to me at all because I do shit that would people would laugh at if they saw me out there but one of the things like you know just touching trees or sometimes like I would like literally like hug a tree like you know like I'm so grateful for you and shit like I just want to feel my hand on the tree bark and think about that tree being there 100 years after I'm gone hopefully right like it's not cut down and like then having this reinvigorated sense of I will do anything to protect this land and it's it's not just protecting earth because earth can protect itself like you know if it has to get rid of humanity to protect itself it will ultimately in the long run be

fine but i view humans you know as this consciousness that bubbled out of this earth like the same place you know we share like a third of our DNA with fucking dandelions and mushrooms and shit like you know we're all deeply deeply connected and the fact that this little pale blue dot has burbled out like bubbled out consciousness these these creatures that can sit back in and apologize to the earth and hug those trees and have these experiences and talk about the shit and fight to protect it that shit's beautiful there is no separation again humans aren't aliens that came here we weren't seated by some other species god didn't in my opinion god didn't create us to to and then put us on this earth from the outside we bubble up out

of it and so we are it there is no fundamentally there's no separation between us and our planet. And it's that illusion of separateness that can give rise to the brutality with retreat sentient animals and nature itself. And capitalism really thrives on that illusion of separateness and anything you can do to deconstruct that illusion and to see the interconnectedness of all beings and all of nature, I think, is working against the paradigm that capitalism really takes advantage of and perpetuates. Absolutely. That's a big thing in my field of political ecology is just like this Western kind of separation of humans and nature is the first step to like that externalization is what leads to its commodification and leads to it, leads to things like settler colonialism and like manifest destiny and things like that. Because the minute that it's outside of you and it's something that you can quantify and kind of break down into units or whatever, then that's something that you can, I mean, yeah, quantify and then sell. for a price kind of thing um so yeah and i also kind of i also really feel like um a responsibility

for like interspecies equity i i really feel a responsibility for uh the other species that are going extinct because of what we're doing like that's blood on our hands as well um and as you said like there is no separation there so it's like we're losing parts of ourselves so um so yeah i mean that that does really invigorate me to to act. But it also makes me feel sad and makes me feel like I need to, yeah, hug the trees and apologize. Totally. Yeah. I tell my, I tell my kids to try to like work against this illusion of separateness. I tell my kids like, you know, your lungs are just as important to you living as the trees are, right? Like, the sun is just as important to your continued existence as you're beating heart. And I try to like, you know, find ways to teach my

kids that this sense of separateness is ultimately an illusion. My last instance of eco-grief before we sort of conclude this amazing conversation is actually doing recently, like within the last year or so, doing LSD on the banks of the Platte River here in Nebraska with my wife. Wow. It really was picking up, right? Like, you know, you take it, you wait. It comes up. And then we found ourselves as it was really hitting on the bank of the river, watching this beautiful sunset over this. And the Platte River is fucking gorgeous.

and you see it and we like we held each other and we both started weeping sort of like without even saying anything we both had tears streaming down our eyes and the only way that I could put it into words is a simultaneous feeling of just like love for all fucking beans and I'm like crying because I'm sad at the suffering of the world but I'm also sort of like there's a jubilation underneath the tears it's not pure sadness like the emotion of it is very very complex but We basically just held each other and said, like, you know, how can we end stuff? Like, what do we do to make people not suffer? And it was just a very, very deep, profound moment.

And there was eco-grief in there, but it wasn't completely grief. It was also this, this, the ecstasy that comes with really feeling connected. You know, it can obliterate senses of alienation and the myopic ego in a split second. And when you feel that fucking throbbing connection to everything around you, it's really, there's no substitute for it, you know, and that was my last experience with it. But yeah, the eco-grief inculcates in you just this, this radical urge to protect this, you know, I want my kids to be able to enjoy it. I want their kids to be able to enjoy it. I want us to come to a healthy balance with our world and see ourselves as a beautiful aspect of it, not separate from it, trying to

dominate it. And that, that psychological paradigm shift will have to co-occur with any, revolutionary movement that seeks to change the material conditions of society, there has to also be a shift in our understanding and our relationship to one another and our world, you know? Mm-hmm. Yes, very well said. We'll definitely have to do a follow-up on psychedelists because I've had similar experiences doing mushrooms in Jaspers, just kind of looking out into the mountains and, yeah, similarly weeping out of both sadness and jubilation. Yeah, yeah, just really well said. I think we'll definitely do an episode on psychedelic sometime this year. I think it needs to happen. And I'm pretty sure we can do that as our next collab. But the last question I'll ask you

before I let you plug your shows and stuff is, you know, lots of people out there for whatever reason. Maybe they didn't have a family that was into the outdoors. Maybe they live in like a really big city where to get outdoors means traveling a long way, I mean, to get out in the backcountry, the wilderness. So what would you recommend for someone who, you know, wants to get into outdoorsmanship and backcountry activities and all this stuff we've been talking about, but it's more or less completely new to the subject and might not know where to start or what activities to engage in. What would be your recommendation to that person?

I would say just start small. Like in Toronto, we have the first urban national park, actually, the Rouge National Park. So even if you're in an urban area, I'm sure there's places you can go and just start going on a hike or start with maybe just some. front country camping like car camping right so you just pack a tent and you go somewhere and you park your car and you you camp right you can just kind of start small

and work your way up if you have any friends that like enjoy doing this kind of stuff maybe you can kind of tag along with them and maybe learn the ropes a little bit and then kind of branch out on your own but I think there's like a lot of kind of small steps you can go actually in I don't know about the states but in Canada you can also they're I mean they're pretty expensive, but you could rent like yurts or whatever if you don't necessarily want to buy your own gear or set up your own gear or you're a bit uncomfortable with that at first. So yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of like kind of front country inroads that you can kind of start with first or even just like hiking and not necessarily camping out right away.

And then, yeah, just slowly but surely kind of work your way in, you know. Yeah, I guess that's what I would say. For sure, yeah. And I would just echo all of that. You know, there's so many activities that you can get into in the outdoors. I mean, rock climbing, hiking, fishing, camping, kayaking, even geocaching, right? Just excuses to get out there and move around in the world and to really, you know, drown yourself in nature. Like go out there and just experience it in whatever ways that you can with friends or alone, however you want to do it.

I think there are, there's none here in Nebraska, I don't think, but there's this. thing called the REI and I think in many places they allow you to basically rent all your gear so you don't have to buy a tent and buy a backpack and I know that shit can be very very expensive I've all my gear has just been like slowly accumulated over a decade and it takes so long and even something like a good tent or a good sleeping pad cost a fucking outrageous amount of money so sometimes renting things especially if you're just getting into it can help you sort of save some money and get used to things before you invest yourself and then the last thing I would say is just like we're regardless of what you're into, like find what you love and do it outside. Like, even if you're like a

fucking poet or a writer, like just go to the bank of a river and write. You know, like you can do anything outside. And I think having something you already love and then finding a way to transfer it to the outdoors is a very simple, easy, accessible way to get into it. And then you can see where your passions and interests take you from there. Yeah, I think that's really well said. All right. Well, Mexie, thank you so much for coming on. Every time you come on, we have an amazing conversation. We'll definitely do an episode on psychedelics. Like you said, there's so much more to talk about it on that topic alone. But before I let you go, can you please let listeners know where they can find you and your work online? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I just want to say thank you for

having me on to have this conversation. This was absolutely awesome. And it went like way longer than I think either of us expected, but I love it. So I hope the listeners enjoy this as well. So yeah, everyone can find my YouTube channel. It's Mexie, M-E-X-X-E-E-E- on YouTube. um and uh my podcast vegan vanguard it's vegan vanguard podcast.com and we're on twitter at vegan underscore vanguard i'm also at on twitter at mexy yt and facebook and whatever if you find like one of my social media uh accounts you'll find the rest so definitely and i'll link to as much of that in the show notes so you can easily um find mexie if you want to and then the last thing i'll say is like you know i think what's in order is possibly if it's ever possible some

sort of Brett and Mexie or Rev. Left and Vegan Vanguard outdoor trip, maybe me in the middle of where we live and live stream it or something. I don't know. There's a lot of opportunities. I would love to go out with you. I would love that so much. Oh my goodness. We could even bring some like psychedelics out there and allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. But yeah, that would be so fun. Yeah. But yeah, Mexie, thank you again so much. Let's keep in touch and we'll do an episode on psychedelics sometime later this year. Okay. For sure. Sounds good. Thanks so much. Sweet kid, what is this world we're giving you smoldering and fascist with no mother? Are you dreaming about a crow?

In the middle of November, we went back into the woods right after breakfast. to see if we could see this past August's forest fire zone on the hill above the lake the sky was low and the wind cold the trail was closed at the barricade I stood listening in my backpack you were sleeping with her hat pulled low all the usual birds were gone or freezing it was all silent except the sound of one crow

following us as we wove through the cedar grove I walked in you bobbed and dozed Sweet kid We were watched and followed And I thought of Jean-Bierf Sweet kid I heard you murmur in your sleep

Crow You said Crow And I asked Are you dreaming about a crow and there she was