Sense of Soul - Music for the Soul

Episode Date: April 24, 2023

Today on Sense of Soul we have, author Mike Fiorito, associate Editor for Mad Swirl Magazine and a regular contributor to the Red Hook Star Revue. Mike is speaker and musician.  His latest, newly released book ‘Mescalito Riding His White Horse.’ Where Buddhism and Bluegrass mix. Inspired by several interviews with Peter Rowan (Grammy award nominee 2023), legendary bluegrass and spiritual musician. #1 hot new release in Country Music and Bluegrass Books. You can order here: https://a.co/d/c6MQNMP Learn more about Mike! https://mikefiorito.com/ Check out Legendary Peter Rowen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhAKnNU_4rM&list=RDFNm2fk52vXU&index=2 Visit Sense of Soul at www.mysenseofsoul.com Check out Sense of Soul’s Network of Lightworkers Affliates Program!!  Do you want Ad Free episodes? Join our Sense of Soul Patreon, our community of seekers and lightworkers. Also recieve 50% off of Shanna’s Soul Immersion experience as a Patreon member, monthly Sacred circles, both of Shanna mini series, Sense of Soul merch and more. https://www.patreon.com/senseofsoul Follow Sense of Soul Podcast on Social Media: https://www.facebook.com/SenseofSoulSOS  

Hello, my soul-seeking friends. It's Shanna. Thank you so much for listening to Sense of Soul podcast. Enlightening conversations with like-minded souls from around the world, sharing their journey of finding their light within, turning pain into purpose, and awakening to their true sense of soul. If you like what you hear, show me some love and rate, like, and subscribe. And consider becoming a Sense of Soul Patreon member, where you will get ad-free episodes, monthly circles, and much more. Now go grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. Today on Sense of Soul, we have author Mike Ferrito. He is an associate editor for Mad Swirl Magazine, a regular contributor to Red Hook Star Revenue. He is a speaker and a musician,

and he's joining us today to tell us about his latest and newly released book, Mescalito Riding His White Horse, where Buddhism and bluegrass mix, inspired by several interviews with bluegrass legend Peter Rowan, which is already a best-selling book in country music and bluegrass books. So welcome, Mike. Hey, Shanna. How are you? I am good. How are you doing?

I'm doing well. Great. I love the colorful dots behind you. Thank you. Where are you located? I know doing well. Great. I love the colorful dots behind you. Thank you. Where are you located? I know it's mountain time. Yep. I'm in Colorado.

Colorado. I'm in a suburb of Denver. Yeah. Aurora. Oh, cool. Sure. I know it. Some of the most beautiful places I've ever been around there.

I'm from Louisiana. Oh, okay. Cool. Came here as a kid. My dad loved Colorado. Yeah, you know, in those mountains. I mean, I'm from New York City, and I'd never, you know, I'd been out of the city, but I was 22. I went to NYU, so I stayed in the city to go to school.

And just seeing the array of pine tops and the vistas and the snow caps, and you're driving to it, and it's not getting snow caps and you're driving to it and it's not getting closer and you're driving to it. And it was, it was quite a thing really. Yeah, it really is. I'm in a high area of the plains. So I see the entire mountain range. Wow. Beautiful. Yeah. We went to a wedding in Vail, But before that, my wife and I had gone camping. So we went camping in Nevada and just other places. And then we wended our way to Vail, which was so awesome because we showed up like bronzed.

You know, I looked like Harrison Ford from Indiana Jones. Although the fact is, I was not nearly as cool and all. I was. I felt it. And then when you drive from Vail you're driving down yeah so you're looking to Denver and you're looking up and like wow it's cool it's definitely cool it's beautiful I was just talking about this with my 11 year old because I said I didn't appreciate it as a child because she's always like oh my god mom

why are you taking pictures I'm like because look at the sunset it's so pretty just like like I was when I was a kid I'll get it it's sort of the kind of thing where it's getting absorbed yeah and you know when you're around beauty all the time it's just hard to see it you know it's I know well and when you're busy and you're not present with the world, and actually I was listening, I don't know if, I don't know where I heard this, but in stalking you. Yeah. Nice. I think it was maybe Peter. I don't know if you said it or he, that the birds had a language. Yeah. Yeah. That was, so I had been reading Ackerman, Diane Ackerman's books, The Genius of Birds. And she has another she has like six books. I was reading those books,

I was getting very interested in all of the way that birds express intelligence through developing creating a bower, the males create bowers, if they find an like a colorful toothbrush, they'll include that in their bower. And it's sort of like to the females like hey you know look at my place you know it's pretty cool of course the the navigation and then the song that they create and it's so interesting not all birds sing the same or the same lengths but like meadow larks and certain birds and uh i was just thinking you know we're we're walking around in our human world, and we're seeing all this intelligence around us, and we're not paying attention. We're looking into the stars to say, that's where, you know, intelligence is, but it's right here. And as

Peter and I are having this conversation, a scrub jay alights, like on the, we're outside in Salisbury, California. And Peter and I look at at it and I said, I think they're paying attention. Yeah. Just yesterday, it was about three o'clock. I was picking my daughter up from school. There's like this length of time you have to show up early. So you get your good parking spot. So you don't have to have your kid walk a mile.

And I sat there and I decided to write because it just was so powerful but I put staring at the birds flying in the sky I thought to myself I think I once was a bird flying so free in the warmth of the sun surrendering on a windy day and allowing the wind to take me away to wherever I was meant to be have you ever seen that where they just like the hawks? They just like, it's so interesting. It is. I mean, when the hawks, it's funny, because even in New York City, we have hawks. And we have pigeons. So you'll, you'll see these swirling kind of flock of pigeons. And then you'll see the hawk and they're like, kind of gliding and not even flapping. And what that means is, I'm going to kill someone real soon.

You know, all the birds, like, you know, everything kind of scatters, you know, and it could be even like a rat or a mouse or something, but they're eyeing something. It's kind of cool. I actually got a picture. I'll have to send it to you. Me and a client of mine were at my house and we're looking up and the hawks were really acting kind of playful in the sky and you know we both were watching them and I always go to you know how do you feel during these moments too right it wasn't just an average we're looking

up sure right something was happening and so I decided record. I didn't notice it at the time, but later on, as I'm looking at the hawks, I actually caught a spirit hawk, like a totem in the sky. It's going a different direction. It's making different turns. Wow. Like the way it felt that moment too. There's a guy, Mike Cleland, maybe you know him, and he's written about owls and the paranormal. And it's super fascinating just like how owls will often,

you may see an owl and you may see a UFO, but there's something supernatural. I mean, some people that word gets argued if it's, you know, maybe it's just natural and we're just dummies and not paying attention. I'm going to send you something. It is the freakiest thing. So, and again, the feeling. There was a night I have two dogs and I was outside letting them go to the bathroom.

And all of a sudden I looked up and it was very, very cold. It was very cold. And I could see that it was an owl. I have a really tall tree tree so they like my tree but in the picture it looks black it looks like the scariest thing you've ever seen i don't know how it's sitting there because it's at the top of a very small branch and it's just like so it it almost looks like it's not on anything. Yeah. I have lots of pictures of owls in my backyard, but that. Please send me. Yeah.

Was creepy. Yeah. I have an owl story that we experienced. We had an encounter with an owl. And I would say that my encounter was probably my, in a way, induction into where I've gone with the writing. And it was during COVID, you know, we were riding bikes and looking up at the trees, suddenly paying attention to trees. So I got into this huge tree phase and birds and stuff. And, you know, I'm a city guy. So to be honest, you have to tune your mind to these things. It's not, no one was pointing out when

I was growing up, you know, birds were, there was one word, birds. It covered all birds. Yeah. All of them. You know, I live in Brooklyn and we have a big park. It's, it's like, it's called Prospect Park, which is like Central Park. And so you do have, it's, it's, you have a lot of trees. You have a lot of birds. It's pretty diverse. And I guess the bird from the North and the South, they kind of, they'll pass through here. We have blue jays, we have cardinals, we have, you know, fenches, we have all kinds of birds and I can't necessarily identify them, but starlings and just beautiful, beautiful diversity of birds and crows as well. Oh my gosh. And you're talking my language,

my journey recently, I had come across that Nikola Tesla there in New York, he had a dove that would visit his window. So there was a woman in the 1940s, her name was Margaret Storm. And she wrote about Nikola Tesla and she named the book Return of the Dove. And in the book, she quotes that he had told someone in a biography interview that he had loved for the dove like he did a woman. But the whole book actually is about him being a Venetian, him returning back to the mothership. It's about his apprentices, what he left them specifically. And the beginning of the book, surprisingly, is about root races, star seeds. It's the 1940s, right? Weird. Wow. fine. So I tried. Margaret Storm was never to be heard of again. She never ever wrote her second book. She did do an interview with a panel of I think five guys who ripped her pretty much.

But that was the last time anything happened. I searched for her high and low. That lady went ghost. And the only thing you will find on her if if you Google her, is she is in the declassified Nikola Tesla files. Wow. It's interesting. There's stuff coming now with some of the disclosures. And now you have these just powerful investigators like Leslie Keen and people like that and Richard Blumenthal and all these people that are government corporals and lieutenants and pilots coming forth. And so, I mean, we have to say, at least if you want to be conservative, you can say, there are things that happen that we do not understand. If you want to be a jerk and just say, well, it's all in your imagination, but you're crazy. That's just not good enough anymore. And even a scientifically rational

person has to come to that conclusion. Otherwise you're just not being a good scientist. Right. And I know this is also another topic for your newer book been working on. So the Mescalito book is out now. Newer book has not been published yet. It's the same publisher. It's called John Hunt Publishing. They're owned by Watkins Publishing, which is one of the oldest esoteric bookstores in England. So my other book is actually being looked at by a different division of John Hunt Publishing, if that all made sense. You know, you will have to come back on to talk about that because it's one of my favorite topics. But let's get into why you are here. You know, one of the things I have been studying over the past year is allegorical stories and how very, I've been studying the Gnostic Gospels. And so the power

of storytelling and more blues in Louisiana than bluegrass. One thing, you know, there's always a story within a story and it means something different for everyone. So how did you get into bluegrass? Tell me about it. How did I get into bluegrass? So I'm from New York City. And bluegrass is not something at the time when I was growing up, that's really front and center. What I tell people, it kind of ekes through the culture. You know, I heard bits and fragments of bluegrass through things like Deliverance, seriously, the movie, Hee Haw and things like that. Then getting a little older, I heard, so Peter was in a band called Old and in the Way. Jerry Garcia was in that band.

And with Jerry's name, Jerry's, you know, the Grateful Dead fan base was so huge. Jerry had a large interest in bluegrass. Peters told me that Jerry, he played banjo in that band. And he actually wanted to go out east to meet Bill Monroe. Now, Jerry was kind of a hippie from, you know, from California. And Bill Monroe was a formidable kind of guy, you know, and very rigorous. And, you know, you worked for Bill Monroe. He was the man, he was kind of, he was the, uh, the maker of all things. Yeah. That's what he's called. And he said, if I didn't invent bluegrass, I'd have made a fine bluesman, is what he said. But where the story goes is that people like me from the cities all around the country, probably all around the world, in fact, all around the world, we heard bluegrass in part because of that band. So Peter Rowan wrote many of the songs. Vassar Clements played fiddle. And David Grissman,

who would play with Jerry and who would play with Peter throughout their careers, he was the mandolin player. And so Jerry had a deep interest in bluegrass. And I think the energy between them is that Jerry was an incredibly creative, really all-around musician. I mean, he played pedal steel, he played guitar, he played banjo, and very deeply interested in all kinds of music. And I think he saw in Peter, Peter was a connection to the roots of bluegrass. Peter played with Bill Monroe, the father of bluegrass. And what Peter saw in Jerry, you know know peter was when he met up with

jerry he's in his early 20s he left bill monroe and he saw this freedom and this entrance into a new kind the music that he wanted to play the music of his generation i mean he would remain a bluegrass player all his life till today but he he saw in Jerry, I think, freedom in music. So hearing that album, which is, it's super, you can't help but tap your foot when you hear that album. The songs are joyful, super fun to listen to. It's recorded live, so you'll hear a lot of kind of cheering and noise in the background, but there's something pure. There's this joy, this essence of what bluegrass is.

So that was a big factor. Now, when I first heard it, I'm say 17 or so, I can't say I really understood bluegrass, what that was. Later on, my brother went to Columbia University and I would go to his room to hang out with him. And of course, people were from everywhere. So say I'm 17 years old, I go to his room and I hear down the hall, I hear this music. Wow. This fast paced, you know, virtuoso playing. And I walked to the room of the guy who I didn't know. And I said, what is that you're playing? I think he said, Stanley Brothers. I went out and at that time, CDs were just now becoming available. There weren't many. I mean, you'd go to the biggest stores and they had a small section of bluegrass. Of course, they went to the popular stuff that

would sell, you know, in volume. Bluegrass has always been a niche kind of thing. So I picked up some bluegrass and I started to get into it. And, and I'd say that was the beginning of it from a New York city boy who, you know, it, it, it came in like a dove through the window and I went after it, followed it to the forest and to the deepest places. And you could say, you know, I'm hooked. So, you know how like country songs or I was talking about, I lost my dog and lost my mom. Right, right. Oh my God, they get me so depressing. I'm like, oh my God.

Yes. What kind of stories are often told within the bluegrass? There's a lot of gospel music in bluegrass. You'll also have ballads. Bill Monroe's a lot of gospel music in bluegrass. You'll also have ballads. Bill Monroe has a song about getting stuck in traffic. You have a lot of murder ballads, actually, in old American music. Those go back to, you know, Appalachian music was very much influenced by the British, the Scots-Irish music. But it was also a composite of Scots-Irish with Delta, blues. You know, when I write about that in the book, that

the way that Bill Monroe saw it, he wanted bluegrass to have a kind of gallop pace. What Peter said is that you have to follow the horse's hooves. He also had gospel singing. So you'll have three-part harmonies, and you'll hear this gospel singing that's accompanied by what is a standout and different from country music is the emphasis on instrumentation and playing. And there's a speed and a skill level. You don't just step into a bluegrass song. I've done that. I've sat around bluegrass jams and you get the nod. There was a guy in Greenwich Village, Sheriff Bob. And when you got the nod, you had about a second to answer. And if you didn't, Bob moved on. And everybody in that ensemble, and I didn't know these people, it was just random people show up. They were superb

musicians. So there is a kind of, you know, the song topics can be really about anything. They are often about high holiness. They're often about spirituality. And it's funny, if I may tell you, I moved out to California in my early 20s, and I met someone who's a grateful deadhead. I had in my mind, well, he'll like this bluegrass music. You know, I didn't really bridge it. I didn't think about it. And I handed him a tape of the Stanley Brothers. And sometime later he gives it back to me and says, I didn't know you were into the spiritual music. And I said, did you listen to the music though? And actually the spirituality of it doesn't alienate me. I like it. I like this creating a feeling of connection to your higher self, you know, take away the particulars. There's

this invitation to your higher self. I mean, all music does that, in my opinion, some disco can do that, you know, and I know I'm going to get a rock thrown at me from some bluegrass guy somewhere. All music is transcendent. And all music can take you if you're open to it. We were talking about before the birds and the language of birds and the chatter of birds, the talk of birds, the language, and it sort of precedes human language. Those kinds of sounds are deep inside our unconscious. And I think music can, you know, can make you cry. It can make you laugh. It could take you back to, you know, remember when we were in high school and it has all kinds of feelings. I mean, I cry when I listen to music sometimes and I laugh, I get excited,

you know, come home, I put on something that's going to get me pumped up. And sometimes you get, oh, deep, you know, and you want to listen to Billie Holiday or something that's just takes you to an emotional place. So a long winded way of saying that I think that the topics of bluegrass can be many, can be varied. But ultimately, if you're really listening, anyone who's really listening, here's some of the finest music ever made. And there's a lot of emotion and joy and sometimes sorrow too. So I have too many series besides Sense of Soul. One is on Sophia on the Gnostic Gospel. And the other one prior was on my ancestry.

And you will find that I put music in each episode that it meant so much to me, this music. Like this one song, it is Sonny Boy Williamson, and he plays the harmonica. The song, Keep It To Yourself. He says, you don't have to tell nobody. Every time I hear it, my entire body is experiencing it. From my skin, to my ears, to my heart, to my soul, my energy. Yeah. Right? Exactly.

So when you were talking about that, how I was just imagining that Sonny Boy Williamson, they have a video on YouTube. It is live. He was like one of the only African-Americans in the place. And all of these people, they look like they're from like the fifties and they're all like, yeah, okay.

And he's just, I mean, the guy doesn't have his full set of teeth. You know, he was probably living in segregation at the time. I probably even had his own water fountain if he was in New Orleans. And so here he was and they were feeling what I was feeling. Yeah. And I think that's what American music and I do. We spoke a lot about this and I'm very interested. There was a if you've heard of him, his name was Harry Smith and he he was an artist.

He came from I think he was from Seattle. He came to New York to do art. And he got involved with Menkes of American folk music. He was also a mystic. And what he did is kind of an alchemist. He would sort of summarize the song, and he would give it this mythical kind of encapsulation he also did things he put the music together so you couldn't tell who was what so people didn't know uh what race because the early records in in the united states were very race driven oriented and race segregated this was made for black people this was made for white people but you know in for white people. But, you know, in music, say in the South, there were blues elements in country music. There were country elements in blues music. Bob Dylan used that to create his music and really many of his peers of that time. And of course, Peter was very much influenced by that as well, Peter Rowan. You're seeing what's happening in this video. I love Sonny Boy Williamson's version of You Shook Me. I think he wrote it. But he does it. So Led Zeppelin does, you know, you know, you shook me.

But he does it, you know, you shook me. All night long. When I do my version of it, because I play guitar, I do his version. Oh, you do? It's funkier. Yeah's so i feel like i'm like it was one of those things where i actually sent it to my son so i have a child who's autistic who loves old music okay he appreciates like he listens to more 70s and 80s but if i send him some good, he'll just all day listen to it. He loves it.

So there's where, you know, it has nothing to do with who it is, has nothing to do. It's about the tone, the words, and there's no ego involved, right? Right. So this kid knows good music like no other. Yeah, he always has the best music going on in his room. That's awesome. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law have an autistic son. And when I go to see him, I play, they live in California, and I'll play some songs for him.

And he loves Wish You Were Here. So when I play it uh it's emotional for everyone but he really connects with that song and the joy that he feels and of course I love playing it uh for him but I play a few songs uh that you know a friend of the devil uh specifically for him oh that's so cool well tell me about your relationship with Peter. Cause I think it was kind of very, it turned into something very unique. You met with him several times and, um, you know, he seemed like he was, or he is, he's not past, is he? No, no, no. I mean, I'm already got him in the grave. He's a, I just saw him in in fact, in Florida.

I went to a festival, a music festival. So I initially interviewed him. And it's part of the book, too, because it was sort of magical, the way it transpired. I think you'll appreciate this. So a good friend of mine is an artist, Juan Carlos Pinto, and he does various kinds of art. He has a studio nearby. He he has a whole bird series for the Autobahn. So I go to his studio often on a, you know, when actually it's a place, it's a gathering place. So other artists come, they, they collaborate on these mosaics. Sometimes they'll be made of porcelain bits, glass bits,

they'll be made of refuse. And that's part of his art theory is found objects and you know everything is art and I'm in his studio it's a Friday night we often will go there after it's a long week we'll have a couple of beers listen to music and people show up and he has a roof top so we'll go and hang out and it's a lot of fun so in in his studio he has works in progress completed works all around the studio hung up there was a work that i'd seen he'd been working on and there's a whole thing we can go into on that but on portraits of indigenous people and he'd introduced me to someone that i became friends with, Roman, who is a chief of the Taino tribe.

But I won't go too much into that. I'll just say that when I saw the portrait, which was kind of buried of this guy, Ernie Panicoli. I'll get there. Believe me, we'll get to the end point. I see this portrait and what really stuck out is the eyes is I think Pinto's learned how to make the eyes so that they come alive. You see the spirit, you see the animus in this portrait. And I said, who's that guy? And he tells me the story. So Ernie Panicoli is, he lives in New Jersey now. He was from Brooklyn. He is half Cree, trusted him because, you know, he was from the places they were from. And he's a straight talking guy, a very deep and beautiful person. But I think they could sense the no BS in Ernie. And anyway, I eventually I did an interview with Ernie that was published. And Ernie and I became friends.

And Ernie said, hey, there's a friend I have that if you'd like to meet, her name is Yongchen. She's a Tibetan singer. And I said, yeah, sure. I'd love to meet her. And I listened to her music in preparation. Her music is amazing. It's beautiful. It has the traditional Tibetan aspects, but she works with Russian piano players, with Spanish guitar players, and it's very international. Her second album was put out on Peter Gabriel's label. Anyway, I did an interview, this was during the COVID times, with Young Chin. We've since become, I think, pretty good friends.

I'd also read that she did some music with peter rowan so in my interview with her which was kind of cool because she gets on the video we're on a zoom call and she's praying because tibetans often will basically pray at every moment every breathing moment they'll be praying. You figure out what's going on when she was whispering as she's speaking back and forth. Anyway, she said, so I said, you played with Peter. Can you tell me about that? And she said, would you like to meet him? Would you like to talk to him? I'm like, yeah, sure. So then I reached out to Peter and we did an interview before it was going to be one article for a magazine. And the thing about Peter is that he's so, Peter knows he possesses the kind of folklore gems.

He's very eloquent. He's interested in literature. He's interested in philosophy. He's a Buddhist. And we had a lot of common interests. We had interests in indigenous culture, interest in philosophy, in Buddhism, of course, music. And he's broadly interested in all kinds of music, jazz and classical, not just bluegrass. He's actually from Wayland, Massachusetts, Peter. Okay. So we, I think, I was just fascinated when I'm listening to him and he has these stories of, we talked about Harry Smith, who I mentioned. We talked about Bill Monroe. We talked about, he has a way of, I would say, mythologizing the history and making it super interesting.

I was just captivated. And as I'm speaking to him and I'm getting these ideas, which I'm a little, I was embarrassed to articulate at the moment, but then we had a few conversations. And in between those conversations, I started to have dreams. And, you know, I had these wild dreams and, and it occurred to me, I just said, I think Peter, I'm having this feeling of a larger project. Would you be interested? And then I pitched the project to him something like I said, I don't know, it could be a longer article, it could be a book, that's what I would try to do. But it's something, the spiritual roots of bluegrass music, really all music, and how music creates the universe, or how the entanglement with the complexity of physics

and cosmology is somehow interwoven into the fabric of music, you know, to which some people might say, you know, thank you for your nodding your head there. But some people might say, what? And, but Peter said, Oh, that sounds cool. Okay. Um, uh, let's, let's go. So we started to work on, uh, work on the book. Well, I started to work on the book. And then I shared with him early drafts. And I think he dug it. And he said, you know, I'm touched that you got it. And what is it that I got? You know, I think Peter, in his lyrics, he's often writing about liberation, and it's all kinds of liberation.

It could be spiritual liberation, the liberation of a people. He's multicultural. So he was interested in bluegrass. He's also done an album of Hawaiian music. He's done an album of reggae music. He's done Buddhist-oriented. There's an album called Hawaiian music. He's done an album of reggae music. He's done Buddhist-oriented. There's an album called Dharma Blues. Dharma Blues is Jack Kerouac. He also did, he lived in Texas for a while. So he was very much involved in, there's a guy Flaco Jimenez who plays accordion.

All of the big rock guys played with him, Bob Dylan, Ry C and he flaco who's uh played on a number of peter's albums but it's tex-mex music so it's and that's actually where the the lyrics to well the the book title came from so the book title came from the free mex Air Force, Mescalito. And that song is kind of about that, you know, marijuana is being controlled by the government, you know, at that time. And marijuana can free your mind and your soul, kind of. And that's sort of, you know, and also Mescalito is harking back. And Peter had read Carlos Castaneda. The Mescalito character comes from Carlos Castaneda, the Mescalito character comes from Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan stories.

And there's that harking back and incorporation of that. And so the title of the book, yeah, comes from Free Mexican Air Force. So if that sort of spans, the book got going and I think that we have, you know, it's not a fan thing. It's more of, it's a deep respect for the artist. Right. And I think that's what it's inspiring. And I think he's an important artist. And I wanted to make sure I, my feeling was I'm doing this thing in homage to the artist and then laying a wreath at his feet to say, you know, thank you. And recognizing, of course,

he has lots of fans, but no one had written a book about him. Oh my God. So I get it. I get it. I get it. But you want people to get it. Exactly. You want people to get it. And I get it. And tell me if I got it. I've gotten so much just now. Yeah. I do believe that the key to the universe and its creation and everything was frequency and vibration.

I mean, I think Tesla would agree with me. Yeah, and scientists. I've had on Evan Alexander, right? I've had him on. I've had so many people on this podcast who have had near-death experience. Do you know how many of them heard music on the other side, right? David Ditchfield, so many. I also see that when you, I just was talking about my son, Ethan, when you don't have your conditioned ego mind involved in anything, we can all sit here

together. Just like with Sonny Boy Williamson, they didn't care about his color, right? They didn't care about the differences. It was truly the music. And that brought everyone together in that frequency, that vibration, all collectively. I get it. And that is such a powerful thing. And you're right. When you think about even big, big moments moments like remember when they did the group song we are the world right so many chills i mean i remember as a child you know watching the actual donation thing on television you know you donated i remember it was so powerful you had everyone

different genres different styles colors genders And it actually did touch the world. We need another one of those. It's true. It's true. So you absolutely do get it. I mean, think when you get married, there's music at all kinds of occasions. I mean, music can form revolutions. There's music to every political movement.

It goes deeper than rational language and can bring you in, can bring people together. Think when you're at a concert and you have all these people and everyone's unified on what's going on here. It's bigger than we are. And I think that, you know, that's what you clearly stated. You know, that was what struck me. But also the Peter being the alchemist and, you know, he's knowingly with a lot of humor, by the way. He's also he's funny, too.

Would you like me to read some like very short sections, very short things? Yeah. So if I may. One thing that's very original in this book, i don't mean that i'm original i think that original in the sense that i used peter's lyrics even in the prose so in the the prose itself or in this in the titles of chapters so this title is chapter i have been illusions full so it's not just this exploration of music history it's also a spiritual journey. And it was, those were inspired, those journeys were inspired by some of Peter's songs, and then some of the conversation, and then some of the dreams, and, you know, then the reading that I was doing. So I'll just read this briefly.

It's from the chapter, I Have Been Illusions Full, which is a lyric from one of Peter's songs. I had a dream weeks after our meeting. In the dream, I was given a sacred object, perhaps by extraterrestrials. The object looked benign. When I looked closer, I saw a likeness of a green and purple Yoda Buddha. But the image can only be discovered by holding the object sideways and upside down, like the way you might suddenly hear the encoded messages in bluegrass or any music. You had to discover the primer to truly hear it. You had to come to this realization. It's just one example. I want to read another section briefly. I love that. It reminds me how I always say in the Gnostic Gospels, Jesus seemed like a Zen master telling Zen stories. Yeah. And actually, so Peter makes,

what he says is that Bill Monroe was like Rinpoche, you know, like the great Rinpoches, he had a, he, his, what he had mastered was a kind of, you know, a deep spiritual journey that he passed on. And I mean, think of the impact this music still has. I have a Peter Rowan page. I have fans in Japan. have people in Iceland you have people in Slovakia all over of course the United States but all over the world so this thing that was in Bill Monroe's head which he was very adamant about what that form was and he wanted it to be to have a certain quality and of course it's evolved it it's mutated. And, but those that are interested, we kind of know what he was going for. Let me read a section. Now this is going to be a little bit of field. The title is called, the title of the chapter is

My Love Will Never Change. And that's from a Peter Rohn song. What I did is I should let you know that Yeshe Songol, who was Padmasambhava's consort, Padmasambhava brought Buddhism from India to Tibet. Yeshe Songol was his archivist, and she wrote down his teachings. And basically, according to the folklore, and I'm not an expert on the subject, but we know his teachings through her. And I kind of make her Jungchen Lamo. So I kind of combine the two people in my imagination. So during his journeys, Padmasambhava met Yeshe Songol, who became his consort and then his archivist. It is said that Songol was often seen silently mouthing Tibetan prayers while holding prayer beads close to her heart, kind of like what Jung Chin did. Yeshe Songol's hair was adorned with a dangling blue coral pendant.

Like Padmasambhava, she was an immensely powerful mystic. Yeshe memorized and privately recited Padmasambhava's teaching and instructions, keeping them hidden from those who would corrupt them. The teachings were only whispered from lips to lips. Yeshe Sangha learned that the key to understanding Padmasambhava's wisdom was embracing its emphasis on compassion. Even the great sages could be too focused on their own mastery of meditation and prayer, where prayer and meditation were merely techniques. And I'll skip to a section here. Her hands clasped in prayer, Yeshe now sang out at the top of her lungs. My love will never change, she proclaimed, her voice like clapping thunder. Suddenly a great wind swept over the land, quaking the ground, toppling the mountains of skeletons in its wake. Her voice

roared like a thousand chainsaws, lawnmowers, trucks, and the groan of a million dying stars. It echoed throughout a billion universes. But it was also a cry of love. Yeshe then rushed towards the demons. As they backed away from her, she began dancing. She danced the dance of the love of ages and the love of all things. And as she danced, Yeshe began to chant and sing. Let every living, breathing being find happiness. Even the demons were now spellbound. She had opened their hearts with her boundless love and compassion with her arms wide open she embraced the demons holding them lovingly to her chest she even let them drink her blood but only to nourish themselves they swarmed around her

drawn by her affection and made gentle by her compassion and so this is a kind of composite of, it's from a song that the lyrics, my love will never change. So I took those lyrics and I took elements of Yung Chin Lamo. So if you see her, she wears beautiful hair clasps and things and she dresses very traditional Tibetan style.

Kind of put this all together in this composite vision. She is the divine feminine energy. Everyone's talking about the same thing, you know, just different names, different words, similar stories throughout mythology and different cultures. And I just think it's so beautiful because when we're able to be on the same vibration, it is the same song that we're all receiving. You said it. I mean, it's different cultures, different languages, but the song transcends. And the song, it's the archetypal, you know, what we all, Mircea, Iliade, and, you know, what we all, Mircea Eliade and, you know, folks like that, that have written

about Jungian archetypes, these things that they transcend culture. And yeah, so all I did was I just knocked on a door and the door opened up and a big, great wind came out of it. And I just let the wind blow across my face i didn't invent it you know i'm just i'm just a holder of the candle for a bit that's all you're like my bird flying in the wind and letting it carry you to wherever you were meant to be and so i certainly appreciate it i think it's a beautiful story i think that's unique. You know, if people could just be present, even just with music, you know, how many Peters are out there trying to really speak to your soul, really, truly make a difference in the world. Wisdom can come from anywhere and often does. I mean,

sometimes it's draped in intellectual language, but some of the wisest and smartest people I know don't really fit that. So yeah, it's that unifying and the discovering. I mean, I've done a lot of talking, right? But I think listening is important and listening on all levels, listening to each other, listening to what's happening. And it's a hard thing. Buddha means awake, and it's hard to stay awake every second. I mean, I'm sleeping most of the time. But it's that aspiration towards awakening that we strive for. And I'm not saying that I've achieved anything. I've observed and aspire to and hope for all of my foibles and failings. But when someone inspires you and creates magic,

you're drawn to it. So I'm going to go listen to some Stevie Nicks for the rest of the day because she gets me through. So thank you. I really appreciate you coming on. Wonderful story. Thank you so much for having me and a great conversation and fun. And I know it was sort of a whirlwind, but what the heck, that's what we do. So tell everybody where they can get your book. You can go to mikefiorito.com and that's F-I-O-R-I-T-O. That's one place, just my author page. The book is titled Mescalito, No Relationship to Fioritoito Mescalito riding his white horse if you type my name on it's available anywhere books are sold I'm told

if you go to Amazon you'll see it come up and I have other books there as well but this is the hot one that it's gotten a lot of great reviews which I'm very humbled by and so thank you so much Shanna for having me on and let's do this again

let's keep in touch. Oh, yeah. I can't wait to hear about the aliens. Well, we're going to get down on that. Thanks for listening to Sense of Soul Podcast. And thanks to our special guests for joining me. If you want more of Sense of Soul, check out my website at www.mysenseofsoul.com, where you can work with me one-on-one or help support

Sense of Soul podcast by donating to my coffee fund. Thanks for listening.