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Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft.
I roar at the void.
This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate.
The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel.
Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights.
The scars my key, hermetic and stark.
To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear,
Hears through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.
The poem is Angels with Rifles.
The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini.
Check out the entire song at the end of the cast.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast.
We're here with the one and only Cole Butler.
You may have seen him working on some clinical trials.
You may have seen some work that he's published.
You may have given him a call and gotten a free consultation from Lionheart Wellness.
You may have seen him on LinkedIn.
Or wait for it.
You might be on the wait list to get his brand new book, Love, Pain and Divinity.
Cole Butler, I'm so excited to talk to you and I am so thankful you're here.
How are you, my friend?
I'm good, man.
Thanks for having me back.
It's super cool.
The last podcast you had me on.
We were talking about poetry.
And at the end there, we were like, gosh, I should publish that book finally.
And man, that kind of set everything in motion.
I attended a webinar with Randall Hanson, our mutual friend and author,
about the publication process.
And it just illuminated me to, you know, all the work that goes into that.
And I just said, well, what if I already have a manuscript?
I just want to throw it out there.
Anyway, that started the downstream cascade of figuring out the self-publication process.
And it was a lot easier, you know, just putting together the manuscript and having something ready to go.
And so anyway, one thing let do another.
Now it's available online.
I'm getting my proof copy in tomorrow.
Everything should look good.
but I'll just double check once I have that book in person and say we're good to go.
But it's available for sale right now on Lulu.com at Love, Pain, and Divinity.
If you just search for it.
So super exciting.
And then once I proof check it, it will be available, I believe, on the major retailers, Amazon and all that stuff.
So super wild.
It's crazy to even say that out loud.
So, yeah, I'm stoked.
Yeah, I'm stoked and I think that a lot of other people are going to be stoked when they get to peer in there.
And for some people that are in, that may be friends with you on LinkedIn, I think a lot, I think there are a lot of people who are not a stranger to the way in which you write.
And I think that you already have a customer base with a lot of those people.
I think that you have, you have a way with words.
And I, which leaves me one of my first questions.
One of the first questions I was thinking about, as I was thinking about the conversation today, is was there one early experience?
Or can you share an early experience with us where you realize that language had power?
Oh, man.
Yeah.
Well, part of me feels like I always felt that way.
Actually, you know what?
Actually, something comes to mind being an undergrad at community.
college. I was kind of a, for lack of better words, a shithead teenager with divorced parents and,
you know, on a path of destruction and rebellion. And I guess it's maybe not that words have power,
but that my words were good. And I had never considered it before, which led me to, like,
look at the value of my own words and writing capability.
So I had like an English composition, one and two professor.
And I was in community college in my hometown, just struggling.
And, you know, we had to write essays and things.
And this guy, he was just so passionate about reading and writing.
And it just, he had that infectious passion.
And, you know, I just had to write some essays for his class.
And I didn't think I was doing anything crazy or revolutionary or anything.
but he just told me like, hey, man, this is really good.
I just wish you would write more, you know.
And I was really just like trying to get my assignments done and whatever.
And that kind of made me realize, like, wow, like he actually thinks I'm kind of good at this.
And then similarly, I did two years at community college and then transferred to university.
And when I switched my major to psychology, I took a philosophy course, which I was fascinated by.
I was blown away intro to philosophy.
in my junior year.
And we had these TAs.
And one of them, I would sit in his kind of extra class because it was for people that didn't understand it in the main class.
You'd go over things more.
Anyway, he graded my exams.
And I remember in one of them, I got a 98.
And he just said, like, man, like, this is really good.
I don't remember exactly what he said.
but he said, I think he said consider taking more philosophy classes.
So I just recognize on these written essays, you know, I would really, I would go home and I'd look at the arguments and I practice the questions.
I type everything out and I just, that, like, as philosophy, like struck me.
And so then I took a course on philosophy, philosophy of physics, specifically the measurement problem in quantum mechanics.
which was fascinating, like a seven-person class. Maybe nobody cared, except me and one other guy.
One day it was just me and one other guy and the professor.
And it was like, wow, this is what's going on here.
And then I also took a philosophy course in contemporary ethical theory, which was really cool.
I got to learn about modern theories of ethics.
But anyway, those kind of things were really inspiring to me,
writing and I really saw through that just ideas and writing about them and I started to realize
that yeah I kind of have a weird way with words and so yeah it's it's been interesting as
you alluded to how that translates on LinkedIn and how you know I'm kind of finding my particular
writing style my kind of platform for for what I write and
my audience. So it's been really cool to see. Yeah, that's, it's always interesting to me to ask
that question because I feel like it does build a good foundation or you, at least you get to,
if you pull back the curtain and see a little bit of how the gears are turning together and
stuff. And I may know the answer to this one, or I may not, but I thought it would be a good
question for the audience. And do you view writing as a, as a kind of spiritual practice?
Absolutely. Yeah. Well, it depends, too. It's funny. I'm just coming off with getting some super critical feedback, harsh feedback on a scientific manuscript that I've been working on for a year and a half. And one of my professors, he just ripped it to shreds and said, I didn't read past the intro. This is terrible. Take my name off the paper, basically. And I'm like, Jesus.
I thought I was a good writer, but anyway, I say that to draw the fact that there are many
different types of writing. And I feel like I tap into a different energy depending on the type of
writing I'm doing. So, you know, as you and I talked about on the last podcast, there's this kind of
poetic headspace that I go into where I just kind of let the words flow out of me. And then,
you know, there's technical writing where I'm having to read a bunch of
papers and try to translate that and understand like cell biology and like the different
theories of psychedelic brain action and just tease all that apart and put it into something
you know, comprehensible and into an argument structure.
And that's just a different, totally different kind of writing.
And that's not a spiritual practice.
And then, you know, there's my kind of journaling.
which can be, it sort of taps into spiritual practice.
You know, I can sit there in journal for a long time,
but it's also like processing in this sort of mechanical sense,
like taking these ideas and putting them down and, yeah,
just kind of like letting my brain really like clarify information.
And then there's a real deep to me spiritual writing,
which I really like hold is sacred when I'm really struggling
and I really need guidance.
I'll sit down and I'll take a few deep breaths and I'll say a little prayer to like really let, you know, what needs to come through, come through.
And I will sort of let the words take over.
You know, it's not what I want to write.
I'm figuring out.
I'm just kind of letting my hand flow or type.
And I don't even remember where I quite picked that process up from.
but that's a really deep sort of spiritual writing.
And I can really tap into something outside of myself
and get some, you know, critical guidance.
And I'm always blown away when I do that kind of writing
because what comes back to me is just really, you know, magical,
which I think I kind of, you know, tapped into that
in some degree in this book with some of the poems.
The last one especially, I think, was transmission.
And it's sort of this divine information transmission, which, you know, I try to kind of, I don't even want to say I tried to, but, you know, some of these poems are reflections of this connection, I would say, which is kind of what gets into the last section there, divinity.
I kind of classed all these poems into what I thought they fell into. It wasn't planned out. I just looked at all my poems. And I said, these ones.
are related to like love and these ones are related to pain and these ones are related to divinity
and then I just kind of like sorted them out and put them in different categories.
Yeah, it's it's when I read the title, I really like the title. I really like the book and I
thought to myself there's a weird sort of thread that runs through all those things, love,
pain and divinity.
Can you talk a little bit about the title?
Like, is that what you were thinking when the title came up?
Or was there just three sections of your life or three things that you felt the most?
But what was it that really struck an accord with you this title?
Yeah.
Well, you know, yeah, it came out of what the book was in a way.
Like, you know, after our last podcast site, like I said, I went through all my poems.
And I just kind of copied and paced them into,
into a document.
And as I was doing this, you know, a few ones got pruned out of there,
ones that I'd already used or that didn't quite fit the theme or whatever.
And I looked at what was left over.
And I kind of saw that, you know, some of these were related to some kind of emotional processing
I was doing, trying to find love and connection and relationship and a lot of struggles,
different relationships.
that were really, like, difficult and just trying to process through and feel through all that.
And so, you know, a lot of the poems I would just write had to deal with that.
That was my sort of deeper emotional processing.
And then also, you know, sometimes I would write a poem because I'd be in a really, like, dark headspace, you know, and, like, recently is just pretty dark.
but an ex-girlfriend of mine, her name was Bailey Toth.
We dated about seven years ago.
And after we broke up, she dated a couple of these guys in my hometown and had some kids.
And about a week ago, she was murdered.
She was shot and murdered by her husband, and she was pregnant too.
Just devastating, you know.
And then he shot and killed himself right after murdering her.
And, man, it's just like stuff like that takes you to such a dark place.
You know, and similarly, you know, some of the poems in this book, you know, one of them is about the shooting in Yuvaldi, Texas.
And it ends with kind of where was our he?
hero to capture, you know, what I was going through hearing about these 21 children involved in the school shooting,
who, yeah, who didn't have a hero, these cops, they all kind of stood back and nobody would go in.
And it lasted like an hour. And it was just like terrible, man, terrible. So, you know, some of some of these poems are kind of processing through some of these difficult emotions.
You know, I also had one of my best friends, Cody, his dad died from COVID.
He was just like 53, no complicated conditions, probably not in the best health, but no, like, you know, on paper conditions.
And he died of COVID.
And so, you know, one poem, I believe I called it, pandemic was about that.
And it ends with a man tragically dying, a little.
in a room.
So yeah, you know, this isn't all bright and springy, you know, that's kind of the pain section.
And then divinity is kind of like also that, like tapping into the other side, you know,
something I'm fascinated by the other side of life, the mystical, the ethereal.
And so, you know, a lot of those poems are just kind of like, yeah, tapping into that.
I think the theme of sacredness comes up a lot in divinity and secret treasures and things of this nature.
And so, yeah, that section kind of covers a lot of that.
And then so I realize in writing all these down that, you know, I wasn't trying to,
but a lot of my poems were fitting into these three categories as love, as pain and divinely.
And so that's how the name came about.
And then, you know, I think over the whole, there's sort of a story arc in the kind of traditional
story sense of like things are good and then something goes wrong.
And then like you're kind of caught up in the drama of like what's happening.
And then at the end there's like a reunion.
Sometimes in the case, I guess, of a comedy or something positive.
or in the case of a tragedy, you know, not so much.
Something terrible happens.
But I think, you know, having this structure kind of like stepping in with love
and then the pain is kind of the difficulty.
And then divinity is kind of a return to the divine.
And so sort of the arc, I guess, is that, you know, there's this connection.
And then there's this anguish and then there's a reconnection to something greater than.
And, you know, through a lot of my struggles and strife in my personal life, whenever something goes wrong, it kind of calls me back into my spiritual practice and, like, says, I need to beef this up because I need a way to, like, get through this, something to lean on.
And so that's kind of what that is, I guess.
And sort of also within the love section, there's a meta-narrative of, like I said, you know, these relationships that,
that I was struggling with and kind of yeah just just going from when I really thought like I was
obsessed with this this girl and it just totally took a nose dive really and then had these other
relationships and they weren't going anywhere and then found my current partner
Shinn and we decided to have a baby together and she's totally just like my person.
So at the very end of that chapter, it's sort of a tribute to my daughter on the way.
So there's kind of that meta-narrative in that first chapter and then the kind of overall narrative.
Yeah.
So it just kind of arose, I guess, which is awesome.
That is awesome.
I've heard a lot of people say, and there tends to.
be a, I guess a narrative around author's first book. And they say usually an author's first book
is autobiographical. And it sounds to me, like, how much do you think that this particular
set of poems is an autobiography of Cole Butler's life? Yeah, in a sort of removed way and a sort
of emotional, ethereal way, for sure. You know, I've talked with you before.
about my career transitions and working on clinical trials.
This is not a documentation of that.
But certainly, yeah, the more personal side of my life.
And, you know, I didn't really have an audience in mind for all these poems when I wrote them.
It really was sort of my own trying to tap into something else, trying to express my career.
creative side, trying to deal with difficult emotions or tap into something beautiful and magical.
So that side of myself, certainly that, you know, has unfortunately been repressed in the professional
space very much, you know, kind of gets its moment to shine. And I think that's what's really,
you know, I think a lot of what the world needs right now is a
sort of reconnection, rekindling with that divine element or the artistic side, the sort of other side of life.
And, you know, there's not a whole lot of space right now in the professional realm for those kinds of things.
And so, but that's kind of a somewhat private and personal experience that I've gone through throughout my also trials and tribulations.
of trying to make money and trying to, you know, make a name for myself and all that stuff.
So this is kind of the behind the scenes almost autobiography.
And, yeah, if you kind of understand what's going on and me writing this and the kind of story behind how all this came about
and what I was going to, I think that kind of puts the context to sort of see, yeah, you know,
who I am behind, you know, writing these poems.
Yeah, it's beautiful.
It's like, have you ever seen those pictures?
It's like a, yeah, they take a picture or something and then you can just speed it up or slow it down.
It's just like a nature picture.
But like seeing, reading some of this and just seeing everything you're doing is like watching a flower unfold and like just boom, like just radiant beauty.
Like, whoa, look it.
This thing is blowing up.
It's so beautiful.
You know, I really, I really admire it.
And it makes me think about my mind goes to pilgrimages somehow.
And when I think when a lot of authors write books, sometimes they'll go on a pilgrimage to be inspired.
Or sometimes the work actually feels like a pilgrimage.
Or sometimes people go inward for a pilgrimage.
I'm wondering, was there any sort of pilgrimage that you took in order to be inspired by this book?
Yeah.
Well, you know, I am from a small town.
Hot Springs, Arkansas, a town of now about 40,000, I think, within the city limits.
Really beautiful place, but not a whole lot of opportunities there.
And I think, you know, a lot of people grow up, even if you grow up in like the most
awesome place you want to get out of your hometown, there's something about coming of age
there.
But, you know, in my early 20s, I'm 27 now, but in my early 20s, I was really inspired by
Jordan Peterson.
Certainly a controversial figure now.
And anyway, but he helped me a lot, really, with kind of getting my life together.
And he also has his life philosophy of getting out there and conquering the dragon.
And like also in the Pinocchio sense, Geppetto, wishing upon a star, you know.
And I really embodied that philosophy for a long time.
You know, my life philosophy is shifting now to one that I would consider more Eastern Buddhist present moment kind of focused.
But anyway, yeah, so that was always a guide for me and how do I structure, how do I orient my life?
And so my sort of, you know, dream so high or what's the saying, set your aim so high that you shoot for the stars and shoot for the moon, something like that.
Shoot for the stars, you'll land on the moon, I think.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So anyway, you know, I have always, like, had this vision in my mind of, honestly, I mean, it sounds somewhat conceited maybe,
of being, you know, a star, like really having a really broad impact.
And I've helped myself to a standard to do that.
And I have this, you know, idea.
I don't even like saying it out loud, but, you know,
that I'm going to hold myself to a different standard
because I have this belief about myself that I'm capable,
that I can reach further.
And then that has, you know, made me more strict with myself and also made me, like, reach, reach higher.
And so, you know, probably the main thing was getting out of Arkansas and going to Maryland, which was kind of like, you know, the desert, I would say, in a lot of ways.
or Mordor or whatever theme you want to apply.
There was a lot of pain and suffering trying to like reach my goal,
which my, you know, my major goal was Ph.D.
But then I set it even higher.
I like really clearly said I want to be a professor in a university
studying LSD and the treatment of substance use disorder.
And so, I mean, you know, within that,
there's so much breaking down of the cultural paradigm, not only getting into a PhD, which like
the one I applied to and didn't get into recently, there's 300 people that applied for five
spots that were open. And that's pretty standard amongst any PhD program. And so anyway,
the point is that I continue to try to reach for, you know, a PhD, but then also a psychedelic
PhD in a university is extremely competitive.
And that took me to Maryland where things really hit the fan.
I was mistreated.
I realized that it wasn't worth it.
Like I was going to sacrifice every bit of myself for a deeply flawed system.
I was going to sacrifice my personal integrity and everything.
And so that was a really hard journey.
And then after a year, I served out my one-year contract, went back home to Hot Springs.
And then trying to get back on my feet was just terribly difficult.
And yeah, so it was like middle of the pandemic, basically, like one year into the pandemic or maybe six months, I want to say, when I went back to Hot Springs.
And yeah, and then so I ended up getting invited to live in Destin, Florida,
which ended up happening for five weeks with a childhood best friend, actually two of my childhood,
best friends, Anna and Aden.
And so Anna's dad is a multimillion-dollar CEO.
He has an LED lighting company that he started in the 80s.
And he's just a miserable man.
You know, he's rich as hell, flashy, and just a dick, honestly.
I know some people just like that.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
A lot of us do.
So anyway, he has a $1.5 million beach home in Destin, Florida.
Beautiful.
So I'm sitting here in the middle of the pandemic.
working remotely in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
Still working for the University of Maryland, actually,
at this point in time.
This kind of all weaves into the book.
But yeah, while I was still with University of Maryland,
working remotely in Hot Springs, I went to Destin,
lived in this beach home.
And, you know, I got this idea in my mind
after being friends with this girl, Anna, for 10 years.
that her and I were, you know, there was something about us.
We had always kind of been attracted to one another,
but we're just kind of platonic friends.
But nothing ever really happened between us.
I got this idea in my head that, well, wow,
we've been able to keep up this relationship for so long.
There must be something about this that means that, you know,
we would work as a couple or whatever.
And so while in Florida, she was,
dating this other guy, Amos, and his dad is an ex-Goldman-Sack CEO,
hedge fund manager worth over a billion dollars.
Wow.
And this guy, Amos, I mean, he's just a real fail, real kind of like,
I mean, I don't know how, like, if your dad has over a billion dollars,
you as a young man, take any responsibility to be fair,
because what's your incentive when everything is handed to you?
Anyway, I'm kind of bouncing around with the story and trying not to get all into the details, but essentially things kind of became competitive between me and Amos over this girl, Anna.
And I eventually told her that, you know, I liked her.
And, you know, nothing came out of it.
She was kind of upset.
She didn't want to leave her toxic relationship with this guy.
But I was convinced, you know, that we were meant to be together.
And yeah, and it just didn't happen.
And at the end of that five weeks in Destin, I went back to Hot Springs and received a call one morning.
And it was a death threat from Hamas.
And he said, you slept with my girlfriend, which I didn't.
and that he had already arranged to have my skull caved in in Washington, D.C.,
because I was about to move back to Washington, D.C. at that point,
and that basically he was going to use his dad's money to get away with it.
And I just said, man, like, what the fuck is wrong with you?
I tried to file a police report, but this guy was based out of New York.
Nothing came of it, but I was like, these people, you know, this is dangerous.
You know, I don't want to be associated with her.
I don't want to be associated with him.
And so I blocked both of them.
And then I haven't spoken to Anna since, and it's been years.
And like I said, she was a friend of mine for 10 years.
She's also in like a bad mental headspace.
But, you know, I cared about her for a long time.
And yeah.
And so anyway, that was like,
a lot of, I think, what sparked up such a visceral internal emotion that my very first poem,
which is the first poem in the book, is something that doesn't rhyme, but is like rife with
emotion, which is, yeah, dedicated essentially to her or was written thinking about her
and some of the strife that went along with that.
And that really sparked my poetic journey, kind of dealing with a lot of the emotions around that.
And anyway, so I went back to Washington, D.C. right after that.
That's when shit hit the fan, really COVID political tensions.
That was Washington, D.C., like four or five months before the Capitol riots, you know, right before the Trump,
re-election, the whole thing. So it was tense.
Anyway, so that's when I went back to Hot Springs and had all the career struggles that eventually
led me to Colorado, but, you know, poetry started to become an outlet, a creative outlet
when I kind of had nothing else after I came back from Washington, D.C. and came back home.
And yeah, so that kind of sparked that.
And then I always kind of held on to it.
I actually started an Instagram page that I quit doing.
But I would write my poems with a fountain pen.
I love fountain pins.
I like a nice pen.
I would write them in a nice notebook with a fountain pen.
And I would add like some little nice crystals or gyms or rocks or whatever.
And I kind of stage a nice photo with some nice lighting.
And I put them on Instagram.
just wasn't really the right platform, I think, for my poems. And so I stopped that. And then
coming to Colorado, my career really took off. And so my time and investment in poetry kind
of dwindled as I started to become more busy. But poetry still, you know, it had sunk into me
at that point and it had become my outlet. And yeah, my tapping into, like I said, a lot of these
things, whether it was love or pain or divinity.
So, yeah, I suppose that's really what sparked at all.
That's an awesome story.
It's always fun and beautiful and engaging to get to hear the pilgrimage or get to hear
an inspiration or get to hear, you know, the sort of call to action, you know, or the
first threshold guardian, you know, whatever, whatever you want to put there is like,
it's so interesting to me.
and it really paints a beautiful background for the book to see on there.
It brings me to this other question.
Sometimes authors talk about their work is energizing.
Sometimes they say exhausting.
Sometimes it's both.
Have you found your work to be energizing or exhausting?
What did your take on that?
Yeah, totally.
I think it's energizing, but only because I haven't, like, in this is kind of the intro, the forward,
work. It's like I've really made a point of it not to make it like a job or a chore or anything
like that because I like I don't write poems that often. Like maybe one a week or something.
Or like I told you on the last podcast, if I leave one on receipt paper for a waiter or waitress,
you know, maybe I do that then. But, but, you know, it's been important for me to,
not force it to just like when the time feels right when I'm inspired to open up my notes app,
that's where I write them. And I'll just write the word poem as like a standing title and
then I'll write the poem and I'll figure out what the title is and then I'll attach it.
But anyway, you know, I mean, I never considered myself a poet. I mean, I guess it's fair
for me to call myself one at this point. But I'm not like a professional poet, you know,
like it's not what I spend my life doing. It's been this other thing for me, which I think is also,
like you were alluding to maybe a sort of flowering or awakening into something else,
like a way of tapping into this artistic side of myself. And so, yeah, you know, I've kind of
made a point and I don't know whether this is right or wrong to not make it exhausting to keep that
fire alive in me and to do it when I'm inspired and I think that's like the best headspace to be
in to write a poem to not feel force but to just feel like the idea is starting to bubble beneath
the surface and then writing it so yeah so for that reason it's definitely brought me energy but
I could see if I was, like, writing, like, an actual, like, you know, autobiography or something, how it could feel exhausting.
I've certainly felt that way, working on my scientific papers.
You know, I really got to motivate myself.
And, yeah, I picked myself up by my bootstraps to get those done because I've just not inspired, you know, like I'm good at it in some ways, bad in others, I guess.
But it's just such a different energy, which I feel so much more, yeah, like, inspired by creative writing and poetry, then some of that more, like, let me, yeah, let me sit down and hold myself really accountable and just get this done, which is also probably a sign.
I'm thinking that, like, maybe that's not where I meant to go with my writing, you know, if it's such a chore.
in such a drag.
Anyway.
Yeah, no, it's a great point.
It begs the question of maybe that's why there's so many things wrong, whether it's in
anything, whether it's in your daily life or whether it's in science or whether it's in different
types of testing for different types of substances.
It's so much of it is a chore.
And when something is so difficult in a chore, there's always that temptation to try to make it a
little easier, whether that's cheating, whether it's, hey, I'm just throw a few bucks over here,
you know what I mean? And then that sort of corruption sets in. And it does make things seem to be,
I guess, corrosive in a weird sort of way. Yeah. I don't know. I, I guess I, let me,
let me throw this one at you and see what you think. Is, man, that, when you write,
is there some sort of imagery that you see or that you think of or how is how is imagery
is there a recipe is there like imagery mood and message or is there some sort of recipe that
you're inspired by or that you follow is there the cole butler cookbook of writing that someone
could look at and want to want to look at or what goes through your mind when you're writing
yeah again i think it depends on the type of
writing probably the poetry incorporates more imagery than some of the other stuff you know one thing
that's always stuck out to me that Jordan Peterson has said is that some people think in images and
some people think in words and I think in words it's non-stop kind of stream of consciousness like I'm
always right it's words it's just it is and I you know I my grandparents
Grandpa is an artist.
And he actually, he designed the cover for this book, which you can see.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
Well done.
Yeah, yeah.
And he, you know, he's raised in an even smaller town than me, like a logging and meth town,
I could probably say, called Gerdin, Arkansas of about 800 people.
And he worked on the railroad growing up.
And he started doing train graffiti back in the 70s.
and male art.
So like kind of train graffiti and male art have been too kind of critical things that he's done.
And he's a real kind of old school in that way.
He's almost 80 now.
His name is Buzz Blur or Colossus of Rhodes, R-O-A-D-S, is what he goes by.
And his professional Instagram page has like 20,000 followers.
And in like the kind of weird niche folk art scene,
he's kind of considered a hero along with a guy who's like bozo texino because he's been taken all over the world by his art
and so you know anyway that's all to say that I think his work has always made like a lifelong
impression on me and you know my dad went to art school even though he works with computers mainly now
But, you know, I think I've kind of had that aesthetic appreciation, maybe like genetically in life baked into me.
So I've always had like a certain taste, a certain flare that gets manifested in multiple different ways, just kind of like, I don't know, I've been into fashion.
I've written graffiti for myself.
I've been into modifying cars.
And I've always had a certain kind of taste that I try to create.
And so I think that that plays a role in how I put together, you know, these poems
and also just how I think.
And also, you know, my grandpa, Buzz Blur, his writing is, it's just crazy.
I mean, it's awesome.
it's beautiful it's like distorted it's like so like outside of the realm of like it's like almost
it doesn't make sense but it makes sense he has this kind of world that he lives in called surreal
surreal bill um and so he was inspired by dot-a-ism by like jack harrowack things like that um and so he has this
real crazy sort of style of writing that's been really inspiring to me also.
And anyway, yeah, as far as like imagery and text goes, I think, you know, it's almost like
a vibe that I tap into.
For example, my poem, Aspen Unknowing.
I'll see if I can pull it up here.
But anyway, let me just pull it up so I can reference it.
Maybe if you wouldn't mind, you can give a taste.
Maybe you can give us a little sample.
Sure.
Yeah, let me up here.
Now it's in the divinity section.
My control F is not doing its job, maybe because it's a PDF.
Okay.
This one definitely comes to mind in terms of
imagery. Okay, here we go. Aspen unknowing. Red pine feathers fall from the walls. Blue energy drips from the
waterfalls. Sunlight beams into the open pores. Healing replaces the old open sores. Tying up the
unlaid shoes, untying the ends of the grooves. Total blackness meets my ends. How lovely to have one friend.
odd in my eternal purpose windows closed the open curtains frequency bands unravel with time and resonate with recurrent shimes windfall into the new arenas breaking down howling with hyenas lots and lots and lots of patterns crying into the darkest caverns where will we find the eternal stone can we unlock the known unknown kiss me baby on the forehead rip open my insides
when I'm dead. Formlessness takes an unknown shape, finding my final resting place. So,
yeah. That one's pretty intense. Yeah, absolutely. It kind of, I guess, you know, that's kind of
energy, you know, that I maybe associate with, you know, and my grandpa. And it's just kind of like,
you go from this, like, weird, like, okay, waterfalls, like trees,
like cool to like kiss me to like rip me open it's like yeah and uh you know but with this there's like
this turning up yeah a vibe or an emotion or something that i'm like capturing so you know i
i don't know exactly like i i i can't say that like a clear image pops up in my head when i'm
writing. It's more just like, as I'm writing, I'm like, oh, like this thing. It just kind of like
pops up, like hyenas, like waterfalls, aspen trees, like these things I'm kind of tapping into,
but I'm using the words to put, I guess, form to some of that. And then also these more
intense emotions, you know, and like things that like don't quite make sense, but make sense, but
You know, anyway, I think the poem in some sense speaks for itself.
It's hard to, like, talk about it in a way that makes sense because part of it is that it doesn't make sense.
Yeah.
I wonder, it makes me wonder sometimes, you know, when you create something and then you put it out for people to to partake in or consume or read, sometimes the feedback you get from people,
opens up another dimension for you to see the very thing that you've written.
And you're like, oh, well, you thought it like that?
I never thought about it like that, but maybe it is.
And in that idea, I'm wondering, is there some place?
Like, let's say people buy your book and they want to reach out to you because they want to tell you what they thought about that poem or how it inspired them.
Is there a way for people to interact with you?
Like once they buy your book, if they were like, you know, Cole, the line about kissing the baby and then ripping me open,
And that made me think of kissing my daughter on the forehead and then having a nightmare.
Or, you know, is there a place where, let's say someone buys your book?
Can they reach out to you to talk about your book?
Yeah, absolutely.
I would love that.
I mean, yeah, I guess I'll say the book.
Like, I don't plan to make any money on it.
You know, I've only had to invest about $100 in some of my time into creating it, which is awesome.
But, you know, I had this option.
like how much money do you want to make on the book?
And I, you know, I said, okay, like, well, let me see here.
You know, one of the decisions I made was paperback or hard back.
And I said, God, the paperback is half the price.
It was like $12 for paperback, 25 for a hardback.
But I just wanted that hardcover.
And like the thing about it is that I just, this is, yeah, this is almost just,
just to have something tangible, you know, to put it out there.
My goal is not to sell copies, really.
I definitely would love and appreciate if people cared about this.
Like, that would feel great.
But, you know, yeah, it gave me the option.
How much do you want to make on this?
I said, okay, $1.
And so it spits out a price.
A minimum, if I made $0.
It was $2294, I think, was how much it would cost.
And now it's going to cost $25 just to print it.
And if you buy it directly from the bookstore that I published it on lulu.com, I think I make $10 just because it's coming direct from that.
And then if it's through like Amazon or something, whenever that rolls out, I think that's when I make like $1.
Anyway, so I bring that up because, yeah, like I'm doing this because I find it interesting, like not to make money or anything.
So I would love if people, you know, were able to read it, we're able to interact with me, we're able to give me their thoughts.
And so, yeah, so LinkedIn or like my email is probably the easiest way to get a hold of me.
My website is lionheartwellness.net.
And my email for that is C.O. Lionheart at gmail.com.
So totally.
And I think actually my website and maybe my email is inside the book.
So or even you can mail me.
I put, you know, an address in there.
You can mail me something.
That'd be cool.
And yeah, I guess just, you know, more broadly, I think that when people resonate with something, it's like, oh, yeah, like I thought that too.
Maybe I didn't have the words, but like you use your words that like makes me think about something that I've also thought about.
And so, you know, in a weird way, I think these poems are somewhat selfish because it's just like me and what.
I wrote. I didn't write them for somebody else to be like, oh, true. It's just what I had in mind.
And so, you know, I think it's out of my control once it's out there to decide how other people
are going to react, what that's going to bring up for people, how that lands on somebody,
maybe how it lands isn't what I had in mind. Again, I didn't design it with an audience.
in mind. It was just kind of personal, but, you know, if that resonates in some way or is
interpreted in some way or somebody's inspired or moved or whatever, yeah, please reach out.
And, you know, it's the same thing with my newsletter. I recently started a newsletter called
the psychedelic paradigm shift. And I've written two editions now.
hoping to be on a weekly schedule and, you know, at the end of those, I'm like, this isn't about
just me, you know, I can't change the entire paradigm of how we operate in the West on my own.
I want it to be a community-based thing and I want people to be inspired, but also to tell me
what they think and how, you know, how they view this problem. And so I appreciate people reaching out
and being like, yeah, like I resonated with that, like, or I think this about it or like, how do we change it,
like things like that.
So totally, like I'm a super open book.
I'm available.
So if you have thoughts, please share them.
It reminds me, sometimes, you know, as parents, as brothers, as sisters, as husbands and wives,
as family, as friends, it's really difficult sometimes to make time when you're tired.
And sometimes when I come home from work, like I'm totally exhausted and my daughter comes to the door.
She's like, Daddy, and you get energized.
But there's this game that her and I play because I often don't have much time before she goes to bed.
But there's a simple game that we play sometimes.
And it reminds me of the idea of people interacting with you.
And the game is this.
You just take a piece of paper and I'll draw a line and then I'll push the paper to her and then she'll draw another line.
And then she'll push it back to me.
And pretty soon we've built like this character or an animal or a house.
But it's so interesting how just one little action that forces an interaction and then it boomerangs back.
And then all of a sudden you've created this thing.
And I think about that when I was reading some of your poetry.
Like, wow, what a beautiful way to send something out into the world.
And then I think it's on everybody else to boomerang it back.
And, you know, whether it's to you or someone loans the idea or the story to a friend and then it just goes around.
And I just think when you send stuff,
out like that, it's a great way to think about it coming back to you or maybe it's an
interactive game of you give something they give it back to you. And I, I just think that would be a
cool thing for it. And I really love talking to people who put stuff out there and can have
it boom back to them. So that's why I kind of brought that whole thing up. As far as the newsletter,
is that on substack or? It's on LinkedIn. You know, I do, you know, I like chat GPT.
Me and Chad GPT are friends. We hang out. We bounce ideas out for another.
and the idea of a newsletter had, you know, floated around in my head, but I'm like, a lot of the time in newsletter, like, I don't know if people really read them.
And I was just trying to think about other platforms for writing. And so Chat GPT and I had a nice long conversation and found some ideas around.
And I told Chat GBTT, you know, what I thought and what I was good head and what I like to do. And chat GPT gave me some ideas. And kind of that came,
newsletter and they shifted some things around and said okay I'll write this and it also gave me some
platforms that I could write a newsletter on in any way you know I I don't want to be like so like
siloed on LinkedIn I'm trying to kind of expand my presence but I found out that you can publish
your newsletter on LinkedIn also so it's it's on there right now I don't I don't know if you're
not on LinkedIn if you can subscribe I hope so I saw Randall
Hansen's newsletter came to my inbox this morning. So I don't know if mine is like popping up in people's
email inbox either. But yeah, right now it's on LinkedIn, but maybe I'll explore other avenues.
But since the first edition got this overwhelming praise. I was really kind of shocked. I have
850 subscribers to it already. I'm like, wow. And like 30 people interacted with it. And I got all
these comments, the executive director of MindMed, who's a company that I worked for,
reached out to compliment my newsletter. I'm like, holy crap, like I work on your study.
He's like, oh, cool. And so anyway, just mind-blowing. But, and I published a second edition that
didn't quite get as much attention or feedback, but I guess that's part of the process. But
Anyway, yeah, I need to explore how to expand it or get it to people outside of just LinkedIn.
But right now it's just on LinkedIn.
Yeah.
I saw Randall's come in, but I haven't seen yours.
It didn't come into my inbox either.
I wonder if there's some sort of glitch there or it didn't get distributed for some reason.
Yeah, I think maybe it just came up in people's notifications or something.
I'll look into it.
I published a second edition on Saturday.
Okay.
Yeah.
Well, it's, Cole, I'm super excited to talk to you, and I love the way in which you see the world and the psychedelic perspective and the idea that unites us as what more unites us than love, pain, and divinity.
And I'm excited to see where it goes.
But before I let you go, what do you have coming up?
Where can people find you?
I know we talked about the newsletter a bit, but I think you have other platforms people can find you.
And what are you excited about?
Yeah.
LinkedIn as always, like that's where my primary presence has unfolded, I guess.
Lionheartwellness.net is the website with my contact information as well.
I now have an Instagram.
I'm trying to keep up with that.
I don't as much.
It's Lionheart Wellness, Colorado.
And I'm, yeah, I'm slowly trying to add on these different platforms.
So those are the main ways to get a whole.
to me and yeah right now um you know i'm writing a few more poems here and there um our lsd study
has really taken off so i really just kind of become like swamped and grossed in that which is
is great um and you know trying to develop out the newsletter trying to kind of like figure out you know
my identity in this world and this space i don't think there's a clear you know like i i realize that
all the little checkboxes of careers and lifeass that society handed me when I was born,
that I don't quite fit into any of those boxes.
And so I'm trying to figure out, you know, how to build my own box, I guess.
And more to come on that.
But, you know, and I guess that's kind of the extension of Blind Heart Wellness.
I graduate with my master's degree in two months, which,
after a few summer courses, I can start doing therapy independently, which is exciting.
And, yeah, what am I excited about my baby daughter?
So that's just, that trumps everything else, I think, really.
And I'm just, yeah, just trying to figure out how to live, how to, you know, provide for my family, for myself,
how to, you know, take who I am and live and, you know, make sure everybody eats and has a nice life.
So, yeah, that's what's going on.
I'm so excited for you.
You're, it's inspiring.
You know, I wish I was more like you when I was 27.
And I think that, you know what?
I just thought of this one question.
I know you're running low on time, but when, do you think in the future as someone who,
was worked around clinical trials, would it be possible to measure the efficacy, I think that's the
right word, for adding poetry into therapy? Would it be possible to measure that, you think,
in some sort of way? Like if after every session, I don't know how you would structure it, but could
you, could that fit into a clinical trial somewhere and be measured? Yeah, I think people use poetry as a
tool for integration, you know, along with art and movement and dance, meditation.
Yeah, I think, you know, one thing that's been really cool to hear about is like poetry
workshops.
I think some people need a little bit of handholding to really tap into that energy because
they're a little bit nervous.
Like, I'm not a poet.
I don't understand.
I always encourage people, like, just write it.
Like, just it doesn't have to rhyme.
whatever, like just do it.
And I think it's a really cool and unique and different way to tap into some different
energy.
So, yeah, I mean, I don't think there's any way to analyze the poems, but maybe like what role
did poetry serve in your processing?
And we have a long ways to go and understanding, yeah, like, what do we need to do?
What's the right process of integration?
and a lot of, you know, this scientific approach is these really, you know, black and white kind of did your symptoms go down, like do all your lab tests look good, like how's your heart functioning, how's your blood pressure, and did your anxiety go down, you know, you having problematic sexual function that went away.
but you know yeah i i hope down the road you know we can start to think about like well what do we need
to do from a clinical perspective and you know what's helpful and i think what excites me about
the clinical space um outside of just research and now in colorado being able to use psilocybin
therapeutically um is that there's not going to be as many rules and so you know the clinical
trials are hard because there's so many rules, so much protocol, so much red tape. But when you're just
working clinically, you know, you can just do what you want. You can say like, hey, write a poem.
Like, and I don't have to ask, you know, I don't have to give you a questionnaire. Right.
Just say like, okay, well, how was that for you? Like, read it back to me. What does that bring up for you?
and maybe that's just another threat and, you know,
tying together their experience and making sense of it.
And in that sense, you know, I don't really care about the science behind it.
But, you know, also scientific validation to bolster, you know,
this mysterious thing is also awesome.
And able to do that with psychedelics, they're mysterious.
We don't understand them, but we can show that they work.
And you think poetry is like that, too.
Yeah, that's really well said.
That's awesome.
Cole, the book is called Love, Pain, and Divinity.
It's available on Lulu.
The link to that will be in the show notes.
Check out the newsletter.
Check them out on LinkedIn.
Reach out to them on Lionheart Wellness.
The last time we spoke, you had like a 10-minute consultation you were doing for people.
Is that still available for people?
Yeah. Yeah, I do 15-minute phone calls with people. Sometimes they hold over. I have limited hours right now with everything that's going on. But yeah, I'm happy to talk with people. If those hours don't work, reach out. I love just connecting with people, even if it goes nowhere. So, yeah, you can schedule that on my website or reach out. And I'm happy to share my ideas with you.
or just have a conversation.
That's awesome.
All right,
Cole Butler,
thank you so much for being here.
I hope you have a tremendous day.
Say hello to your lovely partner,
and I'm so excited for your baby and the book
and everything that's going on for you.
I mean, congratulations,
and thank you for being here today, man.
I really appreciate it.
Cool, man.
Thanks so much for having me back.
It's always,
I love these conversations.
Yeah, me too.
So stimulating.
Yep.
Okay, ladies and gentlemen, that's all we got for today.
Aloha.