TrueLife - From Rituals to the Compulsion of Production

Episode Date: October 14, 2022

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/One of our greatest problems of today is the lack of commitment to common symbols if it were merely a matter of our fragmentation in the small groups each committed to its proper symbolic forms the case would be simple to understand but more mysterious is a widespread explicit rejection of rituals as such ritual has become a bad word signifying empty conformity we are witnessing a revolt against a formalism even against form.Today we speak with Jason Sheffield on the topic of the disappearance of rituals. You can learn more about Jason Sheffield here:https://www.experienceintegration.com/ One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

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, furious 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 Kodak Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the next best day of your life. I hope you woke up this morning next to somebody you love.

I hope you smelled the coffee. I hope the birds are singing. I hope that the world around you was a little bit brighter because it should be. Because you get another day and you got people around you that love you. Jason Sheffield, the man, the myth, the legend. Can you introduce yourself a little bit and tell people what's going on in your life for a moment? Absolutely. Yeah, name Jason, based out of Carter Springs, Colorado, which is a beautiful place to be,

especially in the fall, the colors are changing, the fall weather settling in. I love the rhythms of the seasons and just that transitionary period when it's like taking you to that next thing. And man, this fall has felt like that kind of a transition in many ways of something's shifting, right? And being reminded of that as the colors of the trees are shifting. Yeah. So just right now, been enjoying that and just continuing to,

to work away. Man, I love it. I love it. I love the positive vibe and I love the reality of the situation and your ability to speak truth, man. So thank you for that. I wanted to start off this morning. I've had an incredible sort of few months. I had one really good friend of mine, Rich Griggs that actually had died and came back to life was gone for like 44 minutes. And I was talking to some, yeah, I was amazing. I'm going to get into that story maybe in a couple weeks. I'm going to actually have him on. He's amazing. He's one of us, you know, as are everyone listening. One of my great friends from elementary school, two of them actually, I was talking to them yesterday and one of them is staring down the barrel of pancreatic cancer. I can't help but see

the guy's smiling face in my head when I close my eyes and I think about all the things that we've done together. And, you know, he's an amazing guy, man. Ray Had and I love you, buddy. And my friend Scott Hover, I love you too, man, he's over there. He's helping out. He's an amazing individual, too. But I'm just curious, Jason. What, like, what do you, you've seen an interesting video this morning, but what do you think of when I tell you that? What do you think of, Jay, when I tell you, I have some of my best friends that I've known forever that are staring down the barrel right now? I mean, the first thing is, it comes to my mind is how death is largely hidden in our society.

We don't do death well most of the time. It's something that is, you know, kind of put away, you know, people, people that are dying are often ostracized from the larger communities. If they are going through the process of death, you know, it happens in hospitals and very clinical places. You know, occasionally it might happen at the home. But most of the time, when we think about death in our society, it is meant for the edges. is. It is not something that we build a rhythm around or deep understanding around because there's

so much grief. It's so hard. But we also don't, I believe, have nervous systems or capacity often to handle death because we shun it. We don't look at it. We don't pay attention to it. We don't open up to the reality that it's coming for all of us. And it could happen at any moments. You know, we could have, We could have aneurysms. We could have brain anisms like on this podcast and be done. Like it just, it's always a reality. It's always there. Something could happen in the fact that we think we're in control of our lives and when we

die or how we die. We get those those diagnoses. We get those things that come. That's really hard. And I think we need more more work around death and being able to handle it appropriately. Yeah. You know, I often think about the story of transformation, whether it's the, you know, Caterpillar that spins a cocoon and reemerges as a new form, as a butterfly. Yeah.

Or I often think of, you know, on the idea of death that we have, it seems that so many of us look at it selfishly, like, we're going to lose this person. Yeah. You know, we, it's, oh, poor us. Like, we are going to lose this person we love and they did so much. And, you know, the more that I think about it, and as someone who's had the death of a child, like I, I think I have a different look because, and I think that everybody who's been close to death goes through this process

of like, at first you grieve and there's a hole in your heart. Yeah. And you want to die, especially when it's someone so close to you. And especially when you realize that, that that person's beating heart is no longer able for you to reach out to and listen to their rhythms. And so, you know, but ultimately, I think you come to a place of understanding that that which was never born can never die. You know, this idea of energy, this idea of a person, this idea of something you've interacted with, it can't die. It can change forms.

So we're back to the idea of the caterpillar and the butterfly. It can change forms. Yeah. But I don't think it can die. Well, you saw an interesting video this morning. Can you tell us about that? Yeah. Someone popped on LinkedIn.

Unfortunately, I can't remember his name right now. So I can't give him credit. I think his first name was Eric. But he runs a church of psilocybin. He's based, I think, on the East Coast. And he was recording a video talking about someone that was in his community that he was taking through a last rights ritual using psilocybin that they were they they got a terminal diagnosis and were given about three to six months to to live and so in that window of time by you know

what he was doing is going in and doing the prep work and then taking them into an experience to prepare them for that transition and prepare them for you know that the piece and that's something I think is pretty well documented at this point, at least in the medical community around the psilocybin research, that people that are facing terminal diagnoses and having experiences report that they are less fearful of that transition, less fearful of whatever that might look like. And I think more trusting that there is a benevolent universe that that holds this whole thing together. That's been part of my experiences as well, is I, I, I don't hold very much certainty around what is on the other side.

I feel like it's a bit foolish to say I know X, Y, and Z. Anytime you see religions be like, oh, you're going to get this, right? You got the 70 virgins lined up or, you know, in other religions. You're going to get your own world. You're going to become a God. Like the fact that we could put a belief structure around what's going to happen that's so deeply mysterious to me feels like it's a bit of a sham on some levels. But I think at the end of the day, I trust, I have faith, if you want to say, that there is a benevolent universe that is holding all of this together and that whatever this is will transmute

into something else. In the same way, you see birth coming from one form of life in the womb to a different form of life on this planet. I believe it's just another birth in some ways to something on the other side. But that was a bit of a ramp. But yeah, it's just fascinating. like how we handle death rituals, how we handle death, how we think about dying, and it's something that we all have to face. Unless you're a hermit living in complete solitude of not being in relationship, you'll have your own death to deal with, but most of us are in relationship and the people were in relationship with will die. And the question is, will they die before us or will we die before them? But it's going to happen. Without a doubt. Without a doubt. And I,

On some level, I think that that's what psychedelics are preparing people for. You know, it's, it goes without saying that at a high doses, high doses psychedelics provide you with a heightened sense of awareness. And I think you can begin to make out the fuzzy edges of the universe at least with a little bit more clarity when you're on these high doses. And I think that there's plenty of literature that shows in near-death experiences that the brain secretes DMT, which is also this other form of awareness. You could almost say it's like a, it's like the, what's the fluid inside the placenta? You know, like there's like this. Yeah, I don't remember the technical term. I know what you're talking about.

It's almost like there's this fluid that helps you. lubricate the pathways into the next world. You know, when you go into the light, like, you have a little bit of help right there. And I think that sometimes the high dose psychedelics allow you to catch a glimpse. Maybe it's like putting sunglasses on and looking into the light. You can see a little bit further. You know what I mean? And so, yeah, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, I think, I think it can come in lots of forms, these ideas of near-death experiences. I just got done, I got a subscription to Gaia. I don't know if you've seen that, right?

And there's a great lecture given by a guy named Freddie Silva on the secret 900-year history of the Knights of Templar. And he went like really, really deep into, you know, there's so much mythology around the knights and the Crusades. And he, like, after 15 years of research, provides a very different understanding of what they were doing. and so much of what they were designing and building around and the invitation into their mysteries was through near-death experiences.

And even like the documented places of like coffins that people would be buried in, potentially slabs laid over and they would be in these places for, you know, two to three, typically it's a three-day process, right? Death and resurrection following the threes. But that it was this sacred ritual that, again, has been passed on in every, major religious, not even religious, but spiritual context. Really, the keys to the kingdom, if you want, say, is an understanding of death,

that you can't really begin to understand any of this stuff unless you first start with an understanding of death. And that is, I think sometimes experientially. We need to have an understanding of what that's like. And we need to have it as something that we're holding on to it all times because it kind of is the thing, right? That once we understand it, then when it comes,

it won't really happen, right? The ancient saying of the Greeks that if you die before you die, when you die, you won't die, it's that same thing, right? That is the great secret, I believe,

to so much of what we're looking for today. Yeah. And it, why do you think that there's such a, do you think that the older we get, the more we cling on and the more we, we hold on to these ideas that have meaning to us, but in the grand scheme of things,

really don't hold that much meaning. Is that maybe what part of death is, is letting go? Oh, it's surrender, 100%, right? It's, it is the ultimate surrender. And I think where, why the death is, like one element of the death from an individual perspective that's so key is the surrender that we're not who we think we are, right? We're not who we, we want to identify as. We don't want like the ego, the egoic thinking, however,

whatever terms we want to put to that, we, we so easily slip into this like thinking that my, my ego structure is who I am. And when we start to realize the death of that and we're not that, we then begin to awaken to a deeper intelligence, that our personalities, our attachments,

are, you know, kind of striving for things that, are really driven by the ego, do not serve us to deeper spiritual understanding. Now, you can live a very happy life in your ego. That's great. Good for you. Like, there's no judgment to that. There's no, like, better way than another. But I think for anybody that's beginning the process of wanting to understand spiritual thinking on a deeper level, you have to start with an understanding of the false self to the true self. It's kind of the, to me, the, to me, the,

foundational. It's consistent in every spiritual teaching. Whether you look at it from a Buddhist perspective, you look at it through the more traditional monotheistic religions. You look at it through other, like even in the pagan traditions, death and real life and new life are always part of the cycle. So I don't know, it just seems too consistent for it to not hold some weight for me at the end of the day. Yeah, that's really well said. It always gets me thinking. It's such an interesting topic to think about and it's it's so taboo that people don't want to talk about it because maybe they feel that they're moving on or someone really close to them is moving on or they haven't dealt with you know someone they've already known that they have love who's lost their life and

heart goes out to everybody who's experiencing that and i got good news and bad news you know the the good news is well the bad news is the good news and the bad news are the same i You're going to die. Right. You know, there's no way around it. And so make the best of your life here. Maybe use language that is a little bit more filled with love, have a little bit more patience and be thankful for even the smallest things out. You know, this brings me to the idea since we started talking about rituals.

You know, it brings me to today's topic of the end of rituals. It seems as if we can find rituals and books and we can sometimes watch movies. and maybe hear stories about things, but it seems like the rituals in everyday life have been, oh, I don't know, almost completely erased from modern reality. So I was thinking about this.

And I actually might challenge that a little bit. And think about it, maybe I'm curious what your thoughts are on this. When we think about the death of rituals, I actually think most of the time rituals are designed around the things that you worship or the things that you worship, or the things that you hold.

as we could either call it as an idol or something that is you're giving your power a way to. That's often what we build a ritual around. And I actually think today there are lots of rituals. I think when you start to look at one's life and the life of society, the first ritual that came to my mind was football, the ritual of football. And for people, and so I first experienced this when I went to my first real big college football, game in Lincoln, Nebraska, the home of the Huskers. And I'd never experienced anything like it. I mean, a stadium, I think that stadium could hold 90,000 people. When it's, when it's game day,

Lincoln becomes the biggest city in the state because everybody travels to it. Lincoln doesn't have a professional team. They've got nothing going from a sports perspective other than professional football. And when you show up, there's a ritual around the clothes that you wear, the cut. colors that you wear, you, you wear red, right? Everything. There's so much paraphernalia. There are songs that you sing. As an outsider, I was, like, I was like I was attending a religious worship sermon, like ceremony, right? And then you like, they give you red balloons and like the, you hold on to the red balloons until the first points are scored. So everybody in the stadium is holding these balloons and then whatever points come, however they come, everybody releases

their balloons. I mean, there were so many ritualistic things designed. The defense had a certain ritual. They're called like the black shirts, I think, if I remember correctly. And there's like, you know, certain flags for those guys. So much ritual. And so what I believe is that we still have lots of ritual in our society, but it's about the things that we worship. And so it's interesting to see like what are the rituals, right? The rituals around consumerism. The rituals around how we consume media right now with the ritual of binge watching right we now sit and don't watch an hour of television we watch five because the entire series comes out or 10 right there's so much that we we do so I'm curious hearing that how would you define a ritual when you were thinking

about the death of ritual what what is the definition we're working with when we use that word okay that was really well done and this is one of many reasons why I love you because you think about things and you have a very unique opinion. So thank you for providing that. I can't argue with that. Those are definitely rituals. And they are things that people worship. If I could define or push the conversation or enrich the conversation into my original intent,

it would be that rituals are. symbolic acts they represent and pass on the values and orders on which a community is based and I am I guess I am maybe I guess maybe a better question would be

instead of the absence or the death of rituals the the emptying out of or the transmutation is that is that the right word or is

Maybe it's the, maybe it is the evolution of rituals from this thing that makes all of us get through life. And you know what? Football, let me finish one thought. I have a problem doing that. You know, the symbolic act or the representation, the act of passing on our values and orders to enhance the community around us. something that you can not only see but participate in is my idea of a ritual that is lacking. And I would agree that it has been, you know, our symbols and our rituals have become empty in a way. They have become empty vessels that no longer truly hold a meaningful answer.

They no longer hold the life-giving water that can, quench your thirst when one needs to be quenched with faith. And going back to football, like, you know, when a town comes together, you know, be it through the death of someone or through a football game and a red balloon and defense and offense, like there is something symbolic about that idea. It's like, it's a fight, you know, in some ways, in some ways they're, they're representing the life and death cycle. So I can't, I don't think I could really fault the actual.

game or the people being at that game. I guess the introduction to consumerism in there has it's kind of like the cancer of the ritual. Like, hey, who wants a hot dog or who wants to wear this shock a finger or the people that began exploiting that ritual, I think is the end of that ritual. So does that kind of answer the question? Yeah. No, I think it's an interesting way to think about, again, the rituals that we hold. And again, I would say that we were pretty ritualistic beings for the most part. And again, whether we want to call it a habit or like how,

like one of my favorite sayings is how you do anything is how you do everything. Yeah, like that. And so that idea is very much, I think ritual, right? There's some piece of ritual, how you do anything,

right? How you get up in the morning. How you conduct your life and the little things is also going to show up in the big thing. So you can't get away from, from that side of. of kind of understanding of ritual. I think the biggest thing is, though,

when it transitioned from a habit to a ritual, is when there's awareness brought to the why. Why do you do it that way? What is, like, how is it serving me? Because, again, we will default often to the path of least resistance. We're going to default to making sure that we don't have to be resilient in our rituals. And frankly, like one of the sad things that we see in society today is we've been sold a bunch of rituals that are really soft, really easy rituals, right?

How easy is it to sit there and drink beer and eat shitty food and bra your team on? And then let that ruin your attitude or ruin your mode for the rest of the week. Another city that I lived in that was deeply ritualistic around football. And I'm not a big sports person. I don't mind football. It's kind of fun to watch. I can get into it. But I lived in Philadelphia.

And you want to talk about people that live their lives. by how the Philadelphia Eagles are playing. Philadelphians are insane. Like I was working as part of a church when I was there. And I was such an outsider. There was such this internal, like people in Philly, like they don't really, people don't move to Philadelphia very often.

Let's just say that. Most of the people that are there have always been there. They're not used to outsiders. And so for me to build connection, I had to learn the names of all the football players. I had to pay attention to it. Because otherwise, I was irrelevant on many levels. I couldn't hang with people that were having those conversations.

So again, so much ritual around the idea of sport. And I think it's because there is a lack of the life-giving rituals. So, you know, one of the things I'm curious about the death of rituals is specifically around manhood and the ritual of becoming a man. We, at least in this Western North America society, which is the context of I know. I'm sure it could be happening in other parts of the world. But the way that I'm directly connected and the lens that I see through is we have an incredible lack of ritual into manhood and honestly ritual into femininity as well. This is up in my partner and I've been talking a lot about as we have children that are kind of nearing those really important ages, right? First period,

first cycle, puberty hitting. Like how do we hold certain things? around those very significant moments in a way that's very ritualistic. So one of the things my partner is working on is building a group of women that would hold a cycle ritual. And as the young girls that are in our community have their first cycle, holding a space of honor, holding a space of invitation, holding a space of blessing from other women around that first cycle. beautiful we need more more of that right now cycles are seen with shame and like you and it happens

in the corner and we don't talk about it in the family and all sorts of kind of repressed in my opinion again this is my lens but just kind of like we don't hold space for that very well and that needs to shift same thing for masculinity and our boys becoming men through puberty honoring that and building ritual so those are things i'm working on um And we can dive more into that. But yeah, like I'm trying to shift the narrative around some of that stuff with ritual, with bringing our children into their adulthood and through the phases that it takes place. Yeah, that's beautiful.

That's a return to the real world instead of this, you know, mechanistic idea of the virtual. I don't think that you can truly have a ritual without participating in it on some level and in order to do that, you must have the felt presence of the other. As much as it is to look at somebody a thousand miles away or 10,000 miles away and speak to them, you can be somewhat fulfilled by that. If you haven't seen a friend in 10 years and you talk to them and you can see them, or if I call my mom who lives in another state, I can see her, but I can't hug her. And I can't thoroughly take in all the conversation because I can't use all my senses to do that.

And I think that in some ways, now that we talk about it, you know, I think that the ritual has been hijacked by other means. And if I was putting on my, if I was putting on my Edward Bernays propaganda hat, I would say that it has been done purposeful. You know, our friend, our friend Benjamin George put up a great question. He says, is football a ritual or is it idolatry? I wanted to address that. It's a good question. Yeah. Okay, we'll come back to it. Let me finish this point. And then we'll come on put it up right here.

You know, I, I think that as of right now, mankind is being stripped down purposefully. I think that there is an attempt to strip man of his symbols, to strip man of his rituals, to strip man of his God so that a new one can be built around them. And I don't know, I don't know what's real in history when I read other people's accounts of it. So this may be something that's done from time to time. This may be the same thing the Romans did when they came down and they took down all the pagan religions and they said, you will have monotheism. Or maybe what the Jews did by going out and beginning their diaspora and saying, this is the true God. You know, I think that you could argue that there is evidence for destroying rituals so that you can conquer those people.

Because the truth is when you destroy people's rituals, you destroy their culture. When you destroy their culture, you destroy their idea of not only who they are, but what they stand for. And when you don't stand for anything, you'll fall for everything. You know what I mean? And so that's a big part of what people who are firm in their religion say. And I don't, even though I may not agree with them in their religion, I wholeheartedly agree that you must stand for something. And so, yeah, I think we're seeing this idea of rituals be purposely tried to lay flat so that this new world of consumerism can fully get in. into us and it can fully perpetuate not only us, but everyone around.

And in some ways, it makes me think that, you know, the idea of people boycotting companies, the idea of people boycotting consumerism is the one of the last things that allow us to take down this new God, this God called money, this thing that we put pictures on so that people will worship it, you know. And if you look at TV, people like, you know, the Kardashians or the shaws of Beverly Hills. And I'm sure all these people are probably nice people, but they're being used as the new idols for people to worship. And it's such a horrible, just dehumanizing idea for children to see it. It makes me, it makes me upset.

I, yeah, so I, I guess let's take it back here to Ben's question. Like, do you think that football is a ritual or is an idolatron? I guess you could even, I'm sorry, let me go one more step deeper. I think what you are doing, what your partner is doing. I think that what people around the world are doing by beginning to rebuild their neighborhoods, by beginning to take a hard look at their culture and get rid of the crap that doesn't mean anything, but focus on the stuff that does, I think those are purposeful ideas

that will lead to rituals that can rebuild mankind in a way. So thank you for doing that. Let's shift gears. What do you think? What's the difference between ritual and idolatry? So I was thinking it's actually probably both on some levels. I think it's kind of hard to have a,

I think ritual is about bringing your awareness to, it's about bringing your awareness to an experience, right? So whatever that experience is, and it's done in a consistent pattern. I think that's what makes it a ritual, is that there's something about it that you can repeat it, replicatable.

That's what I'm looking for. So because it's replicatable, it becomes a ritual. And then I think sometimes those rituals, can then shift into idols because there's a sense of my, and again, an idol, I would say is anything that we are, we hold up as having sway or power over our lives. That's an idol. So if I'm going to say this thing, this inanimate object, this rock is because it's, you know, Carnalian and it's beautiful, and it holds all these energies of the divine. When I rub it a certain way, then my day is going to go better.

And I could create a ritual that I'm just going to hold on to this thing and I'm going to keep rubbing it a certain way and then a good thing. I create a ritual around it. And then all of a sudden this becomes an idol to me because this is God, right? This is the thing that is worthy of worship. And that's, I think, at the foundation, anytime an object becomes worthy of the worship and we begin to build a ritual around it, it holds that place in our lives. And so I think for some, I don't think it's for everyone. And again, I'm not, I don't mean this in any sense of critique or judgment towards people. It's more just an observation of what we can see in society. But when I think about football, it holds a pretty significant place in our society. And even like when you saw COVID come and the amount of money that was getting lost by by football not being played, the way that it drives so much of our advertising, the way that it drives so much of a sense of trying to get us. into a common experience because our society has become so fragmented. Sports is about the only thing that I can really think of right now that we come around

with some sense of unity because otherwise everything else feels pretty freaking fractured. Everything else feels like it is being used in a way to divide us. And even in sports, we're starting to see some of the ways that it's getting used to like this person did that or it has a divisive element to it. But for the most part, I think it's still something that's as a unifier, right? We can really all enjoy sport. We can enjoy this thing. It helped unify us after the breakdown of society, you know, through COVID.

When sports came back, kind of felt like we came back. Kind of interesting. We got to pay attention to that stuff. And the level that it holds within our society and the amount of money that's being generated by it. And then, you know, fantasy sport and the way people can really think that they're connected to the actual. outcomes and playing element. And now the rise of gambling in sport that's happening virtually through

fan duel and the other one that's out there, I forget. But that's now legal, right? It's stuff very subliminally, very slowly has been leaching into our society. But man, these are going to have some consequences. There's going to be some pretty significant shifts when we start thinking about what's been going on around sport and the place that holds in our society. So I guess on some levels both. I don't know.

what do you think, George? Well, it's a great question. Thanks for asking. I think that, I think it kind of gets back to the Roman idea of bread and circus. You know, when you have all these men that are a fighting age that are filled with testosterone and want to rebel against the system, you know, I think that it's probably a bad idea for them to have nothing to do, you know. And on some ways, I don't think you need a whole lot of education to play sports.

I don't think you need a whole lot of, I think sports can fill a void for people. And if you look at some of the best people that play sports, regardless of their race, regardless of their ethnicity, what they have done is they have filled a giant hole in themselves with something because they wanted to get rid of these feelings, whether they came from a broken home, they came from a shitty neighborhood, or they came from an abusive family, or, you know, like, I've never, when I was younger,

I was fairly good for a high school wrestler. You know, I was pretty good. And I started at a young age at, like, six. But along the way, like, I saw so many dads that, like, would literally abuse their son because they weren't good enough. You know, and if you look at the majority of people playing at the highest levels,

it's usually the unrealized dreams of the parents that force them to play those games. You know, on some level, I think kids can be inspired, but they're usually running from something. If you pour yourself into anything, whether it's becoming a CEO, whether it's becoming the best sports person in the world,

whether it's becoming the best artist in the world, at some point you come to the realization that you can't serve two masters. And that means you can't have a family. That means you can't be with your kids. That means you can't. That means a lot of things. If you want to be the very best at something, you have to give up everything else.

Yeah. And people don't, like, look at Tom Brady right now. That guy is the goat, man. But he's like, you know what? Fuck my family. I'm just going to play football. Like on some level, you went from the goat to the biggest loser on the planet because you cannot, you're like a junkie.

You're like addicted. You can't get away from it. And I mean, maybe I shouldn't use me. I'm sorry if I'm coming off like I. No, I love it. But I think it's true, though. Like, man, you have everything. and you're going to walk away from it because you fucking can't throw another thousand yards this year.

Like, do the woman you claim to love is saying she's going to walk away from you if you do this. And you're like, this is more important. You know what I mean? Like it begins to show. I think that the very same thing that drives you to be the best is what people are attracted to. But it's also the very same thing that becomes repulsive later in life. And if you as an individual can't see that shift. And I don't know how you could, but, you know, maybe this is something that people can to,

can put in their lives. Like the very thing that makes you attractive, if you don't tend to it like a garden, it will become repulsive. And it can be. I mean, think about what, it's a fine line between confidence and arrogance. It's a fine line between sexy and slutty, you know. And so I just, I think that there is some. something there when it comes to, to the rituals are like the barriers that are put up so that

we can find those, we can find that line. You know, when we have real rituals, we have people in our lives. Okay, how about this? It's, it's an idea of recognizing, you know, and I'm not talking about recognizing as merely a question of seeing something for a second time or knowing, I think when I say recognize we can use the Hagalian definition of every act of recognition of something

has already been liberated from our first contingent apprehension of it and is then raised into ideology. Like, you know, when you recognize something, that's what rituals do. Rituals allow you to not just see something again,

but the ritual, the first time you see the ritual allows you to form the foundation of your opinions about it forever. And that is something you can carry with you. You know, and I think that there's meaning in there. When you watch a football game, if you're wearing another man's jersey,

I'm already like, what do you, you're a grown man wear another man's jersey. Get the, get out of here, man. What are you, 12? You might as well put on a Superman jersey and put a cape on and run around town

because it's ridiculous. Be your own man. Be your own person. The fact that you worship, this individual like a hero speaks volumes of your character. It speaks volumes of your family. Why are you running to the television to worship your hero when you have a daughter or a wife that already looks at you like a hero? What are you lacking inside where you have to run and see that, man? That's what makes me mad about the bread and the circus is how many of the people

that are out here playing fantasy would be the world's best generals? How many people out there playing fantasy would be the world's best politician? How many people out there pretending to be something could actually be the greatest there is? And I think that that is, it's purposeful. It's a purposeful design to take all this potential talent and move it out of the way so that someone with less talent can walk right down the middle. Yep. Man, you covered a lot of ground in that.

So many good pieces there that I think, because you got me also thinking about how, You know, at some levels, there is something beautiful about sport. I do have to feel, I want to kind of at least come back around because I will say I am a fan of sport. I am a fan of when you can see somebody that is dedicated so much of their lives to truly being great at something. So one of the sports that I get more into than others is I love basketball. I've always loved basketball. I love watching it. I love the team play of it.

And over probably the last seven years, I've become a huge fan of the Golden State Warriors and what they're doing. And the sport of Steph Curry and the way he shows up and the way that he plays. And it's just something that's in me that, like, I do love sitting down and watching a good game. I love the emotional roller coaster that I go on when it's a close game. And, you know, they pull out the win or they have the loss. And over the last year, my boys started watching some gay.

They finally started to get interested in some of this. And then it became a really fun thing to share with them on some levels, right? And so at the end of the day, I think these things are really beautiful. I think they can really serve us in some nice ways. But, you know, someone commented, I think it's our friend Benjamin saying, you know, there's a component of the self-reflection in a ritual. And where we put the ritual above the self, it's in support, instead of support of the self, we find idolatry.

I think it's a beautiful definition of when we think about that. But that's really kind of that piece. Now, if we're aware, we're aware of what's going on, right? And we bring that awareness to what it is. And we can see both the positive and the negative. We're not worshipping. We're just simply, you know, we're enjoying. I think to your point of the Romans bringing the bread and the entertainment and the distraction from your life,

that's really what that's saying is, hey, don't pay attention to this stuff over here. We're going to entertain you, right? The great saying of the gladiator, right? Are you not entertained? That is so much, I feel like, of the inflated ego. But on the other side of it, I've also always enjoyed paying attention to athletes that find deep levels of endurance, the endurance athletes athletes that are out there. A podcast that I often listen to is Rich Rolls podcast, where he's interviewing the athletes that are running 200 miles, right? He was a, he did like three, he did five Iron Man's in seven days around the islands of Hawaii.

He did the ultra, you know, Iron Man stuff where it was like two Iron Man's the same, like, that stuff's so insane. And I love, I love something about the human ability to push themselves to do things. that are really deeply incredible. And I think there's some beautiful ritual to that, like the physicality of it and the challenge of it. And especially, you know, elements of masculinity stepping into pushing your body. My son started getting into running. And so he did cross country this last in the fall.

He just wrapped it up. And we, you know, I did some visualization with him when we were driving to the race one day and just helping him realize that his mind and his body are going to be in competition with each other. And when we think about competition, that's what we want to bring our awareness to. But at this point, it's not about the other people that you're running against, but it's about can you push your body past what your mind can think it can do? Because it can go much further than we want to give it credence to. Our bodies are incredible. And I found that because I love endurance stuff, right? Done a lot of cycling. I love doing century rides, going really far on my

bike and challenging myself. There's something beautiful in that. And that's part of ritual that I think we need. But then I think what we see right now is this really grotesque version of it. And when we see it commercialized and when we see it in replace of the self, then all of a sudden we got a, we got to really begin to call attention to that. And maybe even say, is this worthy in my life, right? Is it worth the time and energy that I'm spending? Am I giving up time with my family to be checking the scores of fantasy football? And is that more important to me? I just like, something on Facebook popped up like saying we're heading into the most glorious season 27 days of football in a row between the NCAA and NFL like come on how much time are you spending on your

ass in front of a TV to be entertained that it needs some some awareness right we need maybe that's worthy of critique but overall the sport man there's something beautiful like watching people do things that truly are incredible because of the time and dedication they put into it. That's really well put. And I think when you see somebody who has given their life to something or dedicated or shown or manifested the idea of discipline in their life to reach a certain level, that is without a doubt something worthy of praise. And I think maybe I should draw a line between the idea.

of commercializing the ritual and the act of admiring the people that have committed themselves to the ritual. There's something pure about the ritual. There's something pure about... Might I offer the practice? So I think there's something pure about the practice.

And I think about anything, and this comes back to the idea of death, this comes back to anything that we do with intheogens, is that these experiences, for them to truly become, a part of our lives must be connected to a practice. And that practice is what we're ultimately dedicated to. Anybody in sport is not dedicated to the game. They're not dedicated to the outcomes.

They're ultimately dedicated to practice. And that's the thing that I always find really fascinating when you start to dig into those stories is they're the ones that are practicing harder than everyone else. Because at the end of the day, especially on these professional levels, the things that separates somebody from another, we're talking like, you know, fractions, right? Fractional pieces. Like, it is not much. The gap is not much. But the thing that's so fascinating is the guy that practiced harder, the person that was more dedicated to the practice. And you see when guys get dedicated to the game. You see when guys get dedicated to the outcomes. You see this like weird egoic thing that comes in. Again, when we replace the self and it becomes the idol, that's when

the shit falls apart. You know, that's what I think you're seeing Brady. Who knows? Complex. Yeah, yeah. I feel like, is it sometimes propaganda? Is it sometimes truth? We don't know. But at the end of the day, I think sometimes you can begin to realize and you see the patterns, right, of the breakdowns. When teams break down, championship teams break down, they break down because of a loss of the practice. They get attached to an outcome. I just got done watching. There's a great series right now on Netflix. It's called Untold. And there's these different sports stories and of things that have happened in recent history. Like Mateo, the guy that played for Notre Dame who had like the fake girlfriend,

they like break that whole story down. So fascinating. But I just got done watching the other night, the malice in the palace, when the Pacers and the Detroit Pistons got into a fight and then the players ran into the stadium and started beating fans and fans came out onto the court, throwing punches at the players. Incredible, right? An incredible moment of sports history.

These guys lost their chance. They were a championship team that year. They should have won. Reggie Miller, one of the greatest players, should have gotten his championship, but he didn't because of that inflammation of the ego. They lost the art of the practice. And that to me is everything, right?

Admire the practice. Not the outcomes. That's the thing that I find inspiration in with these stories and these people and sport. Yeah. Maybe there's something to be said about. You know, we celebrate the heroes. But we, and I'm sure that if you asked any individuals playing at the highest level, if they only get praise, then they would be more than happy to tell you about all the,

They'd probably see it a different way. You know, we, we as people viewing from the outside, usually only get to be there to celebrate the wins, or we only see the wins because that's what's commercialized. Rarely, like in some of the stuff you've been seeing, is that here's this downfall. People tend to gravitate towards either the highest or the lowest, and we don't really pay attention to the practice in the middle.

And that's really well said, man. I'm glad you brought that up. And, you know, I may have to rethink. some of the things I'm saying about the act of sports as a ritual. There's some beauty in there. But I do think maybe the commercialization of it. I do think there's a level of exploitation that happens to people around it. And if you're not careful, then you can be sucked into living through those people

instead of living through yourself. And I think that that is the part that bothers me is that I know so many awesome people that could probably, I don't know if that's a fair statement. I think we should be mindful of that. I think we should be mindful of living through other people and leaving our lives unfulfilled.

Oh, I think right now so much of what we're seeing happen is the invitation to live through the other, right, through the lens of the other. And again, I think when you talked about the idea of like what we're seeing the patterns of society, what propaganda, right? All of that is about giving away your power and your choice to something that's outside of you. And so, yeah, I think very clearly we could begin to build some framework of saying, what is a healthy relationship to these things? And then when does it become an idol? Right. And I think you can see this in in all sorts of categories. I think you see it in food. What is a healthy relationship to food? And when does food become an idol?

What is a healthy relationship to an understanding of, here's one, weapons, right? Guns, right? Are in America on some levels, I believe we have an idolatry for guns. Like when I see somebody open, and this is in my opinion, and I have lots of love this, but like, you know, open carry, right? That's your choice. Good for you. I honor that choice, right? If that's something that your state is legal, like in Colorado, this is legal, you can even have an exposed open carry. So you see people walking around with guns on their hips. And that's always interesting when there's, you know, in this society that we live in. And one of the questions I have is why? Why are you, is this an idol? Do you think you, this gun is giving you more security? You think you

can control life because you're holding this thing with you. I don't know. Worth a question. Is this an idol or is there a ritual here that is some sense? Or is this a sense of, no, I can honor the gun. I can honor what it, what it can do. I can honor the sport of it. Or I can honor the hunting element of it. Great. That's all. It's all great. But you just got to pay attention to when we're looking at society, these things that become buttons that we can't talk about or the things that we're giving away our power to, right? I think sometimes, you could be giving your power away to something thinking this holds security for me. And if something outside of me is holding my security, we're kind of fucked.

Like we're missing the point that really when we come back into the self and we come back into the true self, we realize that at the end of the day, we're not in control of any of this. Now, we make wise choices and we got to do certain things and we got to eat our food and we got to make sure we're taking care of security and what those things look like. And that's, I think every person's choice. But at the end of day, I think we don't have enough awareness around what's driving the choice. And so because of that, we give our power away. We give our power away to the propaganda.

We give our power away to the fear. And if it's fear driven, it's not to me going to be something that it, that fear driven often feels as a connection to an idol. Like idols love fear. Idols love to say with certitude. idols drive certain patterns. And I think we can begin to reverse engineer when we see those patterns and ask questions. Is this true or is this an idol? Okay, so that is really well put.

I think maybe the purpose of our rituals is to protect us from fear. The purpose of our rituals should be to protect us from those forces that would try to take our safety away. It's like the wolf in sheep's clothing. Oh, yeah, here. Take this. This will make you safe. Here, take these green pieces of paper. These will make you safe. Like, we are farming out our ideas to other people. However, I don't think that it's 100% the fault of the individual. I think it's the lack of rituals in our life that have stopped us, that have built, it's the wall being broken down so the marauders can come in. You know, and I think that commercialization, especially money, like this idea of money saving you, you know, it's so troublesome because on some level, it has pervaded every corner of everything that is sacred. We have allowed the money changes. We have allowed the idea of money to take the place of almost all that is sacred. So there's no, if you just think about that, we've allowed money to infiltrate the most sacred spots in our life.

Like that's why Jesus threw over the fucking, I'm sorry, I shouldn't use Jesus and cussing the same. Hey, I say Jesus and fuck all the time. Okay, that's why Jesus threw over the fucking tables. Like, hey, get this shit out of here. Get you fucking vipers. Get out of here. Like, you can't bring this in over here. And it's the same way the commercialization has made the fans be against Reggie Miller.

same commercialization that has brought the money into the stadium. It's the, it's the greed that permeates between the owners and the players and the players making millions of dollars being saying saying things like, we're slaves. Like, you know, it's this idea of the profane that has permeated that which is sacred. And I think that, like I said, I don't think it's the fault, especially kids, man, how is kids supposed to figure this out? Like, we need the ritual. there. We need that structure to protect us, all of us, our community, those who we love, those who may be the most influential around us. Like, look at the kid, like, look, I'm not sure what's happening with all these school shootings. I don't know if it is some sort of cabal or it

is some sort of mental illness or it is a lack of love. But I think all of that, regardless of what you think, we would have a lot less school shootings if we had a lot better communities where people cared about each other. You know, we're allowing the people who are the weakest among us to be influenced by the worst among us. And like, that shouldn't happen. Like, and I think that that is the very foundation of this conversation. I think that if we had purposeful rituals that instilled, you are more than money.

You are more than safety. You are something more than you can imagine. And I think that maybe sports have a part. to play. They're like, look at what this person has done with discipline. Look how far this person has pushed their body to become who they are. Like, I think if we could just somehow eradicate some of the, some of the wicked incentives that are there, I think the world would be better. I think that's what rituals can do. You know, I think it's interesting because rituals, I think on some levels, as we observe human history, we can always find a thread of ritual,

right? Sometimes we're observing in human history is the ritual in ways that they did certain things, right? If you look at ancient, sometimes like holy texts, they lay out certain rituals, right, of how things are supposed to be done in various, you know, whether it's the Torah or whether it's in other like, you know, the Quran. They speak of these rituals, right, of how we're supposed to be in relation to the divine. And so rituals have always been around and there's always been evil. There's always been shit. There's always been this stuff, right? So at the end of the day, I think it's really interesting because this is a battle that every society and generation must come to terms with is what does ritual look like in my life. And I think every individual has to begin to look at where do I hold ritual in my life. And I think part of what we're seeing in whatever transition is going to is taking place now and will continue to take place, I believe there will.

be a pretty significant spiritual awakening of some sort. Right. I don't think, and my hope is that no one like ancient tradition can lay claim to that in the sense of, you know, in the past, you can see these Christian revivals in American history, right, where there's a bunch of people that all of a sudden started to believe in the same thing. That to me is not what I think is coming. I think there's going to be a deeper awakening of the reckoning of Gaia of this earth saying, you motherfuckers better start paying attention. There's something far bigger going on here than you ever thought possible. You've been so identified with your individual selves that you've forgotten that you're

connected to something far bigger, right? The mycelium network. Yeah. And we're going to be awoken to these things. And I think new rituals begin to emerge of how we do. I don't think it's about returning to the old. I think it's actually about saying, okay, what are new things that we can do? How can I hold space in a new world?

way for my children as they step into, you know, when I think about my boys and they're stepping into their masculinity that, yeah, it's a movement of the people. Like, there's a ritual here that we can begin. And I think there will be new rituals that are going to start coming around. And we're going to step into that. We're going to practice new rituals. We're going to see, again, at some point, those rituals will go off rails and they'll become grotesque because every ritual does. Like on some levels, whether it's a worship sermon series that a church does or it's something else. The problem is when we try to hold on to the past and say that that thing is going to be what carries me forward. I think a great picture of this is, at least in film,

when I've been thinking about rituals, I don't know, have you seen the Northman? No, I haven't. So a beautiful film all around the Vikings and like, and there's this really beautiful scene of ritual of passing down the kingship from father to son. And definitely like, entheogenic inspired. There's even like mushrooms and they get down and they're like these dogs and like they go through this ritual. But that ritual breaks and it ends up breaking the father and the son's connection and there's like this weird like it's not a beautiful thing. Like you look at it and you're like, cool, that was a beautiful ritual, but it didn't carry things forward in a meaningful way. And so I think we can take clues from the past. I think we can look at certain things to say,

yes, this is worthy of honoring. But I think we need to, we need to be willing to reimagine and think of some new rituals. And then also the individuality of those rituals. Not every ritual is right for the other person. Right. So just because this ritual is working for me doesn't mean it's going to work for you, but that's great. I'm choosing that this is my individuality that's important. This is my understanding. And so I'm going to honor this, this ritual. So yeah, again, we're playing with these, right? So ritual I did with my son recently was inviting them into some deeper understanding of himself. Part of that was through astrology and being like, look, dude, you're a Pisces. And so there's some things that we don't get over attached to being like, oh, it's always this or that. But there's

some themes that we can really kind of clue into that I think will be helpful for you as you're developing who you are and you're developing this deeper sense of your masculinity. And sometimes Pisces can get pretty detached. They can get a little bit all over the place. And especially when we're going through our puberty time, you're going to be feeling like that superhero. Like when, when Spider-Man first gets bit by the spider and he's like, what the fuck is going on? Doesn't understand anything. Like, that's kind of what's happening because you're getting infused now with some new, like your body's getting an upgrade, right? Testosterone's coming in in a way you've never experienced before. So it's going to feel chaotic at times. And so for Pisces,

carnillion is a beautiful grounding thing. So I got him a necklace that held like this really beautiful little piece of carnilian and I gave it to him. Not in a really like I wanted it to be really cool, but it's more just like he came into my office and we had a little conversation. And I put him on and said, hey man, this is like when you feel the weight of this against your chest, it is an invitation to remember that you are grounded. That as you start to feel like you're getting a little bit out there and your emotions are starting to kind of sway you and it feels a little bit chaotic. This is a reminder to feel the weight of this as a way of grounding you back into who you are. I don't know if this is going to work, but like this is my invitation.

This is my ritual, right? This is me inviting my boys. And my second, I don't know if I'm going to do the same thing with him. I don't know. I don't have to adjust, right? He's only eight. So this isn't even on his radar yet. I'm not to adjust. Like, what's he going to be like? Maybe it's a different thing. But I'm committed to the invitation. I'm committed to inviting them into these things. and it's an ongoing practice. It's an ongoing ritual that I don't know how it's going to work out, but I'm hopeful that I'm showing up in a way that's different than my experience was and giving them something that they can build on that will support them in their masculinity

as they figure out whatever that looks like. Who knows? But whatever it is, I hope it's supported to them. Yeah, Jason, you're an awesome dad and awesome human being. I'm glad you're helping people, man. Like, that was really well said. And I'm glad that you put that out there for people to maybe think about. And yeah, I think you should definitely do it for your second son.

I think he'd be bummed if you didn't do it to him and you did it to the first one, man. I think it's awesome. I just wanted to be individualized to him. That's what I mean. Whatever I invite him into, one of the things I have to be his. It has to be his. Yeah. There's already so many dynamics around like first and born, first and second born children of like that I feel like the second born doesn't ever give,

get the light of newness because you just repeat what you did for the first. And so there has to be an invitation to their individuality and honoring them as their own unique being, not in the shadow of their siblings. Yeah. I think that they, you know, I've never, I don't know a way to test this, but you probably take a poll or something. But it seems to me that, you know, a lot of the oldest children have a different type of psychology because they understand how to deal with difficult people, mainly they're younger

siblings. You know what I mean? And younger siblings tend to find a way to be very creative in getting what they want because they're always up against someone stronger than that. And so there's this balance that happens there. And it doesn't matter if an older sister, I guess it does in some ways, but the older, younger relationship is a relationship that helps you develop strategies that you'll keep with you for life in order to attain those things that you want. I think there's a lot of beauty in that particular relationship and all relationships if you think about it from that angle. I'm super thankful that you shared some rituals and some things that you were doing right now to make the idea. But I also think it's amazing what your

partner is doing about trying to cherish the feminine. Yeah. What are some things that, are there some things that you and your wife are doing together to cherish your guy's relationship or some rituals you guys do? Hmm, great question. Yeah, we have a, we have a, like, I'm, I'm a very ritualistic person. So like, I love ritual. It's something that, um, it's just part of, part of who I am, rhythms. Like, again, I think rituals, rhythms are things that are, I've just always been very

in tune with and it's something that, that drives me. So we absolutely have rituals that are shaping our, our relationship. So, you know, one of them is a ritual that's developed over the, last probably 18 months is I make her a like a cappuccino every single morning. And it's one of my favorite things that I get to do because like I make my pot of coffee, but I got like a proper espresso machine and then learned how to like froth the milk and like an art. So like making her something to start her day. And it's a joy. It's a joy that I get to do. It's not like this like, oh, I got to make her coffee. But like I love making her that coffee.

every single morning and doing different little things around it. So that's a ritual that we have in our relationship. Music is another ritual. We have two playlists and like I'm always adding music to our playlists and and they're meaningful on some sometimes they're silly songs, sometimes they're fun songs. Sometimes they're deeper songs. But we have this thing that we will put the playlist on and we call it our fuck yes playlist because one of the things we believe in that drives our relationship is that the only reason it works is because I'm saying fuck yes to me. And in saying yes to me, I'm saying yes to the container of our relationship. And so that's what drives how we think about this connection that we have in this relationship.

And while we're not, you know, we're not formally married, we're not, you know, we don't use language like husband and wife. We use partnering language at this point. That'll evolve. Who knows? But right now it's so beautiful because it's this like we have. this relationship, many people would probably call it a marriage, because anytime two people in a relationship, they create a third, right? The math is one plus one is three, not two.

And that that third thing is the relationship. And that's what we're, so we have, we have rituals around the relationship that we do. We're getting ready to something we started last year is going to a certain place in the, in December to like have a ritual reviewing our year. And so we're going back and we're doing that. gosh, yeah. So now I think, like, we have lots of rituals. The ritual of scent is something really important to me. And so in the house, like, and just down here, like, I have my sage. I have Palosanto. And then I like, we have incense all around the house. And so we're constantly just inviting that sense of home and smell and grounding ourselves

to these scents that's become a ritual. And the kids, like my daughter, who's six, just started like playing with the lighter. And like we use like one of the butane lighter. And like, we use like one of the butane lighters to like light the polo because it's like a better way. And she's like, dad, can I light the polo? And I'm like, you're literally lighting a stick of fire in the house. Like, okay, do we have the responsibility to handle this? But she loves it. We'll ritual like the saging and the psalisanto, the saging of a clearing and the palisanto and inviting. I've done that with my children. We'll be like my daughter was having a really rough morning the other day. And I said, hey, can I, can I burn some sage and can we just kind of ground our,

and like we did a little ceremony together. And like instantly after that, she just kind her demeanor shifted. And she kind of came, like, she got out of the weird funk that she had been in. And I held her for a little while and we talked. And the day shifted. It ended up being a great day. But her morning energy was really rotten. Like she was in a really bad attitude. So I don't know. Those are, yeah, rituals are really, really important to the design of the home. And one of the things that I really have connected with is that the masculine energy is about building the foundation of the home. The masculine energy is really home. energy in many ways. And it's an inviting energy into the feminine to say, co-create with me in this space. I'm masculine only can't build. I mean, yes, a single man can build a beautiful home. And I did for

a while with my children. But in building that foundation and inviting my partner in, there's this beautiful symbiotic relationship of co-creation that takes place. But the masculine holds the foundation of the home. And I think that's one of the things we've seen ritualistically of, that's been removed is men are not connected to their home. Men are not, they let the feminine drive the entire energy of the home. And I longed to call more men back to being like, you create your home. You create the rituals in your home. And you will see beautiful things develop out of that when you take the energy to drive

those rituals. Yeah, that's beautiful, man. I'm stoked to hear that. And I think there's so much truth in all of that. And it would be worthwhile, I think. And maybe this happens. However,

it seems to me like both of us have, well, I shouldn't speak for you. It seems like I didn't even realize this stuff. So I got later in life. And I sat me down and was like, listen, George, here's, you know,

I came from, my parents were divorced or whatever. And I think that had something to do with it because you have this broken home. You don't really understand the term broken home until you come from a home where the parents get divorced. I think, you know, or, you know, I don't think that's beyond repair.

I think that that just means that you need to learn a lesson, or at least for me as a kid, it meant to me that I had to learn. I had to seek out mentors and I had to find a way to make myself whole in a way. And I think that understanding the masculine and the feminine relationship is a way to make sure a house is a home. I think understanding the masculine and the feminine relationship is a way in order for you to experience what a true relationship can be because you can't have one without the other. And it's not, it's no one's fault if a relationship doesn't really work. It just is a sign that maybe the person you were with needs to work on the stuff or you need to work on stuff you're with.

But for a kid, it can be, it can be interesting. It can drive them to try to find more stuff. I mean, that's, right? So like this is like my first marriage lasted for 12 years and I was a shell of who I am today in that in that relationship. And, you know, ended like was in such an unhealthy place, was living a life of so much, so much compartmental is like I am like the man I am today is not who I was five years ago. And I was a boy in so many ways. And even though on some levels like I had everything right, came from a good home. My parents, you know, were together. I grew up in church, all the things, right, were lined up for me to have lived a really good life doing things right. But the problem was that experience was right, but it was shallow. It didn't hold any depth. And I never figured out my own masculinity and my own connection to my own manhood. And until I fucked a bunch of shit up and had to like actually look at it and be like, okay, how am I going to actually actually actually be who I know I am because this isn't me. Like the decisions I made, the way I was living

my life was not who I am at my core. And so that reckoning, again, a death, a realization of the false self and the true self. And I had to make really hard decisions, like getting a divorce, like, you know, being able to go out on my own and go find myself. And I'm so deeply grateful that I found the partner that I did with Tiffany. And over the last two years, I've stepped into a a level of masculinity that I never had before. And so now with my children, right, knowing that they come from these two homes, that there's this invitation that, you know, part of the ritual that Tiffany and I have begun working through is, you know, we're a family, even though we haven't been through a formal wedding or a marriage or any of that stuff,

this is a family. And our posture is that we're inviting the children into this family, that Tiffany and I are a family, that we have made this. connection. We have built this container of our home. And instead of forcing the whole step situation or forcing some of these other energies that you see happen often as as broken families continue on, it's like, oh yeah, I love this person. We're getting married. She's now your stepmom. I'm not forcing that on my children. They have a great mom. I don't need that energy in their lives. I need them to, they need to invite it into the family container and let them ultimately decide what they want. You know, with Tiffany's daughter, Bristol, you know, it's not a, we don't use step

language, you know, it's our assembling. You can say that, but the kids get to decide what they want to call each other. We don't force any of that. And they're trying to figure it out. And sometimes it's awkward and it's not perfect. And they're like, oh, what, you know, and we find them, see them using language. Like, we'll hear it. Like, oh, that's my brother or my stepbrother or, you know, they're still trying to figure it out. But at the end of the day, we're inviting them into the container of a family that we're creating and it's their choice as much as it can be, right? I mean, yes, some of it's forced on them, but we're not, we're not saying it has to look a specific way. So, I don't know, it's a great experiment. I'm hoping that, you know,

in the, in the midst of a really traumatic experience like a divorce, like a breaking of a bond that they had experienced and saw, that we can redeem that on some levels with a new way moving forward. Yeah, I think that coming from, look, I think all of us go through tragedies in life. You can't really, you can't really choose what happens to you, but you and you alone get to choose how you interpret that event. And that interpretation of the event is what you can build on later in life. And you can either see that as a break or you can see that as a juncture where you learn something. And I so often when I look back at some of the tragedies in my life, like, there was people in my life, like when a tragedy happened, like I hated them. The older I get, the more

I realize I'm so thankful for them because I would never, ever be who I am without them. And it's when I look back and I give forgiveness to people, it's so rewarding because it's like, man, imagine what that person did to me. Imagine what they must have been going through in order for them to do that to me. And then I feel like you can move forward there. I feel like you can you can see that as an attempt. You can never react to something you've never seen before. So if you're exposed to things earlier in life, as difficult as it is, I think those things can be opportunities for you to live a more fulfilling life, a more accepting life, a richer life, because now you have been exposed to things that you get to see the world as it is instead of the way you want it to be.

And I think a lot more people would feel more in tune with reality if they got to see some of the tragedies. Not that I want people to go through tragedies, but I think once you do, you have more of an acceptance of the reality or you can empathize with people and understand that on some level, you're going to these same tragedies. Everybody else is. It's just things were reacted different to them. What do you think about that? I fully agree. I think one of my teachers, his name is Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest,

talks about this idea of order, disorder, and reorder as a structuring of what we go through in life. And that, you know, those of us that were experienced a lot of order and are growing up, that there's a beauty to that, right? children do need a certain level of order to be able to begin to build the building blocks to what their life is going to look like. But there's a disservice done when we think we can only live in order because tragedy does come. The world is chaotic. So there will always be a sense of disorder that's an invitation to the reorder. And again, we could look at that, again, through ritual,

through these things, these themes we've been talking about of the false self and the true self. and that often the false self can be built in that order mentality, right? Oh, it's always going to be this way. And then we hit as Annie Lamont calls the great cosmic banana pill that comes and that slip up in life. And it causes disorder. And what we do with that. And maybe this is where ritual comes in when we experience disorder, right? Like the ritual of a death, the ritual of a funeral, the ritual of how we honor these things,

the ritual of a breakup, the ritual of a divorce, right? I'll tell you, I did not hold probably the ritual of divorce very well because I was going through such a chaotic time. I didn't know how to hold space for my children in that. I'm sure that's going to be some stuff. They're going to have to go back and do some work around. But at the end of the day, I really believe in this pattern. And sometimes as children, and you see this often in the wisdom that those that have a lot of disorder hold in their early structuring of life, they often are able to reorder at a far. greater ability than those that grew up in the order. And that's why we have to pay attention to the,

quote, unquote, the marginalized or the oppressed because they grew up in a state of disorder. And that disorder has given them ability to reorder in a way that those of us that had a lot of structure didn't always understand. So we have to pay attention to those voices. And that's why I think the movement of the people, some of these things, will always be inspired by the fringes of society, never those that are so deeply connected to the order that they can't even begin to imagine what a reordered looks like. Yeah, that's why, you know,

when I think about the divine nature of things, and I think about, sometimes I think about the way in which the world is structured and how it's almost like a divine comedy to think that people in positions of education, most of them have read books, about things that have happened. I remember when I,

when my parents got divorced, I had to go to this counselor and we sat there and this lady was talking about, you know, how I must feel that my parents got divorced. But she, you know, she had never, I think that she had never been through what I've been through. So my, who is this lady? I just remember sitting there like looking at her like,

you don't know, you don't know anything what I'm going through, but you're just sitting here trying to pretend like you do. Like that made me not want to talk to her at all. Yeah, absolutely. I'm like, do this person knows nothing? Why are he paying you? Like, I could just look around and see my family. Like, everybody, everybody was so uptight and like they totally needed help.

But this is like the wrong person. And she was probably a sweet person. She probably meant well, but she couldn't help. But getting back to my point is that it's so interesting to me to see all these people go to an institution to learn how to help people when in fact the best people that can help are people that had never that don't even make enough money to go to those institutions, but have been through it in their life. And then that makes me think,

like, that's the divine comedy of it. It's like, the teachers are your neighbors. The teachers are all around you. And it's not, they don't have a piece of paper that says they're the best. They don't have a institution that they belong to. Maybe some of them do,

but the teachers, it gets back to that old idea of when you're ready, the teacher will show up because they're all around you. And that also holds personal responsibility for everybody listening. Like if you're listening to this conversation, chances are you have been through something in your life that a young kid could really use some help with. And I think another thing that happens with tragedies

is like scales are ripped from your eyes. And because that thing happened to you, now you can notice other people that are going through that thing. And if you can do that, if you can notice someone going through it, on some level you're trying to reach out to that person, Maybe extended invitation. Like you extended an invitation to your lovely partner or your son or your daughter or, you know, the people in your life.

I think that if you can see someone going through the situation that you've been through, you should extend them an invitation because you can probably help them in some ways. So I think so often it is our, it is our, you know, again, another divine truth that it's our greatest struggle or our greatest weakness that becomes our greatest gift to the people around us. Man, it's beautiful. Right? But the challenge to that is the work that's required to find the diamond in the midst of that tragedy. And I would offer that a lot of people choose to not find that diamond. A lot of people that experience trauma or traumatic elements or tragedies or whatever that is. In some ways, I think it is the divine order being like, look, this is going to be your service to your fellow human beings.

And this happens. And all of life is built around deep suffering and great joy. None of us get to get a pass. Again, in the same way that we're all going to die, we're all going to suffer. Suffering is part of this human experience. But a lot of us have that suffering come. And we're still so deeply tied to that egoic identity of self that the suffering, just we live in it.

We revel in it. We love it. We build a weird relationship to the suffering. And when we're in that state, we are not in service to each other. We can't. We're so deeply identified with the suffering. And that's why, again, all great spiritual paths speak to this truth of being able to honor the suffering.

See it as some might even say as a great joy because that suffering then begins the service of others. But the only way you can do that is by building rituals, doing work, and actually honoring the suffering, doing whatever that is for you, finding the right approaches to therapy, whatever. I mean, at the end of the day, ultimately it gets to what I believe is an understanding of being able to love yourself. Yeah.

Whatever that suffering is, you have to come back to that groundwork of being able to truly love oneself in a way to then begin to serve others. I'm always suspicious of when people are in service to others and you don't see a lot of self-love. It begins to, I begin to question, what is the motive here? what is driving you and again not to be critical but be but to question can i trust it because there are so many charlatans that are out there that are offering something right the value and it's easy to do right it's easy to be like oh i had this suffering oh i had this thing but i'm going to repress it

but i'm going to like weirdly manipulate it to be as a way to gain attention and feed my ego and build build build build build and then that shit crumbles you're building a fall you're again as the Christ says like you're building your foundation on the sand, right? It's going to come down. So we got to find these ways to build strong foundations. And when we do, yeah, our suffering becomes a gift to those around us. And that's part of my path. That's what I hope. I went through so much suffering. I did so much damage to the people around me through having an affair, through living in secrecy, through doing things that are just purely, you know, evil on some levels that by doing the work, hopefully being able to show up in a meaningful way so that others, not that they don't

have to go through suffering. I think it's false. Everybody will go through their suffering, but that they'll be able to work with their suffering in a way that can lead to joy. Yeah, I'm a big fan of like the different mythologies and, you know, Nietzsche's idea of the camel to the child and Joseph Campbell's idea of, you know, the hero's journey, which, you know, And just the different myths and the ideas. And, you know, once I started going down that road, I became a fan of, like, reading about all these alchemists and, like, the Middle Ages. And, you know, I think the secret of alchemy, I think what they're talking about is turning yourself into a better, like,

when you take the lead and you turn it into gold, I think they're talking about your soul. They're talking about exactly what you said about suffering and how, yeah, you probably want to kill yourself because you hate it. You hate yourself sometimes, but guess what? That's part of the journey. Like, yeah, okay, good. You hate yourself. Congratulations, man, you're almost there. You just got to keep finding that reason to move forward.

And what you don't realize is that you're constantly refining yourself to be better. Because only once you've done that work, only once you have found yourself in the shadow and found yourself in darkness and figured out every reason, why you hate yourself, only then can you begin to rebuild yourself into something that is worth other people learning from. Until then, you don't have anything to teach people, you know? You're just teaching what other people have taught. You know, you're teaching the books. You're teaching the theories. You're teaching the concepts. But like, yeah, experience, it trumps at all, right? Yeah. The lived experience. And I agree. I think thinking about these old, the myths,

the quote unquote magic, right, of being able to transmute these things and do things that are truly mystical, right? Even raising people from the dead, right? There's so many traditions of seeing that, that ability to step into understanding reality on a completely different plane, but the cost to get there is significant. You can't just. It's want to cry. It does. It's like, And the path to find that is one of much, much sacrifice and a shit ton of work. And again, it's a death. You don't get to have, you don't get to play with magic unless you've, I believe, unless you really die. Otherwise, you know, or the other side of that coin is you can absolutely play with magic without going through a death, but it will come with a car.

It's the dark. It's, you know, whether we want to call it light magic or dark. bad dick or these different things like it's accessible to us i think you can find paths to it i think you see people that can manifest shit that are able to manipulate and get things that they want but it is they didn't pay you know they didn't kill something or they're sacrificing something they love for sure and it'll come back around and it will cost them something in the end um and i believe that's that karmic energy of of what we see so yeah it's a it's a great mystery and things that we'll never fully understand.

And yet, I believe rituals are a path to understanding the mystery, being aware of the mystery and being aware of bringing it into our consciousness in a meaningful way. And when we play with that, I don't know. I think it has some pretty beautiful byproducts. Yeah. It's so interesting. Just the different states you can find yourself in. And, like, you know, I've developed this, this little trick that I do.

I want to share with everybody because I think everybody can do it. Like, I think when you find yourself getting severely depressed and you start thinking these crazy things, for me, somewhere in there, there's some really dark humor. Like, I don't have some dark thoughts and then I'll just start laughing. Yeah. I'll be like, oh, I'm like, what? You know, and like, but it's always that little bit of laughter that's woven in. into the fabric of depression that is like its own step ladder out of it.

You know what I mean? Like no matter how crazy it is or whatever, I think if you can just find it, if you can find that speck of laughter, and it's usually something pretty funny about yourself. You know, it's usually that diamond at the bottom of the well, but it's there.

And if people are ever feeling down and out, like I just, here's something that you can laugh about. If you are severely depressed or everything, everything around you is is dying congratulations man yeah i want you to get excited you know that sounds so crazy but like congratulations man you're one of us congratulations like keep digging you're almost there you know i think there's something to laugh out there when when everything is i'll never forget my like my one of my mentors told me like when i was just

deep and depression and bummed out you know and He's like, congratulations, man. And I just remember, like, it just kind of hitting me. Like, what are you talking about congratulations? Why are you congratulating me? You know what it? It's just like, just when you start thinking about that, like I think it's funny. And I think the humor is the one thing they can bring you out of that kind of stuff.

So if anybody is suffering right now, congratulations. Let me do for you. Always done for me. Exactly. I'm curious. George, what are some rituals you hold? What have you found or what are things that are important to you from the perspective of ritual? Okay.

I got a cool one that I do. Like, I love my wife, and I really want her to love me. So I'm going to share with you guys a ritual that I do on Saturday morning. Okay. That is, I like it. And it may be, it may be, I use a lot of different techniques in there. So let's see if people can understand the techniques that I use. Okay.

So Saturday morning, my wife will usually sleep in a little bit longer than me. And I like to get up. I will, my wife loves coffee. she loves this, she loves Mariah Carey, and she loves this one song called, When a Hero comes along. I don't know, people probably heard. I know I butcher it.

I'm sorry. Okay, so what I do is like, I try to learn all these things that my wife loves. And so here's what I do on Saturday mornings. And Saturday mornings, I'll make a cup of coffee, and I will bring it up into the room. We got stairs. So I go up there,

and I wake my wife up on Saturday mornings. But here's how I do it. I bring her a cup of coffee. coffee and then I play I have my phone playing with the Mariah Carey song and so I've incorporated all these things so imagine this like she wakes up she smells coffee she loves coffee and she hears Mariah Carey playing at the same time but she hears a specific I always put it like I think it's like two minutes and 22 23 seconds or something like that and it's like when a hero comes along you know so I want my wife to open her eyes from the world of dreams

to smell the coffee, to hear her favorite artist, but specifically to hear the word when a hero comes along and she opens her eyes and there I am. So she's getting to see, she's getting her favorite cup of coffee. Like it's the first thing she sees

when she wakes up. It's coffee. She smells it so it's taking in the sense of smell. She hears, oh, it's my favorite artist. And then immediately after that little hit of dopamine, hey, a hero comes along. There's my husband. You know, so I secretly get her

to take all those things that she loves and then identify them with me because I love her damn it and I want her to feel about me the way I feel about her. And so I feel there's this tradeoff if I can take if I can listen to her and understand all these things that she loves and do them for her and I can get her to see me that way. Then she then then she is seeing me the way I see her. And I feel that there's a there is a reciprocation there. Like I'm trying to cover every sense because my wife, K means the world to me. And every day she gives, she, she is this overwhelming sense for me.

So I'm trying to overwhelm her sense is the same way. I don't think that's the right word. It's this intoxication I have with her. So I'm trying to reciprocate that. You know, for my daughter and I, like we, I'm gone a lot. Like I, my daughter goes, in the morning, I wake up every morning. I make breakfast for them. Two days a week, I'll take my daughter to school.

My wife does it three days. So I really have to work hard on making time for my daughter and I. It makes me sad sometimes. So that being said, I've used that energy of being a little sad to maximize the time we have. And so on our. our ride to school, what we'll do in the mornings when I take her to school is that we'll play these games of like, we made up an imaginary friend together. And, you know, we would pick him up. I'd be like, oh, let's pick, let's pick him up here at the fire hydrant. And along the way,

he will do all these things in the car that are crazy. Like sometimes he'll pull his underwear down or sometimes he'll get on the roof, you know, but he has, he has become this mutual friend of ours and in doing so he has allowed us to communicate with each other in a way that maybe people wouldn't feel you know because sometimes I'll ask my daughter hey how is your friend what happened to school today oh I don't know and I'll be like hey do you know our friend over here he's got some bad people at school have been doing things to him do you know anything like that and all of a sudden that'll open up a conversation there yeah yeah you know and so finding a mutual

island, finding a mutual things that only her and I share together. It's just ours. It's only something that we have. And, you know, we I can't tell you his name because it belongs only to my daughter and I. I love it. I'll honor that.

So I want to share it with people, but I can't because this doesn't belong to everybody. But the idea is there for everybody. You can create your own, invisible friend for you and your son or you and your daughter. And that can become a bridge that you'll have forever and maybe be passed down along the way. So it's like this idea of creating the invisible into the tangible. And it becomes a bridge between you.

That's something that her and I do all the time. And this particular person has invaded all of our lives. And sometimes mom gets jealous because she doesn't know what's happening. Only we do. you know and so that's what I mean when even though you may not have if you know you don't have a lot of time with someone you love then make the time you have with them worthwhile i think that is a purposeful ritual that you can put in your life and you can always make more time but make the most of the time that you have something you said there i think is a really interesting uh working definition of ritual okay building the bridge between the invisible to the tangible as a shared experience. That's a ritual.

The intangible to the tangible as a shared experience. When you do that, you're creating a ritual. I don't know. How does that land as a working definition of a meaningful ritual?

Well, first off, it's pretty emotional for me because I never thought about it like that. So thank you for bringing that to light. But yeah, I think that's a great definition of a working ritual. I think that that is the very foundation

I think it checks a lot of the boxes because it should be something that not only points towards the truth but allows you to participate in the truth. So it checks those boxes. You know, making the invisible visible, it checks that box. And I didn't even realize that was a box

until you brought it to my attention. So thank you for that. Yeah. And I, you know, I think that if you can't begin to see those boxes. I think if you could tick those boxes in your relationships, then you can begin to, I think you're incorporating rituals into your life. And once you begin doing that, I think you can make a pattern of it. And if you can do that, I think your life will become a whole lot more

meaningful. And you can begin doing it without even knowing it. You know, and you can start checking these boxes with people you care about and people you don't care about. And I think that that would drive the world to attract goodness into your life when you start living like that. When you start building bridges, when you make it a habit, I think you're inviting people, inviting things into you by allowing things to leave. Hey, here's the same bridge right here, you know? And it's an interesting thing to think about. Yeah, I think sometimes we build rituals around those intangible experiences.

and we have a way of being like, okay, like I had this intangible experience. I build a ritual around bringing that intangible experience into the tangible. And it begins to develop a rhythm, a life, a heartbeat of its own. It's his own kind of thing and ritual. And then at some point, we begin to say, you know what? I want to invite other people into this ritual with me. And all of a sudden, this ritual can carry. Some rituals, maybe it's just for me.

And I'm not going to invite anybody into that. other ritual rituals we begin to understand as communal. Again, I think sometimes there is something beautiful about a group of people coming together in a ritualistic sense to honor something bigger than themselves. I had that experience when I was in Mexico and I went through a cacao ceremony. And the teacher, he didn't call himself a guru. He's like, the fire is the guru. I am not the guru.

The fire teaches us. but was brought into a ritual of drinking cacao and being connected to the earth in a way I'd never been connected before. Even laying my body in a specific way of being an alignment to the north and the south and the east and the west opened something within me. And then going into the, we did a Tesmecal, I think it's Tesmecal's how you say it. The ceremony, you go into the sweat lodge, right? It was this beautiful ritual that awoken me to something that was so much bigger than myself.

and sharing it with people that didn't even speak the same language, couldn't even understand the words that I was saying. Beautiful, beautiful ritual that I might do again. I might not. But at the end of the day, it brought me a deeper awakening of who I am. And so, you know, I think there's certain people that can hold space for these rituals in really deep and meaningful ways. And it's almost like a fire, right? Like this fire we build of saying, hey, I understand something about the intangible and the tangible and I have this fire come come sit by my fire come sit with me and we all whole like this is the analogy I often think of like we all have our fires and we come and we learn something from someone else's fire we may even sit we choose to sit and maybe we add our fire to their fire and it becomes bigger but it's a season it will never last forever at some point I will have to

take my torch out of the larger fire and carry it on and I'll go find another fire and maybe I'll add it in or maybe I'll look at me like that's a weird ass ritual I don't want to anything to do with that one, right? And like, it's fine because their intangible thing they've uncovered is different than my intent. Like, and that's beautiful, that we have to honor the diversity of rituals, but we have to ask the question of where are they in our lives? Because I think they hold great meaning for us. And again, as you were saying, be that guidepost, the boundaries to ensure that maybe the ego or the false self doesn't get too inflated. Because if we get too inflated, we replace the intangible with the tangible.

We get so certain, then all we can see is the tangible without being connected to this great mystery of the intangible. So I don't know if that resonates, but that's what I feel like I was really hearing from your story. Yeah, that's beautiful, man. That's a great way to, I think it's a great interpretation of it. And I agree with everything there. And I think it's, I think you said it beautiful.

I think that sometimes what we see is. I'm not sure if what we see is the true visible or the true invisible. You know, hopefully, hopefully you can see both and you can believe in both. And under, you know, a lot of times the things that I think I see, they're tangible, are really the illusions. You know, and it's, it's me creating this other thing that's going to be the reality. And sometimes you don't even know what you're creating, but you can feel it, you know. But yeah, I, I love it.

brother. We can then start to this again as we maybe start to land the plane a little bit, but one of the things that we can begin to question in ourselves and self-reflection is what rituals are bringing joy to my life and what rituals are draining me. Because I think there are rituals that we all can have. Getting back to what we started our conversation with of idolatry worship and the rituals around that, right? There are rituals that if we took some time for self-reflection, we could be like, ah, it's actually a pretty shitty ritual, right? That's not. giving me a lot of life. That is not connecting me to the intangible, tangible bridge. And I think we could, you know, with self-reflection, begin to question the rituals at play in

our lives that are in service to us and that are taking from us. And that begins to be the guideposts, if it's producing something, if it has a fruit, if you will, in the same way that the mushrooms is the fruit of the mycelium, right, good things produce, healthy things produce fruit. I think that's something we can look at in nature and take a cue from. So if I have unhealthy rituals that do not produce fruit in my life, maybe those are the things I need to bring into awareness and start to question. If there is fruit, and I can reflect on that, I can tell stories about the connection with my daughter and the way it's helping her open up. That's a, that's fruit, man. That's a beautiful thing that's going on in the ritual you hold and the connection that you have with your daughter.

And that's like, can we tell those stories? And that's, I think, what we need out of our rituals is what is the fruit? And if it doesn't hold fruit, why? Yeah, I think, and I think sharing that fruit, like when I get to hear your story of your son coming in, it's like, man, can I incorporate some of this into my life? Like, that, that fruit tastes pretty tasty. I've never seen it that way. Let me try some of that fruit, you know? And I think that this idea of sharing is a phenomenal idea.

I also like the metaphor of fruit because, you know, if you, if you want to know why your mycelium isn't fruiting, you should look down and see how it's growing. Like, hey, maybe it's contaminated. Yeah. That's so true. You got some. Yeah. You got some contamination there, man. What are you going to do?

Your humidity levels are off, right? Like, again, the fact that the stuff just happens is a false way of thinking. None of it just happens. It requires intention. It requires focus. It requires the right climates. For something to fruit takes a lot. And it's also important to remember the cycle of fruiting.

Certain things only fruit every couple years, right? There are apple trees that don't fruit every year. They have to go through their cycle. And so if something in your life isn't fruiting, that doesn't mean it's unhealthy. It just may mean it's not in a season of producing fruit for you. So maybe it requires some trimming. Right. Another beautiful analogy, but cultivation requires cutting the branches off so that the energy can go into producing fruit, not producing more branches. So again, so many beautiful ways we can look at our lives of like, why is something not fruiting?

Or if it's not fruiting, is it dead? Is this a dead thing in my life? And does it need to be removed? And is it need to be removed so that the soil? Because again, it's never done. Right. This is going to get transmuted into something new? And so is there a new seed that needs to be planted? Is there something that's burgeoning up within me that is going to require a new process? And I think we can begin to think about tending the garden, as you talked about earlier, that is our lives. We're tending this thing. And it requires a lot of elements to go into producing the fruit. It has rhythms.

It has seasons like winter where nothing's going to grow. And we just got to be okay with that. We need to not be over-identified with the fruit. Anyways, I can take this analogy probably way too far. But it's a beautiful one. We should do a whole podcast on gardening and fruits and living our life in a way that is meaningful and talking to trees and plants and what you can learn from it. It's a pretty fantastic idea, man. I have to agree.

It's one I can definitely go down a little deep on at times. I have a couple of different tree tattoos. It's something I spend. Yeah, it's a deep one for me. So I love it. Yeah, we'll definitely get into it. We'll definitely get into it. I think it's a great area to leave people with a little bit of thought right there

because I think we covered a lot. And I really hope that people can take away or enjoy this conversation as much as we did. Same. You get to learn. Where can people find you? What do you got common up in the near future? And what are you excited about, Jason? Oh, man.

People can find me at Experience Integration, mainly on Instagram. mainly on Instagram, probably we're our most active on that front. My partner and I, we have our podcast called Telling Secrets, which we put out mainly on Spotify. So if you want to head to Spotify, you can check out our conversations and all the crazy stuff we're exploring together. And some of these same things we've talked about today, our podcast episodes, we've delved into. We talked a lot about death before and some of those things of what's working. And obviously, my partner's voice is amazing. She's like the better.

I love what she brings on so many of these topics. And, you know, what I've been working on or what I'm really excited about is just continuing to dive into these concepts of masculinity and beginning to really develop what I'm calling the dad ball experience. And actually, I have, I just got my first client this last week to dive into this thing with me. It's a, it's a 12, there's 12 experiences, uh, that I've designed to help someone find their dad balls. So, um, yeah, that's something I'm pretty pumped on right now.

Yeah, that sounds amazing, man. I hope people will reach out and, and learn and what is this is how, what if people wanted to get involved with that? How would they go about contacting you or what would they need to know about before they contacted you? Yeah. If they, uh, they can find me on an experience integration.com. You can schedule like a session just to kind of connect and talk. But yeah, really kind of the premise is for the most part, you got to be a dad for the, you know, to have dad balls, I think. You could be at any point of that journey of your masculinity. But but probably for for the guys out there that are feeling that that void in their lives of what does it really mean to be a father. How am I showing up in my life? And,

And do I feel like I'm in a position where my masculinity is something that is going to, in a healthy way, begin to build the home for my children? And that could be really at any point of the process of fathering in my experience. So whether you're, you know, I had a good friend to describe it in the three seasons of fathering. You have the cop, you have the coach, and you have the consultant. You know, the first stage of life with your kids, you're just cop. Like, son, you're going to eat those carrots because you need to eat the carrots, right? You play the rules. You set the boundaries. You set the order as the cop. And then at some point, you begin to transition into the coach where you're no longer, you know, kids are going to rebel against that cop energy, right? They don't need that anymore. They need the coach. They need someone that can really come alongside them and be supportive and help them in the practice of what it is to become the human being that they're becoming. And then we enter into a stage where they don't really care about what we had to say from a coaching perspective. They're they need consulting, right? In a

consultant shows up and says, hey, here's some great advice. Here's my perspectives. Here's my lived experience. Take it and do with it as you will. And that with our children, we're at various seasons. And as dads, we've got to be aware of that. And our dad balls support us and showing up, whether we're being a cop, coach, or consultant. Yeah, that's awesome, man.

And I think that the world can use some more masculinity. And I mean that in a sincere way, not in a way that's like downpressing people, but in a way that is a man protecting and a man there to help and a man, a cop, a coach and a consultant, man. I think that's a great set right there. We need divine masculinity. We don't need the toxic stuff anymore. We've had enough of that. That season's gone.

But we need divine masculinity really stepping up and being who we are, being our true cells. Yeah, I know we're giving a go. But in a weird way, maybe this idea of toxic masculinity was a stage. of like the 22 year old man. Like, you know, we had to go through that. Like we had to, we had to be, we had to be 15 to 24. And now we're getting to the spot. We're like, okay, we figured some stuff out.

Let us help now. You know, now we're ready to begin fulfilling our mission in masculinity. Yeah, I call that the, the bowl balls stage. So when we talk about dad balls, right? Okay, yeah, we've got it. And you go through these processes. You know, when you're in that energy, your balls have one focus. and that is to spread as much seed as possible, right? That's it. And again, not to get too graphic,

but the idea like the balls are there to support the cock and that's it. That's all they're there for. They give that energy and it's a penetrative energy. And it's an energy that does drive life, right? It is an energy that when it finds the right connection, life does come out of it and then you enter into the fathering energy. And your balls shift, right? Your balls shift when you become a dad. Part of it happens with age. But again, I believe as men, we do not talk about our own. bodies enough. We shame our bodies. We shame our balls. We don't have, we don't, again, ball talk is something, guys, we have a weird conversation around this because it's our source of vulnerability and frankly, it's our source of shame. And dad balls are, is all about diving into

that place of vulnerability to support the, the ball heart connection, because that's what really matters is when you can connect your balls to your heart, then your cock starts to show up in a completely different way. And you begin to really fuck life in a meaningful way. And that's like, it's everything, man. But you see so many guys lazy balls, toxic masculinity balls. It's all about that lack of connection between really that heart ball connection. That's what guys need to waken up to. That's where you find your divine masculinity is when you can die to the depths of your vulnerability to rise to the heights of who you truly are. That's my pitch. That's dad balls. That's a great page. I didn't need to give you a pitch,

but that's it, man. That's the experiment. That's what I'm trying to drive. That's what I'm trying to awaken men to as I'm figuring out the ways to make that happen. I don't know. It's an experiment for me to see, but it's been my journey and it's one of my other men on as well.