TrueLife - Rev. Dr. Jessica (Madrinha Jessica) Rochester - Ayahuasca Awakenings # 2

Episode Date: December 28, 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/https://www.revdrjessicarochester.com/Rev. Dr. Jessica Rochester is the Madrinha and President of Céu do Montréal, a Santo Daime (Ayahuasca) Church she founded in 1997 in Montréal, Canada.She is a transpersonal counselor, she trained in the work of Dr. Roberto Assagioli and trained with Dr. Stanislav Grof.She worked with Health Canada from 2000 until 2017 to achieve an Section 56 Exemption to import and serve the Santo DaimeSacrament (Ayahuasca).She is an ordained Interfaith Minister with a Doctorate in Divinity.From 1986 to 2018 she has been a workshop leader, teacher, and in private practice.She is the author of Ayahuasca Awakening A Guide to Self-Discovery, Self-Mastery and Self-Care, Volume One and Two.She continues to lecture on consciousness, non-ordinary states of consciousness, self-discovery, spiritual development, health and well-being and personal transformation. 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, fear. Fearist through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Seraphini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. We are here with part two of Iowaska Awakenings with the lovely Reverend Dr. Jessica Rochester. For those of you who may not have yet tuned into volume one, I am going to ask Dr. Jessica to give us a quick rundown on what we covered on number one and then we're going to move into number two. So Dr. Jessica, would you be so kind as to introduce yourself with people

who may not know you and then maybe give a quick summary of what we talked about last episode? That would be my pleasure. Thank you again, George, for inviting me on your show and we had such fun last time. I hope people have an opportunity to listen to it. And I'm looking forward to, you know, dialoguing with you today and talking about things that are really important to me. And I hope that other people find them and consider them, you know, significant to them and helpful to them. So I'm Reverend Dr. Jessica Rochester. I'm the Medrina of a Santo Dami church. I am here in Montreal, Canada that I founded 1996, 1997 after a trip to Brazil and felt the call.

calling to connect and to bring the spiritual tradition here. I worked for 17 years with Health Canada up until 2017 to gain the legality, the recognition of our practice as being a legitimate tradition and the ability to import and serve our sacrament. So we're 25 years anniversary this year, five year anniversary of being licensed. And, you know, and God bless everybody who helped and supported. through all of those years to arrive where we are now. I'm also an ordained interfaith minister

with a doctorate and divinity. I'm a trans-personal counselor. I trained in the work of Dr. Roberto Asagioly the Italian psychiatrist who developed an extraordinary process called psychosynthesis, which I encourage people to look into because it's absolutely one of the foundations in trans-personal psychology.

I trained with Dr. Stanislawf Groff, one of my great teachers in this lifetime. and a remarkable human being, and I'm grateful, grateful for the time that I spent with him then and continue to stay connected with him, of course, now. And so, you know, all that to say that Spirit directed me to write these books. Originally, I wrote it as one book, and everybody said, 600 pages to maybe divide it up. And so I was like, okay, I can do that. So I sat and I prayed and I waited and I looked and it's like, oh yeah, it's already in four parts.

So easy to do two and two and that's how it goes. But consider it everybody kind of one book and that really it's a study fight. This is not a novel. And this is not a collection of scientific research, although the books are both extremely well referenced and resourced. I point everybody in good directions, at least I think so, of the best places to look on beyond what I've written, trying to really point people. That's where it's their guide books. They're trying to guide people. You want more of this.

Here's where you look. You know, here's where the science is. Here's where the resources are. Here's where, you know, other books written specifically on this, where you can find them. And so they're guidebooks. As I said there, and it's not a collection of. of people's stories, although there's my story, read it throughout, because my editor said to me, no, no, no, no, you got to put more you in there,

because whenever you write about your personal experiences, it brings the material, kind of more personal and more human, and people can relate to it a little bit. So I ended up feeling kind of like I undressed and walked down naked down St. Castro Street, for those of you know, Montreal. That's the main strip down the middle of the town. But you know what? It is what it is. Unless we're willing to risk vulnerability,

we don't risk, we don't have the opportunity to see where that road will take us. And so book one is about self-discovery. The books are called the Awasca Awakening, Volume 1 and 2. And the first one, you know, it's self-discovery, self-mastery and self-care. Book 1 is about self-discovery and self-mastery that takes us into volume 2,

which is about self-care. and something I called the Circle of Wholeness, which I should have thought to maybe. The books are filled with diagrams because I find diagrams are really helpful. And the Circle of Wholeness has a really great diagram to it because it's inclusive of everything. I have the books here if you want me to find the page and hold it out. Yeah, that would be a good idea. I drew one out, but I bet you the one you have is much better than the one that I've drawn out here from my nose. What I should have done was have the actual diagram set up.

So let me see if I can actually find the page. So, but anyway. So page 100 or something, maybe. Yeah, I'm nearly there. I'm nearly there. Okay. While we're talking, I'm going to find everybody. I think I know where things are in my book, page 90.

You were close, George. Okay. There we go. For those of you. There we go. Yeah. Maybe a little bit higher. A little bit higher, closer?

Yeah, that's pretty good. Just a smidge more higher, like a little bit above your head. Perfect. There we go. That way people can kind of zoom in and see the circle of wholeness and the circle of wholeness and self-care. That's right. Because everything, we all good? Yep, perfect, perfect. Yep, well done.

So self-care, you know, so volume one is about self-discovery. It's about who am I and why am I here and what is all life about and what meaning does my life have and what's karma? Like, what is all of that? And reincarnation, is it real? Is it not real? Life between lives, life before life, life, life after life. So we take a good look at that and we look at the science of it and what's been written, what's been studied, and researched about all of that. And then in part two in volume one, we go into the realms of the unconscious.

And so all the maps, starting with Freud, going to be young, going to Sachioli, going to stand Graff, the maps of the unconscious, the realms of the human unconscious, and how that oneness experience connects us right through from our personal unconscious to the family unconscious, to the national unconscious, to the human unconscious, to the Gaia unconscious, and to the collective unconscious. And so we are open on some level to all of these different realms and everything that's contained within them. And that is, I think, and I believe the root of our empathy and our intuition is because, you know, all these little synchronicities and mysteries and things that happen can only happen because somewhere deep inside of us, we're connected to the trees and the birds

and the dolphins and the ocean and this cosmos and, you know, and maybe connected on levels that we certainly don't even understand. We can't maybe even put words to them. For example, we've only recently discovered, although certainly, you know, in science, some of them were figuring it out a lot earlier before they inform the general public. But, you know, and certainly indigenous people, probably some of them knew this, okay? But they're only just discovering how trees talk to each other under the ground, okay, that this whole system, this incredible system of communication that goes on. through fungi. And this is all happening way beneath, you know,

we think we take trees and we plant them and then we put, you know, as a solitary tree, as a beautiful specimen. And then we surrounded by some pretty bushes or plants or something like that. And then we wonder where it doesn't live very long, okay, because it's lonely. And we've taken it away from the forest. And it's not happy. It wants to be in the forest where everybody's, everything, is cooperating and working together or, you know, maybe they fight too.

We don't know. We haven't discovered that. I'm sure they do for light and water, you know, things like that. Anyway, so that's volume one when we talk about the dark realms, the difficult passages, about mediumship and a lot of things that are going on, that people who are working on, that people who are working on the frontiers of psychedelic therapy. And, you know, because this is the thrust of the books is to try to help people who are working in anthogens and psychedelics outside of the traditional anthogen, indigenous and heritage traditions. Because in the indigenous and heritage traditions, you would be working with the wisdom and the knowledge and the experience passed on from teacher,

or whatever word we want to, let's use teacher and apprentice just as a simple basic model. Okay. And these would be passed down for generations and generations for the last few thousand years, if not longer. I mean, the human race has been using plants for sacred ritual, for divination, and for medicine and for healing. We have records of it for tens of thousands of years. So we shouldn't assume that we know everything about it. We took a couple of things once. And now we kind of know where we did three MDMA sessions

and we think we understand, okay? We don't understand. We cracked the door open. We maybe saw a little glimpse of something. And let's stay humble with this. Let's stay very humble with this. And so here's the heritage traditions and indigenous traditions who have these long-term apprentices

and I was 14 years in my apprenticeship in the Santa Daini before our church became independent. I was 14 years under the mentoring and teaching and guidance of the elders, 14 years, until we reached a point where for a number of reasons we became an independent center. And so that's the depth of it. And in our tradition, we believe that you're still an apprentice until your last breath and possibly after that. and this is very eastern and a very eastern view, you know. And so these books were, I feel like, channeled as a way of trying to help this movement, to help the people who seem very well-intentioned and dedicated to, you know,

serving to awaken consciousness. And so I've been speaking in conferences. I've been trying to support. We did the first ayahuasca conference in Canada in 2019, worked on a project called Anthogens and Psychedelics in Canada proposal for a new paradigm. I invite anybody in the fields, please go on my website and take a look at that paper. It was published last year, 2021 in the Canadian Journal of Psychology. And, you know, a chapeau to the team who worked on it in the committee. and so these books are kind of all in that same way of train to offer the knowledge and the wisdom that I received.

And so I feel like I'm just a channel to pass on what great teachers have in their time and energy shared with me and all the things I went digging up and looking at my private practice for nearly 40 years. And again, thank you to all the clients who taught me so much by having the courage to do their own journey. Having the courage to go diving inside. I did Stan Groff's work, his workshops for goodness, how many year every month, circle of like 24 people for years and years and years and years. And the courage to go deep inside and the courage to face themselves, the courage to grieve those things that need to be grieved,

the courage to, you know, find. the strength to make the decisions and take the steps that they need to take in their life to arrive where their potential can take them. And the non-ordinary states of consciousness are a way of going deep, whether you reach that through meditation, through guided recession states, hypnosis, deep relaxed states, in so many different ways. golf's holotropic breath work, you know, the practice, the true practice of yoga, which is where I started in 1971, you know, and all that breathing, boy, that takes you into an non-ardinary state, and you're going to have a lot of stuff come up for you. And so trying to use the wisdom of all the different lineages that are available for us. And so that's what I've tried to do in these books, is bring that the east and the west and the north and the south together.

and offer people, hey, there isn't just one way of doing this and one way of looking. There's all these ways. So, anyway, volume two is about self-care and the circle of wellness. And what is self-care? Well, if we're not taking care of ourselves, we're not going to be in very good shape to take care of anybody else. You're laughing. I know the feeling. I have neglected myself and turned out that I was no help to anybody.

You know, and I can see it. And I bet you everybody knows somebody who doesn't take care of themselves and they understand that relationship they have to that person. So that's why I was laughing. It's like, I recognize that. Yep. And, you know, that, you know, it's so easy in our culture to get distracted and to lose track of what's really important.

And we were talking before the show started a little bit about boundaries. And so we're going to talk about boundaries in a couple of minutes. But what we're first going to do is what are those, I kind of call them the four pillars, you know. So there's self-awareness. These are the four pillars of self-care. There's self-awareness. There's self-love. There's self-respect.

And there's self-responsibility. And these four pillars, if we're willing to look at each one of them, and it has to start with awareness. It just does. These are again very Eastern teachings, very indigenous teachings that I am honoring and borrowing from and sharing what I can is the practice of awareness is the cornerstone of pretty much all practices. You know, you look at the Aseans, the early Christians, 2,000 years ago. what is their first their first principle the fathers of the desert awareness awareness awareness awareness you go into the east what are all the what is rinshapais is going to teach you and the guru is going to teach you awareness awareness okay and the thing is is what we have to accept is there is no instant awakening um it's like anything

else we have to work at it a little bit every day every moment there's no there's no place of enlightenment, a place where we arrive and stay and live there and fit your tent and decorate it. It's a moment by moment activity and so is awareness. And when we realize we have to have a sense of humor too, George, right? Absolutely. And a sense of humor goes a long way, right? Huge. Yeah, when we realize that we fall asleep and wake up, you know, there was somebody had posted on the LinkedIn stream here. One of my colleagues, I guess, had posted about Ram Dass. It was, was an anniversary of Ram Dass. And, you know, if you look at his book, be here now, didn't we all love it?

I mean, I remember getting it hot off the press in, what was it, 1970 or 71, something like that. And devouring it and loving every word and every bit of it. And it's all about awareness, awareness, awareness, and how we fall asleep and we have to wake up. And so you can look, you know, a course in miracles. You fall asleep, wake up. And don't beat yourself up. Just wake up. get walking again.

And in our culture, we're so self-punishing. Oh, I ate that extra, whatever it was, fill in the blank, whatever it is you guys, you know, or I did that again, or, you know, and then self-flagelate and beat yourself up. Well, you know, and that takes you in a shame spiral that then takes you to a more unhappy place and you have to comfort yourself. So you go and do, you know, what did John Bradshaw say once? It was so brilliant. I used to drink to try and solve the problems caused by drinking.

So fill in the blank with whatever you do. I work. Whatever it is that someone's doing, you know, fill it in. And so awareness. And being willing to breathe in the moment and understanding, and learning to watch the mind. So we talk about physical the mind. Okay.

And this is where everybody has to start with the mind. $60,000. thoughts a day. That's research. 90% the same as yesterday, by the way. Don't get depressed. 10% new thinking. Now, and thought

forms, we all have thought forms. And those of us who work in non-ordinary states is one of the things, the first things that the timing will show us is our thought forms and our mind and our busy mental activity and all these little cogs and machines or, you know, and then how we

repeat the same story over and over and her game. You know, I didn't like that film the first time I watched it. I didn't like how it turned out at all, but why am I watching it and watching it and watching it and watching it? Okay, or that book or whatever it is. Well, we do the same thing with our thoughts, you know? And so awareness of our thoughts and the patterns of our thoughts. And what's that? I'm going to paraphrase. Everybody's quoted this from Margaret Thatcher on down, but we need to be mindful of our thoughts because our thoughts can become our beliefs and then our beliefs can become our words and our words can become our actions. You know, I'm paraphrasing. Right. It's longer than that. But this is real. And so awareness of our thoughts,

awareness of our feelings. You know, how many of us disown. certain feelings. You know, women are taught anger bad, fear okay, damsel and stress, sadness, okay, okay, anger bad, okay, being strong, not good either, okay? And so men are taught the opposite, anger good, look strong, okay, fear bad, not allowed to be frightened. And so we disown certain feelings and how do we come, bring back all that wholeness where feelings are just feelings where thoughts are just thoughts we don't have to become the feeling we can have the feeling we can feel the feeling oh anger okay what am I going to do with it so we have the feeling and then there's the awareness what am i going to do with

this anger anger needs action okay let's take a little bit of time and breathe with the anger and just let it be like the river flowing and the current through its spring bed let it be like the wind moving through the tree. I don't have to become the anger and then let darkness work through me, you know? I can be angry. And then what is the action I need to take? What are the words I need to speak? What needs to be done here? Sadness. Okay, I'm sad. What if I'm grieving? What's making me sad? It's not a bad thing that I have to shove down. It's a real thing. Okay. And how do I support that in a way that I don't get to attach to it. Okay, because that's the tricky part is with thoughts and with feelings.

How do we honor them, respect them, give them their place without indulging them? Does that make sense? Do you have a question around that? Yeah. So it brings up a couple points that because I have read the book, and I recommend everybody get the book, you will do a lot of learning. And some of the points that I would add on to that was the idea. idea of your thoughts as vibrations. And it's not so much the, the clarity, it's the quality of the

thought that puts forth the vibration, which you get into you in your book. And then when you talk about the ideas of, you know, these thoughts that we have, it brings up this idea about the river of life and that you're on this, you're in this boat. And if you don't understand that there's things you can control and things you can control, then you end up in a little Eddie by the shore, just doing these donuts. And I think that's kind of what you were getting up. But maybe you could address the idea of vibrations and thoughts and then being in the boat on the current of life.

Yeah. Thank you. My pleasure to talk about this place because I love all this stuff. I noticed. And so it's a real joy to be with somebody who likes talking about these things as well. And hopefully there's people out there who enjoy listening. And so, yeah, that life is kind of a current and we have our little boat. and do we just let the current take us where the current of life wants us to?

And then we dash up on the rocks and then we're, oh my God, look what happened to me. Okay? Or do we learn how to row the boat and how to put the sail up and let the wind catch the sail? And do we learn where the rocks are? So we learn to navigate around them. And do we learn where the current is a little too quick for us? And so we learn to go alongside of it. And so these are things that we can learn in life if we're willing to.

But if we're just jumbling, bumbling through life in a kind of stubborn way, a willful way or a fearful way, like I won't exercise my will, back to volume one all about the will. Read the chapter, folks. Deeply rooted in a sagioli's work. Rivera of Sadgioli has done the best work on the will. I highly encourage you want to know what your will is all about. Read him. Read the chapter in my book.

And so we learn to activate our will. And so we learn to navigate in life. Now, no one should assume that this is going to change the landscape. We're still in the year 2022 for the next couple of days, and it's going to be 2023. We're still, I'm still here in Canada. You're still there in Hawaii. So, I mean, navigating out of that, there's some things we can navigate out of, of, of, difficult, unhealthy situations,

learning how to close doors to things that don't nourish our soul and don't care, you know, respect our body and our being and our home and our life and our work. And so we learn how to navigate around those things and close doors to them. Those are all about a healthy down for his next chapter. Our new chapters now. So awareness brings us to awareness of our mind that they are vibrations. You've asked about that. What is that?

Okay. So it's the intention behind. It's the intention. You can say to somebody, I love you, and they get that love vibration. And you feel it. Okay? You can say, I love you. Do you feel loved?

It's just words in the mouth. There's nothing behind it, you know? Animals read our vibrations. Sure, they recognize words. You know, walkies, out, minutes, up, down. They recognize words, of course, but they're, you know, it's our intentions. They can read us. Rupert Sheldry's work.

We also know when their owners are coming home. Okay, everybody go out and buy that. That's fabulous. Now, the thing is, is animals can read our mood. They can read our vibrations. You ever get into a crowded elevator, not necessarily so crowded, but there's a few other people. You can tell in a nanosecond who's in a bad mood.

They don't have to say one single word. They are vibrating. They're like Darth Vader. They don't have to say word. They don't even have to grab your word. the throat okay they're like the evil empire they can get you across the room okay so vibrations are really powerful and and and and that's on us what am I vibrating what are my thoughts vibrating and what is my heart what is my kind of energy

being what am I vibrating what am I vibrating my vibrating peacefulness my channel for the the qualities that I hold dear. Now, we're still human, which means we have our personality, which has its glitches, which means we have our dark side or our sharp edges or whatever you want to call it, you know. But that means more awareness. And it doesn't mean that those things are bad. It means that those things are just human.

But it also means that we don't get to indulge it. Are you hearing those boundaries? Yeah, you're hearing those boundaries that we can be aware of an aspect of our personality, let's say, that's short. Let's say, let's choose an easy one that most people have, judgmental, critical. Okay, this is a common one, okay? So let's say our awareness, our practice of awareness leads to understand that we have judgmental thoughts that lead into critical words. Okay, you see thoughts, words, actions. And so.

Then we decide, okay, I'm not happy with that anymore. That doesn't work for me in my life. I see how it's affecting relationships. And I don't feel good afterwards when I do that. It's like a not good feeling afterwards. Okay, maybe there's a little power hit. That's what people are looking for. They're looking for power hit, you know.

But then afterwards there's the letdown. And there's not feeling very good. Okay. So how am I going to change that? Okay, well, first sometimes we have to start with the mouth. How do we have to learn to close the mouth. The thoughts trying to come, okay, and it's trying to work its way into words and actions. But long, slowly, breath, shake it off, and then we start learning to put something up here in our thoughts.

It is going to transform that. And that is where meditation, mantras, chance, prayers, affirmations, learn them, memorize them, and then you just drop that in the slot where the other thing, used to be. Take out that old tape and you put this new one in. And so when you memorize, you know, and whatever tradition you feel called to, there's no better or worse tradition. They all, all the traditions have chants, prayers, mattress affirmations.

Choose the ones that suit you. I offer some kind of non-denominational ones in the books if someone wants a place to start. And you just start there. May I be at peace? May my heart remain open. You know, this is Buddhist, adapted Buddhist. So, you know, it doesn't matter if it's Hail Mary full of grace or Omnamashavaya. It really doesn't matter.

It's what you have heart for and what feels right for you. And then that's what you put in there. And then that becomes the vibration. Now, the power of working with kind of set, mantras, prayers, and, you know, affirmations, is that when we're saying them, and here's George, what's really beautiful, it's not just us. We are entering into a vibration that around the world in that moment, there are probably millions of other people who are Omnumashabaya or Omani Badmian or Hail Mary full of Grace or

whatever it is. In that moment, in this moment, right now there are people around the world who are meditating, chanting, and praying. And when we enter into that within ourselves, we, I believe, join into that street. And so it is reinforced. We are connecting with that. It's like dialing your radio or your whatever you work with, you know, you used to dial AM, FM shortwave. It's like dialing into a completely different channel.

And in that channel, you're connecting with that vibration, that beautiful vibration of peace and compassion and health and well-being for self and for others. So that's about thoughts. And we can do the same with feelings. It's like we can decide my inner peace is more important than getting into that argument over that stupid thing. that I don't really care about it any. Okay? Like, seriously. We have to decide what value in our peace.

At the same time, again, more healthy boundaries without being self-sacrificing, without being acquiescing to other people, to find that balance of negotiating and navigating through daily life. Do you have a question there? I can see it in your eyes. I was just, in my mind, I was going through the different ideas of emotional boundaries and energetic boundaries and also processing this idea of tapping into the wellspring of beauty that is provided by other people praying. I've never heard it put that way before.

And it is beautiful to think about. And it does make a lot of sense. And if you think about it, you can feel it. And I'm thankful to hear it from you, Dr. Jessica. I've never thought about it from that angle. And it's helpful and it's beautiful. And I love it. Yeah, and that's what can support us in that moment is everybody has those difficult moments where we feel, you know, I'm all alone, you know, nobody's there.

And there's the difference when we understand it and when we work with it. There's the difference between being physically alone and solitary, okay, and in, you know, maybe somebody's lying in a hospital bed. And they're alone in that hospital bed in that moment. Okay. And yet knowing that I can connect with all this beautiful oneness, and here's the way I can. I can connect through my mind, through mantra, prayer affirmation. I can connect through my heart, through focusing on peace and compassion. And the more we train the heart, okay?

So now we're in the second one, which is self-love. First of all, we define love. What is love? Now, I think one of the best definitions, which of course I refer to include would be Scott Pecks in his book, The Road Less Travelled, where he defines love,

and love is not dependency. That's his, you know, psychiatry training coming through and shining, okay? It's not dependency. People confuse, I need you with I love you. No, I need you? That's lovely, but,

It's got to be bigger than that. Okay, so I, you know, we talk about love and what it is and what it isn't, and love is not codependency any more than its dependency. It's not codependency. Co-dependency is a big challenge in our culture. Yeah. It's a really big, you understand what codependency is. It's when we focus on the people outside of us and we worry about the need to fix, rescue, save, and change,

people and we neglect ourselves and what we feel in our own authenticity because we're so involved trying to please fix, rescue, save, keep everybody else happy out there. Okay. And we can become very burned out and very, you know, disconnected from our authenticity. And then we can't understand why people are angry with us when we say, well, that wasn't by authentic self. I was like, well, who was that? I thought that was you.

You know, that's another thing about self-love is we have to take ownership of how we're showing up. We can't be angry to other people if we haven't been authentic. Was that a hard one? It's a hard one to digest, eh? That's a hard one. It is. I think a lot of people, myself included, I almost think it comes back to awareness because

it's difficult to be aware of your own authenticity all the time. You're so affected by outside factors. You're so affected by maybe a fight you had with your lover or something that upset you, and it pulls you out of that awareness. And when you're out of your own awareness, you're not being authentic. You are being pulled in the directions of something that is less than authentic. Well, and it may be, it may be that that thing needs our attention and we need to sit down and give it our attention. And I think one of the, you know, a tool that I gave through all the years to my clients is that sometimes in the moment we can't give something the attention that it needs. Let's say we're at work and we really have to be responsible to what our job is and make sure

that we're doing it to the best of our ability. If whatever it is going on inside of us is getting in the way more seriously, then we have to take ownership of that and say to our, you know, and say to our staff or our boss or whoever, you know what, look, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm really not okay right now. I need to take a little time for myself, you know? And that's being responsible, okay? And so this awareness of what's my state of being, and then it's like, okay, I'm feeling this,

but I know I'm able to put it on one side. And I know then I'm going to come back to it. The problem is when people put it on one side, put it on the shelf, put it on the shelf, put it on the, and then the whole thing comes crashing down. Or they stick it under the rug, stick it under the rug, and then they're tripping on it. And so as we're real saying, you know, like, what's happening?

You're trying on stuff all the time, you know? And so if we're going to honor ourselves and, you know, part of the practice of self-love is respecting ourselves and honoring ourselves enough to know when we need to set some time aside to deal with something. Now, whether that's a personal thing where we need to say, wow, that really affected me, I need to look at like, why am I reacting so strongly to this? and then, you know, look at getting professional help. I still don't understand why so many people are, they expect their friends or, you know, to work things out for them, but they don't have the training. They don't have the expertise. I mean, would you say, gee, I've got a sore tooth, which mind looking at it if you can do something. They're not a dentist.

Why would you expect to fix your tooth? Why do you expect your friends to be able to look at you talking about it? your work problem, your relationship problem, unless it's just a little like, oh, that was a hard day. You know, and so people need to be willing to go deeper, read books, go into therapy, go into a support group, you know, do whatever it is that you need to do. That's really loving yourself. So what is love? You know, here I'm agreeing with Scott Pack where love is a space that we create for others to grow in. It's a space we create. Now, if we're not creating that space for ourselves, we won't have much.

We can't create a space for others. And so we look at self-love and how to take care of ourselves. And there's two primary wounds around love that everybody needs to understand. And then, you know, be Cinderella, try it on and see if it fits. The first is the wound. These are the wounds of omissions that come in. So there's the wound of abandonment and then there's the wound of engulfment or invasion. And these are the two primary ones. They're the big ones.

And unless you've got like bombs dropping and there's issues of, you know, those are, those are, you know, there's famine or severe illness and disease and, you know, outbreaks of really, you know, difficult situations. Then of course those are going to play a huge role. if you're in kind of an average, ordinary, everyday, what we would consider North American life, then these are the two primary wounds. It's going to be abandonment. And those are experienced primarily under the age of three, under the age of six, let's say those what's known as the magical years under the age of six, the dependency years. And then with each year, increasingly so, if there is a loss,

that is interpreted as an abandonment, there's a divorce, there's a death in the family, there's the loss of a loved one, there's whatever. We're going to be better positioned to weather that. The younger we are, the deeper the wound will be, and the more it will affect our sense of self and our understanding of what love is and what love isn't. And the younger it is, the more the non-arteneresia consciousness is helpful in accessing the original grief. Because it's hard intellectually to access, let's say, two-year-old grief. Or, you know, in my book, you'll read that my mother had to go in the hospital when I was nine months old. You know, a nine-month-old cannot understand what's happening. They have nothing by which to measure it.

a six-year-old you can explain when he has to go in and have a surgery or you know daddy was killed in the war you know and a six-year-old has a better intellectual and emotional capacity to start integrating that an eight-year-old

will do better a 10-year-old will do better a 12-year-old so the further you go along in life the better able we are to manage and so whatever form that abandonment takes it's going to affect how our heart because it's a huge huge loss for our heart. The person we feel the most bonded to is some of the people

were separated from them. And so engulfment, and there's many different ways to be engulfed, we can be engulfed psychically, energetically. That's what back to the Dorotheater. How many times I've heard my fill in the blank mother father could silence me with a look, didn't have to speak, didn't have to lift a finger, one look, do it. You know, there's, that makes an effect, you know, and it can have a positive effect if it's done with kindness and firmness and explanations. Okay. If it's not, if it's done with hardness and coldness and tightness and criticisms and

judgmentalism, then it can have a, you know, so engulfment can be verbal, it can be physical, it can be, there's many different, you know, all to the deepest and the most painful, sexual. So these are deep wounds and our willingness to have the courage to go diving into our unconscious and recover our own soul. This is the hero's journey. So self-love. Now, you know, and that's all about boundaries, too. We're going to come to boundaries, you know. So moving along in the chapters, okay, we're coming to self-respect. And, you know, respect is, you know, we can talk about respect,

but there's also cultural understandings. I've asked me questions, George, if I'm not being, you know, kind of clear enough. There's, you know, what's culturally respectful, you know, apparently in some cultures, if you birth, that's really. respectful. That means that if you burp in other cultures, it's like, that's really rude. And so respect is something that's also kind of flexible because we need to know where we are and how to respect and what shows respect. And again, you know, in some cultures, you don't touch strangers. If you accidentally step on their foot or brush against them, you apologize. I'm very sorry, you know.

And whereas I'm told there's some countries in the world. where there's no sense of physical personal boundaries. If you're on a train or a bus, that your person in the seat next, you will have no trouble falling asleep on your shoulder. Okay. And this is perfectly acceptable in their culture. They're tired.

Your shoulders are there. They're falling asleep on it. Okay. This would be weird for us in our culture. We think, who are you? Yeah. You know, I'm here in my space. You know, we have a very strong sense of personal space in our culture.

and how to, you know, keep the picket fence around it. So we have this understanding that we are either given or we have to learn. And we can decide, okay, boundaries in the family, if boundaries in the family, if we are not caught healthy boundaries in our family, then it's really hard to, where do we start learning them? In school, we're going to learn some and in our society we're going to learn some. but then we reach a point where we understand what is really important to me.

I have a right. Those are what boundaries look like. I have a right to my own thoughts. I have a right to my own feelings. They're not right or wrong feelings. They're not right or wrong thoughts. Do these thoughts lead me in healthy directions that bring me peace and health and well-being in my life?

These feelings that I have, they're just feelings. Okay, they're just part of, being human. So there's fear. Wow, okay, that's scary. There's happiness. Okay, let's enjoy that. Let's be happy. The fullest of our being that we can be happy. And then there's my body. I have a right to say, who touches it and who doesn't touch it and how they touch it. And these are all the boundaries that we start to understand. I have a right for my words to be respected as long as my words are respectful. Yeah, you know what, Dr. Jessica, I wanted to bring up a point.

There are so, for those of us who have been lucky enough to travel and gotten to see some of these real boundaries in different cultures of, you know, personal space or touch or words or aggression or any of these boundaries that we have seen in different countries or seen from different cultures, there's also, just a little, wide chasm in different personal boundaries between different families. And sometimes it's very easy to overstep those boundaries because what might be right from my family may be different from my neighbor who has a complete different set of boundaries, even though we participate in the

same culture. You know, it's it's just this difference. And I'm wondering if you have found some ways to navigate those. I think we talked about vibrations earlier. And I think you can almost feel the barrier or feel the boundary there when you're approaching it. Have you found some ways to navigate that? Yes, and that's where respect comes in, respecting self and respecting others. This is really all about that kind of self-awareness, self-love, self-respect. Okay. And if we have self-respect, then we will understand that boundaries may be different

in different cultures and different societies. And because we're so kind of multi-national, global, connected, and everybody moves around. And, you know, and I love that. That's what I've always loved about Montreal, is it's been so multicultural. And I love that. And I love the different languages. And I love the different, you know, I love hearing all the different languages and all the different outfits. And I love when people wear the outfits of their tradition and the clothes of their tradition and their belief, you know.

And so, yes, when we understand, then, you know, I was. born in England and I had a kind of pretty traditional, pretty strict British upbringing, which is you start formal and then you work your way slowly from formal. You don't start all open and hi I'm Fred, you know, is you start more formal. And if you know that you're, you've just moved in and your next door neighbor is, and this is just kind of old fashioned British manners is that's where you start. And then it's like, it's like, Like you start with respect, you start with a little bit of trust. Some people are way too trusting and some people don't trust at all.

Okay? And you start with a little bit of respect, a little bit of trust. And then you start building on that. And you build slowly. And you build carefully, you know. And even something as simple as using somebody's title. I mean, I brought my children up how I was raised, which is you start with, you know, you knit.

you, my children would never go into a friend's home and call their parents, the kids' parents by their first name. They were taught, you don't do this. You start with, you know, hello Mr. Jones. If Mr. Jones says, please call me Bill, then Mr. Jones is explaining his boundary and what he wants. That's what I've been teaching my granddaughters. If you go, and they want you to call them by their first names, that's in their house. That's how they run things. You don't do that in grandma's. I was okay but you start somewhere and then you can't go wrong starting to respectful and a little bit more formal because then somebody can say no please call me you know or you know depending on the setting and the situation I think that we also have to

accept that everybody has and this is why it's the last one different responsibilities okay self-responsibility and respecting other people's responsibilities. I think those are about healthy boundaries too. When I go in my doctor's office or my dentist's officer, my accountant's officer, whatever, I'm not going in there because I'm their buddy. Okay, I'm not their buddy. They're my doctor, my dentist, my accountant. They're lovely.

Okay? I don't try to warm into their personal lives. I don't need to. You know, I can have this lovely, respectful. friendly, kind relationship and respect the professional boundary. And I find that that's got a little bit

blurred through the years. The same way casual dress fell away and you don't go into banks anymore and see the men in suits and the women in whatever nice out, but I don't have a problem. Women and pants can wear all the pants they want, you know? I'm okay with men

in skirts too. I've got Scottish background. A kilt is a skirt. Sorry. It is. Call it whatever you want. So I'm all good with that. The thing is, is some of the respectful formality of healthy boundaries in professional realms has gone all kind of blacks and silly. And then people wonder why there's not enough respect.

And so there's navigating how to keep healthy boundaries for yourself and how to respect yourself, your thoughts, and your feelings, how to be respectful to other people. And then let them give the clues of what they're comfortable with. That doesn't mean that if you're not comfortable with it, that you have to do it. Yeah, it makes sense. You know, and that's the navigating,

is where we always need to be making these little adjustments and being willing to be a little bit flexible, depending on the situation. That's where kindness comes in. And firmness, I think that, you know, women especially have difficulty with firmness because we're not allowed to be angry and firmness looks like angry and then we're a bitch. Well, sorry, I should say something. I shouldn't stay on air.

I'll be allowed to use words. Okay. That I mean, that's what happens to women, you know? So it just, we need to get past that where firmness, is respected, whether you're a teacher in the classroom and you need to be firm with your students, whether you're in a situation, a hospital situation where you need to be firm with the people who are visiting as to what the hours are and what they can do and what they can't do. And these are all healthy boundaries.

And, you know, nowadays you have to have signs up saying, please don't yell at the staff. I mean, this would have been unheard of in my upbringing. No one would have dreamed at yelling at the bank teller or the post office person or this was not public behavior. If you did that, it meant that you weren't well. And then somebody should be making sure that you get the care that you need. Or somehow it's just become being rude and nasty has become part of our civilization. That's sad. I'd rather if we were doing

Namaste at each other you know and that comes to self importance we're you know our culture is absolutely clogged up and blocked up with self

importance it's almost the opposite of self-discipline you know because if you're disciplined you understand that your your idea of yourself

is to act with integrity when you you know when you don't have self-discipline self-discipline, then you have self-importance, which is the illusion of integrity, is the illusion of importance. It seems to me anyway. Yes, you got it right. That's the chapter on self-discipline is how we get distracted and how to bring ourselves back. Just a few things I want to say more about responsibility. There's a lot of people have hyper-responsibility,

and some people have hyper-responsibility. It's always somebody else's fault that I screwed up. It's always somebody else's fault. Somebody else has to do it. It's very difficult living with people who are too tight or too loose on that. It creates a problem. If we are spending our time with somebody who's hyper responsibility, they're not doing their chores, they're not doing their tasks, whether it's work or at home.

It's that person who's always at the last, last minute or beyond it or needing more time or more something or more this, you know, everybody needs that occasionally. Okay, and that's fine, that kind of occasional accommodation. But if there's a deep pattern of, you know, it's always Fred, who is the part of the team that's holding the whole damn thing up because he doesn't do this thing and procrastinates, then everybody needs to sit down with Fred and explain to him very firmly and kindly that his, his decisions and his choices have consequences. And that's where we elevate it to seeing that we are choosing our behavior,

that we have choice. And this is what, in part, responsibility and discipline is all about, that we are choosing. And I've got people scratching their head. I can hear them out in his face going, what's she talking about? We choose. We choose our behavior.

We can choose to procrastinate. It's just a behavior. It's just a habit. It's not like something we were born with. You know, we choose it. We can choose to be organized or disorganized as a choice. And yes, some personalities lend themselves more easily to one way or another. And then we consider that kind of a gift like that comes easily.

But then something else is harder. Have you noticed that? And often the people we choose to be in a relationship have the peace that we don't have, and we have the peace they don't have. And if we look at it that way, we can see this is a gift that we bring into relationship. And we can either be fighting about it and trying to force it down their throat, or we can be the living model of it and be kind and firm and, you know, navigate through it, wisely as we can.

That's what I said. It's the choice. I think in the book you also talk about, you know, we have the choice of who we spend time with. We have a choice of how we spend our time. We have a choice of what we think about. And when you pan back and look at all these different choices of friends and family

or choosing to focus on what brings value to your life, instead of choosing what brings grief to your life, It is so much of our own thoughts. Like you know, like you said, it comes down to the four pillars, self-awareness, self-love, self-responsibility and self-respect. It's really well done. And I think people should understand that those are the four pillars of self-care. And if you get Dr. Jessica's book, both of them, Ayahuasca Awakening's, then you can see these particular choices broken down in a format that is easily digestible.

And I just want to say everyone should go out and check out the book. It's helped me, and I want everyone to check it out. But I'll stop it there and let you keep going. Okay. So, yeah, choices, people don't realize, you know. 40 years they worked with people. And how often, you know, a person would be in such a difficult internal place, not really realizing how many choices they do have.

And so we start making the choices over the things that we can, choose how we spend our time, what we eat, what we get, you know, everybody gets up in the morning and puts on clothes, right? Okay. We can choose that. We can choose how we keep our home. We can choose how we manage our money, whatever money we've got. We've got a little bit.

Then we need to choose to be very careful with it. Okay. We've got more. Well, then we can choose to be generous and share some of it. Well, that's how I look at it. But, anyway, or buy more things, you know. And that we have to put a, get a space to put the things. We worry about the things.

This is very George Carlin, isn't it? Yeah, right, right. Stuff. That we have to put up another shed, buy another house and a storage locker for all the things. Okay. That's our culture. We accumulate stuff,

whether it's thoughts and feelings and baggage and all the baggage we drag around with us. Robert Blyth speaks about that. He talks about the black bag we drag behind us. you know, that's got stuffed full of things and things and things and things. And he says, eventually you have to sit down and dump it out. And what I love about his description, he says, we find out some of the stuff isn't even ours.

It isn't even our stuff. We're carting around Uncle Harry's stuff. We're talking around some of our mom's stuff. All the family baggage. We stuffed it into that. We're dragging it along. All these old beliefs and behaviors and attitudes and all this stuff. just got to empty it out and offer it up you know say a prayer over it sing a song grieve if you need to

dance if you can but how you've got to leave it behind not be dragging it with you because it's heavy and it weighs us down you know you know those kind of rocks in the heart you know those dense heavy dark hard things that you know all the resentments and the frustrations and the little woundedness and everything those can just clutter up the heart. Often people come and they didn't understand that they talk about they want to open your hearts and I think, should I tell them now or wait until later, that as soon as we start to open our heart, the first thing out is all that block grief.

Well, you know, this is like a glass. If you've got a glass full of water, you can't pour anything else into it until you've emptied out the water, right? And so you can't fill your heart with peace or love. or make space for any of that until you've emptied out all the woundedness and the grief and the resentments and the frustrations. And when people get, oh, I need to grieve.

Yeah, you need to grieve. And if it takes you a day, a week, a month, a year, then that's okay. You learn to honor it. You learn to work with it. We talked earlier today about setting things on one side and then honoring it and coming back to it later and saying, okay, I'm just going to sit now. I'm going to, you know, say a prayer or do a meditation.

You know, I used to say to people, hey, I take a box of Kleenex. Like, oh, I am my bed and I do some deep, you know, whole of turpid breath, breathing. Whatever's there is going to come. You know, you need to have a cry. It's going to be right there. You know, once you're used to, after so many years you get used to processing things, you get, you're not scared of it anymore.

A lot of people are really deeply scared of it, and that often happens. because they were young when it happened, these things that they're grieving. You know, and the younger you were, the more scary it's going to feel. And then you can start reaching into past life stuff, birth stuff. That's because birth is really scary.

It's our deepest body memory. You know, we die from the water world of mother's body to be born into the air world of planet Earth. And for most people, it's the hazardous journey. It's not sitting on the beach with a murder. under the umbrella enjoying the waves chatting with your friends okay

it's a hazardous journey life death threat you know and so these things can feel really scary and that's why we need safe environments skilled professionals and you know really good tools

to work with when we are doing really deep exploring so I'm hoping that my books and the work I've been doing. Also, it's not just for just general people, but I'm really hoping that people who are training, you know, right now here in Canada, I know there's different trainings, opening up everywhere. There's two universities in Canada that are opening, you know, graduate level. They have micro programs and they're opening graduate level programs. And I happen to be the advisor

and the guest lecturer, the programs here at the University of Ottawa, give a shout at to them, Vancouver Island University, a shout out to them. And so programs are developing by serious educational institutions who really want to get it right. They want to get it right, you know? Like how do we prepare people to work with people in deep non-ordinary states of consciousness? What kind of skills do they need? What kind of credentialing or training is the best for them?

We don't want to repeat the errors that happened. you know in years past let's learn from them and learn what really supports and helps people and you know on that note we should all be concerned so I'm hoping the books will also be used in training programs

and because these books offer people that there are guide books for that so it's not a novel and you know we're talking about training and certification and everything else, what I think, you know, part of a large conversation is the biomedical for-profit, for-profit model that we all just need to be aware of that everybody's voices need to be part of the conversation about how these anthogens and psychedelics are going to be used. And everybody's voices, and those are the indigenous voices, heritage tradition voices,

harm reduction, the people who've worked decades and decades in harm reductions, the good programs they've developed, they need to be heard and listen to, right? We need to have education in there, the reputable universities and centers that are interested in training and getting it right and doing it right. We all need to have a conversation, heritage traditions, everybody's voices need to be part of this. The researchers and the clinicians. So we've been working on developing a model of what does that look like. And again, that's in the paper we published,

anthogenes and psychedelics and Canada proposal for a new paradigm. And we've taken that forward now and continuing to open the dialogue of how do we make sure that access and inclusivity happen and the voices that need to be sharing common ground. have a space in which to speak and share and learn from each other. Does that make sense, George? Yeah, it does. It brings up a point.

Now that you're talking about it, I'm curious, how do you have a specific way you see it shaping out or in your mind or if you look into a way that would be the most beneficial? Do you see the types of therapy as branches on a tree the same way there is a, you know, like gestalt therapy versus. other kinds of therapy, do you see the world of entheogens and psychedelics playing out where there's a role for the clinicians, there's a role for the indigenous people? Because what I see sometimes is, I see a lot of people that may go to South America and they may, maybe they go to a fancy resort

and they have an ayahuasca ceremony or a mushroom ceremony. Or maybe they go with more authentic. But it seems to me, things may be lost in translation there for the lay person who doesn't understand, that culture, if they go to South America and they have this experience, but it's not really the Western culture. Do you think that maybe there's, it seems to me like there's some loss in translation with the way people are trying to maneuver? And I'm just wondering how you see it shaking out in the future. Well, such a good question.

Thanks for asking it. I know that there's, you know, quite a few of us in the LinkedIn stream that are kind of posting up different, you know, concerns and comments along this line. and it's a conversation that is a very worthy and valuable conversation, one that needs to be had with respect and consideration so that we can find common ground. This should not be a tug of war over who owns anthogens and who owns psychedelics. This should be a unified, open dialogue in which all voices have an opportunity to speak and share. So if we look at, you know, I'm in a heritage tradition. I'm a dynista.

I'm a madrina of a Santo Dime Church. It's 26 years now. I drink and serve Dimey and apprenticeship on the path and what have you. And so I know that the roots of my tradition are the Amazonic shamanic roots. They're still an important part, but also are some of the African roots through Mr. Ernieo, who was the grandson of slaves brought from Africa. And so those roots are there, some, you know, folded in with some European spiritism, folded in, you know, is some other Brazilian influences.

And this is a very eclectic tradition. And I think that's why it's been able to go around the world. And if we look at the older shamanic tradition, here, a lot of the things, focus is on the medicine women and medicine men who apprenticed most of their lives, who learned, who had to learn from young all the different trees and berries and roots and plants. We have to understand that their apprenticeship is equivalent to, you know, a medical doctor's training and in which they really learned to be until the tribe and the tribe and the community call them a curandera or ayahuaskiara or a shaman or shaman or

medicine man or medicine woman and that's their affirmation that they've learned this and they know how to do it and so it's you know again we're in the internationalization of let's focus on ayahuasca for a moment and what who was it marlene dog gandereos who called the ayahuasca tourism, okay? Sayawaska tourism. And so of course some people in South America are looking at this and it brings in money, it brings in business. It helps centers develop and people have work. And I know that there are some centers that are ethical and are working very closely with kind of North American and or European and or, you know, medical professionals and health professionals to ensure a level of cultural fit, let's say, a better fit culturally.

But the bottom line is, is people don't understand that when they're not just hearing somebody sing a few songs, they don't really understand what's happening. This is about perception. Do they really understand? Yes, they have their journey. but they have their experience and maybe they have people helping them, supporting them during the experience, and maybe they have, you know, circles of kind of integration afterwards.

But integration actually isn't part of the centadami tradition. You rarely talk about your neuroscience. There's really important reasons for this. And so we're kind of parachuting. People are being parachuted into situations where they, I don't think they understand that they are, are tapping into thousands of years of beliefs and tradition. And let's just talk about the carols or the songs,

and sometimes they're hymns and pontoes. Those are calls, pontoes or calls for certain beings. What we're doing is looks like one thing on the outside, looks like we're singing and then we're dancing or we're meditating. Something completely different is happening. Completely and totally different. And it takes, for some people, it takes them a long time to understand what's really going on. Okay?

What's really going on is happening on many different levels. And when it looks like we're just kind of singing, we're actually calling beings who arrive in the room, who actually work on the people in the room. And that's what's happening. Okay. And whether they work through mediumship and they come through different individuals who are working and trained in their mediumship. or whether they just arrive in the room that we're honoring and calling all these different spiritual guides and beings to work in the room. So we're not going and touching people and we're not, you know, we're not intervening in their passage or the process unless they ask for help where they clearly need some help. You know, we don't want somebody going into kind of a state and then falling off their chair.

Okay, we're going to get them help down and get them lying down in the healing area. but people don't really understand what's going on. I think they need to at least educate themselves as to what are the beliefs of the people and who are they working with and what is their worldview and you know, and some of it is not going to fit, North American worldview. Some of it is just not going to fit. And this was kind of in part somewhat of a challenge because bringing the Santo Daini here, there's certain adaptations that we have made to make a better fit into our culture.

Some of it was with our uniforms. Some of it was making, you know, very guided, always praying and meditating and being guided, feeling very guided to slowly and considerately and in harmony and unity and, you know, even taking things to votes in our membership. okay, this is what we feel guided to do, and now everybody pray about it, meditate on it, and now are we in union on doing,

taking this step? So nothing just like that, you know? So small adaptations have been made, which is actually quite normal in the Santa Dami, if you look even in Brazil, there's many different branches of the Santomai. It's not like kind of like the Catholic Church where you can go into Catholic Church.

The mass is the same prayers. Maybe different language, that's the only thing. Whereas in the Santa Dime, each church will have its, and each liner branch may have its own slightly different flavor because of that's what that center, eclectic center for the universal flowing light is holding. And so I think people really need to educate themselves. I'm of the belief that for people who are not really feeling spiritually called, but really just want an experience, that they're really better staying with psychedelics and with a trained professional. and doing something that kind of, you know, Stan Groff developed the holotropic breathwork as a way of working in a non-ordinary state that did not require a substance based on all of his work with LSD. And I really do believe that I think that that is a better fit for most people,

where they're working within their culture and where they can bring their own, the same way Stan Groff did when he was working with LSD, psychotherapy, he would, he would, you know, if the person is a Jewish person, you're not going to be, you know, reading from the Tibetan book of the dead, okay? And, and you're going to choose the music that speaks to them, and you're going to say the prayers or the songs or the words that have comfort and meaning for them, you know, and you don't go in Omnamaia shivying on, on, on, on, on, on somebody who's very quite Christian, you know, you take in the prayers and the images that are going to be their comfort. And so I think that that's something that has to, has some adjustment in what's happening.

I think that there's some people who are working in psychedelic therapy who are doing their best to kind of make it neutral. But I don't think they realize how much of their own stuff they're bringing in and putting in those rooms. Okay, they like Buddhism. so there's a little picture about that. They like the guru, so there's destiny. And so I think that that's, you know, something that, yeah, I mean, you can look and you're going to see all kinds of things behind me. And Imi stars and you're going to see what his paintings and pictures and things like that. So we have to be mindful of our making it the set and setting for the person and for their beliefs if it's individual.

And then do we do a little bit of learning about that? do we make it? You know, Stan Gwaffe would always use flowers. He would use music, choose the music very carefully, and make sure that there was nothing there that would be strike the wrong chord with the person's belief systems. These are things that need to be talked about and they need to be, you know, if people are going to seriously, so do I think ayahuasca should be used in a strictly therapeutic? I don't think so. I don't think any of the sacred plants should. I think the sacred plants, I think the sacred plants, I think the, that the people who want to work with them need to sit down with the heritage traditions and the indigenous traditions that use them and have an open conversation about that. And I really think that the psychedelics are a much better choice. Because these plants have beings that they have virtual lines. People don't understand that. We've had people come and drink in our church.

And then they come to me afterwards and they say, I don't think I can come back. and I'll say, oh, okay. I met a being and the being said to me, why are you coming here? You don't believe this. Why are you coming here? Don't come back until you believe it. Other people will say,

I met a being and the being said to me, why are you back here? You didn't do already what I told you. Don't come back. Until you do what I already showed you to do. When you've done that, maybe you can come back. And so it's not just having an expanded experience where you're seeing your own stuff, it's bigger than that.

There's more happening with the sacred plants. There's more happening with those plants because those plants are connected to spiritual realms and spirit guides that have been known and worked with for a long time. Does just make any sense? I know some people are going to start to hear and say, what is she talking about? I think it makes, I think it makes beautiful sense. I actually had a conversation with Dr. Rick Strassman, and he was talking quite a bit about the different beings in which one can see, especially on like a DMT journey. And he went deep into the Hebrew Bible, and he talked about the different kinds of beings and Tardema and all these incredible insights.

And when I had questioned on him, asked him like, what, what, why is it? that you focus so much on these different beings, because obviously there's pushback when you start talking about beings that some people don't believe in or could have never seen or can't even imagine. And it was so beautiful. He goes, you know, George, I want people to understand that when they're in this state,

who they're talking to, because that's where the work can get done. Only then can you understand what someone is trying to teach you when you can understand who you're talking to. If you don't know who you're talking to, it's almost pointless to have a conversation with them. You can get things out of it, but if you know who you're speaking with, the information you can get is so much better. And when you talk about the different beings, you know, it almost seems like that psychedelics are a way to take the spiritual.

It's like enthogens without the spirituality in some ways. But maybe you could talk a little bit more about beings. And I know that you've had some encounters. I don't know if you feel comfortable talking about it. But maybe you could talk a little bit more about it. I think it's fascinating. Well, they're all in my book, as I said. Yeah.

down to the Castro Street. A little vulnerable, but got to own it with a laugh, and then it's not so uncomfortable. So yes to that thought about that there are some of us who see that entheogens and psychedelics can't just be put in the same basket. You know, entheogens are sacred plants. We worry about sustainability of the plants.

People are going into the jungles and ripping out the vines, the owaska vine. the jacobie and they're ripping the leaves off the trees and selling it over the internet and this is horrifying okay for those of us who have such a deep respect for the plants people have trompled through the fields because people wrote about it oh i went to this field when these mushrooms were going there i went here and there was this cactus that has this in it and that and the next thing you know is you have a ton of psychedelic tourists who were trampling through all through them because they have an apprentice then they don't know like when you apprentice you know like

anything else it's like a farmer a farmer you don't just become a farmer you have to know when to plant you have to know when to harvest you have to know when to water you have to know when to fertilize you have to know how to take care of the land you have to i mean it's it's it's a whole beautiful process i love farmers i think you know chapo farmers we don't eat without you guys and you're not appreciated enough really, especially the ecologically minded ones and the environmentally sound ones and, you know, thank you, thank you, thank you. Keep it out. Don't get too discouraged. So you have these trees and these plants that are connected to realms and beings guard them. And people are in their either innocence, ignorance, greed, longing, need. I mean, it's not just one thing.

there's all kinds of things. You know, deep longings and needs can cause as much problems as anything else, right? Or creating problems of sustainability and respect. And of course, heritage traditions and indigenous people are saying, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. You know, it's like when the Europeans came and would kill thousands of buffalo. Well. It killed all the passenger pigeons. We'd go out and just shoot

thousands of them. I mean, we're watching some equivalency here. We're watching. There's something there that is kind of equivalent. There's the same kind of self-important, self-entitled. I'm entitled. I want it. Therefore,

it's very two-year-old narcissism. You know what I'm saying? I want it, therefore I can go and take it. And I'm really hoping that that will change. And I think it can change if we create common ground and if we listen to each other and if we create opportunities where the scientists and the clinicians and the educators can talk of the indigenous voices and knowledge holders, wisdom holders, and excuse me, and the heritage traditions. If we can all talk together, then understanding can come. So, yeah, I think that North Americans,

sorry, North American culture and European culture will do a lot better, you know, because they don't understand. And we are bereft. North American culture is bereft of true spirituality. and what filled it is new age nonsense. I see you nodding, so you're agreeing. A lot of new age nonsense, which is fantasy-based. All I have to do is stick a picture of fill in the blank,

a gorgeous home, a BMW on my visualized that I'm going to get it. That whole weird new age thing that's all attached to things and having, and it took a solid gold truth. and it converted it into something else, which is the law of prosperity. It turned into materialism. Instead of the prosperity is the goodness of the soul, prosperity of the heart, prosperity of compassion, prosperity of truth, of justice, of harmony, of quality. That's where we need to first have prosperity.

But it got materialized into things. So disparity is all about having things, two cars and number one on the charts. Do you think that that was something that was a something that was done purposeful? It almost seems that there was this, I was born in 75, but it seems to me that prior to the 70s, there was. was this idea that religion was a problem and that if we could just get rid of this idea that it would stop all this violence and it was just this it seems to me it was misguided and they tried to replace spirituality with materialism and you know the road that the the road to hell is paved with good intentions and it seems that new ageism came from this idea of replacing spirituality

with wants and needs that are superficial is that on board or Is that way off the track? What do you think about this? That's really close. Yeah, that's really close. First of all, they threw the baby out with the bathwater. Yes, well put. And we can all agree that what we call religion has done so much damage.

You know, all these great teachers would be horrified if they knew what had been done and was being done in their names. Horrified because it's not what they taught. you know and Karen Armstrong you know a history of God please everyone should be required reading in high school as far as I'm concerned and

and she she has a go with the patriarchal religions okay she she starts at the beginning 6,000 years ago and she threads it through and she sees she uses solid research she's a she's a retired nun

Catholic nun you see And so she lays it all out in the most beautiful and simple way about this is what really happened. And here's all the cultural things and the human things that we're making the decisions about power and taking. And you know, and God told us to go and do this. And God told us to go and do that. Well, I've never said any such thing. It's ridiculous. Okay.

And, you know, God told us that's our land. We go and take it. And God said this and we go and do that. And we can keep all that and do it. Okay, well, this is, no, no, no, God said, no, God didn't say. Those are human. That's the human voice saying, I want power, I want territory. I personally think that if, you know, what did Joseph Campbell say about Jehovah?

The only problem with Jehovah was he thought he was God instead of one of them. Right. And so, you know, we can see, we can, hopefully we can see where we can, we went wrong, where the human need for power and money and control and, you know, all of these things and importance, all of these things were taken over. I mean, at the root of the Inquisition was that if you got Inquisitions, we get to take all your money and your goods. And that's at the root of it, right? Yeah, absolutely. Oh, we have a visitor.

That's my little angel over there. She's out of school and learning and she's so amazing. One of the most beautiful women in the world. I'm so proud of her. Lucky dad, lucky dad. I am. I really am. You really?

And so what happened is to what some religions did. And I think all religions did some of it and some religions did more of it. is they sucked the spirituality out. They made a small group of people own the spirituality. You want to talk to God. You've got to come to me first. Okay? No, that's not what the Buddha taught.

It's not what Jesus taught. It's not what anybody taught. Okay? Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is within you. God and I are one. You and I are one. God and I are one. That's it.

We're all one. Okay. And those are the core teachings. And so if we go back to the real core. poor teachings, we can strip away the things that humans put in. I don't know if I talk about this in the book or I mention it, but I remember what's being shown kind of what I call kind of like the tapestry of life. And it was this huge tapestry within a kind of a vision,

this huge tapestry of the ages of the ages. Okay. You know how you see the people in the British Museum or the New York Museum? You see these magnificent tapestries depicting that famous. scenes from history. And this was like the whole of the human experience was in this tapestry. And running through, it was a golden, one golden thread. And sometimes it would disappear and sometimes it would appear in it.

And it was this spirit said to me, that golden thread, that's it. And everyone keeps forgetting about it. And then you wake up and you remember. And then it goes back down again because everybody covers it up with other stuff. Okay. And I think that our spiritual task is to remember who we are, why we're here, who we really are, what our life is about, and how we can live it to the best of our soul's potential. At the same time that we do our best to create a good, healthy life for ourselves. And that can mean physical prosperity.

You know, you do well in your career because you put your good effort into it. You're not a slave to it, but you also treat it with respect and kindness. And usually you'll do well. You usually will unless there's, you know, something way out of your control happens, you know, an illness that you don't expect or a huge upheaval that, you know, a hurricane, a tsunami, a war, these things that are so out of our control. But yes, how do we, so yes, religion and spirituality, you know, and then people are kind of creating their own spirituality by taking a little bit of, they take two things. from Buddhism and one thing from Hinduism and one thing from Christianity and something else from Judaism and they mix it all together and shake it up into a cocktail and they say, this is my spirituality.

And you know what? God bless. You know what? That's wonderful. There's absolutely no problem with that. Just don't go imposing it on other people because then you're doing the very thing that you hate it and disagreed with. But don't you find that the people who are, this is a new age spirituality are.

a busy train to convince everybody that that's the truth and that's the way. I mean, don't people get it? How is it different? It's no different. You either respect that each person will find their own authenticity. Maybe for somebody being the closest to the divine is walking in nature. Yeah. Listening to music. Doing compassionate service. Working in the homeless shelter, running the juice cart around in the hospital, perhaps being in service is the way or helping the animals of the animal shelter, you know, find homes. This for me is compassion and action. This is, you know, this is true yoga. This is true Christianity. This is true service. This is living. This is living it. And if you want to go to a temple, a mosque, a center, and sing together and pray together,

That's wonderful too. Just don't go imposing it. Don't go thinking that your way is the right way, the only way. Your way is the way you're called to, and that's grand. And now live it, love it. Don't go imposing it on anybody else. Do you see how that's what's happened? Absolutely.

This new agey thing, like this is the right thing. And no, it's, as you said earlier, there's all these different ways. Yeah, there's all these different ways. which is the way that it has heart. What has heart? I kind of feel like that people have been so thirsty for spiritual teachings that they're almost sucked into the new age sort of ideas because they haven't had any sustenance.

They haven't had any of the intuition that comes from being next to the sacred. I'm a big fan of Ailiad and he talks about the terror before the sacred. And I'll get goosebumps when I think about it. And that leads me to this idea of, you know, in the, I think in the Catholic Church, you take the Eucharist. And in maybe in some South American, you can take these sacred sacraments. But they're both seem to be the flesh of God. And they both seem, at least one of them seems to be the real thing where you can be given insights into what it is you're truly feeling.

And I'm curious, what do you think is the relationship between the Eucharist of the Western religions and say like ayahuasca or, or mushrooms or some sort of sacred in the eugen? Well, for us in our center, in the santo dame, I need to know that when we take this is our sacrament. And when we take it in the ritual, we take it in a very formal, everybody lines up and we put the sacrament. and it's set with prayers and then in silence and the concentration. And, you know, we open the work and with prayers and we close the work with prayers and we sing hymns and we meditate. And we say that the work starts three days before work and it continues for three days after. So for three days before and three days after we need to be mindful. It's not just the diet that's important to follow.

With our sacrament, there is a diet that you do need to be mindful of, It's just certain things that are contradicated. And so it's, what are you thinking and what are you doing? And it's not just like, don't eat a hamburger, you know, or bacon the day before a work. But it's like, don't watch a violent movie the day before a work, because you're going to get into the work. And your mind's going to be filled with all those images of smash, crash, bang, boom. And there's going to be this little voice inside of you saying, why are you watching this?

How does it nourish your soul? No, I'm not saying people shouldn't go and see an action film. I'm just saying, think about it and see what's wise for you. And maybe don't do it three days before work. People learn, and often they need to learn the hard way. You asked me a little bit earlier, I want to spend a little time time. Yes, through allness, but you ask me a little of beings. Okay, and then we wandered off in a different direction, which I'm quite famous for it.

And, or well known for, is, you know, catching something and then going down that road. Because it's so much fun. So about beings. And you asked me a question. You said, yes, I talk in the book about some of my encounters. And you were talking about before joy comes terror. Yes. If you read accounts, when I was a teenager and I was trying to figure out,

what's going on man where am I who am I in what's happening I don't get any of it okay so I'm a young teenager I'm starting to read things like the Old Testament because I found the prophets

saw things and they had dreams okay so I'm not really quite crazy because I'm in this very North American situation no spirituality going to the Anglican church which is lovely but there's no spirituality in there okay and he's going to be talking about these things

So I think, oh, okay, maybe I'm just from another planet. And my mother, if I've said this before, my mother used to say, oh, I didn't give birth to her. She arrived by station. Because even in my own family, I'm weird. Okay, so from a young age. And that's all fine, that it was hard when I was trying to figure it out. And I found immense comfort in what I could find.

I'm reading, I'm like, what, 15 years old or something, 19 to 16, I'm reading oldest Huxley. I mean, I'm reading science fiction because at least science fiction is talking about other realms and other world. So it's, it doesn't quite fit, but at least it's somehow comforting that other people imagine that there's other realms and other beings and other things going on. And so I think that we need to, you know, help our young people who go through these rites of passages understand that, Yes, and especially when they're really young, and I think that they still have stronger links to, you know, stronger links to the unseen realms. And without pandering and without indulging, how we can normalize some of that, how we can just normalize that spirituality is real. And for some people, their intuition, their empathy and their spirituality, they have greater access to it, the same way some people have musical talent or artistic.

talent or brilliant in math or something. Some people are just open and this is an important part of their life. They're going to need to learn how to work with it. Nothing, you know, nothing for me is more kind of concerning than, you know, from time to time people still contact me and they call themselves mediums. And I write quite a bit about, and volume one about mediumship and, you know, and how to recognize, be careful who you listen to and what you tell and, you know, who you let dig around in your psychic space and who to run away from immediately if they start doing things like

you have dark beings on you and all kinds of things and only I can take them off you. Bye. And how to learn, you know, so there's some guidelines in volume one on what to look for and how to be careful and things like that. And yet there's also this understanding that many people are longing to have these encounters or having these encounters and are terrified of them. Having encounters with either a sense of other, a sense of presence, a sense of presence, a sense of other realms, other dimensions, of things opening, of premonitions, of

of thinking something's going to happen, and then it happens. Okay, and these are actually all normal parts of being human. And thank God through this last, the second half of the last, increasingly in the second half of the last century, more and more serious researchers have done research on all of this. And now they're saying, looks like this is part of being human. You know, and then how do we work with it? And so what do you do when you encounter being?

Well, it depends on which being you've encountered. Okay, that's the first thing. Okay. And, you know, there's different beings. There are different beings. And sometimes it's going to be a beloved spirit guide. Like I write about my encounters with Shantra Teo. And then, you know, Grandmother's Three Moons and Two Feathers

and these beloved spiritual guides who are like personal guides to me who've helped me so much in this life and taught me so much and and given me the great gift of being able to, you know, assist in this realm because of the grace of them in that realm. And that's the only way I know how to describe it, that it's not me, that it's learning how to get out of the way, just get out of the way, you know. and then there's other layers of beings. I talk about that in volume one, is, you know, you encounter a great being.

You know, you can read throughout sacred writings when usually Old Testament, New Testament, if we're looking at the Christian Bible, that you can read about these old prophets and how they fall as if they're dead at the feet of these great beings. Yeah, that's what it is. It's terrifying. When you meet these great, when you have these encounters,

there is this this complete terror and until until there's a the fear is less and the love is more and we realize that what's scaring us is our is the solution of that Einstein speaks about the solution of separateness and what's scaring us is who we think we are who we're scared that we're not what's scaring us is our own shame or our own guilt or our own because they're brilliant bright lights and they shine on everything and we can't hide anything from them you know they're like that grandma that you can't pull anything on because I was kind of no she just knows you know

I say this about Stan Growl when I first met him he'd come to a conference. It was a big conference here in Montreal, transpersonal conference, and everybody was here, Somi-Lerimposhe and Dalai Lama. I mean, everybody came. Everybody was a transpersonal conference that blew everybody's mind away

and people from all the transpersonal fields and were here from Kenneth Ring and Stan Groff. And it just, you know, I could go on naming all the incredible people who were here. Anyway, so he did a workshop. And so I was thrilled because I'd read some of his books. And so I signed up for this workshop and I didn't away at a training. I didn't, you know, I'd never experienced holotropic breathwork and everything. So I go in, I have my first experience in holotropic breathwork.

I'm blown away. I go back to my birth. I connect with things. I call them body memories. And I relive my birth experience. And I learned so much from it, you know, at the same time that I'm having a good howl on the mat. You know, because you've got to cry out. You have to cry out some of this stuff.

So I tend tofully wait for him and, you know, the thing and I take up one of his books and I stand in front of him. And I ask if you would mind, you know, signing this book and how much I've enjoyed his books. And so he takes the book and he looks at me. And he's silent and he just looks at me. And I feel like this man is looking through me. He's seeing absolutely everything. Who I am, what I am, what my potential is, what I've been, what I've done. He's like looking so deep.

He's already into my past lives. I'm just standing there in front of him. And I'm feeling like I've been, I've been with Buddhist teachers who couldn't look at me like this. I've been with gurus who couldn't look at me with the depth of this, me and is looking at me. And he's seeing, he has eyes to see. And he looks at me and says, you know, I have a train name, hey?

And I said, no. He says, I think you might like it. And that was it. I was apprentice. And he has stories of what's happened to him where he's been awoken by other great teachers. So we're just trying to pass it on. Just trying to pass it on.

And so, you know, what happens when you need a difficult or dark being? Well, here's where the Buddha is really helpful. Okay, Buddhist teachings are incredibly. I think they do the best job of all the traditions of helping you with this. Okay? You pray for them.

Show them a light. There's a wonderful story about the Buddha, attributed to the Buddha, who had some young apprentices, disciples, what have you, students. And he takes them to woods, and he says, you need to go in to those woods, and you'll be spending the night. It's part of your initiation.

Because you'll be spending the night in those dark woods. And one of them pipes up and says, but those woods are talked about. that they're haunted. He says, yes, and you're going to go in and meditate. And you go, okay. So the Buddha comes the next morning, and these terrified young people totter out of the woods, and they say, why did you send us in there?

The woods are haunted, and there's all these discarnate beings in there. And the Buddha goes, you didn't meditate, did you? Did you open your heart of compassion? No, we forgot to do that. We were so scared. We forgot to do that. Oh, well, tonight you go in and that's what you do. So the next night, trembling back into the woods,

the next morning the Buddhists waiting for them in the edge of the woods. They come out and they say, oh, it was completely different. This was wonderful. We meditated and we opened our hearts and they all went into the light. That's it. Yesterday and Neil said, you don't, what are you scared by this? You just show them the path to the light. And just so.

Now, to be able to do that, you need to be firm in yourself. If you're not firm in yourself, if you haven't addressed some of your own unhappiness, unresolvedness and everything else, then you're not going to be able to, you know, it's, you know, reaching into those great stories. It's like Skywalker when he's with Yoda on the planet and he feels cold and he goes into the cave, remember? Yeah. And he's, he has to, you know, he has. this encounter Darth Vader's there and he fights them

and then as he strikes him off the helmet rolls off and he sees his own face and that's what we as long as we have something inside of us as long as we have the demons of jealousy and envy and hatred and resentment and all of those things and they're going to manifest in the mirror

outside of us you know I remember that there's a wonderful movie Keanu Reeves plays the young Buddha going towards his enlightenment I forget. I can't remember the title. Maybe it'll come to me.

Maybe even the Little Buddha or something. But anyway, and they have that wonderful, that wonderful scene where he's sitting under the Bodhi tree and he's meditating and it's going to be his moment of enlightenment. He's got his fingers on the ground and exactly that position. Behind me. Everything's reversed here. And so he's sitting there and along comes all the temperature.

Same thing that Jesus had temptations. You're hungry during the stone into bread. I can give you all the power in the world just like the word and you're powerful and he's busy saying get behind me. So Mara you know Mara comes along and tempts him with all this food and beautiful women and all these different things to try and tempt him and He's not having any of that put us not and then what does Mara do Mara shows up like a terrifying demon and they do pretty decent special worth experts whatever you've done it. And he shows up as, so that's the last hope of the illusion is, can I scare you? Can I scare you off the path? So we all in the hero's journey, we all have to face the witch, the dragon, the troll under the bridge, the scary thing, the darkly hear ourselves. We are, you know, we have to face the cancer, the divorce, the loss of a job. whatever form that takes, okay, that is the challenge on the path.

Where is my sort of light? The St. Michael has a sort of light that discerns the light from the dark. He draws that. To make the discernment between that, which is illusion and that which is truth, that which is true, that which is false. Of course, that's been taken out of context to a whole lot of directions we don't want. Let's leave it just as it was, a spiritual thing. to help you have discernment over that which is illusion and that which has value.

And we'll leave it there. No one needs a real sword in their hand. Go kill people. Not needed. Okay. As the acting out on the outside, what is the reality on the inside? You know, change ourselves. We can hopefully bring a better quality of life to those around us.

And that might bring a better quality of life to our society. and then slowly maybe in time, we can have a positive effect, you know, bring peace, bring compassion, bring healthy boundaries, bring firmness, clarity. So beings, it depends on who you meet. Yeah. It depends on what you meet and how you meet,

but the answer is always the same. Mastery will say, breathe, breathe, point the way to the light. Say, help them go. I'll go to the light. You know, bow to the dark teacher that comes and says, thank you. You're part of my waking up. Yeah.

Who are you and what are you here to teach? You're here to show me my fears? Okay. Now I need to see. I'm scared. What's scaring me? And then are my like the Buddha to say, you too are illusion. You too are illusion.

This too is illusion. It's a deep path. It's a deep journey, the hero's journey. and those who are interested and hoping to use entheogens and psychedelics as part of their journey need to understand it's a good good thing to have the rate set the rate setting that's going to feel right for the individual hopefully licensed hopefully working with really good maps what we call cartography what advice would you give to someone who is looking to familiarize themselves with

beings? Like how would they go about identifying those beings? This is a really difficult question. First of all, first of all, how did you know that was your daughter when she walked in the room? Yeah. Okay, so it's kind of like that. As you encounter St. Michael, you've blown awake at St. Michael, but don't. Both of us who have been walking with St. Michael by singing his hymns and St. Gabriel and St. Raphael and those great archetypes of archangels who are known by different faces and different names around the world, but they're the same being. When we encounter them, they blow us away.

And at the same time, the more close we are to them, we recognize that they and I are one. the same way the drop in the ocean knows that it's one with the ocean but it isn't the whole ocean okay the drop in the ocean knows that what did Rumi say you are not

the drop in an ocean you are the ocean and drop so when we get that thank you Rumi when we get that those great teachings that he shares through his poetry when we really get

that, that I'm an ocean and a drop. I'm a human being. Yes, with my limitations and my personality, my shortcoming and my history and all that jazz that make me me. And at the same time, I'm connected to I am one with, I'm connected to all of these other things. Then it's beloved. I'm so happy to see you. And oh, thank you, dark being, because I know that you've volunteered. So you take that role. You know that wonderful story. of I might have told it before on last show, but it's so great of Mara and the Buddha who, you know, after enlightenment, they become friends and they have tea together. And Mara's always complaining and saying, you know, it's harder being me because everybody's scared of me and hates me. And I always have to be difficult and dark, you know.

But it says, no, no, no, no, no, you don't have it easy. I always have to be enlightened. Okay. I'm compassionate. So it brings it down to a completely different level. If we see that these dark beings are, they volunteered for that. In the Santo Dime, there's under the Queen of the Forest, under the Divine Femin, there's a phalanche, there's a legion of beings that have trickster energy. And she gives them permission to work because the same job is to wake us up, like giving us a little trip.

Like we talked about last time the Rumble strip on the side of the highway. And when we see it through a completely different perspective, then we have a much deeper understanding of what the reality of all of that is. Now some people, so you've asked me, how do you recognize beings? You recognize them because you remember them. There's a remembrance inside of you. There's a knowingness inside of you. And also it depends on who your teacher is.

you know, because, you know, somebody in our church might come to me and they'll say, I met this being and they start to describe, you know, in this last well, somebody started working with suchy Fletches. Well, how did I know it was suchy Fletches? Well, because I know Setchy Fletches. He described Setching Fletches. This is like, you know, name your best friend. And if I say, yeah, I met this person on the plane and their name was, what's your best friend's name?

Frank. Okay. There's Frank and he's an accountant and he lives in Hawaii and you go, wait a minute, that's my Frank. Okay. So it's like that. You work with people who know the beings. You train with the people who know the beings, so they introduce you to the beings,

so you get to know the beings. And then when you are in the position where you start to, you're not an apprentice anymore, now you're becoming the teacher, okay? You recognize those beings, and you remember those beings, and because they carry a certain purpose and a certain energy and a certain vibration,

certain colors, and certain things. how they show up. And that's just how it is. It's like Strassman says, there's beings. People encounter these beings, and these beings just don't come out of thin air. These beings are known often for thousands of years

people who have been encountering them, you know? Well, we have just a couple of minutes before we say goodbye for today. And I want to talk about the Circle of Paulus. Yes, please. Section 2 or Part 2. in volume two. And the circle of wholeness, what is it? I showed you up front for those of you who got on board this train that we've been

riding for the last couple of hours. You know, it includes all the aspects of, I was kind of given some of these maps sitting, drinking our sacrament, sometimes in the forest down in Brazil and other works. And I was just given, I was just shown in like 3D, this diagram. I'd go home and I come out of the work and I kind of draw it and I'd make notes on it. And okay, far out of away. And so I was given this circle of wholeness long before I came to the Dainee. And I was using it as a teaching tool and the classes that I was teaching, you know, decades back.

And I'm trying to explain to people that to feel whole, we need to honor every part of our life. And that means finding balance, caring for our soul through meditation, pray. quiet times, you know, connecting with nature. Our relationships, first of all, with ourselves and then with others and with community. Our relationship with our work, our studies, our activities, our education, you know, and then our community, our relationships with family and community. And everything here has its, it's, you know, our body, how it's, in every chapter, We talk about time, we talk about the body, what the body's made up.

And we talk about nutrition, which is, you know, one of my first loves with spirituality was nutrition. And so I studied and researched for ages in that. And that was all my early academic work. And what I taught and shared for years is this love of the fascination of the human body and its relationship with its food source and with air and water and the land and the earth and with what we eat and we forget that we're breathing and you know we're these creatures that are in connection with everything all the time the air we're breathing four days ago was in china the winds brought it over okay and so you know they find sand from

the Sahara desert deep at the bottom of the lagoons in the middle of Mexico that it blew over You know, so everything is kind of connected. So we talk about the body and body wisdom and nutrition. We talk about sound and music and how to use why sound is so important and singing and chanting and what kind of music we listen to and what it does to our bodies and our minds and our souls and light, how we use light, what's beneficial and how much we need natural sunlight. So, you know, and all the healthy ways that we can look at our relationships with people. And I do dive in because I did so much work with people for so many years in private practice about relationships and

And the regular little pitfalls that we can fall into and and how to look at relationship and dynamics and how we're repeating the same story all the time and And playing out the same script. You know, it's like most couples, for example, and families They have maybe two or three scripts that they play out over and over again. you didn't clean up and then blah blah blah the answer and then blah blah blah blah and then blah blah blah and blah blah and then out and slam the door okay so same thing every time where are we doing this okay I'm going to change that story you're going to do this one differently okay because it's going to work better it's really going to work better you know so the circle of wholeness and and and and talking about all the different things that that you know we're in relationship

every single we're in relationship with our body for our entire lifetime how are we treating it i think we should consider our bodies our best friend it does for us what no one else will do and we need to take care of it if we take care of it like a best friend then it will serve us well it's the first gift we received before we were born body was being created and made in this this mysterious and wonderful way. First gift we get, human life and a human body. So well, it's been fun, George. I'm blown away.

Yeah, do you have any last questions? I have like a million of them. But I guess I would, in summation, I would ask one other question. And that is through your, you have gone through so many different methods of studying from different interfaith studies to studying, you know, in South America, from teachers like Stanislav Graf. What is there something that you have found universal about the different teachers you've been with and the different lessons you've learned? Is there like this golden Ariotony thread that kind of weeds through all the different traditions and stuff that may not encompass everything, but maybe something that threads everything together? Is there something that you can share with us that kind of runs through all the different things that you've learned? Authenticity.

Authenticity. Yeah, there's a chapter on that, attaining authenticity. being fully authentic and being present in the moment, recognizing our limitations, being able to say, and this is all about authenticity, being able to say, wow, that's really interesting, I don't know that. See, one of the pitfalls for teachers is people start thinking that we know everything. Oh, that's horrible.

Don't put us up in that corner. Please don't, you know. even the greatest and most significant of teachers, they don't want to be put on a pedestal. Yeah. You know. There's so much to learn. Yeah. And so authentic simplicity, recognizing our limitations, recognizing our strengths.

I think those are the qualities that I've seen and all the really good teachers that I've had. Those are those that, you know, and even, you know, the difficult teacher. that I've had that they've been an important part of my learning. They're what I call the fashion don't. Remember those magazines they used to have fashion do and fashion don't? I don't know if they still do that anymore. That's probably

very un-PCed. But anyway, you know, they're the fashion don't for me. They're that, that's what that looks like. Okay. No, I don't think I want to be doing that. You know, and you know, and so

it goes. You know, this And in all of that, we're back to the fourth foundation, which is self-awareness, self-love, self-respect, self-responsibility. If we're doing our best to practice those things, then they will keep us on our path. And it's not so much the path as it is our path. I like it. Travel alone. We may travel alone. We may travel with company.

we may travel with community and we all find we all find our way to be well in that I realize I want to see one more thing that we jumped around with a bit but we're talking about mediumship and stuff and the thing that concerns me possibly the most from time to time on a fairly regular basis I am contacted with this being maybe in my private practice recently it's more through other kind of my website or the church website or link or whatever, all these different mediums. And people will contact me and they'll say, you know, I'm a medium. I'm a healer.

I'm a, first of all, no one should be calling themselves that. No one should be calling themselves that. Jesus, if you asked him what a deity, he says I'm a carpenter. Right? Yeah. People who work, who really work in authenticity and simplicity, know that it's it's not us that's doing it all we're doing is getting out of the way to the best of our ability to allow that to work through us and we have to be really careful because what happens a lot jack cornfields after the ecstasy the laundry okay excellent book

kailia taylor you know the ethics of caring excellent books on what happens when we allow all that to go to our ego in our head and cuff up is the next thing we know we are on the snakes and ladders of ethical issues and we've taken a big snake down on the bottom so um the that's a concern is people who call themselves um you know mediums or healers because then they are not recognizing that what i've learned is that there's an inner healer inside of everyone everyone everyone one has an inner healer. It's inside of you. When you cut yourself, yes, you may need medical help. But the healing comes from within you. The medical help is just creating the best opportunity for the healing to happen. And it's the same on a spiritual and emotional and psychological

level. Don't go giving your power to other people. Don't go trying to claim power that isn't yours. Stay a fisherman, a carpenter, a therapist. No, I'm just a therapist. I'm just a teacher. I'm an accountant. No, that's what I do. I'm just a person.

The healing is inside of you. So that makes me nervous is people taking that title onto themselves. The other thing that makes me nervous is people who think that the gift that they've been given through spirit means that they don't actually have to do any apprenticeship. that they don't need a teacher, they don't need training, they don't need credentialing, they don't need to be an apprentice. No, I had this vision, you know, I took, fill in the blank, three times, five times once, whatever it is, a hundred times, and now I'm this, and now I'm going to heal everybody else.

That concerns me. That really concerns me. You know why, George, because they haven't, they don't understand about boundaries, they haven't learned about ethics they they haven't understood they haven't learned about the cartography of the human and they have understood and learned about the cartography they haven't had the the simplicity and the humility to say okay i think i need to when i started having some profound experiences that just ripped open i said to myself i'm i'm now working i'm now seeing stuff and working stuff that I don't know and I don't know how I'm knowing this.

So I need to get myself into a training where I need to find people I can train with where I know I can learn how to work with these things. And that's what projectile me into psychosynthesis and then to stand groff. And only then was I ready to go to the Santo Dime. They marinated me. That's a good word for that. I know the oven. Okay. Anyway, it's been fun. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It's been great.

And goodbye to everybody. Absolutely. Good morning and good afternoon, wherever you are on the planet. And thank you so much, George. The pleasure is all mine, Dr. Jessica. I hope everybody enjoyed this as much as I did. And I really hope everyone, do you have the book there? Can you show it one more time for people that are watching? For everybody watching and listening to this, here's what the book looks like if you're watching, if you're just listening, the book is called Iowaska Awakens. It's by Reverend Dr. Jessica Rochester. It's well worth your while. It's, it's a guidebook. It's not a novel, but it is something that you can find yourself turning back to when learning

and enjoying and participating in. So thank you so much for your time, Dr. Jessica. And I will get the information to you. And where can people find you? And what do you got coming up? And what excited about. Okay, people can find me on my website, www.w. Rev, just like it is on my name right here. So it's Rev. Just like that, Jessica Rochester.com. And you can find me there. I have a lot of videos and things, publications up. They are free. They are for educational purposes. I'm happy to share them. And so anybody interested in more information go there. The only thing I don't what people doing is trying to use me as kind of a shortcut into our church. Please don't. www.santo daimie.com. That's our church. And if you're interested in more information,

please read everything on the website first. There's a lot of information there. And we are a spiritual center. We are not a clinic. We do not offer therapeutic sessions at all. We sing, we pray, we meditate. Good luck to everybody out there. That's it. That's how we got for today, ladies gentlemen. Doctor, I love it. Thank you so much for your time.