TrueLife - Rev. Dr. Jessica Rochester - Trust, Respect, & Equality

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

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/Rev. Dr. Jessica Rochester: In an age where plant medicines are paraded like commoditiesand sacred sacraments are filtered through the sterile lens of profit and protocol,there stands a bridge—woven not from theory,but from decades of devotion,grit, and grace.Rev. Dr. Jessica Rochester is that bridge.Madrinha. President. Torchbearer.Founder of Céu do Montréal, the Santo Daime Church she brought into being in 1997—not as a rebellion,but as a restoration of sacred memoryto the North.A transpersonal counselor forged in the crucibles of Assagioli and Grof,she speaks the languages of the soul and the somatic,guiding seekers not around, but through the sacred fire of self-confrontation.She walked the bureaucratic labyrinth from 2000 to 2017,securing a Section 56 Exemption—not for fame,but to protect the sacrament of Santo Daime from the cold fists of the state.She is an ordained Interfaith Minister,a Doctor of Divinity,and an author whose two-volume opus—Ayahuasca Awakening—is less a book and more a mapfor those ready to take off their masksand meet the jaguar within.For over four decades she has led workshops,held private practice,stood at the crossroads of consciousness and culture,teaching not how to escape,but how to embodythe radical act of spiritual adulthood.And today,while the psychedelic renaissance sells peak experiences,Rev. Dr. Jessica Rochester whispers of something older,quieter,stronger—The long walk home.The humble medicine of self-care,self-mastery,and sacred discipline.So if you came for a keynote speaker,step aside.If you came for a true guidebetween the seen and unseen,prepare your heart.Because the Madrinha is not here to entertain you.She is here to remind you who you werebefore the world told you who to be.⸻https://www.revdrjessicarochester.com/https://psychedelicscene.com/2024/06/20/entheogens-psychedelics-nosc-and-the-search-for-wholeness/ 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. 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. I hope everybody's having a beautiful day. Hope the sun is shining and the birds are singing. I want to tell you really quick before I introduce. this incredible guest that I have.

There are about two events coming up. One is the psychedelic playhouse happening in Denver, June 17th. The other is Iboga Saves, and that's going to be at the Canyon Theater, of which I will be emceeing and hosting the event. Some great speakers there. So go down to the show notes and check those out. Without any further ado, ladies and gentlemen, in an age where plant medicines are paraded like commodities, and sacred sacraments are filtered through the sterile lens of profit and protocol, There stands a bridge, woven not from theory, but from decades of devotion, grit, and grace.

Reverend Dr. Jessica Rochester is that bridge. The Madrina President Torchbearer, founder of Sue to Montreal, the Santo Dime Church, she brought into being in 1997, not as a rebellion, but as a restoration of sacred memory to the north. A trans-personal counselor forged in the crucibles of Asagioli and Groff. She speaks the languages of the soul and the somatic, guiding seekers not around but through the sacred fire of self-confrontation. She walked the bureaucratic labyrinth from 2000 to 2017 securing a Section 56 exemption, not for fame, but to protect the sacrament of Santo Diami from the cold fists of the state.

She is an ordained interfaith minister, a doctor of divinity, and an author whose two-volume opus, Ayahuasca Awakening, is less a book and more a map for those ready to take off their masks and meet the jaguar within. For over four decades, she has led workshops, held private practice, stood at the crossroads of consciousness and culture, teaching not how to escape, but how to embody the radical act of spiritual adulthood. And today, while the psychedelic renaissance sells peak experience, Reverend Dr. Jessica Rochester whispers of something older, quieter and stronger, the long walk home. Dr. Jessica, thank you so much for being here today. How are you? Wow, what an introduction. So, and when we do,

do you see talking about? I like to try. I like to, you know, sometimes people ask me, like, what's your mission? Okay, so you found out the church and you published these books and you did the first day of West conference in Canada and you've done some research in Canada and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but like, what's your mission? You know, it's like, hmm, that? Educate, educate, educate, educate, educate.

You spoke about the bridge, and that's something that from time to time we talk about, how this bridge of understanding when it comes to sacred plants. You know, I can't speak too much to psychedelics. I don't work at them. And I'm always one of a few voices trying to make the distinction between secret plants, which have been used for millennia, cross-culturally, around the world. yes some plants only grow in certain situations so have only been used there others are more prolific right versus psychedelics which i have a great respect for but they are a pharmaceutical product and um you know

that does not make them any less effective in research and in therapeutic situations and it just needs to be a lot more education and research as to effectiveness and who it suits and who it doesn't suit you know Whereas liquid plants, you know, that's a huge whole conversation that some of us are trying to have and how to respect the heritage traditions. You know, we're talking about today our top of this trust. Okay. It's a very interesting thing. Trust is sort of like truth. Yeah.

Yeah. So we're talking about trust and we're talking about respect. and they're talking about equality. And how do all of those things intertwine because they do? As soon as you have some life experience that touches one of those things, it's usually going to involve the others. I found, you know, let's start with trust and respect. I found that they're almost inseparable, you know.

And where do we start? Why do we start with inside? Okay. Do you trust yourself? Sorry, I put you on the spot. No, it's good. It's a great question. I question myself a lot, and I think that that is where I build the trust.

So I feel like I have more questions, but I feel like that's what leads me to trust myself. It's constantly asking questions. Good answer. Okay. If that was a test, you would have erased it there, both George. Yeah. So trust, actually, what is trust? You know, if we try and think about it, it's sort of like, like what's gravity?

Okay? Yeah. It's trust is that kind of experience that's an interior one that I believe is deeply connected to instincts. Now, those of you who are a little bit familiar with my work will understand, you know, the kind of cartography that I'm going to be using to speak. speak about these things. And so trust is something that's internal. It's, I believe, connected to our instincts. And why? Because it's a survival issue. You know, I don't know if you're a nice skater, if you ever skated, you know, on the creek out the back of your house or something like that. But what do you do when the first ice comes? You test it carefully. You don't want to

plunge through into the fold stream. So you test it to see if it's ready to skate on doesn't hold my weight. Okay. And so trust is something that is very much connected to survival, how we go forward in life. And this is based on the kind of the evolution of the human experience. You know, let's use an animal because I think that nature is our greatest future. it really is. All we have to do is really pay attention.

We're going to see we learn almost everything you need to know, just simply by observing nature. And you're going to see that animals, most of them don't trust humans very much. You notice that? Yes. And there's a very good reason, right? You know, does the chicken trust the fox?

Okay. Does the rabbit? Trust the wolf. Nope. Nope. Okay. And so that takes us right down into, as I said, instincts and survival and this kind of inner knowingness about situations. What's trustworthy and what's not trustworthy.

And so that's where we have to start with how deeply wired it is inside of us. We go to a completely new place. do we look at the way a cat word or a bird work? Do we kind of check it out and explore it through our senses, our hearing, our vision, our sense of smell, our other sensory perceptions that we have, our ability to kind of feel what's happening around us? Now, if we're doing that, the way creatures do,

then our instincts are working quite well. Now we've developed over time that those things are still very much deeply in our unconscious. I don't think we think about things as much because, you know, there's so many billion of us on the planet and we've organized things. But the difference between walking into a shopping mall where you know all the stores and you go and meet your friend for coffee or lunch or something like that versus walking through the dark forest that you've never been in before. The whole system is going to be on alert. And so that's where we need to start. That's how basic it is. And then we bring it up into the human exchange.

So does it make sense what I'm saying? Yeah, I think it makes perfect sense. One part I would like to pull on a little bit further is when I think about trust, I think it's opening yourself to what you can't control. And maybe that's the part of walking to the dark forest right there. But it's really tricky. We're going to get there. Okay.

Just had to start with instincts. Okay. Okay. If we don't start there, it won't make sense. Agreed. But so we have to kind of do this. I'm an ABC step-by-step kind of person, build a foundation. And then once we have that, then the rest will make sense.

At least it does to me, and I hope it does to anyone less thing. And so if we understand that, then here we are, we're born. Okay. I would say probably most of the time that most babies will feel trusting Ayes safe in mother's body. Only if there's something very alarming going on in the mother's life will the baby experience the adrenaline releases, the fear. You know, there's bombs dropping or there's some kind of catastrophe or there's an unsafe environment for the mother. that will somehow be communicated to the child unless the mother is able to really, really manage herself.

And so even in that interior, in mom's body, the womb experience, most of the time it's going to be a trusting space until the birth process comes along. And then all of a sudden we're being squeezed out like two-faced out of the two. and there's this extraordinary experience of dying from the water world of mother's body to be born into the air world of planet Earth. And from then forward, a completely different experience of trust comes in. We have our instincts. If we're made to feel safe in our environment growing up, then we will trust it. If there are things that are invasive and or abandoning, then our ability to trust the environment around us is effective.

Doesn't it sense? Yeah, absolutely. So it starts really young. It's very connected to our survival instincts. It's why the bonding happens with child and mother, whether we're, mother leopard and our cups or a human baby

and her mother. There's this bonding and it's always for survival. Now for us it looks like falling in love and love and safety and all those other things that it becomes and ease and what have you. But it's all about survival. Now if your

environment is safe and supportive then you will develop usually a healthy sense of trust. And if your educational process is, let's say, average, we're not even aiming for exceptional, okay? Just kind of the average environment, then there's going to be some things that happen where you learn not to trust that kid, because as soon as no one's looking, they hit you, or they steal your lunch, or they trip you, or they make fun of you. Okay. So there's this whole learning process that happens around trust.

What's who you can trust and how much you can trust, right? Yeah. All of us can reach back down into our younger life and we can think, oh yeah, this happened that affected my ability to trust. And that happened to taught me to sharpen my sense of trusting what's trustworthy, what's not trustworthy. Now, what can happen is there can be that kind of dichotomy where things polarized and people who can become too trusting, they trust everyone, foolishly, not listening to their own instincts, okay, or they trust no one, not even usually themselves. Did you have something you want to say about that?

I'm reading your face. I think both of those lead to the same spot. Yes. With you. Too little and too much is always too tight and too loose, very bad. Yeah. So trusting too much becomes an impediment to healthy growth because we will be disappointed, we will be let down, we will be taking advantage of because, come on, we're talking about humanity either, right?

Okay. And trusting too little means that what? It means that you'll never. be able to become the best version of yourself? Yeah, you won't be able to accept the good things that are around you to open up to receive them. You may not make the same level of connections with people. You may not trust certain opportunities. You may be fearful to go through doors that open.

And so either of those extremes can lead to issues in your life and problems in your life. So what does healthy trust look like? I think healthy trust looks a lot like a, like a, like a well-structured community or family. I think it's trying to live in the present moment and not get caught up in the past or too much in the future. We're too tight or too loose. Mm-hmm. Okay. So trusting looks like an environment for you.

Yes. Yes. Trusting looks like a safe environment. Well, that would certainly be optimal. I think that most of us have given the choice we prefer a safe environment. Yes. Right? The Goldilocks Trust says Dr. Z.

Oh, that's wonderful. I love that. Okay. I'm just going to fall asleep in this bed. I know who lives here. So, but the vibe is good. Yeah. The thing about Goldie Lotz is she was tired, she was hungry, but the vibe was good.

And she wasn't wrong at the end. So she followed the vibration of what felt right for her. And so I'm going to take it back into, you know, I've worked with so many people who created situations, either stayed in a job too long or a relationship too long, that was not a safe environment because they couldn't make the distinction. So I have to pick apart what you said, sorry. Yeah, please. Because if you're wounded in a certain way or if you've been educated in a certain way,

you may confuse safe with familiar. Okay. These are two very different things. If you come up, if you're, you know, born into a household that is, you know, where everybody yells and screams and flings things and then that will be very, familiar to you. So if you mind yourself in another situation where people are doing that, okay, it'll be familiar and you may not.

Now, if you've done a little personal work, you may figure it out that, I didn't quite like that. So I'm not going to go and be in that. You know, it's like going into the restaurant, ordering the same dish that you have last week that you didn't like very much, hoping it'll be different this week. No, it's the same chicken and it's the same broccoli and the same mashed potatoes and the same gravy. So the external environment, no, I think we have to go back inside. We have to learn to trust that inside of us, we have instincts.

We have inner wisdom. We have a connection to a higher self. Now, you notice how I start with the instincts and then the inner wisdom and then the higher self, because that, for a lot of people, the higher self with the bigger stretch. And some people aren't willing to either accept that model or the reality of it. So instincts, we talk about that. We'd rather read it more if you want. Inner wisdom.

How would if we trust that we have inner wisdom? There's some capacity within us that works with our instincts. And maybe some of it is based on lived experience. Maybe some of it is based on what we've experienced. learned going through life. But that there's something inside of this. I'm just calling it inner wisdom, a voice of inner wisdom.

And that that voice of inner wisdom will talk to us and it will show us. And if we learn to trust that. Now, that is not the voice of inner fear or inner paranoia or, okay, or inner woundedness, the voice of our wounded inner child. We all have this multiplicity of personality. We all have parts of ourselves. We have inner voices, the rational voice and the fun voice, and we have all of these things inside of us.

And so if we were to trust, as well, we have to believe and believe and faith or all party trust. Okay. So if we trust and believe that we have inner wisdom, Well, if we dedicate ourselves saying, okay, I'm going to listen to your wisdom. I'm going to pay attention to my instincts. My instincts tell me there's something off here, right? Something off.

You're going to pay attention to that. And then I'm going to breathe into my inner wisdom and see, what's the best thing for me to do in this situation? How's the best way for me to manage this for the higher good? So now we're for the higher self and the higher good. So instincts, inner wisdom, and higher good and higher self. You want to share some thoughts on that? Yeah, I do. I feel it's tricky to try to figure out, and maybe this is where trust comes in,

is that is it possible for your instincts to betray you? You know, if we do look at our life as a lens through which our experience has taught us, Our instincts may be, you know, you spoke about being familiar. And if you've trained your instincts for, say you were born in a house and things didn't go well for the first 15 or 20 years, like aren't your instincts no longer aligned with your higher good or maybe that they've been muted on some level? Like how do you get that balance back? What's happened is the wounded inner child has gotten away. and he or she, the inner child, has learned to be quiet, to be invisible, or to fight, or to escape, or all the things, these survival roles, okay, that, you know, fall into certain classifications. There's, what, three survival responses, you freeze, you flee, you fight.

Yeah. Okay. You only have three choices, choose. Right? And sometimes it's a combination. I'll pretend that Dad can't see me because he's been drinking and he's angry. And, uh-oh, I better run. Okay.

And so it's like the rabbit. It's like I'll pretend I'm part of this bush, but I think that the wolf just spotted me. So now I'm going to move into plead. Yeah. Okay. And what happens you will see in this pathway of survival, because those are all again survival instincts. Trees, plea, bite, all hardwired into our instincts, right?

Okay. And you might see what happens very often is the child who froze because they were small and young, so feeling very like funny, mouse like. It hits teenage years and the hormones hit and the body gets bigger and all of a sudden you realize I'm the same sizes mom or dad. I'm not going to get hit anymore. I'm not going to get screened at it anymore and that's when fight will come up. Okay, and so that's where you might see a lot of rebellion against what has felt like unsafe or unfair behavior or situations in the household and so the fight will come up and some people never get there they're still freezing and pleading even as adults in adult relationships that that might be their instinctual reaction

but at this point it's learned behavior based on instincts okay so it's still the inner trial as you know that's where the piece of work gets done do the work it would be wounded inner child and it will it frees you up to listen to your true instincts and your inner wisdom did i more yeah yeah absolutely so yeah and it can be confusing this to you know is it my wounded me um there's an author i think of her name is it um who once said you know uh that she realized that she really had to take some time out from dating because um based on her former choices that she could walk into a party where there could be, you know, 40 very eligible man. And she would be attracted to the one escaped felon.

You know, there's patterns that you have to change and you have to work on them, you know. And we have to understand ourselves. And that's the journey of self-discovery. That's what Joseph Campbell called a big hero's journey. the journey back to our self, to our authentic self, you know. And that journey is unique and individual for every one of us. And at the same time, it contains the same elements the journey does. We all have to base certain initiation, certain challenges, you know, and this is why the

cartography is so important, I believe, for those of us who really want to, you know, find our way home. Back to our self and be our most authentic self and live authentically while we're here. Otherwise, like, what's the point? Really? Wait, where are we here again? Yeah. Clipping points for the next time. Yeah.

I think there's an interesting point on the relationship between trust and initiation. I think initiation is something that is, is left out of the equation so many times, not really spoke about too much. Well, it's an essential part of the path. You know, I mean, we're going to face them anyway. No matter how they show up, it can show up in many, many different forms. And we may not recognize, you know, some people specifically and deliberately or intentionally choose certain initiations. They choose certain paths of study.

They choose certain practices, spiritual practices, or initiatory practices, you know, where you need to attain certain levels in something. And so, and be the initiate in the study of whatever it is. Whereas, you know, all the rest of people who are just living their life, most of the time have no idea that what they're in is an initiation or in our terminology, in the Dami Termin what we call the upgrade, you know. Yeah. And those can be quite scary and people may not understand them because our culture does not hold the model. Indigenous people understand this.

I mean, I'm being very general here, okay, by saying indigenous peoples. But it is my understanding that most, you know, that the older cultures and the earlier cultures understood initiations infinitely better. you know, then we understand today. We have a completely different set of standards in our society and in Western civilization around initiations.

And as far as the personal development goes, they're almost non-existent. You go to school, you pass your exams. Yay, okay? You're going to sports. You make the team. Okay, these are the things that are embedded in our culture. It's achievement.

but achievement based on certain sets of standards, you know. Whereas in initiation, these are much more personalized and they're the vision requests and they're the walkabouts and there are the fire ceremonies and there are the dance ceremonies. And, you know, there's all of these being taught and shown how to do certain things. Your first day where you go on the hunt with the older man or the first day that you go, planting and gathering with the women and there's these you know these progressions in your life that are marked by ritual and ceremony and and teachings from the elders we don't have that we have a completely different system and I am not saying this in a negative way I'm not I'm just saying

the different there's advantages to the system that we have here There are, you know, at the same time, wouldn't it be great to kind of bring some of that understanding to be able to honor and bring in the wisdom, heritage teachings of indigenous peoples into modern society and to kind of build that bridge there and this. You know, Stan Groff always used to say that he felt that it was going to be transpersonal psychology that would really help to build that bridge, not alone, obviously, but that that would be a very important part

because we have the language and the cartography to try and help that happen. But obviously anthropologists and many other, you know, people who are studying aspects of humanity and development can contribute to much logic understanding. I mean, what are the initiations? that we have, conscious initiations that we have in today's world. Like maybe getting a driver's license, turning 21, you know, they're, they're going to university,

okay, these are all the, you know, these are these are the initiations. And they are initiations and they do have a ritual. It's usually kind of a party, okay. that you've learned things and now you've accomplished something and then there's a celebration of it and yet so they're essential and again I am not in any way comparing them and saying one's better and one's worse I'm just saying that we've lost something we've gained a lot but there's some things we've lost and so for those who take who really take their hero's journey seriously and who are on their path and open to learn.

Those initiations come along and they can look like a marriage or a divorce or an illness or a quick change in your life. And how to manage that, how to navigate it, how to understand that this is some form of an opportunity, even if it's scary. And, you know, where does that take you to? I mean, imagine people saw divorces and initiation.

Yeah. How would it be different? Some form of an upgrade. Or the same thing with PTSD. What if instead of it was post-traumatic stress disorder, it was post-traumatic growth opportunity? Yeah. You know, and there's pathologizing. Yes.

Of course, anyone coming back from having experienced. you know, heartbreaking things, seeing their comments die, seeing bombs drop or famines and all these dreadful things that do happen on planet Earth. They're happening right now.

Okay. And how can you not be effective? Now, everybody is slightly different, but it seems to me that of the people who are better able to cope with it, that we need to understand more about

the people who better cope with it rather than just pathologizing people who seem to struggle with it. Like, what is it about the people who are able to cope with it? And I can't believe that it's that they don't feel. I don't believe

that. Not that. You know? So that would be very interesting for me to see more of that. To see, let's study people who go through these experiences and have millions. And are able to embrace the experience in a way that is providing growth, developing compassion,

you know, like the Buddha's walk, where he saw the four passing sites, right? He saw illness, he saw poverty, he saw aging, he saw death, right, the four passing sites. And he walked through the night and saw these things ended at the side of the Ganges, reside for burning, you know, the crips and the fires for the death. And what happened to him? Did he have both traumatic stress disorder? Would he grieve? He went into the forest for what is it, they say, a few years.

Was that his form of grieving and simplicity? And then there was the moment when he saw balance, The wonderful story of him, writes. He's down to a robe and a bowl. He's discounted and thrown away all of his princely, worldly riches, and he's sitting by the side of the river, and there's a boat, and there's a musician in a lesson. And the music teacher is teaching them how to tighten

how to adjust the strings on their stringed instrument. And the music teacher says, if it's too tight, the note is wrong. If it's too loose, the note is wrong. You have to keep touching the string until it is the exact pure note. And the border went, aha, I was too loose, I went too tight, and now I need to find the middle way. Now, do we assume that what he saw had such a profound effect on him, that he had to step away from everything that he knew.

What an initiation. And spend those years quietly in the forest living very simply until he had his awakening. And then he began his teachings and walking around and teaching. And so what it would be like if we were able to make those little tweaks to how we deal with life situations. how the kind of support we offer, the kind of map that we put on. What would that look like?

I think it would look a lot like tragedy to people. It would look a lot like your world is burned down. And then that's when the clarity comes. I think clarity comes from tragedy. It's the only way to really get it, at least in my experience. Yes, loss is a huge teacher. Yes. Loss is a huge teacher.

It is not a comfortable teacher. It is not a teacher that we want to engage with. And yet, we're back to Buddha. Okay. No one escapes illness or suffering. Right. And so, you know, hear these great teachings from great spiritual teachers become the kind of the sustenance that we need to be able to.

So we're talking about trust. We wandered into initiation. And so do we develop trust through initiations? Yes. Yeah. Yes. We learn to trust ourselves. We learn to trust our limits.

We learn to recognize what we are capable of and what we're not. We get to the place where we can say, I'm really sorry I cannot do that. Either I don't have the ability or the skill or the capacity or what have it. Or yes, I can help in that. That's trusting ourselves. Trusting ourselves is setting healthy boundaries. Trusting ourselves is the ability to say no one we need to say no.

Say yes when it's clear that yes is what is for our higher good and for the well-being. And so trusting is an interior experience connected to our instincts, to our inner wisdom, and I believe, of course, to our higher self. If we trust that, trust our instincts, trust our inner wisdom, trust our higher self, then the path becomes more, I'm not going to say easier,

because sometimes the path is not easy at all. But one can take a form of peace or serenity or contentment out of knowing that each step that we're taking is actually leading in the best direction. And that in that moment that we are nourishing some strengths within ourselves and developing some strengths within ourselves, that level of trust. Yes? Yes.

Well said. Trusting others. Now, I'm going to lean into Dr. Freibord of Harvard University. I'm quite sure it's Harford, who wrote this wonderful book on called on Truth. And I probably shared this story in the past. And he wrote this wonderful little golden book on truth and published it. And this wife said to him, oh, God, well, it's a good book. I don't think you should have.

If you're going to talk about truth, you should talk about lies. And so, I thought, hmm, I guess I better do that. So he wrote this wonderful, even better book, the old book on bullshit. Okay, he writes about it. That's exactly the title, that's what it is. Okay, and because what he does is more he looked at lies, the more he realized there's lies and there's bullshit. Now here's the thing, if we trust our instincts, okay,

we will find that we're able to discern when somebody is lying most of the time. We're gonna be able to discern if somebody is fishing us. Now you know the difference, lying and bullshit, right? Yeah, please give me the breakdown. Okay, well, I'm really kind of paraphrasing him. Okay, how to work on it, okay?

So I have to chapeau to him. Well, there's the truth. Okay, then there's the lie and then there's a bullshit. So what does that look like? Okay, so the truth would be, yes, I'm sorry, I did borrow your car and the scrape down the side is my fault. Okay, that's what the truth looks like. A lie would look like, I don't know, must have been my brother who took your car.

Okay, so that's a complete lie, right? You know you took the car, you know you got a scratch on it. Okay, so the lie is a clear connection to the fact. The truth is a connection to the fact. The car has a scrape on it. The lie, okay, is a complete connection to the scratch on the car. bullshit would look like, mom, what are you talking about? And then you change the subject.

He puts it with a whole bunch of things. Why do you always blame me for everything that happens? And so you get caught up in all the nonsense. So the person who bullshit never has any relationship to the truth or even to bother with the lie. Because they're fabricating things. Now, if you think about it, you can think of a few very well-known people who do that very frequently. Okay, and and it's common. It's common.

Okay, people lie and people bullshit. Okay, and our ability to trust our instincts on when that is happening around us. Because what can happen is you can start, if you're young, you can start to doubt your instincts. My instincts tell me that's not true, but, and especially if there's a lot of bullshit, because you can start, They're all distracted by it. The intent of the lawyer is to not take responsibility. The intent of the bullshitter is not only to not take responsibility, but to hopefully diffuse the situation so that it becomes so murky and so confused,

that you're lost trying to figure out all the murky bullshit that just caught up in the fight of you. That you're completely wrong the facts. okay and so if we listen to our instincts and if we trust our instincts then we will be aware of that and that brings us to respect now i've always found that trust and respect work together i try in my life and this is just what i've learned sort of works for me okay is when i meet people I begin with a small amount of trust and a small amount of respect. Their behavior, their words, more importantly, your actions. Words are one thing, actions. Okay. Will either cause my trust to go and my respect to grow or my trust and respect to shrink. Makes sense?

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Okay, just some thoughts on that. Yeah, the technique that I normally use is that when I meet someone, I try to be the very best version of myself. And then moving forward, I reciprocate the relationship based on how they treat me. It might not be the best moving forward, but like, you know, I feel like I, I can, I want to put my best self forward whenever I meet someone. Because I want to, you know, uphold my family and uphold my traditions and uphold the things in life that I think are important. So I try to be the best version of myself. And then moving forward, if someone mistreat you a different way or you can find them bullshitting or lying, then, you know, I, not that I bullshit or lie back to them, but I diminish my, I don't know. Trust and respect.

Yes. Trust and respect. Yes, well said. Thank you. They're twins. Yes. They just are. In these situations, they always, I've never found a situation where you trust someone but don't respect them.

Or you respect someone but don't trust them? I mean, it's not possible. Respect them. I don't trust them. I really respect doctor so-and-so, but I don't trust the one inch. Well, I don't think that's going to work for me, okay? Because they're real hard twins, you know, they travel together. So what you've said is great.

You try to bring your most, your best self, your most authentic self, okay? I'm going to use slightly different words. You're going to see, you know, how about being that all the time, wherever you are, not just when you meet new people. Yes. Being your authentic self, you know, and even letting go of the qualifying adjective, the best, okay? Yes.

Including myself. I'm being true in this moment to, if I'm a little tired or if I've had something really difficult to happen, you know, on some level, this is the best that I can bring up today, okay? But so that there's not some kind of bar of best, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I do. That's well said. Ditch that, okay. And just be, I'm going to be authentically myself today.

And I'm going to be present in the moment with as much self-awareness as I can to what's happening in this moment. I'm at the supermarket. I'm at the podium in a conference. I'm dealing with a child, a son-daughter, granddaughter, granddaughter, what have you, you know. Just being real in the moment, you know. and really trusting that radar that we have. We have a radar. You can get into an elevator with five different people who you do not know.

And within a very short period of time, you can tell who's in a good mood. Who's in a bad mood? Okay. Whether the good mood is a normal state of being for the person, and if the bad mood or the difficult vibration is a regular mood. We can tell that very, very quickly. We have a kind of radar for what's going on around us. And that again is tied up to our inner instincts and our inner wisdom.

That we have that operating all the time. And a lot of this is really connected to our instincts for survival. And just trusting those. And again, doing that work on the inner child. And so trust and respect are very deeply connected. A few words about how it needs to start inside, self-respect. What does that look like? Healthy boundaries.

Okay? Self-respect is the, you know, one of the four cornerstones in the work that I do with self-care. So we have self-awareness, self-love, self-respect, and self-responsibility. We are working with self-respect when we have healthy boundaries, when we have the sense of being connected to our thoughts, our feelings, okay, genuine feelings and beliefs, our beliefs, and our intentions. And we have an authentic sense. It doesn't mean that those can't evolve or that we can't change them,

but we have a genuine sense of being connected with them. the ability to respect the same for others. So we respect you in my feelings, maybe not even agreeing with some of your opinions or some of your beliefs, but having that respect that I respect mine enough that I don't need to impose them on anybody, and I respect yours enough that I don't need to impose them on anybody.

And if I trust you sufficiently, I will be offering you some trust and some respect as things go along, more trust, more respect. But always keeping you trusting myself and trusting myself respect. I will say no one I need to. Yes, when it's right to recognizing my strengths and my limitations, being authentic with my feelings. Does this make sense? Yes? Yeah, without a doubt.

And so we have these boundaries. that include our ability to speak and to listen. Respecting ourselves, means that we will speak that which is in back of the Buddhism, that which is true, that which is necessary, and hopefully that which is kind or done in a kind way. Right. We're necessary.

And that we are willing to listen to others, to their thoughts, to their opinions, to their beliefs, to their feelings, and to do our best to be respectful in that moment. So respect has to start inside. The degree to which we respect ourselves will be the degree to which we can offer respect to others.

Right. What gets in the way of that? I think otherness gets in the way of that. Yes. Conversation we had a few months ago. Yes. Yeah, othering. Othering.

Him and us, you know. Yes. And you can look at the history of the human experience, and you can see how much othering and otherness has created problems. Their religion versus our religion, their social class versus our social class. Their what-have-you versus our what-have-you. And then that completely diffuses our unity, our oneness, our shared human experience. Totally gets into that.

Now we may be taught to not trust and not respect as part of an educational process. And some of it is very wise. You know, when when the small children were told you never go up with a stranger. Yeah. I mean, that's just wise. What does mother hand say to the chicks? We'll trust the box. Yeah.

Don't go up with the box. box, he'll be in his mouth. You know, unfortunately, this is the reality of life. We have to learn that these are dynamics, real honest dynamics in life. Now, can that go to an extreme? Something that I think I'm seeing, I'm not alone in this, quiet conversations with colleagues through the last few years, where there's this clamor for a safe space, where there's a conversation about

like normal human behavior somehow is interfering with someone's safe space. Do you know what I'm talking about? In everyday life, okay? In everyday life, at school, at work or something. And that's so interesting because it sounds like society and culture is trying to navigate where the boundary is.

That's what it sounds like. It's like they're trying to navigate where the boundary is of what people are calling a safe space, right? Do you have a question or a comment on that? Yeah. I have a huge problem with safety. Yeah, it's a very big topic. Yeah.

Probably deserves its own conversation because we haven't got to equality yet. Maybe we won't do it. Maybe we want to do part two on this. Yeah. We might have to. I think that so much of society provides the illusion of safety. And when they do that, it's the illusion of safety. Yeah.

And that's because the human species in my reality is a greedy, aggressive, selfish species. And we have to work hard if we want to choose to, to not be that way. to be more kind, to be more honest, to be more respectful, to take more responsibility. But we have to require it. Because I think violence, aggressivity, selfishness, greed is just inherent

in these human species. Was there ever time in history where it didn't exist, outside of mythology? Did Camelot exist? I don't know. It's a wonderful story. Sorry. You know.

So, you know, we're always looking for the garden of Eden, right? Right. But maybe it only exists inside of us. So you were going to say something more about safety. Yeah. When I think about the illusion of safety that's provided in a lot of safe spaces, be it in the classroom or maybe not so much in the classroom, but like in society itself, we've become obsessed.

obsessed with safety. And when I peel back the onion, safety just seems to be a clever way to manipulate people. You know, when I look at the lens through which I've, I've lived my life working for a multinational corporation, like everybody hides behind safety. But in reality, they're looking for production and they're looking for, well, isn't it great that we provide this particular type of safety? You're like, that's not really safety. That's the illusion of safety in the means of production. So I feel like safety is not only an illusion, but it's sort of been whitewashed, and especially in today's world where we have so much safety protocol.

It's like, what is that safety protocol for? It sounds like it's purely for insurance regions. You know, it just seems like the illusion to me. Okay. Well, so, boy, that is a big conversation. So, you know, I don't know, do you put your seat belt on when you get in the car? I mean, I remember. I remember her seatbelts.

Me too. I remember when the first one came in and it was across your lap and everybody was disabling the little deep deep. It would happen if you didn't put it on, right? And then the shoulder harness came on because it was an accident. And then the airbags came in. So, you know, yes, we are a society and a culture

that, you know, we're not riding around we're back on camels and horses anymore. Tony's, right? No seat belt on those. And so modern society has required greater safety. I mean, you can think of all of the, you know, industries that were so unsafe. Yeah.

There was no safety for the workers. The mines people were going down into and in certain industries where they were getting burned by machinery and losing limbs and all kinds of things. And so so many laws have been put into place to try and protect the physical safety of people. Because if you look, it's very kind of physically, more recently it's become more about psychological being safe. And so the physical safety looks like, you know, you have to wear the hard hat on the construction site and you have to wear certain boots. steel toe caps or something and certain boots and certain hats and certain clothing and blunts and if you're working in certain industries you have to have the type of gear and you have got your whole thing on okay so a lot of physical safety has been put in place and

that's not a bad thing and and sure it may be about insurance and lawsuits and everything else but we'd like to think there's just some good there okay take that good grain out and acknowledge it But since there's enough or sufficient physical safety that's been put in, now people are focused on psychological safety. And that has a huge question mark beside it, because it is clear that there are some environments that would feel very psychologically stressful. I mean, just by the nature of the environment. Yeah.

Right? Very stressful, very demanding. and so what is put in place to be a support system for that. And then just this whole other category, you know, yes, we want our classrooms to be safe. But what does that look like? What does psychological safety actually look like? How about to trust and respect?

Yeah. That if the teachers in the classroom, offer a degree of trusting for students and the students can feel safe in trusting that there isn't, let's say, favoritism or kind of all those things that can happen with teachers and favoritism is a big one, right? And all of the ethical misconducts that can happen. Okay, you want an eight on your paper and, you know, I'll pick you up after. school. I mean, these are old stories. They've been around for a long time and unfortunately, sadly, they're still happening. So the student's ability to trust the teacher, the teacher's ability to trust the students that they will conduct themselves in a way that is befitting

the educational process. That is the thing that's gone for me, out of whack. Everybody's demanding something from the teachers in the educational system and absolutely efforts and respect should be in there. But it seems like more and more the parenting style in recent times is not, the teacher can't trust the students. I've had parents, I've had teachers,

I've had, you know, educators saying it's almost impossible to teach in a classroom because the parents are not teaching their children to respect the educational process. There's a degree of entitlement or spoiled or I can do what I want and say what I want and et cetera. Now I've got AI that can write all my papers and I don't have to listen

and I can make fun of you and everything. And so all of that has, what happened? What happened to the kind of trust slash respect that I was raised in, maybe you were raised in it that you respected the teacher in the classroom your trust was extended to the degree that it was earned so we come to the place now where we have to talk about what is earned we earn trust we earn respect but it also has as a responsibility i was raised that we to to trust within a certain range but definitely offer respect to people in certain

positions. You know, my dad was a major in the British Army. Well, you respected the men in service. You know, you respected the policemen and the, you know, the army and the RCNP, and all of these people. You respected them because they were dedicated to doing a job to keep you safe. You know, you respected your teacher and called them this or so-and-so and this-and-so, because they were there to teach you things that you needed to learn to survive. That was the model I was working with, right? And it wasn't perfect because there's human beings involved. And so there have been many teachers who have not, who did not deserve the trust or the respect that they were given

because they themselves did not conduct themselves adequately. But now for sure I'm looking at it seems like the burden is on the students in the educational process to develop and put back into place for respect. respect the educational process, respect the teachers. And I'm sharing their wisdom. Your comments. I would see it through like a different lens a little bit.

I think that the disintegration of trust and respect from the children is a direct reflection of the corruption of the system. It seems to me that a lot of leaders that we have and positions of authority may not have thoroughly earned that position. And when they haven't earned that position. Yeah, totally. Yes.

Yes. And that trickles down because then the parents go to a place where maybe they're not trusted. They're not respected. They're not respected. They're gone. And then that just, you know, as above so below, if we're living in a system that is sick, the most well adjusted are probably the sickest on some level. And it just trickles down to a level where the kids,

are picking it up, not only from their parents, but from all of society. And it's just the corrosion of corruption. Yes. And in the midst of all of that, there are still good teachers, good politicians. Of course. There's great leaders on. The best thing that we can do for our children and the next generations is teach them that. Yes, there will be bad apples in the barrel. Yeah. Just be aware of them. Steered clear. Don't get entangled.

Don't bother arguing with them or trying to convert them. Just quietly Tai Chi passed them. Like literally. And support and engage those who are doing good, honest, trustworthy, respected, respectful work. Put your focus there. Don't dump the whole system because of the bad apples. Continue to support.

Offer trust and respect. we're being earned, where deserve. Because this is, you know, the bottom line on trust and respect is it has to be earned. And what's lost? Isn't it from Mr. Darcy, doesn't he say in Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's wonderful, one of her wonderful books that has been made into a number of series and movies, doesn't he say, once my good regard is lost, it is very high to begin. So once trust and respect is lost, it is a piece of work to regain that.

Wise words, yeah. Oh, that's Jane Austen, not me. Right, right, still wise. There's a reason great literature echoes through eternity. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So why we got it from all of it? Okay, well, I'm almost too nervous to open up equality. equality because, you know, it looks like it's going to be a much larger topic. And

would you agree? Yeah. Yeah, I think we need a, I think we're going to need more time to get to equality because it's so, it's such a necessary topic to talk about. And it's so timely and it's so intricate. I think we could spend a long time talking about it. It is. It is so intricate. But we had to do the trust in this. We did. First, because it's completely in 20. You know, earlier up in the show, we talked about other ring and otherness, right? And now that a verb now. And don't you love how the English language is so flexible that it can take down almost any word and use it in so many different ways. At any rate, you know, that is at the core of all of this.

if we respect ourselves and we trust ourselves, our inner voice, our instinct, our higher self, and our ability to navigate through life, knowing we will make mistakes. Others around us will make mistakes. But in the end, that we just keep putting one foot in front of the next and finding gratitude each day. Yeah.

Learning what we can about our life and how we are navigating it. and keeping a good hope for whatever is arriving. I think that right in the beginning of the show, we were talking about authenticity and that you start by trying to be authentic with people. And doing this in everyday life, trying to be authentic with ourselves first. Remember, everything is inside.

If we're not being authentic with ourselves, we cannot be authentic with others. Now, I understand having a difficult day, you need to go to work and you've got to put your, you know, your work hat on and bring your best skills into the moment. Okay. And it would be okay to say to your staff or your colleagues had a bit of a difficult week, so bear with me if I'm not my, if I'm not on it the way I usually am, you know. And that's just being real. Yeah. You know, we don't have to break down and drag our entire, you know, classroom or our, and that's another thing that seems to be happening a lot is like, what happened to these kind of younger generations that they are so feelings driven.

It's as if reason and balance is kind of been put aside and everything is about what I feel. And it doesn't matter if the feelings resonate to the facts or not. It's like the feelings are everything. Because for me, that means that something on an internal level is not quite in balance. What do you have to say about that? I think it speaks to what you said earlier about the the psychological safety of people. I don't think people,

I think all the feelings that people are coming up with are probably the repressed feelings of their parents that have been steeped in only reasoning for so long. Like I feel like we have been able to put into a box, like don't feel. I think for so long, it's like, don't feel, just get it done. It doesn't matter how you feel. You have to do this now.

And I think that the next generation coming up is like, I'm not going to do that. I'd rather, I feel like this is the wrong thing to do. I'm not going to do it. And on some level, like, I want to applaud them for that. Because I think if we have felt more about what's right and what's wrong in the past, maybe we wouldn't have made some of these mistakes. Yes, it's good to be efficient.

But what's better than efficiency is purposefulness. And I think feelings and purple, purple, purple, purpleness, I think that they come together. Yeah. I love her. Purple. Purple is great. Okay. We can have purple. We're all good. Yeah, but I think that that is the feelings are coming from a repressed sense of no feelings for a long time. And it's just bubbling up in the next generations. So what I think I'm hearing you say is that this is an ancestral thing.

Yes, I think so. And kind of energetic and ancestral thing in which feelings that have been kind of set aside, repressed, not expressed, have kind of backed into a generation and a generation is kind of pouring them out. Okay. Is that what I'm hearing you say? Yes, I think it's a good. That's interesting. I'm not sure if it then shouldn't be managed. differently, you know, because instead of, I can get, because having worked in such deep processing

work myself and with others all these decades, yes, we can be carrying stuff on an ancestral line. We can, you know, energetically, we could have taken on the shame of our father, mother, okay, grandfather, grandparent, what have you. we could have taken that shame on and made that shame ours and we need to kind of resolve it. We could be carrying the anger of our ancestors of injustices that they suffered one way or another. But I do believe that there is then a taking ownership, a self-responsibility of recognizing that that's what it is and then working with it in a way that will be not only healing for the individual, but also bring some kind of wisdom

or you know some kind of upgrade to society not just something out this this bucket of feelings all the time everywhere and demanding safe spaces

without an actual understanding of what does that mean? Could we just say what is a safe space? Could we just have some idea? on what those boundaries look like, because I've heard people talk about,

well, it wasn't a safe space. What was not safe that someone just disagreed with your opinion? That made it not space. So that's where it's going all out of whack. Yeah, it doesn't make sense. Where it's not okay to have a different opinion. It's not okay to state the facts. Okay?

It's not okay to give the criteria or the research that none of that is okay because now you're making my space not safe. Okay, but these are the facts and the research and the science or I respect that you have your belief in your feelings. However, I feel very differently and I believe very differently. Can we now make a space for no? No, you've ruined the space. The space is now not safe. So it's like some kind of psychological warfare with narcissism that's going on in society. Okay, because it isn't, for me, about a safe space.

For me, the safe space would be a therapeutic. Okay, I'd be a therapist for 40 plus years. It's, or the sacred rituals that I work in, creating safety physically and psychologically and spiritually, where there's very clearly defined guidelines around all of this. you know, in the therapeutic situation, there's confidentiality, for example. There's respect. There's an agreement upon code of behavior on both sides. Okay.

And that's what should be making the space safe. It doesn't mean that one doesn't speak their truth or give their opinion or have their own beliefs. And that is what's got completely out of whack. Like my feelings override everything. uh no disagree right so yeah it's possible that there's this outflow of feelings from the pipeline of parents and ancestors and biography you know and at the same time how's it healthy and was to work with yeah i i agree wholeheartedly with you and in the idea that just because someone disagrees

with you it's not safe like that's probably the the safest environment to be become the best version of yourself is when you can have the, you know, your ideas coming together and clash. Iron sharpens iron in so many levels. And it's, it's, we need that more than ever. Yes.

How can you be authentic? Yeah. Where all you have to do is what their idea of safety is, is you create a space for me where my feelings completely take over and my feelings have to be accepted, not just as your feelings, okay, but as the reality. So that for me is the distinction is have your feelings, you're feeling angry, right?

Okay, those are all normal human feelings and you have an opportunity to share them or express them. And then that's where the healthy boundary is. Everybody else has their feelings, thoughts, opinions, and that's where respect comes in. That we all have our different thoughts, our feelings, our emotions, our ideas, our beliefs, and whether it's creative or spiritual or physical or psychological. or scientific or whatever and we need to respect that in ourselves and in others. Yeah. Maybe it's fear.

Fear. Oh, well, gosh. How's another conversation. How fear motivates us. And that's back down to, you know, our instincts. We're right where we started back in our instincts of survival instincts. Do we freeze? do we flee, do we fight?

And how do we navigate through those experiences? And again, they're always going to be connected to trust and respect. If I trust you, if I trust myself first, I trust myself to recognize when something feels okay. Breathe with it for a moment. It's just a small thing and it's a little thing and can let it go. Right? They have a different opinion for me I don't have to feel unsafe because someone has a different opinion

Someone has different feelings about something That's okay I don't have to feel unsafe I can still feel safe because I'm safe within myself Because I trust myself Because I'm always the palms dropping None of us are going to feel safe with that Somebody has a different opinion, different feelings We shouldn't feel unsafe

As young adults Well Time to rock and roll It's always wonderful to visit with you. Thank you so much. And we are putting equality in another session. Fantastic. Dr. Jessica, it's always a pleasure.

I'm so thankful for your time. And I feel like I get to walk away with a lot of things to think about. And it happens every time we talk. I'm really grateful for it to it. And thank you to the audience. And for anybody within the sound of my voice, go down to the show notes. check out Dr. Jessica's new website she's got up and do yourself a huge favor. I can't recommend the two set books, Iowaska Awakening, they're phenomenal.

And they read like a guidebook. So you don't have to read them all the way through. You should. But you can pick out a page and just start reading and being like, oh, this fits with me or this one. I like this. But they're really helpful. And they've been huge in my life and helping me move through some different spaces. So I thank you for that.

Those links will be in the show notes. And to everybody, thank you so much for hanging out with us today. Before I let you go, though, Dr. Ska, do you have anything coming up or any things you got coming? A hip replacement surgery. I am so excited about, okay. And I've been told I have to have both hips for full replacements, but, you know, I'm 75 now, and I think I've worn out some, you know, parts are wearing out. So it'll be what it'll be.

What I have been and I am excited about is that a couple of weeks ago we had our first retreat. This is something I've been working on for a couple of years. And I'm an advisor, a guest lecturer, an advisor to two universities, the University of Ottawa and Vancouver Island University. And she's specific departments, classic religions and psychedelic studies at New Ottawa and Vancouver Island University, they're equivalent. They both now have, there's a master's program, a graduate program at Eur Ottawa that just started that launched just last September. And what I've been working with them on for this last few years is having their students do their field work in a retreat in our church so that we have developed a kind of a program for them that will cover their field work.

In other words, their experiences in non-ordinary state of consciousness. And so our center, sedimentary, is one of three, actually four possibilities for the students to do as their field work. I always, part of my conversation was the students have to have a non-sacred plant experience for those who for whatever reason want to work in non-ordinary states, but would rather do it. So whether it's a meditation, something intensive or a holotropic breathwork or something, but no one should have to take sacred plants to get their degree, right? I mean, I kind of wonder why people want to work in the fields. But it has to be anyway.

So we had our first retreat. We had wonderful students. So the retreats are developed for graduate and doctoral students in psychedelic studies. allied field. So we had a couple of people from doctoral students in psychology and also professionals in allied fields. So we had somebody from a medical doctor from Collective Care and psychiatry. So people in that allied field and we were really happy with how it went. The participants were apparently super happy without one. We're doing research on it. We have a marvelous researcher. Shout out to Dr. Antonio and Sarah,

who's done five years postdoctoral research in MDMA and LST research. And so he was the perfect that he offered how can I do research with Santo Dime? Please, please. So he's great. And our team is wonderful. Myself, Dr. Stephen Sotland, who's on our board and a member of our church and Dr. Anvilalli's professor of you Ottawa, Dr. Paul Groff, of course, the most father of Sam Groff, dear friend of mine. So that's kind of our little team that's working on the research end of it. And probably it'll take a few retreats we're trying to do two a year. And because again, we're a nonprofit organization.

We're a church. We're not a for-profit organization that's, you know, we're shocked at at what's being asked in, you know, one of the other choices and the option is cost like about $6,000 or something. That's not your airfare. So we have a very modest donation that we asked to cover certain things for the church, but we're not trying, this is educational. We are trying to support the education in this area.

We're not trying to live off it, you know. whereas it feels really important that we keep the spiritual life and this and the education around it but it stays very simple and very transparent not only for our congregation, our members, our board of directors,

our clergy needs to be transparent also for the institutes and academic or what have you that are referring people to our retreats. So we're kind of excited about that. What do you think it's lost? Like it seems to me that there is something lost when someone goes to study

more of a for-profit venture versus going to like a church and someone that's trying to help and educate people about the sacrament versus someone that's maybe selling. And some of the life almost feel like they're selling the sacrament. Like they're selling this mystery. They're selling this thing. There's a big difference, right? Well, that's a huge conversation.

I know. You know, and chappo to Jeanette Chal Evans, who's always, you know, writing about these things. And it's a huge conversation, and I've been talking about it probably publicly for 20 years now. And if not longer, because it'll be 30 years that I'm in the Santo Dimeen. and so it may be, you know, nearly that much that I'm trained to educate about secret plants and the necessity of understanding them and the purpose and non-ordinary states of consciousness, the need to really deeply understand that. But at the time, I also understand people who want to go off and have, you know, a big experience somewhere.

What some of the participants asked about, and I'm always have to sad to say, is that, you know, a lot of what has been happening, and certainly with the secret plants that we work, we call ayahuasca tourism. And, you know, I didn't coin that trace. Okay, somebody else did. And it's been happening for coming around to, as long as I've been in the South of Guinea,

where, yes, there are some legitimate heritage, ayahuasca shamanic traditions that deserve the trust and respect. and who have earned over a very long time their place, and that needs to be understood. And their wisdom and their heritage teachings need to be respected for what they are. Okay.

And then there's some entrepreneurs. I don't know what else is called. Seize the moment, okay, to become a shaman and go in the forest and rip out all the vines and mix up a brew. Okay. And I have heard from colleagues in the Amazon and whatever. There are people who are just charging.

They've learned that this is profitable. We have to understand it's a different culture. There's a tremendous amount of poverty there. And that there will always be people who are opportunists who are going to take advantage of an opportunity. And the second thing, so there's opportunists, entrepreneurs in ayahuasca, of tourism. And then the second thing is, is that they have learned that people want a big experience. So our sacrament is made true to plants, nothing else. It is the same quality. It is the same

chill. It is the same instructions. There's the prayers. There's the hymns. When you go take the leaves from the trees, there's prayers, there's hymns. You sing to the trees. You talk to trees. You're taught which needs to take how many from each branch or from each tree. Okay? When you go into the forest to take the vine, the fine has to be a certain age, has to be a certain way. You don't just grip the vines off, okay? And so, and they talk and sing to the line, okay? It's all part of ritual, and that's our tradition, okay? Now, so, and what you have is, you know, we never, and nothing is added to our sacrament. Never. And so what you have is you have people who are actually adding purgative plants

because now people think if you throw up a lot or have diarrhea a lot and you've had a big experience in a massive great huge psychological, spiritual healing and now you're enlightened or something. No. You took a brew that had some very purgative plants and that's all. Sorry. Sorry. I don't like the facts. Facts.

So there's a huge difference between, say, taking the dining or being in the true shamanic ceremony with somebody who's really done their apprenticeship and they're really in a line of heritage traditions and heritage wisdom, okay, who know the beings that they're calling and work with the astral, okay, on what they're serving you, okay? And you know when that is, for example, when you drink diabetes,

there's a knowingness. My own personal experiences, I'll speak to that. I never threw it very much. Thank you, Stan Gawoff, for all those years of politroletrap. Once you get on the mat and work out so much stuff, there's still a lot of stuff left over, but there's not so much stuff if you know what I'm trying to say. And so there's a huge difference between the deep understanding and the awareness that you are shown of what you are clearing,

what you're healing, what you're transforming, what you're releasing. Okay, people are shown very clearly here, this old experience. It's coming out of you now. People will say afterwards, wow, I've just got such attention on this, okay? And in that moment, in that purge, there's this profound experience of teaching. And that's, we're back to trust and respect. If you trust what you're working with and respect who you're working with, how they work with the sacred plants.

So it's all about trusting and respecting. You know? And if you're just looking for some big whizbang, boom experience, well, okay, well, that's what you're looking for. We might as well go to Burning Man. Oh Be careful Okay so

I'm sorry we wandered way often I love it, thank you We were saying goodbye And what we're excited about So Okay ladies and gentlemen If you enjoyed this podcast Go down

Check out her website Check out the books That's all we got for today Ladies and gentlemen We have a beautiful day Aloha