TrueLife - Rites of Passage, Natures Role in Human Development W/Roger Duncan

Starting point is 00:00:01 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. Fearers through ruins maze lights my war cry born from the blaze.

Starting point is 00:00:40 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. I hope the sun is shining. I hope the birds are singing. I hope the wind is at your back.

Starting point is 00:01:17 I have another incredible show for you today. I am incredibly honored to introduce a truly visionary guest, one whose work fuses the wisdom of nature with the depth of human psychology. Roger Duncan is not only a trained biologist and a Waldorf teacher, but a guide of profound rites of passage in the wilderness. The 30 years of experience, Roger has walked the wild paths of both, both nature and human transformation, bridging the gap between our internal worlds and the natural environment that sustains us. Roger's journey took him through pioneering roles at Ruskin Mill

Starting point is 00:01:53 Education Trust, where he crafted therapeutic education programs for complex adolescents, immersing them in the transformative power of woodlands and wilderness settings. As a systemic family therapist, Roger now works within the NHS and in private practice guiding individuals, families, and organizations to find innovative, nature-infused. paths to healing and growth. But Roger doesn't stop there. He is the author of Nature and Mind, a groundbreaking book that examines the deep-seated madness at the heart of our modern world, a world that has severed its connection to the ecosystems that sustain us. His writing is a clarion call for reclaiming our indigenous relationship with nature, a topic he champions to

Starting point is 00:02:33 webinars and immersive course in eco-psychotherapy. With a career dedicated to blending systemic thinking with ecological mindfulness, Roger is at the forefront of a movement that seeks to heal both the individual and the collective by reconnecting us to the earth. Today, he joins us to share his insights, wisdom, and the healing potential of the imaginal world. Roger, thank you so much for being here today. How are you? Thanks, George. Thanks. Thanks for inviting me to say it. Honor to be here. Great, great to meet you. Yeah, well, I appreciate it. It's likewise. I'm super stoked that you're here. And, you know, when I started looking and researching for interesting people like I do on my podcast, I came upon

Starting point is 00:03:12 this idea that's been this nature of mind and the sort of rewilding of the mind. It seems to be kind of taking place. And you've been at the forefront of this for quite some time. How did you have this brilliant connection with nature? And what got you started? That's a good question, George. I think I've always been connected with nature. You know, when I was a kid, my parents had had a big garden.

Starting point is 00:03:38 And I used to spend my time in the garden. And I remember they had a big nut tree. I used to crack nuts with my teeth. And they had lots of old apple trees. And they used to run around in the garden. And I just really connected with nature in a really strong way. Yeah. I mean, is there any better teacher than a garden?

Starting point is 00:03:59 Is there any better teacher than a garden? There's the battered coastline or a waterfall. But a garden is a great place to begin learning about systems and relationships. What do you? I find myself out there sometimes like, just wandering through nature and I'll look down and you'll see this little ecosystem of a big tree, a shade tree and underneath there are these little plants propping up and these ants. Like there's a whole ecosystem there.

Starting point is 00:04:21 Exactly. Exactly. A lot of learning. There is. Yeah. And what I write about in my book was one of the seminal moments was when I was exploring this old chicken run we had in our garden. It used to be the next door neighbors and they had, it was abandoned chicken run. And it was all the stinging needles were all dead and everything.

Starting point is 00:04:40 and I found the little skull of a mouse. It was the first time I found an animal skull. And when I turned it over and looked it, I had this really strong sense of well-being from the skull. And it was like a hit. And I thought, wow, this is amazing. And that kept me, you know, I kept going back to try and find that sense of connection.

Starting point is 00:05:01 And actually, I spent a lot of time collecting animal bones, animal skulls. And each time, you know, I got that sense of real connection. Much later, I realized intellectually what that was about. But when I was a kid, it was just the visceral fun of finding bones and animals and that kind of stuff. Yeah, there's some real, isn't it interesting, the word discovery? Like, sometimes you can be out there and you can discover these bones and discover these trees and also discover a lot about yourself. What do you mean later in life you found out what it meant intellectually?

Starting point is 00:05:31 What did it mean? Well, I mean, what I did is I explored, I suppose I explored that feeling. about what it means to be in nature. So I was drawn to spending more time in nature and more time in wilderness. Because I grew up in the UK, the closest we have is Scotland, which is pretty wild. It's not America in terms of space, but in terms of the power of that nature is pretty strong. And then I suppose later on, you know, when I trained as a Waldorf teacher, I found different ways of thinking about nature, different from you, different ways than you get in the biology books.

Starting point is 00:06:09 and that really inspired me, finding patterns in nature. And then later when I trained as a psychotherapist and started to explore eco-psychotherapy, I realized there was a lot of people onto this. You know, people like Gregory Bateson were saying this kind of stuff and later on other thinkers were, you know, other thinkers were, you know, Carl Jung was on through it. And I suppose I spent, well, I suppose my book really was stitching all that together,

Starting point is 00:06:38 you know, getting a sense of like, well, this is my journey and this is this is where it's brought me. Yeah, it's it's almost like a language. Like what can you break down like what is eco-psychotherapy? So that's a really good question. So eco-psychotherapy, so originally when I started on this, we only had eco-psychology. So a lot of the books, a lot of the early books were eco-psychology. It's like, wow, what's eco-psychology? and it was it was really how we combine

Starting point is 00:07:08 understanding psychology with understanding ecology which seemed to have been separated and it was um I can't remember the name of the guy I'm just searching for his book now anyway got the guy brought it together into I'll remember it's the go brought it together and saying eco so for this term eco-psychotherapy

Starting point is 00:07:28 eco-psychology rather so and that was an American word because in it in America to be a psychotherapies, you have to be a psychologist. Yeah, in Britain, it's different. We have a different pathway, so you can be a psychotherapist without being a psychologist. So eco-psychotherapy is more of an anglicized version of eco-psychology in a certain way. But it's all semantics, but basically it's about joining up

Starting point is 00:07:53 the human and the nature at a deep level, a psychological level and an ecological level. I love it. When I think of ecology, I think of relationships, you know, the relationship to the birds to the sky or the fish to the sea or the grass to the ground. And then once you begin going down that path, you can't help by seeing those patterns to relate some of those patterns to yourself on. They just merge together, right? Maybe we can talk about that a little bit. Why is that? Yeah. Yeah. Well, because we are nature. You know, I think one of, you know, that's the reality. That's the reality. You know, they don't, they don't tell us that.

Starting point is 00:08:33 at school particularly. And I think one of, you know, one that you mentioned this, the business about modernity in the modern world. You know, what we, what we've, what we tend to grown up with in the West is this idea that nature's something, something else, it's out the window or something we see on the telly and, you know, so we don't, we don't follow those threads through. We don't follow where our food comes from. We don't follow where our sewage goes to. We don't follow where our rubbish goes to. But if you go, but when you go camping, you know, if you go wild camping, you do that, you know, you make sure you don't mess up the water because it's what you're drinking, you know, and you don't, you make, you know, you, you much, it's much more obvious.

Starting point is 00:09:14 The loops are much more closed when you're, when you're, when you're wild camping. And that's what I found, you know, when you spend time in, in, in nature, the feedback loop is very fast, you know, so you, you, you can't, you can't be separated. You can't, you can't, you can't hold that place of separation. It makes so much sense. when I think about the madness of modernity, and I think about what you've just spoken about, we are so disconnected, and it runs through not only our relationships,

Starting point is 00:09:40 but look at corporations that have employees, that have employee numbers that are in a different state or another country. Like, this disconnection is, it's killing us. It is, it is. And I think, do you think it's just something that's American? Do you think it's a worldwide thing? Because I think in England, it's different. We have certain, you know, we're quite quite similar to America,

Starting point is 00:10:03 but we also have a sort of an older connection somehow, which keeps us connected in a different way. And I suppose I touched into that, you know, growing up in England, the sense of, you know, that the connection with the land is not so, is not so far back, really. A few generations, only. Yeah, I think it's both cultural and individual. You know, there's definitely, and at least,

Starting point is 00:10:29 In my opinion, there's a big push or there has been. Maybe when the Prussian school model came to the United States and they decided that they needed to have obedient factory workers. Maybe they started stripping nature out of it. They're like, you don't need to know about that. You got a widget in the van. And that's what you need to know. You know, don't read that guy. That guy is a poet.

Starting point is 00:10:52 He doesn't know it. Come on. There's an instruction manual over here. You know, so I think it starts early. I think it starts in school. And I don't know if it was malicious, but I think it's a process. And it's a slow evolution of distance from nature so that you're willing to do things that you wouldn't normally do. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:11:10 Yeah. And I think, I think now with AI, it's, it's even worse. You know, I see pictures. I see pictures on the internet of birds. And people go, wow, look at these amazing birds. And it's like, that's not a bird. That's an AI image. It's not a bird.

Starting point is 00:11:26 You know what I mean? Yeah. It's interesting to think about how far we can be disconnected, but it's also amazing to think how quickly we can be reconnected. And you've done a lot of that with kids and yourself. Maybe you can talk about, we can dive deep more into why we're disconnected, but I would like to hear a little bit more about the process of reconnecting, because you've done it to a lot of people.

Starting point is 00:11:49 Maybe you can talk about some of your experiences reconnecting yourself and youth. Yeah. So, as I said, I was always interested in nature. and started training as a world of teacher, I began to see that there are these real deep patterns in nature, fractal patterns that are kind of telling us, telling us something about how nature works. And it's not just survival of the fittest,

Starting point is 00:12:14 Darwin in evolution. There's a whole connection that's under the surface. So I got really into that, you know, in terms of looking at animal forms, looking at platforms and got very good at reading what those patterns were about. And then about quite a few years ago, now I started at an innovative college in the UK called Ruskin Mill College. And it was based on Rudolph Steiner's ideas about connecting,

Starting point is 00:12:47 because in Waldorf education, Rudolf Steiner's ideas, there's a strong connection with nature, art, socialization relationships. Anyway, this project was based on craft and land. So the idea was we would take students who had disadvantaged or had complex behavior and teach them through contact with craft and land work. My role in those days was develop the fish farm. We had an old fish farm that was kind of historic fish farm.

Starting point is 00:13:20 And we developed that for the students to work on so that they actually were exposed to nature through working through building the ponds and looking after the fish. And then I went on to work in the woodlands. So we had a small woodland and I managed the woodlands. I set up a sustainable woodland management plan with an educational component right in it. So basically the students were in there every day doing the work of hands-on woodland, felling trees with hand tools, planting, all that kind of stuff. And what we found was, as we suspected, because we,

Starting point is 00:13:54 lot of us had walled off backgrounds was they were transformed by it. So when you take people out of modernity, when you take people away from disconnection culture, from the diaspora of the disconnected, and you plug them into nature, then they heal because we are nature. We're the same thing. We're tuned in. And you get, you get this, you get a kind of resonance that, you know, the indigenous people talk about that actually, yeah, something, something's going on here, which is, which doesn't get into the school books, you know. Yeah, I love it. It's so healing to think about.

Starting point is 00:14:31 And that's probably why when you sit out in nature, whether it's just laying out in your patio or a backyard or even in a window getting some sunshine. Like it's so warming and welcoming. Yeah. It's really wonderful to connect in that way. You said something, the diaspora of the disconnected.

Starting point is 00:14:50 What? Tell me about that. Yeah, that comes from, I'm quoting First Nations lady called Rowan White, who set up a project where she was growing seeds. She's a Mohawk heritage lady, and she started growing Mohawk seeds, and she reconnected with her heritage through growing the seeds. And what she recognised was the Western culture is the diaspora of the disconnected, because we're all spread out, but we've looked.

Starting point is 00:15:23 lost our indigenous roots. You know, and that's a problem, actually. You know, because we all, ultimately, we were once all indigenous people. We all had a land stolen by somebody. And we've forgotten, you know, most of us forgotten who it was and where that land was. You know, for, you know, First Nations people now, that's luck. They have, they have, you know, memory and lineage and story of that. But for most Westerners, we don't have that.

Starting point is 00:15:51 Yeah, it's, it's a, I'm almost reminded of the Orwell quote of he who controls the future controls the past and he who controls the past controls the present. Like it's just this constantly rewriting of history until you forget about what happened. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. But you see, I think the connection is, you know, like you said, how do people connect?

Starting point is 00:16:19 Well, a lot of the young people we work with came from broken homes or dysfunctional families. So they didn't have a connection. You know, that even even the immediate connection was lost. But by connecting with nature, you're doing a deep dive. You know, you're bypassing the history and you're plugging straight in. And actually what happens is when, you know, the thing about our bodies, our bodies are nature. So when we, you know, when we spend time outside, our bodies kind of wake up. particularly if we use our bodies we move our bodies our head our head of course is doing something

Starting point is 00:16:54 else that you know the the the the neocortex is spinning as spinning as a tail which is not necessarily true you know yeah it reminds me of uh ian gilchrist's work about like the left right right exactly have you read that guys i haven't read his new book but i heard it's fascinating yeah i haven't read the new one i read the master in his emistry but yeah that's that's it that's it steep stuff Yeah. It's so amazing to dive into this because it's on some level we have all these certifications and we have all these regulations and all these schools that say you have to do these things in order to be this kind of person, which I think, you know, exasperates the whole disconnection. But it doesn't take a whole lot to begin learning what nature is trying to tell you if you just spend time out there, whether you're walking a coastline, going for a walk by your house. Like you can really get into tune with your neighborhood, with yourself, with all your relationships. Maybe you have a cool story about working with kids or maybe a cool story about yourself about having a real deep discovery, just being out in nature.

Starting point is 00:18:02 Yeah. I mean, I suppose what I think what I discovered, because the other thing I used to do is he used to take kids out on wilderness trips. Yeah. So I heard I had a friend of mine who was a teacher in Sweden. a wall of teach in fact. And he used to take kids out on a trip to northern Sweden to the National Park. And he got the kids to walk from the National Park. He took a motorbike, an old motorbike,

Starting point is 00:18:29 and he left at one side of the national park, and he took the minibus to the other side. And then he just walked the kids all the way through, and then he'd get on the motorbike and go and pick up a minibus. And what he discovered was something happened when he did that. You know, first of all, he took loads of notes and, notebooks and stuff like this, drawing materials. And then he realized just by walking the kids, something changed.

Starting point is 00:18:55 You know, they would get home and the parents said, I don't know what you've done to my son, but he's different. So I thought, hey, this is amazing. I'm going to do this. So I set up a similar program and had exactly the same experience in Scotland, you know, taking people out for 10 days. We took all our food with us. So we didn't have to go.

Starting point is 00:19:13 We didn't have to see anything that was human made pretty much. for 10 days and what you notice is after four days people drop into a place and people just there's a relaxation of the body and it's all about the body there's a relaxation of the body and all that kind of angsty adolescent energy just slows right down and then after about five six days they drop in again after 10 days you know people are pretty children, they say, we don't want to go back. Yeah. You know, this we want, we want to stay, can we just stay here? We don't want to go back to school. So there's something about just the, you know, long-term exposure to nature, not doing anything, not therapy,

Starting point is 00:19:56 therapy people are doing some, you know, clever workshops, just walking and camping, which has a powerful, powerful impact on people, you know, therapeutic impact. It takes us out of our egos, out of our minds, we start to work collectively. But of course, that's what human beings have been doing for thousands and thousands of years, we've been walking around the earth in groups of 150 or 30, finding food, hanging out, camping, drinking water from the streams. So our bodies remember that, you know, because that's where we're supposed to be. And it's, and it's difficult to, it's difficult to,

Starting point is 00:20:35 it's difficult to find that in, you know, Western culture, unless you, unless you're really, unless you look, looking for it deeply. I couldn't agree more. The idea of we don't want to go back. Man, I see that. That happened in my own life. When I, yeah, like I was, most people on my podcast will know this, but I'll just give a quick summary. I was a, for 30 years, I was a UPS driver.

Starting point is 00:21:02 And I loved it. I did, I loved talking to people. It was great. But I became so disconnected from all the things that really mattered in my life. And as I was a father to a young. young daughter, I realized my wife was working, I was working, we're making tons of money, but at the same time, I was so unfulfilled. I put in like 70 hours a week, ship my daughter to school, my wife goes to work.

Starting point is 00:21:25 And it's like at some point in time, like my body just started acting up like in my mind is like, what are you doing? Like you are leaving everything you love for to go make some money so that you can pretend to have things to be fulfilled. And it takes a giant leap of courage, or in my case, multiple security. regards to walk you out of the building, you know, to realize like, this is wrong. And I think that that's what this disconnect is. I think we're seeing a pretty big movement, Roger, of people coming to terms with this idea of, I don't want to go back. Like, on some level, the connection,

Starting point is 00:21:58 we're severing that connection, whether it's willful or unwilling. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, definitely. Definitely. One of the, one of the ideas I've been thinking about recently is this difference between, I've just been writing about this, actually, in my second book, about the difference between it comes from um uh francis weller he talks about the difference between trauma culture and initiation culture so trauma culture is where you know we're we're pretty traumatized all the time because actually we're out of our we're out of our natural habitat we're out of nature we have to survive in the dog eat dog world and it takes us into it takes us into a kind of hyper individualistic state whereas an initiation culture takes people into an awareness of connection.

Starting point is 00:22:46 And there are lots of different levels of initiation. The simplest one is just going out in your garden going, wow, everything's, you know, I really love my garden, into things like wilderness where you drop in four days deep. And then also things like Vision Quest or Vision Fast, where you, You do that in a ritual setting, you're held in a ritual setting, and there's a lot more preparation where you drop in much deeper because you're not eating and drinking. So you're not, you're preparing yourself for a deeper connection, really. And lots of other ways as well.

Starting point is 00:23:27 Yeah. Yeah, I, you know, I titled this one, the rites passage. All right, good. I'm so fascinated by it because there's been a lack of it with the, exception of sort of at least in my lap like these empty, empty rituals like being wasted on your 21st birthday or getting your driver's license. There are these echoes of initiation, these echoes of rites of passage. But my family was sorely lacking in the, hey, here's grandpa showing my dad, showing me how to fit, something like that. Like we missed that. And I think we're missing that as a culture.

Starting point is 00:24:02 Maybe you can speak to the ideas of rituals and losing them and bringing them back. Yeah, no, I think I think you're absolutely right. I think we have we have lost them. And I think we lost them with our connection with indigenous culture, indigenous land. So the echo of them is still there, you know, as you say, in these kind of somewhat hollow rites of passage, like, you know, as you say, getting wasted and this kind of stuff. The idea, the idea that you're going to be a, you know, and again, that's the difference between trauma and initiation that you get traumatized, you know, like something like a difficult military experience could feel like an initiation, but actually it comes with a lot of trauma.

Starting point is 00:24:44 You're initiated in the sense that you're taken into a new place, you're taken to a place where you're transformed. Whereas traditional cultures that I've read about and the work that I've done through the School of Lost Borders and further reading is that And the initiation is really about letting go of the ego. It's a dying practice. So it's about preparing ourselves to let go of our lives, to die. And what we're letting go of is a small ego, who we think we really are.

Starting point is 00:25:25 And that's a difficult process because we don't want to let go of that. That's, you know, that's who I am. I don't want to let go of that. So getting people to that phase is quite difficult, particularly adolescents. But I think people in there, probably in their mid-30s, you know, my son has just done a vision quest in Arizona. You know, when you're in your mid-30s, you think actually you begin to search for a new direction.

Starting point is 00:25:54 And something like a Vision Quest revision fast, fasting for four days and nights, you have water but you don't have food, allows the body to wake up. Because as I said, nature and our body is nature. So our body wakes up and goes, hey, I know what this is. I've done this before. This is good stuff. And it brings your psyche along with it. So there's a sense, you know, the young people have taken through those experiences

Starting point is 00:26:23 and the adults have taken through those experiences come back different. And then I'll come back different in the sense of, they come back difference in a subtle way. So that you get a sub, you begin to, your life begins to move in a different way. So your orientation begins to change. And I think one of the things about,

Starting point is 00:26:43 one of the things about ritual and ceremony, again, which is difficult to access in the West because we think, well, what are we doing? It opens up this, you know,

Starting point is 00:26:53 this contact with the imaginal when we're working with ceremony. And again, our body wakes up and goes, hey, I know how to do this. You know, so you can drop in to a deeper level. And the other thing that happens is that, is that, and it happens, this happens a lot of vision fast, is nature begins to show up.

Starting point is 00:27:11 So people see, have encounters with animals that no one else has. And that encounter is relevant to their story. You know, they were the guy, you know, this person saw the hair because it was about their story. This person saw a bear because that was about their story. You know what I mean? And so it's a very profound experience. And it kind of blows open this fantasy of disconnection with nature. We realize actually nature, we are connected with nature at a very deep level.

Starting point is 00:27:45 We are the same. Yeah, it's no wonder that so many answers to life mysteries are found on a walk in a park or alone in a room or swimming in the ocean. Like there's just these things that are revealed to you when you're alone with yourself. And you get, you know, the fractal patterns. Like I see them everywhere. Like when you begin seeing that, like you can't unsee it. Like it's everywhere.

Starting point is 00:28:13 It's almost like a language. I really feel, Roger, like nature's a language. It's just trying to get our attention. Like, hey, look at me. Hey, hey, hey, hey, let's talk. People are like, I don't want to talk to you. You're not right. Yes.

Starting point is 00:28:26 Exactly. Exactly. And you have to learn the language. You do. You know, and it's not, you know, and the other thing about, the other thing about Western culture is, it's highly intellectual. Yeah. It's highly intellectual.

Starting point is 00:28:38 So, you know, that's how we get taught at school. And, you know, what we're talking about, what I would describe that language is, is it's an imaginal language, it's the language of the imaginal. Yeah. Which means, and what I mean by that? Because a lot of you say, what do you mean by the imagination? Yeah, break that now, please. So the imaginal is, there's a kind of spectrum from the imaginary,

Starting point is 00:28:58 When we think of the imaginary, we think, well, stuff we made up is fantasy. I just made up a story. Well, you're imagining it. I saw a unicorn in the garden. No, you didn't. You're imagining it. Yeah. So there's a whole realm of that in our minds.

Starting point is 00:29:16 We can make up stuff about who we think we are or what we're going to do or, you know, whether some girl's going to like us or whatever it is. You know, when we're kids, we have an imagination. But the imaginative something different. The imaginal is not, it's not a thinking space. So it's not, we can't think it. So basically we have to switch off our thinking. So in Western culture, we don't really do this other than in things like meditation.

Starting point is 00:29:44 And perhaps in psychedelics a little bit. So we switch off our, switch off our mind. But also it's not, the imaginal is not, it's not sensory. In other words, we can't see it. So if we look, if we can describe it. something in words and concepts, or we can see it and we can paint a picture of it, it's not the imaginable. So we've got to separate those two things apart, and in the middle is like a blank space, a kind of meditative blank space. You know, when you meditate,

Starting point is 00:30:13 you drop into blank space. And if you learn to drop into that place and you take your felt sense there, you begin to get, you begin, the language starts to speak to you. And what, what, it's like is it's like a thought in your head which is not yours. So one of the one of the characteristics of the imaginal is it tends to be a surprise and it tends to be meaningful, but the meaning is not always apparent. So again, you know, you many of us have had these experiences quite often when you're out in nature, you suddenly have a relevant revelation about wait a minute, I should be changing my job or whatever it is. And And it's like, hey, how come I didn't think about this before?

Starting point is 00:31:01 So what's happening is you're getting new information that's coming from somewhere to us. And it's, you know, and I want you to develop that practice through, you know, through spending time in nature and through ritual, you can begin to hear what nature is telling us. And again, it's not, it's not factual information. It's fractal knowledge. You know, we get a sense of it. And again, that touches into the psychedelic realm because that comes through very strongly in psychedelic experiences.

Starting point is 00:31:39 But you don't need to have, you can go into nature without psychedelics and still connect with that. But it takes a little bit of practice. Wow. Like, it makes me think of so many things. Like, I'm a huge advocate of psychedelics. And I've had a long-term relationship with them. And as my relationship with particularly psilocybin or mushrooms has advanced in my later years, the imaginable.

Starting point is 00:32:03 And I've never really heard that term or heard people talk about it. But it makes so much sense to me. And I think some people confuse, I'm not judging or anything, but it seems to me other people describe it as like an alien or they describe it as something else because it is alien. And the first time you hear the imaginal, what is this thing bigger than you're talking to me? You think you're going crazy. You're like, I know these things. I know these things. You try to explain it to people and they're like, do, get out of here.

Starting point is 00:32:34 You are a wacko. And you're like, no, no, this thing is real. Like, this has to have been going on with people forever. And you can see the lineage of people. Like, sometimes I wonder, Roger, is it just people finding their way to the imaginable? or is this like something that comes in cycles? It seems like maybe it's just the people I'm hanging out with or the crowd that I find myself seeking more knowledge from

Starting point is 00:32:58 has this same thing. But does it come in cycles, maybe? Are there waves of it that tend to grow bigger? Or what are your thoughts on that? Well, I think it's always been, I think it's always been with us. Right. You know, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you,

Starting point is 00:33:10 if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you're always done, you know, you can talk to nature. It'll tell you stuff. You know, and, and, and, and, you can, if you can, a conversation with it. You know, and if you're growing up as a Western kid, you're going, what, what are you talking about? How'd you do that? Where's the book? How do I? Yeah. And, you know, because you process it through the head. And after, you know, what I found is after a while is if you get, you know, once I got this concept to be imaginable, which is actually a Western

Starting point is 00:33:39 concept. So this is so, so people like, people like Jung, the collective unconscious, he was in for, he was, you know, he was in, um, informed by, uh, this guy, Henri Corban. who had been studying the imaginal in esoteric Islamic literature. And Jung heard that, you know, got some of these concepts from him and went, well, yeah, collective unconscious. There's something going on here. We're all connected to. It's a collective.

Starting point is 00:34:07 And it's inside us. It's endogenous to us. You know, so that's, so a lot of the Jungian, a lot of Jungian deep psychotherapy touches into the space. And you get this space in therapy as well. You know, when you're deeply into a therapeutic space, sometimes what happens, something arises between the two people, between yourself and the client or the patient, which is new. It's new information.

Starting point is 00:34:34 And it's surprising and it's healing, you know, and it connects. So, you know, you're part of the therapeutic process is you're, again, you're dropping into that kind of blank campus space, allowing something new to come in. which, you know, and I would say it's the imaginal. And part of, part of what I've been doing in my writing is trying to get, trying to get clear about the language because the whole, because a lot of it's about languaging. And if you get the language, you know, if you can't, if you can't language

Starting point is 00:35:05 the imaginal, you're never going to find it because it's, it's that, it's a hidden place. You know, it's that secret passage in all the, it's the secret doorway in all those fantasy stories, you know, the lion, the witch and the wardrobe and how do you, you know, they can go through the wardrobe one day, the next. state that can't go through it, you know. Yeah, it's, there's such a rich connection to language because in, in these, in these spaces, whether it's a psychedelic journey or a walk on the beach or a profound moment of uncovering when you're alone or whatever it is, the only term we have for it is like ineffable because

Starting point is 00:35:43 you can't describe it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. It's imaginable. Like it's there. Exactly. You can't, you can't, it's. It's almost like you can't, like people have to have the experience for them to thoroughly understand what it is. Maybe that's part of the initiation.

Starting point is 00:35:56 What is, I think that's exactly right. That is part of the initiation. That people have the experience, they have some crazy experience and they come back. But then you've got to have some elders, some old, some old beardy guys who go, oh yeah, yeah, I know this one. I've been there. I've seen that being, whatever it is. And they, but they've also learned from their dads, their grandfathers, you know, and what, The other thing I've learned about the imaginal is there's a spectrum between the imaginal and magical thinking. So you can go off the deep end here with magical thinking where you think your God or the universe is talking to you and you become a bit crazy. What keeps the imaginal grounded is you can share it.

Starting point is 00:36:45 So you can share that space. You can travel into that space with someone else. In a psychedelic space, sometimes in the dream, sometimes people can have the same dream, but you can also cultivate it through dropping into ritual space. So I work with a friend of mine, Lucy, who has been doing a lot of this work for a really long time. And we're able to drop into an imaginal space

Starting point is 00:37:12 where we have shared images. And she can lead me, because she's a little bit ahead, she can lead me. She can say, do you see that? I can't see that, but I can see this. She says, oh, yeah, I can see that, but there's this. And so, and it's, you know, in a sense, and it's, I can get the same visuals, if you like,

Starting point is 00:37:34 that you get from psychedelics, but also in dreams. So there's this sense that, there's the sense that you can access. There are a number of thresholds into this, into this imaginable space. Yeah, I agree. Shout out to Lighter. Lighter, thanks for being here today. You're an awesome human being. I love when you're chiming in. She says, our true are, they say, our true identity would be labeled as highly delusional in today's world. Yes, yes. But again, but again, I think that comes back to the story that we're running. The Western story we're running. We're born. We're empty vessels. We're filled up with stuff. We make a living. We die. End of story. That's not when indigenous people are saying. They're saying, no, no, we're, we're cosmic beings. We've been around here a long time, you know, and we've got a mission and everyone's got one and it's super important. And we, we as elders, we need to know what it is because we can, so we can help young people,

Starting point is 00:38:34 young people find themselves. So it's really about changing the narrative. And it's finding a place where it's legitimate to have an alternative narrative. And, know, and school isn't that place. Yeah. It's such a fascinating journey. You know, I know so many cool people, yourself included, where once you start figuring this thing out and you've been around it long enough, like you're almost compelled to help other people try and see it.

Starting point is 00:39:04 I mean, you can't tell them. You can't force them, but you can reach out to them. If you see someone on the cusp of it, you can be like, hey, have you noticed this other thing over here? You can suddenly tell them, like, look at this, look at that. Exactly. Exactly. And then it will be their own idea.

Starting point is 00:39:17 And then they become another person that's awoken to it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I got a question coming in here for it. And they say, this one's coming from Clint Kyle. He says, many see environmental destruction as an external issue, but you argue it's deeply tied to human mental health.

Starting point is 00:39:36 What psychological wounds mirror the wounds of our planet? Okay, good question. Good question. What's his name? Kyle. Clint. Yes, Clint. Clint.

Starting point is 00:39:45 Okay, Clint. Yeah, so basically, one of the branches of Western psychotherapy, the Jungian, talks about, that Jung talks about this realm, which is called the psychoid realm. And the psychode realm is when you go deep inside, nature and mind, our identity in nature are one. In other words, the separateness drops away. And, you know, there's another guy, Jeff Kriple, who talks about the philosophy is, which is called dual aspect monism, which means monism is everything is the same. We're all one, but we, and the two aspects, we language it differently.

Starting point is 00:40:36 Self, I'm over here, you're over there. You know, we're different. Or, you know, I'm here, nature's out there. So when you begin to get. that when you begin to get that sense, what we realize is the psyche, the human psyche, the collective human psyches and the earth, the ecosystems of the earth are connected. They're the, it's the same stuff. So there is no, there is no separation between, you know, our mental health and the mental health of the, of the earth. And, you know, I think one of the

Starting point is 00:41:11 things, one of the things we're, we, one of the things certainly I'm experiencing and maybe other people are experiencing is you know some of the crazy things that are going on in the world now particularly on you know your side of the pond effect affect us you know because we can we're connected and part of it is yeah you could switch your phone off and it would all go away but actually that's not again that's not that's not that's not how indigenous people have described it they're saying we're all connected everything we do is is is connected because all the stuff our psyche are identity, all of nature, has its root in the imaginal world. It has its root in the dream time. That's where it all comes from. That's the mothership. That's where, well, that's, that's,

Starting point is 00:41:57 that's the place to go. So that, so I feel these, these, you know, the, the, the, the, the mental health crisis and the environmental crisis are, are two aspects of the same thing. They're in a, they're in a, they're in a kind of dance, really. And there's no, there's no, there's no clear, you know, it's not clear which way it's going to go, really. Yeah, I forgot the great, I'll butcher the quote, but I'll try it. I believe it was, no, I'm losing the guy's name, but it's a race between fear and love or chaos and something else. But I, yeah, yeah. And you see, I think it ties in, it ties in with trauma and initiation.

Starting point is 00:42:36 Because actually, if we're traumatized, we go, well, I'm going to look after myself because that's, that's all I got to do. I don't trust anyone else. If you're initiated into recognizing that actually we're connected, then your gesture is much more like, actually, I need to play my party. I need to find out what I need to do to make this place a better place for everyone else. Because everyone else is me.

Starting point is 00:43:03 We're all connected. Yeah, it's, I'm just taking a moment to think about the relationship between trauma and initiation. And we spoke earlier, like it is, trauma is an initiation. And maybe that's, maybe that's what the collective,

Starting point is 00:43:20 maybe that's the, I think it's, I mean, what some people are saying is, yeah, we're going through a collective initiation. Right. Right.

Starting point is 00:43:28 You know, because, because what we're doing to the earth, we're doing to ourselves. And we, you know, and the wake up. And if you're,

Starting point is 00:43:37 if you're on the trauma end of the spectrum, you're going, yeah, well, that's not me. You know, those, the fires in California, I'm fine in England because that's not me. But if you, if you realize that they're all connected, then you're in, you're in a different, you're in a different place. You're saying actually, we're all connect. We're all in this together. If the earth goes down, we all go down. You know, there is no, there is no planet B, as they say,

Starting point is 00:44:01 you know, Mars, it's not, it's not really going to work, you know. How was lockdown? How was lockdown? You know, when people couldn't go outside. Well, you imagine lockdown is living on Mars is going to be like lockdown forever and there's no outside to go to. I always, this is probably an unpopular take, but I always, I can't personally understand the concept of going to the moon or going to Mars. Like, in my opinion, you as an individual can no more go to the moon than the ocean can go to the moon. You can't go to the moon more than the, like the ocean can go to Mars.

Starting point is 00:44:35 Like you're not, you're part of this planet. Like you can't go to that planet. You're part of this one. It's like, what are you talking about? You can't go there. What are you all these people? Exactly. Yeah, no, I was just reading this book recently,

Starting point is 00:44:47 and they were saying, you know, what happens to astronauts, even just in orbit, is their bodies start to break down because there's no gravity. So, you know, it's not really going to work out. But you see, the more interesting question from a psychotherapy point of view is, what's that about? You know, because why would somebody want to go somewhere where they can't survive? and there's nothing there.

Starting point is 00:45:14 What are they running away from? You know, and it, you know, it could be, yeah, that's an interesting question. Maybe responsibility, maybe running away from the very thing that would free you. Like that's what it seems to be. Responsibility is we need to take care of the earth because it's us. Right. Yeah. Do you think that there's a, like I, over here in the states, like there's this sort of rebirth of the psychedelic culture.

Starting point is 00:45:44 There's this sort of, they call it the psychedelic renaissance. And I'm so stoked on so many people in this community. They're doing so many amazing things. But it seems to be sort of really tightly kept in this medical container, almost as if people are worried, hey, we can't, not everybody can do this. It'll cause chaos. Do you think that that's there? Is there a problem with a really quick awakening or is there, in your opinion,

Starting point is 00:46:09 do you think it should be contained to a medical container or certain people? What are your thoughts? That's an interesting one. You know, I think, I think, and again, it's about, it's about language and story. You know, so one of the things that's happened with the psychedelics is it looks like, it looks like a quick fix. Hey, we can cure trauma with psychedelics. It looks like a magic pill.

Starting point is 00:46:31 Yeah. Because we live in a culture where we expect to have magic pills. You know, like antibiotics. If you get an infection, you take antibiotics. You know, before antibiotics. You didn't. You died, basically. You know, so we're in a magic pill culture. And it's easy for people to imagine that.

Starting point is 00:46:51 And of course, you know, people are selling magic pills. I think, this is great. We can sell a lot of magic pills. And it also links with what I was saying about trauma initiation. So trauma is about what's in it for me? How can I fix me? Yeah? Can I fix myself with a magic pill?

Starting point is 00:47:12 Whereas an initiation culture is about, hey, wow, we're all connected. I've got to find who I am and make my connection with the world. So I think what's happened with the psychedelics is the medical narrative, which is obviously backed up by Big Pharma, has created a narrative around psychedelics, which is business as usual. we've got a new magic pill guys let's we can sell it to you whereas you know people have been doing this a long time traditional cultures are going yeah no this isn't a magic pill this is part of an initiation

Starting point is 00:47:53 process and a part of the initiation process you need to know what story you're plugging into you need that you need all those old these old grandmothers telling you what this is about and what these stories are about and they're much much bigger than these little head trip stores we have in the West. You know, they're imaginal stories. They're, you know, they're, they're, they're, mysterious patterns, which we don't know the meaning of right now. And it might take us, you know, years to figure out what that is. And we have to stay humble with that. And we have to say humble to what, what it's telling us, rather than saying, yeah, I want to, I want to fix my trauma so I can get back to work or, you know, improve my business or whatever it is. So I think it is,

Starting point is 00:48:37 I think it is problematic that it's that it's held within a purely medical model because the store is not big enough. It makes a lot of sense to me. And it's not only because I talk to a lot of people, but I think people that live it, like you on the on the topic of, you know, I want to fix my trauma so I can get back to work. Like maybe your work is the trauma. You know what I mean? Well, yeah.

Starting point is 00:49:03 Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Why are you working so hard? you know, that's, is that trauma? You know what a big part for me and I think other people is, it is this thing about identity. Like you've been fed this cookie cutter idea of who you can be and what you can be since you

Starting point is 00:49:20 started going to school. By the time you're 30 or 40 or 50, it's very difficult, like you said, to let go of this identity. It takes courage to be like, I'm not going to do it anymore. What about your family? What about your money? What about that car? What about your house?

Starting point is 00:49:36 How are you going to live? all these what ifs, all these houses start showing up. And it's like, you really got to start working through those and come up. And for anybody within the sound of my voice, like if you're there, man, I want to give you a big hug. Congratulations. If you are in the midst of a personal crisis right now, that is the wake up call. That is the initiation. That is the point where this is bigger than you was telling you like, look, I love you.

Starting point is 00:50:01 Get out of this. This is the problem. You have to face it, though. it's it's hard it's hard to have the courage to do it don't you think yeah definitely definitely but but also it's you know because i work a lot with adolescents who come from difficult difficult situations and and and you know it's about the story so again so again they don't have these all these grandmothers telling us telling stories from the past they have Netflix or the culture or what they learned at school so the idea that actually there's a bigger there's a bigger picture

Starting point is 00:50:33 than the one we're living is not available. You know, unless you, unless you can access therapy, which is expensive, you know, in the UK, you can access it for free, which is amazing. But even many therapists are still running a more of a medicalized model, like, you know, a magic pill model, because that's what's funded. You know, I think what's interested with the integration of psychedetics

Starting point is 00:51:03 and psychotherapy is it's opened up psychotherapy to much more of an imaginal imaginal space thinking, you know, which is closer to, closer to what our ancestors, indigenous ancestors have been doing, which is, yeah, who are you really? You know, tell us, tell us what you, tell us what you come here to do and we'll help you do it, rather than you've got to get your exams and, you know, get that job. man it reminds me of the stories and the myths and the old books where you would read and students would come to the teachers and be like who the teachers would be like who is this young woman over who is this young child with well let's see what gifts they have you know and like it's a more beautiful way of education it's trying to figure out like what gifts this person has and instead of trying to give them these books to read I don't know it's amazing to me yeah yeah yeah I know one of the things I've been doing I suppose through my book and through my work is trying to find pathways that have traction. And then a replica that can be replicated.

Starting point is 00:52:15 So, you know, one of the things about the rites of passage work is where you can create structures like Vision Fast, so you can take people through that process. And then they're on that, then they're on their own journey, you know, and that might take them wherever it goes. But actually, it's quite, you know, that. that's not accessible to a lot of people. You know, I had to come to America to do that training. And there are people that do this work in the UK,

Starting point is 00:52:41 but it's not, it's not in the mainstream. And part of my work has been trying to bring this conversation to mainstream. And that's at the moment, that's what my work is. It's trying to have a conversation with people who work in the NHS and about this initiation culture, what it looks like, how to do it, what happens when you do it, what it, what it, what it means for a for mental health. And it's quite simple. You know, it's quite, it's complicated. But once you can once you get there, once you know how to do it, once you can create once you know how to open that

Starting point is 00:53:14 imaginal space, it's actually quite simple. You know, it's not in the sense that it's not intellectually complicated. It's imaginedly complicated. It's not intellectually complicated. Yeah. It's beautiful. I, I'm hopeful that we can break through and get more. people to understand how important ritual and ceremony and all of these rights of passage are in life. Yeah. I got another question coming here for you. This one's coming from Desiree. She says, you emphasize the need to bring experiential encounters with the imaginal world into mainstream culture.

Starting point is 00:53:50 What is the imaginal world and how can reconnecting with it heal us? We've covered a little bit. Yeah, great question. What's the name? Desiree. Desiree. Great question, Desiree. The imaginal world, we talked about this a little bit, but it's difficult to get.

Starting point is 00:54:09 So if you, one of the images I have is, imagine three windows. And we used to have, we used, this is a story I used at a conference recently. We used to have this kids program called Play School. And they used to tell a story and they had three, that this little framework of three windows, a round window, square window, arch window. window and they'd say, which window are we going through today? We'll go through the round window and they'll tell a story. And the next day they go through the arch window with a circular window. So imagine we've got three windows. And the first window is the cognitive window. So that's that's language, cognition, that's window one. The other window at the other end is sense

Starting point is 00:54:53 perception, sound, images, all the images on your phone. That's the other window. So that That's basically our world. We have cognitive stuff. We want to know anything. We read a book about it. We ask someone about it. We talk about it. We theorize about it.

Starting point is 00:55:07 That's one window. Or we look at all the images on the internet. But what the imaginal world is, is a space between the two. It's the middle window. And the middle window is not sensory. In other words, you can't sense it with your senses. And it's not cognitive.

Starting point is 00:55:24 You can't think your way through it. So you have to go into this felt sense and you stay and stay with a felt sense. And if you open that space and stay in that space, then the felt sense begins to talk to you through like thoughts coming into your head. So what I'm saying, Desiree, is the amount, that's the imaginal world. It's about holding that middle space, which is not cognitive and not sensory, and cultivating that.

Starting point is 00:55:56 And as I said before, It's a shared space. So, you know, if we go through that on our own, if we go through there with our own ego, then we get into magical thinking. We become crazy, crazy people. Yeah. But the thing about the imaginable space is just a shared space.

Starting point is 00:56:15 So George and I, we can, you know, we can have a shared dream or we can have a shared experience, a shared ritual. Yeah. Or I could hear your ritual and I could, I could witness it. And in that process, it becomes grounded as, a reality is a truth in in the way that in as a heart truth we know it in our hearts we know that to be the case and that's what that's what you know that's what a lot of the the in in europe east Turk um uh practices in europe we're involved in that finding the finding nosis heart knowing

Starting point is 00:56:51 knowing through the heart rather than knowing through the head and that and so that's the space that's initiation space and then we can go through there and then we begin then we begin And then we can begin to hear what nature's talking to us about. I love this. I love the idea of the three windows. For the first time, it really helps me to understand the not only the beauty, but the perils of psychedelics and the imaginal. Like when you look, like there is real potential for someone who's very, very talented

Starting point is 00:57:23 and intelligent to hop through that first cognitive window and just start a whole bandwagon. And then everybody else is like, this guy, this guy is ruined over all of us, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh, I get it. Like, it's interesting to see that. Like, you catch the Holy Man syndrome. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Oh, it's amazing.

Starting point is 00:57:46 Thank you, Desire. That was a beautiful question. We got another one coming in here. This one comes in from Neil. He says, do you believe Western psychology is fundamentally incomplete without an ecological and mythological perspective. Yes, for sure.

Starting point is 00:58:04 That's a no-brainer. And the reason it is is because the human psyche, which is the soul, that's what psyche means, the human soul, is ecological and mythological.

Starting point is 00:58:17 So if you're doing psychological work without that, you haven't got the whole package. Yeah. You know, I think it should be required reading to read Joseph Campbell's

Starting point is 00:58:33 Masks of God or you know you can probably just throw a dart at Joseph Campbell's work and do a lot of learning in that aspect of you. But these myths go so deep. They do, they do. But you see, the guy who was really into the imaginal was James Hillman.

Starting point is 00:58:48 And I think, I'm pretty sure he's a mate of Henri Corban. I think they hung out together. So what famously what James Hillman says about images on symbols is don't interpret them. In other words, don't go through the cognitive window, hang out with them. So stay in the imaginal window. So, you know, if you dream of a snake, you just hang out with that image and see what happens. And, you know, and as you know, when you, when you, you, when you, you know, when we stay with we, we stay with something, it shapes, it shapes, shapes, shapes,

Starting point is 00:59:24 and forms it transforms it changes into different things and it begins to tell us different things so so there's a real there's a real power in learning to travel in the imaginal realm really thank you like i i have been having for for me in this podcast and i do a lot of images and some artwork too and it's really begun to grow in a part of me that is borderline addiction like yeah the world of imagery to me speak so loud that I can almost not concentrate on other stuff. You know, it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. What is this? It's addictive.

Starting point is 01:00:02 It's addictive stuff, isn't it? Whoa, it really is. It's so meaningful. I thought maybe that's why, like, the cognitive language, the words we use, the linguistics of today are a fantastic tool, but it seems so often we just talk past each other or they lack meaning, especially meaning. It seems so meaning less language sometimes. Exactly.

Starting point is 01:00:25 Exactly. Yeah, yeah. What was the gentleman's name, Henri Corban? Henri Corban. He's a French philosopher. C-O-B-I-N, he's spelled Corbin, but he's French Corban. I see. I can't wait to look up some more of the things that he's been writing about. We've got more questions, though. So here we go. You've worked with individuals, families, and even organizations. Have you seen systemic healing?

Starting point is 01:00:55 where reconnecting one person to nature creates a ripple effect in their community. Oh, that's a good question. I can't think of a direct example. I suppose the examples I have are of young people who've gone out, been on trips with me and have come back and said, and the families notice them changed,

Starting point is 01:01:26 but also they've come, I've met, you know, these young people 20 or so years later, and they were saying, oh, yeah, that was the, that trip we did with Roger. That was the best thing ever did at school. And it's like, okay, great, I'll take that. But actually, I didn't do anything. You know, I dropped them in the space, you know, it wasn't like I did some magic, magic thing. And so, you know, so there is a sense, there is a sense when you work systemically,

Starting point is 01:01:56 in a clinical setting that you can change one person and it just changed the whole system because what happens with families and organisations of course is they're kind of enmeshed in a pattern and if you take a significant person in that enmeshed pattern

Starting point is 01:02:14 and change it then the whole the whole pattern begins to change so think about it actually I have to work with organisations where I've worked with individuals and the organisation began to change what happens is in my experience of organizations is the stuckness goes up goes up the hierarchy so you so you know I work with a couple of managers and the problem was these managers weren't talking to each other so I got the managers talking to each other and they realized they didn't really have a problem um

Starting point is 01:02:44 sorted great but what happened was that the kind of stuckness went up to the board of trustees or if it was, the higher level. And they weren't interested in doing the work. So it's like, okay, I can't reach that because they, because, you know, and it's that sense of, it's that sense of ego, ego and initiation is, you know, when you get a higher from an organization, you don't, you don't want to rattle a cage. You don't want to change. You don't want to change your identity because you're earning a lot of money.

Starting point is 01:03:11 You've got a lot of power. Whereas in initiation culture, there's a sense of, okay, dying practice. Like, what can I let go of? What can I let go of that's going to open up? new space for me so yeah so i i think um i hope i'm answering your question so yeah i do a lot of work working with systems clinically um but also working with individuals outside i do a retreat i've done a retreat for a couple of years you know taking taking people outside a mini vision fast and actually people you know people are changed by that yeah it makes sense you know i

Starting point is 01:03:47 especially when an individual begins to change their life in a way that's meaningful, it changes all their relationships because they're different. They're going to relate to everybody else to. Some people don't like that. Some people, hey, why don't you go back to the old person? Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

Starting point is 01:04:08 Exactly. So one thing I really love about all this is it is it is accessible to everybody. Like you don't need anything but the courage to sit in the dark. You know what I mean? It's there for everyone. Well, it is. If people know it's there, you know, there is a sense that, you know, it's like the question, well, what is the imaginal? You know, where are you going to learn about what the imaginings unless you read Henri Corbin or Jung or somebody?

Starting point is 01:04:40 So, you know, we don't have roadmaps for how to get to this place. And we can hear about indigenous stories of initiation, but you think, well, that's, that's way back then. I can't possibly do that. You know, and I suppose one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the revelations for me was realizing that I was an indigenous person. You know, that, that, that is, that is far down the line of having lost my connection to my stories and my initiation processes. But I have the right to refine that. And, uh, at a birth right to refine that as all. humans do. We have a birthright to be connected to the earth because we are the earth,

Starting point is 01:05:19 the earth is us. But it's a question of how you find your way back there from a, from a Western culture. You can't just steal indigenous people's stuff because that's not that's, you know, that's, that's, that's inappropriate. But it's about being informed by indigenous practices to find a way back to something that we, that we, that we once all connected to. Yeah, it's, So, it's like, there's all these road signs if you're paying attention. Like, even, like, especially in language. Like, you know, we talked about the cognitive. And I said how it's not meaningful sometimes.

Starting point is 01:05:57 But there's, for me, I've always found, like, these little one-liners that just speak to me, like, simple stuff, like, seek and you shall find. Like, what do that mean, you know? But, like, you start following these little clues that have been left in literature and books. Yes. Yes. These clues are everywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:06:13 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a really, that's a really nice example. George of the imaginal because what what we know about what what we know about the imaginal is it speaks to us so you know that might not it might not that that little phrase might not you know I might read and go whatever yeah you know we actually where if you're in the right space it's like oh I picked up this book I found this

Starting point is 01:06:36 passage and actually now I'm on this whole trip so that's that's what the imaginal does it kind of way it kind of we you know we put something into the world a question or whatever it is and and it shows up it comes back to us and it can be you know I've had people have messages that come on their mobile phones yeah totally you know it's like you know someone's out in nature and then they get a call from someone they haven't heard of you know heard from for 15 years and it's meaningful and it's like well why did that person call then when this people when these people were in this ritual you know it's like it's that it's that it's It's going back to that dual-us-backmonism,

Starting point is 01:07:16 that we are the world and the world is us. It's all the same matrix. Yeah, and I find myself sometimes crying and laughing, but like it's so weird how you find yourself all the time. Like, I'll start leaving clues, not even know when I'm leaving them. Like, I'll start quoting these things that, like, I found, that I found awesome.

Starting point is 01:07:43 And then someone would be like, hey, George, what were you talking about like three podcasts ago when you said this thing? You know, I'm like, oh, hey, let me tell you what that was, you know, because I know exactly what that was. It's the same, it's that same imaginal clue. It's like that you almost become the deliverer of clues once you start a match, once you start spending time in that world, you can't help. Like, leave it out. I'm not, I'm not saying it right. It's hard to explain, but it's there.

Starting point is 01:08:06 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I kind of know what you mean. I kind of know what you mean. But I think once, you know, once we get, once we get the understanding that the earth is alive, Right. Then we're in, it's a different thing going on. It's not just, it's not just loads of plants and animals and dead rocks. It's actually alive in the way that we're alive.

Starting point is 01:08:28 And we, you know, the separation we feel, which again is what indigenous people have been saying forever, the separation is alive. We're not separated. Yeah. So, you know, but finding the connection takes a little bit of work. You know, we have, you have to dig deep. You have to be in communication with the imaginal. You have to do what the imaginal. ask you to do sometimes sometimes you don't want to do it you know so you know yeah one one that

Starting point is 01:08:54 I found recently is each step reveals the next and that's pretty tricky because for me like I I have always had or wanted to be certain I've always wanted to have certainty in my life but that's an illusion like there is no certainty is no certainty yes that's right that's right yes It's amazing. All right, we've got a bunch of these questions stacking up, Rogers. Are you okay on time? I'm good, I'm good, yeah. Okay.

Starting point is 01:09:21 So you've guided wilderness rights of passage. Why are initiatory experiences in nature so vital for human development, especially in adolescence? Okay. So especially in adolescence, because in adolescence, what happens is we, I think we begin to wake up to an interesting. space in our lives. So which looks like externally it looks like testosterone and interest in the opposite sex. Internally, it looks like a sort of quest for meaning. You know, when you're an

Starting point is 01:09:59 adolescent, you start you start searching for books about, you know, looking at weird stuff. Quite often people are drawn to risk taking. Quite often people are drawn to sort of dark, dark, dark things. And also what happens in, what happens in adolescence is we revisit most, a lot of the things that happen to us when we're a kid. So again, working with the adolescents I work with, quite often they've had adverse childhood experiences,

Starting point is 01:10:28 and they, which kind of go underground when they're pre-adolescent, and that they resurface in adolescence. And there's a process that the process is like, well, actually this needs addressing now and there's and there's some emotional depth to be able to do that. So so that's the stage where adolescents are in a process of transformation. So that's a good place to offer them a transformation experience because actually where adolescents don't go through a transformation experience, they implode into their own ego. And so what you end up with is egoism and narcissism because you close down, you close down on your adolescent identity and protect it rather than dying to it and allowing a new, a new aspect of your identity, a deeper aspect of your identity, a more connected aspect of your identity to show up in the in the imaginable space.

Starting point is 01:11:32 So that's, you know, that's why adolescence is a really important time. You know, what we see in Western adolescents is there are no rights of passage that are meaningful. So the adolescents go a bit wild. Quite often they do risk-taking behaviour which can result in death or self-harm or destruction of other people and property. And then when they become adults, they don't, they don't. They don't have a set, they don't, they don't have a, a, a, a map of, or a, a semantic marker, a feeling inside themselves of how they're connected and who they really are. So, you know, they just buy into whatever, ever narrative looks best, easiest, or whatever

Starting point is 01:12:24 it is. So, you know, taking, taking adolescence through a process of, um, contain, um, um, contain, culturally contained introspection and transformation is really important. It's really important for our culture. And I think one of the reasons the culture is in such a mess is because we stopped doing that. You know, it was, you know, what happened with the colonial powers. They went out, one of the things they stamped out in all indigenous cultures. If you check out the, the literature, is this connection with nature, writes of passage, stories. You know, in Russia, they shot, they shot the shame on site because actually they wanted to get that that that was the you know that

Starting point is 01:13:06 you can't control people who are plugged into their own individual destiny you know and and and if you know so it's it's they're potentially dangerous for for a you know a dominant a dominant culture i think there's lots of people that make that argument for the 60s is that we began to see this sort of rewilding in the power We're like, nope, we ain't doing this. Yes. Yes. Let's see if you guys stand up and you don't.

Starting point is 01:13:39 Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And you can see what we see in the psychedelic renaissance is that's come back again. Yeah. You know, and it's come back in a different form, but it's come back stronger. Yeah. It's interesting.

Starting point is 01:13:54 I was talking to Josh Hardman the other day, who's got a great newsletter called psychedelic Alpha. And we were just having this conversation. and Ollie Jin Bash. We're all in the same sort of wavelength where, you know, it's, when we talk about fractals and history repeating, but on some level, you know, I can almost see Trump.

Starting point is 01:14:12 He's making these statements, not that I'm all political or anything, but you can see Trump making these statements about putting all drug dealers in jail. And I'm like, man, that sounds so Nixon-esque. And yet there was all these people that really advocated for psychics and help him get elected.

Starting point is 01:14:26 And I'm like, man, I can really see him clamping down. And then all of a sudden these sort of Huxley, elitists that are into psychedelics just start sending waves of cash to radicals, you know, and on some level, I'm like, hey, we might see these day glow school buses again. We might start seeing some real music again. We might start seeing some real things start happening here, you know.

Starting point is 01:14:46 It's weird how history kind of repeats itself. Yeah, yeah. But I think what, you know, I think, you know, when you think about the 60s, I just read a book about it recently, there's a sense that something was emerging. You know, something was coming out after that. post-war period where everything was pretty, pretty flat, it was pretty bland. And there was a sense that actually, you know, there's a bit more to this. There's more to this.

Starting point is 01:15:11 And you know, psychedelics are obviously a trigger in that. You know, I suppose the hope is that with the ecological crisis and, you know, the social crisis we're seeing around the world and the opposite pressures, that it will, you know, something positive will come out of this. Because that tends to be what happens politically. And in hard times, the artists, you know, create a lot of new material, new thoughts, philosophers and all that. Yeah. Like I'm a shout out to all the artists out there.

Starting point is 01:15:46 I hope you thoroughly understand how important the work you're doing is, whether you're creating NFTs or whether you're making murals with metaphors or you're cooking, whatever you're doing. If you, and I think all people are artists, I think it's so important. to get in touch with your creative side. You have no idea the ripple effect that your art can create for somebody else. Well, it's a threshold. It's a threshold to the imaginal world art, isn't it? It's one of the thresholds.

Starting point is 01:16:16 Yeah. That's interesting. Maybe we could talk more about thresholds. I always think of threshold guardians, but what are some other thresholds to the imaginal? Well, I think the threshold, you know, what threshold is like a door, isn't it? It's like a door way.

Starting point is 01:16:32 And either you go through, you don't go. through it. So the threshold is a place where you're passing through a door. And, and, you know, one of the things, you know, what we often use in ritual is a threshold. So you mark, you might, you might consciously mark a space. Okay, this is, this boundary, you're out of ritual, the other side of boundary, you're in ritual. So it's clear. And of course, as I said, you know, our bodies know this stuff. Our minds are going, what is, what is this stuff? What is this weird ritual stuff? Our bodies know it.

Starting point is 01:17:04 Our bodies go, oh, great, ritual, I can do that. So you can mark these boundaries. And by marking the boundaries, you get a sense of the difference between. So if you're working with that, you know, working that middle window with that kind of blank space, which looks like nothing, you get a sense of it when you're going in and you come out. So again, you know, again, like a psychedelic space, you know, you're going in, you know, can be one thing and coming out as another thing.

Starting point is 01:17:34 And then you've got a difference between, okay, this is, yeah, this is, this is a psychedelic space. It's not a psychedelic space. And the difference between the two starts to give you some nuance about what you're, what you're working with. And it's the same with, you know, it's the same with going into nature in a ritual way or, you know, spending spending time in, in extended time in nature you know you have a different sense of yourself and then you come back and you can remember it okay yeah that's how i was then so i think i think thresholds are are really important and of course the you know the the the the importance of the threshold is it's potentially a transformation you know and and the and the the you know the what i mean what i mean

Starting point is 01:18:23 by that is we don't know what's on the other side so if we knew what was on the other side of the threshold, like, you know, moving from your living room to your kitchen, it's not a threshold, it's a doorway, it's not a threshold, because you know what's in the kitchen, you're not going to be different. But if you're, if you're crossing an imaginal threshold or a ritual threshold threshold, then it's, there's an element which is a dying practice. You're going to leave something behind. You don't know what's on the other side. So, you know, someone doing a vision fast, you know, you just camping out for four days and nights without any food. I can do that. That's fine. But you don't know what's going to come up.

Starting point is 01:19:02 And, you know, and it's because it's a deep, because it's a deep ritual, because it's an imaginal ritual, it brings up a load of, brings up a load of fears and anxiety for people, which are real because actually we're stepping into the unknown. And part of, part of the imaginal is the unknown, you know, part of what, you know, I think part of what we have in Western culture that's gone off the rails a bit is everything's known you can go to the supermarket and buy oranges from all over the world you know every shop has what every every shop has what you want there's no unknown unless they you know unless there's some kind of you know the planes get grounded or something yeah great point it's a great point shout out to john anthony cafe he says

Starting point is 01:19:48 baby child adolescent adult yeah You know what? There's another threshold that I'm curious to get your thoughts on or maybe another write of passage that we don't see. I wish there was more of. And that is sort of like the transition from adult to elder. Like when you get in your 50s, you know, like that's a big one. It's like, well, people at. Now I'm supposed to do this. Wait a minute. What am I supposed to do? Who am? You have another who am I kind of going on. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And, and, you know, and I suppose what I've found in my. And I, you know, and for me, my link with this, you know, I returned to psychedelics when I was 60. You know, I had some, I had some mushrooms when I was at university and it was like, I saw some lights and, wow. Sure. You know, you know, it's just a trick. Whereas, you know, returning as a elder, older in my 60s for a ritual ceremony, it's like, okay, this is a different, now we're in a different ballpark.

Starting point is 01:20:52 You know, we're touching into something, which is, you know, all the things that the, some of the literature, you know, the indigenous literature and some of the medical literature tells you about what's going on there. So, yeah, and I think, I think for me, as I've got, as I've got older, that, that threshold into the imaginal world is much more easy to access, partly because, you know, I'm not bringing up, I'm bringing up family and work. as much as I was, but also there's a there's a porosity that comes as you get older. You know, you're looking, you're looking beyond, you know, your life. So you begin to have a different sensibility to what that threshold is. And also you begin to, I feel I've developed, begin to develop the skills of being able to cross that threshold and come back and get stuff and learn stuff. But as you say, you know, who, because it, because it, because it, it's,

Starting point is 01:21:52 It's really valuable that it's shared that you can have you have mates to go, actually, what did you experience this? Do you experience that? And I experienced that with my friend Lucy, but there are, and I have a men's group that I also do that with. But again, there's not a lot of wise elders out there who know this work. Not that I know of. I mean, there are spread around the world, but they're not, they're not easy to find. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:22:20 Yeah, it's, you have to really go looking, you know. And I love that quote of the, when the student is ready, the master will show up. You know, maybe it's in a, maybe it's in an old book or maybe it's in a phone call that a guy knows somebody. Or maybe it's in your wife's father or your wife's mother or something, you know, but they're there. And you really have to look, though. And it's, that's part of it, though. Like you have to be sort of, I don't know. maybe called to do it on some level or or willing to do it or have the courage to do it like

Starting point is 01:22:55 is there any going back like sometimes i think that like i've learned that there's my opinion is there's no going back like when you cross over you can imagine you could go back could think about going back but you can never go back like that that part is done and like that that should be something we celebrate but it's i don't know what are your thoughts on not not going back never going back how do you mean how do you mean going back to your younger Yeah. So let's say the ritual, like, okay, I'm going to try to put this in words here. So bear with me if I don't get it out exactly. Yeah, no, fine. You know, when you read, I've read some really cool rituals where they talk about an indigenous tribe and the gentleman that was describing it says, it's getting to witness time through different ages of your life simultaneously. And it's this aspect of a young child watching his brother. go through a ceremony to become a man who's watching his father at the end of the threshold whose father is watching his grandfather.

Starting point is 01:23:57 On some level, you're getting to experience all parts of life simultaneously. And there's no going back. You can see what you can catch a glimpse of the future. But you can't, you know, it's. And I get goosebumps when I think about it. But there's no going back. And it's easy to get stuck and like, oh, well, that part was good. No.

Starting point is 01:24:19 Yeah, it was good. but you're on this now. So stop moving here. We need you here. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:24:27 Yeah. No, I'm thinking of this experience of deep time, which is exactly that, you know, where you can have the experience of things and things that. Things are connected. They have a story. They have a narrative,

Starting point is 01:24:40 if you like, where they're connected, or less of a narrative, more of a fractal pattern. You can resonate with these things. And again, you know, I think in, you know, because we don't have so many concepts like that in Western culture, you know, we have we have chronology, you know, with time is on the watch, time is on the clock. Yeah. You know, so there's a sense like, well, it's Tuesday again.

Starting point is 01:25:06 I can just do Tuesday. Well, actually, no, last Tuesday was a different moment in time, you know. So yeah, I don't think we can, we can go back. but we can sometimes experience that, you know, the aspects of deep time, I think. It's so well said. Like it makes, like, I think that that is part of moving, at least in my limited experience, and this is just my opinion of it. And what I've learned so far is that moving from moving through middle age into becoming

Starting point is 01:25:39 someone who's on the cusp of maybe being an elder or moving to that time, moving to that space, your fundamental relationship with time changes. Like, oh, okay, I used to punch this clock. Now these days kind of blend together over here, you know, and like it really allows you to see the world in different ways. It reminds me kind of, you know, who has a great part about this is Mersay Iliad. And he talks about his, in his book, The Sacred and the Profane. He talks about Sacred Time and how I can share Sacred Time versus Profane Time.

Starting point is 01:26:13 Maybe we could just dig a little deeper on this. What are your thoughts? Yeah. Sacred and profane time. I'm not familiar with that. I'm saying the sacred, you know, what, you know, what I've learned, you know, when I, in my, my first vision, fast was this difference in the sacred and the, the sacred and the profane. That actually in the West, we tend to think of sacred as church, churchy. It's a church.

Starting point is 01:26:39 Yeah. You know, you don't mess around in church because it's sacred, you know. Whereas actually, that's a very Western idea. I think for Indigenous cultures, the boundary between these two is, you know, from what I've heard is more porous. There isn't, there isn't, it's not so serious. You know, life's more of a, you know,

Starting point is 01:27:04 we can take life a little more lightly. So that, you know, it's like the story I told about the, the guy with a phone, you know, he was in sacred space, he was in ritual, and his phone rings, which is, you know, that's, that's, that's a profane thing. But, you know, he's answering his phone, or he's answering an email. But actually, it was, it was a message from the imaginal that come through his phone to that, at that moment in time, and it was meaningful, you know, so there, so it, there's something about not, not, not judging, I suppose, in this.

Starting point is 01:27:40 Yeah. Yeah, it's so amazing to look back at some of, one of my really good friends and one of the mentors and one of the incredible people I talk to, I'm fortunate to talk to on a long-term basis is Dr. David A. Solomon, and he's the creative director at Christopher Newport University, but he's also a medieval mystic scholar. Oh, he's, oh, he's amazing. And he's, you know, he speaks Latin and Hebrew and English, and he speaks all of the Greek. So he's read all of these texts in their original language. written up about like Julian of Norwich and just, you know, he can quote Aquinas till you're blue in the face. And it's just, it's so amazing to get to hear his insights on how he sees some of these books like the cloud of the unknowing and like, yeah, yeah. There's all this rich history for

Starting point is 01:28:27 people that are find themselves pulled towards mysticism. Like there's so much rich history to explore and learn and make your own and experiment with, isn't it? Yeah, no, I think there's a very rich history in in Europe. I think it's, you know, it is, it was, you know, certainly in England, it was, there was a conflict with the church, you know, in terms of, you know, the, a lot of the, you know, the burning of the witches and the, that those, the breaking of those wise women lineages through, through the church at a particular time, you know, over quite a long period, actually. Yeah. It's amazing to think about all, all that history, right, oops, my headphones are kind of checking. Okay. Here we guys.

Starting point is 01:29:09 questions coming in for you. Do you think the lack of meaningful rights of passage in modern society is contributing to a generation unmoored from purpose? Yeah, for sure, for sure. Because one of the one of the roles of a right of passage is letting go dying practice, allowing something new to come in. But at a deeper level, it's about plugging into purpose. What brings you here? What's your unique gift? You know, Bill Plotkin, who does this work in America, in Colorado, talks about our eco-psychological niche that everybody has a place,

Starting point is 01:29:59 an ecological position, if you like, on the planet. Every person has a place that they fit in the world. And that has the quality of a pre-earthly intent. In other words, it's what we've come here to do. And once you find that, I think, then it's pretty clear what you need to do. It doesn't mean it's easy because it's quite difficult because no one else is doing what we're doing.

Starting point is 01:30:28 So it's not like you, it's not like you've got loads of mates are doing the same thing. It's like, oh, that's what I'm doing. It's pretty lonely. But actually, I'm connected to that at a deep level. And without that or without the knowledge that that's even a thing, then it's very easy to get untethered. And that's what we see, you know, that's what we see with a lot of adolescents. They're looking for something to tether themselves to, which is deep and meaningful.

Starting point is 01:30:56 So they're looking for, is it music? Is it in, you know, fashion? Is it in political groups? They're looking for something to tether themselves to. And actually, you know, the traditional knowledge is, there's a tether for you and it's yours. And you've got to figure out what it is. But I can help you do it because we've got a few psychotechnologies to get you on the way. And, you know, a writer passage, a soul-centric writer passage is one of those things.

Starting point is 01:31:27 It's about plugging people into their soul or plug, what I would say, plugging people into the mothership, you know, connecting with a big picture. Yeah, so John Anthony Cafes, thanks for chiming in over here. He says, baby child, adolescent, adult, crisis, middle age, old age, death. Is there an internal witness to this? I think, you know, this idea, what are your thoughts? Well, I think, I suppose it depends, you know, an external witness. Yeah, I think there probably is. I think they're probably, and then maybe that is the soul.

Starting point is 01:32:01 You know, that's the sense that actually, if you can get, if you can, if you can, you find that place. You're able to witness yourself going through those stages. But of course, there's another part of us, an ego part, which gets caught up in all the stuff. Like, you know, am I an elder? How can I call myself an elder? And everyone's going, no, you're an elder.

Starting point is 01:32:22 You know, other people can see it sometimes easier than others. And again, that's why community is so important. Because actually, we can get caught on our own ego world. And if you've got elders or people around you, they can mirror back, often mirror back to us who we are more clearly than we can ourselves. Unless we're really plugged in, not that many people are plugged in, really. It's a great point. It's maybe why isolation is so suffocating.

Starting point is 01:32:50 Like we don't know who we are unless we're part of a community. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think it's... Yeah, and I was thinking, you know, and again, the other thing, the other thing about a traditional initiation was it was it was a giveaway you did it for the for the for the for the for the community it wasn't it wasn't it wasn't uh you know wasn't like um an ego matriculation it's about you i'm doing this for the greater good for the wider the wider the wider the wider system the systemic intelligence of of the earth it's not about me yeah it brings up for me the

Starting point is 01:33:31 observer effect. You know what I mean? I wonder if that's tied into it. What does the esoteric say about the observer? I'm not sure. I mean, the power of witnessing is the power of witnessing is very powerful, isn't it? Just being witnessed. Yeah. I think, you know, I think that's really important. Yeah. It's so interesting how it fundamentally changes your behavior, you know, just by someone watching you has an incredible influence over whether you do or you don't. You know, I bring up the esoteric because I always see the symbol of like the eye and it's like something's always watching. You know, whether it's used in a negative connotation or I like to think of it as a positive connotation. Like, yeah, someone is always watching. Like that's why you are the best version of

Starting point is 01:34:17 yourself. And that's why you can communicate with something bigger than you. You can reach out to an intelligence that's right there because it's watching. Be part of it. Yeah. And maybe that's that internal witness. You know, maybe you are what maybe we're just watching ourselves all along. And I think sometimes you can pick up on that. You get a sense of like, oh, yeah, no, this is, I'm on track now. Another time, just like, I have no idea what I'm doing. Yeah. Yeah, it's a great way to be probably, there's probably a lot of work you can do there with grounding and just that insight.

Starting point is 01:34:50 This comes in from Betsy. Betsy says, if humanity does not change its relationship with the earth, where do you see us in 50 years? Is there hope for a return to balance? Yeah, that's a good question. Where do I see ourselves in 50 years? And again, it comes back down to, it comes back down to stories. So, you know, what stories do we have available

Starting point is 01:35:21 that take us 50 years into the future? You know, one of the things that you probably remember, George, from these books, the old science books we used to get when we're kids. There was this hockey stick curve into 2000 and space travel. And it was like, you know, Stone Age, the plow, the horse, all strong vehicles. And then it kind of went, so now we're there. And it's like, what are we doing? And, you know, and, you know, and it's pretty clear that it's not sustainable. You know, there's a kind of emperor's new clothes effect going on.

Starting point is 01:35:59 And we don't, we don't have a story other than, you know, Netflix. you know, dystopian sci-fi movies where the earth where you know AI is taken over the world. So you know, one of the things

Starting point is 01:36:12 one of the things we don't have is we don't have deep time stories for how we negotiate crises. And again, again, one of the things the traditional cultures had is they had deep time stories of how the earth

Starting point is 01:36:29 has ended before and how people have negotiated that. you know, more than once. So, so, you know, one of the, one of the things, one of the, one of the, the, the, the great quotes from one of the books I was reading is we need, we need better science fiction. You know, we need, we need better, we need better, we need better imaginative of the stories about how we're going to make it through to the future. Because, because, because if we have stories that are too small, then, we're not going to make it, you know.

Starting point is 01:37:01 But what does that, what does that mean? I mean, you know, it comes back to this, comes back to this sense of a rite of passage, is we're facing a threshold. And we don't know what's on the other side. You know, the classic, the classic picture of the threshold is the, you know, the caterpillar to the butterfly. The caterpillar, you know, has no wings, has no reproduction, reproductive organs, doesn't know it's going to turn into a chrysalis.

Starting point is 01:37:28 It doesn't know it's going to turn into a butterfly, because when it's in the Christmas, it completely dissolves, and then it transforms into something else. So we're at that caterpillar stage where we're kind of munching up the planet going, how do we stop this? And, you know, what we know about the Earth, the system that, you know, the ecosystems of the Earth is that, is it's, you know, what we know from old stories is, well, it's a life, it's a being.

Starting point is 01:37:56 It has not a plan, but it has an arc of trajectory. And we don't know what it is. But also when you think about human thinking, you know, which is our main tool for figuring out how we're going to get through this, human thinking hasn't been around that long. You know, the earth has been functioning and evolving and changing for a long time before humans came along. and for a long time before humans

Starting point is 01:38:26 developed books and thinking. So the idea that we can think our way through this is hubris, really, because actually the earth's doing something, we're part of it, something's going to happen, and we're going through that threshold, whether we're like it a lot.

Starting point is 01:38:44 We don't know what's on the other side. So part of, you know, what we can do is, find a way of keeping ourselves settled with the unknown. And one of the ways, one of the ways to do that is through something like rites of passage, a threshold process, a dying process where you face the unknown and learn how to be comfortable with that.

Starting point is 01:39:11 So yeah, I don't know if that answers your question there, but that's where I'm out with that one. I like it. I see it a little bit different. And I'll offer this, I'll offer this story for Betsy, is that I, I don't know. I think we are, we've been in the Chryslist. I think we have, we have made it through the consumption phase, the same way the caterpillar just consumes the entire plant until it can anymore. And I think what you're seeing right now is the beginning of a new form eating through

Starting point is 01:39:41 the detritus of the old. You're right. You're right about the story. Like we were fed this story of consumption that will be, we'll live like the Jetsons and we'll have flying cars. Sure. And that story is not true. We're not there.

Starting point is 01:39:56 It's not happening. And therefore, that story and the people that spun it, maybe not the people that spun it. However it was spun, the articulators of the story, like, that is the detritus through which we're eating. But I see so many talented young people. And like, I firsthand am participating in this incredible art explosion where I'm like, oh, this is a wing emerging right here. What is this thing do? Whoa. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:40:25 Yeah. So for me, when I hear a lot of these stories, and I have a young daughter and her school talks a lot about overconsumption and saving the planet, like I offer this as a story of hope. Like we are emerging as a new form right now. It's coming. It's here. It's history or the future is here. It's just not evenly distributed.

Starting point is 01:40:49 Yes. I'm so thankful. It's beautiful in so many ways. if you can allow yourself to suspend that other myth of we've overconsumed, we're killing everything, we needed to, we needed to. And now we're here. Now we have to make the changes necessary to be in this new form. Will we do it?

Starting point is 01:41:04 Will we chew our way out of there? Will we be born? I hope so. A lot of times children die in birth and it's possible. I'm hopeful for it. What are your thoughts? Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:41:15 No, I think so. I like the idea. I think you're right that actually, you know, young people are coming with a, a different imagination. And, you know, and they're not, you know, a bit like the 60s. They're not buying, they're not buying the story of the old guys, you know. And, but, but, but also it's beyond, you know, it's that middle window. It's beyond our imagination.

Starting point is 01:41:36 We can't think, you know, that's, we can't think what it is. We can't, you can't regulate it or moderate it or even, you know, tell them it's okay or not okay, because actually it's the, it's the future. And, you know, that is, that is part of the, you know, I think, I think, you know, the next generation are part of the, well, they're part of the earth coming to heal itself, really. That is so beautiful. I'm going to write that down. Yeah. I'm so enamored by the youth and how quick they are to adapt and use these new technologies. And, you know, there's another great quote. I think it was, you could probably take it all the way back to the Emerald Tablets of Toth, where they talk about.

Starting point is 01:42:20 about the inventor of a technology is the worst person to tell you what that technology is going to be used for. You know, you have all these AI guys out here like, this is what is going to be used for. We're going here. We're doing this. No, no, no. Thanks for the tools. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 01:42:36 I love it. I love it. Okay, I got two more over here. I know you, I know you've been very patient with your time. So let me just get a knock out a couple more of my last two guests. If you could design an ideal education system that integrates nature, imagination. and systemic thinking, what would it look like? That's a good question.

Starting point is 01:42:56 Well, I was partly able to do some of that when I worked at this, got this Ruskin Mill College in the UK, where we were able to, we had access to land and we had freedom of curriculum to certain extent to expose people to craft and land processes. And it was very transformational. You know,

Starting point is 01:43:19 but the, so part of, I think that there are a number of different things that are needed in that, in that education process. One is contact with nature and contact with nature in the context of creation, making something, doing something, not just hanging out in nature,

Starting point is 01:43:40 but actually transforming natural materials into something beauty. The beauty way is the, I think the Navajo, the beauty way. You actually have to surround yourself by beauty. So what that enables is it enables the bodies to calm down. There's a trauma healing element in that, I think. So once the trauma's healed, then I'm just writing about this actually.

Starting point is 01:44:04 I'm just writing about this today. Then the next one is being able to provide a new story. You know, opening a story from, yeah, we're just going to chew up the earth and it's all done to actually, well, what if? What if this? And those stories that are those stories that resonate with ancient wisdom are really important because they have imaginal shapes and patterns in them, which have wisdom that we probably don't even know. And then the third one is how to, you know, psychotechnologies to reconnect, to plug into

Starting point is 01:44:38 the, plug into the great mystery, the great mother. And those can be things like vision fast, but also psychedelics. but then you know and psychedelics are you know have that have a bit of an edge to them for various reasons um but a right but certainly a writer passage a ritual writer passage which enables people to find themselves and find their connection with the sacred is is essential and then once you've got if you've got all those three then jobs done really you can let people go and do do what they need to do create create the wings of the butterfly i love it it's so true. This whole conversation has just made me understand the more frequent sound or feeling and

Starting point is 01:45:28 imagery of the imaginal. Like, it's growing stronger. I think it, I think it is, it's, it's, once you get the imagine, it takes a really long time. Once you get it, it's a game changing. Yes. I hope more people just hear that word and we'll explore and seek and find and look because it's there's that other quote too let me just put this one out there for people that which you are seeking is seeking you yes that's one of my favorites exactly exactly well that's that that that's the imaginal right there yes you know it's not it's not about you there's something that's there's something that's looking for you you know there's something that's looking for you I love that yeah yeah I mean maybe that's you know maybe that's that internal observer going yeah

Starting point is 01:46:14 yeah yeah no you know you know you don't want to be doing this job You want to be doing that job. Yeah. Yeah. And you're going, but I like this job. It makes me feel good. No, that's the one. Yeah. It's so, it's so beautiful when you get to a point and when you can look back and be like, oh, I see.

Starting point is 01:46:32 I was, that's what was supposed to happen. Yeah. There's a lot of healing in there. Like, oh. There's a lot of healing. There's a lot of healing. But, you know, it's very difficult to let go of the ego. It's so hard.

Starting point is 01:46:42 It's so hard. Yeah. Okay. Let me, let me, uh, finish up here with we got first off thank you to everybody in the chat who's hanging out with us and yeah great questions great questions right okay uh let's see what practices can people start today right now to begin rekindling their relationship with the natural world okay another great question who's this this one sorry this one's coming from christian christian great great christian so um so

Starting point is 01:47:18 So I think the simplest practice is to get your hands into nature or your feet into nature. So gardening is great. So just grow stuff or walk in nature without any agenda, without sort of headphones, without listening to a podcast, without naming the birds or whatever it is. Just spend time moving your body through nature. So walking in nature is really good or touching nature or doing, working with natural materials is really good. Touching organic materials is really good. Bones, feathers, this kind of stuff.

Starting point is 01:48:01 And just see how that works with you. And then that's an easy one. And the next thing is to, I think, to find somebody who can take you into more of a ritual space to continue. teach you how to do, make a ritual space. So you drop into the more of a marginal space and you begin to listen out for that thing that's talking to you. And practice that for a while. And then, you know, and then, you know, there are other things you can do.

Starting point is 01:48:35 Like, you know, therapy is really helpful, but it's quite, it's difficult to access. Or finding someone who can hold you through a rite of passage like a vision fast. There's a lot of vision fast guide in. in the states, particularly on the West Coast, you know, sign up, sign up for one of those programs and that will open a lot of things for you. Fantastic. Well, Roger, before I let you go, where can people find you? Like, let's say they want to, they're, they heard your story, they want to read your books. Where can people find you? How do they get a hold of you? What do they get your books? What do you got going on?

Starting point is 01:49:09 Okay, so they, so, I should have prepared for this one, shouldn't I? So the book, my books available, you know, on these different sites, Sol and Nature. So you can get that off Amazon or route lager or anything like that. My, and you can, you can email, I haven't got my, let me just see if I can find my, like, yeah. You might have to edit this bit out. Actually, LinkedIn is a good place to find me.

Starting point is 01:49:45 Okay. People can, people access me on LinkedIn. And that's the easiest way. Let me see if I can find the email as well. Okay. So my website with my wife is www. kith and kintherapy.com. So that's kith kith kith and kyntherapy.com.

Starting point is 01:50:32 All one word. is it is it is it a indy or is it just a symbol uh it's uh it's kith kith and it's not it's and it's a word so it's kith and kith and kyntherapy okay fantastic well hang on briefly afterwards roger i wanted to tell you in closing thoughts but to everybody else within the sound of my voice to john to betsy to nil the christian to lighter to everybody that chimed in and hung out with us thank you so much for being here. For those of you, I didn't get to your questions. Sorry, I will be back again. I'll try to answer them outside here. That's all we got, ladies and gentlemen. Have a beautiful day. Aloha.

TrueLife - Rites of Passage, Natures Role in Human Development W/Roger Duncan

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