0:05

Welcome to Live Free Ride Free,

0:07

where we talk to people who have lived

0:10

self-actualized lives on their own

0:12

terms, and find out how they

0:14

got there, what they do, how we

0:16

can get there, what we can learn from them.

0:19

How to live our best lives, find

0:21

our own definition of success,

0:24

and most importantly, find

0:26

joy. I'm your host,

0:28

Rupert Isaacson. New York Times bestselling

0:30

author of the Horse Boy. Founder

0:32

of New Trails Learning Systems and

0:35

long ride home.com. You can find details

0:37

of all our programs and shows on

0:39

Rupert isaacson.com.

0:42

Welcome back to Live Free

0:44

Ride Free. It's all about self actualization.

0:47

And we've got somebody pretty

0:49

self actualized Kansas Caridine.

0:52

Should I say Caridine or Caridine?

0:54

It's actually Caridine.

0:57

Caridine. Good job I asked. Those

0:59

of you like me who are 5, 000

1:01

years old or so remember

1:03

growing up with the

1:05

series Kung Fu. At least you

1:07

especially do if you're a Brit. And

1:10

and I think also if you're American and what

1:12

sort of cult that was and David

1:14

Carradine, who was the obviously the star of

1:16

that coming out of a, of a, of

1:19

an acting family. Well, his

1:21

daughter Kansas has taken

1:24

a self actualized journey, which

1:27

I think is unusual particularly

1:29

for coming out of a background

1:32

like that. And I think it's one we can all learn from.

1:34

I think it's one that. We can all

1:36

get some mentorship from I know I certainly

1:38

can so I'm not gonna preamble too much

1:40

I'm just gonna say that I I first

1:42

met Kansas About

1:46

four or 500 years ago, I think it was in

1:48

the early 2009

1:50

or 10, we were both at

1:53

a place in Northern California where

1:55

there was a sort of equine assisted thing

1:58

going on. And we had

2:00

a brief conversation in which I picked

2:02

up a fallen deer antler, which I still have in this

2:04

house. So every time I see that fallen deer

2:06

antler, I'm like, Kansas caridina. Yes, I remember.

2:09

And always had this sort of feeling that we would end

2:11

up talking more. And

2:13

then. Through the, his

2:16

eminence, Warwick Schiller we met

2:18

again in San Antonio last year at the

2:20

last summit and in a raucous

2:22

bar in the hotel, managed

2:24

to work out the intention

2:27

to chat further. So here we are. So

2:30

Kansas, thank you very, very much for making

2:32

the time. I know the listeners have a big treat

2:34

in store. Can you tell

2:37

us in brief who you are?

2:40

Oh, I think that question for

2:43

anybody is so interesting because who we are

2:45

exists in so many different domains, so many

2:47

different levels. I'm a mother 1st

2:49

and foremost to be 2 beautiful daughters.

2:52

I have been largely identified in the question

2:54

industry and when people ask, what

2:56

do you do? I just get to say, I ride horses.

3:00

I have been blessed to be able to,

3:02

have horses be threaded and woven throughout

3:04

my life. When I was 11

3:06

years old, I decided to

3:08

leave home, the home that you referenced

3:11

to was really in Hollywood,

3:13

like in the thick of it, and everything that

3:15

you could imagine that is associated with 1980s

3:18

Hollywood, and I moved out when

3:20

I was in grade six. And

3:22

followed my nose into the horse

3:24

world deeply, and then lived in a really

3:27

authentic California

3:29

horse ranch that was steeped in kind

3:31

of cow horse tradition. And

3:33

the family that cared for

3:35

that particular organization became my

3:37

foster family. So I often refer to them

3:40

as my cowboy family or my foster family because

3:42

I stayed there until I was

3:44

18 years old. That's the Riata

3:46

Ranch, correct?

3:48

Correct. Yeah, we had a ranch.

3:51

Tell us about that. And you say grade six. For those

3:53

of us who are, who are Brits and Europeans

3:55

and can't think in those terms, how old

3:57

was that?

3:59

I was 11. Okay. 11

4:01

years old. Yeah. And when I made the negotiation

4:04

and I did, I really negotiated

4:06

and I said, I'm going to go move into this horse

4:08

ranch and I'm going to leave. And I had,

4:10

this is 1 of those blessings that comes and

4:13

we have different experience in life

4:15

that we could say are traumatic.

4:17

And instead of that post traumatic stress, it was

4:19

really a post traumatic growth. That

4:21

gave me the independence to move

4:23

along and say, Oh yeah, I can go move

4:26

here and I can make that choice. And I moved

4:28

in with a different family. I had already bounced

4:30

around quite a bit.

4:31

What made you think? Oh

4:33

my gosh, aged 11. Absolutely

4:35

gut feeling. I can trust this family. I can,

4:38

I can make that sort of a effectively

4:41

self actualized decision at that age.

4:43

What, what was going on with you

4:45

that you felt you not only had that confidence, but

4:47

also that discernment.

4:49

Certainly. I mean, I think again, there's so

4:51

many answers to that. There

4:54

is definitely a lot of intuition. And

4:56

the intuition without thinking, without

4:58

questioning, without insecurity and self

5:00

doubt that comes with kind

5:02

of, as we get older, we attach stories

5:04

and we get a little bit more in our mind and we, and

5:07

we hesitate. But intuitively

5:10

I had gone there for horse for a two

5:12

week horse camp. And

5:14

initially I had just fallen in

5:16

love with the lifestyle with The horses

5:18

with living and breathing and living on a ranch that

5:21

is attractive enough to,

5:24

to, to grab any

5:26

11 year old girl. I think who

5:28

has a passion for horses. And so to

5:30

wake up and we had probably 40 head

5:32

of horses on the ranch at the time, you

5:34

know, over a dozen different trick riding horses and just

5:36

kind of a legacy. It was totally a dream

5:38

world. The, I showed up in my britches

5:41

and hat and helmet. And the first thing that

5:43

we did is put on swimsuits and

5:45

ride the horses bareback through the river. And

5:48

then spend all night in tennis shoes, practicing

5:51

to stand up on horses or run beside them

5:53

and really feel that blend. And so

5:55

anyway, it was all extremely alluring.

5:58

But the decision to move in with them is that they

6:00

had created what I would say, a

6:02

field of safety and security

6:05

that was a reliable energetic imprint

6:07

that I was attracted to that stability.

6:10

And truly what I was seeking at that time

6:12

was just grounding and stability and it was so

6:14

wholesome and to have foster

6:17

parents who are basically a generation

6:20

older, so they were really still connected

6:22

to, we could say the old ways

6:24

there was something in my soul that really felt

6:27

drawn to that. And so I was following

6:29

again, something that's really beyond the mind,

6:31

just this intuitive impulse.

6:33

It's

6:34

not every girl, though,

6:36

who would have grown up in,

6:38

as you say, 1980s Hollywood with all the sort

6:40

of excess that one associates with that,

6:43

who would necessarily have been able to tap into.

6:46

Her intuition to that degree, even

6:48

after, you know, a two week

6:50

magical camp I guess what I'm fishing

6:52

for is a lot of people say I

6:54

wish I was more in touch with my intuition. And

6:57

obviously we know that children generally

6:59

are, and then it's sort of, you know, we

7:02

told that we need to separate from it as we

7:04

get older, but it. It doesn't

7:06

sound like 1980s Hollywood was necessarily

7:09

fantastic training ground for trusting

7:11

one's intuition, or was it? And

7:14

were your family actually A

7:17

family that despite all

7:19

the Hollywoodness actually taught you

7:21

how to foster intuition to some degree

7:24

or did it come from somewhere else? What do you think?

7:27

I honestly think it came from

7:30

somewhere else and something that had been cultivated

7:32

deep perhaps beyond different beyond

7:35

this birth without a doubt

7:37

because there was not a lot of interaction.

7:41

I think growing up with. Artists who

7:43

have a different assigning to

7:45

heart and meaning that being in the field

7:47

is definitely something. So there was always music

7:50

around and there's always the desire

7:52

to, to follow your heart

7:54

in terms of being assigned with artistry.

7:57

There was a certain amount of Eastern influences

8:00

as well as, you know, my father

8:02

was involved in some projects that

8:05

worked with indigenous people and Native American

8:07

church and things like that. I didn't know that. Okay.

8:10

Yeah, so that was around the

8:12

AIM, the original, like, American Indian

8:14

movement that was taking place in the 70s

8:17

as well. But there was not a

8:19

lot, you know, the pendulum swings

8:21

both ways in generations, and so

8:23

I think my parents generation was extremely

8:25

conservative and very controlling, and

8:28

therefore they were very liberal to me,

8:30

and so there was not a lot of, of,

8:32

of teaching. Mentorship, it

8:35

was just kind of, all right, we'll let you grow

8:37

like a wild a seed

8:39

in, in a field and just let you be.

8:41

And, and perhaps that in and of itself allowed

8:44

me to tap into my intuitive

8:46

impulses because I didn't have a lot of restrictions

8:49

that being said, I was seeking

8:51

more form and boundaries, which is

8:54

what I actually appreciated about having

8:56

a German foster father. Okay, we

8:58

had a very organized, you know, clean running ship

9:01

at the, at the stables that appealed to

9:03

me on many different dimensions. And

9:05

then at the same time, I would say that, you

9:08

know. Also, when you're around somewhat

9:10

of a chaotic environment, then

9:13

you start to rely a little bit

9:15

more on the awareness and perceptions

9:17

of safety and be more present

9:20

to it. And so, since that was switched

9:22

on to me at a very early age I think

9:24

that made me aware of environments

9:26

that where I felt safe and secure

9:29

or environments that I wanted to move

9:31

away from. And so, hence that Riding

9:33

stable this it was truly a sanctuary

9:36

and it had again the resonance

9:38

of security and stability that I was attracted

9:41

and drawn to

9:42

do you have siblings and did they

9:45

display the same degree of precocious

9:48

intuition or is it

9:49

just you? I was raised

9:51

pretty much as an only child, so my

9:54

siblings were quite a bit older and raised

9:56

in different homes, so we didn't

9:58

spend that much time together at all. And they're

10:00

artists as well, and we have wonderful

10:03

time together because we're quite iconoclast

10:06

or magnet. We're not your average conservative

10:08

type of people at all. My sister

10:10

and my brother both are, we're,

10:13

we're all pretty eclectic but

10:15

not because we were under the same household.

10:18

Okay, so you,

10:20

now you said that the couple

10:23

that were running the Riata Ranch at that time,

10:25

that the the male half of the couple was

10:27

German. What was a German

10:29

doing being running a trick riding ranch

10:31

in California at that time?

10:33

What was their story?

10:34

How did that? It's an amazing story

10:36

and if I ever meet a screenwriter one day

10:38

that can help me put it out it's just fabulous,

10:41

but You know, he was actually

10:43

from North Dakota and was

10:45

raised on Will James Storytelling

10:48

books. So the old Westerns always wanted to be a cowboy

10:50

and at 12 years old ended up hopping on a train

10:53

Thinking that he was going straight to Arizona,

10:55

which is where Western life, and he ended

10:58

up in Hollywood as the stable

11:00

boy for Will Rogers, who was the

11:02

biggest movie star at the time. And, you

11:04

know, slept in the, in the mangers of the horses

11:06

and end up becoming you know, a rider

11:09

and some of the sale yards, because he was a really good rider.

11:11

Very good horseman because German

11:13

father would hook teams together and for

11:16

plowing fields and things like that and brought that

11:19

tradition. In

11:22

a very that lineage was really established.

11:24

So when he brought it to Hollywood, he was actually

11:26

doubling Jennifer Jones and do a little

11:28

the sun as well as Elizabeth Taylor in national

11:31

velvet. And then he always wanted to be a cowboy,

11:33

so he quit the Hollywood thing himself and

11:36

ended up in this small town about

11:38

3 hours north. And

11:40

he was a calf roper, but

11:42

he had a car accident that quit

11:44

his rodeo career. And because

11:47

he couldn't, find a way to basically

11:49

pay the bills for his young family. Somebody

11:51

said, well, why don't you teach a couple lessons to my kids?

11:54

And that four students in the first

11:56

year grew into a hundred students. And

11:58

there was a thriving, it was just destiny

12:01

created this crisis. And he became

12:03

a mentor to over, over,

12:06

I want to say over 3000 students between

12:09

the 50s, 60s, 70s. And then I joined

12:11

at the end of the 80s. And where did

12:13

the

12:13

trick riding come from with this?

12:16

He was always introducing lots of

12:18

multidisciplinary masters to

12:20

come in and teach the kids. So there was a lot of

12:22

rain, cow, horse, and then, you know, rodeo.

12:25

And then somebody came who knew some trick writing, you

12:27

know, they did Rosenbach writing and Roman

12:29

writing. And then the trick writing team became

12:31

a demonstration team. And in

12:33

the late seventies, it just got a lot of attention

12:36

until there was a pivot and

12:38

that became the exclusive offering in

12:41

the eighties. And then. Currently today, that

12:43

team still exists in a different incarnation,

12:45

but it's still going. What's the name of the team

12:47

now? It's still the Riata

12:49

Ranch Cowboy Girls. Yeah, trick

12:51

riding and trick roping. There's a famous

12:54

old Hollywood cowboy named Monty

12:56

Montana who brought ropes into

12:58

the program And so then we started doing the trick roping

13:01

and really I always explain it's it's such

13:03

an ancient art There's not many people who have ever

13:05

seen trick riding before much less know about

13:07

it. And so it's wonderful

13:09

that it's that's one place where it can kind

13:11

of be nourished and And then it helped

13:14

me later on, since being involved

13:16

with Cavalia, find my path really

13:18

into the circus world and the performing arts, this kind

13:20

of vaudevillian entertainment.

13:22

Absolutely. So, so talk us through

13:24

you, you find yourself at the on

13:26

this two week horse camp, you're

13:28

introduced to this wonderful world. You're

13:30

ready. Horses are already clearly

13:32

in your blood. And you

13:35

then make this decision to Basically

13:37

move in and sort of be a daughter and,

13:41

you know, become a trip rider. You

13:45

are 11 when this happens. You

13:48

then go out and become a performer, a

13:50

public performer, sort of full time performer. At

13:52

what

13:52

age? Well,

13:55

I mean, I was doing the highest

13:57

level shows at 12,

13:59

13. So it started early. And

14:02

then maintained, I mean, we had done everything

14:04

from, you know, Super Bowl, halftimes and

14:06

49er games to World

14:08

Equestrian Games and Aquitana and all of those

14:11

Cheval Passion, which is in Avignon, France,

14:14

with a young Lorenzo, Lorenzo was there

14:16

and Fred and Magalie who ended up hiring me with

14:18

Cavalia were also there performing at the, at

14:20

that event. So, yeah,

14:23

it started early, which is

14:25

which is a blessing in and of itself. I mean, I

14:27

had a significant amount of burnout

14:30

early on because I'd already done so many things

14:32

and had been pushed to a very high level.

14:35

And at the same time, I also

14:37

didn't have the same type of striving.

14:39

Like, I need to prove this. I really want to be able to

14:41

get to this next level because it

14:43

was It had already been attained, you

14:46

know, quite early on. So my

14:48

I guess my natural magnetism

14:50

to still be in work with horses without was

14:52

with a true love and

14:54

a true desire. It was not because I expected

14:57

it to bring me some sort of other means. And

14:59

this is also the gift of growing up, you know, around

15:02

celebrity and fame is because

15:04

I saw really the impermanence of

15:06

it. And it was never something

15:08

that I had to strive for. I

15:11

was just really following what. What

15:13

what felt nourishing on a soul

15:15

level, you know, the desire to be with horses

15:17

and find that unity and have that

15:19

relationship, which was much more the

15:21

reason that's the rub.

15:23

So you, but you talk about burnout and

15:25

you're talking about burnout very young. How

15:29

old were you in this first

15:31

of perhaps more than one burnout and what

15:34

burned you out?

15:36

Yeah, so, there was definitely a

15:38

significant amount of pressure and inflexibility.

15:40

So, all the 7 years through

15:42

school and through secondary school, there was no option

15:44

to do other things. I had some other

15:47

passions and interests, and to

15:49

be fair, I should say I was allowed to do you

15:51

know, kind of mock trial debate

15:53

certain plays and things like that. But I wanted

15:55

to focus And get really deep

15:57

into musical theater and focus a lot

15:59

more on singing and voice.

16:02

And that was not allowed

16:04

because my commitments with the writing team

16:06

or so big. So that was

16:08

kind of the 1st teenage angst

16:10

that I think I experienced. And

16:13

then by the time I was 18, I

16:15

really pulled back. And

16:17

had to find my own way and I didn't

16:20

want to be introduced as David

16:22

Carradine's daughter anymore. I did not

16:24

want to be wearing just, you know, the

16:26

red, white and blue because I'd been doing that for so

16:28

long and kind of this Americana role.

16:31

And so. I actually ended up

16:34

handling a love for the mountains

16:36

and spending a lot of time up in Alpine

16:38

environments and more, you know, Yosemite

16:41

and the Sierra's here where we live living

16:43

up in ski areas and following

16:46

that passion and still doing

16:48

some shows from time to time. And

16:51

then it wasn't until I came back into

16:54

Los Angeles and started going more into

16:56

the stunt world, actually coming back

16:58

into horses full time, but I was

17:00

burnt out to the point that horses were, that

17:02

had become just a job and

17:05

there was not so much like the joy

17:07

and the love behind it. And when I was

17:09

cast for Cavalia, I had already

17:11

auditioned and was hired before I'd

17:13

ever seen the show. And the first time that I

17:15

saw the show, I was just weeping and weeping

17:17

and weeping because it was so beautiful and I couldn't

17:19

believe that I was a part of something that

17:22

really was much more in alignment with my core values

17:24

than being in rodeo. So I've never gone back. I

17:27

appreciate my rodeo roots. I appreciate

17:29

everything that it taught me. And I love a lot of things about

17:31

Western culture. But I haven't done a

17:33

rodeo since, since I was 18.

17:36

What year were you hired at Cavalia?

17:38

2004.

17:42

So it's been 20

17:43

years,

17:43

right? So, and I think, I think that was

17:45

the show that I saw. I saw it in Dallas

17:48

that year and I remember also

17:50

being absolutely gobsmacked because,

17:52

you know, I'd seen beautiful equestrian

17:55

spectacles before and so on. So they're

17:57

always, they're always amazing. But there, I remember

17:59

that there was a quality to that particular

18:01

show. And I also remember, I,

18:04

We, in our preamble, where it said that I also, like

18:06

you, lived in Quebec. We'll get there later.

18:09

And I remember I was around in Quebec when Cirque

18:11

du Soleil first began, and I remember

18:13

going to a few of the early shows. And

18:16

when it was still something very, very new and

18:19

being blown away. And then when

18:21

that connection came with horses thinking, Oh my

18:23

gosh, this is, this is that absolute

18:26

nexus of art and passion

18:29

and excellence. So it's, it's,

18:31

it's interesting to me. What.

18:34

What do you think was the,

18:39

because that, that show had

18:41

a particular, I didn't see any further

18:44

Cavalia shows. I think I almost didn't want

18:46

to because I, I

18:48

felt that if it wasn't quite

18:50

that magical again, it would

18:52

disappoint me, you know? And, and, and so

18:55

I wanted to remain with an, and I remember watching Frederick

18:57

Pignon Magali doing. Taking

19:01

liberty to a whole other thing

19:04

that none of us had seen before and

19:06

the trick riding being astonishing and mixed

19:08

with humor and storytelling and just,

19:11

just great. What do you

19:13

think was going on that you ended

19:15

up in the right place at the right time there?

19:18

Because, you know, I,

19:20

I know lots of people who've been in trick riding

19:23

teams, good trick riding teams and that sort of thing. And

19:25

they're all very accomplished, but this

19:27

was something else. This was something special. It almost felt

19:29

like there was something almost a bit occult

19:31

or supernatural at work there. What took

19:35

us through your experience?

19:37

Yeah, I mean, I always feel like there was, it was

19:39

a ceremony. And at the time I had already

19:41

been attracted to Being

19:44

engaged in sacred

19:47

relationship and being engaged

19:49

in really meaningful ceremony and indigenous

19:52

ceremonies and was really wanting

19:54

to align myself with things that

19:56

had more of an impact

20:00

in ways that work

20:03

on the non physical domain,

20:06

but have really an energetic. Ripple

20:09

effect, if that makes sense. So

20:12

at the time I was living in Los Angeles and

20:14

when I became hired for Cavalia and saw that

20:16

I was again attracted to the resonance

20:19

and this is something we'll get to heart math at some point,

20:21

but I started to notice when we're attracted to energy

20:24

where it's like there's a magnetism there that

20:26

draws us in and there's a shared resonance. So we're really

20:28

attracted to frequency and the frequency

20:30

that Fred and Magalie would choose. So, yeah.

20:33

Authentically experienced on your own,

20:35

there was a way that they had this respect

20:38

with horses that at the time was

20:40

not widely broadcast. It's not

20:42

that it didn't exist. And I think

20:44

I heard you speaking about you know,

20:46

those who are living a self actualized

20:48

life that not not necessarily are celebrities.

20:51

You know, everybody is there undiscovered.

20:54

There's some of the greatest work has said that before.

20:56

There's some of the greatest horse trainers. We don't know they're in,

20:58

they're in doing their amazing stuff.

21:01

Yeah, exactly. But

21:04

this was an opportunity that it was widely broadcast.

21:06

And since I was already, you know, a

21:09

stage performer and a question artist for

21:11

so many years, I recognized that

21:13

right along as right. Quickly

21:16

as being exceptional and unique

21:18

and special, and if you gather

21:20

2000 people under that big top every

21:22

night, which we would tease, it can make

21:24

its own weather as it is. Like, there's something about the geometry

21:27

of that particular big top everywhere.

21:29

We went, you know, that we have would

21:31

have the craziest storms. You know,

21:34

Quebec City had a hurricane, which it never should

21:36

have had. Sedona or Sedona or Scott

21:38

still was flooding, so there was something about

21:41

the ceremony of 2000

21:43

people coming in to witness love

21:46

between interspecies.

21:48

In this case, it was equine and human.

21:51

And the storytelling behind it was really.

21:53

Touching in with that, which is ancient.

21:56

So there was something about the tracking internally

21:58

that you feel on a soul level. There was

22:00

no words and the storytelling was very

22:03

subtle. So it allowed you to go into

22:05

this dream, like, almost shamanic

22:07

kind of state. And it was the first

22:09

time that people were truly witnessing

22:12

compassion. On stage

22:14

at a large scale, because what

22:16

people would remark about, we didn't really have

22:19

language for it then, but we were watching

22:21

Fred Pignon and Magalie be

22:23

compassionate to the horses when they made

22:25

quote unquote mistakes, because it

22:28

was really feeling and flowing

22:30

with instead of following

22:32

a hard line of, okay, this is how you execute.

22:34

And this is the definition of success. So

22:37

all of a sudden we stumbled upon it.

22:39

This, it was like opening Pandora's box

22:41

or opening Alice in Wonderland's you

22:43

know, falling down the rabbit hole into a

22:45

world that was really trying to strive for the ideals

22:48

of compassion and right relationship

22:51

before they were even becoming common in our,

22:53

in our language. Well, you,

22:55

I mean,

22:55

you talk about ceremony and

22:58

feeling a sense of that, were you thinking in those terms

23:00

at that? age. And if

23:03

so, where did you get that from? Because

23:05

you by then were, as

23:07

you say, a very choreographed performer. And

23:10

okay, yes, your, your

23:12

parents have been a bit around the

23:15

American Indian movement and Native American

23:17

church and so on, but you've broken away from

23:19

that environment. So, so where

23:23

out of this highly choreographed Sort

23:25

of, as you say, Americana type,

23:28

red, white, and blue type show. Where

23:30

were you getting these ideas about ceremony and compassion?

23:33

I mean, I honestly think a lot of it has to

23:35

do with the privilege of being raised

23:38

in California. And Southern

23:40

California is a pretty progressive place. And so coming

23:42

back home I decided

23:44

It was a very specific,

23:46

pivotal moment, to be honest. I moved back to

23:49

Los Angeles in 2001, right after September

23:51

11th. And somebody said, hey,

23:53

I can get you a job serving tables. You just

23:55

moved to L. A. at a really fancy. She,

23:57

she rest sushi restaurant on sunset

23:59

Boulevard and it would have been an

24:01

easy thing. So I showed up in line. Excuse

24:04

me. And there was all of these. Professionals

24:08

and people who not likely with families

24:10

and whatnot with attached cases

24:12

and suits and they were all trying

24:14

to get a line because everything, you know, there's been all

24:16

these massive layoffs and we were in a huge

24:19

recession now and I took

24:21

1, look at that line. And I was like, I don't need to do this.

24:23

I don't need this job that bad. And I ended

24:25

up working for a crystal lady for like,

24:27

300 dollars a week in Santa Monica. And she was

24:30

an energetic healer

24:32

medium and. We worked with crystals

24:35

and that was the first time.

24:37

I

24:39

was genuinely

24:43

already seek a spiritual seeker,

24:45

you know, hungry and ravenous for everything that

24:47

I could read about spirituality. About,

24:50

you know, at the time it was really anything

24:52

that kind of new age and really

24:55

it's ancient wisdom. It's, it's the occult,

24:57

it's esoteric wisdom. And

24:59

so ravenous and, and all

25:01

of that kind of feeding that desire

25:04

I was looking at I can't remember the name of it, but

25:06

it was like a mind, body, spirit magazine that was

25:08

quite popular and there was an advertisement in

25:10

it and that's what I answered. And,

25:12

you know, when you go to an interview and they ask you for

25:14

your birth date with the time so that

25:16

they can do your astrology in order to get the job, it

25:19

was that kind of a thing, you know, 20 years

25:21

ago. And

25:23

at the same time, I had also can't

25:25

really remember how those contacts I just

25:28

was setting out the intention that I wanted

25:30

to work again in native communities.

25:33

And so I was involved in different long

25:35

dances with women's circles as well

25:37

as with the, the Shumash nation here

25:39

in Southern California, which is part of, you know,

25:41

my roots and I guess I'm missing

25:44

a really big piece, which yeah. Even though I

25:46

haven't done any DNA testing, I

25:48

was told my whole life, my grandmother

25:50

was from the reservation in Oklahoma. And

25:52

so my mother's grandmother is

25:55

Native American. We don't know which

25:57

reservation is a lot of reservations in

25:59

Oklahoma. We don't know any of those stories.

26:01

We just know that she came from Oklahoma, ended

26:04

up in Texas, and then married my

26:06

great grandfather and ended up in Southern California.

26:08

And this was something that was hidden from our

26:11

history because my

26:14

mother's maternal side of the family was embarrassed

26:16

by it. And so, you

26:18

know, there's something called Mongolian spots, which is an imprint

26:20

that happens. It's like Appaloosa imprint on

26:23

like a birthmark that I have.

26:25

And so I was always told that, but there was really

26:27

no support. It is it's around

26:30

like, the sacrum. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. On

26:32

your bum. Basically a little when

26:34

you're a baby, and then they kind of, you know, fade

26:37

out. So I

26:39

had always been connected to that.

26:41

Internally, not because there was a

26:43

lot of external influence

26:46

and so I was seeking out to be

26:48

a part of ceremony and had started doing,

26:50

you know, sweat lodges and I ended up

26:52

going to South Dakota and

26:54

spending time with, those that are actually outside

26:56

of the reservation, because they haven't signed the treaty in Lakota

26:59

homes, is different than, you know, being

27:01

on Pine Ridge, but had always

27:03

wanted to give back in any sort of way,

27:05

as well as learn to be more

27:07

in alignment with the natural world. Was

27:10

that

27:10

happening, was that happening during the same time that you were

27:12

riding with the Riata Ranch, or was this

27:14

in that, in the interim period?

27:17

Correct. It was during that interim period. So you

27:19

went, you went actively out looking for this stuff? Right before

27:21

I came to Kivalya. Right. Absolutely.

27:23

Yeah. Now, for the point

27:25

that I will laugh about this because,

27:28

you know, there's certain ways that you're supposed

27:30

to follow. You know, trying

27:33

to get work, for example, in Los Angeles, you're

27:35

supposed to stay in town and follow the momentum

27:38

and I would maybe get a little breadcrumb and

27:40

that would kind of sustain me for a while. And then I would leave

27:42

town and then I would go to North

27:44

Dakota and go spend time with native people

27:46

or, you know, end up out and

27:48

in You

27:50

know, my manager couldn't get a hold of me because I

27:52

was checked out and hiking up

27:54

in, in, in the wilderness somewhere. So

27:57

I was not a very good actor.

27:59

Right. Well, but hold on where we,

28:01

where we left you was, in Santa Monica

28:03

at a crystal shop. And now

28:05

suddenly you've got a manager and you're

28:08

doing some Hollywood jobs. So what happened

28:10

there? You, you decided

28:12

actually. Yeah.

28:14

I mean, it all just kind of unfolded. I

28:16

had moved down there to spend some time because

28:18

there was a certain amount of encouragement

28:21

to be a part of the family business and the family

28:23

legacy. And so

28:26

I was, you know, taking acting classes

28:28

and was going out on some auditions and my dad

28:30

would tease, you know, cause I would. He's

28:33

like, wow, you're about in a thousand. Everything you go out on, you've

28:35

been booking. But my, my heart

28:37

wasn't in it. And so I was always trying

28:39

to, was

28:40

this straight up acting or was this also

28:42

riding?

28:43

So it ended up taking

28:46

both sides. So yes, there

28:48

was some straight up acting and that was always kind of like

28:50

the desire for You know, the family

28:53

encouragement, but I, when

28:55

I was visiting with a A livestock

28:58

contractor, he had worked

29:00

with my grandfather. He had worked with my dad

29:02

and all my uncles and he

29:04

said, oh, you went to be at a ranch. You sure can ride.

29:07

I've got some work for you. And so

29:09

my 1st job we're actually, you

29:11

know, for the screen actor skill. We're doing stunt work. I

29:15

did both and then there's always, they're always to

29:17

have that judgment of like, well, you can't do both.

29:20

You can either do the stunt world or you can do

29:22

be really focused on being a serious

29:24

actor. So again, those

29:26

were like the, you're, you're

29:28

in an artistic artistic environment and

29:30

already you have these constructs that society

29:32

wants to put on you. You can't do it this way in that

29:34

way. And I care

29:38

for such labels.

29:40

Quick rewind. You'd said that one of the reasons

29:42

that you burned out was that you, there were some other things

29:44

you wanted to explore, including singing in

29:46

musical theatre. Well that's acting.

29:48

And there you are in Hollywood. So, had

29:51

you lost the desire for that by then?

29:54

Yeah, because I realized That

29:56

I mean, I enjoyed performing

29:58

and I enjoyed being on the live stage,

30:00

which is why when Cavalia came along, it was really

30:03

easy to join the circus, basically

30:06

it's a little bit of a different texture as opposed to being

30:08

on set. And so,

30:11

you know, and then there was a time

30:14

when after I had been on the show for some. For a while,

30:16

for a few years or something. My dad gave me, you

30:18

know, when I teased one of those left handed comments of,

30:21

you know, what you're doing is actually kind of cool. Like,

30:24

Josh thinks, you know, after all these years.

30:27

Yeah. Parental encouragement is an interesting

30:29

thing. We've all got fun stories

30:31

that way. I wanted to ask you though you,

30:34

you were reaching out also at this interim

30:36

time before Kivala, I want to get back to Kivala in a minute,

30:38

but you said you were going up to North

30:40

Dakota, spending time with Lakota,

30:43

going to spend time with the Chumash, who for those

30:45

listeners who don't know, the Native American

30:48

world, that's the, that's the tribe that is sort

30:50

of the most prevalent in the California

30:52

that we think of as California, that sort of strip

30:55

that goes up from Los Angeles North.

30:57

I think that was really interesting. But what a lot of listeners

30:59

might not know particularly listeners from

31:01

the UK and so forth, is that

31:04

that's not an easy world to penetrate. I've spent

31:07

various bits of my life in and

31:09

around bits of Native America as

31:11

well. And it's, it's not, it's, you

31:14

know, it's not necessarily

31:16

a very inclusive world because of, you

31:18

know, the history and the trauma and so on. And

31:20

particularly The Lakota and

31:23

particularly the Chumash. I just happened

31:25

to know that. How did you, what

31:27

was different for you that you could penetrate

31:30

those worlds so easily?

31:32

Because it's not

31:33

easy. It's

31:37

true. I think what's coming to my

31:39

mind first and foremost is the

31:41

value that My mentors

31:44

from Riata Ranch being more traditional

31:47

and teaching the value of silence and

31:49

teaching the value of respect to elders

31:52

and teaching the value of humility and

31:55

deep listening and that sense of cultivated

31:58

presence all

32:00

of those things that I showed up with There's

32:04

like an energetic key signature

32:07

that allows again, it's

32:09

about establishing safety. Do

32:11

we trust this person? Can their mind be quiet

32:14

to receive information? And

32:17

so the aspects of, of, of humility

32:20

and respect I find were

32:23

certainly part of the portals

32:26

and really remaining authentic. I mean,

32:29

I used to always say I prefer to be around

32:31

the horses in,

32:33

in Hollywood because you

32:35

can't Be fake

32:38

around horses. You

32:40

have to be authentic. And

32:42

there's obviously a lot of smoke and mirrors that

32:44

take place with regards to the Westerns

32:46

and Hollywood and things like that. An actor will

32:48

show up and be like, yeah, I can ride. And very quickly,

32:50

it will be discovered that that was a lie. But

32:53

by and large. The horses

32:55

were teaching me about being authentic

32:58

and carrying that authenticity

33:00

with me. It's, it's something that you can,

33:03

you know, there's a, there's a, it's a palpable,

33:06

Oh, for sure. And I think within

33:08

what you were doing with that level of trip

33:10

riding, I grew up in Leicestershire,

33:14

partly in the UK, which is the heavy, heavy

33:16

fox hunting. It's team chasing,

33:18

steeple chasing, point to point, cross

33:20

country riding, whether, you know, the fences are bananas

33:22

and you can't see on the other side of them

33:25

and you just get, everyone's getting mangled

33:27

around you all the time and you

33:29

have to trust your life to the horse and

33:32

you, you, you can't. As

33:34

you say, sharp and authentically, and I think all

33:38

the people I know who, who trick write like that. It's,

33:40

it's the same that, that the trust

33:44

it's insane, but the,

33:46

the entry

33:49

I'm, I'm hopping on this, the

33:51

entry into the Native American world that

33:53

must have come through relationships. These

33:56

things usually come through human relationships.

33:58

Was there a particular mentor or set of mentors

34:01

who helped you go

34:04

in? And could you just talk a little

34:06

bit about those relationships?

34:09

Certainly. And I will say one

34:12

of the things that I was always present to is I

34:14

think early on I decided

34:16

I really didn't want my my

34:18

name to be At

34:21

the forefront of an introduction, because

34:23

I didn't want it to color people's experience and

34:25

I didn't want it to give me access that

34:27

I wouldn't have earned authentically

34:31

on my own. And

34:34

so I would, you know, have this name Kansas

34:36

and I would often just, you know, this is Kansas

34:38

and I would know people for years before they ever even knew

34:40

my last name. Yeah. And it's, it's been

34:43

very useful at times.

34:45

And I think my, my genuine

34:48

introduction into the you know, Schumach community,

34:51

there's a particular elder named choice slow.

34:53

Who's still with us, and

34:57

I was honored to have his

35:00

instruction. As well

35:02

as there was a woman nearby as well

35:05

named red branch and then another

35:07

from that tribe named my wall and

35:09

they knew of my connection with horses. They

35:12

knew of, I think my sincerity to

35:14

seek and understand and just to listen and to learn.

35:17

And so, spending time with understanding

35:20

the listening and, and connection

35:23

to the,

35:25

the birds, those that fly, those that crawl,

35:27

the four legged, the two legged, and the inter species

35:29

relations. It was the first time that I

35:32

understood that there's

35:34

really, I mean, there's many worlds existing

35:36

side by side, but that there are

35:38

certain Members of the community,

35:41

for example, that wouldn't get in cars,

35:43

because that type of movement is,

35:47

it disturbs your perception

35:49

of movement when you can have

35:52

more stillness you know, choice low

35:54

would mention oftentimes that there's 3 beyonds,

35:56

beyond, beyond, beyond, and

35:58

that when we think that we're going

36:01

to this getting behind the meaning

36:03

behind something, there's still many more layers

36:06

even to that yet. So,

36:09

I always, I think with all my teachers,

36:11

I always want to move in just like I did

36:13

when I was 11. There was something inside

36:15

that when I see mastery

36:18

or recognize that type of

36:20

information, there's that

36:22

willingness to really sit at the feet of

36:25

the master. And

36:27

recently, I was thinking that watching Kung Fu,

36:30

there's this discipleship,

36:32

guru disciple relationship that is

36:34

depicted. And I thought, wow, that

36:36

was imprinted on me at such a young age. And it's

36:38

something that I really, I really

36:40

love apprenticeship. I think there's a real

36:42

healthy human experience

36:45

within that. That's just something that I've been coded

36:47

for. So I really like to work with math masters

36:49

and really surrender my own

36:52

idea of, of superiority.

36:55

Like, I don't know what I don't know, so please

36:57

there's been many opportunities where I could share

36:59

something, but if I'm sharing, then I'm not able

37:01

to receive. So go ahead.

37:03

So you, you, you mentioned a master

37:05

a mentor, Choi Slow, right? Choi Slow?

37:07

Have I said it correctly?

37:10

How did you, how'd you meet him? And

37:14

yeah, because it's, again, it's,

37:16

you don't just waltz up and down

37:18

Venice beach running into Chumash

37:21

elders. So what was the process?

37:25

So, he was living up in a

37:28

a small camp,

37:30

I would say, up behind Ojai,

37:33

and I was introduced to him by

37:35

Maewu, who's also Chumash, and

37:38

it was at a time when I had decided I didn't

37:40

want to be assigned to traditional

37:43

holidays, so this was actually the time

37:45

when Americans are having Thanksgiving

37:48

and I decided that I would rather

37:50

be involved in something that was, you know,

37:52

meaningful. And I was invited to go

37:55

up and spend time at this camp

37:57

and. Choice low was staying

38:00

there had been there for, I

38:02

believe, many, you know, weeks and months, even though

38:04

the reservation is

38:07

several miles away. It was distance.

38:09

And they were, there was some efforts

38:11

to be able to create another kind

38:13

of community outside. If, you know,

38:16

within indigenous communities, there's. This

38:18

is a minus is to 2 functions happening

38:21

in the reservation. Right? And so, oftentimes

38:23

there's, there's a necessity to have

38:25

kind of a satellite location

38:28

and this other place. Just

38:30

the region was really connected to the land and it's very close

38:32

to where I'm born. And so, we

38:34

were, there was no other intention.

38:37

Other than really just sitting and being in presence

38:40

and specifically the medicine, like

38:42

understanding the, the animal

38:44

medicine and the different clans

38:46

is what I was really I guess, being educated

38:48

about. So it was talking a lot about the nature

38:51

of each. We would call it like

38:53

a totem animal and how they send

38:55

messages to each of the clans. And

38:57

at the time Troy Slough was very connected

38:59

to, to the birds. And

39:02

now that I'm talking about it, I'm remembering

39:04

there was discussion about like the Phoenix

39:06

birds and my daughter's name is Phoenix. And

39:09

I never really made the connection until now that we're

39:11

talking that he spoke a lot about.

39:13

Phoenix's and he spoke a lot about the regenerative

39:16

nature of a lot of these birds and

39:18

their spirits that humans don't

39:20

always see exactly what they're contributing

39:23

to in the spirit world. But it's interesting

39:25

now that I, I share that with you that my

39:27

daughter her name. I really feel

39:29

like I didn't choose the name. It just

39:31

came through like, Oh, her soul's name is Phoenix.

39:34

And so, you know, my mentorship

39:36

was really brief, but the

39:38

time with Choi he,

39:40

it ended up coming full circle because he actually

39:43

performed, I would say the last rites

39:45

at my father's funeral. And so he

39:47

came with some other members from

39:49

the Chumash nation and they

39:52

were there for the last moments when we

39:54

were putting the earth onto my father's

39:56

grave. Did your father know them?

40:00

No, okay. No, he never was

40:02

introduced. I would have liked to but

40:04

it just didn't happen. But I asked

40:06

them to if they would

40:08

do me the honor to be there. And

40:10

many people came up afterward and said, thank you.

40:12

That is what we needed foreclosure.

40:14

That is what we really felt was

40:16

the, the most meaningful moment

40:19

of that particular ceremony.

40:22

Is that that area, the Ojai

40:24

area is that where you sort of grew

40:26

up?

40:28

No, I grew up in really the Santa

40:30

Monica mountains. So just a bit more south.

40:32

Okay. So yeah, I was born in Santa Monica and

40:34

then, you know, around Hollywood. And

40:37

the reason I'm asking is again, not

40:39

every listener. Is coming

40:42

out of the American context or,

40:44

you know, knows that geography, but again, so for

40:46

those listeners who, who don't know that

40:49

there's a strip of coastal hills that goes

40:51

up the sort of California coastal

40:53

hills and they, they, they go from

40:55

more or less just a bit north

40:58

of Los Angeles. Up to

41:01

behind San Francisco, and

41:04

it's a particular landscape. I

41:06

lived, you know, so being a bit nomadic,

41:08

I lived for a while in where

41:11

Berkeley and Oakland meet, and so I

41:13

fell in love with those hills.

41:15

There is a magic

41:17

to that landscape of these

41:20

rounded, grassy, high

41:23

hills, almost small mountains in some cases,

41:25

which are green in one season

41:28

and Golden brown in another season with these

41:30

evergreen oak trees that snake up

41:32

and then it's it up the valleys and it's it's

41:35

something rather unique. But it

41:37

goes on for sort of hundreds of miles of this strip.

41:39

And so I just want listeners to picture.

41:43

In their mind that that

41:45

is when you mentioned oh, hi. Oh,

41:47

hi is probably one of the most beautiful

41:49

bits of an already sort

41:51

of universally beautiful landscape

41:55

in this way. Did you just

41:57

before we go to Cavalia and and your

41:59

performance there and what came after that?

42:02

Can you describe as a child

42:05

of those hills and then,

42:08

as you say, first growing up in the sort

42:10

of Santa Monica disconnected from the nature

42:12

while still surrounded. Because

42:15

everything that surrounds Los Angeles is very beautiful.

42:18

And then connecting.

42:21

Can you just describe

42:24

But people who might be driving their car in New

42:26

Zealand or Manchester or New

42:28

York or wherever, or Zimbabwe, you know, who are listening

42:30

to this. Just, can you, can you describe

42:33

any moments where you really

42:36

were brought into the occult connection

42:38

with an already occult landscape? And just,

42:41

just, just, just put us there. Talk

42:44

us through that. A lot of people have never had these

42:46

experiences.

42:47

Certainly, certainly. I mean, I was

42:49

just speaking with a naturalist when I was down

42:51

in Patagonia about and asking

42:54

and inquiring, you know, what was your imprint

42:56

of. Being in one with nature,

42:58

being really immersed in nature as a child,

43:01

because obviously, you know, those people that

43:03

are still protecting endemic species

43:05

and things like that. It's, it's so far beyond

43:07

what I believe I'm, I'm doing. But

43:10

1 of the things that stands

43:12

really clear is, my

43:14

parents were living on the beach when I was

43:16

very small. And so I spent a lot of

43:18

time in and on

43:20

the ocean. And the beauty

43:23

of having a very free childhood

43:25

is that there was no sense

43:27

of urgency or a schedule,

43:30

but everything in terms of time, I was just able

43:32

to spend hours and hours in the sand and

43:35

hours you know, looking at starfish

43:37

and the little sand crabs

43:39

that I would Pick up and let them run through my

43:41

fingers and the Pacific Ocean here

43:43

is a little bit colder. But to me,

43:45

and with the, the hot summers

43:47

that we have in Southern California, Southern

43:49

California really has a desert landscape. It's

43:52

very much like Mexico. So

43:54

many introduced species for the landscaping,

43:57

but as you described, the oaks are truly

44:00

the signature of the oaks and the sycamore trees,

44:02

which have these beautiful kind of white

44:05

marbled. Trunks

44:07

and these very wide 5 pointed

44:09

leaves. And so I remember as a child

44:12

really being activated

44:15

and fixated by the

44:17

earth by the fennel,

44:19

which would grow wild by the trunks of

44:21

the trees and the bark of the oaks and the sycamores.

44:24

And then there was there is, there's

44:26

a lot of sandstone here. And as you mentioned,

44:29

kind of steep hills and cliffs, and

44:31

there's a lot of fossils in there as well as quartz

44:33

and things like that. And I went to somewhat of an

44:35

alternative kindergarten here in,

44:38

in, in LA, and we would cross

44:40

this little creek and it's really a desert.

44:42

So it's hardly much, much water down here. So

44:44

a little bit of a stream of water was just

44:47

it was like Eden. And it

44:49

was something that anybody else would look at and not

44:52

even take a second glance, but for a

44:54

little child growing up in the desert,

44:56

this little stream of water was just so

44:59

magical. And I would cross this little

45:01

stream and I would go to the side and I would actually

45:03

play with the quartz crystals and things

45:05

like this, and really having the

45:07

time to just be absorbed deeply.

45:10

I just feel like. The, the wind,

45:12

we're famous for the Santa Ana winds.

45:15

My name Kansas actually means child of the south

45:17

wind. So there's something about the

45:19

wind in my in my blueprint. It,

45:21

it, for me, it's invigorating. It

45:23

feels the ones that come from the warm

45:26

south. It's a very feminine wind.

45:29

And then you hear the, the

45:31

wind moving through the trees and. It

45:33

was, it was as though nature was

45:36

still really breathing very deeply

45:38

through all of my cells even

45:40

though I went to regular public

45:42

school, I trusted nature and trusted horses

45:45

and had a very deep relationship with

45:47

them, even before I

45:49

trusted humans, I would say, and

45:52

now when I come back to California, because it's, it It

45:54

is so deeply encoded in myself.

45:57

I, I still pay homage

45:59

to these sandstone. There's these huge

46:01

rock formations, you know, like Eagle Rock is

46:03

one of them. There's Chumash painted cave,

46:06

cave. The Chumash people were actually

46:08

a matriarchal society because the life here

46:10

was so abundant. There was

46:12

enough food. There was enough you know,

46:14

both from the seafood that, That came

46:16

from the ocean. It was a a temperate climate.

46:18

So there wasn't the same type of warring

46:21

society that we're familiar with the

46:23

association with Plains Indians, the

46:25

matriarchal society out here in the Chumash

46:27

was very, very balanced. And it was

46:29

through working with them that I also was able

46:31

to learn more of the storytelling

46:33

out in a place called Point Conception,

46:36

which is the far. Farthest

46:38

western point of California. And

46:40

I had spent some time out there and then

46:42

learned that that was the place that where they believe the

46:44

souls would leave Turtle

46:46

Island, that that was the jumping

46:49

off point. And so,

46:51

you know, my husband is a geologist

46:54

and he'll always tell me the science behind stone.

46:56

And to me, it kind of demystifies

46:59

thing. It's like you, when you said that you

47:01

didn't want to watch Cavalia again,

47:04

because it might take away that initial imprint. And

47:06

for me as well, I prefer the creation stories.

47:09

And when I was in the Lakota Nation,

47:11

I learned some of the star stories about,

47:13

you know, the Pleiades, seven sisters, one

47:16

Six sisters, one whose back was turned,

47:18

and it was only years later that it

47:20

was realized that they've known these

47:22

stories for centuries, but

47:25

with modern instrumentation, we can see that there is a dark

47:27

star there in the Pleiades constellation.

47:29

So all of that, to me, you

47:31

know, the preservation of our creation

47:33

stories, and as you travel around

47:36

and read them all, you see the similarities

47:39

that to me is what it is to be human.

47:43

We're about to go into Cavalia,

47:46

but there you are with the Chumash.

47:48

And they're introducing you to bird

47:50

medicine in details.

47:54

Can you give us a

47:57

moment, a story an experience

48:02

of being shown that medicine? Can

48:05

you share something with us?

48:11

Yeah, I mean, what's coming to mind is my

48:14

personal struggle at that time is I really felt

48:16

like I wanted to contribute more and

48:18

I didn't know how, and I just

48:21

wanted to contribute and be

48:23

a servant to Mother Earth. And

48:26

my life seems so superficial

48:28

and meaningless at the time. So those

48:32

present knew that that was part of my heart's

48:34

inquiry. And

48:37

in just sitting and sharing

48:40

I think there was tobacco, but

48:42

there was nothing else in terms of,

48:45

you know, plant medicine being offered. We would, I

48:47

was taught how to properly harvest sage

48:50

with respect to not hurting the plant

48:52

and. To pick very quickly and

48:54

make sure that we do it at the right time of

48:56

day and having that respect and honoring

48:58

for the plant kingdom. And as we sat

49:00

down and we would burn sage and sitting in a

49:02

very simple kind of, you

49:05

know, shed with a lot of. Wings

49:07

of birds around and talons of different

49:10

birds. And I was taught

49:12

how to groom the feathers. So

49:14

I was given an eagle feather and

49:16

the care that you bring all of

49:18

the part of the plumage back into

49:21

alignment, even now, anytime I find a feather,

49:23

I'll always spend time, you know, grooming

49:25

it because the feather itself is an instrument

49:28

for medicine to be able to clear the

49:30

etheric field. And

49:32

in this inquiry that I had, we had stayed up

49:35

most of the night, and then

49:37

I was taken outside and

49:39

shown, here is your answer.

49:42

My answer was really, how can I be of service?

49:44

And the sky had exploded,

49:46

and this is just behind Ojai,

49:49

but the sky had exploded into a

49:51

sunrise that was so deep and

49:53

pink and orange that

49:56

it was, in my opinion,

49:59

the pointing

50:02

of, The, you are

50:05

always on the path, you can never be off the path,

50:07

and to just surrender this idea

50:10

of a particular right way

50:13

of being of service, just to continue to

50:15

show up and allow yourself to be open

50:17

and flow with that. That's the language

50:19

that I'm giving it to it now. But

50:22

so much of our teachings and so much of that is experiential.

50:24

It's really beyond language. And

50:27

then very soon after is

50:29

when I had the audition to go to

50:31

Cavalia and even

50:33

though it seemed like I was chasing

50:36

after a dangling carrot, there was something

50:38

about being a part of that company, that cast

50:41

that really felt like it was on point

50:43

and in alignment with a service

50:45

oriented mission. And although

50:47

it was hard to let go of my.

50:50

Connection to land and the,

50:53

some of the alliances and relationships that I had made,

50:55

I ended up dropping everything and

50:58

never looking back and just putting

51:00

myself fully into that next

51:02

transition. It was like, everything

51:04

was being prepared to step me into that next

51:06

transition that was. definitely

51:09

more public and it was more, there

51:11

was more rigor involved because I had a schedule

51:14

and we had to show up six days

51:16

a week and completely give over your entire

51:18

life to that. Whereas before I

51:20

was, I was very I was very, very

51:22

free for those few years right

51:24

before I became. Contractually

51:27

involved.

51:27

How did the, how did the audition happen

51:29

for

51:30

Cavalia? I

51:32

was contacted by my colleague

51:35

from Riata Ranch, and she

51:37

said that she didn't have anybody

51:39

else who was of age, and I was already over 18,

51:42

so I could audition. Was I interested? And

51:44

Because the Riata Ranch is famous for having

51:47

truck riders, right? When Fred and Magalie

51:49

were in town, one of the first riders that

51:51

they had had actually got injured. She broke her leg. They

51:53

needed another girl. So they started asking

51:55

around and if, you know, if you ask

51:58

anybody in California where to find a truck rider, everybody's

52:00

going to point you to Riata Ranch. And

52:02

so I actually went up to Berkeley if you spent time in

52:04

the Bay Area. The

52:07

set was the Cavalia tent was

52:09

set up there. I got,

52:11

we brought a saddle. I

52:13

was introduced to a horse. I did

52:15

a back bend, which

52:18

is for those who don't know, it's a full bridge

52:20

on a horse running at full speed that

52:23

I didn't know, which was nothing to me

52:25

at the time. And I look back and I think that's kind of

52:27

funny. And then some Cossack

52:29

drags where you hang upside down and some vaults and

52:31

things like this. And I met Fred

52:33

and Magalie Delgado, Fred Pignon and

52:35

Magalie Delgado, and we Joked

52:38

a bit because I had spent that time in

52:40

Avignon as well for Cheval Passion

52:42

that we thought, oh, we had seen each other. We'd been

52:44

performing in the same show. But then I went home

52:46

and I didn't hear anything for a long time. And it was the longest

52:49

two weeks of my life because I was still

52:51

soul searching and still seeking meaning.

52:54

And then when I got the call to join,

52:57

it was it just started this

52:59

waterfall effect of momentum that everything

53:01

snowballed and my life

53:03

took a trajectory that, that

53:06

everything else has been really governed by since

53:08

then.

53:09

Well, okay. So for those, for those,

53:11

again, for those listeners who don't know what Cavalia

53:14

is, was. And,

53:17

but who have seen perhaps equestrian

53:20

spectacles, equestrian spectaculars.

53:23

I live in Germany. We have one that travels

53:25

every year called it's now called Cavaluna. It used

53:27

to be called Apache. It's fantastic. I

53:29

know, I know the people who. put

53:32

together some of the classical teams. It's wonderful.

53:36

I hate to say it. It's not quite

53:38

as wonderful as that first

53:41

Cavalia show. There was

53:43

some magic there. I want to ask you

53:45

about that, that you said that there was an element

53:47

of ceremony to it. You said

53:49

that also that you felt there was an element of service.

53:52

That wasn't, I have to say, apparent to

53:54

me. When I saw the show, I just

53:56

saw something that was Art in

53:58

its purest form, so

54:02

it was, that was

54:04

very moving. So was

54:06

the element of service just

54:09

the bringing of joy, which

54:11

that show definitely got? Or was there, are

54:14

you, was there some other element

54:16

of service

54:16

there? My way of defining

54:19

service is also that when

54:22

we are willing to give

54:24

that much of ourselves for

54:27

other. So that's bringing joy without

54:29

a doubt. But also when we

54:31

look at the horses, you know, some

54:33

later on in life, when I met Ariana and

54:35

you and I both met in that kind of equine, therapeutic

54:38

context, I questioned

54:40

bringing horses into any stall

54:43

environment or any structured environment and

54:46

then through my own self inquiry

54:48

and meditations and whatnot, I realized that they

54:50

are performing a tremendous act of service

54:53

in allowing themselves to be in

54:56

that ceremony. Going into

54:58

urban environments and giving

55:00

those people from cities, just

55:02

a little bit of a picture of what it

55:04

was like, or what it can be like, again,

55:07

at the highest octave of experience of

55:09

right relationship between horse and

55:11

man or interspecies relationship. So

55:13

there could be an idea of, like, I

55:15

don't want to be involved in this because X,

55:18

Y, Z, so you really have

55:20

to be willing to. Surrender.

55:22

Okay. I'm going to give my entire

55:25

life because

55:28

there's nothing else when you show up

55:30

at eight in the morning and you finish near to

55:32

midnight every night, six days a week.

55:35

And you're definitely not there for the money and

55:37

you're not there for even the glamour because it's

55:39

really part of a company, which

55:41

is different than it's like when you go to a Cirque du Soleil

55:43

show, can you name anybody who was in it? Hmm.

55:47

It's a different experience. You're there for

55:49

the sake of the whole and

55:51

it was wonderful to be around you know, Fred

55:53

and I felt so blessed

55:56

obviously to be in that environment. So I,

55:58

I know that I was getting a lot out of it, but

56:00

when I look back on it, you know, I,

56:02

I always was trying to

56:04

make sure that I could find ways that

56:06

it was of service. So the other

56:09

piece that came in. Okay. And

56:11

I'm a bit, I was a bit naughty, like you talked about

56:13

me being naughty earlier on I

56:16

was giving away tickets oftentimes

56:19

to my friends, like my Lakota

56:21

friends, and to anybody

56:23

who works with different nonprofits and things like that, because

56:25

we often had empty seats, and

56:28

they, our ticket sales would be low. And

56:30

so I was always trying to find ways

56:32

to share that joy with others who

56:35

wouldn't be able to pay for it because

56:37

it was an exclusive event. It's very much assigned

56:39

with elitism, as is the entire equestrian

56:42

world. And so, part

56:44

of my little way of contributing

56:46

was making sure that, you know, Choi and

56:49

some of the Shumash friends were able to come

56:51

as well as Lakota friends. And then around

56:53

the world, because I was with that company for so long.

56:56

There was a lot of nonprofits that I was

56:58

able to, to get into see that.

57:00

And basically these are people who have given

57:02

their whole life to a

57:04

humanitarian causes and they don't

57:06

have enough money to buy four tickets

57:08

to bring their, their kids to come and see that. And

57:11

so this was a way that I was

57:13

just an instrument to help facilitate

57:15

such an experience.

57:17

I think that was I've only met

57:20

Frederic Pinal and Magali

57:23

Delgado a couple of times. I'm hoping

57:25

to have them on the show actually, because I met them at

57:27

Ana last year. And I've gotta

57:29

give them a ring and hope to get them on. And what

57:32

I, what I think I recognize immediately, I,

57:34

I also met them backstage

57:36

at that show that I described, and

57:38

I was immediately struck. Obviously one was

57:40

struck by them on stage. What

57:43

was so interesting is you, you're prepared

57:45

for people to be assholes,

57:48

you know, and I also like you grew

57:50

up all through university. I financed

57:53

myself by riding on film sets. So

57:55

I did that, you know, the endless

57:58

waiting around, but for great money, you

58:00

know, and Then you do something for five

58:02

seconds on a horse and then you know, you can sort of pay

58:04

off your rent. It's wonderful but you

58:06

know, you you you are

58:08

as a you're basically an extra and so you're your lowest

58:10

of the low on that very hierarchical

58:13

food chain that you have in the movie industries

58:15

It's it's for those people who haven't experienced it. It

58:17

is, you know, people

58:20

aren't very nice to each other Basically, there's the you know,

58:22

the power structures are fairly military

58:24

really but I

58:27

And of course, you know, with the horse world and

58:30

the arrogance and snobbery that goes with it and

58:32

I'm sorry, but I spent a lot of time in France

58:34

and the French can be awful with this particularly

58:37

the ones who ride really, really well. And

58:39

as can the Germans, as can the Brits, as can the Americans,

58:41

as can all of us. Right. And I think all of

58:43

us who've. Achieved a certain

58:46

level of equestrian

58:49

mastery in one field or another

58:52

have gone through an asshole phase and I think

58:54

those of us that don't admit it are lying. Because

58:56

it's a painful memory and I think something

58:59

has to bring it because the problem with horses, I think, is

59:01

they give you power when you're

59:03

on a horse or with a horse, you are bigger,

59:05

faster, stronger, more beautiful. All

59:08

of these things, and you can easily forget that

59:10

this power is just being lent to you. And that you're

59:12

really just, you're just a monkey, you know, and as soon as you're

59:14

off that horse, you go back to monkeydom. But

59:16

you know, and all the mythology

59:18

around horses is obviously about freedom, dream,

59:22

empowerment, and so on. And

59:26

so it's, we know what power does to humans, and

59:28

it's impossible not to get seduced by that

59:30

to some degree. But what brings you out on the other side

59:32

of it? And I think. That was immediately

59:34

apparent to me when I met Frédéric Pignon

59:37

and, and and Magali was

59:39

that they had somehow managed to achieve

59:41

this mastery without turning

59:43

into arseholes. And that when

59:45

you, when you met them they

59:47

just engaged with you in this very, very

59:50

sweet and authentic and rather humble way.

59:52

And I remember thinking, how did you

59:55

get There at that

59:57

stage of my life, because I think at that stage of my life,

59:59

I wasn't quite there. I was right at the beginning of my adventure

1:00:01

with autism, just coming out of my adventure

1:00:03

with human rights, my first adventure with

1:00:05

human rights, and I was still struggling with these things.

1:00:07

So it, it, what do you think was

1:00:10

the special quality that those two

1:00:12

brought? Well, where

1:00:14

does it come from? Do you think it's just innate in them? Or

1:00:16

have they did that? Is there some experience that they went through

1:00:19

that I don't know about? Or, you

1:00:21

know, because you must have gone for the audition and gone, Oh my

1:00:23

gosh, these people are like, unlike anyone

1:00:26

else. Who seems to be out there at

1:00:28

that end of the equestrian world. What's

1:00:30

going on with this? What do you think it was?

1:00:33

Certainly, I mean, I think the whole feel and the vibe

1:00:35

of it was just so much more like

1:00:37

I said, compassionate in general. And

1:00:39

back then, Fred was very much

1:00:41

ahead of his, you know, I can't really

1:00:43

pinpoint it. I don't know enough about

1:00:45

Fred's background. I know that his exploration,

1:00:48

you'll find it. If you have them as a guest on the show,

1:00:51

but I know more about his exploration into

1:00:53

Liberty was truly living amongst

1:00:55

and observing how the horses

1:00:57

interacted with each other. And so when he is

1:01:00

on stage, even though he's the trainer, he's

1:01:02

really another stallion with his stallions,

1:01:04

and he just embodies that in

1:01:07

his play. And the

1:01:09

vibe that we had around the company

1:01:12

is everybody truly felt privileged

1:01:14

to be there. Everybody

1:01:17

was so specialized in their own

1:01:20

section sector of mastery. There

1:01:22

was definitely a huge amount of ego and

1:01:24

insecurities that would come up because everybody

1:01:27

wants to retain their,

1:01:29

their, their position and

1:01:31

at the same time, nobody was there to compete with Fred.

1:01:34

Nobody was there to compete with Magalie. Nobody

1:01:36

was there to compete with those people who were,

1:01:38

you know, at the high level of their. Acrobatics

1:01:41

or their Roman writing or their bareback writing

1:01:44

because they had hired all specialists

1:01:46

in their own mastery. There wasn't a lot

1:01:49

of. Competition

1:01:52

in the normal sense, because we all did something so

1:01:54

different and it arose

1:01:56

a little bit in certain group ensembles

1:01:58

and numbers like that. But ultimately, we

1:02:00

were all respected because we were, we

1:02:03

had been in the industry and in the performance world for a really long

1:02:05

time. And so Fred and Magalie gave that

1:02:07

respect. And of course, we had it in.

1:02:09

10 fold for them, and they respected

1:02:12

the horses in such a way. And I think that that created,

1:02:15

they respected the stable hands and

1:02:17

who the grooms were going to be. They really

1:02:19

took consideration to make sure that the people that they

1:02:21

hired to be around the horses were

1:02:23

also of a certain. We could

1:02:25

say compassionate nature. They had a certain character

1:02:27

about them. That was desirable. And so

1:02:29

when there's that much attention to detail to really

1:02:31

create the entire staff and environment,

1:02:34

it really makes a difference. And it's true.

1:02:37

That particular 1st show was quite

1:02:39

unique in that sense. You know, there was a lot

1:02:41

of other that ideals were still,

1:02:43

I would say, at the top of future creative

1:02:46

collaborative efforts, but the

1:02:48

same attention to detail was lacking

1:02:50

when that captain

1:02:52

of the ship mastery was, was

1:02:54

no longer there. And it made sense.

1:02:56

I mean, they spent a good seven years on tour and then wanted

1:02:59

to go back to France.

1:03:00

Yeah. So how long did you spend with CarVal

1:03:03

in the end?

1:03:05

I mean, it, I started in 2004

1:03:07

and I was in China in 2020

1:03:09

putting a show together that was supposed to open there. So

1:03:11

I was with the company off and on for many years

1:03:13

in many different incarnations, whether as I

1:03:15

was hired originally as an artist and

1:03:17

then I had a contract buying and training

1:03:20

the truck riding and Roman riding horses for the show. And

1:03:22

then I would. Come in and out

1:03:24

kind of as a backup. So somebody got injured

1:03:27

and then they call me in and I would be a replacement.

1:03:30

And then I would help adopt horses.

1:03:32

I was involved with shipping horses

1:03:35

overseas from a California

1:03:37

operation, but by and

1:03:39

large, the, the, the, it

1:03:41

spanned 15 years. And

1:03:44

then my husband is a creator with the

1:03:46

show. So when I was, for

1:03:48

example, on extended maternity leaves and taking

1:03:50

care of children and homeschooling, and that was where

1:03:53

I put all of my energy, I was still there

1:03:55

on the tour. And my husband was there

1:03:57

six days a week curating

1:03:59

the artistic vision, basically.

1:04:02

So we were very intrinsically connected.

1:04:05

And

1:04:05

your kids, I presume, grew up with that

1:04:07

as a background.

1:04:09

They did. And the first time that I left tour

1:04:12

was because they weren't learning how to ride. And

1:04:15

I was like, my kids don't know how to ride and here

1:04:17

I am on this horse show. And to be, you

1:04:19

know, the horses, they put so much effort. They

1:04:21

didn't need to pack around kids all the time. I

1:04:23

didn't want to ask that of them. And we

1:04:25

had a lot of hot horses that were too

1:04:27

much for, you know, a three year old, a five year old to

1:04:29

get on. So I, that. Helped

1:04:32

steer me to a different incarnation.

1:04:36

Do you feel that the, because I never saw Cavalli

1:04:38

again after that do you feel that that same

1:04:41

sense of compassion and service

1:04:44

remained? Or do you think it was at a high

1:04:46

point at that? Particular watershed

1:04:49

that I saw what, what described

1:04:52

that's a 15 year trajectory. It's a long time

1:04:54

to keep something like that going in a certain

1:04:56

way because lots of personalities coming in and

1:04:58

out, you know, different incarnations,

1:05:01

different human. So, so just, yeah.

1:05:05

I think it was definitely at a high point. It

1:05:07

was just a magical moment in history

1:05:09

also. And then there

1:05:12

was the attempt to try

1:05:14

and recreate it, but bigger

1:05:17

and bigger is not always better. It

1:05:20

still had the ideals. And I think

1:05:22

everybody who was able to be

1:05:24

a part of that vision felt

1:05:26

truly honored. Because

1:05:28

we had high principles and

1:05:31

it's a human effort to navigate

1:05:34

toward a, a

1:05:36

North star, or just like when you put in your

1:05:38

course and chart a course at sea, it's

1:05:40

not in a straight line, but you're guiding

1:05:43

toward that, that intention

1:05:46

toward that goal toward that higher vision. And

1:05:49

so we all did our best.

1:05:52

In the face of adversity,

1:05:54

but there was magic in the very beginning,

1:05:56

and Fred and Magalie were a part of it. They

1:05:58

were they are wonderful

1:06:00

individuals.

1:06:02

Right, and there must have been a certain amount

1:06:04

of that magic keeping going where you wouldn't have stayed with

1:06:06

it, I presume. Or your husband. Who

1:06:09

I'd also like to have on the show, because he's a very interesting chap.

1:06:12

If he's, if he's, if he's willing. So,

1:06:15

okay. I

1:06:17

want to move ahead a little bit now to

1:06:19

another chapter in your life. So you

1:06:22

then begin to work more in the equine

1:06:24

assisted field. And this

1:06:26

is right about the time that you and I cross

1:06:28

paths. You run into someone called Arianna

1:06:30

Strozzi. Strozzi, I don't know how

1:06:32

she pronounces her Italian American.

1:06:35

She's now, yeah, she's now Mizuchi. Okay.

1:06:38

Or Mizuki, yeah. So Arizana Mizuki.

1:06:40

Mizuki. I want you to tell us about that.

1:06:43

And then from there into heart math. Heart

1:06:45

math is something that I feel everyone should know

1:06:47

about in horseboy method, for example,

1:06:49

when we are doing what we call sensory

1:06:52

work, which just came from the way my

1:06:54

son used to lay on the horses. And it

1:06:56

was clear that his really

1:06:58

agitated behaviors would just go when he

1:07:00

did that, when he was body to body on the horse like

1:07:02

that. And then much, much later after

1:07:04

we'd done it with a bazillion other people

1:07:07

and seen the same result, we talk

1:07:09

to people at heart math and realize, Oh, I see. That

1:07:11

was what was going on with the residents

1:07:13

of fields. But I don't want

1:07:15

to, I think you should talk about this because,

1:07:17

you know, a lot more about it than I do. So

1:07:23

There's something you talked about service, and I read a little

1:07:25

question here. Is self

1:07:27

actualization possible

1:07:31

without service? And I think

1:07:33

that it sounds like you might

1:07:35

have Reached again, another

1:07:38

watershed moment

1:07:40

where your life then, perhaps through your

1:07:42

own children, I don't know, gets taken

1:07:45

in this way towards

1:07:47

a much more obviously service oriented,

1:07:49

um, with autism.

1:07:52

Talk to

1:07:52

us about that. Sure, the conversation

1:07:54

about service is one way to describe

1:07:57

it. And then the other act is, I would say selflessness.

1:08:00

And so when I had children, this

1:08:03

for the first time really reoriented

1:08:05

my entire world externally

1:08:08

to these other beings, as opposed

1:08:10

to internally and just focusing on

1:08:12

myself, my own needs. So for the

1:08:14

first time, what parenting brought me is

1:08:16

the opportunity to know what it was like to at

1:08:18

moments really be truly selfless. Because

1:08:21

it's very rare to find in society

1:08:23

of it, I would say. And

1:08:26

these moments where you really forget your

1:08:28

sense of self. So there's

1:08:30

two aspects of it. It's one is not being selfish

1:08:33

or the absence of conceit, we

1:08:35

could say, but there's also a sense where

1:08:38

your beingness or your your

1:08:40

limited perception of personality

1:08:43

dissolve and you're just thinking

1:08:45

of being involved. In

1:08:47

an act and an action that's caring

1:08:50

for, for other, and it can be caring

1:08:52

for horses. It can be caring for land. It

1:08:54

can be caring for just the energetic

1:08:56

resonance of the planet, which is what we do a lot

1:08:59

in heart math. But really, that

1:09:01

to me is a flow exchanging

1:09:03

going outward. And.

1:09:07

I, I, I find that in my

1:09:09

personal human journey, there

1:09:11

has been one layer

1:09:13

of it or one avenue that

1:09:15

has become more established

1:09:18

or perhaps like I'm looking at it as like the

1:09:20

limbs of a tree and one

1:09:22

branch comes off and then it becomes really strong

1:09:25

and that bow can support a lot more

1:09:27

fruit. And then there's another branch that also becomes

1:09:29

strong and then that bow can also in

1:09:31

turn support fruit that nourishes. And

1:09:34

so there's these different branches

1:09:36

of selflessness or branches of service

1:09:39

that I never thought that I would be able to,

1:09:41

that have continued. It's like, I'm now doing

1:09:44

performances sometimes, but they're

1:09:46

always for nonprofits to

1:09:48

really generate interest, to raise funds

1:09:51

and do fundraising for other charity

1:09:53

organizations. And when

1:09:55

I was able to shift

1:09:57

this very strongly established

1:10:00

pattern of wanting to receive

1:10:02

something from doing a performance. Like I want to meet

1:10:04

my metric of excellence. Then

1:10:07

I would shift that into how can I give,

1:10:09

how can I, I want people to feel joy

1:10:11

and to feel enthusiasm or feel

1:10:13

youthfulness or feel inspiration from

1:10:16

watching this as opposed to I want

1:10:18

to tick my boxes so that I get appreciation

1:10:20

and validation. So when

1:10:22

that. Could shift and that took a long time

1:10:25

again, being a child performer. I wasn't

1:10:27

hip to that in my twenties. I

1:10:30

wasn't trying to transform it then. I didn't understand

1:10:32

it the same way that now it's really

1:10:34

conscious effort so that even before

1:10:36

weeks, months before I start to do

1:10:38

a show, I'm already starting to make

1:10:41

sure that the, the outflow of energy

1:10:43

is really caring for whatever

1:10:45

audience that is. It's going to show up. And

1:10:48

then. My work in the

1:10:50

nonprofit sector, actually, it's

1:10:52

an interesting segue came from

1:10:54

my association with HeartMath, which

1:10:56

I learned Thank you. About over

1:10:58

20 years ago, before I joined Cavalia in

1:11:01

my spiritual seeking, I was actually

1:11:03

at a spiritual teachers gathering

1:11:05

her satsangs. Her name is Gangaji,

1:11:08

and she was a disciple

1:11:10

of an Indian mystic

1:11:12

known as Papaji, who was a direct disciple of Ramana

1:11:15

Maharshi. And so that's that.

1:11:17

that lineage. And that's that

1:11:19

meeting, that fated meeting of self inquiry,

1:11:21

which I'll never forget is where I first learned about

1:11:24

HeartMath. And it was

1:11:26

just kind of being in the vortex

1:11:28

of transformation. You know, this is

1:11:30

when I was still doing this work with the Shumash and

1:11:33

right before I joined Cavalia. Go ahead.

1:11:35

I've just got a question. A lot of people, listeners will

1:11:37

not know what HeartMath is. Please tell

1:11:39

us what is HeartMath?

1:11:43

So, let's see. HeartMath

1:11:45

itself is the name of a, of

1:11:47

an organization that has done a huge

1:11:50

amount of research and the, the

1:11:52

crux of it really started to prove

1:11:55

that our emotions affect our physiology.

1:11:58

So, it began to study the

1:12:02

Heart rate variability, which is really the

1:12:04

beat to beat changes that are emitted from our heart,

1:12:06

which is an electrical organ. And

1:12:08

those subtle fluctuations,

1:12:10

depending on whether we're experiencing a renewing

1:12:13

emotion, such as appreciation,

1:12:15

care, or compassion. And

1:12:17

then what that looks like when we're experiencing

1:12:20

a depleting emotion or a feeling that

1:12:22

is discordant, such as frustration

1:12:25

or anger. And through

1:12:27

the research, the

1:12:29

Institute of HeartMath has been able to

1:12:31

really prove, and we can see

1:12:33

now with spectral analysis, when

1:12:36

we are in a flow state, when

1:12:38

we are in a state

1:12:40

of love and feeling good, really in the zone,

1:12:43

that actually creates an organization

1:12:45

of our physiology. And the term that's

1:12:48

been used now is called coherence. So

1:12:50

when we have that. That coherence, that aligned

1:12:53

state. It's when we have optimal

1:12:55

functioning. It's when there is

1:12:57

an organization. I, I equate

1:13:00

it to a 72 piece

1:13:02

orchestra. It's the conductor that really

1:13:04

maintains the harmony and

1:13:06

can modulate with those Allegro

1:13:08

moments where you increase your speed

1:13:11

or your timing or your rhythm, as

1:13:13

well as those moments that are appropriate

1:13:15

and dynamic to be able to come

1:13:17

into. Quiet state.

1:13:20

So this is a symbolism

1:13:23

for really a healthy nervous system that

1:13:25

can both increase and be alert and

1:13:27

respond to the needs at hand and

1:13:29

then be able to downregulate. And when there's

1:13:32

no threat, no perceived threat, and

1:13:34

when things are calm, your nervous system can go into

1:13:36

a state of rest and digest or

1:13:39

really that expanded state of, of,

1:13:41

of awareness itself. So,

1:13:44

the research that has come out of the Institute of

1:13:46

HeartMath has been often referenced

1:13:49

by equine therapy programs,

1:13:51

as well as other, we

1:13:53

could say kind of quantum healing

1:13:55

modalities throughout the world, because it's starting to prove.

1:13:58

What intuitively we already knew is

1:14:00

that there's an energetic, there's a quantum field that

1:14:02

we're all connected to. We're all broadcasting and

1:14:04

we're all receiving at the same time. So

1:14:07

then when we can start to turn the dial

1:14:09

manually and really have

1:14:12

a manual transmission on our own nervous system,

1:14:14

we can start to decide how

1:14:16

we are showing up in the world, really

1:14:18

how we are, what we want to resonate,

1:14:20

what frequency we really want to be aligned with.

1:14:23

And that's through the discovery of the last.

1:14:25

Two decades what I've been more focused

1:14:27

on and now I see it as

1:14:30

the foundational practice and horsemanship

1:14:32

because once we can attune ourselves, then we can.

1:14:35

Really clear out any of the debris

1:14:38

that might be in the way of communication.

1:14:41

And so to have that clear

1:14:43

dialogue is what helps eliminate

1:14:45

confusion. And then we, we

1:14:47

have those experiences of harmony, both

1:14:50

with our human to human relationships, as well as our

1:14:52

human to animal relationships. And

1:14:55

the inquiry You know,

1:14:57

heart math was very much a part of my life, already

1:14:59

had been for five years

1:15:02

before I started going into the equine therapy. So

1:15:04

when I looked at the horse

1:15:06

as healer modalities,

1:15:09

because it is another shamanic experience. I

1:15:11

saw the, how heart math

1:15:13

was so complimentary, but I didn't really know how

1:15:15

to merge at the time. I didn't really

1:15:18

know how to give it language. And I realized

1:15:20

now that it's kind of been one

1:15:22

of the ways to really prove

1:15:24

with science, what's going on

1:15:26

when we get in the energetic field with the heart, excuse

1:15:29

me, with the horse. So your heart

1:15:31

and my heart are both producing a field that's measurable

1:15:33

at least three to five feet. Secretariat's

1:15:36

heart was. 21 pounds,

1:15:39

so the field that is created and generated

1:15:41

by the horses is so much greater.

1:15:44

And when we step into that, we can have

1:15:47

what's called an entrainment. And

1:15:49

there's that co regulation and that synchronization

1:15:51

together and

1:15:53

that's the beauty of. Being

1:15:56

able to know now why we had

1:15:59

so intimately been connected

1:16:01

with horse medicine is really

1:16:03

what it is, why it's working. And

1:16:05

I don't really care why, but it is kind

1:16:07

of fun to be able to give language to it now. I

1:16:10

would trust it anyway. But

1:16:13

it's good to be able to explain it. Because,

1:16:16

yeah, when one's working with programs and I go

1:16:19

through, you know, before we started working with neuroscientists

1:16:22

and who started looking at what we were doing with horseboy

1:16:25

method and movement method you know, we were always getting

1:16:27

those questions are basically people coming along and say,

1:16:29

well, tell me why this doesn't suck then you

1:16:31

write. Well, you know, it's really good for you. But

1:16:33

then as soon as the neuroscientists started back, I said, like,

1:16:35

well, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

1:16:38

And that sort of ended that one. Nicely

1:16:40

that why doesn't it suck conversation? You

1:16:42

could get onto more interesting conversations So I think

1:16:44

that's you know, one of the great benefits of heart math

1:16:47

just for again for listeners heart math is not

1:16:49

an equestrian thing But a

1:16:51

lot of equestrian people end

1:16:53

up attracted to it

1:16:55

because when you're talking about the electromagnetic

1:16:58

fields of arts, we all know that we

1:17:00

feel really good around those

1:17:02

great big hearts that are pumping in horses.

1:17:04

Why wouldn't we? But it's, it goes

1:17:07

further than that towards other electromagnetic.

1:17:09

Resonances like trees, like

1:17:12

other people, like just

1:17:15

about everything else on the planet, that's putting out energy, which

1:17:18

is

1:17:18

everything. Exactly. The outreach

1:17:20

of the institute has gone to encompass

1:17:23

all of that as well, because in

1:17:26

the study. When we look at

1:17:28

coherence and how we affect each other

1:17:30

there's a lot of, there's another,

1:17:33

our branch of the Institute of HeartMath called the

1:17:35

Global Coherence Initiative. And

1:17:37

now it's really studying our impact

1:17:39

as a collective, as well

1:17:41

as the impact of trees and

1:17:44

on nature and what meditators

1:17:46

can do in different clusters when we're sending care

1:17:49

to a specific situation and how

1:17:51

that is reflected in the Earth's harmonics. There's

1:17:55

just not enough I would

1:17:57

say data or instrumentation yet. We're

1:17:59

just starting to gather all of it to really show

1:18:01

and prove, yes, your energy

1:18:04

makes a difference. And yes, the collective energy

1:18:06

can also have an, have a huge impact. And

1:18:09

so this is a really empowering aspect

1:18:12

because I think a lot of people, and I certainly

1:18:14

have felt this many times, we feel helpless. Whether

1:18:16

it's in the environmental care or whether

1:18:19

it's working with humanitation issues time

1:18:22

and time again, and part of this is like. The really

1:18:24

gathering of stories that your

1:18:26

impact your heart, your coherent

1:18:29

resonance is

1:18:31

an act of service. So

1:18:34

able to maintain coherence is an act of

1:18:36

service. Go ahead. So

1:18:37

people are interested. Presumably then you're saying heart

1:18:39

math is a place that you can go,

1:18:42

whether physically or probably online

1:18:44

these days and get trained.

1:18:48

What did they train you in?

1:18:50

What do they train people in? Do

1:18:52

you come out of it with a hot math

1:18:54

level one practitioner, level

1:18:56

five practitioner? What, what, what does

1:18:59

it look like? What did you do? What

1:19:02

do people generally do? And then how did that take you into

1:19:04

the equine assisted sort of horses medicine,

1:19:06

equestrian therapy, equine therapy?

1:19:09

Whoa. So

1:19:11

there's a couple of different questions in there. I'll answer the

1:19:14

latter first. So what drew me

1:19:16

is synchronicities as with everything.

1:19:18

There's breadcrumbs in life. And a

1:19:20

dear friend of mine had said, you should check out this

1:19:22

person who's doing equine therapy work.

1:19:24

You might find it interesting. And little

1:19:26

did I know that Arianna Strozzi would become

1:19:29

like family. There was just a soul family connection

1:19:31

there. As I mentioned earlier, I moved

1:19:33

in and did the apprenticeship for, for

1:19:36

some time now. I had already

1:19:38

been working with heart math and learning

1:19:40

about it as my own personal tool for self development

1:19:43

and to deal with depression and anxiety.

1:19:47

So, as a younger person, I had more symptoms

1:19:49

of depression. So

1:19:51

you moved in you moved in with Arianna Strozzi

1:19:53

You felt her as you you started an

1:19:55

apprenticeship with her. What apprenticeship did you

1:19:57

start?

1:19:59

I did so really studying

1:20:02

always being drawn to the

1:20:04

horse medicine and because I had already

1:20:06

been introduced to Native

1:20:08

American wisdom and understanding there's plant medicine

1:20:10

and there's The rock people and there's

1:20:13

the medicine from each and every

1:20:15

animal and from the feathers

1:20:18

themselves. So this

1:20:21

exploration, this deep dive, we could say into

1:20:24

the equine therapy world for me

1:20:26

was really assigning meaning to that, which

1:20:28

I had already. Dedicated

1:20:30

so much of my life to, I wanted to find

1:20:32

what really is in the relationship

1:20:35

with the equine. And I went through,

1:20:37

you know, a deep soul inquiry of, can

1:20:40

we ever ride horses again? Is that truly right

1:20:42

relationship? Should they be installed

1:20:44

at all? I had a very difficult.

1:20:47

Judgment about that for some time and

1:20:49

then the way that I rectified it.

1:20:51

What, what, what, what, at what point did

1:20:53

that happen? Because was it just having

1:20:57

horses in stores for seven years going around doing

1:20:59

the show? Because

1:21:01

the horses seemed in Cavale

1:21:03

to be actually full of well being. So,

1:21:05

what, what, what is it, what, what?

1:21:08

So because I had been exposed to horses

1:21:10

almost always being in a work

1:21:12

environment or being in a stable environment,

1:21:15

I had not been around them as much when they

1:21:17

were free and able to live in

1:21:19

a herd and specifically as a family

1:21:21

herd. And that's something that Ariana

1:21:23

showed me. And once I saw it, I was, it

1:21:25

was so compelling. It was so powerful

1:21:28

to see these natural family herds

1:21:30

and to see them all living on very steep

1:21:32

terrain, which we would. Be worried

1:21:34

and be an overcare of our short horses, you

1:21:36

know, so that created such

1:21:39

a. A strong catalyst

1:21:41

within me that I thought, Oh, that's, it

1:21:44

was like throwing out the baby with the bathwater at

1:21:46

the time. That's where my naivete was

1:21:48

is saying, how could I put any

1:21:51

horse in stalls? Look at what they really

1:21:53

belong to be free. And, and at the

1:21:55

same time, I had a vision to

1:21:57

create a show that was.

1:21:59

Really extrovert and

1:22:02

explicit about its ceremonial

1:22:05

aspects where the herd

1:22:07

would be brought in. It would be outside.

1:22:09

It would depict more of a

1:22:12

Native American environment with with

1:22:14

horses. So, because I had that as my, as

1:22:17

my apex of the

1:22:19

experience of being with horses, I.

1:22:22

Had the pendulum swinging this this other way

1:22:25

and then through inquiry and through understanding

1:22:27

and through really deep journaling and inquiry

1:22:30

with the horses. I saw their tremendous

1:22:32

active devotion and service to

1:22:35

be. People will say, well, the horses don't have a choice.

1:22:38

And I believe that on a soul level,

1:22:41

each soul is really being brought into,

1:22:43

relationship with each other, whether it's interspecies

1:22:47

that they do certainly come into that

1:22:49

incarnation, that embodiment and

1:22:51

they go into the cities and they awaken

1:22:54

the hearts of humanity. It's really

1:22:56

no, nothing less than that. And

1:22:59

so I would agree to learn more

1:23:01

about. Yeah, to learn more

1:23:03

about the magic. That's why I was drawn to the equine therapy

1:23:06

work, but I was insecure at the time

1:23:08

and didn't feel like I knew enough or had enough

1:23:10

life experience to really carry and

1:23:12

facilitate on my own and make that the

1:23:14

forefront of my offer. Ariana

1:23:16

to me was such a shaman, you know, how can

1:23:18

you just take a certification for a couple of weeks and

1:23:21

then think that you are going to have

1:23:23

that same magic really.

1:23:25

So I never, I didn't.

1:23:28

Right away, start to make that my, my

1:23:30

offer and I went back into the performance

1:23:32

world, which I knew how, and then I was still using

1:23:35

HeartMath always as my own

1:23:38

really tool for therapy and understanding

1:23:40

how to regulate my own emotional landscape

1:23:44

and I became certified in

1:23:46

HeartMath for, to be a private coach

1:23:48

back in 2011 and

1:23:50

at the time that was the way that you

1:23:52

would offer it was really one on one and

1:23:56

I also didn't do anything with it at that time.

1:23:58

So even though my life externally seemed

1:24:00

like I was, it was glamorous and I was confident and I

1:24:02

can hang and be brave upside down on horses, I

1:24:05

was still. Insecure

1:24:08

and not confident to be

1:24:10

what one might term as. A

1:24:13

spiritual guide or a coach for others. It

1:24:16

took me another 15 years

1:24:18

really to get enough life experience

1:24:20

and to have other shifts

1:24:23

taking PLA in place in my psyche that

1:24:25

I could be rooted enough to really be able to hold

1:24:27

space for others. And that was

1:24:29

just part of like ma the making

1:24:31

of wine or just the, the

1:24:34

curating of ripeness. Yeah. Maturation.

1:24:37

to change about the maturation. Exactly.

1:24:40

And so now since

1:24:42

COVID, I was again, really forced

1:24:44

into a pivot and

1:24:47

I became a HeartMath certified trainer,

1:24:49

which basically means that you can teach

1:24:51

tools, the techniques,

1:24:54

and a lot of it has to start with a foundational

1:24:56

practice that is breathwork and

1:24:59

really understanding that when we Actively

1:25:01

set the intention to co create with our heart

1:25:03

and to breathe into the heart and chest area.

1:25:06

Then that right away begins

1:25:09

to activate the neurons

1:25:11

that exist within our hearts. And

1:25:13

there's a facilitation that

1:25:15

begins to create again that synchronization,

1:25:18

that coherence. And then there's other

1:25:20

tools that build upon that.

1:25:22

And it's really focusing on how to start

1:25:25

to perceive our own somatic

1:25:28

Perceptions or our somatic

1:25:30

feelings as well as being able

1:25:32

to consciously direct our frequency

1:25:34

and being aware of how what

1:25:37

we are, how we are broadcasting, what we

1:25:39

are broadcasting. And then with that,

1:25:41

with that awareness, we, we discuss

1:25:44

about how to make modulations or how to make

1:25:46

attunements and shifts,

1:25:48

okay. You talked about, you just said

1:25:50

something there, you said neurons in your heart. I think

1:25:52

a lot of listeners may

1:25:54

be aware, but perhaps some are not. Just

1:25:56

as a context for that your gut, your

1:25:59

heart and your brain are all composed

1:26:01

of neurons. It used to be thought that

1:26:04

the neurons were just all the preserve

1:26:06

of the brain. It's not true at all. And

1:26:08

it's just, I just wanted to chuck that in there because if someone's

1:26:11

listening to something like this for the first time. What?

1:26:14

Hold on. Neurons in the heart? Yes, indeed.

1:26:16

Heart, brain. So you could argue it's all one brain

1:26:18

or it's three brains or whatever, but that's

1:26:20

why gut feelings, that's why heart feelings, that's why

1:26:23

These things are, you know, as

1:26:25

valid as the intellect, if not more so, and

1:26:27

the intellect without them is limited because

1:26:30

it's not the full thing

1:26:32

happening that the neurons can

1:26:35

offer. Again, also for people

1:26:37

that I should have, I should have also said Ariana

1:26:39

Storzi, now Mizuki, it's that's

1:26:41

the Sky Horse Academy,

1:26:43

right? Why, what,

1:26:46

and I hope to, I'd love to get her on the show actually, what,

1:26:49

what is it about that because,

1:26:51

because, you know, there's been a ton

1:26:53

of equine assisted offerings. There still

1:26:55

are. It's a good thing. You know, there ought to be,

1:26:58

but what was it about that particular one?

1:27:00

Absolutely.

1:27:03

I, these questions that you ask,

1:27:05

ultimately, I go a lot of intuition

1:27:08

and synchronicity. So, you know, it's being

1:27:10

in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing with the

1:27:12

right people for the right reasons, a lot

1:27:14

of rights and alignments. And

1:27:17

I didn't know until I got in there, it was just

1:27:19

a feeling, right? I wrote a letter to Ariana.

1:27:22

She invited me in as soon

1:27:25

as we saw each other. So I was.

1:27:27

As I mentioned a little bit earlier,

1:27:29

a dear friend of mine, he was actually

1:27:32

interested in her partner's book,

1:27:34

where he was teaching Aikido

1:27:37

to military and

1:27:40

when he was looking at this person,

1:27:42

Richard Strozzi Heckler. He

1:27:44

learned about Arianna and how she had a horse ranch with

1:27:46

self development and he said, Oh, you should check it out.

1:27:49

And so when I started to explore, and this is back

1:27:51

in 2008, and I'd already had my first

1:27:53

daughter and I just left the Cavalia

1:27:56

tour for the first time, did have a break back

1:27:58

in California after being all around the world. And

1:28:01

then I went out there and when we met,

1:28:03

it was like, Oh, she, what

1:28:05

the way she describes it as, Oh, we'll

1:28:07

be in the foxhole together. You know, we

1:28:10

have probably many

1:28:12

births together and

1:28:14

there was just, it was family and it still

1:28:16

is. And we're very dear to

1:28:18

each other. And I ended up moving in with

1:28:21

my family. They're living on the ranch for several

1:28:23

years and helping to co facilitate the

1:28:25

programs and really just spending time, you

1:28:27

know, deep. And I always say at the feet

1:28:29

of the master. And to answer your question,

1:28:31

what makes equine guided education

1:28:33

is that model. There's so many different acronyms

1:28:36

and Arianna was at the forefront of

1:28:38

a lot of the, the name building

1:28:40

and all the certification programs that

1:28:43

were being developed at the time. And

1:28:45

she always said, I hope there's a day when there's

1:28:47

an equine guided educator or

1:28:49

an equine assisted facilitator, whatever.

1:28:52

Acronyms you want to use on every corner,

1:28:55

just like you can always find a chiropractor and acupuncturist

1:28:58

that it will really serve the needs and

1:29:01

I just feel really fortunate

1:29:03

to have seen that arc as

1:29:05

we were all in the beginning of it together. So

1:29:07

the difference that I would say,

1:29:10

or the uniqueness is Ariana, it's

1:29:12

not exclusive to horses. It

1:29:14

really is opening up to the entire

1:29:16

natural world and observation. You

1:29:18

will have messages from the wind

1:29:21

and from The rabbit

1:29:23

that comes through and the way that the sun

1:29:26

passes, that's all part of the equine guided

1:29:28

experience, the integration

1:29:30

of equine therapy, really

1:29:32

understanding that that's just the entry point

1:29:35

into being in relationship with the

1:29:37

whole natural world. Right?

1:29:38

Yeah. Yeah. The horses bring us into nature

1:29:40

for sure. What are you doing

1:29:43

with sky horse currently and heart math?

1:29:46

Where is this led you now? As

1:29:48

we speak. You also mentioned that you do

1:29:50

do some performances. What kind of performances are you

1:29:52

doing now? And how's all that integrated?

1:29:55

Sure, I still perform my

1:29:57

lasso, which I can bring my ropes

1:29:59

anywhere, and, you know,

1:30:01

there's actually a name in the Divine

1:30:04

Mothers where she who's holding the rope

1:30:06

of love in her hand. So the rope

1:30:08

of love is the Divine Mother's way of

1:30:11

really connecting all of us. You

1:30:13

know, it's really in spiral movements

1:30:16

that the lasso moves around. So I

1:30:18

still perform lasso with my children and

1:30:20

it'll, I can be hired. Oftentimes

1:30:22

I'm only giving it to charity organizations.

1:30:25

So as part of a fundraiser, that's kind

1:30:27

of been the thing that's happened over the last few years.

1:30:30

And then I haven't had horses because I travel

1:30:32

so much and because I really have devoted a lot

1:30:34

of my life to the spiritual

1:30:37

journey and means

1:30:40

that. I'm always riding for other

1:30:42

people or riding with other people,

1:30:44

and it's a great opportunity because I ride so

1:30:46

many different horses. So I

1:30:48

don't have my own trick riding horses that I perform on,

1:30:51

but last summer I made,

1:30:53

I don't know, three or four Roman, Roman riding

1:30:55

teams at different. Barns

1:30:57

and different stable stables and different causes,

1:31:00

and really the bulk of my work has

1:31:02

now become the EGE

1:31:05

philosophy that's been threaded throughout

1:31:07

everything that I do. So that's equine guided education,

1:31:10

working with skyhorse as a, as

1:31:12

a, an instructor basically. And

1:31:14

I do private coaching as well as group

1:31:16

retreats with integrating the HeartMath

1:31:19

and horsemanship and the equine guided

1:31:22

education philosophy. What

1:31:24

I find. Lately is

1:31:26

a lot of people who want to have a better connection with

1:31:28

their horses are carrying some sort

1:31:30

of residual trauma or residual

1:31:33

guilt or shame that get

1:31:35

it's an impediment to connection. And

1:31:38

so 1 of the 1st things we do is I will guide

1:31:40

people into their hearts and through

1:31:42

some basic breath, working practices

1:31:44

breath, work practices that will help

1:31:46

to open up. A compassionate space.

1:31:49

And that compassionate frequency will

1:31:52

allow for any sort of emotional

1:31:55

residual energy to be spun

1:31:58

off or to be let go of, and just

1:32:00

really create that sacred container, that safe

1:32:02

space. And then the interactions

1:32:04

with the, with their horses can

1:32:06

really take a new form.

1:32:09

They can expand beyond, because

1:32:11

there's not those old patterns or stories

1:32:14

that might be still holding back into

1:32:16

the past. And that really helps,

1:32:18

whether it's working on groundwork,

1:32:21

or wanting to do something with liberty, or

1:32:23

doing mounted exercises, either in dressage,

1:32:25

or in you know, reigning cowhorse, whatever

1:32:27

the desire is. It

1:32:30

doesn't matter, but first rooting

1:32:32

in what is the frequency that

1:32:34

is desired. And then the

1:32:37

discipline or then the technique can be

1:32:39

applied after the attunement has

1:32:41

happened in the vibrational realm.

1:32:43

So. If somebody wants to,

1:32:46

are you, for example, I'm looking at you over Zoom,

1:32:49

and I know you're in California currently, are you

1:32:51

at Skyhorse Ranch now, where are you, and

1:32:53

if somebody wants to come and do these things

1:32:55

with you, where do they, you go into

1:32:57

where they are, or they come to a place

1:32:59

where you are, how

1:33:00

does it work? Yeah. I go

1:33:03

to, to where I'm invited. So

1:33:05

I still have been living this, you know,

1:33:07

circus cowgirl, gypsy life lifestyle.

1:33:10

And so I travel quite a bit. I mean, I did, we haven't

1:33:12

talked about that at all, but I did just come back from the Patagonia

1:33:15

where I spent the last month connecting with the

1:33:17

gaucho horses. And

1:33:19

so that is, has been its own other

1:33:21

amazing shamanic experience. But

1:33:23

I will be at Skyhorse this summer doing

1:33:25

programs with Ariana. There's a few

1:33:28

clinics that'll be throughout California and

1:33:30

then a base out of Canada,

1:33:33

but really wherever there's an invitation

1:33:37

and honestly, it's, it's

1:33:39

much more of following the energy. And

1:33:41

that's also a principle of equine guided education

1:33:43

that in Ariana's apprenticeship,

1:33:45

it was like, where is there energy

1:33:47

and where's there's not. And when there's a flow,

1:33:49

and right now there's been a huge amount of energy,

1:33:51

just bringing me back to my homeland,

1:33:53

back to California, where I've been distanced

1:33:56

from for quite some time. So

1:33:58

I've been coming back and connecting with the land

1:34:00

here and really finding myself

1:34:02

in all kinds of wonderful little neighborhoods

1:34:05

and stables and these. pods,

1:34:07

if you will, these circles of connection,

1:34:10

circles of compassion, and to continue

1:34:12

to just facilitate so that we can

1:34:14

let go of the judgment that we have that gets

1:34:16

in the way and be compassionate for

1:34:18

our own journey. You know, the horses

1:34:20

are so infinitely compassionate.

1:34:23

We make mistakes. We're going to be clumsy.

1:34:25

We're going to do things without proper timing.

1:34:28

And oftentimes just acknowledging

1:34:31

that and allowing people to really rest

1:34:33

in that compassionate latitude, that's

1:34:36

a huge healing in and of itself. And

1:34:38

so my greatest joy is to help facilitate

1:34:40

those moments.

1:34:42

So, Patagonia and

1:34:45

India.

1:34:45

So

1:34:49

last year, you know, we all know, right, that

1:34:51

we're at war, unfortunately, I'm

1:34:54

sitting here in Germany, we're at war, and

1:34:56

it's war is in Europe again. And

1:34:59

it really is. I'm sitting, oh,

1:35:02

just 200 meters from where

1:35:04

there's, I don't know, quite a bunch

1:35:06

of Ukrainian families

1:35:09

and, you know, we know what's going on. And

1:35:11

you found yourself in India

1:35:15

doing something rather extraordinary at

1:35:17

this historic moment last

1:35:21

year. Please talk to us about that. What did you do?

1:35:24

And why, how did you end up

1:35:25

there? So

1:35:27

part of the service oriented

1:35:30

outreach of HeartMath and

1:35:32

specifically with a group called the Heart Ambassadors

1:35:34

that I've been involved with for over a decade

1:35:37

is outreach internationally,

1:35:40

both for helping improve

1:35:43

the status of women, as

1:35:45

well as working to teach

1:35:47

emotional self regulation to children, street

1:35:50

children, and Also teaching sustainable

1:35:52

agriculture. So there's a lot of different avenues

1:35:55

and all of those. Aspects,

1:36:00

all of those projects really came

1:36:02

together for an opportunity to

1:36:05

discuss and to give back for

1:36:07

the G20 that took place in India last

1:36:09

year. So I went along

1:36:11

as the delegate for the FIERA Foundation

1:36:14

and for Heart Ambassadors, we

1:36:18

presented along with my daughter, which was

1:36:20

amazing because it was actually her

1:36:23

inclination that. That we went,

1:36:25

I thought that she was going to be going with a different chaperone

1:36:28

and we couldn't find one. And so I

1:36:30

ended up going along with her. So

1:36:33

the first summit that we attended was

1:36:35

integrated holistic health and teaching about heart

1:36:37

math principles and how that

1:36:40

can actually remove bias that is so present

1:36:42

because a lot of the data that we have is

1:36:44

also very gender biased.

1:36:47

At the same time, being able to have integrated

1:36:50

holistic health to be able to merge

1:36:52

both Western and, you know, Arya

1:36:54

Vedic and other holistic principles

1:36:57

is part of where the conversations

1:36:59

were being steered in that particular

1:37:01

summit. Then we also were participating

1:37:04

in the gender equality summit and.

1:37:07

Creating policy declaration and

1:37:10

across the board, whether it was digital

1:37:12

technology and security, whether it was education

1:37:15

or the net zero targets where we attended the

1:37:18

programs that were in Sikkim, which is

1:37:20

the northern part of India, close to the border of

1:37:22

Nepal, Bhutan and China,

1:37:24

Tibet, every

1:37:27

single sector said

1:37:29

that mental health was at the top of their list

1:37:32

of concern and

1:37:35

One of the things that we were advocating for

1:37:37

was the acknowledgement

1:37:39

for emotional self regulation, both at

1:37:41

the highest levels in government organizations, as

1:37:43

well as the being

1:37:45

at the foundation for education

1:37:48

in schools and employment.

1:37:51

So. It was such a gift

1:37:53

to see how we can,

1:37:56

a lot of people have judgment about the G20

1:37:59

itself and saying that it could be, it's, it can

1:38:01

be deemed as very ineffective. But

1:38:03

what happens there is that you meet other

1:38:05

NGOs, all the other CSOs, the civil service

1:38:07

organizations that gather together who

1:38:10

are doing incredible work, their grassroots

1:38:12

organizations, connecting with them.

1:38:15

Created such a renewed sense of optimism

1:38:17

when you walk away and you see all of

1:38:19

these projects that are happening on the front lines

1:38:22

that in and of itself creates

1:38:24

a resonance because the optimism feeling

1:38:27

that we optimistic feeling that we have that

1:38:29

generates momentum and so the ripple

1:38:31

effect that is we're still feeling

1:38:34

that. From that incredible six

1:38:36

weeks that we ended up spending, I was supposed to be there for two weeks

1:38:38

and we ended up staying for six and traveling

1:38:41

from the southern tip of Kerala,

1:38:43

we were in Delhi, Bhuvaneshwar, as well

1:38:45

as Sikkim for all of the different G20 conferences.

1:38:49

And in that time, is

1:38:51

there a time when you then stand in front of

1:38:55

Biden, Mosey,

1:38:57

Rishi Sunak and say,

1:38:59

listen chaps. I'm going to tell you about this hot

1:39:02

math thing, or is

1:39:04

it more diffused than that? How,

1:39:06

what's the structure of it?

1:39:08

Well, the process is there's a very

1:39:10

long bureaucratic process

1:39:13

of creating policy declaration

1:39:15

because just to give you an idea, when the

1:39:17

G20 took the civil, the CSO

1:39:19

civil service organizations as part of the C20

1:39:22

branch of the G20. And so.

1:39:25

That took place in Indonesia

1:39:27

in 2022. They had,

1:39:29

I think, over 500 NGOs

1:39:32

that came together for it. And that was inclusive

1:39:35

of all of the different working groups. This

1:39:37

year, just for the integrated holistic health in

1:39:39

India, they had over 800 and there's

1:39:41

14 different working groups. So it's a massive

1:39:43

amount of input and data and

1:39:46

contributions and opinions that

1:39:48

everybody is trying to collect and assemble. And

1:39:51

my, extreme deep

1:39:53

bow of respect goes to the organizers

1:39:55

who were able to process. They didn't use