0:00

Welcome to On the Souls Terms podcast

0:02

and today I have a very special guest . I'm

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honored to be joined by a

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guest who probably needs no introduction

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Mythologist , soul worker

0:11

, ancient psychologist maybe

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like the psychologist of the ancient ways

0:15

and a real hero of mine . Welcome

0:17

, michael Mead , to the show . Good

0:19

to be with you , chris . Thanks for the kind words

0:22

. I've been wanting to have you on the show

0:24

just because you're so steeped in story

0:26

and mythology and it's such a big part

0:28

of my world . So I wanted to talk about although

0:30

we're actually recording this episode

0:33

on October 13th , which happens to

0:35

be right in that eclipse mode . So we're in this

0:37

eclipse season right now and obviously

0:39

it's very intense times here in

0:41

October , but we're actually going to be releasing

0:43

this into January , around about your birthday

0:46

, and I wanted to make this episode

0:48

a real exploration of your own

0:50

life and your own path and ask you some questions

0:52

. I wonder if we could start with how did stories

0:55

and myth enter your

0:57

world and how did it come to be ? Because you're

0:59

so steeped in them nowadays ? How did

1:01

you learn to gather the wisdom

1:03

of stories ?

1:05

Well , the first occasion was my 13th

1:07

birthday and

1:09

I grew up in New York City , kind

1:12

of a working

1:15

class Irish family neighborhood

1:17

, which also meant kind of

1:19

poor in a way . And by

1:22

the time I was 13 , I had already

1:24

learned not to ask for

1:26

what I wanted on my birthday , because I tried

1:28

that and of course my parents couldn't

1:30

provide it . And so then I noticed they'd be like

1:32

depressed for two weeks after my birthday

1:34

. And so when my mother said

1:36

, what do you want ? I said I don't want anything . But

1:39

my aunt said to me , what

1:41

are you interested in ? And so my

1:43

answer was history . Because

1:45

at the time I was trying to figure out

1:47

what happened , what , why were

1:49

people , like the whole neighborhood

1:51

acted as if they had all lost their dreams

1:54

and I was trying to figure out what was that about and I

1:56

thought history seemed like the answer

1:58

. So my aunt , a notoriously

2:00

short woman , went to the local

2:03

bookstore or some bookstore and

2:05

asked for a history book . They pointed to a shelf

2:07

. She went up and reached up and got a book . They

2:09

wrapped it , she gave it to me and

2:12

and I tore some of the paper

2:14

off and she said , oh , it's the wrong book

2:16

, I have to take it back and I'm holding

2:18

onto it and pulling it and say , no , I want this book

2:20

. Because I'm looking and on the cover is

2:23

a guy riding on a horse that's flying

2:26

through the sky and he's shooting this

2:28

arrow in an arc . And I'm just

2:30

going , I want , and so I keep

2:32

the book and I tear the rest of the paper off and I

2:34

says mythology in Hamilton . So

2:38

that night that was one of the best gifts I've ever

2:40

gotten and , and it was

2:42

more , I wouldn't know to ask for

2:44

it , I wouldn't even know . So

2:46

it was the right , wrong , mistaken

2:49

, accurate book gift

2:51

, you know , and which

2:54

is sets up a whole kind of a mythological

2:56

thing on its own and the idea that

2:58

things can come to you that you

3:00

don't even anticipate or on

3:03

another circumstance might reject . That

3:05

night I read almost the entire book , wow

3:07

and yeah , and

3:10

it opened something in me that

3:12

it took me a long time to figure out what it was . But

3:14

I didn't . I

3:16

was a short , freckled

3:19

kid , you know , and

3:21

I didn't have to get bigger , I didn't have

3:23

to get older , I was

3:25

I . Whatever it was , I guess it was the soul

3:28

. I had a passport into that world

3:30

and then on , I was in that

3:32

world and that the

3:34

world of myth immediately explained things

3:36

to me that otherwise I couldn't understand

3:39

in life . And so

3:41

that was the beginning . But that year was

3:43

fateful in other ways , because

3:45

six months later 13

3:48

and a half roughly and I'm

3:50

in the local movie theater with my friends

3:52

, were in what was called a crew it's

3:55

like a small gang and we

3:57

were the younger version of the older

3:59

gang . And in the neighborhood

4:01

and each neighborhood nearby had a gang

4:03

, and one

4:05

of my friends had done something to upset

4:08

a neighbor gang of

4:10

older guys . And I get

4:12

up in the movie theater and left my friends

4:14

and headed to the bathroom at the back

4:16

of the theater and on

4:18

the way back I noticed that guys were like

4:20

coming with me that

4:22

I didn't know and that were older and bigger , and

4:25

when we got to the bathroom they threw me on the floor

4:27

and they pulled out knives . There's about seven of them

4:29

, oh my gosh , and they're going to carve

4:31

me up . That that's the myth , you know payback

4:34

for whatever my friend did , and

4:36

they were known to do that , do that . So it wasn't

4:39

an empty threat . So I'm laying there on the

4:41

floor and at

4:43

the time I couldn't figure out what happened at all

4:45

. But when I look back , I realized my ego

4:47

departed . My ego said this looks

4:49

really painful and I'm

4:51

out of here . And then , out

4:53

of somewhere inside me that I didn't even

4:55

know existed , a voice started

4:57

telling them a story Wow

4:59

, and and , and I could see

5:02

you know , you're probably in circumstances

5:04

when people are going to do harm they get a look in their

5:06

eye and their eyes changed

5:09

and the knives , the hands with the knives

5:11

, were going down and they , they just didn't

5:13

hurt me at all and just gave me a warning and told

5:15

, told me to tell my friend to never

5:18

be like that again . And they let me go

5:20

. Wow , and so . So now

5:22

the storyteller had awakened

5:24

inside and it

5:26

had its own voice that had there's

5:28

no rehearsal , there's no practice . It just came

5:30

out and there was no hesitation , it

5:32

just spoke from some deep place

5:34

that was so compelling to them . They let me go

5:36

. Wow , I really had a lot

5:38

. I had a lot of information

5:41

that year about

5:43

who I was and what I was intended

5:46

to do , but it actually took

5:48

me 20 years after that to really understand

5:50

that myth and story

5:52

was the path that I was on . Wow

5:55

, and so one thing I drew from

5:57

that there was there

5:59

was no one around that could confirm

6:01

what I was experiencing . I tried , I

6:04

talked to teachers , parents , you

6:07

know relatives , and said you know , here's ? I

6:10

got this book on myth and then the story , and

6:13

no one could confirm or

6:15

realize that this was the

6:17

path for me . But

6:20

that's how it started those two occasions

6:22

within six months of each other .

6:24

And was this story that came through one

6:26

of the myths from Edith Hammond on the book ? So

6:29

do you even remember ?

6:30

No , no , I had tried . I

6:33

had tried telling my friends myths

6:35

from the book like telling

6:38

the gang . We're not really like a gang

6:40

causing trouble . We're Jason and the

6:42

organ arts and we're trying to recover the golden

6:44

fleet , my friends say losing

6:47

your mind , you know so I stopped doing that for

6:49

a while , yeah , but no , what happened

6:51

was so it

6:54

came out . Just , it was more like a psychological

6:56

story . Okay , the

6:58

background was everybody was being abused

7:01

in their family to some degree . That's kind of how it was

7:03

. Yeah , and my friend was

7:06

every , every

7:08

day his brother would beat him up , and every night his father

7:10

would beat him up , and so he had gone a little crazy

7:12

and that's why he was attacking them when he

7:14

had no chance of winning a fight

7:16

with them . So I just started telling the

7:18

story . Listen , you think my friend's trying

7:20

to insult you , but actually he's lost his mind , and

7:23

the reason he's lost his mind is because his brother beats

7:25

him and his father beats him . Now , all the guys

7:27

I'm talking to have been

7:29

also hit and struck . Why

7:32

else would they be out there trying to hurt other people ? And

7:34

so I was really telling them their story . Wow

7:36

, and I couldn't . I don't know what I said , it just

7:38

came out . But they understood

7:41

that that was a story . They were in and

7:44

and and just knowing that was enough

7:46

to stop the process . Wow

7:49

, it wasn't mythical , it was actually more psychological

7:51

. And now my style

7:53

of storytelling is I

7:55

never tell a story the same way twice , and

7:57

I never , never , rehearsed a story

7:59

, so I just have a sense of the story

8:01

and then I use the words that come on

8:04

that day , and if it's

8:06

a live audience , I'm getting

8:08

Information from the audience

8:10

which changes the wording

8:12

of the story , and so and so

8:15

what really Awakened in me on

8:17

that occasion was this spontaneous

8:20

speaking storytelling thing

8:22

, which turns out to be my

8:24

style .

8:25

Yeah , it turned out to perhaps even

8:27

save your life on that occasion .

8:30

It saved my life . It certainly

8:32

changed my life , yeah , so

8:34

so then I was carrying a sense of , first

8:37

of all , the power of storytelling was more powerful

8:39

weapons , for one thing , wow

8:42

and then , secondly , a Story

8:44

told at the right time could change a person's

8:46

life Mine , and

8:48

also the view of all those guys with the knives

8:51

. So it was , it

8:53

was too big of a relevant revelation

8:55

for me at that age , especially when

8:57

I couldn't really share it with anyone

8:59

or get a you know someone

9:01

else who knew something about it , so

9:04

I just had to keep it to myself .

9:05

Right , so the feedback that you were getting is what

9:08

? Just kind of like are , you know , just

9:10

kind of blank looks or what ? What would people

9:13

know ?

9:13

I'm back . We all hung out on the corner

9:15

. I went back , I got out of that theater

9:18

as fast as I could yeah , back , friends

9:20

and I . So I joined them back on the corner

9:22

and I said , wow , I found something more

9:24

powerful than weapons . Yeah , I mean , they

9:26

all knew that gang right , and so I mean

9:29

I said what happened and and and they said

9:31

wow , you know and . But they didn't

9:33

say wow . Like that's amazing , we should all learn

9:35

. They

9:37

went , wow , we better get the older guys and go get

9:39

them . So they just wanted , they

9:42

wanted to retaliate . They just wanted to retaliate

9:45

and no one heard I was saying

9:47

.

9:48

Yeah it was just became Inside

9:50

information for me right inside

9:52

information , because it feels like a seed , that

9:56

or a thread or something

9:58

that just keep , maybe kept showing up in your

10:00

life and that you know this power of stories

10:02

that's in , that's in your individual myth and

10:04

in the world myth as well . Right , because in

10:07

the absence of great stories , we get more

10:09

and more polarized and more and more split off

10:11

as something that you talk about as well , and

10:14

stories think they're in different stories , yeah

10:16

, completely different stories , yeah

10:18

we are all in the story of Conflict

10:21

and and turmoil .

10:23

We're all in that together , but people

10:25

think they're in different stories because

10:27

of the polarization , right . But

10:29

it's interesting thing in terms of fate

10:31

and calling . So I don't know

10:33

how many years later it was . I Found

10:37

myself in a good position actually when

10:39

water of the life water of

10:41

life got published . I got paid

10:43

, put the book , I got some money

10:45

for that book and I really and

10:47

I wanted to give back and without even thinking

10:50

it through or seeing the connection

10:52

to what happened with the local gang , I

10:55

started working with gangs . I said

10:57

I just thought wow , and I hadn't even

10:59

thought it through , but the thread was there

11:01

and so I began what became

11:04

Almost 40 years

11:06

of working with that rescue gangs

11:08

, homeless kids and so on . Wow took

11:10

, yeah , so , so that was in

11:12

there . Yeah , that was in there were

11:15

, because a story I told those guys

11:17

with the knives Was really a sympathetic

11:19

story to their lives and

11:21

so that was in me at a young

11:23

age and then it became part

11:26

of our work and For

11:28

years and years .

11:30

Yeah , and you mentioned

11:32

how sort of like in that moment the ego

11:34

departed , you

11:36

know , or whatever that part is that

11:38

might try to control things or make up

11:40

something else happen or retaliate or fight or whatever

11:42

the that part was do , and

11:45

then something else is , I Guess

11:47

, the best word we have for it is soul , right

11:49

, but it's , it's even

11:51

to name , it makes , it almost takes

11:53

the shine of the mystery of it .

11:56

Well , it can go by many names

11:58

because it's so , but it's all spirit in a way

12:00

, or it's just this beer in the solar

12:02

. So I wanted to picking up the word were genius

12:04

. And Because

12:06

in working later on

12:09

then working with really at-risk

12:11

kids suicide of kids , violent , violent kids

12:13

, young people that are in the life-and-death

12:16

struggle I Would

12:18

be working with these young people and and

12:20

I would , and then I would depart and go

12:22

home or go on some other project , and that I

12:25

come back and work with them again . By the

12:27

time I come back , two of them had died or , you

12:29

know , several had gone to jail . So

12:31

I realized , each time I was talking to a young person

12:34

might be the last time . And

12:36

so what do I talk about ? What do I say

12:38

? And what worked was to talk to

12:40

them about genius Wow , another you

12:42

know , and just say you know , you're born with genius

12:45

, regardless of the background we got , regardless

12:48

of your family issues , you have genius

12:50

in you and the genius in you is unique

12:52

and they would all accept

12:54

that . They all could get that idea and

12:56

that was a way to build a sense of Of

12:58

, because you know young people in trouble

13:01

who say you know , don't tell me anything , don't tell me

13:03

, I have to change . You know they're

13:05

, you know they're stuck . But

13:07

all could accept that idea . And and

13:10

only when I was doing that that I look back

13:12

and say , oh , that was the genius waking up in me

13:14

. Not my mama genius , because

13:16

my , my theory is everybody

13:18

has some genius and each

13:21

soul is unique . So there's a genius

13:23

project in there for each person , and Mine

13:26

found its voice for

13:28

the first time when I was , you know , but

13:30

13 , but it took a while to

13:32

then live with that voice and can

13:34

you elaborate for my audience about

13:37

what you mean by genius ? so

13:39

Good

13:42

thing about genius is most people know the word

13:44

. Yeah , most people don't know the

13:46

meaning of the word and so it doesn't mean hi , I

13:48

cute .

13:49

Yeah right , like we all kind of assume our genius

13:52

me , you know , like Albert Einstein , you know , we list

13:54

off a few geniuses , yeah , yeah

13:56

.

13:56

Yeah , yeah , they're good examples , but the

13:59

word genius is a Latin word and it

14:01

means the spirit that's already there . So

14:04

when a person born in

14:06

the soul actually is a spirit

14:08

, which is Used

14:11

to be called the genius . And so when

14:13

people are lighting candles for

14:15

a birthday , the original tradition

14:18

of that was one candle , no matter how

14:20

you old the person was , you lit

14:22

one candle for the genius that's

14:24

the flame inside them , and

14:27

then gifts weren't given to the

14:29

person whose birthday it was , they were given to

14:31

the genius . Wow , so they could give gifts

14:34

to . They would light the candle and give the gift to the

14:36

genius . So genius is the flame

14:38

of imagination , this flame of inspiration

14:41

inside each person , and the

14:44

person is supposed to have experiences

14:46

that Move the ego to

14:49

to the side or crack it open , so

14:51

that this inner genius can come out . And

14:54

and then you know that

14:57

goes along with the old idea that everyone has

14:59

a calling in life and

15:01

the calling is calling to the genius

15:03

that's inside them . And

15:05

then so it becomes really valuable

15:08

in terms of the trouble in the world , because

15:10

we're living it now , when all the possible

15:12

Problems in

15:15

culture are activated To

15:18

the extreme and all the issues

15:20

in nature are activated

15:22

, all the ecosystems are in trouble

15:25

and so on , all the weather systems . We're in

15:27

the extremes of everything and

15:29

there is no simple answer . There's no way

15:31

people are going to agree on how to do

15:33

it . But if enough people awaken

15:36

to their natural genius , then

15:38

the genius of some people . Some people are

15:40

born with an inner knowledge of how to

15:42

work with water systems in

15:46

the forest , how to you know how to in

15:49

Invent better farming

15:51

techniques . Some people have that genius

15:53

and others have the genius of

15:55

culture , of human culture . They have a genius

15:58

for psychology or astrology

16:00

or a genius for how to work with

16:02

people that are depressed . The genius

16:04

is unique in everyone and if enough genius

16:06

Cells awakened , a

16:09

lot of things would begin to change without

16:11

everybody having to agree with each other .

16:14

It would be happy from the soul mm-hmm

16:16

, and so the calling

16:18

seems to come , because our calling

16:20

is always an interesting one , right it it ? It

16:22

implies that something or someone

16:24

, somewhere , or someone or some

16:26

being or some entity is Speaking

16:29

or is calling . Right , who

16:32

do you think calling with ?

16:33

with calling , that's

16:35

good question . I often don't . I

16:37

just assume in a way , let's see

16:39

, so it's

16:41

the other world calling . So

16:44

be a human being is to be a citizen of

16:46

two worlds the obvious world

16:48

, the evidentiary world

16:50

, the world , that of measurable

16:52

things , and then to be a

16:54

citizen of the other world , the

16:56

Immeasurable world , the

16:58

world of inspiration , imagination , compassion

17:01

, healing , love , all the , all

17:03

the amazing things that make life meaningful

17:06

and beautiful . Are not

17:08

the measurable things . There they , and so we're

17:10

a citizen of each world

17:12

. And , and in

17:14

youth , a person is supposed

17:17

to have experience , experiences

17:19

where the other world , seen as this spirit

17:21

world or seen as the world of the ancestors

17:24

there's many ways to look at it calls

17:27

an awakening , call into the soul

17:29

that brings into consciousness

17:31

the genius

17:34

, the Gifts

17:36

, the capacities that

17:39

are woven into a person's soul

17:41

and that used to be done

17:43

through rites of passage or initiatory

17:45

experiences . The modern

17:47

world lacks those rites of passage

17:49

, so most people are walking around

17:52

in the world Without

17:54

knowing their own gifts , without knowing their own

17:57

calling and without knowing that their

17:59

soul is already shaped in ways

18:01

and aimed in ways that

18:04

can lead to paths of healing and

18:06

paths of meaning and paths

18:08

of destiny . So

18:11

the calling is Anything

18:13

you might want to call the entities

18:16

, the powers in the other world the spirits

18:18

and Different cultures different

18:20

names .

18:22

So it goes along with . There's something in

18:24

this of it goes along with Rites

18:26

of passage and ritual and it seems that

18:28

when you were 13 , which is interesting , I

18:30

mean the numbers , interesting , that kind of you

18:33

know in astrology would say you're at your Saturn

18:35

opposition , which is , which is the

18:38

kind of like a Saturn has this 29

18:40

and a half year cycle . We break that down into it

18:42

seven and a bit year Parts

18:44

, and so you're coming up to that Saturn , saturn

18:46

opposition at that time and and in that

18:48

moment there's a Almost

18:51

an interruption of the regular programming and a crisis

18:53

and a near death and a you

18:55

know you can , it has the elements

18:58

of initiation in it in that moment

19:00

.

19:00

No , totally , totally , totally

19:02

. And for a Capricorn yeah

19:05

, be in that .

19:06

And yeah , right , right

19:10

lined up right .

19:11

That's what ? oh , in a different

19:13

culture , young people at 13

19:15

, 14 , 15 , 16 , the age would be

19:17

Girls and yeah

19:20

, would be taken away

19:22

from the family and away from the village , into

19:24

nature and into

19:26

a radical series of experiences

19:28

, guided by people

19:31

that hopefully know what they're doing . That

19:33

is is intended to reveal a person

19:35

to themselves . Initiation

19:37

, on one level , means to be reveal

19:39

oneself to oneself , but it

19:42

has to happen with other people , because

19:44

all on our own will either make the water

19:47

too hot or too cool and

19:49

we won't get the , the alchemical

19:51

experience , and so

19:53

and and and it was always

19:55

considered to be a death

19:57

rebirth experience . Hmm , so

20:00

the great mystery nearest , I can

20:02

tell , we have to pick one mystery to Consider

20:05

and to brush up against its

20:08

life death , rebirth or

20:10

life death renewal . That's

20:13

the mystery for the individual human , it's

20:15

the mystery for nature . Nature is constantly

20:18

Life , death , and then it's

20:20

reborn . Out of its own ashes , out of its

20:22

own Collapsing trees , comes the

20:24

new forest and the cosmos

20:26

, according to all the old mythologies , is

20:29

always dying and being reborn , and

20:31

people were supposed to be pulled into

20:33

that in a way that they experienced

20:36

it palpably , directly At

20:38

an early age where their psyche

20:41

is still not completely formed and

20:43

actually , by modern measurements their

20:45

brain isn't completely formed . So

20:48

the the psyche and the brain , in

20:50

the entire Awareness of

20:52

the person , is supposed to have an altered

20:55

experience that involves self-revelation

20:57

, and so my theory

20:59

and that's what I started writing about when I started

21:02

writing was that the

21:04

writer passage , or initiatory work

21:06

experience , is an

21:09

archetypal thing , and

21:12

because it's an archetype , it

21:14

can't disappear . It can be forgotten , overlooked

21:16

. So the soul is

21:19

expecting a writer passage

21:21

. That's why young people

21:23

take all these chances . Yeah

21:26

, they think it's just risk or excitement , but

21:28

it's actually the soul saying we

21:30

have to go out now and die a little in order

21:32

to be born a lot . And so

21:35

, yes , when I look back eventually at what

21:37

happened to me at 13 , it was a life

21:39

and death experience in

21:42

which something happened , and I'm not joking

21:44

. My ego wanted no part

21:46

of it and another part of me said

21:48

okay , I know what to do here . Yeah

21:50

, coming in . Yeah , yeah

21:53

. So it happens anyway

21:55

. But it usually happens , like it

21:57

happened to me , without having

21:59

the confirming , blessing element

22:02

of elders or

22:04

mentors or people who

22:06

. So , after a

22:08

person leaves childhood behind which

22:11

is what adolescence is about

22:13

they're supposed

22:15

to lead the family and enter the world . In

22:19

some cultures they'll say you move from the lap

22:21

of your mother to the lap of mother nature

22:23

and they're supposed to then

22:25

become a child of nature

22:27

, a child of the earth , a child of the cosmos

22:29

, and then what

22:32

that's also called second birth . So

22:35

astrology , a lot of

22:37

astrology , begins with the first birth , but

22:39

there's a second that's supposed to come , which

22:41

is the psychological birth , the spiritual

22:44

birth , in many ways the emotional

22:46

birth , and a person then

22:48

begins to become themselves . That

22:50

whole thing is missing in modern culture . So

22:53

the soul , which doesn't

22:55

read the news , the soul

22:57

says wait a minute . You're in a life and

23:00

death circumstance . This is your initiation

23:02

. We're going to treat it like that and

23:04

we're going to release this voice that

23:06

in some other age and some other

23:08

tribal situation would have been released

23:11

through a ritual . We're going to make

23:13

this strange , little dangerous

23:15

thing in the bathroom at the back of the movie theater

23:18

. We're going to make that your initiation and

23:20

at least awaken this part of you

23:22

. That's a good way to understand it .

23:24

Yeah , and so it's interesting with the astrology because

23:26

that Saturn opposition can happen

23:28

anywhere between 13 and 16 , like

23:31

in that kind of range , because Saturn spends about

23:33

two and a half to three years in that sign . It depends

23:35

where your Saturn is . But Saturn of course , as

23:37

you'd know from Edith , swallows

23:40

his children and he is an earth . He

23:42

is a catonic earth figure

23:45

who swallows his children and then throws

23:47

them back up . So there is kind of like a swallow

23:50

it down and then almost

23:52

like being gestated

23:55

in the womb of the father

23:58

, in a way . You were born out of the womb of

24:00

the mother . Then you get swallowed by the womb

24:02

, by the father's womb , and then thrown

24:04

back up Because these stories

24:07

obviously occur in many ways

24:09

, in many different stories .

24:10

right , that's one Well in Hawaii

24:12

, they literally have that myth where

24:14

you're swallowed by a

24:16

giant . It can be a female

24:19

or a male . That is

24:21

part of their myth . That's

24:25

an interesting way to see Saturn

24:27

, Kronos being

24:30

the Greek name for Saturn . Yeah

24:34

, so you're swallowed by time

24:36

. You're swallowed in order to find

24:38

timelessness , Because

24:41

what comes out is timeless . The

24:43

qualities in a person's soul are timeless

24:46

. They're not part of Kronos

24:48

. Measured literal time , they're

24:50

part of timelessness and eternity

24:52

. The divine . Call it what you will . And

24:55

so out of this skinny

24:58

kid facing life and death

25:00

comes this storytelling thing

25:02

that has nothing to do with

25:05

time and it has its own timing

25:07

.

25:07

Well , such a

25:09

good mythic thread , because when

25:12

you're looking for the history book or you ask for history

25:14

, so that's , you're asking for a chronology , right

25:16

? You're asking for Kronos' version of events

25:18

and you get literally a book that

25:20

says on its cover I have it up here as well Timeless

25:23

Tales . Right , like timeless

25:26

. That's the actual in the title of

25:28

the book that you're given .

25:30

Brilliant , yeah , so I got inducted

25:33

, initiated into the timeless without

25:36

the benefit of support

25:38

and guidance from all the people , so

25:41

that slows down the amount of time

25:43

that it took , I would say , for me

25:45

to get a hold of it myself and get

25:47

an understanding of it . And of course

25:49

, that's interesting too just to stick with Kronos

25:53

and Saturn so that

25:55

if we skip from 13

25:57

to when I'm 20 , 20

26:00

years old , I get drafted to go to Vietnam

26:02

.

26:04

So now , by the way , we're in the Saturn Square , right

26:06

? So we had another seven and a bit years and

26:08

we get to the next phase of Saturn

26:11

.

26:11

So go on , yeah , and I get this

26:13

invitation from

26:15

the American military

26:17

to go to , and I

26:19

write back and I say listen , it's not a declared

26:21

war , it's not a smart war

26:23

and

26:25

I don't think I can kill people , I don't know , for

26:27

reasons I don't understand . So I'm not

26:29

coming . But if you have another war , send

26:32

another letter . Well

26:34

, they didn't send another letter , they come knocking on the

26:36

door . So anyway , I go

26:39

in into the army and

26:42

no one had told me what happens in there

26:44

, which is very Kronos-like

26:46

. There's lots of order and they give you

26:48

orders all the time , and I'm good

26:51

at orders . So they give me an

26:53

order and I said no , I'm not doing that order , you have

26:55

something else or come back with something better

26:57

. So anyway , I

26:59

get wind up in prison in the military

27:02

and of course in there they give you even

27:04

more orders . And so then my

27:06

response to that was

27:08

to stop eating . And

27:10

so I got put into solitary confinement

27:13

and for I

27:15

don't really know , because they took away any

27:17

notes I had and everything , but

27:19

for somewhere over two

27:22

months I'm in solitary confinement and I'm

27:24

not eating . And so I

27:26

went in at maybe 150 pounds and

27:29

I came out at weight 89 pounds . Yeah

27:32

, but what's interesting

27:34

about it is , I'm in , solitary

27:36

, all by myself . The only people I ever see

27:38

are the guards , and they

27:40

only come by once in a while , but I have visitors all

27:43

the time , and what's happening is

27:45

characters from myths are

27:47

showing up , and

27:49

I realized I was at this moment where

27:51

either where I was losing my mind or

27:54

I was finding my mind , and

27:56

only later did I see how the thread went

27:58

all the way back to being 13

28:00

. Now I was in life and death circumstances

28:03

again and , rather than the voice waking

28:05

up , characters from the myths are coming

28:08

to visit me , like encouraging me

28:10

, and so then I now

28:12

. That's like another initiatory step

28:15

, and then after

28:17

that , again , there's no rituals , there's no

28:19

elders . At the time I didn't even know

28:21

what a therapist was , and I'm now

28:23

stumbling around in the world in

28:25

a very altered state , alive

28:29

, almost dead , and

28:31

knowing that mythic

28:33

characters can visit you

28:36

and support you

28:38

and guide you and help you . Which

28:40

, and really having no one to

28:43

share that with . And that's when

28:45

I began to really study myth

28:47

. I studied

28:49

to understand what had happened .

28:51

I'm really taken by this . If we follow

28:53

Kronos along , you went into the very , very

28:56

, the solitary confinement being the very

28:58

belly of Saturn

29:00

, or Kronos as well . Right , all those rules

29:02

. And then you don't want to go with those rules

29:05

. So you get deeper in , then those rules , and you get

29:07

deeper in , and then there's just like sit here and

29:09

oh my God . So

29:12

you just were rejecting the food as

29:14

your own , your own sort of yeah

29:18

, way of pushing back , I suppose , or your

29:20

own protest , or or what was

29:22

the rejection of food around ?

29:24

Well , here was my thinking . Yeah

29:26

, my thinking was I

29:29

told them . I said look , it was my fault

29:31

, I shouldn't have come into the military . I

29:33

really can't do this and if you keep

29:35

giving me orders , I'm going to keep refusing

29:37

them . There's something in the view that says

29:40

I cannot do this . I don't

29:42

want to die of doing

29:44

the wrong thing and I don't want to kill people in

29:47

the wrong for no real reason . So

29:49

it was my mistake , I'm going , I'm

29:51

leaving . And they said you're not going

29:53

anywhere . And and so then

29:55

I said well , you're actually , I'm already gone . And

29:57

they would say what are you talking about ? I said in myself

30:00

I'm gone , you know this . And

30:03

so when they put me

30:05

in solitary , I realized they're not getting the message

30:08

and I said well , maybe they see me

30:10

eating food and they think I'm here

30:12

and willing to be here . So

30:14

I just stopped eating food . Now I

30:17

get out of there and I'm stumbling around

30:19

in the world trying to make sense out of this and I'm

30:21

going back to myth to

30:23

try to understand and also

30:25

other things psychology

30:28

, yeah , and I and I see

30:30

this news report about Bobby

30:32

Sands and other members of the IRA

30:34

in Ireland going on a hunger

30:36

strike in prisons

30:39

. Wow , and I went wait

30:41

a minute , what's this ? And I start to study

30:43

that . And it turns out that

30:46

there's an old ritual in Irish

30:48

culture which is , when

30:50

you can't defeat the authorities

30:52

, you fast against them . Wow

30:55

, it's called crocheted , crocheted , and

30:57

you fast against improper

30:59

authority in order to adjust

31:01

the world . And and

31:04

then I read that Gandhi

31:07

, who went on on

31:09

on on hunger strikes

31:11

and also went on that great march to

31:13

the to get salt and all , he

31:16

was studying the Irish stuff as well . No

31:18

way , really . He knew of that tradition

31:20

and he got

31:22

his idea of the force of truth from

31:25

that , so , anyway . So then

31:27

, all of now I'm realizing some

31:30

ancestral knowledge in a sense had

31:33

awakened in me . Yeah , that it

31:35

wasn't that . Because I

31:37

didn't understand , one day I just decided I'm

31:39

not eating , and

31:42

and so anyway , that was really helpful

31:44

to me . It was like like we're talking

31:46

about before . Where does

31:48

the calling come from ? It comes from the spirit

31:50

realm . It comes from ancestors

31:52

in many cultures which would be part

31:54

of this realm . Well , my

31:57

Irish ancestors were giving me suggestions

31:59

, rather dangerous ones , but it

32:01

got me out of there . So

32:04

, anyway , there starts to be , like you could see , the

32:06

sense in the story , or the linkage

32:08

between Well yeah , because the first one is

32:10

more like the genius calling and the

32:12

second one feels ancestral .

32:14

So it's like , piece by piece , you're being

32:16

visited or revisited , or

32:19

coming back to yourself and through

32:22

these very intense , very heightened

32:25

situations

32:27

that do have again all the elements of ritual

32:29

, except that they're

32:31

not organized ritual , they're

32:33

just yeah , and they're not trying to help , and they're

32:36

not trying to .

32:37

Yeah , and they could really break

32:39

you .

32:40

They could really break .

32:41

Yeah , they would wake

32:43

me up at night and say you're going

32:45

to die , you have no pulse because

32:48

I'm just , I'm wasting away

32:50

, wow . And they would say

32:52

, why do you want to die ? And I said , no

32:54

, I don't want to die , I want to live . But

32:57

I won't live the way now I've gotten

32:59

myself into the circumstance . The

33:02

Irish have another thing called a geish

33:05

, and it means a condition

33:07

on the soul , and so

33:09

everyone has conditions on their

33:11

soul . The Greeks would call it fate , and a condition

33:13

of my soul

33:16

was that I couldn't do what they were telling me I had

33:18

to do . I couldn't do it , and I didn't know

33:20

that until I heard it . Because when

33:22

you go into the army like that , they tell you you're

33:25

a soldier . Now , when you receive

33:28

a command to shoot and kill , you shoot and

33:30

kill , you follow the order . And

33:33

that was when I got in trouble . I raised my hand and I said I can't do that

33:35

. I can't do that . I would shoot

33:37

and kill , maybe if my family's had risk or something

33:39

, but if you talk to shoot and I'm supposed to

33:41

follow the order , I can't do that . That was when

33:43

I started getting in trouble . And

33:45

so there was another ancestral

33:48

thing that was a condition

33:50

on the soul . I knew

33:53

I couldn't live with that condition on

33:55

my soul . I'm not talking about anyone else . Everybody

33:57

has their own callings , their own genius

33:59

and their own fate . Mine

34:02

was that I couldn't do that

34:05

, so yeah . So

34:07

then when I'm studying myth and

34:10

I'm reading about mythic stories where you have

34:12

people going into the underworld where I clearly

34:14

was and then studying

34:16

things like initiation , to understand

34:19

this life-death renewal thing

34:21

, Because I got born out of that dungeon

34:24

, out of that solitary cell

34:26

, I got born as a different person

34:28

. I came out of there a different person . I

34:31

sure looked like a different person , but

34:33

I had a different understanding of the world and

34:35

I felt like I had died and

34:37

then been born . And

34:39

that's exactly what happens in a sweat

34:42

lodge in Native American tradition . You

34:44

go in there as an adult and then you're cooked down

34:46

, you crawl out on your hands and knees , You're

34:48

born again and the sweat

34:51

lodge is the womb and I was in a dark

34:53

underworld , solitary

34:56

prison womb and

35:00

I came out of there a different person .

35:03

I'm sort of reminded of the work of Maladoma

35:05

Somae here , which came

35:07

into my world randomly at a second-hand

35:09

bookstore . I just picked that book off the shelf

35:12

when it looks like this is the one that I've got to

35:14

have in my sort of early 20s

35:16

and reading that sort

35:18

of . Some of the themes are coming through from that and I've gone

35:20

back and listened to it because I didn't realize that

35:22

you and him

35:24

had worked together . And

35:27

this may be jumping a little bit

35:29

, but how did you come in contact

35:31

with Maladoma Somae ? No , it ties

35:33

right in , it does .

35:34

Okay , Good . So yes , Maladoma's

35:37

from the D'Agra tribe in Burkina Faso

35:40

and he winds up getting

35:44

to the United States and he's teaching at the

35:46

University of Michigan on a green

35:48

card , they call it and the condition

35:50

of the green card is if you leave

35:53

your teaching position , you lose

35:55

your visa . So he's stuck

35:57

there . He has to keep teaching . He's

35:59

teaching world literature

36:03

. He had graduated from the Sorbonne

36:05

. He went from the tribal initiation to

36:07

the Sorbonne . Anyway , he's really a brilliant

36:09

guy , but he falls into this depression

36:12

because he shouldn't be there and

36:14

it's not feeding

36:16

his life . And so some people

36:18

that knew him called me and said we

36:20

have this friend who's going into despair

36:23

teaching at a university . Could

36:25

you talk to him ? So Maladoma

36:28

calls me on the phone and

36:30

some things are just , you know , part

36:32

of fate , and within minutes

36:34

we're both laughing , because we

36:37

had a shared sense of humor , which

36:39

in Africa is called a

36:43

laughing friend . Like some , relationships

36:46

are based on humor , and he knew

36:48

that , but I happen to know that . And

36:50

so we realized that we were friends and

36:52

so I invited him to a conference

36:55

that we were doing , a retreat , actually

36:57

just with

36:59

the idea of having him be part

37:01

of things , so that he would be

37:03

in a community and it was a multicultural

37:06

thing . And then I found

37:08

out this guy is extremely gifted and

37:11

really brilliant , and so then

37:13

I said well , listen , we

37:16

get you out of that university and I'll show

37:18

you how to roam around , do workshops and retreats

37:20

, you know , and you can tell stories

37:22

and sing songs and whatever you want to do

37:24

. Everybody likes it . So

37:26

then we figured out how to get him

37:29

a different green card and then we

37:31

started he teaching together and

37:35

there were a lot of beauty in that , but one beauty was

37:37

he had gone through actual initiations

37:40

. And then and I

37:42

told him my story and he told me

37:44

his story , which is a really dramatic

37:47

story also , but what we had

37:49

in common with the life

37:51

and life and death experiences and

37:53

an interest in initiatory rituals-

37:57

we began to work

37:59

at that together , and then

38:01

he would . we began

38:04

to redesign African rituals

38:06

to work at that time in

38:08

the United States , because rituals

38:10

don't travel well . You

38:12

can you can take the rudiments

38:14

of the ritual and reshape it a bit , and

38:17

so that's what we did together . And then we found

38:19

out well , we found that we could

38:21

drum and sing together , and that was like our favorite

38:23

thing to do .

38:25

Amazing .

38:26

Yeah , it was amazing because I was already

38:28

drumming and singing and telling I

38:31

had worked with African people and Native American

38:33

people . But we would do this

38:35

thing called calling

38:37

in the spirits , where we would start . When we got

38:39

to a new place we would start drumming and

38:41

there's a kind of an interesting communication

38:44

that happens between drummers . It's

38:46

a silent thing where you actually understand the other

38:48

person really well and anyway we

38:51

would call it chasing the spirits or cause

38:53

calling the spirits in and to

38:55

this day I miss doing that

38:57

. He's passed on , so

39:00

you know . Peace on his soul

39:03

. Yeah , so that was one of those fateful

39:05

conversation on the phone

39:07

. And then next , within a month

39:09

, we were working together .

39:11

Wow , incredible , yeah and

39:14

yeah .

39:15

Good .

39:16

I'm just sort of coming back to like how

39:18

, because then there is a bit of a jump there from

39:20

when you come out of solitary confinement , waiting

39:22

89 pounds , pretty

39:24

close to death , you know , and obviously

39:27

somehow Cronus

39:29

does spew you back out into the world

39:32

. Right , you do get born

39:34

out of his belly , or we could say out of the

39:36

underworld . Let you manage to go and come back

39:38

and not die , coming very

39:40

, very close to death . I imagine that it was

39:42

probably true that your pulse was very

39:44

weak at that point . Oh yeah , they were telling

39:46

the truth .

39:47

Yeah , yeah , and I had to face death

39:49

, yet to face death without

39:51

actually dying , right , and that's what had

39:53

changed in me . Yeah , I

39:55

understood that it was in . In Africa

39:57

they say it's in the fold of your cloak . I

40:00

understood it was in , it was in my body

40:02

, and that I didn't die

40:05

on that day . But it was like what I

40:07

now call little death . It was a little death . I

40:09

was not the same person when I come out of there . That's

40:12

why I had a study initiation . I knew I

40:14

wasn't the same person and

40:16

no one that I knew could

40:18

understand what happened , and

40:20

but I had to understand it

40:22

. And so then , yeah , I had worked out

40:25

on a lot of things , but meeting Malodoma

40:27

was great because he had been

40:29

denied initiation

40:31

.

40:31

Right . So , it's kind of such an interesting

40:33

mix also taken

40:36

.

40:36

It was really interesting yeah .

40:38

Because he was taking . Yeah , my understanding

40:41

of the book , which I read a long time ago , was that he was

40:43

taking from his tribe by

40:45

the church and then

40:47

a Jesuit . Jesuits and Tic , yeah

40:50

Right . And then he , around 1819

40:53

or something , he escapes

40:55

and goes back there and there's a negotiation

40:57

of whether they can or will put

40:59

him through an initiation . Right , because it's too dangerous

41:01

.

41:02

Too old , too old , yeah , everyone , his age

41:04

has already gone through it , and not only , not

41:07

only that . He had lived with the priests and

41:09

they said you're initiated to them , right

41:12

, you can come with . And then it was

41:14

one elder that stood up for him . Wow

41:16

really . But his initiation was dangerous

41:19

because some people in the tribe did

41:21

not want him to survive .

41:23

Oh , wow , so he had this whole extra

41:25

.

41:26

And so , yeah , so then he's coming out of this an

41:31

initiation . That's

41:33

too much , and I'm coming

41:35

out of lack of

41:37

enough understanding , and so we worked

41:39

on those things together for years . Wow

41:41

.

41:42

It was great , yeah , yeah

41:44

. When in your journey do you meet

41:46

him ? Where are we after your

41:49

solitary confinement versus ? I mean we're getting into

41:51

chronology now yeah .

41:53

After 13, . I'm not good on years , but

41:58

because then it's all mythological .

41:59

Yeah , yeah , yeah , it's timeless . I'm not good on

42:01

that , doesn't matter I don't really really

42:04

think about that . It doesn't matter , probably

42:07

in some sad or yeah , sad and additional

42:09

or something , yeah , yeah , yeah , maybe sad and return

42:12

time , because it's amazing to me that that

42:14

you come out of that and

42:16

your physical self is almost broken

42:18

but your spirit is obviously on fire at

42:20

that time , but probably stronger than

42:22

ever it's been , really , you

42:25

know , because obviously you come and you somehow

42:27

, or some part of you , knows what you need now

42:29

, which is kind of remarkable

42:32

.

42:33

That was a real struggle , yeah . So

42:36

imagine learning

42:39

about initiation was so helpful . Yeah

42:41

, because I

42:43

was more in the other world than I was in this world

42:45

. What was working for me was

42:47

a connection to the unseen , a

42:50

connection to the myth , to

42:52

the characters and myth . That's what was keeping

42:54

me alive , literally

42:57

. And so then I'm back in

42:59

the regular world and I don't

43:01

fit in at all . That makes no sense

43:03

to me . So I had to leave New

43:06

York and I went all the way to the other California

43:08

, the other side of the country , trying

43:11

to find a way really

43:13

to start again is what

43:15

I didn't understand . That , but that's what

43:17

I was up to . But then

43:20

I had to really turn to study and

43:23

I studied all these different tribes

43:25

and how initiation went and what

43:27

rites of passage they had and how that went

43:29

, and I started to make this realization

43:32

that it's all archetypal and

43:34

the only thing missing from my experience

43:37

was the return right

43:39

. The rite of passage is separation

43:41

from everything and everyone . Well , you

43:44

know Salt Lake confinement qualifies you

43:46

there and then some

43:48

kind of ordeals that

43:50

feel like life and death . Well , yeah

43:53

, we got that covered . And then it's not

43:55

over until you return and people

43:57

who understand what you went through

43:59

and know that you're a different person

44:01

welcome you back as this different

44:03

person , with a greater understanding and

44:06

a deeper reverence for life or something like that

44:08

, and that's missing . So

44:11

eventually , eventually , what I did and I

44:13

bet the date of this would be interesting

44:15

I decided to have

44:18

a conference where I invited

44:20

to it , and this was

44:22

for men primarily

44:24

. Later on I worked with

44:26

, by the way , battle veterans that

44:28

included women and men

44:31

, but on this occasion I invited men

44:33

who had gone to Vietnam , who

44:36

had refused to go to Vietnam , who had

44:38

left the country and eventually came back

44:40

, who got out of going to Vietnam

44:42

by lying , by cheating , lying

44:44

. I invite you know I had all

44:47

these connections and word went out if

44:49

you're part of this Vietnam experience , come

44:51

to . So over a hundred guys wind

44:54

up in this remote camp for

44:56

a week .

44:57

Oh , my god , wow , yeah , with the hell

44:59

of energy . Yeah , that's a lot of

45:01

energy , wow .

45:02

And it's like we were

45:05

the embodiment of the war , because

45:07

the war affected everyone . Right , it affect

45:09

everyone , argued about it , everything , everyone

45:11

thought about it , everyone had nightmares and dreams about

45:14

it . And now we had everyone the ones

45:16

who had been against it , the ones who had gone

45:18

, the ones who came back wounded . We

45:20

had guys that were really wounded , obviously

45:23

, and then we had many people with

45:25

PTSD and we , we

45:27

worked at it for a week . We told

45:29

each other stories and I use myth

45:31

to frame the whole thing and so we

45:33

were all inside myth and

45:35

it was . It was amazing

45:37

, was really challenging and difficult

45:39

, and at times it looked like it's gonna fall apart . And

45:42

then we all realized what the truth was

45:45

. We had all been in the war together

45:47

. Even the one who didn't go were

45:49

in a war . Hmm and so

45:51

at the end of it , the night before

45:53

we closed , we had this like

45:55

a feast and and , and I suggested

45:57

at the feast that if someone has moved

46:00

you , if their life story has moved , you toast

46:02

to them so that they realized

46:05

they've been seen by you and you're kind of blessing

46:07

them . And so then someone else

46:09

said well , after we did that for a while , they said

46:11

why don't we also toast groups like why

46:13

don't we toast all the battle veterans

46:15

and toast all all the ones

46:17

who are opposed to the war ? And that

46:19

seemed right . And so they said well , let's

46:21

start with the battle veterans . All the battle veterans stand

46:24

up . There's over a hundred people sitting at at

46:27

this really long Extension of tables

46:29

and all these bad veterans

46:31

stand up . It's really powerful . And

46:33

then they come over to me and stand me up and

46:35

I said no , no , no , I'm not a battle veteran

46:37

. And they said yes , you are . Wow

46:40

. And I said what ? And they said you took on

46:42

the whole army . You're

46:44

with us . Wow . That

46:47

was the end of the rider pass so

46:49

that was your return , yeah . I'm

46:51

almost gonna cry .

46:52

Yeah , I'm got a lot of goosebumps

46:55

Feeling it with you .

46:57

Yeah , I didn't . I didn't understand it till

46:59

they stood me up and they said you

47:02

fought the war , you fought

47:04

the army and you won . You're

47:06

a battle better . So Not

47:10

long after that , I started to work with battle veterans

47:12

, which I did for years . Wow and

47:15

and yeah . So anyway

47:17

, that was finally , so this is obviously

47:20

return .

47:21

Yeah , which happens , when it happens

47:23

chronologically we don't know but but

47:25

the return actually does occur by

47:28

these guys that you pulled together . So

47:30

you basically pull a village towards yourself

47:32

from all over the country and

47:35

then get them all in a room , a hundred people , as

47:37

you say . Loads of PTSD there

47:39

, loads of trauma , you know a lot of violence

47:41

, a lot of potential chaotic

47:44

, you know Mess

47:47

that could happen if it's not held right

47:49

. But you're willing to put yourself in there and really

47:51

trust that Spirit has got you and that

47:53

genius has got you , souls got you . The

47:55

whole thing will contain it . Speaking

47:58

of Saturnian things as well , the big container

48:00

, right , because that is also the same thing like

48:03

so can you contain ? You know

48:05

, that's what Saturn really brings us , which is

48:07

ways , also blocks and limits , and all those negative

48:09

elements of Saturn gets bandied about

48:11

. But it's actually a containment process

48:13

and . That container

48:15

, within that container , they call you forward

48:18

and and

48:20

and rewrite your myth right , that you , that

48:22

you say I didn't fight . You say refused to

48:24

fight and they say no , you did fight . Yeah

48:27

.

48:30

Yeah , wow , and it wasn't just amazing for me .

48:32

Yeah .

48:32

Yeah , you know , everybody got something

48:35

, everyone , even the ones there were guys

48:37

there really couldn't stay in a

48:39

building for more than an hour , wow

48:42

, and and they got healing everybody

48:44

. We healed each other and and

48:46

. But that was the kind

48:48

of completion of that Initiatory

48:51

experience , not that you know . And then the

48:53

old rule applies when you Complete

48:57

one initiation , you're qualified now

48:59

for a bigger , deeper one . Wow

49:01

, that's

49:04

a stopping point , but it was a great stopping

49:06

point and it was something I really

49:08

needed . No one else could help

49:10

me with that .

49:12

Well , because it was your first . It

49:14

sounds like it was your first return , right

49:16

? So ?

49:17

Yeah , I couldn't find anyone else that could see

49:20

me .

49:20

No , they saw me better than me

49:22

, because even if we got back to the crew

49:24

that you were rolling with , firstly , they were of your

49:26

own age and they couldn't do it anyway and they didn't

49:29

know and nobody was there to be any for

49:31

the yeah , because there's elder needed right was

49:33

there . Was their elders ship in that hundred

49:36

or was there or did the well ?

49:39

It was awakened in the hundred , right

49:41

. So wasn't elders by age , you was elders

49:44

by experience , right , and I started calling

49:46

that the sage in art . Wow

49:48

, and something elder and sage like

49:50

in the hearts of all of us , awakened

49:53

during that week enough to hold

49:55

each other , enough to see each other and enough

49:57

to heal each other . I'm not saying everybody was fine after

50:00

that , no , but had you walked

50:02

into that , you would . You would see and

50:04

feel yourself in an altered place

50:06

, where , where

50:09

, by the end , the

50:11

those who are battle veterans are embracing

50:14

anti-war activists and

50:16

wow . It just

50:18

, it just brought her all back together and

50:20

so so I call that sudden

50:23

community . I I learned that it's

50:25

sudden because Everybody

50:28

usually you know I'll be with a big

50:30

audience , I'll say how many people have a had

50:32

an experience of separation , the beginning

50:34

of a rite of passage and most almost

50:37

everybody Puts the hand . How many have suffered

50:39

through our deals . Now both hands are going up . How

50:41

many have been welcomed back with an understanding

50:43

of what you went through ? Very

50:46

few hands are going up . That's the part we don't get

50:48

. Yeah , most people living unfinished

50:50

initiations Right at that

50:52

time . For that group , we

50:55

returned you know , how hard it

50:57

is for battle veterans to return .

50:58

Yeah , of course .

51:00

They , they live on the streets , they take

51:02

up drugs . We returned and

51:04

we became our own community , welcoming

51:06

each other back . I learned a lot from

51:09

that mosaic , our nonprofit

51:11

that's what we have worked at for many years . Wow

51:13

, creating communities that can

51:16

handle trauma and

51:18

healing and then create

51:20

a return process .

51:22

I can really feel the ripple effect of , because

51:24

it's such a microcosm , microcosm moment

51:26

to get to , to gather those hundred

51:28

, you know is gathering more than

51:31

100 in the room , right , because then the people

51:33

that leave that can also . I mean , firstly

51:35

, that's the invisible component of trickle-out

51:38

effect from that that would . That

51:40

doesn't rely on anybody talking

51:42

to anybody , it's just like

51:44

a microcosm , microcosm of the healing . That's

51:46

okay , that's available , for that would , that would

51:48

just kind of reverberate . But

51:51

then there's also people going with like , as

51:53

you say , they're not , they're not , they don't go out well

51:55

, or that everything's fixed , that everything

51:57

sorted out , but they go out with something

52:00

, some invisible things , some kind of wisdom

52:02

, maybe an awakened

52:04

elder . What did you say again about

52:06

the sage in the heart ?

52:08

Yeah , the say so I've . In my

52:10

studies I found it's one Tribe

52:13

in Africa that are described in this

52:15

book . I've never been there , I just have the

52:17

book . Yeah and so

52:19

, and , and . In the book is three paragraphs

52:22

when they're saying

52:24

that we are , our

52:26

tradition of initiation goes back

52:29

for thousands of years , and when

52:31

we're initiating a young person , what we

52:33

do , what we're doing is awakening

52:35

the elder in them . And when we're

52:37

initiating the elders , what we're doing is

52:40

reawakening and re-bibing

52:42

the dream , the dream in there that

52:44

brought them to life . Wow , and that's

52:46

all I need , that's all

52:49

I really work with . So what happened

52:51

is , if you imagine , all those Men

52:54

who have wound up going to Vietnam

52:56

were young , yeah , and

52:58

instead of waking up the elder inside

53:01

them , they got a heavy

53:03

dose of the wrong kind of warrior

53:05

and all kinds of crazy stuff

53:08

. But when we all got together , somehow

53:11

you could . You could see people

53:13

begin to act With

53:16

the instinct of an elder and

53:18

everybody could bring healing to each

53:20

other . Um , so I

53:22

then worked with battle veterans

53:24

specifically . We would do retreats with battle

53:26

veterans because they don't want anyone else

53:28

present . It's so weird . And

53:31

yet I was , had been initiated

53:33

into it , and and no one

53:35

knew that , but they would come , the

53:37

battle veterans would come and they would

53:40

trust me . And it was , you

53:42

know , and and also I began working in

53:44

prisons and I was very much right

53:46

because I had been in prison . Yeah

53:48

, I've been in solitary , I

53:50

know what that's like , and so I could

53:53

go into prisons and work and women's prisons

53:55

and men's prisons , prisons and bring myth

53:57

into prison , wow , wow

53:59

. And I used to go in and say , okay

54:01

, you know , this is gonna

54:03

be a prison break , we're all gonna

54:05

break out of prison today Going

54:08

a lot , and I said , but , but the bodies

54:10

will probably stay , but we're gonna ride

54:12

on the on the list on the wind of

54:14

story , and we're gonna find other parts

54:16

of our , of ourselves , and , and

54:18

so all of that is , you can see , faithfully

54:21

predicted and , and , and

54:24

experienced at a young age

54:26

. Yeah , a calling

54:28

that is fairly

54:30

specific , very specific .

54:32

Well , everything that you go through you then becomes

54:35

part of your work . You know the gangs

54:37

that you work with , prison and veterans

54:40

, like the things that you're initiated , because

54:42

you're initiated not into just some general

54:44

thing . I think this is kind of part of the the

54:47

struggle in the world , right , because there's a , there's

54:49

a longing to be initiated into something

54:51

very Specific , very

54:54

clear , very Sort of personal

54:56

, to the soul , to the self . Yeah , and

54:59

there can be , we can be

55:01

stuck in something much more general , but it sounds

55:03

like that path was very , very , I

55:05

don't know , maybe Capricorn coming in

55:08

here of late , just how clear and , and

55:10

you know like structured it it had

55:12

. Invisibly , of course , not , of

55:14

course you're just following the threads . But yeah

55:18

, and that middle ground .

55:19

Yeah , the middle ground , whether it's right of

55:21

passage or initiation , initiating

55:23

seems kind of like a subset

55:25

of right of passage , um , and

55:28

the middle ground , um

55:30

, between you know , departing

55:34

from everyone you know and are arriving at a new community

55:37

. The middle ground was called liminal

55:39

, liminal space , to be tricked

55:41

in between . So what I then

55:43

realized I had been Invited

55:46

, pulled into Was

55:48

liminal space , and so Our

55:51

project we call mosaic mosaic . Sometimes

55:53

now we call it living myth , but it's

55:56

been going for 40 years and it always

55:58

involves liminal space

56:00

. So , gang

56:02

kids , street kids , homeless people

56:04

, battle veterans , refugees

56:07

, it's been one liminal

56:09

group after another , partly

56:11

because they they need

56:14

stories , they need Blessing

56:17

, they need healing . Partly for that reason , but

56:20

also because they're ready . They're

56:22

already departed . They're already into

56:25

the ordeal . You know it's really

56:27

, and now we're

56:29

all in the ordeal , right , okay

56:32

, I call it a collective right of passage

56:34

and we're all in the liminal

56:36

space . Yeah , because of

56:38

culture rattling , uh

56:40

, and and nature rattling at the same

56:42

time .

56:43

Yeah we're all ?

56:44

no one knows where we're going right . The

56:46

world we used to know is gone

56:49

and no one knows what's

56:51

coming next , and that's liminality . So

56:53

the knowledge about rights

56:56

of passage and initiation Is

56:59

ever more applicable now

57:01

and for more people .

57:04

Does it change when it feels like this , in the

57:06

world , in in your experience , or is it

57:08

still the same basic thing though , where it's a

57:10

sort of like Virginia's

57:12

meeting the world or the world story meeting the

57:14

, the individual story ? Is that the same or does

57:16

it do you feel like there's a change now

57:18

that it's such a collective right

57:21

of passage ?

57:23

I think it's the same dynamic , I think the

57:25

archetypal dynamic Is

57:27

a pattern that you can recognize , yeah

57:29

, but I think what's so unusual

57:31

right now and I don't know the astrology

57:33

of it , but , um , nature

57:36

and culture at the same time are

57:39

yeah , it's it . You

57:41

know , people say it's unprecedented . I

57:43

don't know if that's literally true . It's

57:46

certainly extreme and

57:48

so , um . So I mean , as

57:51

we're talking , the war has broken

57:53

out again between Hamas

57:55

has attacked israel , but on the other

57:58

, on the other continent , russia

58:00

had as it made in ukraine , as if we're

58:02

going back Years and

58:04

years , yeah , um , and

58:07

then , in the meantime , we , we have just come

58:09

through the hottest

58:11

time on earth and since

58:14

records have been kept , um

58:16

, and , and so the

58:18

the world is overheated in terms

58:21

of Violence and conflict

58:23

, but also in , literally , in terms

58:25

of climate crisis and global warming

58:27

. So we're in this

58:29

initiatory Betwixt and

58:31

between place , where

58:34

it's it's hard , almost

58:36

everybody is traumatized . And

58:38

then the question becomes what's

58:41

the way out , what's the vision

58:43

, what's the awakening trying to occur

58:45

? And to go back from

58:47

where we started from , um

58:50

, it seems to be the

58:52

only real response is a deeper

58:54

awakening of the human soul , right

58:57

and and people can't solve it

58:59

collectively because they can't agree . But

59:01

back to the quality of genius . If

59:04

enough people awaken to a meaningful

59:06

path in life , things start

59:08

to get healed without everybody

59:10

agreeing . Everybody just agrees to be

59:13

legitimate , meaningful and purposeful

59:15

on their own path and suddenly

59:17

some people are helping nature and other people

59:19

are helping culture and

59:22

and and . Then maybe we can . Then I'm

59:25

suggesting that people find ways to

59:27

do sudden community . So

59:29

you get a brief sense . Community

59:32

is a latin word , comes from community toss

59:34

, and it means to do something

59:36

so deep that feels

59:38

so deep , that put it , pulls everyone

59:40

together , whether they agree or not . So

59:43

death does that and

59:45

loss does that , and PTSD

59:48

can do that right , and and

59:51

being treated as other can do that

59:53

. All those things are opportunities

59:55

to create a healing community

59:57

and I suggest that it's

59:59

temporary , because it's very

1:00:01

hard to do things that are

1:00:04

sustainable right now . Right

1:00:06

, better , imagine it as as

1:00:08

temporary .

1:00:10

Yeah , well , I mean , even in your story , the fact that

1:00:12

that , all that the hundred people

1:00:14

are , all Were coming

1:00:16

from different stories , because some are anti-war

1:00:18

protesters , as you say , like all of that , but

1:00:21

then it's not like they have to agree

1:00:23

. I think this is a really important distinction , right

1:00:25

, we're never going to get there . There's some sort of idealism

1:00:28

to that . That's just actually really unhelpful

1:00:30

. But we can be in the same

1:00:32

story again . I think that's the , the fracturing

1:00:34

of the , perhaps like with

1:00:37

so little return and so much ordeal , um

1:00:40

, to go with what we're talking about , it's like fracturing

1:00:42

out and then people feel safe in in their

1:00:45

part of the story , almost

1:00:47

as though that other part isn't part of their story

1:00:49

at all , like it's completely foreign or completely

1:00:51

other and then the other rising , becomes

1:00:53

so extreme that we've come in in these polls . You

1:00:56

did mention the astrology . I would say that it's the

1:00:58

this transition , pluto God of the underworld

1:01:00

, you would know Pluto and Hades is

1:01:03

has been since

1:01:05

2008 , has been in Capricorn the

1:01:07

nature story , and is heading into

1:01:09

Aquarius the culture

1:01:11

story , so it's cussing . It's

1:01:13

like this 18 month liminal cusp

1:01:16

between the two . That does feel

1:01:18

like it's part of that Part of the

1:01:20

story . Yeah , yeah .

1:01:21

Okay , so that's an interesting one , so that in Aquarius

1:01:24

, people might wake up , uh

1:01:26

, to new visions and understand

1:01:29

things of how , how to deal

1:01:31

with all the damage culture , yeah

1:01:33

, in nature , which All

1:01:35

right , that's , yeah , so I mean to me to

1:01:37

me like there's a lot of fear , oh , pluto , god of

1:01:39

the underworld , because we still have this Christian overlay

1:01:41

that that means devil .

1:01:43

But of course we know through enough mythology

1:01:45

that it doesn't . And and Hades is one

1:01:47

of the three brothers with Poseidon and Zeus . He's

1:01:49

not evil or bad or wrong , he's just . He

1:01:52

just , uh , rules over the

1:01:54

realm of soul . Actually , you know , like

1:01:56

he's in the underworld , right , so he

1:01:58

is the one that you'll meet down there

1:02:00

. It doesn't mean he's nice and kind , like he

1:02:02

can be terrifying and you know

1:02:04

, whatever it is that we meet down

1:02:07

there , but it's still An underworld

1:02:09

god , you know , married to Persephone

1:02:11

, underworld marriage of god

1:02:14

, goddess , in a way , rather than

1:02:16

you know , one of the things to to move

1:02:18

out of mythologically is that idea of good

1:02:20

or bad , good and evil sort of thing that

1:02:22

can get stuck in that in that so

1:02:25

then if we think , well , pluto is like , is

1:02:27

actually traveling in between , spending this

1:02:29

time going back and forth In

1:02:32

this 18 month period that started about six months

1:02:34

ago , still got another year to go . Interesting

1:02:37

to sort of like . Take that into , because

1:02:39

I think that's what astralis . That's why I found astrology

1:02:42

Helpful , is it ? It does

1:02:44

give a mythological overview , because these

1:02:46

are the gods and goddesses wandering through the sky

1:02:48

. They're not gas giants and things

1:02:50

. In my opinion they're . They're the

1:02:52

beings themselves , in the same way that they

1:02:54

actually came into your solitary

1:02:57

confinement . It's not a hallucination

1:03:00

, it is that , and also it's

1:03:02

being visited by

1:03:05

these actual beings .

1:03:07

Living symbols symbols yeah

1:03:10

every time a major

1:03:12

train change occurs , there's

1:03:14

new symbols come into the mind and into

1:03:16

imagination . Yeah that's what's missing

1:03:19

now . The symbolism now is all

1:03:21

division , opposition , conflict

1:03:24

and polarization . Well

1:03:26

, polarization can

1:03:28

only be resolved by

1:03:31

a deeper unity that

1:03:33

brings the poles back together . And

1:03:35

then I'm thinking of uh , saturn secretly

1:03:38

has the gold . In the depth

1:03:40

of Saturn is gold , and in the depth

1:03:43

of the earth is gold Right . And so

1:03:45

in the darkness you find the gold

1:03:47

. And the old symbolism for

1:03:49

having genius was the

1:03:51

gold inside the soul , that

1:03:53

the struggles in our lives are not

1:03:55

there to defeat us . They had to crack us open

1:03:58

so that we can find the inner gold

1:04:00

. They used to call it the

1:04:02

golden qualities of oneself , the inner

1:04:04

nobility , the inner capacity

1:04:06

to love . And so when you

1:04:08

put it into mythological terms , or

1:04:10

if you put it into writer passage terms , initiatory

1:04:13

terms , there's a way out

1:04:15

. And the way out is deeper . You

1:04:18

go all the way down , like

1:04:21

the roots of the trees going all the way down

1:04:23

to get the minerals in the water , and

1:04:26

we're being forced into the underworld before

1:04:30

we can be reborn into

1:04:32

new visions of the upper world

1:04:34

. That's how I'm seeing it .

1:04:36

Yeah , I love that . I'd

1:04:39

be remiss if I didn't bring out Robert Blair and James

1:04:42

Hillman . I know that's a huge thread

1:04:44

to bring in , but can we just kind of let

1:04:46

to get that sense of rounding the story

1:04:48

in a way how does that

1:04:51

and the mythopoietic men's movement and

1:04:53

how did that enter your world ?

1:04:57

So I'm out and about

1:04:59

now , at a certain point and I'm not good

1:05:01

with the years , I'm in my 30s and

1:05:04

I've become a storyteller . I'm trying to be

1:05:06

a storyteller , yeah , and

1:05:09

I'm having trouble finding an audience because

1:05:12

I wanna tell myths . I can

1:05:14

tell fairy tales , that's fun , but I wanna tell

1:05:16

myths . And then someone

1:05:18

tells me well , you should go

1:05:20

hear Robert Bly , he's telling myths . And

1:05:23

so I'm in Seattle , he winds up in Seattle

1:05:25

and I go to hear him and it's great . He's

1:05:28

a great poet and he's

1:05:30

17 years , 18 years older than

1:05:33

I am , so he's like an elder and a lot of good

1:05:35

things about it . I meet him that night and

1:05:37

it's so happens , this is interesting , so happens . So

1:05:39

he comes off stage , it's a pretty big crowd and

1:05:43

he was great , it was really imaginative

1:05:46

. Everybody's imbued

1:05:48

with the imagination , but people

1:05:50

react differently and so I'm in line to

1:05:52

say thank you . Most

1:05:56

people are saying thank you , that was great . Or I have a question

1:05:58

and the guy in front of me

1:06:00

kind of attacks

1:06:03

him a bit , and

1:06:05

so by the time he turns to me , robert's

1:06:08

a little bit knocked off his balance and

1:06:10

I said okay , just take a breath . And

1:06:12

he said what happened ? And I said well , you're completely

1:06:14

vulnerable , you've been up there talking

1:06:16

about emotions , you've been given stories

1:06:19

and poems and you're completely wide

1:06:21

open and for some people they can't help it , they

1:06:23

have to take a shot . And so the guy just hit

1:06:25

you while you're vulnerable and

1:06:28

he goes oh , who are you

1:06:30

? So he was

1:06:32

my name . He said thank

1:06:34

you , we should talk

1:06:36

, wow , wow .

1:06:38

So we met in that way and it

1:06:40

was interesting and

1:06:43

anyway so then Well , amazing , back

1:06:45

to the sage in the heart , right , Because

1:06:47

there's somebody 18 years older than

1:06:50

you calling on something in you

1:06:52

in that moment where he's wobbling right

1:06:55

.

1:06:55

Yeah , he's like the elder , knocked off balance . Yeah

1:06:57

, and I had just enough experience

1:07:00

grown up kind of rough and being

1:07:02

through things , where I recognized how

1:07:05

people take advantage of vulnerability , and I was

1:07:07

just he needed an

1:07:09

explanation of what the hell just

1:07:11

happened . Yeah , what am I doing ? And that helped him , you

1:07:13

know . And then we talked about it . So , anyway , he

1:07:15

then invites me to an

1:07:18

event . We changed letters

1:07:20

, actually , and he invited me to an event

1:07:22

and that's the first time I'd ever been

1:07:24

. It was a conference that

1:07:26

had Coleman box , the translator

1:07:28

, the room was there and all kinds

1:07:31

of amazing teachers were there , and then this great

1:07:33

audience and it was all myth and story

1:07:35

and everything and wow , it was

1:07:37

just like entering , like

1:07:40

finding another part of the world

1:07:42

that was doing the things that

1:07:44

I was trying to do .

1:07:46

So that was great . So he and I became real connected

1:07:48

.

1:07:49

The first night of that , when I got to

1:07:51

that retreat they were doing , he called it

1:07:53

the Great Mother Conference . They

1:07:55

were focusing on the mother . This

1:07:57

was a long time ago and they were focusing on

1:08:00

late 80s , 1980s

1:08:03

and they were focusing on Mother Earth and all

1:08:05

this and it was really amazing thing

1:08:07

. So he became a

1:08:09

mentor Wow , rather

1:08:12

quickly . And then , since he opened

1:08:15

doors , like

1:08:18

I needed someone to help

1:08:21

me take some steps

1:08:23

and he opened the doors and the next

1:08:25

thing I was at all these events he would invite

1:08:27

me to and

1:08:30

I found audiences that understood

1:08:32

what I was doing and saying and

1:08:34

then , anyway , so that went on for years and then

1:08:37

, in the course of it , I

1:08:39

had gotten interested in James Hillman . To

1:08:41

tell you the truth , I found a book

1:08:43

of his in a Good Will box and

1:08:46

he used to make me tell the story to audiences

1:08:49

and I didn't wait

1:08:51

for it to show up on the shelf . I

1:08:54

took it out of the box and I read it that

1:08:56

night . That was in

1:08:59

Revisioning . Psychology was the name of the

1:09:01

book , yeah , and I thought this

1:09:03

guy's good . And

1:09:05

one time I asked Robert , do you ever hear of

1:09:07

James Hillman ? He goes . I know James Hillman . I

1:09:09

said can't you invite him to an event ? So

1:09:12

we wound , and that was faithful

1:09:15

, literally . So I

1:09:18

wound up meeting James Hillman at a conference

1:09:20

in Maine on a lake , and

1:09:23

he gives this presentation that

1:09:25

I think was called Jesus

1:09:28

Christ and the Atomic Bomb Twin

1:09:31

Brothers , I think that was his title . Wow , okay

1:09:33

, and it was clearly incendiary

1:09:35

and people got really upset and some

1:09:37

people loved it and some people didn't . Anyway , it's

1:09:40

over and I see him standing

1:09:42

on this deck overlooking the lake

1:09:44

and I thought this is before I had

1:09:46

been introduced to him and so I want to

1:09:48

meet him . So I go down and I wait for a moment

1:09:50

and I say , excuse me , dr

1:09:53

Hillman , I just wanted to introduce myself

1:09:55

and say something . And

1:09:57

he said , yeah , but what did you think of that

1:09:59

presentation ? And I said , well

1:10:01

, it was explosive . And

1:10:04

he said , yeah , but why

1:10:06

was everybody so excited ? I said , well

1:10:09

, you were talking about two explosive

1:10:11

things . One was an atomic bomb and

1:10:13

the other you're connecting Christ to that . And

1:10:15

I said so what did you expect ? And actually the

1:10:18

audience is gonna divide and

1:10:20

be opposed , just like nuclear fission

1:10:22

. He goes .

1:10:23

What's your name ? What's your name ?

1:10:26

So and then and this is a great thing he

1:10:29

says to me what

1:10:31

are you thinking about ? Because to me he

1:10:33

was the best , greatest thinker I had

1:10:35

ever met already .

1:10:37

And .

1:10:37

I said well , all right , actually I'm thinking about

1:10:39

fate and destiny . And

1:10:41

he goes what are you thinking about that ? I said the difference

1:10:43

between them . He said what is the difference

1:10:45

between them ? And I said well , fate is everything that

1:10:47

restricts us and destiny is what's calling

1:10:49

us on to a meaningful destination

1:10:52

. And he said you should write about

1:10:54

that , and that became

1:10:56

the book Fate and Destiny . So

1:10:59

he became another mentor and

1:11:01

then the three of us worked together , which was

1:11:03

an amazing experience . I

1:11:06

mean it was incredible for us

1:11:08

.

1:11:09

Even in generations that came after that

1:11:11

still have access to the recordings

1:11:13

so we can still

1:11:15

join in in a sense . I know there's like 750

1:11:18

men in the room or whatever the energy

1:11:20

of the moment is that you guys are exploring .

1:11:22

It became this thing .

1:11:24

Well , I and John probably like exploded

1:11:26

it as well , right .

1:11:28

I and John exploded .

1:11:30

Yeah , because that was I

1:11:32

, was before I and John by the sounds of it . Which is

1:11:34

that right , or ? Oh yeah , oh yeah , yeah

1:11:37

, yeah . And then you guys

1:11:39

were just in that big yeah

1:11:41

container of men through the nineties . I

1:11:43

mean that was

1:11:45

something .

1:11:47

It was an amazing thing . It was like catching

1:11:49

a wave . Yeah , it was one of the images

1:11:52

and you're writing this wave . You can't

1:11:54

control it and

1:11:56

for whatever reason , it became a thing

1:11:58

, yeah , and it was on the cover of all the

1:12:00

magazines and

1:12:03

it was also very problematic because

1:12:06

it was soul work . What we were doing was soul

1:12:08

work . It was James

1:12:11

Hillman had been doing that , robert had been doing

1:12:13

his own version of that , and

1:12:16

it became this experiments

1:12:20

of how to work with men and

1:12:22

emotions and soul and

1:12:26

it gave me an opportunity

1:12:28

to experiment with ritual , because

1:12:31

the work was done in week long retreats , really

1:12:33

. So , yeah , and

1:12:36

I had already been experimenting with that , and Robert had

1:12:39

too , and so we would do 100

1:12:42

men at a time per week

1:12:44

and it would be story

1:12:46

. Story was the container and

1:12:49

it was brilliant and

1:12:52

it was revelatory . But

1:12:56

it got caught into cultural

1:12:58

notions and then it became

1:13:00

like a celebrated thing and it got really

1:13:02

out of control and

1:13:05

I think most people didn't realize it

1:13:08

was always only soul work . That's

1:13:10

what it was . And

1:13:14

, to tell you the truth , throughout that time we were

1:13:16

all also working with women and men . It

1:13:18

was never just men . That

1:13:20

was part of . It was and

1:13:23

that's the part that blew up . And

1:13:26

then , like a lot of things that we did , like a lot

1:13:28

of things that blow up , it went down

1:13:30

pretty fast too . Which

1:13:33

was too bad and because

1:13:35

and it still goes on in

1:13:37

its own ways . But

1:13:40

part of what was behind it was

1:13:42

how do we get men to live

1:13:44

in more soulful ways and

1:13:47

bring soul to culture

1:13:49

? And it was

1:13:52

all about soul and healing . And

1:13:54

then it became turned into all

1:13:56

kinds of other things because

1:13:58

it got filtered through people's

1:14:00

fixed ideas about

1:14:03

masculinity and infemininity and all that kind

1:14:05

of stuff . But

1:14:07

it was beautiful work and it

1:14:09

was very meaningful

1:14:11

.

1:14:13

Yeah , it's so hard because it can't translate if

1:14:15

you're not actually in the container , because

1:14:18

it gets big enough . So people are now looking in

1:14:20

from outside

1:14:22

and making their commentaries

1:14:24

.

1:14:26

Yeah , for a couple of years I used

1:14:28

to not allow anyone to record or

1:14:31

and suggest that

1:14:33

no one talk about it outside , not because

1:14:35

it was secret , but because you lose

1:14:38

what you have found . People began

1:14:40

giving it away about

1:14:42

the full benefit of it and then , when

1:14:45

it became a media thing , it

1:14:47

was really hard to stop what was happening

1:14:49

, and it was really . It

1:14:51

then goes on a different kind of an arc

1:14:53

. What we were doing was

1:14:55

really consistent with the arc of

1:14:57

writer passage , but once it became

1:15:00

a celebrated media thing , you're

1:15:02

then on the arc of rise and fall

1:15:04

, and so then it's exposed

1:15:06

over the place .

1:15:08

Yeah , and then it just burned yeah

1:15:11

.

1:15:11

Yep , it was an Icarus thing .

1:15:13

Yeah , which is funny , right , Because

1:15:16

Daedalus is the father who can fly

1:15:18

, who can fly straight

1:15:20

, and but behind him is Icarus , who

1:15:22

can't , and you

1:15:24

know how to hold all of that because it does require

1:15:27

containment back to Saturn . You know , if

1:15:29

obviously Saturn's wondering Cronus is

1:15:31

wandering around with us that containment that's required

1:15:34

and it sounds like you guys did have containment

1:15:36

, except that there was another

1:15:39

force coming in , prying , opening and

1:15:41

you know , opening things up . Yeah

1:15:43

, yeah , yeah .

1:15:45

Yeah , and the media thing really

1:15:47

just exploded Right , and

1:15:50

then you watch that happen now , it

1:15:53

happens with actresses

1:15:55

, and it happens with musicians and

1:15:57

anybody who like their gold

1:15:59

, their inner gold or

1:16:01

their genius is what the media

1:16:04

wants . In a sense , it's obvious

1:16:06

for that , and here's

1:16:08

Robert Bly writing about Iron

1:16:11

John and the inner gold . And

1:16:13

then they want that inner

1:16:15

gold , and so that process

1:16:18

of taking what

1:16:20

was previously pretty

1:16:22

well contained became

1:16:25

the undoing of the whole thing and it became

1:16:27

ridiculed and it became

1:16:29

actually codified

1:16:31

and so on and so

1:16:33

forth . And

1:16:35

there was a lot of learning in that . A

1:16:38

lot of learning in that , and you realize why

1:16:40

in traditional cultures

1:16:42

they're careful about

1:16:45

their rituals , because

1:16:47

if you're not feeling

1:16:49

and present in the process , then

1:16:52

it's easy to

1:16:54

reject it or to be jealous

1:16:57

of it or envious of it or you

1:16:59

know , somehow not

1:17:02

related to it . And

1:17:04

that's pretty much what happened .

1:17:06

Right , I find also

1:17:08

in that time the internet is beginning . So

1:17:12

, like the entire landscape . Because

1:17:15

that's what I wonder about today . I

1:17:17

don't know if you have a thought on this

1:17:19

, but how do we get the

1:17:21

right amount of containment when there's

1:17:23

social media and there's TikTok and

1:17:26

that you get a little bit of gold and you just throw

1:17:28

it out there into the world , kind of thing ? It's

1:17:31

such a different world in the world of containment

1:17:33

and healthy Saturn energy which

1:17:35

would be how to contain and even

1:17:37

conceal for long enough for

1:17:39

it to be right , Jess stated in

1:17:42

that particular archetypal , father womb

1:17:44

.

1:17:46

Yeah , we're in this strange situation

1:17:49

, like I sometimes think

1:17:51

, right , so passage , initiate

1:17:55

, initiation , work , they

1:17:57

have esoteric parts to them . So

1:18:01

you have exoteric , which means obvious

1:18:03

, evident , and

1:18:05

esoteric means hidden . It doesn't

1:18:07

mean it has to be hidden , it means that

1:18:09

keeping it hidden allows

1:18:12

you to tap deep resources . Yeah , I'm

1:18:15

gonna say . And so then you wind up

1:18:17

with this tension between how

1:18:19

hidden to keep it and

1:18:21

how open to be about it . That

1:18:25

they say , in terms of a

1:18:27

ritual , there's only two mistakes

1:18:29

you can make to be too

1:18:31

inclusive or to

1:18:34

be too exclusive . Those

1:18:36

are the only two errors , and

1:18:38

so that's easy to understand . But then how do you

1:18:40

do it ? And so what we've

1:18:42

done is we always

1:18:44

make the defining issue

1:18:46

the woundedness of the people that

1:18:49

are present . So , like

1:18:51

we're working with refugees

1:18:54

, you don't have big

1:18:57

problems about people wanting to get in and

1:18:59

take away whatever you're doing , because people don't

1:19:01

want to be near refugees . We're

1:19:03

working with homeless peoples or gang kids . That's

1:19:06

what we want . That was my response to

1:19:08

what happened when

1:19:11

men's work became this

1:19:13

media thing and this

1:19:15

kind of overblown cultural thing

1:19:17

that was moving further and further from

1:19:19

the original work . So our

1:19:22

organization , mosaic widgets , went

1:19:25

from one liminal place to

1:19:27

another . You know where

1:19:29

most people don't want to be , but

1:19:34

that's only a partial solution . And now , what

1:19:36

do we do when everyone's in

1:19:38

liminal space ? It's one

1:19:40

of the things I struggle with just

1:19:42

what's the proper thing to do

1:19:44

or what's the healing

1:19:46

thing to do . So

1:19:49

I don't know . Sometimes it's like

1:19:51

tragedy becomes the teacher , and when

1:19:53

enough people feel tragedy

1:19:56

, then they know what

1:19:58

we're doing is we have to

1:20:00

be careful with each other and we're doing

1:20:02

it for each other , not for some outside

1:20:05

interest . But

1:20:07

at that time the outside interest really

1:20:10

took over things .

1:20:11

So the difference between , say , working

1:20:13

with refugees and working with war

1:20:15

veterans and working with gangs and this kind of

1:20:18

thing is you're working with what I

1:20:20

understand it as looking back as the

1:20:22

wounded masculine or

1:20:25

the wound in there .

1:20:27

that's harder to define and

1:20:30

it's a bigger sort of yeah

1:20:33

, now it's called trauma work

1:20:36

, and so some of it

1:20:38

was the masculine

1:20:41

, but we were always also working with

1:20:43

girls and women too

1:20:45

. It's never been that exclusive

1:20:48

, at least for me . And so

1:20:50

because then the

1:20:52

wounds reflect and

1:20:55

can help each other , and so

1:20:58

I don't know , now that there's more trauma in

1:21:00

the world , then there's more

1:21:02

fear in the world and there's more

1:21:04

grief in the world and fewer

1:21:07

people can stop it or reject

1:21:09

it . Then maybe there's things

1:21:12

that are going to work now . That didn't

1:21:14

work very well then .

1:21:16

I'm not sure .

1:21:17

Yeah , I

1:21:20

just always go back to stories and I keep finding

1:21:22

my way by stories .

1:21:25

Well , one of the sons of Cronus was Chiron

1:21:27

, and Chiron , astrologically

1:21:29

, was found in 77 . And it has

1:21:31

a 50 year cycle . So we are actually coming

1:21:34

up to Chiron's own return , like

1:21:36

his own , coming back to himself

1:21:38

, this 50 year cycle that he's in

1:21:40

and I do think , this hybrid creature

1:21:42

that does remind us of

1:21:45

the unity of mortal

1:21:47

, immortal , animal

1:21:49

and consciousness . The

1:21:52

story of Chiron , which I've also heard

1:21:54

you speak to , it's one of my all

1:21:56

time favorites because he does have

1:21:58

culture . He is ultimately

1:22:01

raised by Apollo , the

1:22:03

sun god , but , being half

1:22:05

animal , he's also deeply connected to nature

1:22:07

and natural medicines , nature's medicines

1:22:10

, and wandering around in the forest , talking

1:22:12

to the trees and the invisibles , and

1:22:14

so , as a figure , I feel like his emergent

1:22:17

, at least emergent , at least astrologers

1:22:19

know about him , you know like as he comes up in 1977

1:22:22

, he's discovered in that time and

1:22:24

so his myth sort of enters , like

1:22:26

that's one of the places astrology can help , like

1:22:28

whose myth enters and at what

1:22:31

time . So , in that late 70s

1:22:33

period , and we come up to the return

1:22:35

of that in this , in this next section

1:22:37

of this decade , which

1:22:39

will be interesting to watch , at least because a

1:22:41

lot of the themes you're talking about are very much in the

1:22:43

wounded , in the wounded healer

1:22:45

and the wounded healer the wounded

1:22:48

split all of those things

1:22:50

.

1:22:51

That's what it all turned out to be . So yeah , I've

1:22:53

worked with the Chiron

1:22:55

myth . And it's interesting to me that

1:22:58

when Chiron was recognized , some

1:23:00

people thought it was a planet and others said it was an asteroid

1:23:03

. So it's a comet .

1:23:05

It actually , it actually is divine

1:23:07

.

1:23:08

That's where we are now in , all

1:23:10

the betricks in between , and you

1:23:12

could say the archetype of now

1:23:14

could be turned the wounded healer

1:23:16

, yeah . And and

1:23:19

of course , chiron has incurable wound

1:23:21

. Yeah , he invents all

1:23:23

these medicines and methods of curing

1:23:25

, trying to cure himself , and he's incurable . Yeah

1:23:27

, you know we eventually has to go back up

1:23:29

into the stars , but

1:23:32

there's an archetype .

1:23:33

I'm glad it's coming back around

1:23:36

, it's coming back around and he does actually meet

1:23:38

Prometheus , which also feels

1:23:40

like you know , the stealing fire from the gods sort

1:23:43

of story that in fact there's

1:23:45

three at the end , where there's Hercules who

1:23:48

kills the Gryphon that's eating Prometheus's

1:23:50

liver , Prometheus

1:23:52

himself , who's locked in the who's

1:23:54

himself in a Saturnian Chronos experience

1:23:57

being locked in rocks , and Chiron

1:23:59

, who has the capacity to say

1:24:01

I'll take your place . So

1:24:03

he has the capacity to shape , shift into

1:24:06

Prometheus's place , basically

1:24:08

, or at least saying like I'm willing . I'm

1:24:11

willing because I'm in so much pain , and

1:24:13

now I see your pain , I'm willing to exchange

1:24:15

with you . And in that moment

1:24:18

Zeus releases at

1:24:20

least Prometheus and Chiron and turns

1:24:22

them into constellations , that sends them to

1:24:24

the heavens .

1:24:27

Brilliant moment .

1:24:28

Yeah .

1:24:29

If you , in Greek imagination , they

1:24:32

say that human culture

1:24:34

began when Prometheus stole

1:24:36

fire from the gods . Right , and

1:24:38

people have been stealing the fire of

1:24:40

the other world all along , and the latest

1:24:42

version is AI , right

1:24:45

, yeah , so there

1:24:47

might be a limit to that , that . And

1:24:49

so , if you imagine , take that out

1:24:51

of the central place and put the wounded

1:24:53

healer in brilliant

1:24:55

transition to where we are now . Yeah

1:24:58

, because , right , because people

1:25:00

keep stealing fire , and now it's a

1:25:02

little chip inside of all these devices

1:25:04

. Yeah , that's really like a , like an ancient

1:25:07

fire firing up all these devices

1:25:10

that claim the night people , that really

1:25:12

separate people and leave them in isolation

1:25:14

of a different kind . Yeah , just

1:25:17

as you were describing that , I was seeing

1:25:20

the changing of the gods Right , like

1:25:22

the sun Right , because the Greeks call it

1:25:24

the chyros , the chyros moment

1:25:26

, when the gods shift , and so

1:25:29

that's a brilliant shift from . Prometheus's

1:25:32

burning vision that

1:25:35

led to all the technologies of life

1:25:37

, to the wounded healer

1:25:39

.

1:25:40

And , of course , the third element that

1:25:42

is here is Hercules , which is obviously

1:25:44

the heroic impulse . But you

1:25:47

know , the heroic impulse just can get

1:25:49

you to the place . You

1:25:51

got to be courageous enough to get there and

1:25:53

then , but that's all he does , is he just

1:25:55

? He just kills off the griffin , right ? He just

1:25:57

stops the bleeding . In a way , he stops the . He

1:26:00

stops the immediate , which is that this griffin

1:26:03

, or the eagle , is taking that liver

1:26:05

and it's growing back every day . That's Prometheus's

1:26:07

main condition , so he's able to just like

1:26:09

I can stop that . And now leaves

1:26:11

Chiron and Prometheus to exchange

1:26:15

talk , be with each other . Yeah

1:26:18

, that's beautiful .

1:26:19

Yeah , I think that the wounded

1:26:22

healer is what we were all working

1:26:24

at all along James Hillman , a

1:26:26

psychologist , robert Boyle

1:26:28

, in his way of doing . You know all

1:26:30

the grievance , grieving that

1:26:32

was in his poetry and all , and I was trying

1:26:35

to learn this road of mythic . You

1:26:38

know story that's also the healing

1:26:40

and then the heal you have that the

1:26:42

wounded present and that's all

1:26:44

what it was about , and

1:26:46

then healing the wounds of the masculine , but

1:26:48

also then figuring

1:26:50

out how to heal the wounds of the feminine

1:26:52

, so that the genders

1:26:54

are reunited on the path of healing

1:26:57

. And so I'm really

1:26:59

happy to hear that , astrologically , that's

1:27:02

coming around , because that's

1:27:04

the only way we get out of this .

1:27:06

Right and interestingly , in

1:27:08

that transition between Aries and because

1:27:10

Chiron's now in Aries

1:27:12

, the masculine and then that was found

1:27:14

when he was in Taurus this

1:27:17

sort of essential feminine right . So there's

1:27:19

going to be that transition over between

1:27:21

those two . So just watching those symbols

1:27:24

, you know as best

1:27:26

we can talking about them , getting people enthused

1:27:29

into the myth again . So

1:27:31

it's that actually did blend .

1:27:33

Yeah , yeah , and he's rejected

1:27:35

by both his mother and father , right

1:27:37

, so the parental wound

1:27:39

is big in him . That's his first

1:27:41

wound . Then he gets wounded by

1:27:43

a poisonous arrow , yeah

1:27:45

, and so he's everybody

1:27:48

, because every child to

1:27:51

some degree is abandoned by mother

1:27:53

and father . His mother and father both abandoned

1:27:55

him . Yeah , because he's an animal-lap

1:27:57

, human , right , and he seems so , you

1:27:59

know , and that's what happens to everyone , really

1:28:02

. And so , wow

1:28:04

, it's beautiful to come around to the wounded healer

1:28:06

. Big gods , I mean , that would have been

1:28:08

. I can see so many points

1:28:11

in my life where that would have been the best

1:28:13

thing to be informed

1:28:16

about and welcomed into , and

1:28:18

eventually it happened . But we're

1:28:20

all there now , right , the only

1:28:23

way we change this world

1:28:25

is in the dynamic of

1:28:27

being wounded healers .

1:28:28

Yeah , and hybrid creatures .

1:28:31

Yeah .

1:28:33

Yeah .

1:28:33

Yeah , saving animal and our divine . Yeah

1:28:35

, exactly , rather than being split , having

1:28:37

those split off actually being yeah

1:28:40

, yeah .

1:28:41

And integrating that , which is not easy , right

1:28:43

, but involves a lot of return . As you

1:28:45

say , we've all been through separation and ordeal

1:28:47

and I'm really getting that from this conversation of just

1:28:49

how much truth is in that

1:28:51

but the need for return and the

1:28:53

need for acknowledgement

1:28:56

, within that return , that we've changed . You

1:28:58

know , maybe we've changed as

1:29:00

a collective and we've changed as a right

1:29:02

, like we certainly need to , but

1:29:05

focusing on that return .

1:29:08

And many people now say well

1:29:10

, there's nothing we can do . Humans are

1:29:13

just specs in this

1:29:15

big dark universe Total misunderstanding

1:29:18

. Right , we could do all that damage . We

1:29:20

must be able to do a similar

1:29:22

amount of healing . Yeah , and the flames

1:29:25

inside each person we were talking about at the beginning

1:29:27

, the genius flame , can grow

1:29:30

to be a major force of

1:29:32

change for the individual , but also

1:29:34

, eventually , for the collective . Yeah

1:29:36

, we're here to transform , we're here

1:29:39

to initiate into a life that's trying

1:29:41

to come out of us anyway . Yeah , and we're

1:29:43

here to heal ourselves and in doing that , we help

1:29:45

heal each other and maybe

1:29:48

we can help to transform and

1:29:50

heal the world . I think that's what's trying

1:29:52

to happen .

1:29:53

Yeah Well , that's a mythic framework that I can

1:29:55

certainly rest into

1:29:57

, even though it's not easy . You know , this is the thing

1:29:59

myths don't solve anything . This is why Greek mythology

1:30:03

is so refreshing , because it doesn't give you and here's

1:30:05

the solution but it gives you

1:30:08

some .

1:30:08

Well , here's a story where you can find a lot

1:30:10

of it . Yeah , exactly . And then you're going

1:30:12

back to that where Chiron

1:30:14

comes in to release Peruvian

1:30:17

.

1:30:17

That's a brilliant moment there , yeah

1:30:19

, so

1:30:22

maybe that's our moment of conclusion

1:30:24

as well .

1:30:24

We'll hang out in that moment I would say I'd

1:30:27

be happy to end with that and begin with

1:30:29

that again sometime .

1:30:30

I'd love that , yeah , Great , Michael

1:30:32

. Well , yeah , I mean I'd

1:30:34

love to have you on again at any

1:30:36

time , at any time , but I just want to thank

1:30:38

you so much for your generosity , for your

1:30:40

spirit , for your soul and everything you bring not

1:30:43

to the world , but also just to this conversation

1:30:45

today , in the present , in the moment . It's

1:30:48

been a deep honor .

1:30:51

Great to be with you and honor for me as well

1:30:53

. Let's keep in touch .

1:30:54

Love that . Yeah , with all the stories

1:30:56

. Yeah , we'd love that . Thank you All

1:30:58

right . Thanks a lot , michael .

1:31:00

All right .