Podcast appearances and mentions of Byron Shire

How do large-scale restrictions affect the property market? In this episode, Junge Ma delves into the implications of the new 7.5% tax on Airbnb properties introduced by the Victorian government on January 1, 2025. She explores how this tax could impact the rental market, particularly in Melbourne, where over half of Victoria's 63,000 short-stay accommodations are located. Junge examines historical data from Sydney and Byron Shire, where strict restrictions on Airbnb properties have been implemented. She discusses the effects of a 180-day cap on short-term rentals in Sydney and Byron Shire, revealing the impact of these restrictions on vacancy rates and rental listings. By comparing these markets, she highlights the differences in how such regulations affect larger versus smaller markets, particularly focusing on the unit market versus the house market. Listeners will gain insights into whether the new tax will lead to an oversupply of rental properties in Melbourne and how it may influence vacancy rates. Don't miss out on this valuable information that will help you navigate this policy change—click on this episode now!

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We're back in the shed and this week we welcome a very special guest Dave Gyngell! Australian businessman and former CEO of Nine Entertainment Co, Gynge has played a major role in developing the Media and Television industry throughout his career. A keen surfer growing up in Bondi and proud member of the ITN Boardriders, to a now local of the Byron Shire, he shares his time now giving back to the community and has helped raise awareness about the mental health crisis in the Northern Rivers of Australia. A family man with an illustrious career and life experiences, we were honoured to have him join the podcast. Dont miss this episode as we welcome the full Ball & All cast back! Barnsey returns from his hiatus with a hilarious intro to the podcast; Woody asks all his deep business questions including whether Gynge can help his beloved Tigers; & Condo holds down the anchor after spending 38 weeks on the NRL segment with Mr Matrix wondering if the Dragons will ever win again. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody! Episode 126 of the show is out. In this episode, I spoke with Lila Lieberman. Lila was recommended to me by mutual friends of ours and I was really impressed when I listened to a few of her talks. Lila has had a fascinating life and we sat down and spoke about her journeys through S. America in her youth where she came across the cactus medicine in the desert and ayahuasca in the jungle, her journey back to S. Africa where she learned from the Zulu and Shona, and how her learning deepened and expanded into what she now calls the Five Pillars of Medicine and the Cedar Teachings, which she spoke in-depth about. It was a real pleasure to have her share and she has a beautiful way of weaving together different teachings and using universal macro and micro principles to help us better understand the nature of medicine and ourselves. I think you will gain a lot from this episode. As always, to support this podcast, get early access to shows, bonus material, and Q&As, check out my Patreon page below. Enjoy!“Lila has been working with medicinal plants and indigenous ways of healing since 1996. Beginning her journey in the Atacama Desert of Peru, she later initiated as 'sangoma', a traditional healer and seer in the Shona tradition of South Africa in 2012. She has spent many years engaging cultural wisdom and plants in a medicinal capacity, both academically and culturally. Her focus is on the living library held within the plant and human kingdoms, how their collaboration activates valuable pathways within us, and holds profound capacities for new perception and creative feedback. She explores the spectrum of cultural ways, rites, passages and ceremonies that open these channels of learning.Her academic background is in Anthropology, Linguistics, Philosophy and Transpersonal Psychology, with a Diploma in Integral Coaching. She now lives in the Byron Shire, Australia.” To learn more about or contact Lila, visit her website at: https://www.fivepillarsofmedicine.comIf you enjoy the show, it's a big help if you can share it via social media or word of mouth. And please Subscribe or Follow and if you can go on Apple Podcasts and leave a starred-rating and a short review. This is super helpful with the algorithms and getting this show out to more people. Thank you in advance!For more information about me and my upcoming plant medicine retreats with my colleague Merav Artzi, visit my site at: https://www.NicotianaRustica.orgTo book an integration call with me, visit: https://jasongrechanik.setmore.comSupport this podcast on Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/UniverseWithinDonate directly with PayPal:https://www.paypal.me/jasongrechanikMusic courtesy of: Nuno Moreno (end song). Visit: https://m.soundcloud.com/groove_a_zen_sound and https://nahira-ziwa.bandcamp.com/ And Stefan Kasapovski's Santero Project (intro song). Visit: https://spoti.fi/3y5Rd4Hhttps://www.facebook.com/UniverseWithinPodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/UniverseWithinPodcast

This November we will be celebrating Tribe's 25th Birthday! Amazingly this milestone coincides with another significant date in early October, as Phil and Maria Mason celebrate 40 years of marriage, of life in the kingdom and of building and leading missional community together.Phil and Maria got saved and met each other in the Byron Shire during a revival outpouring in the early 80's. Needless to say the Lord has led them on a wild kingdom ride over the past 40 years, full of ups and downs and loads of glory.In this informal interview Phil and Ree talk about the different ways God has led and sustained them over the years. As a Tribe, this is a season to celebrate and honour all that the Lord has done, as we also look to the days ahead full of anticipation for all He is yet to do.

Our guest this week is Simon Richardson from Safe on Social, where he speaks on the pleasures, perils and pitfalls of social media. As a high school teacher he was all too familiar with the impacts unhealthy social media exposure had on his students. As a nine-year Mayor of Byron Shire, a hotspot of virulent and strident political opinion and activism, Simon experienced extreme levels of cyberbullying and social media engagement. Now he also faces the very real task of raising teen and tween daughters solo and helping them navigate the online world- perhaps his most challenging task.

What's The Buzz on dangerous dogs being banned, Byron Shire council restricting busking & cold calling making a comeback? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Councils in tourism hotspots around NSW are watching with interest as Byron Shire Council pushes ahead with plans for a 60-day annual cap on short-term holiday letting.

Hello there, today is an unusual episode because I have left Lyle at home and have a special guest host. I wonder who that could be?? Today my guest host and I will be sharing all about a “girl's” weekend the two of us had in the hinterland of the Byron Shire in the cute little village of Bangalow. Ok ok, I'll tell you who the guest host is - it is Mikaela from Easy Family Adventures who is actually my beautiful daughter – Miki. We try and have a mother-daughter weekend once a year together, but it has been a little difficult the last couple years. We chose Bangalow for our weekend for quite a few reasons – which we share in the podcast and I'm sure you will agree it was a great decision. We went on adventures into national parks, on very narrow windy roads to the top of a 100m gorge and waterfall. We explored the local village and many of the cafes, bars and restaurants and the famous Bangalow markets. It is a stunning part of NSW and only 15 minutes from the famous Byron Bay – so there is a lot to share. Stay listening to the end to hear where you can find out all about Mikaela's Easy Family Adventures and also hear her advice about the best places to go in the area if you have kids. Oh, and also, find out who or what is Saint Kevin and why we got a bit over seeing Saint Kevin several times a day.  I hope you enjoy this episode all about our fun girl's weekend – sorry Lyle – I'll let you back on the next episode. Visit Easy Family Adventures website www.moderndaymamas.com/easy-family-adventures Go to show notes and pictures here www.beachtravelwine.com/podcast/50/bangalow Visit our website at www.beachtravelwine.com --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/leanne-mccabe/message

As we have found in many industries over the years, safety testing always seems to have some interesting stories once you dig in. The safety around these little devices that we carry around with us every waking moment of the day is no exception. In this week's show, we visit with Rinat Strahlhofer. Rinat is a former telco insider who crossed over to the other side after she became aware of the extent of corruption within the industry that she'd dedicated her time, energy and professional reputation to. As a marketing specialist for Australia's biggest telco company, Rinat spent her career putting disruptive services and technologies into the hands of millions of consumers. During the company's then groundbreaking $1 billion 3G rollout, Rinat realized that the community's concerns over the new network's potential health and safety impacts were not only legitimate, but were being blatantly ignored. In other words, profits were trumping truths. We talk about her story and she educates us on how safety is performed (or isn't performed) on an industry test dummy callled SAM. Deeply disillusioned by the lack of industry regulation and safety science, Rinat quit her role, and Australia, for almost a decade. On her return from Europe, in May of 2019, she was concerned to find that little had changed within the telco industry as it prepared to roll out the 5G network across Australia. Not willing to sit on the sidelines, Rinat took on the role of activist and created We Are Not SAM to lift the lid on the lies and corruption that had infiltrated the industry she had dedicated so much of her career to. As well as being a fearless voice, Rinat is also the founder of Truth & Dare creative agency, hands-on mother to a young son, and an impassioned member of the Byron Shire community. Continue the conversation with us on Telegram at: https://t.me/tcrpodcast This interview can also be viewed as a video on our Rumble channel at: TCRP - Episode 73 - Cell Phone Radiation Safety and SAM with Rinat Strahlhofer (rumble.com)   Resources from this episode: We Are Not SAM website: https://wearenotsam.com/ Rinat's Smiles Welcome campaign related to masking during the pandemic:  http://smileswelcome.org Essential Business Initiative during the pandemic:  https://www.iamanessentialbusiness.com

'Living well as a practice for dying well' is the subject of deathwalker Zenith Virago's speech on September 23 at the third Death Matters conference in Christchurch. Based in Byron Shire, just north of Byron Bay, Virago is the founder of the Natural Death Care Centre. She has been dubbed a maverick pioneer in working towards cultural change in how we approach death. 

'Living well as a practice for dying well' is the subject of deathwalker Zenith Virago's speech on September 23 at the third Death Matters conference in Christchurch. Based in Byron Shire, just north of Byron Bay, Virago is the founder of the Natural Death Care Centre. She has been dubbed a maverick pioneer in working towards cultural change in how we approach death. A deathwalker is someone who accompanies a dying person and their whanau through their journey, something Virago has assisted hundreds of people to do. She is the co-author of The Intimacy of Death and Dying, patron of The Good Funeral Guild in the UK, and the subject of documentary Zen & the Art of Dying.

Bluesfest Byron Bay returned in April after three cancellations. An economic study showed it created thousands of jobs and millions of dollars for local economies, and it featured high on a Pollstar mid-year report The final attendance figure was 101,024 - the fifth highest in recent history 45% of the audience came from across the border, and they brought between $175 million to $180 million with them, further highlighting the need for the NSW Government to retain Bluesfest within their borders Bluesfest injected $70.2 million into the Byron Shire, with spending of $142.2 million, wages and salaries of $25.6 million and about 641.8 full-time equivalent (FTE) employment positions. The ravaged Northern Rivers economy benefitted to the tune of $143.9 million, with the festival spending $254 million, creating 1,348.5 FTEs and $57.2 million on wages and salaries. NSW had a fresh injection of $232.3 million, in addition to the festival spend of $416.5 million, 2,002 FTEs, and wages and salaries of $97.8 million. Bluesfest contributed $272.3 million to the Australian economy, with a $459.2 million national spend, 2,149 FTEs, and wages and salaries amounting to $108.8 million. Thanks for listening! Be sure to subscribe for more content. Like Homebrewed on Facebook Follow Homebrewed on Instagram Check out our Spotify Playlists here Catch up on everything Homebrewed Homebrewed is a radio program and podcast dedicated to supporting the Australian Music Industry. Cameron Smith and Eamonn Snow have been presenting Homebrewed since November 2017 and have received excellence awards and the admiration of local bands for their presentation of Homebrewed and their continued support of the Australian music scene. This podcast is designed so you can enjoy conversations with musicians, industry representatives and music media personalities.

It's time again for us to tune into the elements, our bodies, and the soothing subtle shifts occurring around us in nature; here in the Southern Hemisphere, we have entered into Autumn. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, Autumn is the season of the Metal Element. As we come down from the energised Yang energy of warmer months into the Yin, we naturally find ourselves slowing down and going within. It is a time for introspection, reflection, and letting go of anything mentally, emotionally, or physically that no longer serves us. The Lungs and Large Intestine are the organs associated with the Metal Element. The Lungs, also known as the Seat Of Wisdom, play a vital role in the natural process of fortifying surface immunity (protective Wei Qi), strengthening Qi and our overall immune system. The Lungs also purify; The fresh Autumn air is inhaled and processed into True Human Qi, which is then carried throughout the body and distilled down to the Kidneys. This beautiful flow of transformation and distillation is why it's a good practice to take nourishing Yin herbs that keep the Lungs moisturised and protect the chest area from the cool, drying Autumn air. The Large intestines release toxins and waste from the body that is no longer required.  Mason Taylor: So if your Qi is transforming with flow through each of the organ systems through yang and yin, yin and yang, and different degrees and expressions, and let's say, you have a terrain which can protect itself. But that doesn't mean you'd be disrespectful to the system and be aware that it's not as much as it is infinite. It also is finite in what it can do because it's yin and yang. And therefore, you still put a scarf on when the wind is coming in cold to stop that the wind invading in through your throat. You still make sure that your kidneys are nice and warm, so the cold doesn't invade them all through your feet. So, it's yes to both. So, I'll just put it... because I had someone who wanted me to talk about it. Now, that's my piece   Tahnee and Mason discuss the herbs, practices, and emotions of this season, why breathwork practices are essential in this season and the importance of reflecting on the movements of nature with early bed, early rising, and lots of rest.     Mason and Tahnee discuss:  -Lung Foods. -Qi and Lung herbs. -Surface immunity and Wei Qi. -Convalescing foods for Autumn. -The energy of Lung Metal season. -The emotions of Lung Metal season. -Exercises for Autumn and Lung energy. -Contraction and introspection in Autumn. -The relationship between the Lungs skin. -The Lung and Large Intestine relationship. -How to strengthen Qi and build immunity. -Breathing practices for Lung Metal season. -Connecting with the seasons through nature. -Honouring the transition of seasons for good immunity.   Tahnee and Mason Taylor Tahnee and Mason Taylor are the CEO and founder of SuperFeast. Their mission with SuperFeast is to improve the health, healing, and happiness of people and the planet, through sharing carefully curated offerings and practices that honour ancient wisdom and elevate the human spirit. Together Tahnee and Mason run their company and host the SuperFeast podcast, weaving their combined experience in herbs, yoga, wellness, Taoist healing arts, and personal development with lucid and compelling interviews from all around the world. They are the proud parents of Aiya and Goji, the dog, and are grateful to call the Byron Shire home.    Resources: Shiitake Qi Blend Cordyceps Schisandra Astragalus Turkey Tail     Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast? A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We'd also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or check us out on Stitcher, CastBox, iHeart RADIO:)! Plus we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here: https://www.superfeast.com.au/blogs/articles/tahnee-and-mason-ep-156  

Caitlin Priday has been devoted to the path of women's healing and birth work, weaving her threads of medicine through nourishing food and ceremony into future generations of women for over a decade now. A Kinesiologist, full-spectrum birth worker, shamanic practitioner, women's work facilitator, ceremonialist, and co-author of the brilliant book, Nourishing Those Who Nurture (More than a Food Bible for new mother's). Caitlin is an embodied full feminine force of integrity, supporting, teaching, honouring, and witnessing women as they traverse the many seasons of life, meet their shadows, and journey through sacred rites of passage. There is currently a remembering, a renaissance of women's work and birth work, rising up in communities globally. A new (but ancient) paradigm of birth work is emerging, with increasing numbers of women choosing to transition through the realms of birth at home while being supported and held by birth workers like Caitlin. Everywhere women are reclaiming birth, and with it comes both the shadow work and generational healing.   In this full spectrum conversation, Tahnee and Caitlin journey deep into the birthing portal exploring all facets of doula work, postpartum planning, the inextricable relationship between fear and pain, birth as a rite of passage, and why we need more advocacy and education around birth. Caitlin discusses her powerful ceremonial work with the obsidian egg, womb boundaries, her upcoming workshops, and the sacred act of living life as ceremony.    "I feel comfortable in my experience. I don't want to escape my feelings or leak my energy somewhere to get something back. And that is what women, I believe, need to learn through their lives; How to have strong womb boundaries and be firm in themselves. I think this is how femininity will heal. When women can be comfortable with being in their bodies and being firm in their womb boundaries".   - Caitlin Priday      Caitlin and Tahnee discuss: Birth work. Postpartum care. Rites of passage. Caitlin's doula work. Closing of the bones. Kinesiology and birth. Integrating the shadow. The history of doula work. The potent energy of obsidian. Working with the obsidian egg. Honouring the maiden season. Community and supporting the mother. Father's and their important role in birth. Shadow work; Identifying and working with it. Rebozo; A way of life and how it is used in birth.   Who is Caitlin Priday? Caitlin Priday is a Byron Shire-based Kinesiologist, Shamanic Practioner, Doula, Ceremonialist, and Co-Author of Nourishing Those Who Nurture: More Than A Food Bible for New Mum's. She is passionate about supporting women in all facets of life, from pre-conception, fertility, birth, postpartum, and beyond. With vigorous training and dedication over a ten-year period, Caitlin has learned the teachings of strong energetic boundaries, discernment, and psychic hygiene and how to hold these within everyday life. She prides herself on holding a sacred, grounded space no matter what the container is for and is a fierce advocate for women to reclaim their voices, bodies, and wombs for themselves, their lineage, and their descendants.   CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON APPLE PODCAST    Resources: Rebozo  Obsidian egg  Caitlin's website Caitlin's Instagram Sharon Bolt's website Mother Tree Creations Catering Empress and the Dragon workshop Caitlin Priday Shamanic Energy Training Nourishing Those Who Nurture Book   Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast? A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We'd also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or check us out on Stitcher, CastBox, iHeart RADIO:)! Plus we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Tahnee: (00:00) Hi, everybody. Welcome to the SuperFeast Podcast. It's Tahnee here today with Caitlin Priday. Really excited to have her on the podcast. She's a business partner actually to Tahlia, who we had on last year. They have this amazing book called Nourishing Those Who Nurture and I actually saw it under a few Christmas trees this year, Caitlin, so you'll be happy to hear that.   Caitlin Priday: (00:20) Oh good.   Tahnee: (00:21) Yeah, and she's also a kinesiologist, shamanic practitioner, doula, does ceremony and she wrote all the beautiful recipes in the book as well as contributed to the content. So I'm really stoked to have you here today, Caitlin. Thanks for joining us.   Caitlin Priday: (00:37) Thank you so much.   Tahnee: (00:39) Yeah. So great to have you here. We only recently met, but I just was so interested in our brief chat. Your story, your personal journey, just sounds so interesting. So I was hoping, if you don't mind, if you could share a little bit about how you got to be here, writing the book that you just wrote, and what was your kind of initiation into this world that you now inhabit?   Caitlin Priday: (01:03) Oh God. I feel like [inaudible 00:01:06].   Tahnee: (01:05) You start it, "I was born in..."   Caitlin Priday: (01:09) But I don't like that. Well, I'm a Shire local, so I feel like the Shire kids have always got some kind of alternative edge. So yeah, I was born in the Byron Shire. I've travelled the world for a little bit in 2012 and kind of started getting into spiritual awakening, I guess. It was that year that everyone started opening up to everything then. And I was just travelling around India and Canada and Mexico and just trying out all types of different things.   Caitlin Priday: (01:40) I actually got into to more of the shamanic aspect of things by working with cacao in Guatemala in 2012. So that was actually a really big part of my journey and my story. But when I got back to Australia, in 2014, I met my teacher, who's still my teacher now, Sharon Bolt. Her business is called Shamanic Energy Training and she also goes under the business of the Temple of Mythical Magick now as well.   Caitlin Priday: (02:10) So I started working with her, and that was more in the realm of workshops, women's work, ceremonial work in the sense of working with cacao and blue lotus and different plants like that. So I got quite thrust in quite early. She loves to tell the story that I told her that I could cook, but I couldn't really. But I'd told her that I could cook so that I could get a job with her basically, which is quite funny because that's-   Tahnee: (02:41) [crosstalk 00:02:41].   Caitlin Priday: (02:41) Yeah, it was... I was a sneaky young lass.   Tahnee: (02:42) What you just did for your book?   Caitlin Priday: (02:45) Pretty much. Yeah, so that actually was the baseline of learning how to cook and getting into recipes and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, back then I was only 22 when I met her. So I spent pretty much like the better part of my maidenhood working with her and just learning space holding through workshops and just being immersed in retreats and that kind of thing. So interfacing with people a lot, learning a lot about energy, learning a lot about how to be a good space holder, how to be grounded and also how to work through my shit...   Tahnee: (03:20) Yeah.   Caitlin Priday: (03:20) ... through that mirroring. So I kind of went a bit backwards. A lot of people go as a practitioner first and then go into group work later, but I worked in group work first and now I've moved into practitioner work. The thread that's always been the same is wanting to assist women. So, that's quite a full spectrum thing. I like working with women that want to get pregnant all the way through to pregnancy and then in postpartum, which is my real deep passion and commitment now. And that's how the book also came about because Tahlia and I met around that same time that I met Sharon and we just had a really deep bond, and then Tahlia and I were like, "Let's do this book, because postpartum is such a gap." So yeah, it's a pretty broad thing, but I'm predominantly now a kinesiologist and I work one-on-one. Yeah.   Tahnee: (04:13) Yeah. Where do you think that drive to work with women came from? Was it something you observed in your community or yourself or just a calling or?   Caitlin Priday: (04:22) To be honest, I'm very much a shadow worker and it actually came out of wounding. It came out of feeling the wounds of my experiences with the sisterhood and also the wound with my mother, so that deep mother wound and that deep desire to connect with women on an intimate, true, authentic level. But I had had a lot of wounding around that in the past. So it was through being thrust into environments with women that I realised that that wound was there and I felt like being able to heal that wound would be through interfacing and connecting with women in a deep way. Yeah.   Tahnee: (05:04) Can you talk a little bit to shadow work because I love this topic, but I don't think we've actually really talked about it on the podcast. I'm trying to think maybe a little bit with Jane Hardwicke Collings. But yeah, I guess I'm just interested in your take on that, like how you... You said that's sort of the work that you do or your personal journey. So yeah, what does that mean to you? How do you kind of work through that in your life?   Caitlin Priday: (05:33) Definitely a shadow dweller. I definitely am. I mean, don't get me wrong, I-   Tahnee: (05:39) [crosstalk 00:05:39].   Caitlin Priday: (05:40) Yeah. No, I find that terrain of the underworld, like that really mythical aspect of the feminine which is like that Persephone journey. Persephone was in the Underworld and that's how seasons were created on Earth because Demeter, her mother, went through seasons because of her daughter Persephone being in the Underworld with Hades.   Tahnee: (06:00) Being taken away.   Caitlin Priday: (06:02) Yeah, exactly. And I'm really view my life as a seasonal journey and a cyclical kind of journey. And obviously that's the same with menstrual cycles, but that's another topic. So I really honour the shadow when it needs to come to surface. I think a lot of it has got to do with working with Sharon. Sharon's very much a shadow woman and a shadow worker and it's helped me realise that shadows are not enemies, shadows are friends. And so I've discovered this more in going to my own therapy as well, learning more how to bring the shadow up and out of that shadow and bring it to light and learn its mysteries and its power and help integrate that, and that's how we become more of a whole and integrated person.   Caitlin Priday: (06:50) When we say we don't want to be something and we shove it away, that's when that thing will come up and try to dominate us even more. So within the feminine psyche there's a lot of that shadow work as well, like in women's work and women's workshops, if people are familiar with that kind of world, there's a lot of promotion around the dark feminine or the shadow feminine. Even in motherhood, there's a lot around the dark mother. So I think-   Tahnee: (07:20) Kali.   Caitlin Priday: (07:21) Kali, yeah, that kind of thing.   Tahnee: (07:22) I was thinking about the sort of eating heads. Yeah.   Caitlin Priday: (07:25) Yeah, even like the [crosstalk 00:07:26] mother-   Tahnee: (07:28) Well, how do you define shadow for yourself? Like, is it the stuff that you avoid or feel triggered by or is it just anything in the sort of subconscious? How do you define that in terms of your work?   Caitlin Priday: (07:44) If something triggers me, then I definitely know that I'm looking at a shadow. Obviously you've got family stuff, that's a perfect place to do shadow work is just go stay with your family for a week. I just-   Tahnee: (07:57) You think your spiritual, go hang out with your family.   Caitlin Priday: (08:00) Exactly. I just had my family here for three weeks, so I'm just like decompressing.   Tahnee: (08:05) [crosstalk 00:08:05].   Caitlin Priday: (08:07) Mm-hmm (affirmative).   Tahnee: (08:07) Yeah.   Caitlin Priday: (08:07) Actually, it's a good point though, because my mum and I ended up having a fruitful conversation after she stayed, which was her telling me that she gets triggered by me because she sees so much of herself in me. And I think that's a really good way to look at the shadow is that like when you're having that mirror come up and place that thing in front of you, you've got to look at where that is unintegrated inside of yourself that it's becoming a problem. And so we've gone into that a lot in more of the shamanic workshops that we've done with Sharon, but also in our women's work, The Empress And The Dragon, which is the three month women's programme which I'll be running up here soon.   Caitlin Priday: (08:49) We work with the obsidian egg. So the obsidian egg is known for bringing up shadows and known for bringing up mirrors and triggers. And we work through that in the workshop on the weekend and the months after. Because we want to be able to bring things up and have a look at them, but I'm really a big believer on there being a firm and held container for when shadows come up.   Tahnee: (09:14) Mm-hmm (affirmative). Especially when you're learning to work with that energy, I think, because-   Caitlin Priday: (09:20) Yeah, definitely.   Tahnee: (09:21) ... it's powerful stuff.   Caitlin Priday: (09:22) Yeah.   Tahnee: (09:24) Yeah.   Caitlin Priday: (09:24) Yeah, I'm not about going into shadow work and flinging your energy all around and getting crazy on it. Shadows are things that we learn how to tame and that's a very Daoist perspective, which I know you're really into as well. And that's the background of our training as well, is Daoism, so learning how to do it with containment and befriending and also a right relationship. Because when we don't, when we allow an emotion to own us, we are just being dominated by it. So it's [crosstalk 00:09:57].   Tahnee: (09:56) It's a possession at times.   Caitlin Priday: (09:58) Yeah, exactly. So it's learning how to not allow shadows to possess us, but for us to find how to dance in a relationship with them. So yeah, I think shadows are mostly a mirror.   Tahnee: (10:12) Yeah. I'd like to go jump back to that workshop quickly.   Caitlin Priday: (10:17) Yeah.   Tahnee: (10:17) You're talking about... This is an in-person one that you do.   Caitlin Priday: (10:22) Yeah. We also do them online.   Tahnee: (10:25) Yeah, because I thought I saw on your socials that you had online versions.   Caitlin Priday: (10:28) Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.   Tahnee: (10:29) So for people that are interested in this, it's learning to work with jade eggs and energy practices. Can you explain a bit about the container of the work [crosstalk 00:10:37]. Yeah.   Caitlin Priday: (10:37) Yeah. We work with obsidian eggs, so jade-   Tahnee: (10:41) Oh sorry, yeah.   Caitlin Priday: (10:41) No, that's okay.   Tahnee: (10:42) It's my brain.   Caitlin Priday: (10:43) She's got baby brain, everyone. Baby brain.   Tahnee: (10:46) [inaudible 00:10:46]. Yes, eggs. I should have just... yeah.   Caitlin Priday: (10:49) It's all right.   Tahnee: (10:52) Those things in your vagina that you move around and helps with itching.   Caitlin Priday: (10:57) Exactly.   Tahnee: (10:58) Yeah.   Caitlin Priday: (10:58) So obsidian a bit unique. Obsidian comes from the Mexican protocol. It's quite strong. I discovered the egg in Mexico about 10 years ago. And then I came back to Australia with it and had to contact for it for a while. And then I told Sharon about, and she said, "Oh my God, I've had this programme written for ages." And she'd actually been told by a psychic that she'd write a programme around the egg. And she was like, "Oh no, no. I don't want to do that." Because she'd worked with the jade egg when she was a Daoist monk and had gone, "No, that's not for me." But when I brought the Mexican egg in, she got really excited because Sharon's actually Mayan, so it was very lineage aligned for her.   Caitlin Priday: (11:45) We kind of started working with egg ourselves and we were like, "Okay, this is really powerful." And so we wanted to honour the protocol of working with the obsidian egg, which is very different to jade. Jade works with vaginal strength, also just like pelvic floor, sexual energy, that kind of thing. But we are really firm believers on if you don't have a cleansed and clear womb before you get into doing sexual and central practises with the energy body, you actually can amplify a lot of the wounds that you already have there.   Caitlin Priday: (12:18) And the obsidian really, really is like a cleansing and clearing stone. So we put it in at nighttime and it helps bring up the subconscious. So the subconscious will come up via dreaming and it's also a mirror stone, so it will... It's very special the way it works. It will bring people in and out of your life to help you realise what you're working on deeper. Like pretty much every time, at least four or five people in the group will have an ex-boyfriend pop up. Every time. It's magical, because... It's a womb Buddha. The womb broom, that's what we call it. It helps clear the womb.   Caitlin Priday: (13:01) So things will stop popping up, and it will also amplify things, like I was saying before, like sisterhood wounds or the mother wound or where we're unstable in our energy bodies, that kind of thing. Because obsidian really grounds you into your body. So people that disassociate easily, it's a really good stone for that. It helps people like come firmly into the body. So yeah, that's been one of the most potent tools I've had for doing shadow work because we've been working with it for about five years now and we've had over 500 women go through the programme and it's also developed into working with other eggs as well. Working with rose is the second part of the programme, and then working with amethyst is the third part of the programme.   Tahnee: (13:44) Beautiful.   Caitlin Priday: (13:48) Yeah, it's a fully embodied programme.   Tahnee: (13:50) So kind of womb, heart and then third eye. Is that what [crosstalk 00:13:53]? Yeah.   Caitlin Priday: (13:54) Yeah. Well, it's very Daoist, like I was saying. So the Daoists actually work with the three cauldrons. Yeah. So you have the womb caldron, the heart caldron and then the upper dantian, which is the pineal gland. So it's like a full embodiment programme.   Tahnee: (14:09) Mm-hmm (affirmative).   Caitlin Priday: (14:10) Yeah.   Tahnee: (14:10) But that's this Empress and Dragon or that's another [crosstalk 00:14:13]?   Caitlin Priday: (14:13) Yeah. No, that's The Empress And The Dragon. I just specifically run an obsidian... I'd love to run the other ones at some point, but I'm just an obsidian woman.   Tahnee: (14:21) My shadow friend.   Caitlin Priday: (14:22) That's what I am.   Tahnee: (14:24) Well, I'm so interested that... You know there's heaps of obsidian here in Byron, like in the hills?   Caitlin Priday: (14:28) Exactly.   Tahnee: (14:29) Yeah. So it's [crosstalk 00:14:30].   Caitlin Priday: (14:30) Obsidian woman.   Tahnee: (14:31) Yeah. And we lived on a property with a really deep underground obsidian reservoir and man, whew, that was a time.   Caitlin Priday: (14:41) Yeah.   Tahnee: (14:43) Okay. It was like, we conceived our child, but also just like the psychic kind of downloads and the awakening on that land was really powerful.   Caitlin Priday: (14:53) Yeah.   Tahnee: (14:53) It's an amazing stone.   Caitlin Priday: (14:57) Well, you know, on that point, thanks for bringing that up, that's why people come to the Byron Shire. Generally they'll come and have... They'll break up with their partner or they'll get pregnant, or they have a massive awakening.   Tahnee: (15:09) Yeah.   Caitlin Priday: (15:10) Obsidian is volcanic, and obviously good things are formed under pressure, like diamonds are. It's the same with obsidian portals. High obsidian places are usually places of deep transformation, like Bali's obsidian.   Tahnee: (15:25) Hawaii area.   Caitlin Priday: (15:25) Yeah, Mexico, Mount Shasta.   Tahnee: (15:27) Shanghai.   Caitlin Priday: (15:28) And they're the places that people are drawn to in order to hear. So once you pop that inside of your body, you have the possibility for deep transformation.   Tahnee: (15:38) Well, I will definitely link to that in the show notes for your upcoming one. So you've got one coming up in the Shire.   Caitlin Priday: (15:43) In March.   Tahnee: (15:43) And then in you guys run them online sort of regularly, is that?   Caitlin Priday: (15:47) I've got one here in March. I've got one in Bellingen for the first time in April.   Tahnee: (15:53) Cool.   Caitlin Priday: (15:53) And then I'll run one online, and Melbourne if the... If Mr. Andrews permits, I will come to Melbourne.   Tahnee: (16:02) Throw some obsidian at him and... That's unkind. Maybe it might help.   Caitlin Priday: (16:05) Hmm.   Tahnee: (16:10) Yeah, I'm interested in that link you have with Mexico, because I think your book was one the first I saw where... I mean I've heard a lot of postpartum books, and you actually had Rebozo in there.   Caitlin Priday: (16:21) Yeah.   Tahnee: (16:22) The tying and... I'd read about that online but never in someone's actual postpartum books. I thought that was cool. So could you speak a little bit about that impact on the kind of Mayan lineage has had on you and your work. And obviously is Sharon's into it, that's obviously [crosstalk 00:16:37].   Caitlin Priday: (16:36) Yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting thing. I don't know how it's happened. I lived in Central America for a year. And it's funny, without having any cultural appropriation, that's definitely not my style, and I love having right relationship with all indigenous rights of passage and ceremonies and all of that. But it's interesting if I revise my journey to getting here, how much the Mexican practices have impacted me as a person. I think living there and being able to be in such a deep connection and honouring of the land really helped me understand their magic and their way. But yeah, obviously I worked with cacao. That's definitely one of my master plants. I don't work with-   Tahnee: (17:21) With Keith, right?   Caitlin Priday: (17:21) With Keith, yeah.   Tahnee: (17:24) Just for those listening, we were both in the same... Probably not the same time. I was a 2015, I think. But yeah, in San Marcos La Laguna in Guatemala. So it's a great cacao shaman who's very well known around the world.   Caitlin Priday: (17:40) Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.   Tahnee: (17:41) So you worked with him or you [crosstalk 00:17:43].   Caitlin Priday: (17:43) Yeah, I worked with him a little bit, but I also mostly just had cacao all the time, which I don't do anymore. I don't recommend it, definitely fried my adrenals. And I've been on my SuperFeast Jing Herbs since then trying to put myself back together.   Tahnee: (17:59) Yeah, absolutely.   Caitlin Priday: (17:59) Yeah.   Tahnee: (18:02) Especially the ceremonial cacao, it's really... I get high off it. I can't touch it really.   Caitlin Priday: (18:04) No. A tiny little bit for me, and oh gosh. Anyway, I made chocolates and all that kind of thing. I've had my massive journey with cacao, and I love it dearly but I don't need to indulge in it so much anymore.   Caitlin Priday: (18:17) But yeah, as I've gone more into my birth work, I found that that Mexican lineage has really come through. And it was no surprise that I found a teacher that is Mayan, like very Latino. She's got her other practises as well, but having that Mayan thread in there has been really deep and resonating for me. But with the birth work, yeah, Rebozo... Look, I really am not an expert on Rebozo. I still have a long way to go. I really honour the Rebozo and how it's even created. It's like all of the South American and Central American countries, like they have their own special weave. So their weave is like their creative signature. And so most Rebozos will never be the same because it's created by a woman whose signature is that weave or that colouring. So Rebozos-   Tahnee: (19:12) Could you just even quickly explain what it's because I was just thinking that-   Caitlin Priday: (19:12) Oh yeah, sorry. Of course.   Tahnee: (19:13) ... people probably don't even know. That's my bad.   Caitlin Priday: (19:16) Mm-hmm (affirmative). No way, that's also my bad.   Tahnee: (19:20) Like, "What even is this thing?"   Caitlin Priday: (19:20) Yeah. So they're actually this beautiful long piece of fabric. They're quite thick. And like I was saying, they all have different colours and different weaves and designs on them. And Rebozo basically means like the way of life. It is such an integral part of Mexican women's lives. Like they use their Rebozo to carry shopping, they tie it up. They use it to tie babies on. They use it in birth work. And it is used in postpartum a bit, that's with closing of the bones, which I can go into in a moment. But in birth itself, it's a labour technique.   Caitlin Priday: (20:00) Again, I've learnt, but I'm not fully, fully trained. So it's not something that I necessarily offer because I'm really integral in wanting to understand something before I go and put it on the table for myself. So I'm by no means a Rebozo expert. But they do, in Mexico, use it for helping if interventions kind of starting to creep in, or baby's not moving or there's a lot of techniques that they can do. They call it sifting, so they'll pop the Rebozo underneath the womb and the woman will be on all-fours, and they'll sift the Rebozo.   Tahnee: (20:42) [crosstalk 00:20:42].   Caitlin Priday: (20:42) Yeah, to get the hips kind of jiggling and open. It's a really integral part of their work. If people do want purchase Rebozos, I highly recommend finding a really good source for them because some of them are just getting pumped out of China and if we're going to use indigenous tools, we want to make sure that we give back properly. So yeah, so that's Rebozo. But we use it in closing the bones as well, which is a postpartum technique where we basically help put a woman back together, so that's physically and also energetically. It's kind of like helping shut down the story of the birth. Because there so many women I've heard, I haven't had a baby yet, but obviously I work with women a lot in this realm. Most women say, "I have to reach out to the stars to find my baby and come back with my baby before I could birth it," which I'm sure you can definitely resonate with. And so-   Tahnee: (21:40) It's a portal, that's for sure.   Caitlin Priday: (21:43) Yeah, exactly. Where there's a portal... mm-hmm (affirmative). I see closing the bones, you know, shut the portal down.   Tahnee: (21:47) Yeah, well it's like any... We've both done plant medicine and it's like you don't just walk away at the end of the journey. You have to have that ceremonial ending and then beginning the integration process. I think that birth is the same, right?   Caitlin Priday: (22:05) 100%   Tahnee: (22:05) We have to honour it with ceremony and... yeah. So you work... because we've spoken a bit ourselves about your doula work.   Caitlin Priday: (22:13) Mm-hmm (affirmative).   Tahnee: (22:13) So you offer that sort of pre, I guess, natal support or during the prenatal period, and then also into maybe the pregnant period. Prenatals before that, yes? I don't know what I'm talking about anymore. And then you also do of this aftercare, so can you speak a little bit about your work with that and how you work with women and I guess what you observe as a... Because it's interesting, I think. I actually don't know that many doulas who haven't... You and I both know, Oni. There's a couple of people I know that haven't kids, but most women seem to come to this work after they've had their own children. And so it's interesting there's all these young women in this area really picking up the torch, I think. So yeah, I'd love to hear your take on all of that.   Caitlin Priday: (22:59) Yeah. Well, I think like for me at the moment, I definitely feel like I'm not completely maiden anymore. I feel like I'm transitioning more into mother, but I've had the exuberance of the maiden for the last 10 years and mothers need maidens. And I'm very, very into helping other maidens in my community learn how to look after mothers properly, because mothers are the backbone of our society. So that's been my driving force as a birth worker to really, really help mothers be strong and able to support this next generation. So that's kind of my passion, to make sure that this next generation are coming through in a strong and supported way, like in a village.   Caitlin Priday: (23:41) I can't really explain why that's been my thing, but that's just my heart calling, so I'm just... That's what I've followed. But postpartum kind of comes naturally. I think having that backbone of cooking and also space holding and helping people just in workshops and that kind of thing, I think it's easy to see where a gap can be filled. And postpartum is such a gap. It's just horrific. We think that we're doing well in the West, but you have to just turn to the East and see how well they're doing it to see how much more we could be doing.   Caitlin Priday: (24:18) Initially with the book, that's what Tahlia and I talked about a lot, because I was there with Tahlia when she was in her preconception period with her firstborn. And then I also was at her secondborn's birth, Ochre, and helped with postpartum as well. It really became the fuel to our fire, and just realising that the village is really... Not even necessarily missing, but it actually needs to be retaught.   Caitlin Priday: (24:43) There's something about our culture that because we haven't experienced or we haven't seen our mothers experiencing it, we don't know what to do. And so we need other people who say, "This is what you do and this is how we care for them." So essentially, that's how the book was created, like a really easy go-to manual for that. But in postpartum, I'm all about nourishing, and that's across the board, but predominantly with food. Yeah.   Tahnee: (25:11) It's super interesting you say that about the cultural piece, because I had a friend have twins recently and another friend of ours, who's in her maybe late forties, she... I said, "Oh look, I've set up a meal train." And this person was like, "A what?" And I was like, "A meal train." She was like, "I've never heard of this." And I was like, "Well, we all make food and bring it to the family." And she was like, "Oh, when I had kids that wasn't... you didn't do that." And I was like, "What do people do?" She's like, "I know you just ate... Your husband made food or..." And I was like, "Oh."   Tahnee: (25:43) It's such an interesting... It's only been... She's what, 10 years older than me? That still wasn't even on her radar when she had children. And yeah, I think there's stuff we really take for granted, especially in the Shire, where there is such an awareness, I think, of postpartum being important. It's still not perfect, but it's getting better.   Caitlin Priday: (26:03) Yeah.   Tahnee: (26:04) Yeah. I think there's this real lack of awareness of... I think when there's those big changes, like grief births, people often back away.   Caitlin Priday: (26:12) Yes.   Tahnee: (26:12) It's almost like, "I'll give you space and then I'll kind of lean in later."   Caitlin Priday: (26:17) Yes.   Tahnee: (26:19) It's almost like a reminder to people that it's actually really great to lean in and maybe they don't know what they need or what to ask for, but bring them food, bring them a treat, make them a cake, you know? There's some sort of basic things we can do. And that's what I loved about the book. You guys had some stuff around boundary setting, which I thought was really awesome, with families. It had all the great recipes. You talked about different ceremonial aspects around whether it's closing the bones or any of those kind of things.   Caitlin Priday: (26:46) Yeah.   Tahnee: (26:46) I think that sort of stuff more and more... You know, bringing that awareness through is so important. And it's kind of what your work is about, like with this shamanic dimension of your work. It's like we need to honour... You're feeling that transition already, like your maiden to motherhood transition. So many women I speak to don't even observe that change until they're a couple of years postpartum and they're like, "Oh my god, I'm a totally different person."   Caitlin Priday: (27:09) 100%.   Tahnee: (27:11) Yeah. Have you been tuning into that through your practice or is it just like an awakening that you're feeling that motherhood is calling? Or what's that feeling like for you?   Caitlin Priday: (27:22) Well, it's interesting that you just brought up this like people backing away and death, and birth. Because I've always wanted to be a mother, but when my father died three years ago, that's when I really, really realised more about that nature of death and birth being such a similar portal, very much not like Hollywood, as we are all shown in the movies. Very gentle, humbling. Yeah, very different, very ceremonial act. So that really concreted that for me. Yeah, it's been hanging around for a while, but what I'm starting to realise more is, and I wrote a post about this the other day, is again honouring that season within, like honouring the maiden while she still is here. And by doing that, that's like having fun, enjoying moments of silence, doing all of things that I want to do because I watch my friends around me not be able to do that anymore.   Caitlin Priday: (28:30) And in society, I think we have a lot of lost mothers who have a tendency to hold onto the maiden because they haven't been celebrated or witnessed in that shift or that rite of passage correctly. And so like you're saying, in postpartum it's four years down the track and they're like, "Oh my god, what just happened to me?" So I try to really honour those seasons within myself, but I also like to facilitate that for other people. And as much as closing of the bones is a postpartum practice, there are some people who open up closing the bones for people that have gone death as well. And so I even experienced my own closing in the bones on the grief and the death around my father to help close that portal down as well. So yeah, motherhood is something that I think about and I feel like I do embody that archetype of the mother for many people. But I do like to honour the maiden as well because she has a place and I don't want to be a mother in a few years that's still trying to hold on to my maidenhood.   Caitlin Priday: (29:35) You know, obviously we have an internal maiden that lives within us, as we do a chrone and a maga, which is the menopausal season. But when I become a mother, I want to be embodiment of the mother, not holding onto aspects of myself that don't need to have the stage. You know?   Tahnee: (29:54) Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. I think it's really interesting. And I remember when I was pregnant with my first child, my daughter, feeling this... It was a grief, but it was like a poignant grief. It was kind of like, "Oh, I'm changing seasons." We talk about that in TCM, like the full, the autumn season, like things falling away and the sort of dying that needs to up for something new to happen. And I think our culture is so afraid of death in all of its forms that we kind of lose the beauty of those transitions and those seasons. And motherhood is a death. You do have to, to some extent, kill the person you were before to become the person you're becoming. It's not a bad thing, and it doesn't mean you don't integrate. But it's like, yeah, there's a bit of a... Well, it's certainly been my experience and I've really enjoyed it. But I think it's something that we...   Tahnee: (30:53) We conceived this child, my partner got the call to go to Sydney. His father was dying. His father died. You know, we were at the funeral within... I think I was six weeks pregnant or something.   Caitlin Priday: (31:03) Yeah.   Tahnee: (31:05) And it's just like there's something for me that's so beautiful about that transition, even though it could be... Like people were saying to us, "Oh my God, I can't believe what you're going through, and you're pregnant." I'm like, "It's actually... " You know. My partner did all the death care. He washed his father, he dressed him, he cut his beard. And his ability to hold that, that's the kind of... that I'm birthing with this person, it's such a... and that I'm getting to share this goodbye and this ritual with him. I think it's something really powerful about that and that's given me a lot of confidence and faith in the other side of the coin, right, which is birth.   Caitlin Priday: (31:44) Yeah.   Tahnee: (31:44) Birth and death are the same portal really.   Caitlin Priday: (31:47) Yeah.   Tahnee: (31:48) So yeah, I think those death and grief teachings are very powerful when it comes to motherhood. And that's what I think people don't get, like of having a doula or someone around who can support that process if you aren't someone who maybe naturally is drawn to that work on your own.   Caitlin Priday: (32:07) Yeah.   Tahnee: (32:07) And I think that's where people... I don't know. What do you see when you first meet with women? What do they think a doula does versus kind of what you feel like you do? Do you have any experience with that or?   Caitlin Priday: (32:21) I think it's interesting. What comes to up a lot actually is that they want... Generally what I've found is that the doula wants the woman to be there to do all of the things that she thinks her partner can't do. But what I've actually really realised is that this thing that we placed on to men in the birth world, about men being redundant, or this is how a lot of men say, "I feel redundant," actually breaks down the family unit a little bit. So when I go into my initial meetings with people, I'm very focused on supporting and talking with the father, just as much as I am talking with the mother who's pregnant. Because if we talk again about that rite of passage aspect of things, a woman is very visibly going through a rite of passage. Whereas a man is also having a rite of passage, but there's nothing visceral or physical about it.   Caitlin Priday: (33:19) So, a lot of women that want a doula, I think, are quite familiar with what a doula is, which is that emotional support or that physical support, or if there's other kids involved, somebody that can cater to and hold space for the family as a whole. But I'm really into making sure that dads are included in that as well, because we can't have a society of women that are going through a rite of passage, and men that are just ignored or forgotten about. So for me, as a doula, that's been a pretty strong part of my work. I'm not sure if that's what is happening for other doulas, but it seems to be a theme with me that I'm actually there to help equally empower men as I am to the woman.   Caitlin Priday: (34:06) But yeah, I think we're lucky now. I think people do know what doulas are more often. If people that are listening don't know what a doula is, it actually means woman's servant. So midwife means with woman and doula is woman's servant. Doulas have been around forever. We were wet nurses back in the Greek times, or we were nannies or... Women have been assisting women for thousands of years in this way. Doula, isn't a new thing. It's actually a Greek term from thousands of years ago, so it goes to show that we have been here forever.   Tahnee: (34:41) Mm-hmm (affirmative).   Caitlin Priday: (34:43) It's just that now people are realising that they need us more. I think it's challenging at the moment for doulas because COVID has really put a strain on our ability to work. Women that are home birthing generally are in a different state of mind. And sometimes they don't need a doula as much, because if you're home birthing you're going to have a private midwife, or your free birthing and you don't feel like you want that support anyway. So that's a different thing. Like doulas are really needed in that hospital environment at the moment, and it's really challenging. All the births that I've had in the last few months that were lined up, I haven't been able to attend. So [crosstalk 00:35:25].   Tahnee: (35:25) Just for people who are listening, they've basically said there's no support people allowed, is that right?   Caitlin Priday: (35:30) Yeah. Just the partner. But even in Sydney at the moment, they've had really intense birth restrictions where-   Tahnee: (35:36) No partners have been allowed.   Caitlin Priday: (35:37) ... not partner. Mm-mm (negative).   Tahnee: (35:39) Which is just horrific.   Caitlin Priday: (35:41) Yeah.   Tahnee: (35:42) Yeah. And talk about fracturing the family unit.   Caitlin Priday: (35:44) Exactly. Yeah, because women come out completely disturbed. There's a lot of birth trauma going on, not to discount people who have had beautiful experiences in hospitals. Because even in the Shire, I love hearing the stores that come out of Lismore.   Tahnee: (36:01) Yeah.   Caitlin Priday: (36:02) There's so many positive obstetricians and midwives out there. But on a predominant basis, if you look at statistics, we are failing women in the hospital sense of things. There's cascades of interventions, as my birth working teacher, Ria Dempsey, calls it. So yeah, we are needed, but we are not able to be there, so it's... Not for the portal itself when the baby comes through.   Tahnee: (36:29) Yep. Yeah, I think when we met, you were having to phone support the partner in one birth and-   Caitlin Priday: (36:35) Yeah. That's right. I forgot about that.   Tahnee: (36:38) Yeah, I think it's actually really devastating for women. I mean, I also believe in the power of the female body and the energy to be like, "This is my space." But it's a lot to hold if you aren't experienced and you don't know the system in you. I think that's what's so valuable about having someone who's like a birth keeper of some kind with you who navigates that world regularly. It's like they can be of support and help. And it's quite scary that that's all happening at the moment.   Caitlin Priday: (37:09) Yeah. It's wild. I mean doulas are advocates essentially, but as I've spoken to other birth keepers who are obviously... We're all having the same problem. Once the other woman can't go to hospital, realising that doula support is not just holding your hand as a baby comes out. Doula support is like teaching women how to advocate for themselves, what their rights are, teaching their partner, "This is how you rub her back properly. No, not quite there. A little bit down, you want to know now or she'll scream at you in labour if it ain't right."   Caitlin Priday: (37:43) Other things like postpartum planning, people really hone in on, "Oh, this is my birth plan." But postpartum planning is... if not more important, I think, than birth itself. Because you're got to have your structure and your village set up. So doulas are stepping into different roles now. We're learning how to work with what's going on. We can FaceTime, you know?   Tahnee: (38:09) Yeah.   Caitlin Priday: (38:10) We can call.   Tahnee: (38:12) Well, I think that piece around education and advocacy is super important. I think, I even can reflect on my first pregnancy being... Like wanting to be nice to this midwife suggesting something I didn't want to do, just a prenatal test. But it's that sort of conditioning we have as women sometimes to be like, "Okay. Well, I don't want to do it, but you're the professional so I'll agree." You know?   Caitlin Priday: (38:40) Yeah.   Tahnee: (38:40) It's just like... And I'm pretty stubborn and strong and I'm easily affected by that stuff. I think having someone there that can be like a sounding board and just provide that mirror, that reflection back to the couple around speaking to fear, speaking to... having someone to voice those concerns to I think just can be really helpful, that isn't your care provider necessarily, that isn't... you know? Because I think they can... I don't know. Like you said, it's just a mixed bag because some people have great experiences and other people, they get the fear of God put into them.   Caitlin Priday: (39:12) 100%.   Tahnee: (39:12) So it can be really different for everybody.   Caitlin Priday: (39:17) That's where at the moment I'm... because I'm a kinesiologist as well, that's my kind of-   Tahnee: (39:22) You're psychic. That was literally my next question. Yeah, I'd love to hear how you see that kind of intersection, because I think...   Caitlin Priday: (39:30) Yeah.   Tahnee: (39:31) I see that as a really helpful tool to have the doula as well.   Caitlin Priday: (39:35) Mm-hmm (affirmative). I mean you touched on a really important thing, which is what is your relationship to fear or stress or pain. You know? These are things that most doulas will go into anyway before the... Like, when we take on a client, we have our paperwork and we're generally having that rapport with not just the mum, the dad as well. If the dad is fearful of birth, that's going to come into the room. So it's important that we have these kinds of conversations with people.   Caitlin Priday: (40:02) At the moment, I'm really incorporating that into my kinesiology work. Because I did that workshop and retreat work for such a long time, I really felt like even with Empress And The Dragon, I could be doing more. And I'm really into integration, like helping people actually understand what's going on. Because I think people can have really spiritual experiences, but they have no grounding. They'll come out kind of going like, "What just happened?" Like you said with plant medicines, people come out and go, "I don't know what just happened to me."   Tahnee: (40:32) Yeah.   Caitlin Priday: (40:34) Yeah. "I've been blown open, now what?"   Tahnee: (40:35) Yeah.   Caitlin Priday: (40:35) So that's why I got into kinesiology. But what I've actually been really finding is helping women in kinesiology prior to having birth. So really using their birth as a goal, like the kind of birth that they want to have, and helping them move stress and fear around that to help them get more mentally straight around the kind of birth that they want to have.   Caitlin Priday: (40:58) Kinesiology's amazing because it goes into your own birth story, and that's an important thing even without kinesiology. I think if a woman's preparing to get pregnant even, or is pregnant, unpacking your own birth story, which I'm sure you and Jane would have talked about on her podcast.   Tahnee: (41:14) We talked about menopause.   Caitlin Priday: (41:17) Okay, yeah.   Tahnee: (41:17) But I've done her workshops and obviously unpacked that. I think it's really helpful... I mean, I was very conscious after my birth of my daughter that my mother was very big on physiological birth, and like, "You're like a horse. You pace around. You don't lie on your back." But it was also this very stubborn kind of... I don't know, like almost a masculine approach to-   Caitlin Priday: (41:43) Harder.   Tahnee: (41:44) Yeah, like kind of a tough approach. Like, "I don't need anybody. I can't do..." And I could feel elements of that where I was like, "Don't touch me. Get away from me. I've got..." You know? And I think partly is necessary because that's who the person I am, but also I can feel that being some of her energy.   Caitlin Priday: (42:03) Yeah.   Tahnee: (42:04) Yeah, so I think it's really interesting to reflect on it and... yeah.   Caitlin Priday: (42:07) Yeah.   Tahnee: (42:08) And I mean, I imagine doing it with kinesiology where there's an embodied response that you're able to translate or... yeah.   Caitlin Priday: (42:14) Yeah. You've got that really somatic response of where it's at and what's going on. But I believe that you don't have to go and see a kinesiologist to get fear out of the body before birth. I think that there are so many practices that women could be doing prior to even getting pregnant. The preconception journey is just so important to start as a maiden, like you were saying before. Like unpacking these things, "What was my birth? Like what was my first period like? What's my relationship with fear?" Doing things like dance, movement, like meditation, shamanic journeying, drum journeying. There's so many different avenues that we can go into to start helping us unpack our relationship with our body and our relationship with the internal mother or the mother, the mother wound, that is really important to go into prior to having your baby.   Caitlin Priday: (43:14) I know that people have mother wounds that still have amazing births, but I think that anything that you can do to help you get prepared for a normal physiological labour, if that's what you want, is just so deeply important. And we do go into that a little bit in the book as well. But even what you're saying before about the people pleaser. You know? Like how you're saying that, "No. Yeah, you can do that. I'll do that." I do believe that the good girl archetype is something that needs to be talked about more in society, for women.   Tahnee: (43:49) Yeah, nice girl.   Caitlin Priday: (43:52) Like, "Okay, I will do that." Yeah. I think [crosstalk 00:43:54].   Tahnee: (43:54) I agree. And I mean it's a shadow really of what you're actually thinking, which is, "No." But I think that's an interesting... I think that's one of the things people underestimate. I actually wanted to bookmark this a while ago. At the very beginning you spoke about therapy, and for me, therapy has actually been a really important tool over my life. Probably at like 19 I started going seriously for quite a long time, probably close to a decade. And then I had a bit of a break, and then I've gone back at other phases of life. Now I work with more like a somatic therapist I guess.   Caitlin Priday: (44:36) Yeah.   Tahnee: (44:37) But I just find for integration and for self-reflection, it's just such a useful tool. But it's not often... The spiritual world, in my experience anyway, poo-poos therapy a little bit sometimes.   Caitlin Priday: (44:49) Yeah.   Tahnee: (44:50) I'm interested in your own journey with therapy and how you sort of see that affecting the integration of your work.   Caitlin Priday: (44:56) I'll say one thing, never trust any practitioner that doesn't go to a therapist. That's just my opinion.   Tahnee: (45:03) I agree.   Caitlin Priday: (45:04) If you are seeing somebody that isn't getting supervision, run. I really believe that we have elders and therapists for a reason, like we have people that have gone through rights and passages before us to call us out on things. So for me personally, I have a lot of supervision, mostly because I obviously offer a variety of different things. Sharon is a supervisor for my shamanic work. My teacher, Parajat, supervises me for kinesiology. I call Anna, who's my postpartum teacher for birth stuff, if I'm not really sure what's going on. And then I also just have like normal therapy, which I use EMDR as a tool for me. That's been great because I've of early childhood trauma. If people don't know what EMDR is, I really recommend looking it up. It's an eye movement, very sensory experience where you are basically just helping turn off neural pathways. And I also do parts therapy, which is definitely a shadow thing.   Caitlin Priday: (46:13) Do you know what parts therapy is?   Tahnee: (46:16) No, and EMDR interestingly enough, when I studied Daoist stuff with Mantak Chia, we used it... We didn't call it EMDR, it's actually a Daoist technique that we use in energy work to clear patterns or loops that people get stuck in. It's interesting you're using that because that's... yeah. We're taught at very effective for trauma and loops.   Caitlin Priday: (46:36) Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Well, we do it in kinesiology as well. It's more like a subconscious... like sabotage programmes we call them, where it's like the brain goes into internal conflicts or reversals. So the brain kind of fries itself when it's gone through trauma.   Tahnee: (46:51) Yeah.   Caitlin Priday: (46:52) But EMDR has been really helpful for me because it was predominantly used to people that have gone through really hectic PTSD. They started using it on like war victims and stuff, and it just kind of helps turn off a memory. Because when somebody's rerunning a traumatic memory and over and over again, their amygdala is unable to get out of fight or flight. So it just helps people calm down the fight or flight, or freeze response.   Caitlin Priday: (47:16) So that's been helpful for me, but parts therapy has been more interesting. That's what I've been going into recently and that's more shadow work. It's like calling out archetypes within ourselves and letting them have the chair. We move in the room and we'll sit on the chair and it's a bit more interactive and you actually let that part say what it wants to say.   Tahnee: (47:38) I've actually done stuff like this with this anthroposophical therapist I saw years ago. I did it about five years with her. But yeah, I would sit and I would talk to... and then I would go over there. And then I would also have to move as that kind of aspect of self and throw things.   Caitlin Priday: (47:55) Exactly. Yeah.   Tahnee: (47:56) Make shapes. It was quite... At the beginning I was like, "What the fuck am I doing?" But it actually was very powerful. Yeah.   Caitlin Priday: (48:06) Yeah. And with parts therapy as well, you find the opposite of the parts. So when you have a very dominating part, you'll have a part that's very quiet.   Tahnee: (48:12) Timid.   Caitlin Priday: (48:12) Timid. So, that actually is also a shadow. It's not a bad shadow. This is what I was saying before, shadows aren't good or bad, it's just a part that that's been suppressed. Recently I found one of my main shadows was the nurturing quiet woman, because most people that know me personally will know that I'm quite loud and vivacious and extroverted. And that's partly my family conditioning, but that's also my personality.   Caitlin Priday: (48:39) But I also have a very nurturing, quiet, internal side of myself, and I really shoved that away. That was a shadow as well, so that was really helpful. But yeah, I've just found having any form of therapy... I mean, I've done most things, to be honest. I've drank plant medicine a million times, I've done kinesiology, I've done ecstatic dance. I've done ceremonies, but I've actually just found traditional therapy helps a lot.   Tahnee: (49:07) Mm-hmm (affirmative).   Caitlin Priday: (49:08) Yeah.   Tahnee: (49:09) And I mean, in terms of your ceremonial work, what does that look like now? Because I think life is ceremony to be a bit... you know?   Caitlin Priday: (49:19) Yeah.   Tahnee: (49:21) But how do you integrate this element or this idea of ceremony into your personal life and work, given that it's something that you've obviously had a lot of experience with?   Caitlin Priday: (49:29) Hmm, it's interesting you ask that. My relationship with ceremony's interesting at the moment. Website thing keeps coming up. Yeah, it's different at the moment because I put it on the back burner a little bit. I think I've become quite masculine in the last few years. That's a product of the grief and just things I've been going through, practicality-wise. I find ritual and ceremonies very feminine and I haven't, funnily enough, made enough space for the feminine.   Caitlin Priday: (50:00) As you were saying, a lot of people are like, "Ceremony is life." And they'll poo-poo it, but actually life is... it really is ceremony. And you know, five years ago I'd build altars and light candles and incense, and it's a big show. And actually, to be honest, I think it was more of a performance. Like, "I'm so spiritual, look at the spiritual things I do."   Tahnee: (50:22) "Look how much incense I can burn." Yeah.   Caitlin Priday: (50:23) Exactly. But now I'm older and I'm more integrated. I mean, I've also done a huge ceremonial training with Sharon. And like I said, I've sat in ceremonies many times and serve cacao ceremony, blue lotus ceremony. But yeah, to be honest, now it honestly is the mundane. It's just like watering my plants or having a little bowl of food for the ancestors in my therapy room. That's really important for me. And even just ritualistically having energy hygiene in my clinic space, like a bowl of salt water for every client that comes in, or a candle when I feel like the presence of my dad. It's not such a full blown thing anymore.   Caitlin Priday: (51:06) But even just... like I got to go over and see one of my really close friend's newborn babies two days ago, and that was a ceremony. You know, flowers and-   Tahnee: (51:17) They're baby Buddhas too, you can't be in-   Caitlin Priday: (51:18) Exactly. I was like-   Tahnee: (51:20) You can be in the presence of a newborn and not be like, "Hello, special being."   Caitlin Priday: (51:23) Oh my god. That is holy.   Tahnee: (51:29) Yeah.   Caitlin Priday: (51:29) And then big ceremony in my life is being with my dad when he passed as well. My relationship is very different. I don't need to post about it on Instagram to know that I'm a ceremonial woman. You know?   Tahnee: (51:40) Yeah, it's interesting. I did a workshop earlier this year. I actually can't remember the guy's name right now, having such a blonde day. But he's a teacher from... He's been initiated to Native American lineage, but he is actually also like a pastor in the Christian tradition, and he's also just studied theology. And his point was really around... and I know this life is ceremony thing can feel sarcastic. But his point was like "It's container, it's intention." You know?   Caitlin Priday: (52:13) Mm-hmm (affirmative).   Tahnee: (52:13) It's this sort of idea of also having enclosure and then integration. And we can do this when we get in a car. We can do it when we... you know?   Caitlin Priday: (52:23) Yeah.   Tahnee: (52:23) It's like how many times you get in the car and you're on your phone and picking music and you're putting your seatbelt on and you're trying to reverse. And it's like, "Get in the car. Get clear on where you're going. Save attention. Be present with the moment." It sort of just really landed for me how much that changes in my life as well. It used to be I had to practise and I had to do this. It has to be all these things. I have to look like something. And now it's like tending my family, and my chickens, and myself. It's very boring and not particularly... Like you said, not Instagramable, but...   Caitlin Priday: (53:00) No, it's the beauty of the mundane. But I will say in terms of actual ceremony, like when somebody is intentionally running a ceremony... I just have to bring it up because...   Tahnee: (53:13) No, please.   Caitlin Priday: (53:16) ... I promised Sharon that I'd be real on the call. Because I'm a part of her lineage, and so I'm like a spokesperson for the lineage and ceremony is a big part of our lineage. I've obviously apprenticed to her and worked with her for a long time. It's unfortunate in these times where Western people want to put a dollar on Eastern practises and really sell it out, in a way. I am a very, very big advocate for people that want to run ceremony for a job or to have a financial exchange that they actually get proper training for it, because ceremony works with spirits. That is what it is. That's how it always has been. And a true ceremony needs to be run in a proper grounded container, which is also generally known as a medicine wheel. Medicine wheels are in all types of cultures. They vary depending on the culture. But even if you're Celtic, they've always had medicine wheels as well.   Tahnee: (54:28) The Daoists have the turtle.   Caitlin Priday: (54:28) Yeah, exactly. And the native Americans have got their wheel and... Anyway, so there is always somebody there is the holder and the spokesperson and the leader of that wheel, if there is a ceremony that's going on. That's why there's always wise people or sages or whatever. I do have a problem with ceremony being thrown around and I do have a problem with ceremonies being put on the internet, because I believe that true ceremony isn't shared in that way. I do think that we could do better. People that post pictures of altars and things like that, they're sacred portals, they're sacred spaces where the spirits come in to do their work. So I don't believe that posting sacred pictures online is doing that work justice. If anything, it's diluting the magic and the ritual that people have been putting their energy into.   Caitlin Priday: (55:22) It's like if you're building an alter for manifestation and then you put it on Instagram and then everybody looks at it, it can really actually do the opposite. It can actually dilute the energy from it. So ceremony is sacred, but I do believe that ceremony is also contained. And if somebody wants to run ceremony that they definitely need to get proper training because a real ceremony will bring up shadows and triggers. And if the facilitator doesn't know how to handle that and hasn't done that work themselves, you're not going to be in a good space.   Tahnee: (55:54) Hmm. I'm really glad you've said all of that. And when I think about formal ceremonies I've attended, the casualness with which an experienced facilitator operates belies how much is going on underneath the surface. I've sat with people in their 60s and 70s who have been holding ceremonies for a very long time. They seem so nonchalant and relaxed. But then if you really tune in, there's like this eagle perception of they're literally above it all, watching and holding and architecting. You know?   Caitlin Priday: (56:31) Mm-hmm (affirmative).   Tahnee: (56:32) It's just this very interesting dynamic to observe. And yes, I think that's a good distinction around, I guess, life is ceremony and our own personal relationship with that aspect. I'm a yoga teacher, and I find posting... My personal practice, I can't share it. I cannot. I've never been able to record. I watch people on Instagram. I'm like, "It's so interesting that they can record their practice." Like, I can record a class that I'm intending to share, and share it. But if it's like my practice, I'm like, "This is..." It's like recording myself having sex with my partner. It's very intimate for me. And yeah, I find it really interesting. Not to say other people are wrong, but it's just something I've never been able to cross as a boundary for myself.   Caitlin Priday: (57:18) Yeah. I mean, that's a really good point because we have to question before we post things, why are we actually posting it? Do we want validation? Do we want other people to think we're spiritual? Do we want to sell a workshop that we're bringing out in three months? You know? When something is truly sacred and intimate, why would you feel like you need other people to be involved in that? That's between you and the divine, or you and your ancestors or you and your spirit team. Yeah, I think it's a good point for us to put into the podcast. I think that would be a thing in itself.   Tahnee: (57:52) Yeah. Totally. It's like its whole-   Caitlin Priday: (57:54) I can feel the mystery between you and I going, "Well, that can be a whole other conversation."   Tahnee: (57:59) Yeah. I find this stuff... and I guess I find it valuable to discuss with people who have relationships with these things, because a part of me values that if someone saw someone's practice and was moved by their intentionality and their self connection and... I can see the value in that being a transmission that people can receive and maybe inspire them into their own version of that. You know?   Caitlin Priday: (58:27) Mm-hmm (affirmative).   Tahnee: (58:27) I get it. I get that seeing someone's alter can inspire someone else to go and maybe... I remember last year seeing pictures from people on All Hallows' Eve kind of connecting with their ancestors and I thought, "Oh, that's actually really beautiful."   Caitlin Priday: (58:45) Mm-hmm (affirmative).   Tahnee: (58:45) But I agree with you that part of me was also like, "Urgh. Did the ancestors want to be like on Instagram as well?"   Caitlin Priday: (58:52) Mm-hmm (affirmative).   Tahnee: (58:54) Yeah. And I don't have a black and white answer for it. I have a very uncomfortable relationship with social media as it is. But I do think it's interesting when it comes to these things that are deeply intimate, like how do we maybe inspire or serve others through our work and our practise, and also keep something for ourselves. So just a constant-   Caitlin Priday: (59:13) We just embody it.   Tahnee: (59:15) Yeah. Constant dance, I think.   Caitlin Priday: (59:17)

On today's show we have Josh Ford from New Age Electrical. Josh and his team are located in the Byron Shire and service the Northern Rivers and Tweed Coast. Josh and his team strive to provide the highest quality workmanship to the local community and pride themselves on reliable and efficient service to their customers. Josh and his team specialise in commercial, residential, level 2 as well as solar. Today we're going to find out some more about New Age Electrical and what makes their business tick. By the end of today's show you will have learnt from some of Josh's mistakes and, all things being equal, you'll also pick up some great hints, tips and hacks that will help you to accelerate your business and career. === Make sure you connect with Josh: Email: josh@newageelectricalco.com.au Website: https://www.newageelectricalco.com.au/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/new_age_electrical_co/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/New-Age-Electrical-Co-101117938102030 === Join our Co-Op for Free Here: https://theelectricianscoop.com/free Follow our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theelectricianscoop/ Connect with Jamie: https://www.instagram.com/proimageelectrical/ Connect with Rob: https://www.instagram.com/rob.brus77/ Visit our site: https://theelectricianscoop.com/

Sasailalim sa pitong-araw na lockdown ang Byron Shire, Kempsey at Tweed, simula ngayong alas-singko ng hapon.

The words Di Dao (Di Tao) is a concept that most of our SuperFeast community would be familiar with, as it's the way we source our herbs. Di Dao herbs are of the highest quality and grown with integrity to ensure optimal, powerful healing properties. For a herb to be classified Di Dao, it must have been grown in its natural habitat; Which means the right region, soil, and microclimate for that specific species. The beauty of Di Dao herbs is they perform optimally, much like the human body when it is holistically cared for and nourished the way it needs to be. In this episode, Mason chats with Jansen Andre on The Awoken Athlete podcast about SuperFeast's commitment to Di Dao sourcing, herbs for optimal performance, and a holistic perspective of the nuances that affect performance within the body at all levels. Mason details the integrity behind Di Dao sourcing and how it ensures the livelihood of micro-farming stays alive; Continuing the wisdom and teachings of Di Dao within communities. Whether you're an athlete or not, we're all being physically, emotionally, and mentally pushed with our hectic, under-nourished lifestyles. This episode addresses the best herbs for lifestyle support and performance on all levels.      " Di Dao. Going to the spiritual homeland of the herbs and buying and growing them there. Far away from industry. You're getting the spore or the seed from that area and making sure it's a particular microclimate in which it grows. This is based on texts over 2,000 years old that tell you how to do this."   - MasonTaylor     Mason and Jansen discuss: Qi and performance. Cordyceps and performance. Adaptogens and performance. Jing, Qi, Shen; How they work. Comparing Di Dao and organic. Preventing injury and exhaustion. Jing; nourishing a solid foundation. How to take SuperFeast tonic herbs. Di Dao; growing, sourcing, and integrity. Disease, healing, and building the body back up. The colonisation and institutionalisation around healing ourselves. Performance in business and the freedoms of staying investor-free.   Who is Mason Taylor? Mason Taylor is the founder of SuperFeast. Mason was first exposed to the ideas of potentiating the human experience through his mum Janesse (who was a big inspiration for founding SuperFeast and is still an inspiration to Mason and his team due to her ongoing resilience in the face of disability). After traveling South America for a year, Mason found himself struggling with his health - he was worn out, carried fungal infections, and was only 22. He realised that he had the power to take control of his health. Mason redirected his attention from his business degree and night work in a bar to begin what was to become more than a decade of health research, courses, education, and mentorship from some of the leaders in personal development, wellness, and tonic herbalism. Inspired by the own changes to his health and wellbeing through his journey (which also included Yoga teacher training and raw foodism!), he started SuperFeast in 2010. Initially offering a selection of superfoods, herbs, and supplements to support detox, immune function, and general wellbeing. Mason offered education programs around Australia, and it was on one of these trips that he met Tahnee, who is now his wife and CEO of SuperFeast. Mason also offered detox and health transformation retreats in the Byron hinterland (some of which Tahnee also worked on, teaching Yoga and workshops on Taoist healing practices, as well as offering Chi Nei Tsang treatments to participants). After falling in love with the Byron Shire, Mason moved SuperFeast from Sydney's Northern Beaches to Byron Bay in 2015. He lived on a majestic permaculture farm in the Byron hinterland, and after not too long, Tahnee joined him (and their daughter, Aiya was conceived). The rest is history - from a friend's rented garage to a warehouse in the Byron Industrial Estate to SuperFeast's current home in Mullumbimby's beautiful Food Hub, SuperFeast (and Mason) has thrived in the conscious community of the Northern Rivers. Mason continues to evolve his role at SuperFeast, in education, sourcing, training, and creating the formulas based on Taoist principles of tonic herbalism.   CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON APPLE PODCAST    Resources: Mason Instagram SuperFeast Instagram SuperFeast Apple Podcast The Awoken Athlete Podcast Mind and Body Peak Performance with James Newbury (EP#106)    Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast? A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We'd also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher, CastBox, iHeart RADIO:)! Plus  we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Jansen Andre: (00:00:00): All right, Mason from SuperFeast, thank you so much for coming on The Awoken Athlete podcast today. For those of you who don't know, Mason runs a beautiful company called, SuperFeast, which is based around tonic herbs. Do you want to give us a little introduction, Mason, about what you do and how did you even start?   Mason Taylor: (00:00:23): Yeah, thanks for having me on. As you said, SuperFeast is about to turn 10 years old. So I've been doing it for a while now. The majority of the time when I started out, what I wanted to end up doing was Taoist tonic herbalism. So it's that style of herbalism that springs from the classical texts of Chinese Medicine and gears more towards prevention, the cultivation of life, the cultivation of potential, having the ability to not fall into early degeneration and wasting away, which is what we see as the norm in the western world.   Mason Taylor: (00:01:01): And even though I was really interested in performance, I had that drive in my early twenties when I was exploring this to see what was possible for my body. I was really curious in that, from a business sense getting into herbs, I was really interested in the trajectory that I was on towards the 70 year old self and 80 year old self. And the only place, at the time, especially around herbalism, I could see conversation or I could see terminology around how to get into a lifestyle flow utilising things like herbs that in a western sense and even in a modern Chinese Medicine sense is used just for symptoms. If there's a problem, respond with medicines, with herbs.   Mason Taylor: (00:01:48): The Daoist approach, had a conversation of how to cultivate life so that you can put the odds in your favour more and more and more not to end up in practitioners' offices. Not that I'm averse to it. I like working with practitioners as well, but not end up institutionally dependent. I will go into terminology a bit later in describing what these, so the three foundational treasures are, in the body. So the elements that make up what either keep you functioning and stop you from degenerating, keep you large over your life and then ensure that your best self is coming through, is Jing, Qi and Shen.   Mason Taylor: (00:02:28): And I just had conversations and practises in herbal usage around how to ensure that we really guard these treasures. That just really translates to hopefully, if it's maybe a little bit more or a lot more when we enter into our elder stages. Which of course then is going to mean that throughout our entire life we're a bit more robust and healthy. When we get to those later stages, you've got a relatively strong body. Your bones aren't wasting away. That's the Jing.   Mason Taylor: (00:02:56): You're hormones in a foundational level, are able to stay adaptive and if you don't have Jing, it's what people waste away with hectic lifestyles, no sleep and all that kind of stuff. You've got lots of Jing when you're a kid and that's why you burn it at both ends, but then people keep that up and they don't adjust and they don't get wiser as they get older, therefore their bones start wasting, their hips, their body has no strength. They lose that foundational energy. That's Jing energy.   Mason Taylor: (00:03:24): And so we want to make sure that that's safeguarded as well as our Qi. That's what enables us to stay mobile and regulate our heat, regulate our fluids, move us. Basically put the spark in the machine. Living Jing is just like, just say your body is just this machine of potential and flesh and if it's not animated, it's just sitting there, you need that thing to be rock solid. You need it to be really strong and have a lot of genetic potential. That's your Jing. And then you put a spark in and it comes to life and you can move through the world and animate through the world and regulate all the functions of the body. That's the Qi.   Mason Taylor: (00:03:59): That's the other thing we want to be nice and strong in our body throughout our entire lives and then the point of that is the Shen. Which is essentially if the heart's really healthy, the heart fire, which is not just the physical heart. If all the organs are really working well and showing that the emperor that is the heart, is really flowing, then throughout our lifetime, our consciousness, our virtuous nature, are part of us that's determined to be less of an asshole and more of an awesome person that isn't projecting all over everyone and actually has the capacity to learn from experiences, go through psychological developments, let go of ideologies, step more into our own truth, so on and so forth.   Mason Taylor: (00:04:43): That comes forth and what you see then is if the Shen's really allowed to express as you get to 70 and 80 and 90, what you see in people who are just, you know, they are these people that have evolved themselves, they're not vomiting their opinion all over everybody, they're not resigned, they're not resentful, they're not fearful, they're not unable to forgive, stuck in their ways. They can be fun, they can take the piss out of themselves and they're someone who's not a burden on the family. Not that I'm not judging these things, but it's like, that's the whole conversation.   Mason Taylor: (00:05:20): That's a very diluted one around this concept of Taoism and then get rid of the word, Taoism, ancient Chinese philosophy kind of stuff. It's just humans that were just like, how can we can just make this... Just keep us healthy for as long as possible and it's not deity based. You don't have to buy into a religion or anything like that. It's just around your own potential and your own discovery path. And that's what I started to discover before I started SuperFeast and I was like, that's... I wanted to get into herbs and then I discovered there were these herbs that were in that longterm focus and intention, so I just jumped in then and I didn't focus on the herbs back then, because I didn't think there was a market for it.   Mason Taylor: (00:06:00): And then I did actual markets for years and then people were coming to me with bigger and bigger intentions around their health and I was like, well, the only thing that's really going to help from what I can offer, at least, medicinal mushrooms like Reishi, tonic herbs like Astragalus and the Lion's Manes and Ho Shou Wus and all these really, the precious herbs, the Taoists call them. The superior herbs. They call them the messengers from heaven.   Mason Taylor: (00:06:25): And so over the years I just kept on adding them in and I've started doing a few formulas and educating people about this style of herbs that is more folky and it's not about, a lot of the time, practitioners and especially modern Chinese practitioners are like, "No. Herbal practise is for us. We dish out the herbs." Like this and you can't meddle with that. And you go back to the classics and there are these herbs that are like, these are really safe. And really beautiful. And can be used with a little bit of education, as long as you're determined to keep on listening to whether you can use these in everyday life.   Mason Taylor: (00:06:59): And that's the point of it. Take out the colonisation and the institutionalisation around healing ourselves and keeping ourselves healthy. And so I educated more and more about that. And then at some point my wife, now wife, joined me in the business about five years ago. We started taking it a bit seriously, because I have a bit of Peter Pan syndrome and I run off doing whatever I bloody want all the time. And then we took it seriously and it started really taking off and now we're a decent enough company, still family owned in Mullumbimby here now. I started off in Sydney.   Mason Taylor: (00:07:28): And yeah, we have a bunch of formulas and really, a bunch of crew here, working and helping us manifest the mission to help people just take that little bit extra control of their body. Feel that sovereignty and their capacity to not just cross their fingers about not getting sick. And then also as well, having longterm intentions and just having relationships with these herbs. They're really beautiful. I mentioned a few there. It's like the Schizandras. I don't have Ginseng, but the Ginsengs, these herbs that everyone would have like... We started the Cordyceps. These herbs are, yes, they're adaptogens and people are using them in a really cool way to help their body become more adaptive and to get greater output.   Mason Taylor: (00:08:18): That's when you look at them as an adaptogen herb, a Westerner. This is an adaptogen that's going to help you adapt and get better output. And that's sick. But that's an agenda based kind of in, output, what benefit to me. And that's cool as well. I don't mind that, but an adaptogen herb, like Schizandra or Ginseng is a herb that's going to help you. It has a non-specific effect in the body. So you don't know where the markers in the body are going to go or where the energy is going to go. You just know that it's going to harmonise more. And so it's not just going to take the immune system up and stimulate it, for example.   Mason Taylor: (00:08:54): It might lower it in some situations, like autoimmune conditions. And then it has an accumulative effect on the body. So the longer you take it, the greater effect you see. And this is how the Russians describe adaptogens. And then also, it has a non-toxic, non-harmful effect on the body, which is basically what 2,000 years ago, the first medic, Shennong, was like, hey, these are the herbs you take that are non-toxic. But then, yeah, so adaptogens good, people are using them.   Mason Taylor: (00:09:22): But then tonic herbalism and Taoist philosophy and then you take away the Taoism, it's just the philosophy of having a relationship longterm with this herb to help a dream of your own or a vision of your own health stay present throughout your life. And you're an athlete and you can see a lot of athletes all of a sudden go, I really want that potential now, and it's a strong intent, but I also, I'm starting to realise that I don't want to come out the backend of my professional athletic career and be flogged.   Mason Taylor: (00:09:49): And they start thinking about their 50 and 60 year old self and so, the terminology around tonic herbalism starts helping to align your outer actions and your lifestyle to that longterm intention as well as taking a shit load of Cordyceps or whatever now, to in order to get a really good workout and recovery in this instance. So yeah, that's kind of a long way of answering your question.   Jansen Andre: (00:10:15): So, yeah. Overwhelming, but you mentioned and I know on your website that these herbs and plants you source are ancestral to China. But I read you kept it that way except for Cordyceps. Is there a reason for this?   Mason Taylor: (00:10:33): Cordyceps is in China. It's just the wild Cordyceps is really rare and expensive and unsustainable to meet the demand. And so there's a technology there to ferment it in a broth and so, still then, it's the only one, so it's our only mushroom that's not grown on wood, grown outdoors, that kind of thing. We've got a very specific sourcing philosophy that we take very serious and Cordyceps is the only one that isn't strictly Di Dao. For that reason, but we just do our best. We've got a really unique broth recipe.   Mason Taylor: (00:11:05): It's why our Cordyceps is unique and isn't just like all the other CS spores in the market. And we've got a team of herbalists who tend to it and we don't grow on grain which is a big for me. A big no no. And I definitely don't have hardcore judgement of everyone that grows mushrooms on grain, but I don't personally agree with it, because it's not the native food of a mushroom. The native food of a medicinal mushroom is wood. And there's an alchemical process that occurs when that mushroom is growing through the wood. It has an enzymatic reaction with the wood. Is eating the carbohydrates within that wild wood, right.   Mason Taylor: (00:11:45): Quite often, people are like, it doesn't really matter. You can grow on grains and oats and coffee and some people even grow on paper. And it's cheap. What we do is expensive. And having integrity a lot of the time and upholding in the sense of wanting to uphold a tradition is really expensive and a lot of people are like, look, it doesn't matter. There's similar biomarkers in the one grown on whatever, even like a [inaudible 00:12:10]. And that's what the scientific community goes, you can just pick out, that's what scientism does. You go, I'm going to pick out one variable to justify that ours is just as good as the others.   Mason Taylor: (00:12:22): But then if you go back into true science, which is thousands of years of usage and subtle understandings through thousands and thousands of practitioners and people that have laid down the foundations for science to then jump in and create variables on this kind of herbal system, there are certain things that aren't measured yet, that they are aware of. Like you need to do a complete, full extraction of that herb so that it's not just that one beta glucan or chemical that you're justifying the awesomeness of your product with. There's undiscovered chemicals which are symbiotic to the entire reason that this herb is being revered for 5,000 years knowingly. And probably further back than that.   Mason Taylor: (00:13:16): And that's why we just kind of let them speak for themselves. People often find a really science data, we're data driven, but a real, pick a variable and market it kind of product and then people are like, that's good. And then they'll kind of want more, because they don't want to just trust that it's good and good stuff's happening. A lot of people will find our stuff and then they'll take it and there's a little "je nais se quois," a little special something that's present in the herb that they'll go, oh, it just feels a bit different. And yeah, when you get longterm, you feel more safe and comfortable taking something that is complete and it's been grown in the way as close to possible that our ancestors and our immune system have evolved taking it.   Mason Taylor: (00:13:58): And so there's a special little softness and trust that you can ease in and as well, then placebos start getting activated which just means you're not anxious and tense and just you're not trusting the mind's data and believing in marketing. You can feel that there's something with substance and essence going into your body. And that's why, and I'm definitely not the only one doing it, this is a very ancient tradition, growing herbs Di Dao. Going to the spiritual homeland of the herbs and buying and growing them there. Far away from industry. You're getting the spore or the seed from that area and making sure it's a particular micro climate in which you're growing in. This is based on texts over 2,000 years old that tell you how to do this.   Mason Taylor: (00:14:47): And people are like, oh, but it's not organic. And it's like, yeah, you can buy organic certifications very easy and I like organic certification, but the way I... I could go organic really quickly. Or I could drop, I'd have to pay through the nose. It's exorbitant what these people expect me to send out there. It's a big business which is I'm like, well, I don't need to get you out, just pay you thousands and thousands to go to every single little micro farm. And these are micro farmers. These are villagers who we're growing from and that's why organic farms are these huge growing operations, which are really good and can do high output.   Mason Taylor: (00:15:30): And they're doing it really well, a lot of the time, but they're doing it in a way that's not, you can't go right up into the mountains and grow in that capacity. And you can't do it with wild wood in that capacity in order to cheaply be able to just get that person out to certify organic, that big farm, indoor lab that you're doing. As good as it is. And I really, like a lot of my friends who are competitors who do that, because they're then able to do actually do mass market stuff. But for me to go organic, I'd have to dramatically take a back step in effectiveness. Because I'm a little, first of all, I'm a small company and we also support people in the village, say where we're growing Reishi.   Mason Taylor: (00:16:13): Like one of our farmers, Mr. Li, is training other people in the village so that there's actually jobs locally. That's localising the industry. It's keeping it traditional. It's keeping it family owned. It's not this huge herb, these overarching companies that own all the farmers and tell them, like me having investors telling me you can't do it that way. You need to work this way. And I'm like, no, no, no, but we're going to lose the integrity and they're like, look, it doesn't really matter. If people don't know about that standard that you set and then majority of people won't really give a shit. And we're like, no, but I give a shit and that's the same with the farmers. They give a shit upholding this tradition and they know if they produce the best Di Dao herbs and we have people who know how to test that, try it.   Mason Taylor: (00:17:00): I know how to test it, try it and go, hey, the quality is, this never happened, but I've done it before when I was doing my testing of right in the beginning of knowing that they say that's Di Dao, but that's not true. And you grill them. They go, oh yeah, that's actually a commercial spore that we're growing with. It's not a wild spore, Reishi, from the area in which we're growing, because that's hard to do. And so, yeah, it's a very difficult thing to do, growing in this way. But it connects you to something. It connects you, you're going back to the source of these, why these herbs were revered and so those farmers that are growing this way know that there is an impact, a viability of their product, if they make it the absolute best possible and don't compromise.   Mason Taylor: (00:17:53): They know that there are companies like mine that will buy that top notch Di Dao product. And so we get a little, we get Mr. Li teaching a young woman locally, how to grow Reishi and the first few years she might not be doing the absolute best, but there might be a little bit of crème de la crème that we will be able to buy off her in the beginning. And we've got people going out there and making sure the area is clean. We test in TGA labs for pesticides, metals, aflatoxins, all and beyond, and then all these things that actually aren't needed to be tested for, but we do, in China and in Australia.   Mason Taylor: (00:18:32): And so what I would need to do for organic is send out this guy who charges thousands of dollars in order for me to maintain this little thing that they think is a marketing hole in one, is having an organic symbol. And pay him a thousand dollars to go this woman's farm, check it out, pay them, whatever, three thousand dollars a night for them to stay over the night and then go back and do some other little testing in order for them to go, yeah, I'm going to tell you what you knew already. It's good. There's no pesticides in the area. And is that worth it in order to support the localization? It's good, I want to support this woman, but I'm not getting enough Reishi, but I want to support her.   Mason Taylor: (00:19:17): And so these are the nuances of behind the scenes of how our company works. And I know you started talking about Cordyceps and we just went into discussing why it's a good question, why isn't Cordyceps at that same level as the other herbs. And it's just because we can't leave the crop in abundance. It's like Reishi. We don't do Reishi wild anymore. We did when we started. And now it just got too popular. Before it became an issue, we opted out and went to the best possible farming practise. And we've done that with Schizandra as well. In the beginning it was just like, there's just no way we're going to be able to ever get through this much wild Schizandra that's in Changbai Mountain and sure enough, yeah, actually when this probably doesn't seem too healthy.   Mason Taylor: (00:20:03): And we work with good local governments. We move provinces in China if they're irresponsible with the land management which I know people who like China, that's not true, actually no, it is true. There are local governments, some that are like ours, that are really harshly regulating the population of pine trees or the amount of pine nuts that are up in the Changbai forest and soon to be the only amount of Chaga that's been harvested in order to maintain and preserve. So we work with that, but then go beyond that just to make sure we don't strip the environment. You've got to leave it better than you found it.   Mason Taylor: (00:20:44): So yeah, we've gone now to, I think, the majority farming of... You know, it's still incredible Schizandra. It's still in the wild. It's still the most amazing Schizandra being pumped out, but it just makes it a little bit better for everyone. But yeah, I can't do that with Cordyceps. So do that in a broth.   Jansen Andre: (00:21:03): So you're adjusting, from what I gather from that, determining, depending on how popular or how much of a certain thing you're selling, you have to go back and look, is it possible to keep getting it from the same source?   Mason Taylor: (00:21:21): It's a never ending analysis. So the biggest at the moment is Chaga. So the last time I was in China, we were going up to Chagang to harvest Chaga up in, near the North Korean border, it's a mountain called, Changbai Mountain, a national park there. And they were just moving in the direction of, it sounded like there were some, the way it worked is the guys that would go in, they'd go on week expeditions to go and harvest Chaga, because it's quite deep where you go and they've been doing it for 20 years, at least.   Mason Taylor: (00:21:56): So they know how to ensure that they're not stripping so much that they're not going to have a crop for the next year or in five years and 10 years. A lot of them are getting their kids ready to do this as well. But now it was getting popular, so we're like, okay, it was getting a few two minute noodle harvesters, as I call them. As always. Going like, I can do this. But the barrier to entry seems to be holding. It's a skillset that can't just be, people just can't all of a sudden know how to go and find the Chaga. There's snakes and shit and people are scared of going there and doing these expeditions. So the barrier to entry seems like enough, but I've already talked to my team over there and been like, let's just watch it.   Mason Taylor: (00:22:47): Because North American Chaga is not being managed really well. Now it's starting to, but it's not a sustainable harvesting of Chaga that's going on in North America and people think it's the same happening in China. And it's not at that point yet and the government's also about to start regulating and licencing the people that can go in to this particular area to harvest Chaga. They've already done it with pine nuts and it's really, they're not just a little slap on the wrist. You get really scorned if you go and break those rules.   Mason Taylor: (00:23:17): And so yeah, we haven't had to do that yet for Chaga, but I've got a back up source that's my second favourite place to get Chaga from, if need be. But yeah, that's an example of keeping our finger on the pulse. And with Poria, for example. Poria, really not well known in this kind of, in my community. Maybe my community a little bit more, but a really popular Chinese herb. Not so much in the adaptogen community, Poria mushroom isn't really well known. And it requires pine to grow and so wild pine is what you want. And the primary place to grow Di Dao in the centre of China, the government wasn't regulating the harvesting of pine.   Mason Taylor: (00:24:05): And so, even though the people we would work with, we're pretty sure, especially because they ended up moving with the operation, but they were adhering to harvesting methods that weren't going to be stripping the whole ecosystem. The government wasn't regulating it and so there were people around taking advantage and it leaves a bad vibe on it and so you don't want that vibe. And you can't do Di Dao if you're involved in something that isn't going to sustainably leave the environment as it is. So we went to our second ideal place to grow Di Dao down in Jinlun province.   Mason Taylor: (00:24:41): And there, the government harshly regulates for each person how much pine you're going to be able to go and harvest. Where you can harvest. Ensuring that you're planting and contributing back to the replanting to the extent where it's like we'll go and trek up and ask you to show where you've harvested yours and then if they find anything else in the vicinity, they'll investigate it and have it be marked as being a particular farmer's quota. And so those are the things that go in behind the scenes that people don't realise to actually grow a Di Dao herb and that's why it's hard.   Mason Taylor: (00:25:15): You can imagine, it's like oh, screw this. Well, let's just get pine from a domestic pine farm. But that's, of course, it's so easy and that needs to be happening to an extent, because you can't give the world how much Poria it needs of all wild pine. But there is a way and maybe it stops at some point. I don't know. Maybe at some point I need to just have, all right, here's the Di Dao range and then here's the other range. Here's the one that's maybe a little more for widespread consumption. But yeah, at the moment we don't have to do that. But yeah, that's everything that kind of, the other stuff that goes in behind the scenes.   Jansen Andre: (00:25:56): Very interesting. It seems like a very intense and long process as well as people putting their lives on the line in terms of wild animals and nature and stuff to go and forage and harvest these herbs. I just want to strip it back, right back for people that are unaware of adaptogens and herbs. What would be a reason that somebody would consider taking medicinal mushrooms or tonic herbs and what are the main few that you focus on at SuperFeast that you would include in say, your average person's daily consumption that you would consider the most important. Considering we live in such a Yang, fast lifestyle.   Mason Taylor: (00:26:51): Good question, man, good question. There's many directions I could take why people take tonic herbs. I'll start seeing if I can rattle them off and not distract myself. So clinically, the tonic herbs in general, a lot of them are used in formulas in order to overcome particular disease states. But I leave that to a practitioner. The intention of tonic herbalism isn't, and my formulas, for instance, isn't to treat disease states.   Mason Taylor: (00:27:27): But when you're in that instance where you're working with a practitioner, say how they would use it is perhaps they would get you onto medicinal mushrooms alongside a treatment... A really good example is chemo. There's a lot of people who have identified that you can take medicinal mushrooms alongside the chemo. So a lot of people are out there going to medicinal mushrooms, specifically for the treatment of cancer. And there are institutions researching that and there are countries that utilise that in their actual conventional medical system. But that's something that we're not at that place yet.   Mason Taylor: (00:28:11): But there are a lot of practitioners that have realised that having medicinal mushrooms going into conjunction to cancer treatments like chemo and radiotherapy, the intent there being to ensure that the body isn't destroyed by the treatment itself. So keeping the immune system adept, strong, activated. So that's one area where people might use tonic herbs or a practitioner might use tonic herbs.   Mason Taylor: (00:28:38): In the convalescence stage of a disease, so the healing and the building back. So after you've undergone... Someone with, I'm just trying to think of an example, if someone's gone through two years of hyperthyroidism and they've been undergoing lots of little micro herbal treatments and hormone therapies and they get to a point where they're feeling, okay, I don't feel like I'm sick anymore, but those years absolutely wasted me. And took it out of me mentally, spiritually, emotionally, physically. And so at that point tonic herbs are going to have a lot to do with the rebuilding of the body, right? That's when they're really beautiful and tonifying. They can tonify functions of the body.   Mason Taylor: (00:29:28): There's also, we could say the same for preparing for big surgeries. Preparing the body for huge medical treatments and that doesn't just have to be things like chemo. There are a lot of herbal treatments or even someone who's sick and flies over to Mexico and is getting that hypothermia treatment and they're doing the oxygenation of the blood and they're doing lots of colonics and whatever it is. Those take a lot out of the body. You need a lot of strength and so people would use tonic herbs to strengthen the body and prepare it in those instances.   Mason Taylor: (00:30:06): Then there are people who are looking to, they're looking to prevent injury, prevent acute illness, thinking about just preventing illness in the future, preventing exhaustion creeping in the future. They watch their parents' minds kind of waste away, their brains kind of waste away or the bones waste away. And so there's an intent around prevention. And a lot of people are starting to realise that there is this class of herbs that are basically herbal foods that can assist you and might not be perfect and there's no guarantees, but it's like, why are we going and upgrading the quality of our water from tap to filtered to maybe the best spring water we can find and adding in some hydrogen.   Mason Taylor: (00:30:58): Why are we going from yeah, cool, I'm getting organic veggies from the health food store to try and include some wild foods in your diet. It's because you're upgrading and potentiating and trying to get these habits to norms that will mineralize the body and potentiate the body. Tone the water of your body into this beautiful crystaline substance that can help you maintain a high quality of life for longterm. And that's the same with tonic herb intention. And so there's that instance.   Mason Taylor: (00:31:31): There are people who will take it further from the Taoist intention who want to cultivate longevity. And that can be the longevity of your ability to undergo big psychological evolutions and initiations. So a lot of people have the strength to really get past maybe that leap from 50 years old. It's going to take, all of a sudden everything that you'd identified as important and what makes you up, becomes less important internally to you. But you don't have the ability to let go of that identity, shed the skin and go into that next phase of your life. Because it's scary and I don't have judgement of that.   Mason Taylor: (00:32:17): I've had to learn. It's been tough for me, even just going, feeling from 30 and becoming a new dad and identifying with being one particular way and then all of a sudden having a business and needing to land, basically. And not just be flying off with the fairies and so on and so forth. All these different little changes and shifts that happen throughout our lives. To be able to move through them with a skip and a step. That takes a lot. And just in order to ensure that our bones stay healthy. People want longevity for the sake of making sure the kidneys are healthy. The kidneys regulate the bone marrow, the brain, the dewy substances.   Mason Taylor: (00:32:54): The brain in Taoism is considered marrow. So ensuring that that aspect of the body is supported by its core organ so that we have greater capacity to think in really complex ways and feel in really complex ways when we're older. Basically, all that comes down to in Daoism as an intention, is cultivation of life. Cultivation of the treasures. Our Jing, our Qi, our Chen. And cultivation can literally be as we burn through it. Because you only have a certain amount of Jing, say, like the wax of the candle. As you burn through it, you add a little bit more on.   Mason Taylor: (00:33:30): Well, that's actually adding a little bit more, it's more so keep living off Qi. Keeping living off breath, diet, the herbs and that's the energy you use to get through the day and you don't have to take the wax off the candle and put like a coal burning oven. And get your energy in a non-sustainable way. If you burn through your Jing too early, you're going to not have the foundations the thrive. And you might live a long time, but people are really dying a long time.   Mason Taylor: (00:34:02): So that whole intention around longevity in that sense, which our culture does not value as much as, really supporting people to become elders, in a sense that they're healthy and that they're in this capacity to share their wisdom lovingly and willingly with younger generations. That doesn't exist that much. You need to take that into your own sovereign intention. And so in that sense, that all comes down to there are transformation of energy going on through your organs at all times as it continues to circulate. And that transformation is Yin Yang, Yin Yang, Yin Yang, Yin Yang.   Mason Taylor: (00:34:47): And that's just your capacity for your Qi to transform smoothly and constantly, which means you're going to constantly have emotions and they can constantly transform and lead you in places where you can get a little bit of a virtue going. And then the fear comes back and boom, boom. So that's all that. And then when you go in on that, that's the five organ system, the Wuxing, five elements. Even though the elements is a rough translation. So the whole point is to ensure that the energy is moving through the heart and the spleen and the lung and the kidneys and the liver and it's able to just transform.   Mason Taylor: (00:35:28): Yin Yang, Yin Yang. And that's like that fire Qi. It's just a Yin Yang transformation of Qi going from substance, from something of Yin and consolidation to the Yang through expression and movement in unique ways. And in the heart, it kind of like, ah, that reminds me of fire. It feels like fire and in the spleen, it goes to the spleen. That's really earthy and soil kind of phase transforming through the kidneys. It's like, ah, it's got that water quality. It's just a feeling of what's out there is also in here. But it's really simple. Just, your lifestyle just keeps it going. Just keeps it transforming.   Mason Taylor: (00:36:10): And if you're transforming smoothly, you're not wasting your Jing, Qi and Shen. And at some point you can cultivate your Jing, Qi and Shen. The idea, so you're less of an asshole and more of an awesome person when you get older and you're quite healthy. So that's another intention there. And that's probably the reasons why people would get attracted to it and then now it's as well. People are just, I need my brain to be on this morning, so I'm drinking Neural Nectar. This incredible herbs supporting that marrow of the brain and other areas that I know translate to me feeling sharp and there's blood flow through the marrow. I can feel wit and cloudy and supplementing of the kidney energy that's supporting that what we see as mental capacity.   Mason Taylor: (00:36:54): So in a Western sense, the Nootropics. They're just helping me nourish the brain, getting some L-dopa in from the Mucuna. Helping me to regulate my moods, so on and so forth. So I also have very micro, not a lot of the time, probably an 80/20 macro intention to micro intention. But there's a micro intention today, because I've got this podcast and I'm having someone on mind, I want to make sure that I can talk and think in really lateral ways without using what's actually not there to be used. You know what I mean?   Mason Taylor: (00:37:31): And so there's that as well. And that's kind of where it falls, you know, take Cordyceps before you work out so that your lung is nourished in full Qi flow, so it can function in its Western pulmonary capacity, blood oxygenating capacity, in a better way. While it nourishes the kidney energy and balances out the Yin Yang in the kidneys which is where strength and endurance and power emerges from, if that Qi is flowing. And so do a little short term. Yeah, have that Cordy before an event so that I'm feeling really incredible and that little bit of extra capacity. But then eventually, that becomes, huh, I can embody that at all times and not have reliance on the herb to do it in an immediate manner. Yeah.   Jansen Andre: (00:38:19): So back on what you were originally just talking about with Cordyceps and different types of adaptogens, what about an athlete? What would be the most useful kind of tonic herb or adaptogen to use to increase performance, prevent injury and be mentally sharp and clear for everyone listening. Say, for instance, someone was about to go and compete, about to go and do an endurance event, in the lead up to the event, would you say use it for four weeks to gain, I know you were saying before it's accumulative as well on the body. What's kind of your thoughts on that and timeframe with consuming something like that to get the best benefit of it so that when it comes to race day, you're ready?   Mason Taylor: (00:39:18): It's sooner the better. Day before is awesome as well. The intention is, maybe people can relate with say, their breath work. Maybe they're like, oh cool, I'm going to start doing some breath work for this event and wow, that really helped me get prepared and I feel like I had greater output and recovery during the event. I'm going to do that again for the next event and then the one afterwards, they just never stop the breath work, because it's like, ah, this helps me feel good all the time. And all of a sudden it becomes like drinking water or having a smoothie or whatever.   Mason Taylor: (00:39:56): That's generally where tonic herbalism is going to land you and you'll realise it's got three intentions, they say. A really direct one in order that you might pick up the usage of particular herbs, which I'll get into soon, before an event in order to ensure that specifically your lungs are really potentiated and your kidneys as well are really potentiated during the event. So you have a high athletic performance while you're actually in there.   Mason Taylor: (00:40:23): So that's the first and then you might pick up some of those herbs at the beginning, in the weeks leading up. Then you're going to have herbs for your recovery to ensure that you haven't, you want to ensure that you in flogging yourself, you're not "flugging" the substance of your body. And I'll get into those as well. And then there's going to be just your everyday regular intention, like taking your medicinal mushrooms, like a Mason Taylor:'s Mushrooms blend that we've got.   Mason Taylor: (00:40:50): It's got a lot of herbs that will help potentiate you for the event, but you might not have that association. In the lead up, you might want to go focus on things like Cordyceps and Astragalus and the Qi herbs and the Yang herbs to help you get ready for that. So that might just lock into a... And then when I'm just between events and I'm just wanting to keep myself healthy and going, then I'll take my Mason Taylor:'s Mushrooms or there might be something else that you're interested in, like Schizandra.   Mason Taylor: (00:41:16): Ironically, all the tonic herbs are going to help. But some of them just have the brand and the proclivity to help an athlete perform much more. So let's have a look at where you're going to be at in the build up and I've mentioned them already. There's going to be a combination of, a lot of the time it's the Jing herbs and the Qi herbs which people are going to be more attracted to when wanting output. And that is also going to depend on how sustainable your recovery is in training and your lifestyle is in training.   Mason Taylor: (00:41:54): If you are really good at sleeping and really good at taking days off and really good at getting into your parasympathetic nervous system regularly, and not feeling fearful. You're not an athlete, you're not looking for performance out of fear constantly, because you're not an enough, you know. There's an actual, really soulful intent that isn't, your identity isn't dependent on the outcome. That shift's going to mean that your athletic intentions aren't going to leak your Jing as much as someone that is doing those things.   Mason Taylor: (00:42:30): So not to put, that's all of us. We're all learning through this process of getting into the dojo and a lot of the time, while we're younger we're not going to be very good at it, so a lot of athletes really like the Jing herbs. So the Jing formula, Cordyceps is another amazing one. I'll even throw Schizandra and the Beauty Blend that we've got over at SuperFeast into that one. It's going to really ensure that you actually have the substance in your kidneys to feed the power and the strength and the adrenaline.   Mason Taylor: (00:43:04): When you're leading up into that, Cordyceps kind of takes the reins. I know, I don't like, I'm pretty a lot of people fall into the tonic herb space who do like Yang herbs, like Deer Antler Velvet, there's a tonic by ant that people will get into or it might be Tongkat Ali and other beautiful tonic herbs. Siberian Ginseng, Rhodiola, these are those going over towards these Yang tonic herbs that will take the substance of your body.   Mason Taylor: (00:43:34): So it will take, say, the water of your body that holds all your power and strength in the Yin of the kidneys and the Yang will start heating it up and turning it into vapour in your body. And so that you become really lubricated and that power and that potential in the water is spread through the entirety of your body and germinating the Jing so that you can really express. That's what the Yang is about and why you're going to be attracted to those Yang herbs.   Mason Taylor: (00:43:59): A lot of the time, a primary example is the Cordyceps. And that's why Jing herbs are really popular going in, but if you are feeling really good with your lifestyle and your recovery and everything, at some point you'll see a switch go over the main herbs that you're going to use to prepare for are the Qi herbs, like Astragalus, Ginseng, White Atractylodes, Codonopsis, even Poise. And they are like, so I've got a Qi formula which people will, all of the athletes will go, yeah, Jing. Oh my God, the Jing and the Cordyceps, that's like, I need these and I can feel them feeding me.   Mason Taylor: (00:44:39): But at some point they click over into, they feel like they've got a good flow that they're always ready to perform and then they go, uh huh, now I just need to bring a refinement by the way that I animate myself and I move myself and they start tonifying. And this is an interesting one, because the Cordyceps is a Jing and Qi tonic. And this is why it's the perfect intro for people. But then they start adding in Astragalus and the Qi formula and all of a sudden their lungs' ability to bring in vitality and energy to the body, so it can animate itself and not get fatigued, that's what becomes more important and you've always got the foundation of your Jing through your lifestyle and maybe taking of Jing herbs in your recovery stage. Does that make sense?   Jansen Andre: (00:45:28): Yeah. Yeah, wow. I was literally just about to ask you about the Qi blend. As you describe on your website, the Energy Blend, but it is a slower building effect on the body in terms of stimulant and hit as per se.   Mason Taylor: (00:45:43): Yeah, it's a slower build, because most people don't have the foundations within the kidneys in order to really get the most out of their diet and their spleen to produce Qi and the Qi that you're extracting from the air. But that is the true, they combine the Gong Qi that you get from your food, from cooking your food and the Gong Qi that you get from breathing. Your body harvests that and combines that and then there's Yin Yang expressions of that.   Mason Taylor: (00:46:20): One goes to the surface of the body and it's known as your Wei Qi and the other goes through the organs and the meridians and charges the organs so that you've got daily function. That's constantly happening. And so it's a more direct Qi, but in the beginning, people need to experience their own Jing, because everyone's trying to just have heaps of Qi energy immediately without having the foundation. So they need to take the Jing herbs, they need to learn how to sleep and recover and being Yin, because otherwise see what happens. People are constant heating up all their waters and creating vapour. What happens if you don't replenish the water?   Mason Taylor: (00:46:56): Boom, you become deficient. And so once you do have that good flow, so I like talking like James Newbury, the crossfit guy in my podcast, because our first podcast, he was just like, it was all recovery. And I was like, yeah, good message. And so for a lot of people listening, Jing's going to give them those, holy shit, I feel so good on the Jing. And they think it's giving them this energy. But no, it's all of a sudden you're plugging holes and you're not used to the holes being plugged and you're not used to holding onto the water. You're used to constantly needing to replenish the water.   Mason Taylor: (00:47:31): I don't know what that is in the athletic community, but it's like energy drinks, coffee. Doing all hardcore Yang breath practises so that you've got some oxygen coursing through your veins and so you start becoming less dependent on these extreme ways to get energy into yourself. But once you've done that, to an extent, not that I don't like these things. They can just be done sustainably. Once you've done those, then you start doing the Qi tonics and then it starts, you really start feeling the quick vitality come back.   Mason Taylor: (00:48:04): But it's just a really good way for people to know if you're not feeling like there's a... If you can't feel with the Qi herbs that you've got a really good, slow build of energy occurring, it's like, okay, maybe I don't have the foundation. You can do your Qi herbs, your Qi blend, alongside Jing herbs, Jing formula. There's no rules. You make your own way. I need to make rules so people feel like they have a framework to enter, but really, you can just go slow and steady.   Mason Taylor: (00:48:32): There are no rules in tonic herbalism. It's your herbal practise, but then that's why we're here to help you as you go. Change the framework to make it more unique, but I also have to give a general one when you're entering. And yeah, so then at that point the Qi herbs is what you find eventually, it's the bridge. The Shen is what connects you to the heaven. Your virtuous nature, your kindness, your generosity. Which is also really at some point in your athletic career, you realise it's really important to cultivate as well, right?   Mason Taylor: (00:49:10): Your ability to accept. Your natural ability, so on and so forth. Staying humble if you're like an absolute maniac and naturally the best ever. That Shen, heavenly, virtuous nature is really a beautiful thing that you're going to need to cultivate as well, so maybe your Shen herbs is something as well that you take in the aftermath in order to process. How did I feel when that person that I used to be better than has started beating me? How am I feeling about that? And processing that. That can be the Shen blend in herbs like Albizzia Flower, Asparagus Root, Reishi, Pearl or Oyster Shell. Again, not plant based, but these are those herbs and they've got a Chen formula there.   Mason Taylor: (00:50:00): And it can be part of the Shen formula, because it's not vegan, then just Reishi on its own and even again, like Schizandra is also a really beautiful shen tonic in itself, but you can sit and contemplate, how did I feel about that win? What does that win mean to me? And how can I, what is now my, did it feel vacant? Did it feel amazing? Chen is really that processing stage as well, so that can be really useful and that, but that's the heavenly. The earth based, just being a physical body is the Jing. And so a lot of the time you will see Taoists and people who get really just clicking to auto mode with the herbs, will just constantly be on the Qi tonics.   Mason Taylor: (00:50:43): And that's the mushrooms as well, mostly. Munda mushrooms, like the Chaga, Lion's Mane, Poria, Reishi to an extent, Maitake, Shiitake, Turkey Tail, Tremella, they all have a proclivity for regulating water in the body through a spleen function and heavily a lung function, heavily a regulation of Qi through the liver function, so they're seen as those middle to good Shen, Qi, Jing. Qi is really helping you translate and be that bridge between heaven and earth, which is what the Taoists see that we are, bringing virtuous nature. Generosity, kindness, love, infinite love, to the absolute physical realm. And where we've got the capacity through Qi to bridge those two dimensions.   Mason Taylor: (00:51:34): And so you'll find people in automatic mode. You'll click into just taking medicinal mushrooms and Qi herbs. And that will just be keeping you, because that just keeps the spark in the machine. Your lifestyle's keeping the machine healthy and not flogging it and recovering. You know you've got a Gong to put in practise and maybe spending time in nature so you're naturally cultivating that Shen a lot of the time, because you have a desire to be as good a person as you possibly could be. Not that good, bad has anything to do with it.   Mason Taylor: (00:52:03): And so you just take the Qi to kind of, so that you're getting the most out of your breath, the most out of your food. You have a good diet. You're not too stressed out all the time, so you can actually breathe. You don't have to do crazy where I'm half breathing all the time in order to get that breath. Although they're really cool as well, all of a sudden your whole lifestyle's geared towards keeping the spark in the machine moving and keep everything regulating so you're evolving and just living as harmoniously as possible.   Mason Taylor: (00:52:32): And then at times you might spill over and go, cool, I'm in winter now. I'm getting off coffee for 30 days and taking Jing. We've got a 30 days of Jing challenge. And you go, cool, I'm going sit and really consider my kidneys and my fear and look into the deep waters of my body and cultivate that Jing. That kidney water energy where the Jing is kept. You have to look at your mortality at that point, what that means and see what arises from that fear. Feel like, oh, what was useful fear? Just actually keeping you alive. And then where's it irrelevant or irrational fear? So there might be times when you go really deep into the kidney Jing herbs for that emotional intention as well.   Mason Taylor: (00:53:17): And then you're kind of like, cool, now I just need to not think about my tonic herbal practise and just click in a order with the mushrooms and the Qi herbs. Or whatever. For a long time, people are going to just be clicking into just, oh cool, I'm just taking Jing herbs. And that's fine as well. Again, there's no rule, but you just got to listen and check in every now and then to adjust.   Jansen Andre: (00:53:39): So let's talk about a framework. It's obviously an intuitive kind of practise of taking these herbs, but say for instance someone is constantly jacked and hyped all the time. They're not focusing on their breathing. They're not doing meditation and they're constantly tired. But they want to find that inner Qi and they want to get back to ground zero and get grounded. What would you say, how would they all start to include these to channel that?   Mason Taylor: (00:54:11): I mean, okay, so let's look at your really, if you're really looking at longterm, that that's your identity and you don't really know your body and you don't really know the path back to harmony, because you've gone too far off into power lifting or the triathlons or whatever it is. And a lot of the time, and I've been there heavily with my identification of being this perfect, healthy specimen. I've had a long time as a raw foodist, pretty much a vegan vegan, it was kind of where I was coming from. And it was really great for me, but at some point I went way too far off centre into my own ideological dogma.   Mason Taylor: (00:54:53): And then I just in tracking back took a long time. And I enjoyed that process. So it's like, if you're willing and wanting to do it on your own, then very good. But it's going to be a slow process and it's going to be a matter of you slowly getting the terminology that can help explain where you're at. Maybe that's a Western terminology, maybe that's a classical Chinese Medicine terminology of whether it's a Yang deficiency, primarily, or a Yin deficiency or maybe it's just like in a hyper way, your inner sympathetic nervous system creates excess cortisol, maybe.   Mason Taylor: (00:55:31): It doesn't matter what. You need a terminology and a framework to take you back to centre. And if you're too far off it's just, cut the time and go find a classical acupuncturist or maybe a really good naturopath who can do your markers. And so that way, just to start with, I'll say that, because if you're feeling a bit lost and anxious about it, that's a way, in a grounded way, to do it with tonic herbalism is really good, but it's a big stab in the dark that might not actually hit the specifics for your treatment.   Mason Taylor: (00:56:06): Because that's potentially, you're on a trajectory towards early degeneration or not. And so although it might be like a lot of lifestyle factors, like adding in some tonic herbs, starting to getting some Jing yoga in or some Qi Gong into your practise, like all these kinds of things, they're going to be lifestyle things that you're going to want to work on. At the same time, your proclivity and need to go that extreme, is something that you'll need to address. And you need to get really in touch with your body. So although it's not seen as a real symptomatic illness or anything at that point, you want a practitioner. Because you don't get too many opportunities in your life where you clock onto that intent to come back into harmony and live in harmony for longterm, and you want to take advantage of that opportunity really quick and really work with someone to get an understanding of exactly who you are and what your body is and how it relates.   Mason Taylor: (00:57:01): And a classical acupuncturist can really help you go like, look, you're... You know, for me, me and a friend, we both are entrepreneurs. One of us is more geared towards a Yang deficiency, the other more towards a Yin deficiency. For me it's a Yin deficiency, for him it's a Yang deficiency. And so, just little things for him are really specific. For Yang it's sitting on the surface of the body and you go and do extreme saunas. You're wasting, you're releasing all of your Yang. And so it's not really a useful thing to do and so maybe getting in the sauna without having that excess sweating.   Mason Taylor: (00:57:35): So those are little things that where it's going... And for me it's otherwise. For me it's the end action of the substance and the Yin of the body, is what I'm constantly needing to adjust my lifestyle to cultivating. I'm not someone as well who does run on Yang. I'm a very Yang type person, but then I'm able to see over the last four years, at some point I hit this, I had an identity about being this outspoken, I'm this huge personality and I'm Yang and I'm achieving, but at some point what clicked in, which is something that's on all of my charts, if you look at my human design and my astrology and all those kind of things, at some point I need to come back and do a cave and reflect over the last few years. It's far out.   Mason Taylor: (00:58:24): I've been constantly drawn back to just being in darkness and in a hovel and I've kind of judged myself for doing that. And going like, why am I doing this? Why my like is, why am I not out achieving? So on and so forth. But when I start actually working with, I can actually, whether it's through a bit of therapy, a practitioner or majority is just getting my own reflection back into forgiveness of myself and love of myself constantly. I know when it's like, now I need a little click on the ear to stop whinging and get up and do something which you know is right for yourself. Or when it's like, hey, you've got to listen to yourself right now.   Mason Taylor: (00:59:04): And in that instance it's because I've gone really towards Yin depletion and so for me then I just kind of, then I need to find my way and to live sustainably so that I don't chronically do that to myself and then have to have these episodes where I just can't see anyone. That's not a healthy way to be. And so you've got to listen. But, and then coming back to the fact that someone's being extreme in the athletic world. Just generally, you're going to want to start getting onto some Jing herbs, because generally, you would have depleted yourself.   Mason Taylor: (00:59:40): The Jing formula I've just got there is a neutral balanced Yin Yang. It doesn't throw you through fire in any direction. Generally really good for the population to start, giving you the experience of your kidney water Qi flowing so that you can feel that you're not wasting anymore. You're not leaking it. And then with that you maybe notice a distinction around ah, maybe I should drop some coffee and maybe you can just do some good sleep and then so that's a good entry.   Mason Taylor: (01:00:06): And then the mushrooms. Because they're just so all over the place regulating of the body and protecting of the body. It's like a formula, like the Mason Taylor:'s Mushrooms formula, if you want capsules, like the Mushroom M8. And other brands as well. If anyone ever has any questions about other brands, I'm not precious. I just do SuperFeast, because I learned, I had a problem for years and years about talking about my own company. I don't know why, this is my thing.   Mason Taylor: (01:00:34): I didn't like having products and felt uncomfortable with it, but I can see people listening to me, listening to this podcast, SuperFeast is there as a place for them to access these really precious herbs so I do just talk about it in the SuperFeast context, but feel free to send me others if you just want me to give you a heads up on different things.   Mason Taylor: (01:00:54): The mushrooms are just, they're in every organ. Like a formula like that, they're in every organ. They're immunologically getting yourself potentiated and modulated and so a lot can just start going right when you get onto the mushrooms. And you just start there. And you do two months and you start with a quarter teaspoon of the extract powder and then you maybe get up to a teaspoon. Some people are more sensitive, they like just a half a teaspoon. Some people, whether it's the Mason Taylor:'s or the Jing formula, some people are like, my body wants two heaped teaspoons a day. Is that okay?   Mason Taylor: (01:01:28): So, yes. Listen to your body. And that might happen for a week. Sometimes people do that for two months. I took mushrooms, two tablespoons of mushrooms of Chaga and Reishi for two years, basically, straight. Every day. Pretty much. But that was because I'm very extreme. Always very excess too. I found a pendulum, my pendulum doesn't swing so far anymore, but that's my personality and what I needed to do in order to initiate myself into the world that I'm in right now and really understand the mushrooms. But what's important, is as much to listen to that part of you that wants to up the dose, is to listen to that part of you that knows when it's time to down the dose.   Mason Taylor: (01:02:10): And not, because the tonic herbs are beautiful and you don't form

We're bringing you a special edition on the podcast today, as Mason steps out of the interviewer seat and is interviewed by Tommy Moore on the Mind Body Plants Podcast. If you've ever wanted to listen to Mason go through the entire SuperFeast apothecary in both poetic and articulate detail; What's in the mindfully curated blends, the Organ systems they nourish, how the herbs are sourced, the seasons they best connect to, and the stories behind the formulations, this episode covers it all.   Tommy asks some great questions, and Mason dives deep into the world of Daoist tonic herbalism, discussing the lineage and how these heavenly messengers oscillate through Mind/Body/Spirit to bring healing and longevity. Mason opens up about his decade-long journey with SuperFeast, from grassroots beginnings to the epic company it is has grown into; Still maintaining the same core intentions of supporting people in maintaining wellness and longevity through tonic herbs and medicinal mushrooms. In comparing the western medical system with classical Chinese medicine, this conversation goes many places. Mason lays down what you need to know about Jing herbs, cultivating Qi, Nootropics, Brain health, Di Dao sourcing, and living in harmony with yourself and nature. This episode is the reminder we all need to stand empowered in our sovereign health.   "In classical Chinese medicine what you're looking at is the capacity for Qi to transform through a particular Organ system. And so you're looking at supporting that baseline regulatory capacity for inner transformation at all times; The ability for your body to accept and enable change to constantly occur. And you can see how different that clinical approach is going to be. You can see why Western medicine likes to just go, 'Yep, do that, bang. And now we're fixed'. Whereas if you take responsibility for helping someone move through changes in their body and in their life, that's a massive responsibility, and it's harder to be effective. It takes more keeping your finger literally on the pulse. Our medical and wellness system doesn't focus on or value that right now. It seems boring to focus on that constant capacity of 'this too will change'... Why? Because then you can't be right, and you can't dominate".   -Mason Taylor     Tommy and Mase discuss: Mycology.  Tonic herbalism.  The Daoist lineage.  Yin/Yang cultivation.  The culture of SuperFeast. The nature of Adaptogens. The SuperFeast apothecary. Di Dao sourcing and preserving tradition. Superior herbs (lifestyle herbs) and dosage. Autoimmune conditions and medicinal mushrooms. Brain health and nootropic herbs for neuro-plasticity.  The journey of SuperFeast; 10 years on from grassroots.  Psychedelic mushrooms, micro-dosing and mental health.  Cultivating organ health, longevity, and wisdom through herbs. Western medical system and classical Chinese medical system. Mason's personal journey from a uni student starting SuperFeast.     MasonTaylor Mason Taylor is the founder of SuperFeast. Mason was first exposed to the ideas of potentiating the human experience through his mum Janesse (who was a big inspiration for founding SuperFeast and is still an inspiration to Mason and his team due to her ongoing resilience in the face of disability). After traveling South America for a year, Mason found himself struggling with his health - he was worn out, carried fungal infections, and was only 22. He realised that he had the power to take control of his health. Mason redirected his attention from his business degree and night work in a bar to begin what was to become more than a decade of health research, courses, education, and mentorship from some of the leaders in personal development, wellness, and tonic herbalism. Inspired by the own changes to his health and wellbeing through his journey (which also included Yoga teacher training and raw foodism!), he started SuperFeast in 2010. Initially offering a selection of superfoods, herbs, and supplements to support detox, immune function, and general wellbeing. Mason offered education programs around Australia, and it was on one of these trips that he met Tahnee, who is now his wife and CEO of SuperFeast. Mason also offered detox and health transformation retreats in the Byron hinterland (some of which Tahnee also worked on, teaching Yoga and workshops on Taoist healing practices, as well as offering Chi Nei Tsang treatments to participants). After falling in love with the Byron Shire, Mason moved SuperFeast from Sydney's Northern Beaches to Byron Bay in 2015. He lived on a majestic permaculture farm in the Byron hinterland, and after not too long, Tahnee joined him (and their daughter, Aiya was conceived). The rest is history - from a friend's rented garage to a warehouse in the Byron Industrial Estate to SuperFeast's current home in Mullumbimby's beautiful Food Hub, SuperFeast (and Mason) has thrived in the conscious community of the Northern Rivers. Mason continues to evolve his role at SuperFeast, in education, sourcing, training, and creating the formulas based on Taoist principles of tonic herbalism.   CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON APPLE PODCAST    Resources: Mason Instagram SuperFeast Instagram   Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast? A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We'd also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher :)! Plus  we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Tommy Moore: (00:00) Mason, first and foremost, welcome and thank you for joining me on this podcast. Been following your work for a little while now, and I'm certainly thrilled to be able to welcome you here and to have a chance to speak to you and get a bit of a deep dive into some adaptogenic herbs and mushrooms that I personally take on almost a daily basis. So, before we get into all of that, how do you describe what you do?   Mason: (00:28) Yeah, it's been definitely a mixed bag of what I've done in the wellness space. My company, SuperFeast is at this point, I guess what I'm most well-known for nearly, it's going to be 10 years in May that I've had that company and it has evolved somehow despite my flippancy and desire to not be shackled down by the responsibility of business, it's grown to be a very... Yeah, it's a really beautiful, healthy business. I still feel I'd still own completely. So, it's still very grassroots and just ensconced in what my original intentions back in the day were. Before I started the company, I was just in my last year at uni and just trying to find ways to just to have my body be a little less lethargic, and I was a little bit worried the way I saw it.   Mason: (01:22) It's like I worried about my trajectory and what I saw, how I was going to be at 80 years old or 90 years old, or even 60 years old. And that kind of spurred me on to, even though I was gung ho and I was jumping into the deep end of extremism of diet and detoxification and just becoming basically an extremist and a purist in the health space. Ultimately, my intention was a real long term sustainable one. And so, I had the juice to kind of go extreme back then, but because my intention is what, where SuperFeast is at still and what kind of the mission or the intent is behind it at the same, what I have for myself, which is to just find whether it's practises or capacity to continually change and evolve with at different times of life, psychologically and physically, and just to find the herb, so on and so forth, that's going to facilitate and support my deepest health intentions to come true.   Mason: (02:17) And so, that, for me, when I was in uni studying herbalism, I wanted to potentiate the body. And so, that meant I didn't go for things that were problem-solution kind of herbs. Western herbalism didn't really interest me back then because it was more clinical. You take it for this, take it for that. But Daoist herbalism, the ancient Chinese philosophy and path of the Dao, their herbs were... They had this whole dialogue about cultivating organ health and cultivating the body. And that just really made sense to me because I didn't want to have a problem solution and initial problem-solution approach to my health and life. And that's where SuperFeast is basically at. It's just this gentle, this we source medicinal mushrooms. And when a lot of people know adaptogens in a way that's based on the Daoist tradition.   Mason: (03:06) So, it's just make getting them as close to nature as possible and having them be as robust as possible, so that with the same intention that they've had for thousands of years all over the world using herbs for health, it's just to keep you that little bit healthy, go get you on the front foot that little bit more. When you get a little bit more juice in your body, and you're not having to worry about symptoms and degeneration, or even fatigue. Even though these things can still be there in variants, if it's just like a little bit less of that, if you're a little less immune compromised, you don't have to waste your energy or your Qi on surviving. Those symptoms, you can get on the front foot and develop yourself and ultimately, when you get a little bit older, you're not degenerating and hopefully, you've had the power to overcome developmental issues, psychological issues.   Mason: (03:51) So, you're a little bit less of an asshole and you're actually someone who's got some wisdom and someone who... It doesn't have to be so reliant on external stuff in order to stay healthy, and that's basically what SuperFeast is. Back in the day, I was like, "No, I just don't want to see any more degenerative disease in the world." And that's still a nice, lofty mission that probably won't ever come true because it's beautiful, it's relating to decay has been bad, but I really was mourning at the, seeing so much unnecessary degeneration and wasting away of the body and not living in harmony with yourself in nature. And so, I'm a really at a point at that SuperFeast, it's just like people have intentions around their health.   Mason: (04:38) I don't have an agenda about where that leads them, but through our education, because we have educational courses as well, and about living in harmony with nature and yourself, but then especially the herbs and the medicinal mushrooms that we saw. So specifically, they can really just help the organs flow, cultivate the organs, get the immune system nice and healthy so that there's a little bit less for people to worry about and they can go on, making their health intentions come true and becoming less of an asshole and more of their awesome selves.   Tommy Moore: (05:07) I love how you speak to the Daoist tradition because thousands and thousands of years ago, when we didn't have science, we didn't have all of this empirical evidence or clinical evidence about any of these herbal medicines or medicinal mushrooms, but that had practised this for so, so long, and they didn't necessarily need to know what a biochemical was because I guess back then, what they would call a spirit, we would now possibly call a biochemical. And so, I really, really loved this link between science and spirituality, especially when we're talking about mushrooms and herbs, that they can change how we feel. They can change how we act and our behaviour. They can make us feel more connected to each other. Now, this will be the first time that I've spoken about medicinal mushrooms and herbs. So, before we get deeper into science and philosophy, let's start with some basic definitions. What is meant by a herbal tonic? What is meant by a medicinal mushroom, and also what is meant by an adaptogen?   Mason: (06:19) Yeah, good order that you've put them in. So, tonic herbs is, that term is a rough translation over from about 2000 years ago, we get the first herbal materia medica, cataloguing herbs and their uses and categorising them. And, this is why I study a Daoist path because it's the ancient Chinese, the ancient health nuts, as I kind of refer to them. At times, they're the ones that documented it and came up with terminology, whereas right now, you don't see a [flowering 00:06:54] just yet of the Australian herbal tradition, because it was verbal. It was a bit more, I guess you'd say more spirit-based versus 3D-based, and that's in a lovely way. The Daoists documented specific, very physical practise-based health practises.   Mason: (07:15) And so, since it was written, it's like it's there on offer and able to be utilised, which is a little bit different to a verbal tradition, especially one that's been consciously wiped out and hopefully not forever. And there's beautiful people preserving that and slowly, we own the right to be able to partake in that once we get, how to do that with respect and not just to be treating it as a commodity, which is the worst thing that happens in the wellness scene, in the herbal scene as the things that are based in basically, as you said, spirit, so it shows and the science can be there, but that's doing something following a path in a way that it's complete. I guess holistic is the word that's a bit bastardised, but nonetheless, it's like, we partake in tonic herbalism and we reflect on it based on the entire system of Daoism and reflecting on where the civilization was at, not just take a scalpel, which is what Western herbalism and Western medicine does a lot of time.   Mason: (08:11) Just we'll just get a scalpel and just like... We'll take that and we'll leave the rest. And we'll talk a little bit more about that when we get to adaptogens, because that's not a bad thing, taking something out and going, this is an adaptogen used in these scenarios. As long as you leave a thread back to the complete system and where it came from. But, over 2000 years ago, we got the first materia medica by the emperor, Shennong, and it's basically an accumulation of knowledge, thousands of years of knowledge. Many, many people contribute to say, "This is what we know so far." There's three categories of herbs, as far as we kind of practise, which is the inferior herbs or lower herbs. They're the ones that are used for disease states. There's a lot of long-term symptoms. We can damage the body. They're basically using poisons, very good in emergency situations and acute illnesses.   Mason: (08:59) And then, middle herbs, regular herbs. They're long-term management of symptoms says still a little bit more... They can go in organs placing those herbs. And then, there's the superior herbs. And the superior herbs can also be used clinically. They are the ones that you can get on the front foot and utilise in the body. The Daoists would say, ``We'd use this to lighten the body or to ward off ageing, ward off premature ageing, to bring the spirit through." So, what is the spirit through is, just imagine, yes, you can develop yourself and use like, say a disease state to gain more perspective and wisdom in life.   Mason: (09:36) But if you don't have to have these disease states to be the catalyst for your growth, if you are already on a path of growth, you don't have to spend all this time going and dealing with disease or symptoms, or whatever, like mental health issues, so on and so forth. If you can do that, then you're going to be able to develop yourself psychologically, you're going to be able to work on your perspective in life, you're going to be able to transition through the initiations of life where you kind of get a little bit less about you at some point, more about the community. And that's what the Daoists were interested in. The superior herbs could be used in that instance. There were some of the grandmas for thousands of years had been, grandpas had been putting in the soup to keep everyone healthy without them knowing.   Mason: (10:17) So, they're the tonic herbs. So, tonic herbs are those that preserve life, and it doesn't mean a lot of people... I've been doing this a long time now and I've been kind of talking. It's been interesting how do I talk about these and get people engaged with these herbs while respecting them, because it's not just the herbs that you can take as much as you want of. They are like herbal foods, but they're still medicinally active. And the whole point of them is, yes, you can take them and it's not like you're going to... It's hard to do damage with these tonic herbs. And that's why they're the lifestyle herbs. But still, people need to be aware that you're going, you need to go slow with these herbs, and sometimes if you're feeling that you need, then you do trust your instinct to start taking big doses of say an extract powder and do two big teaspoons a day.   Mason: (11:05) But then, you need to be able to listen to yourself and that's time to lower that back once again. So, although these are the superior herbs, they're also very active. They're like any food. You're going to want to rotate and keep your instincts alive, but they're the herbs to preserve life. They're the anti-ageing herbs. These are the ones that they use to keep their bones healthy, mind sharp, keep their organs flowing. It's about preserving your life and the Daoist talk about you being made up and everything they made up that your body may be made up of three treasures, especially the three treasures.   Mason: (11:40) Your Jing lives in your kidneys. You're given that when you're born. It's how much wax you have to burn through the candle of your life, right? And so, if you burn the candle at both ends, bang, you're going to get rid of that wax. Yes, Western medicine can keep that flame alive, but keeping a flame alive on just a wick and having no substance there for it to burn through, it's not much of a life to live. And that's why a lot of people die for a long time once they get to 50, 60, 70, they're kept alive, but they're dying for ages. We want to avoid that if possible and that's what the Jing herb's about, not bringing that premature ageing strong bones. They're the foundational essence.   Mason: (12:16) Qi is the second treasure. Qi is like, you take fuel in, you cultivate Qi, keeps the engine going. Keeps your thoughts moving, keeps your fluids moving. This is what keeps you going through every day of life. It's your breath, it's the food that you're taking in, and you can maintain a lot of vitality and a lot of energy by keeping that Qi cultivated. And then, the final treasure is Shen, which is your spirit and your consciousness that comes through. And as you develop more wisdom, that equates to being able to develop more Shen and so more virtuous nature. So, you genuinely cultivate kindness and forgiveness and loving. And then, note that there's other aspects in from consciousness that come from the heart, especially, but there are other organs that you cultivate. Say, for instance, that are going to bring about the wisdom of having really strong boundaries by your really beautiful boundaries, so on and so forth.   Mason: (13:14) So, it's not just all pie-in-the-sky, lovey-dovey shit, quite completely. And that's the theory of Daoism in the organ system, and each organ has its own consciousness. But then, as you keep the Qi going through the organs, the idea is you are not burning through your three treasures. Your Jing, your Qi, your Shen. You cultivate life. That's what tonic herbs are, the superior herbs are. And it contains mushrooms and berries and barks and deer antler velvet, and minerals like pearl. There's some animal ones like a particular type of ant, so on and so forth. And so, in our day and age, they're the ones for like, then nootropics fall into that kind of category a lot of the time. Energy herbs, like ginseng, fall into that category. And a lot of adaptogens fall into that category.   Mason: (14:01) So, clinically, an adaptogen in the west was really identified in the 1970s by the Russians. And they classified, let me see if I've still got this, classify the adaptogen herbs as ones that are going to have an accumulative effect on the body. So, the longer you take them, you're going to accumulate benefits and it's good for everyone to be mindful that that's just not linear, the more your take, gets better. At some point, you hit a glass ceiling of how much energy you can have, and the adaptogens then kind of flesh out and can maybe help you modulate the immune system a little bit more, modulate your nervous system a little bit more. So, it's not just getting better in one direction.   Mason: (14:41) Once you restore homeostasis within your adrenal, that bottom, I'll talk about the HPA axis in a second, but say your adrenals get back into sync all of a sudden, then you might not keep experiencing more and more benefits from that ginseng or ashwagandha in that same direction. You might start opening up to being able to experience benefits in other directions, if you're not attached to just external gains coming from the adaptogen. So, I just need to flesh that one out there. Second classification of adaptogens is it can create any additional harm or stress to the body. The general rules, taking things like ashwagandha, ginsengs, schizandras, reishis, chagas, these kinds of herbs. For the majority of the population who are symptomatic and are dealing with disease states, they're not going to move you into harm or stress place. They're going to help your body adapt to stress, right?   Mason: (15:38) And so, they're regulators. And especially the mushrooms, they're immunological regulators. As well, if you're very sick, you don't just go charging into taking adaptogens. You want to still be... That's a very general kind of classification, as well, and no more harm or stress. And then, the third one I kind of touched on is their regulatory. They have a non-specific action in the body. And so, we generally know that it's going to take cortisol down and the majority of the population's say for ashwagandha cycle, a lot of these herbs, because [everyone's 00:16:11] high. But what about instances where cortisol is low? There are instances where it's actually helping the body get back and increasing that cortisol to a healthy level at appropriate times during the day.   Mason: (16:20) So, that's non-specific. That's like the medicinal mushrooms are used in auto-immune conditions. When people look at them like a reishi and cordyceps, they want to be working with a practitioner. This is you with autoimmunity. But you're looking at those herbs and you're like, "Wow, they're really incredible for lifting the immune system, helping us adapt to pathogenic influx, and fight these things off." But then, there's really solid instances and data coming through around people who are really excessive in their immune activity to the extent where the immune system attacking itself in autoimmune conditions and mushrooms are used to regulate that immune function down. Too very handy having such sophisticated medicine doing that, rather than just using a drug to suppress the immune system. You're going one step further and going where's the trigger site for this unhealthy flurry of pro-inflammatory immune activity and let's go and start regulating the immune system down on that level in an inappropriate way.   Mason: (17:18) So, you're not taking the whole immune system down. You might just be taking a certain part of the immune system down and maintaining surface immunity, right? When you take complete immune suppressants, you're going to see... And then, you're going to be more likely to get sick. That's what an adaptogen is, those three things. No additional harm or stress to the body, accumulates benefits over the time, non-specific activity in the body. And the medicinal mushrooms kind of fall under that banner of a tonic herb, right? And then, some of these herbs in the tropics, adaptogens and nerve veins, and that they're kind of have the Western herbalism, we'll kind of comment on what some of them are, but they're not all adaptogens because some of them are just pure nourishes, right? Some of them like a tremella mushroom, truly beautiful for lubricating the lungs, therefore lubricating the skin. If you've got dry skin, it's just such a nutritive, gentle herb.   Mason: (18:11) And they use a lot in post-surgery or disease states just to get a lot of juice back into the body, and fluid back in the body, and yin essence back into the body, as well as people that just value beauty and vibrance in their skin. It's not really an adaptive fact. They will discover it has slightly adaptogenic elements because it's a medicinal mushroom and feeds the immune system. But right now, it's just seen as a nutritive. So, it's not clinically adaptogenic, but it is a tonic herb. It is a herb that can be used to cultivate Jing, Qi, Shen, which is that's what a tonic herb is. So, the mushrooms come into their medicinal mushrooms, not the culinary portobello kind of brown mushroom ones that you get on your pizza.   Mason: (18:49) I'm not talking about psychedelic mushrooms. We are talking about generally tree-born mushrooms. Those mushrooms like shiitake, maitake, agaricus, poria, Reishi, lion's mane, cordyceps, is grows off caterpillars. We can't do that in terms of a product. It's generally going to be a... For us, it's a fermented cordyceps in a VAT, so that's a vegan one, but that's a kind of an example of a nontree-born medicinal mushroom. But, that's generally going to find medicinal mushrooms. The mycelia is going to grow up through the tree and utilise the carbohydrates and basically, eat those carbohydrates. And then, essentially, don't want to personify it and humanise it too much, but essentially, the genitals come out and then we pick those genitals where the spores come out of and utilise those.   Mason: (19:45) And they're so amazing for the body. They're just so regulatory, whether it's immunity, nervous system, endocrine system. And clinically, what the possibility of using these in real specific instances is just endless, but getting onto them preemptively, I mean, it's at this point, it's just too good not to be taking medicinal mushrooms. I think that's a long form answer to your question.   Tommy Moore: (20:13) That's perfect. You've answered that brilliantly. Yeah, and you're so right. There's so much about Western science and medicine that is almost exclusively looking at symptomatology. And of course, this can be effective in short term treatment or acute treatment of particular diseases and getting back to somewhat of a baseline. But what do you do from there? There's so many people who get unwell, say with cancer or a degenerative illness, and all they're doing is managing their symptoms and to me, that doesn't make any sense at all. It makes sense to the point of not causing further damage, but it isn't encouraging people to get healthier and healthier over time. And so, I appreciate how these medicinal herbs and mushrooms are working on our body as they do have that accumulative effect. They're helping us over time to get better and optimise our organ function and our circulatory system over time so that we can firstly, get to baseline and then go beyond that, because science can be quite slow in these fields.   Tommy Moore: (21:26) Often when we're trying to raise money or get funding for research, it has to treat something. And the way you described it earlier with the inferior herbs that you're looking more at disease states and getting someone to baseline level seems to be how our working science and clinical research at the moment. It has to be for someone who's already ill. And so, the Western way of looking at things is almost waiting for that clinical research to prove its efficacy. But as we mentioned earlier, there's probably thousands upon thousands of documented evidence through the Daoist traditions that prove that efficacy without having to go through the Western clinical path.   Tommy Moore: (22:10) But there's so much merit in these medicinal herbs and mushrooms because they can have such a huge impact on our health and our longevity and optimising the way our body works and improving our brain function and our performance. And it really is multidimensional how they do exert their effects in our body. And you began to allude to the anatomy of the mushroom being the mycelium and the fruiting body, because I find it incredibly interesting how both plants and animals evolved from fungus. To understand their anatomy and understand the constituents is really helping us to understand ourselves and how our body functions. So, can you speak to the anatomy of a mushroom and what are some different types of mushrooms and the different parts of the mushrooms that are working to help us?   Mason: (23:05) Yeah, I mean, this is a huge conversation. I got to the point in studying mushrooms, that I was like, there's a reason that the school of, the discipline of mycology exists because it is its own profession and I'm not going to be able to do it justice. I kind of, at one point I was like, cool, I am going to stick to my lane of tonic herbalism because once again, we've got a little bit further down the track and everyone's like, "Can you identify this mushroom and this mushroom?" And I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I definitely do not want to and cannot do that." But in terms of, it's a good question because mushrooms still have an overall stigma and people relate to the word mushrooms as in that's an appropriate blanket term.   Mason: (23:57) Whereas mushrooms are, you think of the plant kingdom and you go, "Yeah," and you know immediately you understand that there's diversity in the plant kingdom. You think in the mushroom kingdom and people are slowly starting to open up and realising that there's more, if not for people's perception of just as much diversity within the mushroom kingdom, different types of mushrooms, different evolutionary parts, styles of reproducing, so on and so forth, vastly different environments, way more so than plant matter with living within the mushroom kingdom. And so, the biggest organisms on the earth, besides the earth itself, have been mushrooms, all of a sudden you can see what our mushrooms are like. We don't even really know. There's all debate about whether they came from the spores, or came from space.   Mason: (24:51) And I know there's definitely been evidence to show that up, right up as far as you can get in the atmosphere, pretty much their spores and sitting up there. And I think that the work, the studies have been done on saying that seeds and spores can survive the vacuum of space. And so, there's all these weird and wonderful theories about them being aliens coming in and helping to... And we know that fungus basically, kind of up there, just after maybe water had such a pivotal role on helping literally everything evolve and everything is, [bay 00:25:28] is reliant on land and is reliant on that fungal system. They're helping whether it's the procreation, whether it's the sprouting of a seed, you see the mycelium within this particular spore, billions of spores, trillions of spores, just sitting dormant within the soil. And you see these symbiotic relationships as that's perf as the seed and the spore, as well as other conditions align that the seed will start to sprout. And then, you'll see a collaborative effort from that spore starting to sprout, all the mycelia coming up and finding. So, the actual body of the...   Mason: (26:03) ... its sprout or the mycelia coming up and finding, so the actual body of the mushroom coming up and helping basically encase and, again, not my area of expertise, but the way I romantically talk about it, create a womb for that seed, and go down and extract minerals from deeper down, and feed that up into the tree, and then be involved within basically that interconnectedness of a forest and interconnectedness of many elements of the world running up in through the trees. And you can see, once the symbiotic relationship evolves through helping to procreate and create a nursery, basically. And then once that tree is an existence, you see a [mycorrhizal 00:26:42] relationship where you'll see the little spindly bits coming off of the mushroom cells. They can drill essentially into the wood, and then they release enzymes so that they can then basically digest externally and then get access to those carbohydrates because there's underground darkness. There's no access to light, so the mushrooms need to get access to their energy source, the carbohydrates, in another way, and that's how they do that.   Mason: (27:09) And then from there, continues to be a collaborative effort in terms of, for many trees, the mycelium growing in through, and then sometimes sprouting out, and then as well as those mushrooms and the mycelia that just sprout their own mushrooms, coming straight up from the soil. So in terms of what they are, I mean very genetically close to humans, mushrooms. We've definitely co-evolved. That's where you can see the immune system seems literally hardwired. So a lot of people know that now we can see we have the endocannabinoid system, it seems like we're actually hardwired some way to have cannabis in our diet, whether it's regularly or not regularly, or just having a top up, or just being around the plant. It's the same way with the way particular [immunopaths 00:27:55] work, where you're taking in compounds from mushrooms. And because we've co-evolved, you can see that the immune system is there waiting to have particular receptors so it can identify fungal invasion and then take it to places where it can invade it off.   Mason: (28:14) Whereas in the medicinal mushrooms, the tree mushrooms, you take that in and, because it's got a high molecular weight, it'll bypass digestion, get into the gut, and then hit immune cells within the lymph tissue in the gut. And it's like a mystery shopper vibe, or it's like playing war games, where we're going to war ... the immune system's like I'm going to war with this, but it's not an actual threat that's coming in. And so what happens is you take on that beta-glucan within the mushroom, and then that macrophage cell will pass through particular pathways and go deeper into the immune system, metabolise that compound, and then spit it out, but it happens to be what it spits out is in perfect formation to hit deeper immune receptors within the innate immune system, which is a bit deeper to get into a constitutional level like that. And then what you see happening is rather than an activation or stimulation of the immune system, you actually see ... Stimulation was the word I meant to use there first, you actually just see an activation of the immune system.   Mason: (29:18) Whereas the lights start turning on, the intelligence starts turning on, an irregulatory capacity can start to occur. And it's just too perfect, those pathways. And it can happen with other substances, but it doesn't seem to happen with such efficacy. And it's not to say that there's definitely indigenous tribes who hadn't identified this and weren't reliant on tree mushrooms, but it's just too perfect. And so we're utilising that, but I mean I've just danced around what I do know about mushrooms, and then obviously taken it back to their implications around herbal medicine and human consumption, which is what I'm comfortable with. But it's a big, wonderful world and I think there's a lot of nostalgia there. At the moment, you can see mushrooms are going off, whether it's culinary, lots of people are back-buying shiitakes and even lion's manes, and it's really getting into mycology pages on Instagram and just going off, the weird and wonderful world of mushrooms. And so it's definitely the wave's broken on everyone.   Mason: (30:21) And huge Facebook pages, amateur identification groups, people going out and wanting to harvest their own mushrooms. It's a huge little underground thing now, and just even around here, in Byron, there's a few specialists mushroom harvesters that deliver those to some of the more fancy or progressive cafes or restaurants, and just chefs doing really cool things. Yeah, it's just nostalgic and for me, offering medicinal mushrooms to people, that's what basically I see happening is they're like, "Oh man, that feels good. It feels really good being on those mushrooms." They just feel it's very protective, it's a very safe place to be. And it just feels like we just had such a deficiency of connection to that world, that mushroom world, so it's nice to see people waking back up to it.   Tommy Moore: (31:10) Yeah, definitely. And just to continue that topic of this wonderful, intricate interconnectedness or this symbiotic relationship that we have with everything else and that everything else has with us, because it's something like 92% of trees depend on the mycelial network to exchange nutrients and to have conversations with each other. So the trees almost represent our organs and the exchange of nutrients that happens at each of those organs, and the mycelial network is, I guess, like our neural network, and our central nervous system, and peripheral nervous system that's all working together in this beautiful harmony, and creating this wonderful symphony that is our human body. I suppose, for some people, this might sound a little bit woo-woo or spiritual, but I guess it is a little bit like that.   Mason: (32:04) It is a bit, and look, there's a lot you got to ... As I said earlier, I'm quite romantic sometimes when I talk about these things and I'll just shoot past what's been shown within the data. I'm in a good place with our herbal tradition because I walk a very traditional path and chose not to become a practitioner, but rather I work with a lot of practitioners. I have a lot of practitioners coming onto my podcast. We always advise people once we get past a certain lifestyle. It's like if someone is sick and all of a sudden it's no longer just getting good sleep, and getting hydrated, and making some food changes, if that's not an appropriate thing at the moment because their symptoms have gone beyond just having that advice, that's when it also goes beyond tonic herbalism in terms of going, "Just take this and this will help." So because I've created that for myself, yes, the scientific literature is slowly catching up to what's known, and that's fine because you just get realistic about how the Western mentality works, and it's going to require that legitimization, and it's going to be scrutinised.   Mason: (33:20) And sometimes it is rightfully scrutinising because the wellness scene, and I'm guilty of this back when I first started out, you get a little bit over excited, you get a little bit counter-culture, and you start just saying these extreme things, which perhaps are rooted in truth, but you start saying them with no nuance, with such conviction, when maybe you're saying it with conviction maybe because you were in a group that believes it or because your person that you idolise says it, and you haven't actually gone back to the source of why that's been said, and so you don't know where someone might be taking a little bit of liberty to say something that's whatever. You're not at the source of it. So it's a good balancing measure, I find, but nonetheless, I mean, for me, it's just like the grandma's not scientifically adding Poria mushroom and reishi mushroom into a broth. You don't need that scientifically validated. Maybe toxicology reports are really good. People can make sure that there's no significant interactions with drugs that people are on in the family.   Mason: (34:25) But at some point, why I like the herbs is it gets you perceptive of your body. And I like sourcing in a particular way that's [Di Dao 00:34:34], where the herbs are grown as closely as possible, if not wild, in consortium with the elements around them. Living on wild spring water or completely rural areas. And people can go to superfeast.com.au and see photos and get videos of me up there, high mountains or low valleys. It's just in such a shit to get to these places in China. And why do we go to China? Because no-one's growing these tonic herbs. And you can't grow Di Dao these herbs wild on wild wood, say for the mushroom instance. And the other thing about Di Dao is the spore or the seed needs to come from the microclimate. So in that textbook I told you about earlier, the Materia Medica, [Shennong Ben Cao Jing 00:35:19]. And he says you need to go to this province and in this microclimate, that's where you get the best reishi. That's where you get the best [Schisandra 00:35:27].   Mason: (35:27) And so that's what I do. That's what we do. We can look at doing it elsewhere and in other ways, but you're not going to get the best. And I want to preserve that tradition. That's just what I'm doing. And there's other options out there. And then we test for metals, and aflatoxins, and pesticides, and all those things at TGA Labs, and so it's an extremely clean product you're going to be getting every single time. I mean when you start connecting, you're talking about there's that crossing over of spirit and science, at some point, it's rather than even crossing them over, if you have the capacity to hold your awareness of each at the same time is when you start getting this beautiful integration, you have respect, real deep ... that's not right, reverence of both of those spaces, rather in the beginning, it's nice to try and watch where they splice over. We were talking about this. Science is explaining that that's the spirit, that must be what spirit is, you watch the mind again take over. Whereas if you can just hold this spaciousness within yourself and respect both paths, and you hold them in your mind, and in your heart, and then in your gut together without trying to layer them over each other, all of a sudden you become this bridge of awareness of where the crossover is, and you don't need to try and do it too consciously. Some people are specialising in that, and it's really fascinating, but for your own benefit, because the science and the way our culture's bent, we'll generally take all the spirit and the romance out of that style of herbalism. And if you're constantly looking for gains and outputs, you go back and you check in with those things to associate yourself every now and then. It's good to document what actually happened and how they hit that goal. Maybe the herbs contributed or you can definitely see an increase, or you start taking it and you've got an aura ring on, or something like that, and you immediately see you're able to sleep longer and deeper because you're taking a herb. That shit is epic. I absolutely love it.   Mason: (37:27) But nothing beats saying when you get onto Jing Herbs, talking about Jing being the kidney foundations, you've been exhausted. You might be doing panels of cortisol levels because you might have a practitioner who lucky enough is into adaptogens, because they like measuring the HPA access, the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis, you know that if you've got that healthy, that axis in your body, that you are able to handle stress with much more efficacy, and therefore they get you on adaptogens, and they test your panels, and they go, "Wow, you're actually getting better." Now, that's all well and good, but they might get a new one, we've got a formula called Jing, it's just replenishing when people are exhausted. We get them replenishing back those foundations. Now yes, getting those inputs and going wow, your mind can go, "This thing is effective. We like doing that," but nothing beats your capacity to observe you building back and cultivating the functions of your organs and the flow of your chi yourself. That can never be forgotten within your body. You develop a very deep memory, and part of that memory is wow, I can do this.   Mason: (38:38) This isn't me going to a practitioner or me just taking a herb, and that practitioner or herb doing something for me. Those are good, but we don't want to do that our whole lives because that can excessively form a dependence externally. And we don't want to become too prudish in rejecting those kinds of things either because that will lead to extremism, going, "No, I never need to go and see a doctor. I never need to go. I can do it all myself," and that's when people can get into shit in the extreme wellness community, or conspiracy theory community, just that excessive world. If you can start though just to watch the fact that you are partaking in a practise, which is say herbalism or whatever, slow, gentle movement, energetic practise, you're meditating, and you watch yourself cultivate that energy and get a little bit more space from when you react to a situation, you're able to, with more ease, get yourself up out of bed in the morning, and go move, and get that yang energy moving.   Mason: (39:38) And then you're able to consciously come down and descend with the yin energy at night, and really participate in making your sleep practise better. That's all you, and even though you'd made to be taking a herbal, this Jing formula, you feel yourself building back that kidney function, which then correlates to adrenals, HPA axis, not feeling as exhausted, but it installs a sense of sovereignty and not dependence. And that's why it's nice for you to be able to go into a tradition that's grassroots and folksy, because it doesn't excessively separate you from your capacity to self-regulate, which is what the full excessive Western model does. It just creates divides and cuts things. It's a scalpel. It's just a scalpel. It's what they do in anatomy, they just cut things apart, and they can't relate then to a part of the body, like the knee relating to the neck, or the liver relating to the nervous system. They just don't get it because they've already got a scalpel and they've cut through all the fascia that connects the whole body.   Mason: (40:46) And they haven't attempted to understand the body as a whole, which is super useful at times, and super not at other times, which is why there's epidemics of degenerative disease, and metabolic disease, and people wasting away, and people just not having any capacity to look after themselves in their older age, which is bullshit, and it's extremist, and it's a dangerous perspective. It doesn't mean we throw the baby out with the bathwater. That's why we need more mature people, people that aren't married to an institutionalised way of thinking, they're not dying on the hill just because they've been educated in a certain way. It's just such a boring, immature, way of looking at the world. And I don't know who these people think they are. The amount of all-knowing people on the internet, I think, is such a crock of shit. And I think it's the benefit for everyone, why I like using these herbs, I talk about becoming less of an asshole and more of an awesome, genuine self. I talk about myself specifically a lot. I definitely don't feel any ...   Mason: (41:53) Just the next trap is feeling the superiority because you're someone that can hold that middle place. It's like no, that's another little trap there. But generally, why I like the philosophy of tonic herbalism is because it can make people not only malleable, it can keep you agile. Doesn't mean as you get more into yourself and go along this path, which so many people are doing, millions, you become more principled in your perspective but you become agile within that principle. You're not projecting. As the organs get into flow and you develop, in general, through life, which is the whole point of these herbs is to help you develop through life, through different stages. And some stages, you just need to go into fully in order to get that perspective of wow, now I can integrate that and go down another path, or go into another stage. But the whole point of these herbs is to support that development so we have people who have wisdom and we don't have these people who get so externally identified with a label, or with a profession, or with an institution that becomes their identity for life.   Mason: (43:12) And therefore, I find that person to be really boring and I find it boring when I do it. And what you want, I think, is just to go on a malleable path and just find what self agency means to you. And that's all we're doing through the herbs. That's all I can hope for. I don't necessarily have an agenda anymore because I just don't assume to know what's right for anyone out there. So that's why I'm also, I feel really open and welcoming whenever anyone here is like, "This is what I want to work on in myself," and I'm like, "Yeah, amazing." Just having a health intention, and if you trust yourself, and go in that direction of an intent, and develop yourself, and stay malleable, the whole idea of the herbs is just to uncrack that stuckness as much as possible, lighten you up so that you can further develop, and same with exercise and hydration, sunlight, and all those good things. But yeah, it's good. There've been people getting perception, which can't ever be taken away.   Tommy Moore: (44:20) Yeah, there are too many people who are very much self identified and there is a huge place for certain herbs and mushrooms to, I guess, dissolve this sense of self identity and really move away from this man made self, and be more perceptual and sensitive to bodily sensations, and be more connected to yourself. I actually want to divert this conversation-   Mason: (44:49) [crosstalk 00:44:49] psychedelic mushrooms as well, go into that conversation as well.   Tommy Moore: (44:51) Well absolutely. Yeah, it's interesting that you bring that up because I do volunteer for a charity called Mind Medicine Australia, and they're actually looking at psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy for mental illness.   Mason: (45:04) How far along are they? Mind Medicine Australia, are they doing the certifications? Is that right?   Tommy Moore: (45:11) Yeah, so we're in discussion with the TGA at the moment, so we're in the rescheduling process. There's an interim decision that's been made. So I know CBD has been accepted in that interim decision, [crosstalk 00:45:23]-   Mason: (45:24) You can put me in touch. Who's heading it? Because I'd love to chat with them a little bit [crosstalk 00:45:30].   Tommy Moore: (45:30) Yeah, totally. So it's Tania de Jong and Peter Hunt. So they're the two co-founders, but we've got a huge advisory board, from researchers, and philosophers, and people all over the world who are looking at this pretty closely. I know a lot of people in the States are, people like Rick Doblin, or Dennis McKenna, or people like that.   Mason: (45:50) Oh man, I'm so keen because this area is massive. I mean this is where people ask me all the time, "And what about psychedelic mushrooms?" and it's the same. And psychedelic mushrooms, brought it up on my podcast recently, I had someone who really explored psychedelic mushrooms, and I'm like, "Oh man, everyone always thinks just by osmosis, I'm going to be taking a lot of psilocybin-containing mushrooms," and the guy who was there, he's like, "I would never think that. I can tell straight away." And I'm not saying, "Yeah, because you're not conscious, man. You can tell that for sure." But I do get that, people like, "Oh yeah, well where can I get the psilocybin psychedelic mushrooms? You must be into them. Let's talk about them." I'm like I've got good things to say, but like mycology, I do stick to my lane now.   Mason: (46:41) And then you're working in the ... And the benefit of having that angle is it opens me up to going, "Yeah, cool." And then I'll talk to people like Tanya and yourself, who have actually got the insight of what's what's going on. I like just sitting on the sidelines, to an extent, and just be an observer of that, and just chat about it, because I mean we've been talking a lot about suicide just behind the scenes here, and on the podcast, it's been coming up. Anyway, I won't go into it right now, but just even for that preventative, I'm pretty sure ... Do you guys have that as a focus around [crosstalk 00:47:22]?   Tommy Moore: (47:22) Yeah, I mean the whole spectrum of mental health really within Australia, we look at the stats, we look at the lack of treatment options, and then we look at the statistics based on what we're seeing with psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy in trials that are happening all over the world. And the neuroimaging side of things, like Robin Carhart-Harris and David Nutt are doing over in Imperial College London.   Mason: (47:43) Who are they? The neuroimaging?   Tommy Moore: (47:46) Yeah, absolutely. So David Nutt and Robin Carhart-Harris are leading a lot of the trials over in Imperial College London. So they're, I guess, head of the Centre for Psychedelic Research as far as I'm aware. So their centre focuses on the action and clinical use of psychedelics with a particular focus on researching the treatment of depression. And they've done some really, really interesting studies there, obviously looking at the psychedelic state and what's happening at the level of the mind, or sorry, I should say the level of the brain in terms of neuroimaging, and also doing very interesting comparisons between the psychedelic state and the meditative state. They've done some comparisons of neuroimaging between Buddhist monks who have had 10,000 hours or more practise of meditation, and then comparing that to what the brain looks like during psychedelics, and some very, very awesome comparisons that they're finding and the similarities in terms of ego dissolution, and moving away from this mind-made self. But I'm certainly more than happy to chat about this.   Mason: (48:56) I was saying before, when you were talking about the mushrooms somewhat acting ... They act like an immune system. You can see tree-based immunological compounds moving between the mycelia between certain trees and sick trees, and also acting like a nervous system. My download, when I was on a medicine journey years and years ago, was that the mushrooms more relate to the fascial system. And the fact that within the Chinese herbal tradition, the mushrooms are seen as fluid regulators, and regulators of decay as well, they help move decay from the body, and allow it to be just metabolised and transformed. And I just started realising if you look at fascia in the body, just the biggest organ in the body, it's not skin, it's the fascia, and it's now I think technically classified as an organ, and it's such a regulating organ. And if you can maintain, as well as everything else, fascial health, you have a really good chance at staying really ... you have a high ability to stay more adaptable within your physicality. And I see that there's this energetic element to it, that it helps you just integrate experiences.   Mason: (50:17) And if you can stay connected in different parts of your body, which is likely you can see there almost being this photon transfer through the fascia in the body, and therefore how much light there is based on ... information there is based on light. And you can see that you can have information transfers to your body, therefore your body's going to be able to stay, basically what I can see, up to speed on what's going on elsewhere, and you can stay more unified as a whole. And then when I started bringing in mushrooms to the say the plant medicine community, and started seeing just how many of my friends, whether they were serving or whether they were regularly going into ceremonies, just felt a significant impact of taking medicinal mushrooms pre and post, pre especially, just to prepare your body and also ensure that you're not going to destroy your nervous system, that you've got this robustness to get through sometimes just how hardcore these journeys can be, but as well, the medicinal mushrooms afterwards to support the process of integration, huge, man.   Mason: (51:19) It was massive and it was this huge missing link. And I think as well, for anyone, it just goes to show it's not just plant medicines, when you're doing anything that's deep cathartic, and you're doing deep work with a therapist, whether it's plant medicine, you're deep diving in your yogic meditative practices, and so on and so forth, you can't just stay deep in these huge mind-exploding experiences. You can't get reliant, I think, long term on that being what's going to fix you or heal you. You go deep, you release the pressure valve, hopefully reduce some acute symptomatology, and then you will need to be able to catch yourself back up on ... If you've blown yourself out into the sky and you've gone deep into your psyche, you need to be able to hit that middle-   Mason: (52:03) Blind yourself out into the sky and you've gone deep into your psyche. You need to be able to hit that middle ground and come back to your lifestyle and your personal everyday practises, your own meditative practise, your own gentle movement practise and your own herbal practise in order to ensure that you're staying level and not becoming, again, externally reliant. Can happen on Western medicine, can happen on these plant medicines. It can happen with whatever, deep dive therapy, deep dive meditations. And, that's, where's the self agency. And that's where I really find the mushrooms to be super useful. And generally the tonic herbs, they're massive, and they are now that you see practitioners of all lights utilising them and getting their clients on these tonic herbs, as well as ensuring that they've just got their lifestyle factors rock solid. And you've got this constitutional discipline and the way you live your life to give yourself these basics, so as well as sleep and diet and all these things, because it's necessary, if you want to evolve in these areas, it's just paramount. Otherwise you can just keep on. You see all the good research in the beginning, because it's under watchful eyes and experts, whether it's a Shaman or whether it's a practitioner, they're a psychologist utilising psychedelic mushrooms or MDMA in all these other places. And there's a facilitation process, but if you aren't moving along on your own accord, if you keep on relying externally, you can start and you don't do so under a real watchful eye and someone that isn't just thinking, yeah, the more, the better, you come back and we'll keep you moving ahead using this thing, you start to loop in these subconscious kind of states rather than actually having the capacity to move slowly beyond them.   Mason: (53:43) And that's just important for everyone to remember that it always, from my perspective it's why I like the tonic herbals. It's like at some point, don't be relying on the external practise or the substance. Come back to your lifestyle. It's like the Buddhists and they're like chop wood carry water, that's where the magic happens when you've been chopping wood carrying water for 20 years and 30 years. And then you get a little insight, then you move past it and you just keep on doing your chop wood, carry water. Everyone needs to remember that it is in this scene because everyone's suckling at the teat of someone who does it for me. To get the research out there that discovers the therapy, that's going to help fix me inside. And I relate to it a lot in my early days as a big seeker.   Mason: (54:24) And it's just a really important reminder, I think for everyone to just constantly and now, if you can, as soon as you can, land with two feet on the ground and just keep your feet on the ground in that disciplined state. And I think then you can really start unlocking the magic. And if you're feeling dependent, unless you're in a dependent state where you find it's a really useful collaboration that you are working with it to get your head above the ground so you can work. But if you're feeling quite stable and you're still ambiguously, keep going back to look for some, there's got to be something more there for me, it helped me so much before. And now there must be other stuff. It's probably that seeking energy without acute symptomatology is there. It's probably time to just put all that aside for probably a few years. And so, anyway, just want to throw that out there.   Tommy Moore: (55:17) Yeah, absolutely. And just while we are on the topic of psychedelic mushrooms, I do think it's important that I bring across what is the therapeutic mechanism of something like psilocybin and psilocybin being the active constituent in psilocybe mushrooms. Now, I don't want to lose anyone in the chemistry of psilocybin because as we know, scientists and researchers are always using complex names. So stay with me as much as you can. I'll do my best to simplify some of the complex words that I'm going to discuss.   Tommy Moore: (55:51) But when we are studying the mind and studying the brain through material science, we do need to understand our limitations. We know that changes in brain activity or changes in blood redistribution within different areas of the brain can cause alterations in our state of consciousness, but we can't necessarily say, or don't necessarily know for sure where or how they exist. That is to say how we consciously perceive them.   Tommy Moore: (56:18) So firstly, let's just recognise the distinction or disassociate brain and mind. Do thoughts simply appear as electrical signals? Can we see thoughts through observing the brain? So I guess the three therapeutic mechanisms of something like a psychedelic mushroom, or all classic psychedelics being things DMT or LSD, neuroplasticity, functional connectivity, and modulation of the default mode network, and they're all correlating positive therapeutic outcomes of being more connected. I alluded to earlier, this feeling of connection to other people, to the greater good, to the universe, to ourselves, to everything. Feeling boundless, wonder, ineffability and a sense of gratitude for this human experience. And I did speak to the sense of ego disillusion, which is often referring to a psychedelic experience. And that is an experience that is beyond this level of mind, that we so often associate with our default state. Now, of course, people are going to have their own connotations and associated perceptions of the word ego, but let's start with that first therapeutic mechanism that I mentioned, which is neuroplasticity. And I know neuroplasticity can be linked with other herbs and medicines like lion's mane.   Mason: (57:46) There's another one. I completely mind blanking ironically when talking about herb's for neuro-plasticity. There was another one the other day and someone was using it. Maybe we're talking about niacin, we're talking about maybe the use of Ginkgo biloba rather than niacin. So more for that diluting factor using herbals rather than B3. So yeah, lion's mane, I think that's quite well established and there's a bajillion people now, thankfully doing lion's mane and microdosing in their own little settings. And I'm sure they're all legal. I was talking about neuroplasticity the other day in terms of a woman doing a masters on adaptogens and mental health. And she's a naturopath. And just going through the mechanisms in which neuro-plasticity is maintained. And it was nice because people use lion's mane and these nootropics. These other nootropics, herbal nootropics like ashwagandha and Rhodiola and Macuna and to an extent Ginkgo biloba. They use them in a way that's either healing.   Mason: (58:59) I use them on my mum on a traumatic brain injury, an acquired brain injury aneurysm. Or for study and mental output and mental acuity. And so they're good, not saying [inaudible 00:59:13] but then there's no grounding factor of just, if you can maintain your neuro-plasticity, you are less likely to find yourself in roadblocks that stop your psychological development or stop you from hopefully, we'll have to look at the data, but stop you from getting a neuro degenerative disease state later in life. And so that is exciting because I had this really calm relationship to neuro-plasticity, which is what I think it needs. I think the nootropic and the neuroplastic seen as far as herb's needs, needs to calm chop wood carry water association as well. So yeah, I'm excited about that side as well. Sorry for cutting you off.   Tommy Moore: (59:56) No, that's all good. Yeah. Just on neuroplasticity, I guess it is quite adaptogenic in a way, because the way most people think of neuroplasticity is just getting smarter or, very linked with the nootropic side of things like alertness and stimulation, but neuroplasticity in much the same way adaptogens work, is that it's progressive over time, you don't grow these neural pathways in a day or even a couple of days, it happens over weeks or months. And so if we're talking about neural pathways in the sense of a thought pattern and these neural pathways that are built up over time, it may be a negative bias that we have that is then becoming subconscious because we're using that pathway so often becomes easier to access. And it becomes part of our subconscious state or our default state when we're not necessarily doin

We Are Not SAM was created by Rinat Strahlhofer, a former telco insider who 'crossed over to the other side' after she became aware of the extent of industry corruption. Rinat spent her career putting disruptive services and technologies into the hands of millions as a marketing specialist for Australia's largest telco company. During the company's then groundbreaking $1 billion 3G rollout, Rinat realised that the community's concerns over the new network's potential health and safety impacts were being ignored. In other words, the search for truth was being done over for profits. Deeply disillusioned by the lack of industry regulation and safety science, Rinat quit her role – and Australia – for almost a decade. On her return from Europe (to Byron Bay) in May 2019, she realised little had changed within the industry as it prepared to roll out 5G across Australia. Drawn to 'putting things right', she joined the Northern Rivers for Safe Technology group. Today, as one of the group's core strategists, she is on the frontlines of the group's efforts to fight 5G, and advocate for safe and meaningful technology. In a time when technology dominates our time, our thoughts, our privacy and our sovereignty, Rinat's vision for We Are Not SAM is simple. Rinat sees We Are Not SAM as a creative and powerful campaign to help people re-imagine a better future...to collectively stand up to the destructive forces of corporate greed...and to question the status quo of 'bigger, better, faster'. As well as being a fearless activist, Rinat is also mother to a young son and impassioned member of the Byron Shire community. To donate Health Freedom for Humanity please visit healthfreedomforhumanity.org/donate

While the rich cavort in luxury compounds and investors negatively-gear their Airbnb properties, Byron Bay faces a chronic homelessness crisis. Former long-time resident and writer David Leser, together with his photographer daughter Hannah - who grew up there - discuss the forces that shaped Byron into one of Australia's most popular holiday destinations, the challenges it now faces, and the warning they send for other over-loved places nationwide. Read the full story here. Become a subscriber: our supporters power our newsrooms and are critical for the sustainability of news coverage. Becoming a subscriber also gets you exclusive behind-the-scenes content and invitations to special events. Click on the links to subscribe https://subscribe.theage.com.au/ or https://subscribe.smh.com.au/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on The Natural Birth Podcast we have my dear midwife colleague and friend Libby. Libby is a mama of 3 from NSW, Australia. She is an independent, endorsed midwife in the Byron Shire and surroundings, and in my opinion the best. Libby has incredibly fast births. Her first baby was born in the car on the way to the hospital, her second was monitored in hospital due to her history of fast births and her third was finally, as she had wanted all along, in her home. Her planned home birth was the best decision she have ever made. So, today dear listener you get to her from Libby, a midwife with over 25 years of experience and a mama of 3! Curious about Libby? Find her at www.midwifelibby.com

It's time again for our guiding seasonal podcast with Tahnee and Mason, where they tune into the energetics, undertones, and wisdom of the season within Daoism. With 30 days of Jing in full swing, and people easing back off stimulants, this episode couldn't have landed at a better time. In Daoism, the season of Winter is associated with the element of water and the wonderful Kidneys. The Kidneys are the bedrock of our yin/yang energy, a storehouse for our Jing, and govern the regulation of fluids in our body. Of all the seasons, Winter is the most Yin. The beauty to be found in this season comes from allowing space for introspection, reflection, restoration, and the inner alchemy of the kidneys, transforming fear into wisdom. As with all the seasons we move through, Tahnee and Mason translate a fluent foundation of what embodying this season looks like; The warming foods to eat, herbs to have on hand, and practices that best support us, both in this season and in this point in time collectively. Dress for the elements, protect your Qi with layers and woolies, observe Mother Nature; And as the sun sets early and rises late, so should we flow with her motion and allow our bodies to rest, and consolidate our essence into Jing. Tune in~     "I can feel the depth of that Kidney energy and the untapped potential within it. That's where the Jing lives, in the Kidneys. But when it comes down to fear, it's the wisest organ because it's the most practical".  -Mason Taylor   Mase and Tahnee discuss:   The energetics of Winter. Why rest is crucial in Winter. Herbs and foods for Winter. Observing fear-kidney related. Transforming fear into wisdom. Balancing Yin and Yang energy. The esoteric nature of the Kidneys. The Water element and the Kidneys. What menstruation blood says about our Jing essence. Practices and meditations to support us through Winter.   Tahnee and Mason Taylor Tahnee and Mason Taylor are the CEO and founder of SuperFeast (respectively). Their mission with SuperFeast is to improve the health, healing, and happiness of people and the planet, through sharing carefully curated offerings and practices that honour ancient wisdom and elevate the human spirit. Together Tahnee and Mason run their company and host the SuperFeast podcast, weaving their combined experience in herbs, yoga, wellness, Taoist healing arts, and personal development with lucid and compelling interviews from all around the world. They are the proud parents of Aiya and Goji, the dog, and are grateful to call the Byron Shire home.   Tahnee Taylor Tahnee Taylor is the CEO of SuperFeast and has been exploring health and human consciousness since her late teens. From Yoga, which she first practiced at school in 2000, to reiki, herbs, meditation, Taoist and Tantric practices, and human physiology, her journey has taken her all over. This journey continues to expand her understanding and insight into the majesty (that is) the human body and the human experience. Tahnee graduated with a Journalism major and did a stint in non-fiction publishing (working with health and wellness authors and other inspiring creatives), advertising, many jobs in cafes, and eventually found herself as a Yoga teacher. Her first studio, Yoga for All, opened in 2013, and Tahnee continues to study Yoga with her teachers Paul + Suzee Grilley and Rod Stryker. She learned Chi Nei Tsang and Taoist healing practices from Master Mantak Chia. Tahnee continues to study herbalism and Taoist practices, the human body, women's wisdom, ancient healing systems, and is currently enrolled in an acupuncture degree and year-long program with The Shamanic School of Womancraft. Tahnee is the mother of one, a 4-year old named Aiya.   MasonTaylor Mason Taylor is the founder of SuperFeast. Mason was first exposed to the ideas of potentiating the human experience through his mum Janesse (who was a big inspiration for founding SuperFeast and is still an inspiration to Mason and his team due to her ongoing resilience in the face of disability). After traveling South America for a year, Mason found himself struggling with his health - he was worn out, carried fungal infections, and was only 22. He realised that he had the power to take control of his health. Mason redirected his attention from his business degree and night work in a bar to begin what was to become more than a decade of health research, courses, education, and mentorship from some of the leaders in personal development, wellness, and tonic herbalism. Inspired by the own changes to his health and wellbeing through his journey (which also included Yoga teacher training and raw foodism!), he started SuperFeast in 2010. Initially offering a selection of superfoods, herbs, and supplements to support detox, immune function, and general wellbeing. Mason offered education programs around Australia, and it was on one of these trips that he met Tahnee, who is now his wife and CEO of SuperFeast. Mason also offered detox and health transformation retreats in the Byron hinterland (some of which Tahnee also worked on, teaching Yoga and workshops on Taoist healing practices, as well as offering Chi Nei Tsang treatments to participants). After falling in love with the Byron Shire, Mason moved SuperFeast from Sydney's Northern Beaches to Byron Bay in 2015. He lived on a majestic permaculture farm in the Byron hinterland, and after not too long, Tahnee joined him (and their daughter, Aiya was conceived). The rest is history - from a friend's rented garage to a warehouse in the Byron Industrial Estate to SuperFeast's current home in Mullumbimby's beautiful Food Hub, SuperFeast (and Mason) has thrived in the conscious community of the Northern Rivers. Mason continues to evolve his role at SuperFeast, in education, sourcing, training, and creating the formulas based on Taoist principles of tonic herbalism.   CLICK HERE TO LISTEN ON APPLE PODCAST    Resources: Jing Tonic Chaga Deer Antler 30 days of Jing Sleep-Our Top 10 Tips Yoga Nidra    Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast?   A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We'd also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher :)! Plus  we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Mason: (00:00) Hello, everybody.   Tahnee: (00:01) Hi, everyone.   Mason: (00:02) It's wintertime.   Tahnee: (00:03) Brr.   Mason: (00:03) Ready to jam about the water season.   Tahnee: (00:07) So excited.   Mason: (00:08) Are you?   Tahnee: (00:09) Always.   Mason: (00:11) Excited about winter? That's a transformation now.   Tahnee: (00:13) I like winter. I know it is. I'm from far North Queensland so I don't like winter historically but I have grown to love winter and I think the kidneys are my favourite organ system to talk about if one can have a favourite.   Mason: (00:29) Yeah. My favourite child's Aiya.   Tahnee: (00:31) You only have one child.   Mason: (00:32) Yeah. That's true. You only have five organ systems. Yeah. I definitely feel you. Do you just want to jump straight in and let us know why you love talking about it so much?   Tahnee: (00:43) Sure. Being interviewed on my own podcast. Our podcast.   Mason: (00:48) Yeah. It's still just my picture on the ... No, we're rebranding because that was from a long time ago.   Tahnee: (00:55) I hijacked it. Yeah. Why do I like the kidneys? So I think I like it on an esoteric level because it's all about the karmic blueprint of the organism as it comes in. But on a more practical level, I think the kidney's governed regulation of the fluids in our body and our on a Western lens that hormonal axis of relationship and I've just come to really appreciate how important it is to nurture that system. One thing I'm really conscious of is how esoteric we go on this podcast so I want to try and keep it practical for a little bit at least. I think when we talk about kidneys we're really talking about the ability of the body to be in integrity and to have integrity through the joint systems, through the organ structures as well. So the spleen's really responsible for the meatiness and the integrity of the muscles and their ability to be harmonious and responsive and full of blood and all those things.   Tahnee: (02:02) But the kidneys provide this consolidation and lifting and holding energy so when we talk about things like prolapse or joint issues we really see that as a kidney problem. I'm someone who has had a lot of bad stuff a couple of times in my life and I've really come to appreciate how much working with the kidney meridian has benefited that. On a psycho-emotional level, I really like how it speaks to transforming fear into wisdom which I think it's really difficult but I think it's a really worthwhile thing. When you look at the things in your life that really scare you whether it's death or financial like lack of finances or all of those primal... Yeah. Even your sexuality a lot of people have a lot of fear of sexuality. These are all really deeply connected to the kidney story.   Tahnee: (02:55) If you look at the chakra system as well it's connected to that second chakra and also to the base chakra with the adrenal glands so it's really around all of those foundations of our human existence which is somewhere to live, someone to love us, enough money in the bank to survive, purpose and meaning in our lives. Using the journey of life to become wise. So a running joke in our house that I'm going to be really cool when I'm 60 but I think about instead of being I'll have to achieve something about when I'm 20 or 30 or whatever it's like take the long view and look at life as this opportunity to grow and develop and become wise, become... I guess let life shape you a little bit and that really aligns for me with the kidney essence because you think about what water does, it corrodes through rock to form these beautiful gorges and rivers.   Tahnee: (03:48) If you've ever been in a plane flying over the earth and you see a river meandering through a desert or through a forest it's such a beautiful metaphor I think for life. Because it's not like a straight line to the sea. It twists and turns and bends and that's literally what kidney energy points to. Remember that water finds a way no matter what. There's always a path to the sea and we're meandering through life following the flow of life. So it points very much the Dao to me and I guess especially as I get older I'm really feeling into that new way, effortless effort, that sort of grace that comes through trusting in life. I think the kidney really invites that in. That was a long answer to your question.   Mason: (04:37) Yeah. I'm just interested. I'm always interested to see what you bring up in the beginning because that sets me off. The fee one sets me off. We've talked about journaling as a practise in autumn-   Tahnee: (04:49) It's good for all seasons.   Mason: (04:51) It's good for all seasons. I find at the moment I like the confrontation around fear. I like the awareness and the appreciation and gratitude for fear as a feeling because naturally if everyone just goes in you can feel how much that fear has kept you alive. It's kept you safe. It's kept you... Maybe at times, you've gone to a Tony Robbins conference and he's told you to explode beyond your fear and you've gone out and done something exceptional. It's really great to have that heart energy all the time but if anyone who owns a business or who has their own whatever, just has a job if you constantly explode outside of what your body is telling you is reasonable like 100% of the time eventually you burn out. There's a little bit of reasonableness around some of the fears that you have.   Tahnee: (05:41) Yeah. Well, I just want to jump in because you said courage which is really one of those values of the heart and the lungs. The upper dantian organ systems and again to get a little bit esoteric but if you're constantly draining the kidney essence before its really cultivated and naturally bubbling up-   Mason: (06:02) What's that process?   Tahnee: (06:04) Well, this is inner alchemy so this would be Neigong practise which is probably a little bit out there for the podcast but it's the cultivation practises. So if you're working with the water wheels in the body which are basically like energy currents in the body you're starting to consolidate your essence into jing. You're using chi drawn from the earth so that on the very base of the foot you can't see me I'm touching my hand as if it were afoot but if you go from your middle toes to the little divot underneath the pad of your foot just before the arch of your foot there's a kidney point called the bubbling spring. In QiGong when you place your feet on the earth after a certain amount of practise in the Wu Chi stance a way of leaning forward into the balls of the feet really resting them on the earth and connecting to the earth.   Tahnee: (06:55) You start to feel almost as if bubbles or water bubbles are pressing up against the sole of the foot and it's called the bubbling spring point literally because you can feel the chi of the earth drawing up into the body through this point. A lot of the practises that I've learned through the Daoist arts are really around drawing earth chi up and into the body because that grounds us and it balances and it harmonises us and it reminds us of where we come from which is the earth so we're safe. We're safe here. We're not not here for a reason kind of thing. It gives us that grounding and connection. It's also very healing because earth chi is really healing for us especially those of us in device land all the time getting back to the earth is really important.   Tahnee: (07:41) Then that chi we can draw that into the body and we can use that in the initial stages it's to clear tension and a lot of the stuff Benny does, Benny Fergusson the Movement Monk. His work is around this. It's releasing the superficial stages of tension which is built up through emotional suppression and life. Then as we clear that we start to get into cultivation so that's when we're storing energy instead of spending energy so most of us the moment we get an inch we take a mile and I'm talking about myself as well here. I always start to get enough rest we start to get a good diet. We start to get on the herbs, we start to do the practises, we start to feel really good so then we go and push ourselves really hard and do something crazy. So we haven't reached the stable place where we're actually really grounded and that's what you're talking to. You've got one course and suddenly you're inspired to take on the world but you don't have any foundations to actually tackle it.   Mason: (08:40) Yeah. I think it's all done without a real appreciation and gratitude of that fear. Everyone's like feel the fear and do it anyway. I like to feel the fear and now I do. I think I've burnt myself out quite a lot with that personal development. Hardcore hostile entrepreneurial scene and now talking about the journaling I do it sometimes, I journal. I'll even counterintuitively do it on my phone if it strikes me but the whole reason I like winter as well. I like this kidney energy at all times of life as well as I start to get hopefully a little bit wiser and I'm not just going go, go, go at all times of the day. I'm appreciating that once you get to three to five o'clock in the organ wheel you can move into bladder time. Then five to seven you're moving into the kidney time and you can gauge how well you're able to adjust to a convalescence accumulating yin energy.   Mason: (09:35) I bring this up just because it's a really nice gauge for everyone going forth to know well, am I enjoying this wintertime? What does it actually mean? It's like that time of day when you're winding down how successfully can you do it? How successfully can you go into the blackness of night and the blackness of sleep? It's definitely been a big struggle for me over the years and that's why I'm really with you. I can feel just the depth of that kidney energy, just the untapped potential and that's what the jing lives in the kidneys and that's our potential. But when it comes down to fear it's the wisest organ because it's the most practical. It's like if you're going for that walk, I went for a walk with Benny actually the other day and we were walking pretty close to a cliff and there was a big drop-off. I felt the fear and I felt that part of me judged that fear just being like come on then. Just get closer, you're fine. You can trust yourself. Then I was like all of a sudden that wisdom. It's wisdom. I'm-   Tahnee: (10:35) Don't be stupid.   Mason: (10:36) Yeah, don't be stupid. I was like, okay. I caught just how much my body was like it seized up even though I was in a safe position and I trusted my body and I was like okay, I can ease up here. Then in terms of going that little bit closer like my mind was telling me, no, go closer. Dance right on the edge. I was like I got really grateful for that fear right now probably I don't need to go closer to the edge now. Then from there, I get a cascade of different thoughts and different feelings. That's a very simple example but that sparked a lot of-   Tahnee: (11:07) No, it's a great example. It's ego and all these things playing off in your mind and you're able now to take... This is literally the point of spiritual practise is to step out of the bullshit on that lower level of mind. I'm going to lean into the Ayurvedic text because I think they explain this very beautifully where it's like yeah, you've got ahamkara. You've got the ego itself who's saying I want to look a certain way and be a certain way in the world and that means I can handle this challenge. Then you've got Buddhi the wise mind going, really? Watch the emotions, watch what's playing out right now. Watch... We could get into these are scars which are habits of conditioning that you've got from what does it means to be a man. It means that I challenge myself. I push myself to go to the edge and this is literally the gift of the kidney is to go all of that stuff playing out. How do I rise above that? Be still, notice what's happening and make a wise decision which is important. I think it's a really useful life skill.   Mason: (12:11) Lots of big decisions come about. There's a lot of fear right now. There's fear of people who aren't vaccinated, who are vaccinated. There's fear of never being able to travel again.   Tahnee: (12:20) Governments. I think literally we're in a time of collective base chakra blasting because the systems that people have relied on forever are coming apart and this is where it helps to have a practise that grounds you back to the earth and says we're right here right now in this moment I'm okay. Does that mean I don't take action? Of course, not. But it means that I have a touchpoint or a reminder or a place to come to that's safe within me that's not provided by something external. So when the government collapses or when the economic system falls down or when you can't travel again you're not going to freak out because you know that you're okay right here where you are. You don't need to travel to validate your existence. I think these are the things that lack in our culture at this time.   Mason: (13:09) Well, it's nice when you look down into the pools of water within you. That's why it's nice to rest because if you don't rest you don't accumulate water. If you don't have downtime you don't-   Tahnee: (13:20) You don't accumulate chi. The whole point of this stuff is if we keep going 100% all the time you're never going to a yin state which is what kidney is, it's ultimate yin. Then we age, we lose our chi, we start to degenerate and that's not of service anyway to ourselves, our families, the planet.   Mason: (13:40) We are back on the journal once more. It's just a useful thing if you've got these crippling fears about your children or what's going to happen to your parents or so on and so forth. I sit there sometimes and I go through all the hypotheticals which I don't know if anyone... It's not a common practise in our-   Tahnee: (13:59) Scenario planning.   Mason: (14:00) ...culture. Oh, exactly in business it's scenario planning and it's really scary to go through what are the absolute worst scenarios that could play out in the business. It's like it's better just to keep them there but it's not wise to. So I've been doing that just whether it's in the shower or that's why it's really nice to have that downtime again on the earth and go for a walk. I go for a walk with a mate every week and I talk about them openly all these... You can get trapped in the doomsday ness of it.   Mason: (14:29) But if the intention of the practise is to, I just want to see what's real. I want to feel into that. You're feeling into the water within yourself and that's chi within yourself. So it's got a particular formation. You want to go about perceiving and exploring that chi as it's expressing within you and you'll find the wisdom within okay, that fear, where does that go to? What's the intention? It becomes 3D, 4D, 5D. It's not just I'm scared because I want to stay alive. You can start feeling the story and the metaphor playing out around that if you play that fear out to the end. Okay. At that point, that's good fear. Really like it. Gosh grateful that we have that fear of whatever it is, social anxiety, being judged, losing all your money, never being able to travel, having forced medical stuff upon you, having people not doing medical things.   Mason: (15:14) Whatever it is, whatever your fear is it's all valid. So your experience and you just go. That's really reasonable. Ah, at this point there's a grey zone and murkiness and then you sit in that murky zone because it's not just a fear. You don't allow that fear to give... Don't have an aversion to that area and go and sink into that area. Okay. That's when you rest, you accumulate all this chi, you accumulate those deep waters and those reservoirs of water. If you don't have those you have nothing to explore and you become a shallow person. You can't get that action. You become shallow, you become externally driven, you need identities, you need dogma. Don't think because we're talking about kidneys that people need to be sick or completely tapped out on their kidneys or of their adrenals. It could be a slight dysfunction but people these days, even young people they're not honouring this process and therefore you see there's an extreme amount of people acting in shallow ways and having shallow belief systems.   Mason: (16:16) Therefore they're outside of themselves. There's no wisdom in what they're saying. They're just given a rough document of the ideology that they're following and then they go and just regurgitate that and repeat that and go and gather evidence. So that's all kidney water systems. So it's nicer to be in flow with nature and create those deep reservoirs of water and if you feel the fear then feel that murky zone and then you move towards that experience and wisdom engagement. Then what you'll see is there's a real constant opportunity for transformation and change to occur there.   Tahnee: (16:51) Yeah. I think what you spoke to there I mean it's not even on an individual level. I don't think it's an individual problem, I think it's a collective problem that we aren't... The Neijing which is where a lot of our philosophy comes from really. Which is one of the oldest pre-TCM text classical medicine texts to basically sleep until the sun rises high in the sky basically. You're supposed to sleep a lot in wintertime. I know for me we're both feeling sleepy around seven or eight o'clock at the moment and we're in bed really early at the moment.   Tahnee: (17:54) I'm sleeping until seven most mornings and I'm really feeling this deep nourishment from sleep at the moment. Obviously, we have a business and children so we still end up burning the candle but how many of us push through winter not getting that hibernation time, that deep rest of restoration in the chi and the organs. Then oh, we get sick, and then oh, we're suddenly like I'm crook all the time. It's like it's not because as a culture we keep the momentum going all year round. We don't have this time of acknowledging and even making sacred the rest and the sleep that we require. I think the Neijing they had this foundational text that was an understood part of the culture. I guess I'm making a broad assumption so maybe I'm wrong but we don't grow up with that. I grew up in the tropics where you have wet and dry seasons basically. If it's cold you wear a light jumper and that's it-   Mason: (18:48) Aussies are on. The mittens are on. The [inaudible 00:18:49] are on.   Tahnee: (18:50) But we never had any real... I remember my mum saying keep your kidneys covered but that was about as far as it went. I really was shocked when I moved to a cold climate. I had no idea. I think I'm 35. I've just learned how to layer and how to stay warm, like wearing UGG boots in my house and all these kinds of things. It's really taken me a long time to understand cold and cold invasion. These ideas in Chinese medicine that seem really foreign to us as Westerners because cold isn't something that can invade you but in Chinese medicine, it's literally it can. It's a pathogen and it enters your body. If you think about homeostatic processes, your body is trying to maintain its temperature. If it's constantly being punished by cold air and it's having to push back and try and stay warm enough that's going to drain your resources. It's going to drain your reserves. It's going to drain your chi.   Tahnee: (19:38) You're going to be more susceptible to getting sick. Now is the cold a pathogen or are you now more susceptible to viruses and bacteria? I don't know the answer to that but I would assume that it makes a lot of sense to stay rugged up against the cold to prevent your body from having to be stressed out by this thing. We live in an area where barefoot is common. You see kids running around barefoot all the time. I really make my kid wear shoes and socks with warm things on her feet in winter even though I believe that barefoot is best. It's like at some point we also have to maintain the health of the body. I think it's a really interesting... I'm not saying I have the answers but it's something I find really interesting how little respect our culture has for the elements and respecting the elements and being really conscious and mindful of cold and its effect on us as an organism. Yeah.   Tahnee: (20:34) I think also when we think about the Neijing saying we need this inner time it's very transpersonal in that collectively if we all slow down and we all turn our attention in and we spend this time in reflection and restoration and then we come back collectively. That's a really powerful shift in our culture that we've spent time in this yin state that isn't outward and isn't... I guess that's probably never going to happen but I think it's really interesting because what you're talking about with the depth of water we've all seen the movies, we've all seen Jaws and [inaudible 00:21:13] and deep water is scary. Deepwater brings up our deepest most primal fears around what's lurking underneath the surface. That's why meditation is hard for so many people. That's why being still is hard for so many people because when you stop moving you start to feel all of the things that are hidden beneath the surface that you've been moving to stay away from. So meditation to me is one of the ultimate kidney practises in terms of connecting to that inner world and connecting to the subconscious under the surface narrative that goes in all of us. I feel like the season is a really big invitation to slow down and meditate more and be less active but maybe more internal.   Mason: (21:58) Mm-hmm (affirmative). I've got a little bit of an idea I just want to explore. Hopefully, it lands but you're just triggered by the fact you were saying it's such an introspective time. So we go in and we view what is ourselves and we get really intimate with self-agency, feeling ourselves on more I would say of an infinite nature. I'm feeling our spiritual nature and closing off from the world a little bit. We close off a little bit socially. We're not as socially engaged, we're not taking input outside but it's something I just realised for myself running in spiritual circles so much. It's probably a lot around here in what we do wave as the superior is staying within. Staying yin and not going out and interacting heavily with other people and allowing your personality to form and develop. This is something that happens in the yang. It happens in springtime, it happens in summer. It happens in high activity times in business.   Mason: (23:09) I'm thinking about it because I'm thinking a lot about feedback and it's something I don't... I don't enjoy feedback. I like being a part of a team but I've got this... This is no, I'm in touch with who I am on the inside and the way that I am. I'm introspective and I don't often then go and take that and then run out into my community and allow for there to be feedback that I really take on about the way that I'm interacting with the world. The way my mannerisms, my temperament. I sit in that yin introspective place a lot of the time. I'm just realising, by the way, this is very conceptual everybody but remembering that kidneys are the source of yin and yang. So if you are excessively yin in your life. If you're excessively in that space of I'm just staying inside of myself.   Mason: (24:09) I'm not accepting input. I'm not going out and allowing the daggers to be thrown that occur within an interaction especially in those high summer times. Then what happens is you don't actually allow that yang energy to cultivate within the kidneys as well. So the yin becomes a little bit more shallow as you go along. I'm really in my internal world and being selfish and talking about my own process here but I hope that just talks a little bit to the experience of remembering that this time a lot of people really love the yin when you get to shut off from people and you don't have to be forced to interact and take feedback and really be an interactive force. But remember you're going to be able to go deeper the more you go out and allow the judgement in, the people refining who you are, all that be socially engaged. I bring that up because if you can do that if you can stay within that wheel of cultivating yin and yang within the kidneys and you do that by staying within the circulation of the seasons and the days so you're going between yin and yang, yang and yin.   Mason: (25:13) You're going to have very significantly differently expressed parts of yourself coming out all the time. Then the kidney water can cultivate because kidney water is potential. What happens if you have water? You have life, you have lots of water in an arid land you're always going to be able to have potential to create food and survive. Eventually, you want aquifers. You want aquifers that are pure and able to give you a real solid store of water. Then what happens is the yang comes in, that fire comes in and heats up that water so the water can move around your body. So this is just bringing the significance of why it's so important to go into this cultivation time but also be in and respect the difference between yin and yang and those parts of yourself.   Mason: (25:57) If the yang can really be expressed within yourself as well then you heat up all that potential, you heat up that water. It becomes a vapour, goes up, and allows the germination within the liver to happen and you're basically keeping the body nice and supple. You're circulating the water in. The part of that is if you're constantly introducing water to an ecosystem you never know what's going to germinate at different times as you go along. I think there's a subconscious fear there even of going really I understand myself and I want to stay right here. If you keep going along the wheel of the year between yin and yang as you go along different aspects of your personality, different parts are going to germinate and take seed.   Mason: (26:42) You're going to have to have the wisdom to go cool, this is an identity. I know that there's a part of myself that's really beautifully expressed in that but I'm actually going to go and explore a different part of myself. So kidneys are always so tied in with who am I? If you can look into the deep dark waters you can realise it's a little bit more fluid than you think it is.   Tahnee: (27:05) Well, the deep connection to I am universal really. It's the [inaudible 00:27:12] fire and this whole concept of where we even come from that's kidney essence. It's kind of like Shakti and yogic texts but it's literally how each cell knows on this higher consciousness level what to become. If you're the sperm and the egg uniting you know how to make a human. Well, how does that even happen? How is that information, that data transferred and interpreted? Where does this blueprint come from and this is kidney energy, this is jing, this is that primordial essence? So there's this really deep connection to ancestry to all of creation really through the kidney essence. I think if you think about the archetype of the kidney it's the magician or the wise sage. So it's this person who's connected to more than just... It's the shaman really.   Tahnee: (28:13) It's the person who can bridge worlds. So I think that sense in the kidney what you're speaking to with going up that kind of happens naturally. The Daoist practise is the whole point is you cultivate enough jing that the expression coming up through the shen is pure. You're consistent and you're authentic because it's what you radiate is aligned and so it's not this inner process that happens through. Meditation is the start of that process but at a certain point in meditation, you're not going through your shit anymore. You're accessing that stillness and then in that stillness, you're starting to feel the prana. In the prana, you're starting to understand that you can use your awareness to bring prana into the body or chi into the body.   Tahnee: (29:11) Then you're starting to cultivate that and then you're using your practises to integrate this kind of experience into... It's getting kind of esoteric. sorry. But that's when shen radiates and there's this very strong relationship between the depth of winter and the peak of summer and there has to be to have your full expression out into the world. You have to have the opposite. That's the polarity I suppose of the yin and yang expression of those organ systems and in Daoism, we do meditations where we unite the heart and the kidneys and we bring the cold energy from the kidneys up to the heart and cool the heart because you're always expressing your heart gets hot, it gets overheated. If you're never bringing your shen and your authenticity and your expression and yourself down back to the kidneys to warm them up the kidneys get cold and they start to get exhausted.   Tahnee: (30:05) So that's this unifying function of the heart and the kidney meridians and the meditation's really beautiful. You're imagining the heart is the lotus and the kidneys is the lotus bulbs and then the legs are the roots down to the earth. Then the lotus is opening up to the universal energy above. That's a really nice metaphor I think for how we've got the energy provided for the flowering of our life from the kidneys. Then the heart provides that flowering expression. I think when we think about what happens in wintertime if you're flowing with the seasons you feel you want to cultivate quiet. You want to reflect. You want to be still. You want to stay warm, all of these things. The moment some of us your energy's different. You're up, you're out and by the time peak summer's coming you're on your own fire. So you want to have the reserves that you've cultivated in winter available to you in summer.   Tahnee: (31:01) It's like having resources to draw from so I think that's where we don't take that opportunity to slow down and winter's really about that. It's about closing off and storing and I don't see that as a negative thing. I've come to really enjoy that about winter, that I'm less social and I'm less concerned with the outside world at this time. I just want to be with my family and in my home and we're making soup and we're slowing down and my daughter's taking a thermos to school. It's all very cute. I think that's really what I have learned is to yield to the changes the season brings and that trust that the full expression will come. That's my take on all of that. I don't know if we wanted to talk to herbs and how we would work with them at this time of year.   Mason: (31:57) Yeah. I might just quickly talk about what the kidney's associated with. If you think about its water. If you think about the story within your body of water, bringing the germination its fertility. If you want to stay fertile if you want to maintain potential you need to have that water. Just imagine that water chi. Yes, there's all these hormones and it's like there's a huge association of the sex hormones with the kidney water energy. So if your mind needs that, really go with that and really make that association. Then sometimes it's nice to just fall into the metaphor of the elements as well. So think if you've got water sitting there with reservoirs and you're doing a really good job at sustainably releasing that water up so that it can make the tissue nice and moist and nice and lubricated then you're going to have fertility all over your body.   Mason: (32:47) That means regeneration of cells and that's why quickly touching on herbs like the yang herbs especially which increase the yang within the body which mobilises the water and allows germination that happen. That's why when that happens what do you have when you're fertile when you have fertility? Obviously, you have new life. Obviously, you have regeneration going on. From that yang there's stamina and potential that comes about so therefore it's the deer antlers and eucommia barks and Cordyceps that are associated with that. But just for your own fertility look at the water management and look at sustainability in your own lifestyle. Look at how if you're unsustainable with your energy if you're unsustainable with your money. I really hope that everyone knows that when I say these things I don't have them all sorted out in my life. I'm definitely-   Tahnee: (33:47) Does anyone?   Mason: (33:48) No. Some of these things I talk about like I'm really struggling with myself and just hope everyone's able to just take this as theory basically or something that we can all work within. Work not necessarily towards. But it's really nice to look at even again and go back to that journal. What aspects of your life are really sustainable? Look back on how you partied. Look back on how you didn't party and express that summer because that's another thing for those of you who want to get the most out of this season. Maybe it's knowing harmony. Maybe you didn't go full fire which we always assume it's the other. We always assume that people aren't resisting the winter months but of course, it's going to be the other way around. Look at sustainability within your life. That's going to be that you're actually going to be able to maintain fertility.   Mason: (34:39) That means libido, sexual vigour, sexual capacity, sexual fluids, and the capacity to regenerate sexual fluids. These are all things. So how sustainable have you been with sex? Too much? Not enough? There's no answer here and that's something I think if you see an aversion towards sometimes with Daoism because they're like it seems very rule-heavy. You're allowed to have this much sex. Not this much sex, you can't ejaculate so on and so forth. These are all just really loose suggestions especially from a civilization that really liked things to be really defined. But you just take them and you just work them into your own.   Tahnee: (35:14) Well, the distinction too is Confucian versus Daoistan. The Confucians were quite rigid and the Daoists had a lot of the rules were based on chi so it's about chi cultivation. So I think that's what I've always found really interesting is if you look at what the Confucians contributed which was they were society structure. Then you look at what the Daoists contributed. So I have found in my experience with the teachers of Qi Gong that I've studied with and I've learned from some who are very loose. It's like going with the flow, finding your own form, feel your body's fluid. Others are really strict and really regimented and really rule-based. Master Chia who I have learned the most from when he speaks to sexual cultivation for men especially. He's like younger men go for it, you've got heaps more to spare but as you get older you need to be more mindful.   Tahnee: (36:10) He has some structures and guidance around that but I think it's a really personal thing and one of our big guiding principles at SuperFeast is sovereignty. I think the whole point of this information is not for us to be like we know the best and you guys should do these things it's really about reflecting on our own journeys to this point and hopefully providing some context for what you might want to look at through your own life and then filter that into what's relevant for you. I think this is really important when it comes to any kind of teacher or any kind of education. Especially when it's ancient stuff because we've lost so much. We only got the classics in English in the 80s and that's not very long ago and we don't know what other texts there were that were destroyed.   Tahnee: (36:56) Mao Zedong's team destroyed a whole lot of beautiful literature and writings from earlier times in China and I'm sure other things that were lost. It was oral traditions so I'm sure many things were lost in that way. So we're lucky to have what we have but we're making assumptions from a limited number of sources really at the end of the day. I don't speak Mandarin or read Chinese characters unfortunately so I'm learning through people that have translated it for me and they can make assumptions. If you go and read the [inaudible 00:37:27] I've read five or six different translations and they're all so different. Some are poetic and beautiful, some are really modern, some are really traditional and follow the translations really literally but then they're a little harder to interpret in a modern context.   Tahnee: (37:43) I don't think you can say there's an unequivocal right or wrong way. I think nature is there as a great teacher and she's been there through all of the traditions and kidney time is probably one of those times where we really remember how powerful nature is and especially if you're somewhere... We're in Byron it doesn't even get that cold here but if you're somewhere where it snows like I've been Scandinavia that it shuts down. You're snowed in. Nature is so powerful that she can shut down civilization for a period of time and it's dark and it's a different experience to be in those places and I don't know what it's like to live there through winters.   Tahnee: (38:22) But I can imagine you wouldn't be going out and doing things all the time. You'd want to be staying home and staying warm and staying in bed. I know people get a lot of seasonal effectiveness disorder and these kinds of things but I think part of that's got to be that we're culturally pushing ourselves to not just stay home and rest during these times. We've separated from the family unit so people are alone in apartments when they should be with their families. Again not everyone wants to be with their families all the time. I get all of that but you can see how as we've moved away from collective living and these nature-based cultures you can see how these health problems arise. I'm using inverted commas that you can't see which really come a lot from our social and cultural context. So I think one of the things we love about this is it gives us a language and a story and an explanation for how we have noticed our own lives adapt and change as we've gotten older and smarter and wiser. Yeah. I think hopefully you guys can take some of that and find what works for you and then move on.   Mason: (39:28) Yeah. You definitely hit it and that's how institutionalised do we want these healing systems to be? Where it's like uh-uh-uh this is the system, that's the text that we have to go by therefore follow this rule. It's like hmm, I don't think that's how Daoism works and that's why there's such a split between traditional Chinese medicine which is institutionalised, and classical Chinese medicine which is based on well, what's your experience? What are you perceiving because it's reality versus road learning? So I think you're going to see more and more of that split occurring. I think you're going see more and more that split genetically towards people going on that path of not saying good or bad that's a very murky thing to say but there is a path towards cultivating greater potential, self-cultivated potential versus reliance in order to ensure that potential now I'm using inverted commas is present within the body. So one is reliant, one is self-cultivation. A little bit of both is probably good as well.   Tahnee: (40:36) If we're going to be Daoist... Well, yeah. I think you have to remember that we're a species that thrives in smallish groups so I think that's something we have to take into account is human nature. But then I also think self-cultivation and self-responsibility is really the essence of the Daoist way. I think any time we're getting to guru worship or giving away power to an ideology or some kind of text or anything then we're starting to understand that maybe we've moved away from really our own selves. I guess that's what that reflection time and that kidney... If you're exhausted... I'm a mum. I have a business. I know what it feels like to be really tired sometimes and I don't want to take care of myself. I don't want to take care of anybody else.   Tahnee: (41:25) I just want to get away from the world when I feel like that. That's not a great place to be contributing your best from. So if your kidneys are tapped out then you're not going to be even beginning to radiate shen. You're not going to have the motivation to transform into liver vision and planning and getting things done. Yeah. If you're someone like Master Seng he's on the opposite side of things who can never seem to get out of that yin state then maybe there's this stagnation in your water and you need to clear that out. You might need a different kind of treatment to the people who are like Mase and myself who are go, go, go.   Tahnee: (42:03) So I think it's important to have a look at your own pathology and your own habits. This is a personal observation in my body but if I've had a really kidney deficient month and that would look like for me not getting enough sleep, doing too much work, being a bit too busy outside of my good solid, retainer structure then my menstruation will usually have a brownish tinge which means I've really dried out my water. I'm sort of burning my blood a little bit. I'm dry and it's not good. On the flip side of that if I've had a really stressful and that would typically be more of a livery kind of month where I've been really fast-moving and anxious and stressed and in my head and thinking a lot and maybe even into spleen deficiency my blood's going to be bright red and it's going to be really thin.   Tahnee: (43:04) So that's the structure and the substance of my blood is missing. So I'm looking at my menstruation and I'm using it as this guide to say okay, well, that's moving and kidney deficiency. This is me being in liver or spleen deficiency. Then I will adjust my lifestyle and my diet depending on how that works, what I'm seeing, and what I'm observing. So there are self-reflections that I've been able to develop over the last few years thanks to support from acupuncturists and people who've helped me understand that. But now I can see what I'm doing to myself and I can have more self-awareness and self-reflection on what to adjust in my life. So those are for me things that I'm really conscious of and have to be aware of because that's this idea of your menstruation being a report card.   Tahnee: (43:50) The kidney provides the water for the blood so it's a really important part for women. Important for men too but the spleen provides the nutrition for the blood, it provides from the food the substance that makes the blood healthy. The liver cleans and transports and transforms the blood and the water from the kidneys is provided to help keep the blood fluid and flowing. So that's why I would get that brown more congested blood toward the end of my menstruation if I'm in kidney deficiency. So those are things that you can think about if you're someone who wants to learn more about that. I'd recommend going and getting a close relationship with an acupuncturist and being really open and sharing about your body and about the things you observe and getting that kind of self-awareness because it's going to help you.   Tahnee: (44:33) A lot of other people were shocked with big bags under their eyes with kidney deficiency and things like that. You can look at what your tendencies are: weak lower back, weak knees. I know if my back's going that's when I'm in kidney deficiency. Whereas for other people that could mean liver deficiency. It could mean different things so you need to learn your body signs and what it does. But if you're getting older and your knees are starting to go and your hips are starting to go those things are a pretty good sign that you're burning out your jing and you want to look at slowing down a little bit. Getting into some more restoration and maybe working with some herbs may be working with a practitioner starting to cultivate. Very important I think.   Mason: (45:10) Stillness practise, contemplation time, coming down in that afternoon period and so just remember very quickly the kidney's a regulating bone integrity, bone marrow integrity. So imagine just that life being born from that marrow pure potential for the human body. So you're tapping out your jing, you're tapping out your marrow. You're going to see faster degeneration as you age, you're going to see faster ageing come about. That's why you see, some people grey hair is inevitable but there's been countless people who are in superficial jing deficiency and kidney deficiency and have started developing greys and they go hey, I got into beauty blend and my greys have stopped coming through, what the hell's with that? I mean yeah that's not going to happen for most people who have got greys but for those of you that are really superficial, it's like yeah blood. Blood getting up there. Nourishment getting up into the hair and pigmenting.   Tahnee: (46:13) I miss [inaudible 00:46:14] because it was really good for that too. That is kidney and jing that's what you're talking about. We talked a bit about the yang of kidney but the yin of kidney is more of that substance of the blood, the marrow, the brains. The kidneys are in Daoism when Chinese medicine the brain is called the sea of marrow. So really the integrity and quality of the brain is supported by the kidney energy. So we look at using kidney hubs to support brain function and again if you think about these degenerative diseases that are now showing up especially in Western culture with the brain you can point to a lot of our habits through our society as also being implicated in that degeneration.   Mason: (47:03) Non-sustainable practises. Non-sustainable habits. Really simple. It's so boring hearing myself say it over and over again and talking to myself as well. It's really comforting as well feeling the freedom come through that discipline around okay, it's not going to stop. Sleep, consistent diet. I would love the extremes I don't think we'll get to it today. But cold plunging it's another extreme. Tahnee was talking about how nice it is just to live within the elements and respect them and be like cool I'm just going to flow with you and see what you can tell me and just yield. But we're so addicted to dominating. No, I'm not going to go with the flow. I'm not going to be conventional. I'm going to fly in the face of winter and I'm going to go further into cold plunging. We'll see if we can get to that but it's just that's all well and good in particular times of life and I'm not saying what we're doing is better than anyone else is doing but as a thought maybe we can start looking at sustainability in our lifestyle based on what's happening in the elements around us as a way to go...   Mason: (48:26) It's not a competition to not age as fast either. It's about us personally feeling our own potential and our own cultivation and our own what's possible for ourselves and then that really does come back to gosh, I don't know, I'm just looking behind you at the Daoist in Alchemy chat and I just said intergalactic journey. But it is true. It is your own intergalactic journey. Maybe that for you means there is a degenerative thing coming a little bit earlier than some other people that they didn't live sustainably. I'm not saying get caught up into that competitive way of living and I know that. I've said that because I'm bringing up the cold plunging and I know that's a relative conversation. Some people really do find benefit. At the moment I'm not saying don't do it but anyway. I've gone off task. I think I'm going to bring up the cold plunging conversation in another one because there's lots of little distinctions-   Tahnee: (49:24) Yeah. I want to be really clear that someone like Wimhauf who we've met he's devoted to his practises. He 100% is a young body type, yang like Y-A-N-G-. He's strong, lots of muscle mass. He has done lots of chi cultivation and he's an extreme example of what's possible and I'm 100% for that stuff. I'm really into it. If I didn't have all the shit going on in my life that I had I would totally be experimenting with all of that and I think what I see a lot is people go from their normal Western life to just into these practises which again in Daoism they're really common. In Tibetan Buddhism, in yoga, my teacher tells stories of the monks being buried in snow and having to melt their way out to show how strong their chi is. These are QiGong practises that you are supposed to show as a level of mastery and that's cool just learning a breathing practise and jumping in the cold all the time.   Tahnee: (50:29) It's a start of that but you don't have the context of chi or prana and you don't have that immersion in the system I guess. I don't know if Wim does that if you go on his retreats and things he takes you deeper and I'm sure there are people that are close to him who learn the real deep techniques. I'm 100% for people exploring that stuff. But we hear a lot from people who are like, oh, I got sick after cold plunging again.   Mason: (50:55) I don't have a menstrual cycle anymore.   Tahnee: (50:58) Yeah. Because cold has entered the uterus and you haven't cultivated your dantian enough your lower dantian that it's projecting heat so it's able to prevent you from getting cold penetrating into that space. So there's no talking about that it's just like oh, it's a part of cold plunging or something like that. Well, it's not. It's not a physiologically healthy thing to have happen to a woman in that time of her life. So I guess that's the kind of disclaimer and container to all that stuff. I think there's lots of really interesting conversations to be had about it because I definitely believe in it as a practise. It's really incredible but I think it's in the vortex, out of the vortex we always used to say. You have to have the container in the context and the explanation and the understanding.   Mason: (51:43) Sorry, I'm going to go because there's one little last bit of it. Can you have a yang and a yin approach atmosphere around the way that you're looking at it? I think again it's reliance. In the yang season in summer, it's great to have reliance on things to get heat because you're out there, you're experiencing, and then when you go into yin time it's like maybe I want to be able to cultivate something on my own. Maybe I want that to be a little side dish to what I can do myself.   Tahnee: (52:08) I think quickly with diet. So warming foods. So animal foods are really warming and taste yum so they can be really useful especially if you ask someone who feels the cold and who isn't particularly strong in winter. If you're not into those you can look at things like seaweeds and all of the traditional winter vegetables, your roots, your gourds, those kinds of things, pumpkins. Garlic and onions are really warming if you can tolerate them. Squash, zucchini, all those things you'll see them. I'm going to the farmer's market got all the winter vegetables coming through. Caulis all that kind of stuff. A lot of traditional things for winter weather there's herbal wines and stuff as well because alcohol is warming. Yeah, which is obviously something to do with moderation. With pepper or your Ayurvedic spices anything that warms your digestion. Ginger. Ginger tea is my number one go-to. Boil it up just slice it into fine little chunks, boil it for at least 10 minutes because you want to get it really strong. Then I put a little bit of panela sugar in that and then just drink it.   Mason: (53:17) Get the cinnamon in.   Tahnee: (53:17) It heats you up from the inside out. You just want to avoid the tropical stuff. You want to avoid too much dairy all of those things that are cooling and cold are not super helpful this time of year. Again if you look at Ayurvedic diets and things they always warm up the milk and add spices and ginger something like a chai. That's a better way to consume dairy than having a cold flavoured yoghourt or anything like that. Same with coconut and those kinds of things and a lot of people love coconut but it wouldn't be probably that ideal to have in winter.   Tahnee: (53:50) Winter it's actually one of the reasons you have spicy coconut soup things in Thailand and stuff is because coconut by nature is cold and then you add all the spice to it which helps to make you sweat and cool you down in those hot climates. So if you're looking at more of those broth kinds of things, more of those nourishing homely style meals at this time of year.   Mason: (54:11) You got to mention black foods. Kidney beans. Black sesame seed, black beans-   Tahnee: (54:21) Seaweeds. Yeah. All of those kinds of things. Molasses is really good-   Mason: (54:23) Molasses. Dark leafy greens thrown in there too... We're loving our slow-cooked meals. Soups.   Tahnee: (54:32) I don't have any affiliation with them but I bought an Instant Pot. It's the best thing that's ever happened to me, especially as a mum. It's so good. Okay. Mase is sick of hearing about my Instant Pot.   Mason: (54:45) No, I'm not.   Tahnee: (54:46) You love it too don't you?   Mason: (54:47) Yeah. I've been using it quite a bit. You will absolutely love us and your spleen will love you if you have a glass of warm to hot water first thing in the morning. That's my favourite at this time of year. Some days I forget but in winter I'm five days a week since I was in China and was told by my Daoist, my tonic herb friends that that was their favourite tonic ever. Just guys beanies, socks, long walks in nature.   Tahnee: (55:21) Yeah because cold gets into ears which are related to the kidneys, the back of the head, the neck, the back of the neck around C7, the lower back, and then down really through all the joints in the lower body and the soles of the feet. Also through the arms and the hands so you really want to cover as much as you can but you'll have an area where you have a tendency to be weak so you want to be extra mindful of that. So for me, it's the feet and the back of the neck. I have to keep those areas warm otherwise I can feel the cold getting in. So you'll just have to play around with that and see what you really feel you need to stay warm but that's important.   Mason: (56:00) Having a break from stimulants. Don't have to be strict if you like them you like them. It is like throwing pebbles into the pond so you can't look down into your depths. That's why we do 30 days of jing in Australian winter. Sorry Northern hemisphere folks but it's even in the middle of summer it's a great experience for you guys to all have. Just getting off stimulants for 30 days and you can do it anytime. We've got all the resources there. We've got a Facebook group there for you to go and join and just give you the down low but it's basically adding in the jing herbs or the jing formula which are the kidney, that's the kidney formula. Really great herbs to be having during the winter. You might feel in the beginning there might be three weeks or four weeks in the beginning of the winter season where you're craving the kidney herbs, jing herbs, and then maybe you don't feel like them as much. Don't worry about that. It's like there's no rule that you have to have only kidney herbs when you're in winter but it's maybe just a little bit of a guide. That's what I'm like in spring. At the start I'll go two or three weeks hard on the beauty blend and then it just breaks out and I'm off doing intuitively whatever I want.   Tahnee: (57:14) Well, yeah because as the seasons change and this is in the Neijing as well I'm pretty sure. I think it's the first 18 days of every season as you're transitioning in it when the chi is the most unstable. So you're really wanting to smooth the transition as much as you can. So I often think about that as what can I do to stabilise as much as possible during this time? Yeah, I always feel the same at the first few weeks of the season coming in and I'm really hyper-aware of it, and then it settles in and it's just part of life those next couple of months. But, yeah, I think it's important to remember that's usually when people get sick because they're clinging to old habits or they're not really listening to what their body's asking for as the season changes and that's where the herbs can help to cultivate the organ systems and support them because the seasons demand a lot of the organ systems that they're correlated to. So that's why we can support them with herbs. I'm really lacking Chaga at the moment which is common for me. In winter I'll start to use Chaga again. I don't usually use it through the rest of the year.   Mason: (58:26) Pregnancy in winter for you.   Tahnee: (58:28) Yeah. Funny.   Mason: (58:33) Yeah. Big shout out to Chaga, Chaga has been my go-to winter herb. I forgot to message you yesterday and ask to bring a big bag home but go and do that right now. Thanks, guys. I was just going to give a shout out to the yoga Nidra as a winter practise as well-   Tahnee: (58:53) I love yoga Nidra.   Mason: (58:54) ...and yin yoga if you get on our newsletter list and jump on Instagram as well. Tiny has got some yin yoga sequences coming up.   Tahnee: (59:06) Yeah. I forgot about that but we have shot the photos and what I was thinking is for each season I'd give you a sequence or a couple of sequences to practise during the three or four months of the season just to help cultivate the chi. We've been sharing some Daoist practises. We've been sharing like in autumn we have lung tapping and all of those kind of things. We've got some stuff filmed for kidneys which is coming up and we're just going to keep trying to give you guys some lifestyle stuff as well to support because I think for both of us that's really been a big part of our journeys is not just taking the herbs but also using them with the practises that support the function of the herbs and the health of the chi in the body.   Tahnee: (59:53) So yin is something that I love and I think it's really easy to do at home. You don't need to be good at yoga. You don't need to be flexible. You don't need to be really... I often do it in my UGG boots and my tracksuit on the floor. It's not very attractive but it does the job and it's really quite easy just to be still and feel into your body. It's a very yin kind of kidney practise. So I think hopefully you guys will love that and you can send through any requests if you want sequences for any type of thing. But yeah. I don't think there's much else to say there at this point.   Mason: (01:00:30) No, thanks, everybody. I hope you join us on the 30 days of jing. You can find that over on Facebook. You can look up the group, 30 days of jing and you'll find it there and request to join.   Tahnee: (01:00:43) We'll all be doing it, not all of us at the office, most of us at the office will be doing it and I'm really excit

As a Deathwalker or as a Celebrant, I bring a contemporary, natural, holistic awareness to death, ceremony and loss.  My work is simple yet sacred. Inside everyone is the courage and capacity needed to be easier with death and dying, we just have to wake it up, remember, become more familiar, and practice it everyday.  My work is a holistic hybrid of old and new ways, accompanying those who are dying and their carers, walking with the suddenly bereaved, creating ceremonies that encourage people to really honour their loved ones. a much loved member of the Byron Shire community, is the 2021 Byron Shire Citizen of the Year. Byron Shire Mayor, Simon Richardson, made the announcement at the Council’s Australia Day Awards which were held at the Cavanbah Centre on 25 January 2021. “Zenith has had a profound impact on our community in so many ways and it really is an enormous honour to present her with the Citizen of the Year award,” Mayor Richardson said. “Zenith is a pioneer and leader in her approach to dying; to helping people prepare for death and guiding them, and their families, through the end of life process which is frightening, uncertain and sad,” he said. And luckily, as you said, death can be fun But what I really bring is a familiarity and a willingness to go there. part of what my role has been in the Shire for the last 25 years has to bring a familiarity and normalness to death and ceremony and a range of other things. I'm just doing for others what I would want someone to do for me. I've been very fortunate to have death as a teacher at such a close proximity. And then it would just have its own energy. It will have its own life and death. I'm just showing up, but they are investing into me a trust and a respect that I'm going to be able to support them well, and I'm going to give them the information they need and a range of other things. And that together, that experience is going to be the best it can be. Fortunately death has really given me the opportunity to practise presence, because when you're sitting with someone who's dying and they don't have long to live, and they're looking at you to assist them in some way in that moment. I would say I'm being very present because in that work, I can't hold space for someone who's dying. I can co-create that moment with them because I'm bringing the skills and experience and the wisdom that I have to offer to them, but they are bringing their real life and death situation. Because they're teaching me what it actually means to die and how individual that is and how scary it can be for some people, how resistant they can be. But also how incredibly gracious they can be and courageous.  that you're bigger than your body. You're part of the wave, you're part of the ocean. And so those experiences, I think, are very useful practises for dying and death. And part of what people need to do is grow courage to do with death and be bold if you're in any doubt, be bold. Mason Taylor: (57:46) Love it all by the way. I'm going to let you go soon. Before I hear about any other additional information you can tell us about workshops and other offerings and other resources, because I definitely want everyone to be able to get their hands on that. I'm curious, we've talked a lot about that preparation and going and being with people who are in the process of dying, but of course, in the ceremony after there is, I imagine... How do you prepare? Because you're speaking at people's death ceremonies, you said. It's very individual and unique and you could make generalisations. But the simplest one I find is that most people take comfort in the concept that something leaves the body, that the body physically dies, but something lives on and they don't need to put a name to that. I think it's the most useful question for them, for me, and for the people that are going to live on after they die, which is a what do you think will happen when you die?   Mason and Zenith discuss: The acceptance of death. Why death is an inside job. Sleep as a practice for death. Crafting a ceremony for death. How facing death enhances life. The many ways we deal with loss. Dissolving the resistance of death. How to support children through death The phenomenon of terminal lucidity. The important practicalities around death. What is a healthy journey of bereavement? The advanced health care plan (The Natural Death Care Centre)   Who is Zenith Virago? As a Deathwalker, Zenith is a respected pioneer & acknowledged expert in the fields of holistic death & dying.  With over 20 years experience, she provides comfort, information and guidance to assist us through the natural and the sacred, the inner and outer journeying as we come to the transition at the end of our life. With a lightness of being, compassion and integrity she accompanies many people and those that love them, through their final and ultimate experience.  Her enthusiastic and empowering approach allow for a richer exploration, whilst assisting people to reclaim their legal rights and their own rites of passage. Zenith has lived and swum in the deep ocean in Byron Bay since 1983 and feels it has been a rich and exciting life, Celebrating life and death, seeing her work as a privilege and an important part of her life’s journey, gives her a deep love and gratitude for the wonderful mystery of which we are all a part. Amongst many other things, Zenith is a grandmother, a para-legal, and the founding member of the non-profit Natural Death Care Centre, and the co author of the Intimacy of Death and Dying.  (Allen & Unwin 2009)   Resources: zenith virago.com Zenith's Facebook Zenith's Instagram The Natural Death Care Centre Death and After Death Care Plan   Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast? A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We’d also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher, CastBox, iHeart RADIO:)! Plus  we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Mason: (00:00) Hey, Zenith. Thank you for coming.   Zenith Virago: (00:02) You're welcome. Thank you for the invitation.   Mason: (00:04) Absolute pleasure. And it's nice to get an in person chat with you in our newly refurbished podcast. Doesn't it look slick?   Zenith Virago: (00:13) It's very beautiful. It's very simple, very beautiful.   Mason: (00:16) Well, it's still very bare grassroots, but I think I have so much different to me because I just had crap everywhere. So many books and things just lying around.   Zenith Virago: (00:32) Simple is good because then you stay focused with the conversation, not distracted by other things, I would say.   Mason: (00:41) I'm just going to pause here for a second... I'm really, and we'll come back to the Shire I know you've just been on tour.   Zenith Virago: (00:46) Yeah. I've just done a series of workshops in Sydney and Melbourne, and that's been lots of fun. Deaths right up for everybody at the moment.   Mason: (00:53) Death is right up in the face.   Zenith Virago: (00:55) Yeah.   Mason: (00:56) Obviously, in your work and I guess there's a reason why there's a few more women in here at Superfeast that I'm working with that are coming and doing your workshop. Dashana who has worked with us here for quite a while. Danny of course, but obviously there's a lot of resistance to death as always that comes up, but naturally there's a lot of people popping and realising, all right, I'm going to have to look at this in the face.   Zenith Virago: (01:27) Yeah. It's absolutely not my experience that people are resistant because I spend most of my time talking to people about death and dying on the telephone, in the street, at the farmer's market, anywhere I go. I think, part of what my role has been in the Shire for the last 25 years has to bring a familiarity and normalness to death and ceremony and a range of other things. And because I'm out and about, it makes me very accessible. And so it's not like you've got to make an appointment. I'm often doing things like this well, on the radio when that's all there was. But now of course, million podcasts and it's great.   Zenith Virago: (02:16) And I think actually radio or audio is the best medium because you can be driving your car, you can be sitting at home in the comfort of your own home and comfortable. So your emotional system, your nervous system is relaxed and then you listen to death and it's not so confronting because everything around you is supported.   Mason: (02:40) Well, I think when I'm looking at your work and from the way that just meeting you, there's not a confronting tone around death. And everything that jumped out of me reading what you do had a very casual and approachable way of talking about dying well. And that's why it was nice.   Zenith Virago: (03:01) Yeah. And really what I've spent most of my death work career doing is I'm just doing for others what I would want someone to do for me. So if I was a dying person, I would want someone who came along with no investment in trying to sell me anything, but was familiar with that journey, the practical journey, the legal journey, the emotional journey. And I would want to have a discussion with them and I would want them to lead it because I don't know where I'm going if you're dying and that's what happens. But often people think, well, they're dying we'll just let them lead the way. But it's already very challenging for them. They're facing up to the reality of leaving the people they love behind. They're looking at a physical decline. They're looking at going into an unknown there's a range of concerns they might have.   Zenith Virago: (03:56) And so for them to have someone like me, who can accompany them in that journey with clear advice, and guidance, and humour, and lightness, and respect because I'm not dying. So I won't know what that's like until that's happening to me and the same for the families. So either because someone they love is dying or because someone has died suddenly. And so that's a very different set of circumstances when, especially if it's someone young and that they're killed in a car accident or they've killed themselves, or they've died by misadventure. Sometimes attempting to do something that seems relatively safe, but somehow or other they've died.   Zenith Virago: (04:45) And so dealing with families in those situations I just know that when I walk into the door, something in them relaxes and deeply says, "Oh, thank God you've come." But they are managing themselves. So I'm not actually doing anything for them. I'm just showing up, but they are investing into me a trust and a respect that I'm going to be able to support them well, and I'm going to give them the information they need and a range of other things. And that together, that experience is going to be the best it can be.   Mason: (05:31) I might go into your energy and presence because I meet a lot of people and not to say that any one way of approaching it or being is better or worse, but I can definitely sense in you a non-intrusiveness, a non-assuming, a confidence, and a collaborative effort nonetheless. Some people come in and they hide their energy from me altogether until they know what I'm about nonetheless. But if I may go with the very local term of holding a space, I can definitely see you've maybe holding it for me but residing in a space.   Zenith Virago: (06:12) Well, I'm just being me. But what I do have going is I'm very present. I've learned to be very present because my life experience teaches me that sometimes I'm only going to get something once, like the Dalai Lama, up a mountain, like Ramdas in Hawaii. And if I'm not present, I'm going to miss that moment. But I'm also going to miss the moment where I can take a chance and have a deeper experience because I'm not holding back. So I'm willing to take that risk or seize that moment. And it's like anything that you practise, the more you practise, the better at it you get. You might get a few come a Cropper, but generally it's a bit like telling the truth. The more you tell the truth the better at it you get, you understand how it works in your body, how it works for the other person. Apologies how that works for you and the other person, how it clears things up and you move right along.   Zenith Virago: (07:20) But if you don't practise those things, you don't get good at them. And so fortunately death has really given me the opportunity to practise presence, because when you're sitting with someone who's dying and they don't have long to live, and they're looking at you to assist them in some way in that moment. I have to read really quickly what's the best I can offer to them. Because it's not like here's a catalogue tell me what you want. At that stage it's about honing in and using what little energy they've got left to the best of their advantage and not wasting time on superfluous shit. Because time and energy are precious for people who are dying. So I've had some incredible teachers in that field. But what I also see over and over again is how incredible capable people are.   Zenith Virago: (08:22) And incredibly courageous they are, either as people who are dying or families who are accompanying that person. And so all I'm doing is walking with them, accompanying them on their journey, but dancing with each individual person in that group to be the best I can be for them and offer them what I would want if I was that person. So if I was a 10 year old kid, if I was a bereaved partner, if I was a teenage person whatever. And it's fun. So I wouldn't say I was holding space. I would say I'm being very present because in that work, I can't hold space for someone who's dying. I can co-create that moment with them because I'm bringing the skills and experience and the wisdom that I have to offer to them, but they are bringing their real life and death situation.   Zenith Virago: (09:28) And to think that I might know what they're feeling will be very matronizing of me to do that. So together we're co-creating that experience and the same at the ceremony. So when people come to a ceremony to honour someone who's died and their own feelings about that person and their own life, then what's really important is that I bring my crafting of that ceremony, but they bring their deep love for that person, their emotional response. And we're in that dance together. It's all about giving and receiving. And so the concept is part of what I'm teaching in the training actually, is to dissolve that concept of holding space, because it gets exhausting and it's unsustainable to rather bring a respect to the other people involved and see that you're all journeying together. And that together you will co-create whatever is happening.   Mason: (10:40) There's so many things I really love to dive into there. The one thing that, I think, we're diving right into the deep end. And first of all yeah that was like just... And that's I was saying, I was like, "For lack of a better word holding space, and that was beautiful-"   Zenith Virago: (10:55) It's a perfect opportunity.   Mason: (10:56) It's a beautiful opportunity. Because then you talking about whether it is someone who's holding space and walking this path or a practitioner, it does get exhausting when you hold that space and you hold the obligation for you to look and act a particular way rather than being authentic, but that's a skill. And as you said, you bring a skill.   Zenith Virago: (11:17) Yeah. But, well, I bring... I do.   Mason: (11:20) Multiple skills.   Zenith Virago: (11:21) Thank you. But what I really bring is a familiarity and a willingness to go there. And I can't bring a beginner's mind anymore because I'm not a beginner, but I spend a lot of time with the people who are teaching me. Because they're teaching me what it actually means to die and how individual that is and how scary it can be for some people, how resistant they can be. But also how incredibly gracious they can be and courageous. And some people are even excited. As if they're embarking on a journey. So a few years ago, a guy we did... So 25 years ago we did a coffin making workshop here. And one of the guys made a coffin. There were six people and he made his own coffin. And I hadn't seen him for 20 years.   Zenith Virago: (12:23) Anyway, I get a phone call from him and he says, "Zenith, Zenith, I've got my departure date." And I'm like, " What do you mean you've got your depart date?" He said, "I've got this disease and they've told me I've only got three months to live and I really want to get sorted." And I was like, "Okay, great." And so I have to meet people where they're at. And so I sat with him. He was so excited about that but his young children were not excited about that.   Mason: (12:56) Fair enough.   Zenith Virago: (12:56) But anyway, we all got there together. Yeah.   Mason: (12:59) I mean, that's like when you first hear about someone having an orgasmic birth and you go, "Hang on." Being excited about death for me, I can definitely see now after all that I've seen that that's completely... Like, I could imagine, I was thinking about my own death this morning, even before I was very aware of us doing this. And I was thinking about how many practical things would come up in my head. And then when I was reading your work about just doing the legals that I imagined would have the biggest impact, knowing that how worth it is, just prioritising getting all of the legals out of the way and all the practicals.   Zenith Virago: (13:45) Yeah. Because it frees that energy out for living whilst you're dying. So this is what I would say quickly, everyone over 18 should have a will. Even if you've got nothing, it's a real hassle for people, especially if you don't have a partner or children, or you're estranged from your parents, then everybody should make a well, just buy the kit from the newsagent and follow those instructions because it's a real hassle for other people to tidy up your loose ends, if you should die suddenly. And if you're unwell or you're caring for someone who is dying, then you should look at filling in an advanced health care plan. And the other documents around that power of attorney.   Mason: (14:33) Definitely, power of attorney. My mum, nine years ago, she had an aneurysm and just didn't have that part of power of attorney down. And now all of her finances are locked up in the trustee and guardian, and can't be invested and worked for because they won't let someone in her mental condition make a decision, huge.   Zenith Virago: (14:53) Yeah, it's terrible. And it's one of the best investments you can make for the wellbeing of people who care for you is to do those three pieces of paperwork and the other one... And if you're reluctant to do paperwork, then I would encourage people on our website I've put together a plan called the death care plan. It's $8 and you can download it from the Natural Death Care Centre website, but it's the document that assist you to then go on to complete those legal papers, because it covers all the preliminary things and the whole journey, and it's fun and it's informative and you can plan whatever you want with it. But those things are external things, but they are very important.   Zenith Virago: (15:47) I cannot encourage people enough to fill in those forms. Anyway, but death is actually an inside job. So a bit like how you're talking about birth. So part of what my learning is is that sex is a really great practise for dying well. So every time you're engaged in a sexual activity, you can do it with yourself. But of course, it's much more fun with someone else. So you all know how the French call orgasm the little death [crosstalk 00:16:25].   Zenith Virago: (16:27) So I gave a paper at the sex conference, which was if orgasm is the small death is death the total body orgasm. And I managed to convince everyone in the room that it was, because it's an expansive experience. So a bit like when you're engaged sexually, preferably with someone you love, but even if you're not in that degree of emotional connection but you're just having a great time together. Then the experience you're having is one of expansion. And especially if you are complementary to each other and sensitive to each other, then what you've got is when you're orgasming, you have that experience that you are outside of your skin and you are merging energetically with the other. And so you're losing that small awareness that we have of being in our own bodies.   Zenith Virago: (17:31) And my understanding from lots of conversations, lots of research, lots of being with people is that that's what happens to that part of us that we believe leaves the body. So some people call it spirit. Some people call it soul, or essence, or consciousness. Some people don't believe in that, but the majority of people take comfort that something leaves the body. And so that practise of expanding out, a bit like when you sit at the beach and you just feel yourself poured out into the magnificence of the ocean and the horizon... I'm not a surfer, I'm a swimmer, but probably if you're a surfer, it's that feeling that you get when you're riding that wave, that you're bigger than your body. You're part of the wave, you're part of the ocean. And so those experiences, I think, are very useful practises for dying and death.   Zenith Virago: (18:31) And sitting with people who are dying to bring that awareness into the room, whether you discuss it with them or not. But if you bring that expansion in, something in them will be expanding, they're coming and going and you may have it with your mom, I don't know because we haven't discussed that. But sometimes people energy when they're trapped in the body, sometimes you can feel it expanding out because it's not the mind. The mind may be messed up through a range of different things, but that energy, that consciousness is something else. And it can be trapped in a body, but it can still play.   Mason: (19:20) That's been probably the most reassuring, like I'm going into that experience. Having that of being like, "All right, this is the last night, say goodbye or say goodbye actually when we're taking that decision." You don't have a decision anymore. She started showing signs of life, going through rehab, going through all of that, having [inaudible 00:19:44] for me. And you said, some people believe this and some people don't. I want to get to that for me at that time in my life, I was heavy in a place of belief and then a perception of my mom having that expansiveness and that playfulness, and perhaps a meaning of staying here, trapped if you've [inaudible 00:20:01].   Mason: (20:01) And that's how I have seen it at times, for sure. Knowing that there's still a playfulness and interaction with the world, a purpose for her and a meaning for her. Yeah, it's been difficult going, "Has this person died? Who they were, how am I mourning that person?" Even like this year, I'm talking to her, talking to someone guiding me through I'm going, "I still don't think I've quite got it, whether I'm mourning the death of the woman and the mother that was and reevaluating and moving into another relationship." That's a different conversation, but-   Zenith Virago: (20:41) And you' re probably doing it all because life and death is like parenting. It's multifaceted, you're doing a million things all at the same time, but we don't break them down into small things, but they're probably a few big things that you're doing there, like many confronting situations.   Mason: (21:02) And luckily, as you said, death can be fun. And luckily even that situation does get fun sometimes. Now, when you're talking about people having beliefs, say maybe a spirit or an essence leaving the body, I was really curious, and this is what I was really thinking about. I was thinking about all the different beliefs I've had over the years about what happens after I die. Catholic school being really scared into believing particular things. I remember going home crying because my stepdad was going to go to hell because he believed in evolution. That was that was a tough one that took a few weeks to reconcile internally. And then a bit of time as an atheist to get-   Zenith Virago: (21:49) Counterbalance.   Mason: (21:51) Counterbalance. I remember travelling, I think it was Brazil when I was writing The God Delusion and having that experience moving into a community of say connecting more to spirit, to Taoism, to reincarnation the idea of so many different possibilities. And I was just reflecting on how at times I'd felt really connected to a truth in various shades, in various incarnations of my belief system, some I still felt quite present with and others had fallen away. But nonetheless, I was thinking about the role that they had played over time. Some of them just been fun like a Taoism belief really springing myself and then shooting off and exploring the universe. But I'm curious as to where the roles of in people's individual and unique beliefs where they come in, I imagine it was different for every experience of whether the beliefs are used, whether at some point you find that they dissolve [inaudible 00:22:58].   Zenith Virago: (22:58) It's very individual and unique and you could make generalisations. But the simplest one I find is that most people take comfort in the concept that something leaves the body, that the body physically dies, but something lives on and they don't need to put a name to that. They don't need to understand it. Some people will, and they'll say it's a form or it's an energy, or they will come back as something, or there'll be all around. But really, I just think it's whatever gets you there. And we're all busy trying to live the best lives. We can work out the meaning of a human life and become the best person we can be. And now I'm in my sixties now, I'm 64. I've lived here for 35 years.   Zenith Virago: (24:00) It's been an incredible life. And I can just see it's a very fortunate thing to live through all those stages of a life in a healthy mind, a healthy emotional system, a healthy body to live here in a community of diversity, but also the beauty of nature. And so many differing opinions and beliefs, and being able to access them, have conversations at dinner parties or on the street protest about what we believe in and what we don't. And really, we're all just trying to make sense of something. And I've been very fortunate to have death as a teacher at such a close proximity. And with such as I say, courageous and capable people who were very ordinary people. Really, we're all very ordinary people.   Mason: (25:02) It's comforting that thought.   Zenith Virago: (25:04) Yeah. And people's beliefs do support them. And it's amazing what people believe because sometimes years ago I was in Lismore and went to see this family. This guy, and he was a biker, he had the whole front yard covered with bikes and rusty things. And I would consider them to be a very ordinary Lismore family and they could be anywhere, but they were in Lismore and the guy was dying. He was a young guy, probably around 40. And I was quite young myself. And I feel that if people have only got enough energy, then I just ask them one question, because I think it's the most useful question for them, for me, and for the people that are going to live on after they die, which is what do you think will happen when you die? And it's a great question because people's answers sometimes are predictable. Sometimes people don't know, but often they'll give you something. And that guy said something like, "Oh, I think I'm going to come back as a butterfly." And no one in the room saw that coming and at the ceremony-   Mason: (26:28) That's the opposite sound of a motor bike.   Zenith Virago: (26:30) That's right. And it was something so incredible. And at the ceremony when I did that funeral for him, and I said that when I was with him, when he was dying and I asked this, and this was his reply you could see the ripple of the effect of that answer on all the people that were there on the women and on these hardcore guys. And I saw them with their wrap around dark glasses and their lips trembling like when the bottom lip... When people are crying, but they're not going to give into it because they're trying desperately to hold themselves together. So it can be a very surprising answer.   Mason: (27:17) I think when I was saying before about just reading your energy, just off our first meeting and thinking, I feel like there's something unassuming about you. I guess, when you're in that setting where you've got... You can't assume anything because you've probably heard the most out there answers or not out there just.   Zenith Virago: (27:37) Fortunately, I spend a lot of my time in wonder and in joy and in wonder. And I think part of that is our own natural predispositions, some people spend their time in different emotions. But I think like children often enjoy pure joy. Joy spontaneously arising, you can't make it happen. But I just find people fascinating. I find the world so fascinating. Of course, there's terrible things happening every day. But what I try to do is come neutral. I come present, I come neutral. And so I walk into that room into that bedside or into that family. And I don't think it's either good or bad. I just come. I assume nothing, exactly. Because some people are glad that someone's dying because they're relieved that their suffering is over, or they've never liked that person, that person has been a pain in the ass all their life, cruel to them, abused them and they're dying.   Zenith Virago: (28:46) And they're glad that person's suffering. So if I come in and say, "Oh, so terrible." They're not going to tell me what they really feel. So if I come in neutral and they can read that energy, that I'm not all over them like, "Oh, poor you, poor you." Then you get further with people and people are more willing to sit and share with you how they really feel, which of course is what you want, because then you can work together to co-create the moment or the death or the ceremony, whatever. And as I say people I just... And I'm responding so I'm bringing presence, neutrality, kindness. I don't work with compassion because I don't really understand that is, but we all know what kindness feels like. Unless you're a Buddhist and you really get compassion. Great. But for me, I know when I'm kind to someone how that feels for me and what that looks like.   Zenith Virago: (29:56) But I also know when someone's kind to me, even if it's something very simple, like picking up something that I've dropped or holding the door open, or going out of their way to show me somewhere when I'm lost. And it happens to me a lot now people carry my bags for me because I'm old and young men will often say, "Let me carry that for you." And also my dive tanks, that's the first time I experienced it as a diver, when this young guy said, "Let me take your tanks." I was like, "Why is he taking my tank?" [inaudible 00:30:30] it's because I'm old and he's being kind. And from there I respond to whoever or whatever is in front of me. And that way I'm not in what I was planning to say or what I thought the situation would be. I'm just right there like with you, we're just right here in this conversation. I don't worry about it before I walk in apart from getting here on time and that's it. And then it would just have its own energy. It will have its own life and death.   Mason: (31:06) I think this next question is potentially one that's quite cliche when talking about death, but I feel an innocence about me wanting to go ask it anyway. Just the obvious one I feel. And I've talked about what happens with beliefs when one is approaching death. And is there a consistency of what comes up in their reflection on their life? Do you find again, it's across the board of people going to moments of gratitude to regrets? What are the common regrets? If so, is there any theme or?   Zenith Virago: (31:45) Not for me, but there are other people who have published books and research on that. So there's classic five regrets of the dying, all of which are completely remediable while you're alive. Like spending more time with friends doing what you love, things like that, not working so hard. And then there are other people who have a checklist approach to that experience, but that's not my experience. And of course, I'm working with people... I'm not like a social worker who goes from bed to bed where they're trapped and I'm accosting them. I only come when people invite me. So they either invite me to come to the hospital or they invite me to come to their home or they invite me into a conversation in the street or on a podcast or whatever. But I just generally find people will die how they've lived.   Zenith Virago: (32:47) So if people are open and curious and expansive, they will generally continue that. And if they're private and fearful and non-communicative, then they'll generally continue that. But one of the incredible things to know is that there's a condition called terminal lucidity, which means for people who have had dementia, people who've been in a coma. People who have been sleeping a lot because their body is closing down and they're getting ready to die... Like a woman, I was sharing this, and she told me that it happened to her husband. She said he had throat cancer and his voice had almost disappeared.   Zenith Virago: (33:41) And so what can happen is that in the last few hours that they can come back. So even if they've had dementia for years, or like this guy's voice that had been high and squeaky suddenly came back... He was a truck driver, a deep truck drivers resonance, or people who have been sleeping and don't have much energy. People can sit up, hold a whole conversation, like a perfectly normal person or perfectly sane person, if they've had dementia, engage with people and then lay back down and die. And a lot of people have that experience. It's a very well-documented phenomenon that happens.   Mason: (34:30) Do you find that's present even when there's a large amount of drugs involved?   Zenith Virago: (34:34) It can.   Mason: (34:35) It can.   Zenith Virago: (34:37) The same as when people... So you've got people like Anita Moorjani who came here for the Uplift Festival and she wrote a book Dying To Be Me, I think it was. And so she had a very seriously well-documented stage four cancer died, was given morphine. Had this whole experience out there either in the mystery, in the universe, in whatever realm you want to put a name to. Had a whole experience with her dead father came back into her body, is alive and the cancer cured itself. And that's a miracle, I would say. There just doesn't seem to be any other explanation to that. And one of the questions I asked her was that a lot of people here in this Shire in particular, but I think elsewhere are wanting to have what they term a conscious death, which means they want to be present. They don't want to take drugs because they want to be present and she said, "They gave me morphine and I still had that experience." Maybe the morphine assisted it. I don't know. But I think it's very difficult to have a conscious death when you're in incredible pain.   Mason: (36:08) That's a good point.   Zenith Virago: (36:09) So each person has to make those decisions or their advanced health care plan person will be making those decisions for them. But it's a very difficult experience to watch someone die in incredible pain and suffering. It's not something that has to happen in this day and age, except for if you're on the side of the road and someone's died in an accident and their body's damaged or something like that. But if they're in hospital, they should be getting great pain relief and those symptoms should be addressed.   Mason: (36:53) That's a good consideration from when there can be so much in being a purist. It's just worth tossing out.   Zenith Virago: (37:04) And as I said right at the beginning that you won't know what decisions you're going to make until you are in that situation yourself. But it's very good to think about them. Have discussions with family, with partners, with friends, people who might have to make those decisions for you. And because it's much easier to follow someone's wishes or their instructions than try to make a life or death decision without any input for someone else.   Mason: (37:38) Yeah. I remember having to do that with... I'm pretty sure we were having to do that with like my mum's organs back then. And I remember being like, "Well, this is a lot of pressure." Because again, I was in that stage where I was like, "Organs have consciousness." My mum's consciousness going into another body i wasn't that comfortable. And then I had a dream that night that she was in that Egyptian Pharaoh era and I was like, "Okay, cool. Maybe that's the sign that she can get embalmed."   Zenith Virago: (38:09) And did you donate the organs?   Mason: (38:12) Well she lived and so [crosstalk 00:38:14].   Zenith Virago: (38:14) But where did you get with your decision?   Mason: (38:16) I said, yes, of course I would donate the... And that was because I was such an anti establishment hating on the medical system stage of my life back then, but then having a big healing process of... Well, I didn't know whether it was a healing process, I'm still tossing up of how much is a very... I don't think I've ever really spoken about this in public.   Mason: (38:37) And just having that feeling going, "Is this appropriate to be intervening to this extent where we're taking off half of her skull to stop the swelling from going down into the spinal cord." And so nonetheless, I was grateful to the medical system for keeping her alive. And she's now been to my wedding, her being able to interact, laugh, still be herself. So of course there's an overwhelming gratitude and that's where I sit in the majority, but then there's a part of me philosophically, that's like, "Where should we be intervening that much?"   Zenith Virago: (39:08) That's right. But that's part of being human-   Mason: (39:10) This isn't a... yeah.   Zenith Virago: (39:12) And having those incredible rich and confronting decisions to make, because they're uniquely yours that you have to be in that position as a son to make those decisions. And you can only make them based on your experience of the person with good, clear, legal advice and with your own heart. And whether you make those from a place of generosity and kindness and bigness and expensiveness, or you make them from a place of contraction and fear or both.   Mason: (39:54) And that was where I got mum's kindness... Or both. And that's probably where of course, I had to tell myself a story of mum having this Egyptian lineage at the time in order to just go... Right now, it's the kind thing to do. And probably, I know that the consciousness will live on, but I'm creating a bit of a story that I don't know is actually true in having her organs. Basically I'm like, "Of course my mum would want to help contribute to life. And the people that would..." And that's where I got to a very practical place. I wasn't a very practical person back then, which did help me.   Zenith Virago: (40:29) And that's why if you get to live a long life and you get to live through all those stages and you learn and grow, hopefully, you're not the same as you were five years ago or 10 years ago. And if you're lucky, you live a rich life and it confronts those beliefs that you hold and you either stick with them or you change them. And they expand and grow and it's an incredible being a human being.   Mason: (40:59) Absolutely is an incredible thing, at least coming back to that realisation periodically or more so, and more so as you go through each little loop around the seasons. I think about death a lot, but in a superficial way, just as a marker, I mean really enjoying thinking into a somewhat more intimate-   Zenith Virago: (41:21) But we all know that once we become parents, suddenly it gets very real. Because I can say to a class of people, "How do you feel about dying? Who feels okay?" And maybe two thirds of them depending will raise their hands. And then I say, "Those who've got their hands raised just now who feels okay about their children dying or their grandchildren or their nieces and nephews?" And it's very few people that still have their hand held at the end of that question. Because we can be okay about ourselves or we can be okay about someone who's older or whatever, but we're not so good with children and particularly our own children because parents would give their life to save that child. And again, that's one of those incredible things about human beings. We're so courageous, so selfless and so heroic when it comes to big situations. And so we never know how we're going to behave until we're in those. And you're saying that with your mom you had to really make some big calls there.   Mason: (42:34) Yeah, it was definitely character building and very revealing in life in general because I've been thinking, I've been in the health world and have a health and wellness business. And I'm also someone that likes being quite subversive. And so on the other side of this I have this big problem with the word health itself because it's in opposition to something because naturally we have healthy and unhealthy. And so that's just my little internal questions that keep me spiralling towards where, and all I can feel is where it's spiralling me towards is death at this moment. Not any faster or slower, but so much of wisdom traditions, or many ancient traditions orient themselves around walking a path that's sustainable and preparing yourself for death the entire time. How do you feel about that? Do you relate to that? Is death such a... Because sometimes I'm like, "Well, that's such an..." Constantly looking at death.   Zenith Virago: (43:40) Yeah. But deaths Omnipresent. It can happen at any time. It can happen. You can slip down the stairs, you can have a car accident, you can be in bed and someone can ram your house. There's so many possibilities in every single moment. And we can have close shaves and we all know how we feel when we have a near miss or close shave, something like that. But one of the great things for me is I think that when you fully go there and say, "Yep, I'm going to die. I don't know when that's going to be. It could be today. It could be tomorrow." And you dissolve that resistance. Like my life's fantastic, I don't particularly want to die. But I know that because I've explored it so deeply. I'm so comfortable. I'm in it every day.   Zenith Virago: (44:35) It's so familiar for me that I... You can dissolve that resistance. And so then it frees up that energy for living. And I was very fortunate years ago to work with this other young guy who was dying, who was very ordinary, who didn't believe in spirit, he was a butcher. He just really cared that the family he was leaving behind would be okay, but he always knew he was going to die young. And he was 42, something like that. And up until then, I had worked with people who were dying without fear. And that's a wonderful thing. They're just there, they're not afraid, they're not bringing it on, but they're not afraid. But the thing about this guy, Phillip, was his name, is that he was dying with a grace and that grace manifested itself in his care for his family, extended family and for people.   Zenith Virago: (45:46) And he was just so, I suppose the simplest way to say is, at peace. But he was more than at peace. At peace just doesn't do it justice to the energy that he had happening for him. As I say, he was a very ordinary guy. And when I went to say goodbye to him he said, "Oh mate, thanks for, coming. You've really changed my life this afternoon." And I said, "Mate you have really changed mine. And because you changed mine, you're going to impact a lot of people." Because one of the things I've learned is, So once you see someone dying without fear, it's a way to go. But if you're lucky enough to be with someone who's dying with grace, there is no other way to go. And so for people like me, I think, "Well, that's how I'm going to be. That's what I'm working towards." And I'm working towards that every minute.   Zenith Virago: (46:46) So that if I die now my friends will be fine with that. My children, my grandchildren, everybody would say, "Wow, she really lived that life. She would have been prepared for that. She's comfortable. She spent a whole life teaching us about death. Now we have to step up to that mark and be sad and feel it, that loss, but not be sad for her." And no one should be saying I died too soon at my funeral, no one because it's impossible. And so the language around it is really tricky when people perpetuate concepts like, "Oh, they've died too soon." How can you die too soon? You're just dying. That's a neutral approach. They've just died. It's neither too soon or too late. It just is. And many of us would be dead already without medical intervention, without good pharmaceutical care. Lots of children used to die before they were five from one thing or another.   Mason: (47:54) Yeah. It's an interesting thing at my mom's funeral would be like, "She died too late."   Zenith Virago: (47:58) Yeah. Or she lived too, too long.   Mason: (48:00) She lived too long, but we loved having her here for that extra 20, 30 years. That's when we talk about tonic herbs, we talk about just the beyond that philosophical elements, the Taoist organ system, what emotions come up with each organ through each season, what you can work on. So on and so forth, keep it lifestyle based. Don't go into anything specific. But the whole idea is to become more of yourself or a better person, whatever better means. I often say less of an asshole than... And that's one of our catchphrases is less assholes more [reishi 00:48:40]. Because sometimes it's not on my mission statement, but honestly, sometimes I think the only thing I can really... Because I'm such a person that goes, "Why am I doing this again? What's the point of all this again?"   Mason: (48:52) And quite often where I land is just so that people are just as cool as possible when they die and I think the herbs can help with that. And so I feel like that's why I really enjoy this conversation. I'm really enjoying this because I definitely have not talked to anybody with your presence or experience or skill set in this. And I think especially based on what I've heard is more along that generic way of going and getting the survey of people who are in hospice and hearing those common five, which I think are very natural regrets to be having. But of course there's going to be nuance there.   Zenith Virago: (49:38) Yeah. But I think your really facing death really enhances life. Because it's like when you get in bed at the end of every day and you become one with the mattress especially if your life's full [inaudible 00:49:59] young parents, but running a business. But just with the excitement of being alive and living in such a beautiful place like this, then I've spent most of my adult life falling into bed thinking, what a fucking great day that's been. And sleep is also a great practise for death because we just surrender to sleep into the unknown and assume, well, we don't even assume we just deeply trust somewhere we're going to wake up in the morning and life's going to carry on. But that's not the case.   Mason: (50:35) It's not the case. I think about that a lot. I don't want to judge it, but way too much when I lay down at night for my whole life. As long as I can remember, I've had a fear of sleep and it's not so.   Zenith Virago: (50:54) No, and it's common. And what often happens if you've had some experience as a child. And so I just spoke at the Seniors Festival this morning in Byron.   Mason: (51:05) Cool I heard about that on Bay FM.   Zenith Virago: (51:07) Yeah. And there was a woman there saying, "What should we tell the children? Our grandchildren were..." Whatever. And I was saying, "Well, basically you tell them the truth. And you tell them that with a respect for the age that they are, and for their connection to that person and for their learning about life and death." But generally children they'll thrive in that experience. They will take it and then they'll go off and play because they're very present. They're very in the moment and they don't know how they're supposed to behave. And it's been an incredible thing to witness here. So many families, so incredibly honest and trusting in their children's inner capacity to cope with that situation.   Zenith Virago: (51:55) So we have open coffins and home vigils here a lot, where the body is at home up to five days after death. And the whole community might come through or the other school kids might come through. If it's a small child and kids are very capable and that whole protectionist approach. So religion, the funeral industry, the medical industry, they all are very protectionist to people like us who are just ordinary people. And then we become protectionist to children because we want to protect them. But it's a total disservice. So it's like when people have a dog and the dog dies and they get rid of the dog's body and they say, "Oh, the dog ran away or they've gone to a new home." That's so fucked up to do that to children, because nothing in the energy that they're reading is making sense then and adults are lying.   Zenith Virago: (52:59) You are lying to children. And everyone does it obviously about the big things like the tooth fairy and Santa Claus and the Easter bunny, that's a different thing. But when it comes to really important things like death, it is just so important to be honest with the children, because they have an incredible capacity and they are growing that. And if you deny them that experience as children, or you lie to them by saying, "Oh, they've gone..." And this is a common one which is what some people will say who have that situation that you're in is that when they were kids, someone died and someone told them they went to sleep and didn't wake up. And so those kids are terrified to go to sleep. And it's such a simple thing without realising the incredible impact that that can have.   Mason: (53:56) Never thought of that, yeah. Of course.   Zenith Virago: (53:59) Yeah. And also children are completely egocentric to their capacity and life experience so far. So what they also need to know is that a person's death or illness has absolutely nothing to do with them. They have not caused it. They've not contributed to it in any way, and they cannot cure it. So sometimes children will try and make a pact with something, with a god, with something like we all pray when the chips are down. Even if we don't believe in God, if you are hanging onto that cliff it's like, "Please, let someone come and save me." So kids do that as well. But it's no good watching them make a deal like, "Oh, if you let mommy live, I'll be a good girl or I'll be a good boy." And then mommy dies. And then they feel they were good enough.   Zenith Virago: (54:57) They might've done something naughty or something. So some of the consequences of death, especially around children are so important. And because what they read is everyone's upset. Something's not right, but no one's telling them what it is. And so they will think it's about them that's a very common thing. And you really want to avoid that happening at all costs, even if it's a grandparent and that grandchild has a close connection to them. It's part of a grandparent's role... Like I'm a grandparent myself now, to teach the grandchildren what it means to die and what death is about in preparation for when their parents will die. They're starting to build that resilience, build that awareness. And if you're lucky you have a dog that dies so that you can learn about it through an animal or a guinea pig or anything.   Mason: (56:01) It makes so much sense. I'm going through my own little... I definitely remember not just grandma and grandpa just weren't there anymore. And they've got a little bit of a story about why that's the case. And yeah. And when mum was about to die I remember I wasn't praying to God or spirit or anything like that, it was definitely a proclamation. I'm going to do this, let's keep her here. And I'm going to make the miracle happen. And it was beautiful, but it was delusional. And then four years later when I couldn't make it happen, I started to crumble in.   Zenith Virago: (56:40) But that's love, that's love in action. That's true your for your mom know, manifesting into desperation and an approach the best way you can. And it's also about keeping yourself together in a situation that's heartbreaking and terribly distressing and unfamiliar, and suddenly you become responsible for making decisions about someone else's life. It's hard enough making decisions about your own life. So things like that. And you really need great support in those times and good counsel, but what a lot of people say, they don't want to interfere. They think well, you should make that decision. [inaudible 00:57:25] like this. And people are terrified instead of stepping in. Whereas, it's a bold person. And part of what people need to do is grow courage to do with death and be bold if you're in any doubt, be bold.   Mason: (57:46) Love it all by the way. I'm going to let you go soon. Before I hear about any other additional information you can tell us about workshops and other offerings and other resources, because I definitely want everyone to be able to get their hands on that. I'm curious, we've talked a lot about that preparation and going and being with people who are in the process of dying, but of course, in the ceremony after there is, I imagine... How do you prepare? Because you're speaking at people's death ceremonies, you said.   Zenith Virago: (58:21) Yeah. So if I meet them, it's lovely if you get to meet them while they're alive. And usually they're interesting people who say, "I'd like to meet you if you're going to do the ceremony for me." But also because it's comforting for the family. So usually I say, "I never met so-and-so while they were alive." Or, "I never met them, but I've seen them around town." If that's the case, whatever the truth of that situation is. But if I did meet them while they were dying, then I just say, "And some of you may know that I went to see so-and-so when they were dying." And then I can speak to them a tiny bit as a person in that situation. And I asked them this question, and this was their answer, and it's incredibly comforting, but often I'm working with ceremonies for people who've died suddenly where I've never met them.   Zenith Virago: (59:21) I'm never going to get the chance to meet them. I generally go and see their body at the funeral directors. So I have a physical awareness of who that person is. And then I'm working with the circumstances of the death and who they were, but I'm never speaking deeply about someone I've never met, or I don't know, that's for the family and friends. So part of what I'm teaching is about how the structure and content of the ceremony and the subtle layer that's at play during that ceremony. And in fact, I gave it to a woman this morning in 10 minutes the pearl of that knowledge, so that she could do something for someone who died a while ago and they didn't do any ceremony. And she said their whole family are adrift because of that. But a good ceremony can save you 12 months of therapy because you are calling in the divine, you're [missing 01:00:24] with the mystery and the magic you're in the not knowing.   Zenith Virago: (01:00:28) And you're in that liminal space between death and the disposal of the body. So it's the last time generally that that person's physical body is there either in an open coffin or a closed coffin. And sometimes now you'll be in a situation where the person has been cremated and the ashes are there, but in sudden death... So that's more when it's an expected death and it's gone on for a time. But I would really encourage people if it's a sudden death to do that ceremony with the body there, it's very helpful and very healing. It may be very confronting, but like most challenging things when you face up to something and you put yourself into that challenge, the sense of accomplishment, and what you learned from that afterwards are exhilarating. It may not be exhilarating in that circumstance, but it's certainly beneficial. And it's been an incredible learning and I very rarely use the word privilege because it's overused in this term.   Zenith Virago: (01:01:45) But it's been an incredible privilege to offer ceremony, a well-crafted ceremony as a rite of passage for the dead person in their journey towards disposal and disintegration, either in the ground or in the cremator. And as a rite of passage for the family or the friends, letting that person physically go and stepping back into their lives at the end of that ceremony, without that person physically in their lives. And because I live in a community where I'm either marrying or burying everybody, then I see those people. I see those people at the supermarket. I see them in the street parade for the Milan Festival. I see them at the cinema. I see them at a party. And I say, "How are you?" And they say, "I'm good." Because our connection is forged in the intensity of their death.   Zenith Virago: (01:02:50) And so we have to go there. But what I see is how you can't change the circumstances of the death. Once it's occurred, you can work towards it. But the benefit of this getting a really great, meaningful, and appropriate ceremony and understanding its purpose as a rite of passage means that when you think back, you say, "Oh God, it was terrible when so-and-so died, but wow, we had the best fucking ceremony for them." And that can go a long way to compensate on an emotional acceptance and on a healthy journey of bereavement in that moment of loss.   Mason: (01:03:43) Just the simple open casket distinction. I've never experienced it in my life. And it seems, in my mind, I'm like, yeah, it's something that's old-fashioned or used in TV and movies, because it's the only way to get a good bit of a comedy into a funeral scene.   Zenith Virago: (01:04:03) Thought of that.   Mason: (01:04:03) That's the only way I've really thought about it, and I can see why as a society-   Zenith Virago: (01:04:10) It's very beneficial, but it's also that way for me when I am the celebrant or the person facilitating that ceremony, because sometimes there isn't anything to celebrate, it's just very sad. But if I am that person, then the way that you offer that up to people is crucial. So I'm never grinding them deeper into their, or deeper into their trauma. I'm trying to come neutral. Of course, I'm acknowledging everything, but it's not my role to make it worse and it's not my role to piss anybody off. So I'm having to dance with sometimes 400 people there without knowing who they are or what they feel, but just offering something that is of benefit to every individual and as a collective group, but having an open coffin, if people don't want to come, they won't. But even generally, I see that people who might be reluctant at the beginning of that ceremony will generally come when there's time later to come to that coffin. But it's really helpful to see a dead body. And especially if that's someone that you care for.   Mason: (01:05:38) Yeah. Because otherwise it's taboo, you can't see them. Don't look at them, don't think-   Zenith Virago: (01:05:43) Well, it's an unknown. And then you can really mind fuck with that. Whereas you see them, you can see they're dead. You know what death looks like. You can feel your emotions fully because of that situation is what it is. And also that will depend on how they died and who they are to you. But if you are a young person and you saw that person last in the fullness of life it can be really hard to get your head around, what is death? What does it actually mean? And it is the big question after what is the meaning of life? But what you've got clearly is a dead body. And if that's someone that you care for, it's great to be able to say goodbye and feel all those emotions that you feel for that person. And then it's what you believe in. So as I said, at the beginning, most people take comfort in the belief that something leaves the body.   Mason: (01:06:49) Very quickly. Have you ever read the series... It's a Sci-fi series called Ender's Game?   Zenith Virago: (01:06:54) Of course, I haven't.   Mason: (01:06:57) The first book is a travesty. Don't worry, but the second and third one, he becomes, I can't remember the term, but he becomes a death talker and he's hired. And he travels around a now human populated universe, and has been called in for very special or unique situations of death to... I think about this quite often as well. And you're the first person I've met and I'm like, "Wow, that's what you do." And I often just thought about, that's been such a significant role to talk to people, have 400 people in front of you and yet be able to create a sense of closure or connection or connection to the reality all in one.   Zenith Virago: (01:07:41) Closure is crap that concept.   Mason: (01:07:43) Yeah. All right. That's out I'm learning a lot, no holding space, no closure.   Zenith Virago: (01:07:48) And no giving permission.   Mason: (01:07:51) Give them permission to mourn you mean or something like that?   Zenith Virago: (01:07:54) No concept. Because people often say that to me, "Oh, you're giving them permission to die." And I'm like, "No they're dying, no one needs permission to die." But the other thing I probably would take this opportunity to say and it's about language and it maybe confronting for some, but I think it's very helpful for others. So the word suicide is very well used on a cultural level, in the media, in conversation when someone kills themselves and a lot of the language around suicide... So suicide means, Sui means oneself, and cide means to kill.   Zenith Virago: (01:08:41) So you've got homicide, matricide, infanticide, genocide, ecocide all the cides all about killing. So what you're actually saying when you say the word suicide is that they've killed themselves. You're just saying it in a different language. But the phrase commit suicide is from when it was a crime to attempt to kill yourself or to attempt suicide. And if you succeeded, then you were dead and that was the end of it. And other people's suffering began. But if you failed, then you will be arrested and tried and sometimes put in prison for attempting to commit suicide.   Mason: (01:09:25) Under suicide watch.   Zenith Virago: (01:09:26) Yeah. And this is in Victorian times and things like that. But so when you're saying that phrase, you are perpetuating a concept that is a criminal action and now the latest phrase is death by suicide, but suicide doesn't kill you. People kill themselves. Whether they do that with a regret or they do it... But they make a choice and they make an action. And this will be very confronting for some people, especially if someone you love has killed themselves. But about 12 years ago, I started to stop using that phrase and started to use the phrase that they ended their own life.   Zenith Virago: (01:10:15) So sometimes I still use that phrase, but most of the time I use the phrase that they killed themselves in conversation. If I'm asking someone about someone who's died like that. And the reason I feel it's important is because I see that it assists people in their healing because once you really get what has happened, it's a bit like being an alcoholic. Once you can own that you're an alcoholic, you can address it and work with it and hopefully overcome that situation. And so when families can really look at that situation and say... Or friends that that person killed themselves, then whether you agree with it or not, you're just bringing respect and a recognition to that action. That is what they've done. And somewhere in that, it starts to grow something in you that moves towards an easier healing and an easier living with that situation.   Mason: (01:11:21) Everything you're talking about, looking at the body saying what it is ending your own life. It brings you into reality, that's what we're talking about right?   Zenith Virago: (01:11:31) Yeah. But also it makes for healthier bereavement. So it allows you to live with that loss of that person in your life and with their death. Yeah.   Mason: (01:11:46) Loved it, what a way to end a Tuesday, I really appreciate you coming in.   Zenith Virago: (01:11:55) You're welcome, thank you for the invitation.   Mason: (01:11:57) Yeah. No absol

 "Wu Wei, It means following the flow of the Dao, of the way, and you can see that in nature. Watch the birds and bees behave and let nature take its course. Now, in the case of human beings, for example, Western medicine interferes with drugs, chemicals, vaccines, and is yet to learn that the best defense against disease is a strong immune system. It's built into us". -Daniel Reid    There's something about the energy and spirit of Daniel Reid that makes you want to sit, listen and experience his wisdom. A bestselling author, leading expert on eastern philosophy and medicine, Reid has written several books and memoirs on Asian self-health, self-healing practices, Daoism, and his journey on this path. Living in Taiwan for 16 years studying and writing, Reid's international reputation stems from a deep understanding of traditional Chinese culture, Chinese medicine, and ancient Taoist health and longevity systems. In this conversation with Mason, Reid discusses how western medicine is failing society and will continue to as long as it tries to overcome nature. Contrastingly, he details the beauty and simplicity found in all aspects of the Daoist philosophy and spirituality, the way of respecting nature, and our innate ability to heal ourselves. Tune in for wisdom and healing.   Mason and Dan discuss:  Doaist thought. The Dao De Jing. Qigong and tea-gong. The Dao principle of Wu Wei. The three powers of Daoism. Following the flow of the Dao. Personality types of the five Daoist elements. The principle of Yin Yang and the five elements. Quantum physics, Daoism and energy. Drawing wisdom from essential nature. Daoism on facing mortality/immortality.   Who is Daniel Reid? Daniel Reid is a bestselling author and a leading expert on eastern philosophy and medicine. He has written numerous books and magazine articles on various aspects of Asian self-health, self-healing practices, and has established an international reputation for the practical efficacy of his traditional approach to modern health problems. Daniel Reid was born in 1948 in San Francisco and spent his childhood in East Africa. After completing a Bachelor of Arts degree in East Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley in 1970, and a Masters of Arts degree in Chinese Language and Civilization at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in 1973, Reid moved to Taiwan, where he spent 16 years studying and writing about various aspects of traditional Chinese culture, focusing particularly on Chinese medicine and ancient Taoist longevity systems. In 1989, he relocated to Chiang Mai, Thailand, where he continued his research and writing until 1998 when he immigrated with his wife Snow to the Byron Bay region of Australia. In 2017, they moved back to Chiang Mai, where they now make their home.   Resources: Dan Reid website Oolong Tea.org The Art and Alchemy of Chinese Tea - Daniel Reid The Tao of Health, Sex and Longevity - Daniel Reid Shots From the Hip. Sex, Drugs, and The Tao - Daniel Reid Memoir  Energy, Light, and Luminous Space - Daniel Reid Memoir  Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast? A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We’d also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher, CastBox, iHeart RADIO:)! Plus  we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Mason: (00:00) Dan, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast.   Dan Reid: (00:03) Thanks for inviting me.   Mason: (00:05) Absolute pleasure. My wife, who runs the company with me, when I first met her, the first book I noticed on her book shelf that I have was The Dao of Health, Sex and Longevity.   Dan Reid: (00:20) My flagship.   Mason: (00:22) Your flagship, and I just said to her, "I'm just jumping on with Dan now," and she was like, "Ah, that was the first book on Daoism I ever bought," and since then [crosstalk 00:00:30].   Dan Reid: (00:30) And also put the word "sex" on the cover.   Mason: (00:34) I mean, I kind of got to agree that that's definitely a draw.   Dan Reid: (00:41) You know when you see books and they're all well-thumbed in that section.   Mason: (00:46) It's a good trio. Health, Sex, and Longevity. That must be ... because that was '89. Is that right?   Dan Reid: (00:53) Actually, it was '87, I think.   Mason: (00:56) Oh, '87, and yeah, did it become a cult classic as it went along? I can't remember. I think you mentioned it in your biography.   Dan Reid: (01:09) It took off really quickly. First of all, it took two years to sell it. I had an agent in New York. He couldn't get anyone interested. He got all these wise guy rejection slips, so he took it to London and sold it immediately, and brought it back, and then of course New York took it, and then it took off pretty quickly, yeah.   Mason: (01:33) Yeah. I mean, I imagine back then ... because it must be interesting for you now to see Daoism and Daoist practises and Daoist sexual practises, and semen retention, and the concept of longevity become all trendy. I mean ...   Dan Reid: (01:47) Yeah. Nobody knew anything about it back then, and the editors didn't know why this might be important. They didn't even know how to pronounce the word Dao. Yeah. But I was sure it would take root, because I just know that's what people want. I mean, anyone who does any kind of practise wants to be healthy, everyone wants sex, and we don't want to die young.   Mason: (02:18) How do you relate now to ... because at that time, you were in Taiwan, right, and really you were immersed, and you'd gone to university and learnt ...   Dan Reid: (02:29) I spoke Chinese, I could read and write, so I could read first, original sources, and I had Daoist friends. I just gravitated toward them. It was nothing formal. I never went to a Chinese medical school or anything. I did do a few qigong classes, but mostly it was friends who were into various aspects, Chinese friends, of Daoism, and because I could speak Chinese, it became very easy to become friends. But most of the learning took place around the tea table. It was very informal, and the Chinese are very practical people, so that's the aspect of Daoism that I got into, that I got first introduced to. Later I started reading some of the classical texts and things that had the background theory.   Mason: (03:24) So you were in ... I think it must have been the original time, when there was a bridging of that classical Daoist and Chinese medical information coming over to the West. Were there some people before you that were maybe doing some other ground work I'm not really aware of? It seemed like that was the period, that mid-'80s to late '80s, when it was actually happening.   Dan Reid: (03:52) Yeah, it was. Of course there were some people. I read a lot of books by an English writer named John Blofeld, who lived in China for 18 years, and he was interested in Daoism, Buddhism, and all that, and he was in China from 1930 to '48, and I read most of his books, and then I finally met him. Actually, he was dying that year. I didn't know that, but it turned out he was living in Bangkok, so I flew down there to meet him, and he was in the middle of writing his memoirs, in Chinese.   Mason: (04:31) Wow. You covered that in your book, right, Shots From the Hip, your biography.   Dan Reid: (04:35) Yes. You read that?   Mason: (04:37) Yeah, yeah, I read that. I loved it. I don't love biographies a lot of the time. I think I was turned off by Kelly Slater's.   Dan Reid: (04:49) Oh, yeah. Kelly Slater's a real fan of the Dao of Sex, Health and Longevity.   Mason: (04:55) Is he? Awesome.   Dan Reid: (04:57) Oh, yeah. Always talks about it. But I can't get in touch with him. I wanted to thank him for all the promotion he's done.   Mason: (05:05) Well, that's interesting. Well, I'll see eventually if I can get him on. I know he likes mushrooms and tonics. If we can get him on to the Di Dao tonic herbs, I'll make sure I ...   Dan Reid: (05:14) Tell him you interviewed me. Yeah.   Mason: (05:16) Yeah.   Dan Reid: (05:17) What were we talking about there?   Mason: (05:20) Well, we were talking about the-   Dan Reid: (05:23) Oh, I was going to ask you about the memoir. Have you read just the first one or the second one?   Mason: (05:25) No. Is the second one Energy, Light and Luminous Space?   Dan Reid: (05:28) Yeah.   Mason: (05:28) Is that the ... No. I actually wanted to talk to you first. I don't know why I felt ... I finished Shots From the Hip, and then I was like, cool. Once I've spoken to you in an interview, I'll start Energy, Light and Luminous Space, so now I'll go and ... I've just got Shots From the Hip to my Kindle. I might do the same with the other one, so I don't have to wait now.   Dan Reid: (05:47) Yeah. I just gave it a final polish about two months ago, so it's good that you haven't read it.   Mason: (05:51) Oh, good. I knew there was a reason.   Dan Reid: (05:54) Yeah.   Mason: (05:56) How are you feeling, having been ... I see it. It was like you took the foundation of work that those that had done a lot of the translation and actually bridged it over to the West, so you did a lot of that bridging.   Dan Reid: (06:11) That's the place where it usually falls apart, because many translators or people who've studied Chinese medicine formally, they get too literal in the way they present it to the West, and it just doesn't make sense to people, and I think this is too esoteric, or maybe this isn't really well, and so I made an attempt, and apparently I have an ability to do that, to make it sensibile and enjoyable to Western readers, in a way that they'll keep reading, and I guess that's why my books stay in print. It's more than translation, it's interpretation.   Mason: (06:56) How do you communicate that to people? Obviously I think I agree. You've got obviously the knack because you can discuss poetry, you can discuss the character, and you can sit in that world and not try and explain that way of thinking as it being metaphoric, or ... You don't try and explain it with Western concepts, you just sit in and live within that way of thinking, which is from an Eastern philosophical standpoint.   Dan Reid: (07:27) Yeah, but I try to find aspects of Western culture, and particularly contemporary. I mean, I came from this, you read by book, the hippy age, and the new age, and all this stuff, so I tried to find ... and explaining things which I can understand from reading original Chinese texts, and from Chinese masters and all that, but then I try to find something in the Western world that links. Western science, maybe cutting edge medical science, nutritional science. It's not mainstream stuff, but it's getting more and more. Organic food, and food combining. There's links to all that in ancient Daoist thought and in what we're doing now in the West. It's just finding how to thread them together.   Mason: (08:20) Yeah, make it relevant in the Western way of thinking, right?   Dan Reid: (08:23) Yeah.   Mason: (08:23) Is that where you stand, that you're happy to bridge so that people can stay more so within their Western framework and-   Dan Reid: (08:32) Absolutely.   Mason: (08:33) ... integrate some of the wisdom, or is there a party that's like, you're going to have to step out of your way of thinking and start integrating with the Eastern way of looking at the world?   Dan Reid: (08:44) Oh, not at all. I consider myself internally Chinese. What do they call that? An egg. White on the outside and yellow on the inside. But there's really nothing new under the sun. The Dao is probably the most ancient integrated system of thought that makes sense, and it's focused on practical things. Western people are practical, so I am very content to be a bridge. It's interesting you use that word because my wife calls me a bridge. She's Chinese, and so I'm a bridge to her going the other way.   Mason: (09:29) Is your wife ... Is it Snow?   Dan Reid: (09:31) Yeah, Snow. She's from Taiwan. [crosstalk 00:09:34].   Mason: (09:34) How long have you guys been together?   Dan Reid: (09:35) She's Jo-Jo in the memoir.   Mason: (09:37) Jo-Jo. Oh, yeah. Of course. Okay. Okay. Jo-Jo. How long have you guys been together?   Dan Reid: (09:42) We've been married 30 years next year.   Mason: (09:47) Wow. Congratulations.   Dan Reid: (09:49) Talk about longevity.   Mason: (09:50) Yeah. I know there's elements of Daoism that's not ... The non-sexy kind of aspect of Daoism, which is the longevity, and being able to go along in your psychological development, and reflect upon yourself so that you don't project on others, and have a healthy relationship, or have healthy friendships. It's one of those things. It's I guess one of those kind of those under-themes. It's maybe there, maybe coming to the surface a little bit more, but not overt. What I wanted to ask, because there was a bit of a ... I can imagine that we didn't have long to talk about it in the book, like, where this sudden ability, in my eyes sudden, for you to put together these intensely complex dishes and meals together, but I think I remember there was a friend. You were with your friends in a castle. You were somewhere in America, in-   Dan Reid: (10:53) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cooking, you mean?   Mason: (10:55) Yeah, yeah, cooking.   Dan Reid: (11:01) The three things I like best are cooking ... writing first, cooking, and gardening, and they all fit together. I learnt to cook early on in my life from my aunt and my mother. They taught me things, and then my Chinese teachers started teaching me in California, when I was studying Chinese, how to cook Chinese food, and I started to see all the principles of the yin, the yang, and the five elements become the five flavours, and how everything works in balance and harmony. The basic Daoist principles run right through it, and so how am I able to do that? I think I was younger. I had a lot of energy, and I still cook. I still cook for my wife and myself. We don't have very many dinner guests here anymore, but yeah.   Mason: (11:55) It is a way to take it out of the theoretical and apply it. I mean, that's quite often ...   Dan Reid: (12:02) But that's the whole point. China, I mean, they are practical, earthly people. They're not really into so much ... The ones who really want to go full spiritual, they just leave society. They go into the mountains, and there's still Daoist hermits, men and women, up in the mountains, who don't even know who Mao Zedong was.   Mason: (12:27) Amazing. What a world.   Dan Reid: (12:28) Yeah. There's a guy named ... an old friend of mine from Taiwan named Bill Porter. His pen name is Red Pine, and Red Pine is probably the foremost translator now of classical Daoist and Buddhist texts, and he's still working, and he's 78 now, and I'm still in touch with him. He went to China. He's got a book called Road to Heaven, because he said, "Well, I want to see if I can find these Daoists," and this is when it was just after the culture revolution, you know, but he managed to get up to those mountains, and he met Daoist hermits.   Dan Reid: (13:12) Now, those are the ones who are really taking the spiritual side of it, the esoteric side of it, to the max. They live in caves or in cabins. They never come down off the mountain, but other than that, Chinese society uses Daoist principles, Daoist science, for medicine, Chinese medicine, cooking, sex, overall health practises, painting, the way they do their landscape paintings, the perfect balance of space and ink. It's the same principle applies, but for China, it's basically a Confucian society. They think that, well, okay, we're here on Earth. We have this life. Let's just focus on this, and we're going to find out what happens next anyway, so why focus in on that now? Confucius said, "Pay respects to all gods and demons, but stay clear of them all."   Mason: (14:23) I like it. It's an interesting thing, because in Daoism, and all through Chinese society, there are deities used to represent something in ... but never a real worshipping .   Dan Reid: (14:41) No, not like that. Exactly, because they're like ... Also Buddhism too, or Hinduism. No-one denies that there's gods. They just say there's not one almighty one above all the others. There's an almighty state, not an almighty god, but a state of mind, a state of spirit, which we look for. Where the Buddhists call it enlightenment, in China they just call it the Dao, the way, and you want to go that direction. You're not going into a religion that then you have to just take all these orders from God and from the clergy. Instead you want to cultivate that supreme state, which is beyond the human condition.   Mason: (15:34) From where you're sitting, and watching the world, and watching Daoist principles now roll out further and further, where are you at with ... Are you feeling like there's an authenticity and a grounding-ness in the way in which that philosophy is rolling out into the West, whether it's through businesses and just people integrating those practises? More and more, qigong starts to move out there, more and more Chinese medicine starts rolling out there. Are you kind of feeling like it's staying connected to the old way mostly?   Dan Reid: (16:11) As long as they are following the basic science and the basic philosophy of the Dao, the yin and the yang, the five elements. You have to be able to see how those principles apply to different aspects of life, but if they stick to those principles, then it's on course. I mean, there's also the nonsense, the commercialization, the Dao of Winnie the Pooh, and all these things. Okay. That's not what we're talking about, but the principles are solid. It's quantum physics also. I mean, the binary, yin and yang. Isn't that how computers work? There's this two, and then there's five, and then it goes on from there. It's all in the Dao De Jing, if you know how to read the Dao De Jing. It's all there.   Mason: (17:03) Yeah. Difficult one. I mean, I've got a few translations, and they're all so different [crosstalk 00:17:09].   Dan Reid: (17:09) I like Arthur Waley. He was an English translator of Chinese poetry, but he did one. He never went to China. He taught himself Chinese in the British Museum during World War II, and he's my favourite translator. He calls the Dao De Jing, his translation, The Way and Its Power, so if you find the way, then you get its power. Dao De Jing means, okay, Dao is the Dao, the way. First De means virtue, and Jing is a classic book, so the classic of the way and its power. If you follow the way, the way of nature, basically, because the biggest manifestation, the most obvious manifestation of the Dao on Earth, is nature.   Dan Reid: (18:06) Only humans go against nature. We have all kinds of weird things we do, that animals, and flowers and bees don't do. The underlying thing is we all eat, we all have sex for procreation and all that, and beyond that, humans take it. They try to conquer nature, and so by not following nature and trying to conquer it or twist it, as we can what's happening now in the world, with this whole viral thing, it doesn't end well that way.   Mason: (18:42) Yeah, I mean, there always seems to be something which I think the West isn't programmed for, which is a simplification versus coming up with complex solutions to something. So you're like, that's ... Is that just basically, from your perspective, and understanding the Dao ... I mean, like you've just talked about, first of all, not voiding yourself from nature. Is a simple solution which takes observation and ...   Dan Reid: (19:10) Yeah. Well, one of the things in the Daoist practice ... It's quite well known for people who follow Daoism and Dao De Jing, is the term wu wei. Wei means to do. Wu means no, not. Not doing. But not doing doesn't mean just kicking back, doing nothing, and smoking a joint, and being lazy. It means non-interference, really. It means following the flow of the Dao, of the way, and so you can see that in nature. Watch the birds and the bees behave, and let nature take its course. Now, in the case of the human being, for example, taking medicine as an example, Western medicine interferes, with drugs, chemicals, vaccines, and the best defence against disease is a strong immune system. It's built into us. It's built into our genetics, but how many people have a strong immune response anymore?   Dan Reid: (20:14) And so when you do need medicine, the Chinese principle first is use food. We all have to eat, and if that doesn't work or that's not good enough, or the problem is too great, then go to the herbs, the medicinal herbs, the mushrooms, and take it from there, but that all comes from still taking your lead from nature. Instead of trying to overcome it, I'm going to fix this by ... Because I got a new chemical that I made from petroleum, and I got a patent on it, and this is going to kill the virus or the bacteria, and then, in the process of doing that, it causes other problems.   Mason: (20:56) I think that's always my mind. I've got a nice Western mind as well, you know, so I quite often will constantly go looking up like, all right, what have I got to add in? What have ... But ultimately, I think ... There's a Chinese practitioner we've had who's talked about the colonisation of Chinese medicine on the podcast before, Rhonda Chang, and basically, quite often, if I say ... if I'm decolonizing my mind so I can come up with simple solutions, which is, one, it's ultimately simple. It's like, first of all, you're going to have to yield and come back into effortless effort, or at least I think that's-   Dan Reid: (21:35) Exactly. Wu wei, non-interference, but you want to understand the principle [crosstalk 00:21:40].   Mason: (21:40) That's it. The principle. Yeah. That's where I think it's one thing to try and add in Daoist practises, which have kind of, in a Western way, have been cut out of the entire philosophy and injected into Western world in order to act as a symptom, verse decolonizing in a sense of just coming back and understanding what that principle of wu wei is, and what the principle of yin yang is, so-   Dan Reid: (22:14) And the five elements. All the traditional cultures, basically, have these five elements. I call them the five elemental energies. They're really associated with the five elemental colours, and they all have a different vibrational rate on the electromagnetic spectrum, and it all comes down to very simple things, but then you have to see how, in a complex situation, how those simple principles can be applied to correct the problem, rather than try to come up with a even more complex solution. You know what I mean? Which is the Western medical approach, it's the Western scientific approach. Yeah. It gets way too complex, the technology.   Mason: (23:00) Okay, so a lot of people listening, they're constant ... because that's what I've tried to do with the business in order ... I kind of always talk about things like, I move my business in the direction so I can sleep at night, and one of the things that started coming up was I know that seasonal living is ultimately ... or observing the seasons is ultimately going to solve the problem in which a lot of people come to us for herbs in the first place, and so it's an unfair thing to be talking about herbs without talking about these fundamentals.   Mason: (23:36) But a lot of people listening are aware that they're still undergoing a process of just being able to comprehend that continuing to understand and implement what you're talking about as these basics is worth it, one. Isn't healing some symptom. It's a way of kind of almost re-educating the way, re-informing the way you build your own little family culture, so on and so forth, so just from that perspective, because I'm sure many people have heard it before, and you've probably said it many, many times, but just talking about these basic principles again, hearing it from you, in terms of living seasonally, understanding the principles of yin yang and the five principles, and how ... Can you just explain, for those people listening that are striving to be able to sink their teeth into and feel it so that they can move their family and themselves in that direction more, just maybe a few little pieces of how they can understand the principles further.   Dan Reid: (24:42) Well, you can use the principles to understand and adapt to weather, extreme weather conditions. Well, there's heat, and dampness, and then there's the combinations of heat and damp together, which can be very damaging to human health. Lots of rain and snow. There's the water element coming up. If you look into the traditional Daoist science of how the five elements relate, once cycle is that one, where they say conquers the next or suppresses the next, and then there's the other cycle where one element nurtures the next one, so water is good for earth and all that, but if you go the other way, fire will burn down wood, and all these things.   Dan Reid: (25:37) If you can learn the basic principles, why it's useful to understand the basic principles of Daoism, or I call it Daoist science, because it's not a religion. There is a Daoist religion, a popular religion with temples, and god, and all that, but we're not talking about that here. If you understand those basic principles, then in your daily life, in all aspects, you can find links, starting with yin and yang, positive and negative, male and female, or the five elements and their relations to flavours, salty, sweet, sour, pungent. There are some very obvious ways in daily life, and in your family life and in your living situation, where you can start to ... If you can start to see how it all comes down to a few basic principles, then you can apply it to more complicated things and more complicated situations, including the way people interact with each other.   Mason: (26:47) How would we get informed about the way that we interact with one [crosstalk 00:26:53].   Dan Reid: (26:52) Well, I mean, there's personality types. There's the fire. There is a whole Chinese ... what they call fortune telling or astrology, but it's much deeper than that. There's a science behind it. Personality types, which I don't know if it's genetic or if it's the way you're brought up or something, but there's the fire personality, the person who explodes and is impulsive, and then there's the really easy-going, flowing water element, then there's the very earthy type of person, and there are a lot of texts on all these aspects, and a lot of them have been translated. I don't think there's anything where these principles don't apply.   Mason: (27:45) Yeah. The personality one's always interesting, because I've been looking for ... I've found a few people saying that they've got little online questionnaires, but it doesn't seem ... I don't know if you've got one. It always seems to miss the mark just a little bit, based on ... Because sometimes you get where the deficiency is currently and maybe not tracked back to where your constitutional deficiency or constitutional element lies, and so sometimes I will be like, yep, I'm definitely fire, and now I'm definitely water. Nah, actually ... and I just go round and round.   Dan Reid: (28:25) I mean, you may have your basic personality type, but other things happen in life. Situations arise where you're reacting to another kind of person, either in a good way or an adversarial way, and then that person's energy is then starting to mould yours and change yours, and you're responding, and suddenly you're shifting to some other, from fire to water, or to earth or some other element. There are many factors involved there.   Dan Reid: (29:03) I think that our experience in life is more important than your genetic background, and there's a lot in DNA, obviously, but the idea of free choice is something that humans have, whereas animals and plants will basically just follow their genetic pattern, but humans have the choice to go against the grain sometime. We're seeing a lot of that now in the current situation. How many people are following the agenda that's being pushed now, and then there's a lot of people who aren't, and to do that, you have to sometimes just go against what you've been brought up with.   Mason: (29:58) This is an interesting conversation, because I think the thing with Daoism I like is you come to ... as you observe nature and you observe ... coming from a place of realities, let's say, yin yang, it seems to me like a reality, as is science. However, a lot of the time science doesn't have the foundations of guiding principles that are grounded in reality. Can run off on its own tangent.   Dan Reid: (30:25) Yes, indeed. There's no underlying thing in that, but some science that's coming out ... I mean, quantum physics is basically verifying that, ultimately, and the Daoists say this too, that there is no such thing as solid form. Everything is just energy, but it's slowed down. It's light that's slowed down so much, with our coarse sensory organs, we take it to be a solid form. In fact, it's not, because with modern technology, with electron microscopes, you keep going further and further down. Suddenly the atom just disappears and becomes a waveform, and those are the basic energies. Basic energies like that, and the thing that's interesting is that, in quantum physics, when something, an electron or subatomic particle just sort of disappears and then becomes a waveform, the observer, using intent, using intent, mind, can make it come back, or move somewhere else, or transform into something else. There's something about that. There's the physical level, there's the energetic level, and then there's the mind.   Mason: (31:52) Which are the principles in which Daoism is based on, understanding that reality.   Dan Reid: (31:59) Absolutely. Essence, energy, and spirit. Body, breath, and mind. There's all different ways, but my favourite ideogram, my favourite Chinese character, is the one for intent, and that consists ... On the top, there's the symbol for sound, also means vibration, and underneath that is heart. It's a vibration that comes from here, not here. Here we think. Thinking is very structured. We think in terms of words, and concepts, and all that, but your real intention, what you intend to do, what you want to do in life or in a particular situation, is always from here, which in Chinese we'd call spirit. That's spirit. Something above all the differences in form and in energy and all that. The different permutations can come in combinations, but you have one thing, is your intent is the strongest force.   Mason: (33:13) So many things swimming through my head there. I think what you've just talked about there is coming back to a reality. You mentioned not going off into the religious ... Religion quite often can come with gods, and let's create wrong and right through a set of rules, and once again, because it's easier to, I guess, spread, easier to commodify something that you write down in a book, and you just go, here's how you know right and wrong, verse here's a principle of living in a particular way, which I feel like the Dao and other ways of following these traditions of wisdom, which puts you in reality where you can feel and get informed of, say, morals, ethics, right and wrong, from a place of truth, not being driven by a dogma, and that's why what you're talking about is at some point coming down to a heart space, and not because the religion told you to, not because ...   Dan Reid: (34:17) Religion says you don't have it.   Mason: (34:20) Yeah.   Dan Reid: (34:20) They say you're a boring sinner and you're bad, and so you need god, a god, one of many. How can there be 10 different gods representing 10 different truths? There's only one truth, and then you need this intermediary, which is the guy in the robe, yeah? And that's it, otherwise you're doomed, and you got to sign up for one of these clubs called religions. I mean, religion I think in Latin sort of means something like reunite. You've been separated from the divine, but in Daoism and Buddhism, and the non-theistic, especially Tibetan Buddhism, we've got that. It's just that we don't know it, and even if we know it, we haven't found it.   Dan Reid: (35:15) Everybody has that, and spirituality and religion are totally different. In religion, you're going to obey a certain god and a set of rules, and then the clergy get involved in it, whereas in spirituality, you're just trying to discover a certain aspect of yourself. [inaudible 00:35:36]. Yeah, so you ... Yeah.   Mason: (35:41) Do you think all of Daoism is deriving to that ... Daoist thought. Is that driving to that reality, being present for the individual practising .   Dan Reid: (35:54) Oh yeah, because you got to be present no matter which aspect of the Dao you practise, including semen retention. If you're not present, you're going to go out of control, and it's all over. Cooking. If you don't pay attention, you're not present, you're not going to get the flavours just perfect, just right, and so, in the spiritual tradition of Daoism, you're just trying to be present in your basic nature, your basic state, which is not something you can really describe, but you can experience it.   Mason: (36:38) Which is then the, I guess, the leading intent behind, say, qigong practise or a tea ceremony. Is that correct?   Dan Reid: (36:47) Yes, yes. Okay, so there's three ... There's so many things that are done in trilogy or in trinity. The basic one ... I mean, and at this level, Buddhism and Daoism agree, okay? I think the most basic one is ... You've heard this translated as emptiness many times. Essential emptiness is simply the fact that there is no solid form. It's all empty, so everything that we take for solid is temporary, impermanence, and all that, so what you really want to know is to understand everything's essential nature, which is formless, and from that you can harvest something. Wisdom. Why get attached to impermanent things? How about following things which are eternal? So therefore, we're not so attached to all these little toys and things that we've got so much. Okay? So that's emptiness.   Dan Reid: (37:56) Then the next one. We hear this a lot too. Light. We're in the light. What's the light? Light's spirit, and the nature of spirit and the nature of light, it manifests unconditional love. They talk about unconditional love, compassion, and people get it a bit wrong. They think, oh, this is like this goody two shoes, love everybody, love your neighbour. It's not that. It's also what heals. A real healer is really using herbs and techniques, breathing things, but behind that is the intent, the light of love, which is ... Without that, the thing doesn't have any power.   Dan Reid: (38:45) And then the third level ... Okay, you've got your essential emptiness, you've got your natural light, your luminosity, you might call it. The next level is energy, just energy. The yin and the yang energy, the five elements, and millions of different kind of smaller energies, all of which are sort of refracted out from your clear light of your basic spirit, and if you use that energy in accord with the wisdom and the compassion of your other two aspects, the energy has power, creative power. You can create something, art. You can heal. You can do positive things. That energy doesn't have what we call power, the power to create, unless it's done in accord with the wisdom and the compassion of your other two aspects.   Dan Reid: (39:54) It's hard for people in daily life to keep in mind that, yeah, well, essentially we're formless, and we're just bundles of energy, and we've got this light, because you can't live in the world without an ego and without a house, and a roof over your head, and you got to wear clothes, so it's just a matter of the relative priorities that you give things. By having understanding of the basic nature, then other things become relative, only relatively important.   Mason: (40:24) Yeah, I mean, it's always an interesting process when you start reading about these concepts, and a book can sometimes blow people's minds, and it becomes fantastical. I think that's why a lot of the time, the spiritual communities of the world, and Byron Bay, where everyone's just discovering these principles for the first time, and it makes you very counterculture because it's hard to land in the grind of everyday life, yet most of the time, that's where you do end up, and having the discipline to walk between those two worlds, embody the chop wood, carry water.   Dan Reid: (40:59) Yeah. I mean, I like Byron Bay a lot. I Enjoyed living there. But some people, they take it too far the other way. Everyone's the healer because they had a workshop in Sydney 10 years ago for two weeks, and there it is, but they're not really living like a healer would or manifesting that kind of energy, and some people just don't want to do anything, so sleeping on the beach or stuff like that. It can go overboard that way. There has to be a balance always.   Dan Reid: (41:37) Again, going back to Daoism, the three powers. [inaudible 00:41:41]. What does that mean? Heaven, Earth, and humanity in between. Heaven, okay, the spiritual stuff, the ancient principles of the Dao. Earth, food, sex, shelter, and in between is the human, and the art of life is correctly balancing those two, and this is what the Chinese are so good at. Most people cannot go into a cave and sit there for 50 years and become enlightened, although some can. There was a teacher, a woman, female teacher, my Tibetan teacher, who spent 56 years in a dark retreat. Came out when she was 106, taught for one year, including my teacher, and then went back, and then achieved the rainbow body. You may have heard of that, but ...   Mason: (42:44) Yeah.   Dan Reid: (42:44) Not many people who can do that.   Mason: (42:45) No.   Dan Reid: (42:45) But you don't have to go out and run a gambling den either, or go way the other way too. There's a balance between. But as long as you stick to the basic principles, it's going to go all right. Going into wu wei simply means don't interfere with the basic ... not only with nature, but with the basic nature of things. Don't rub it against the wrong way, because then it's going to bite back.   Mason: (43:23) It seems to be the biggest thing, going against the grain. I can speak for within myself, is that there is a requiring of faith, and for me, having gone to Catholic school, and not to rip on Catholicism. I know there's a lot of people here who might still be ... not a lot, but maybe might be in that world, so it's not about ... But my experience was I was getting this ... it was this false faith jammed down my throat, and so even the concept of having faith got quite muddied up, and for me I'd say taken into the synthetic, verse where you talk about all these principles of flowing with the way, there is this organic faith that's an organic quality within myself.   Mason: (44:09) Because I was thinking about, what's the antidote for me of the fear that I have that I'm going to run out? You know, the greed that comes up. No, I'm not going to go down that path, because it seems like I'm going to have to give up too much. I might as well just work lots, and all that kind of reptilian kind of way, excessively in that earth energy of like, it's not good enough to just have my shelter.   Dan Reid: (44:35) I know what you mean, because I've spent my entire life, except for two years when I worked in a hotel in Taiwan, as a freelance writer, and there's a lot of thin times when you're a freelance writer. But if you're on the right path, in the sense of your basic way of life ... Again, there's that word again. Way. Dao. That's what Dao means. It means way or path. If you just follow it, and you do no harm to others and all those things, well, then, magic happens. Not miracles, magic. It's the magic of life, and I'm not talking about a magic show, but if you're present and you pay attention, you see opportunities happen everywhere, including in things that you might normally think is a real problem or there's adversity there, but if you just sit with it for a while and watch it develop, whoa. There's an opportunity.   Mason: (45:23) You're right. I mean, when I think of that ... That's my counter to that colonised part of myself, which I do love. It helps me stay in this world. When I feel that come up, and want more now rather than ... It's like you plant a tree and you want that tree to grow into something incredible. You're either going to be able to do that synthetically or make it look bigger or have it go along quicker and further than it actually is, and I know there's a Daoist adage in ... I can't remember which classic, but talking about the fact, like a tree, if you just be patient and let a tree grow in the way that it's meant to grow, eventually it will become a tree that the carpenters won't touch. It'll become iconic.   Dan Reid: (46:34) That's right.   Mason: (46:35) And actually have longevity, and actually become something beautiful.   Dan Reid: (46:38) Yeah, and it'll adjust to its environment, in a way that it will grow better than maybe you trying to make it grow in a particular way you want. Yeah.   Mason: (46:48) Patience is a virtue, I guess.   Dan Reid: (46:50) I'm impatient, basically. Well, I have been. I'm getting more patient now because there's nothing much I can do with my impatience anymore.   Mason: (47:05) Well, it's good medicine. I mean, already, I can feel my stress from the last two weeks clear as day right now in this conversation of whether it's how far along our house is, our new house, and getting our ... you know, the plans of what we're going to do as a family, where the business is at, blah, blah, blah. It's the impatience. I feel it stunting and moving into a non way of being. I can feel like the only way I'm going to take it, if I don't have this faith and patience, and I don't engage in flow, is I'm going to have to use synthetic means.   Dan Reid: (47:45) Yeah, I know. I know what you mean. It's letting things take their course, and if you want to accomplish a particular thing, you have to do it in harmony with the way nature is flowing. You have to make some adjustments. You cannot overcome nature. You can only work with it. It's the way. It's the way it works, and so if you go against the way it works because you think you've got technology, or you can throw money at it or something, something else is going to go out of whack.   Dan Reid: (48:23) I mean, look at the condition of the world today. Look at the oceans. Full of plastics, and the air is ... I mean, I don't need to harp on that. It's just all going ... and it doesn't have to be that way. There are natural ways of handling things which are slower. Slower. This thing about space travel, and maybe eventually you don't need a spaceship. You don't need to be Elon Musk or something. You can teleport yourself. I mean, I think that's how the aliens go around other universes, and dimensions, and solar systems. They teleport themselves. It's scientifically possible.   Mason: (49:10) Yeah, I agree with you there. I feel that one coming.   Dan Reid: (49:16) You become a vibrational breath, which then goes, through intent, to where you already had planned, and when you get there, then you re-materialise.   Mason: (49:29) Don't know if it's within the same conversation, or whether it just came to mind. In terms of one of the elements of Daoism being facing your mortality and then therefore immortality, and almost this presence being in preparation for death without there being an attachment to what happens on the other side, perhaps, or perhaps in certain Daoist traditions, they do have an intention, where do you sit with that, and the relevance of ...   Dan Reid: (50:00) I'm sitting a lot with that lately.   Mason: (50:02) Oh, really?   Dan Reid: (50:05) Yes. Yeah, I'm 72 now, and that guy, Arthur Waley, the translator of the Dao De Jing, who .. he's my favourite. He says one of the things he likes about the Dao is their lyrical acceptance of death. Almost a poetic acceptance, because all it really is is a matter of not being attached to something that's going down the tube. It's going down the drain. Why be attached to your bathwater? You've just had a bath. The water's dirty. You let it out. Right? Your body is the same thing. We get old. The water gets dirty, no matter what you do and no matter how well you eat, or how much qigong you do every day. It's going to expire, and so at that time, or later in life, it really is time to start focusing more on what doesn't disappear. It may not be visible, spirit or awareness, but it's eternal, and it's indestructible, and we all have it, and this idea of religions.   Dan Reid: (51:32) All right, well, if you behave yourself, and you come to church and everything, you'll get a ticket to Heaven, and the other one, you get a ticket to Hell, and this kind of thing. That's not what it's about. You create your own Heaven or Hell, and usually it's on Earth, in life. What you want to do is focus more on that which lasts, which is always there, and you may be back again in another body or even in another dimension, or whatever. But the basic core light of what you really are, the energy and the light, is always going to be there. I discuss this quite a bit in the last chapter of the second book, the second volume of my memoir. That thing, I had to write five times.   Mason: (52:29) Yeah. Yeah. I'm really feeling it right now. I really felt you slow down and sink in there, and ...   Dan Reid: (52:43) Yeah. Yeah. It's absolutely true. Life rushes by very fast if you're living fast, and jumping around, and yet if you slow down, then it can be the same amount of time, the same number of years, but seem a lot longer.   Mason: (53:04) [inaudible 00:53:04] that's an element that really I got I feel a few years ago, and I started to get a bit fearful about life being short, which I felt was relevant. I was like, okay. Great. It's something [crosstalk 00:53:21].   Dan Reid: (53:20) Well, that's good that you feel that way, because life is short.   Mason: (53:24) Well, then as soon as I stopped resisting it ... Because I feel like that's, to be honest, why I got into the Daoist herbs, and then practises, and the concept of immortality, is from a place of fear of the inevitability of death, and because I was young enough and in my 20s, I could convince myself that, for a time, I could a bandaid of immortality over that fear, and then thankfully I think, for myself, and continuing to read, whether it's your books or just from other traditions, it was like, okay. Maybe I keep on going with that thought, and I finally started having the feeling of like, well, life's pretty long, at the same time, which that ... and that was probably the first time I'd experienced I guess an intellectual ... a real yin yang.   Mason: (54:26) It really created two magnetic poles, that first time I felt that, and started recalibrating myself and the way that I approach life, which was one of the most significant times I feel like I've gone, wow, that's ... and being in the perception of yin and yang really does all of a sudden creates these magnetic poles where I don't have to have the answer, but I can orient myself around them, and that's cool.   Dan Reid: (54:50) Yeah.   Mason: (54:50) It's just getting all of that. I'm aware we've been going for about an hour. I think, just in the tradition, the way it's gone, I read one of your biographies, and we jump on for a podcast. I think that would ... If you'd be up for coming back on.   Dan Reid: (55:07) You want to read the second volume, huh?   Mason: (55:10) Yeah, I'm going to go ... I know you said you just updated it, and I assume that'll be ...   Dan Reid: (55:14) Well, I can send it to you as a PDF file if you want.   Mason: (55:19) Yeah. That'll be cool. Let's do that.   Dan Reid: (55:21) I just sent the PDF to my guy at Amazon to upload into the text, but it's very readable, so I'll just send it to you.   Mason: (55:32) Perfect. We'll do that, and I think there's a ... I have got The Art and Alchemy of Chinese Tea as well, which is something I've found ... When I was reading your book, and I know I said we're going to finish up, but I might throw this out there, just as we-   Dan Reid: (55:52) That's okay. I got nothing but time now.   Mason: (55:55) Beautiful. Yeah. It's a long life. I'm sure there was struggle behind the scenes in terms of dedicating yourself to certain practises, to an extent, but your capacity for discipline ... I mean, it was like it's the way ... I guess I can see ... Your biography's name is Sex, Drugs and the Dao, and you do have that character which you throw yourself into the deep end.   Dan Reid: (56:33) Yeah. I think people should. That's okay to do when you're young.   Mason: (56:34) Yeah. But it meant that, off the back of the sex and the drugs, you threw yourself into qigong practise and the tea ceremony practise, and I think I read it at a time where I was-   Dan Reid: (56:47) Cooking. And cooking.   Mason: (56:50) Exactly, and I think I was reading the book at a time ... and it got me reflecting on ... I was exiting a phase of my life, especially with a young child and a business to run, where I wasn't able to get quite as immersive, and I actually remember getting a little bit nostalgic about that part of my life, and maybe you know what I mean.   Dan Reid: (57:16) I do.   Mason: (57:16) And possibly feeling a bit guilty or going down on myself. Getting down on myself. Going down on myself. That's a funny way to put it. Getting down on myself about it, but for you and the concept of discipline, where does it sit now in terms of the discipline around sexual practise, semen retention, qigong practise, tea ceremony, et cetera? How do you relate at this point in your life to the concept of your consistent practise, students-   Dan Reid: (57:53) I was doing some teaching in Byron. I had some qigong classes I did while I was there, and I had a small one going here, but now with the shut down and everything, I got no students here, so I'm not doing any teaching right now. I'd like to but I'm not. For me, personally, I find that it boils down to just the basic things that work best, because like I said, as you get older, you know your time is going to be up at the one point, so there's no more need to ...   Dan Reid: (58:28) You have the knowledge, you can hold an intelligent conversation with people on all sorts of things, but what do I do at home? I'm not asked that a lot. Qigong. I don't practise as much as I used to, but I always do some every day, because it works, and I don't feel comfortable if I don't. I feel my body's tight. I can feel my tendons behind my knees, and I can ... You know, my organs don't seem to be sitting in the right place, the spine isn't quite right, so the qigong works, and I'm getting older, and so it works in an important way. It makes my body work better, and now what I call tea-gong.   Mason: (59:14) Nice.   Dan Reid: (59:14) Which is what the tea is, the Chinese way of tea, and that particular tea, that high mountain oolong tea from Taiwan, is just unbelievable. Do you drink tea?   Mason: (59:27) Yeah. Not that much, though.   Dan Reid: (59:31) Well, you should go and see Snow's brother.   Mason: (59:34) Oh, cool.   Dan Reid: (59:35) He lives in Mullumbimby and-   Mason: (59:37) Oh, amazing.   Dan Reid: (59:38) Yeah, and he's got tea there, and teapots. I mean, you go and visit him and he'll make tea for you, and you'll see. He makes good tea, and you-   Mason: (59:46) Do you want me to give him a plug, or is it a private ... Is it a private thing or is he open to the public?   Dan Reid: (59:52) Absolutely, yeah, because we have a tea website, and it's run out of Taiwan, and it's one of Snow's sisters that mails it out and all that, but we have a lot of people in Byron who like the tea, and so she supplies him, and so he's always got some tea, and some teapots, and some cups available, so you don't have to order it online. You can just go buy it at his house.   Mason: (01:00:17) What's the easiest way to find him? Should we get contacts later from you and I can put it in the show notes? That's easy.   Dan Reid: (01:00:26) Let me see if I can ...   Mason: (01:00:29) Might as well give him a shout out, and what's the website as well?   Dan Reid: (01:00:34) Oolong-tea.org. Oolong, O-O-L-O-N-G, dash.   Mason: (01:00:45) Yep, got it.   Dan Reid: (01:00:46) Okay, now, his number is ... His English name is Dexter.   Mason: (01:00:53) Dexter. Yeah.   Dan Reid: (01:01:00) 0421502811.   Mason: (01:01:03) Awesome. I will reach out to him prior and make sure he's happy with me putting his number on a podcast.   Dan Reid: (01:01:10) I think he will be. I think he will be, because, I mean, people buy tea from him. That's part of what he does for a living, and he's got a food thing in the Mullum farmers' market on Friday.   Mason: (01:01:23) Oh, I probably went past him.   Dan Reid: (01:01:25) Yeah, his stuff always sells out by 10:00.   Mason: (01:01:28) Oh, cool. We'll make it 9:30 now.   Dan Reid: (01:01:33) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, back to what I do. Qigong and tea-gong. I mean, and the tea is the same thing. I love the taste of this tea. When you taste it, when he makes it for you, it's really good, but more than that, it really works for me, especially on my nervous system, my brain. It wakes me up, but not in a way like coffee races you a bit, and it just makes me feel good in a way that sometimes is hard to describe, and there's a whole organic feeling which goes very well with the tea, so I do the tea-gong and the qigong basically more or less at the same time. Speaking of which ...   Mason: (01:02:14) Oh, yeah. Nice mug as well.   Dan Reid: (01:02:19) So that. What else do I do? I still read books on spiritual subjects that I find of interest. Maybe I already know about them, but then I'm just reading a new book on the same subject, and when it comes to health problems, I go with nature. Organic, and same with food, but beyond that, I'm not writing anything right now. The place we live here is just too noisy for me to focus on writing, and I can't teach because I don't have any students here.   Mason: (01:03:06) Hopefully we can spark your online teaching career.   Dan Reid: (01:03:09) Yeah, that might work. That might work. That might work.   Mason: (01:03:14) Well, I mean, it's something ... is fascinating, having read your books for so many years, having read just how much has gone into your own self-education, and just reading about the kinds of conversations that you're having around different aspects of Daoism and Chinese culture and philosophy, just through your books. I can feel how much is simmering under the surface [crosstalk 01:03:46].   Dan Reid: (01:03:46) Yeah. For me, it always had to be something that you could actually go in and get your hands dirty, you know? To actually have contact with people who do those things, who know those things, Daoists or whatever. To do it all from academic sources just doesn't make sense to me. It really doesn't. I mean, I read books by academicians to get background information, but to understand how anything works, you got to try it.   Mason: (01:04:14) Yeah. I think the difference in what you ... what I like about you delivering and talking about the academic side of it, or the classics, is that I think lots of people are going to take ... whether it's yoga or Daoism, and teach it. They don't leave a track of where they've gotten the concepts for because then that leads to accountability and actually having to know your shit, whereas a lot of people don't want to be accountable to that.   Dan Reid: (01:04:41) That's right. Also you'll notice, in my writing, in my books, I don't put a lot of footnotes and references to ... I mean, because my readers trust me. Over time, they trust me, and I say I don't write for academicians. They want to know where I got this fact, or is this true. I say go fact check it if you want. I've never been challenged on anything. I've had editors who don't like some things I write, and I said, "Either you put that in or I'm not going to sign a contract," and I've never had a problem.   Mason: (01:05:16) Yeah. Principles.   Dan Reid: (01:05:17) I don't want to write something that's not true.   Mason: (01:05:21) Yeah. It's not good. I mean, you've definitely got longevity in your Daoist career, anyway, so that's saying something. I mean, and that's always proof in the pudding. There's those names. Yeah. It's really good to connect, because you're one of the names that constantly comes up. As we were chatting about just beforehand, I think, yeah, I came six years ago to Byron, and you'd just left, and it was interesting when I talked about what we did, and they were like, "What are you up to here?" And I was like, "Oh, I'm bringing my company up here, and we talk about Daoist herbalism [crosstalk 01:05:55]."   Dan Reid: (01:05:56) Who'd you talk to?   Mason: (01:05:57) Oh, I mean, it's like a number. I mean, I think maybe it was Si Mullum was the first [crosstalk 01:06:02].   Dan Reid: (01:06:02) Oh, yeah, Si Mullumbimby. He's one of my best friends. He's a didg player.   Mason: (01:06:07) Yeah, didg player, and, I mean, just the general conversation. Nick Cane, who's ... he works here and knew of you, and just your name pops up, and so it's really great to make the connection, and then read your books, and having had your books for over a decade. I look forward to reading the Shots From the Hip: Energy, Light and Luminous Space.   Dan Reid: (01:06:33) Okay.   Mason: (01:06:34) Thanks for sending that my way, and, I mean, yeah, just recommend everyone to go over to Dan Reid, R-E-I-D, .org. Your website's got lots of awesome info there.   Dan Reid: (01:06:46) Yeah.   Mason: (01:06:47) Is there anywhere else you'd like to send people?   Dan Reid: (01:06:49) The tea website.   Mason: (01:06:51) Again, tea website. Oolong-tea.org.   Dan Reid: (01:06:55) Yeah.   Mason: (01:06:55) And then also go in and see Dexter if you're up this way, if you're around Byron Shire.   Dan Reid: (01:07:02) Yeah, do that for sure. You'll get a good cup of tea.   Mason: (01:07:06) Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks so much for coming on and taking the time. Beautiful.   Dan Reid: (01:07:12) All right. Well, I liked doing this with you.   Mason: (01:07:16) Likewise.   Dan Reid: (01:07:17) So if you want to do more [crosstalk 01:07:21].   Mason: (01:07:21) Yeah, I think it'll be great to do ... Yeah, I mean, especially for yourself, if there's anywhere where you're particularly getting any new insights, or you think it's relevant for the current way that the world's working, we can either do that or we can just either come on and have another jam. Both ways work. We'll connect and see what's flowing.   Dan Reid: (01:07:44) Okay.

On this weekend edition of the podcast, Chris Walsh, Editor of the NT Independent online newspaper, talks about some of the stories making news in the Territory. This week’s stories are: 1. ICAC investigating Chief Minister’s staff’s handling of ‘cocaine sex scandal’ 2. Gunner Government inflated jobs figures on projects: Auditor General 3. Chief Minister ‘worried’ about effects of JobKeeper ending for NT businesses 4. Santos approves $4.7 billion Barossa gas project in NT 5. Greater Brisbane and Byron Shire hotspot statuses lifted, new NSW areas forced to self-isolate 6. Dangerous dogs, chickens and lighting fires: Darwin Council undertaking massive by-laws review --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/territorystory/message

This conversation was recorded live, in Bangalow, as the third of five live interviews as part of Resilient Byron and Renew Fest's ‘Resilience & Regeneration Roadshow' These are community forums in villages around the Byron Shire bringing people together to discuss and action how we can create resilient communities. I was so grateful to have had the chance to sit in live conversation with Richard Jones who, back in the 70s wanted to make and sell ceramics at the markets but, by his own admission “kept getting side-tracked” Those side-tracks included supporting major environmental campaigns, helping to establish Friends of the Earth Australia and Greenpeace Australia, and THEN serving in the NSW parliament for 15 years, often holding the balance of power on the cross bench and using it to negotiate to save old growth forests, create new marine parks, and protect Aboriginal rights. Some side track! Richard is an absolute joy to speak with, and you can't help but smile listening to his bubbly enthusiasm. But his quirky nature has meant that during his time in politics he was often chastised as a 'pot smoking nudist'… (I don't know about you but a pot smoking nudist seems way more relatable than most politicians we see these days!) Richard and I talk about his trips to inner space (literally, his acid trips), his reflections on politics and using his position of influence for good, and what he wants to see to create resilient communities in our local regions. Importantly, he talks about how we need to change our expectations… for example how is it that one person can own a huge block of land and do nothing with it, or expect to rent it out at a massive price? What if we use our land resources for appropriate housing or small scale agriculture, creating opportunities for agricultural jobs for young people and local food production, whilst also helping to address the issues of housing security and isolation? Richard's zest for life is infectious, and I think you'll really enjoy hearing his perspectives and reflections on life. You'll also be pleased to know that Richard now has come full circle and makes and sells ceramics at the markets, under the banner Rainforest Ceramics, with a portion of all sales going to rainforest conservation. Please enjoy this conversation from the Bangalow leg of the Resilience & Regeneration Roadshow, with Richard Jones.

We have Tahnee and Mason jumping on the podcast today, delving into the season of Autumn - Lung Metal time with all the essentials on the best practices and herbs to support our Lungs, digestion, Qi, and protective Wei Qi as we descend into these cosier months. In the tradition of Chinese medicine the Lung is paired with the Large Intestine, so not only is this a season to focus on breath, letting go, and cutting away what is no longer needed, it's also a time to direct energy towards digestion. Tahnee and Mason dive into the foods for this season to best nourish digestion and the cathartic process of digesting, assimilating and, releasing experiences in this last cycle of seasons.    As the air cools down and we observe Mother Nature contracting into her next rhythm, we find ourselves in a macro/micro reflection, naturally being pulled to go within. With wisdom and nurturing truth, Tahnee and Mason encourage us to fall into this space of transformation, exhale the high energy of warmer months, condense our Yin energy and support ourselves through daily practices that allow what is no longer needed to fall away. Tune in for soul nourishing knowledge.    Tahnee and Mason discuss: Specific protective herbs to cultivate and maintain Qi & Wei Qi. Supporting and regulating Qi in the body. Supporting Yin energy. The qualities of Metal energy. The importance of seasonal living. Herbs to support the Lungs and Kidneys. Herbs and practices to prepare the body for Winter. The 'medicine' that comes through evolving with the seasons. Physical exercises to support Lung Metal energy. Breathwork, meditation, and practices for introspection. Foods, herbs, and tips for hydration and fluid regulation in this Yin cultivating season.   Tahnee and Mason Taylor Tahnee and Mason Taylor are the CEO and founder of SuperFeast (respectively). Their mission with SuperFeast is to improve the health, healing, and happiness of people and the planet, through sharing carefully curated offerings and practices that honour ancient wisdom and elevate the human spirit. Together Tahnee and Mason run their company and host the SuperFeast podcast, weaving their combined experience in herbs, yoga, wellness, Taoist healing arts, and personal development with lucid and compelling interviews from all around the world. They are the proud parents of Aiya and Goji, the dog, and are grateful to call the Byron Shire home.   Tahnee Taylor Tahnee Taylor is the CEO of SuperFeast and has been exploring health and human consciousness since her late teens. From Yoga, which she first practiced at school in 2000, to reiki, herbs, meditation, Taoist and Tantric practices, and human physiology, her journey has taken her all over. This journey continues to expand her understanding and insight into the majesty (that is) the human body and the human experience. Tahnee graduated with a Journalism major and did a stint in non-fiction publishing (working with health and wellness authors and other inspiring creatives), advertising, many jobs in cafes, and eventually found herself as a Yoga teacher. Her first studio, Yoga for All, opened in 2013, and Tahnee continues to study Yoga with her teachers Paul + Suzee Grilley and Rod Stryker. She learned Chi Nei Tsang and Taoist healing practices from Master Mantak Chia. Tahnee continues to study herbalism and Taoist practices, the human body, women's wisdom, ancient healing systems, and is currently enrolled in an acupuncture degree and year-long program with The Shamanic School of Womancraft. Tahnee is the mother of one, a 4-year old named Aiya.   Mason Taylor Mason Taylor is the founder of SuperFeast. Mason was first exposed to the ideas of potentiating the human experience through his mum Janesse (who was a big inspiration for founding SuperFeast and is still an inspiration to Mason and his team due to her ongoing resilience in the face of disability). After traveling South America for a year, Mason found himself struggling with his health - he was worn out, carried fungal infections, and was only 22. He realised that he had the power to take control of his health. Mason redirected his attention from his business degree and night work in a bar to begin what was to become more than a decade of health research, courses, education, and mentorship from some of the leaders in personal development, wellness, and tonic herbalism. Inspired by the own changes to his health and wellbeing through his journey (which also included Yoga teacher training and raw foodism!), he started SuperFeast in 2010. Initially offering a selection of superfoods, herbs, and supplements to support detox, immune function, and general wellbeing. Mason offered education programs around Australia, and it was on one of these trips that he met Tahnee, who is now his wife and CEO of SuperFeast. Mason also offered detox and health transformation retreats in the Byron hinterland (some of which Tahnee also worked on, teaching Yoga and workshops on Taoist healing practices, as well as offering Chi Nei Tsang treatments to participants). After falling in love with the Byron Shire, Mason moved SuperFeast from Sydney's Northern Beaches to Byron Bay in 2015. He lived on a majestic permaculture farm in the Byron hinterland, and after not too long, Tahnee joined him (and their daughter, Aiya was conceived). The rest is history - from a friend's rented garage to a warehouse in the Byron Industrial Estate to SuperFeast's current home in Mullumbimby's beautiful Food Hub, SuperFeast (and Mason) has thrived in the conscious community of the Northern Rivers. Mason continues to evolve his role at SuperFeast, in education, sourcing, training, and creating the formulas based on Taoist principles of tonic herbalism.   Resources: TremellaAstragalus Qi Blend Reishi Cordyceps Mason's Mushrooms    Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast? A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We’d also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher, CastBox, iHeart RADIO:)! Plus  we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Tahnee: (00:00) Hi, everybody, Mason and Tahnee here, we're here to talk with you about the autumn herbs that we love. We wanted to share with you some of the tonics that we would use in this season, helping to sort of regulate the qi of the season, which relates to the lung organ in the body, which is also paired with the large intestine in Chinese medicine. And this is the metal element. So it's really a lot to do with letting go. It's a lot to do with our breath and our digestion. It's a lot to do with being able to assimilate all of the beauty and the gifts and the accomplishments that we've made over the last cycle of life. And then to sort of let go of anything we don't need as we move into the winter months. Tahnee: (00:44) So it's a time unlike summer were we're all out there and excited and active. It's a time more of coming in, the cooling and condensing yin energy. So we really want to support that, we want to support our yin as best we can at this time. And so a lot of the herbs that we'll work with in this season will kind of support not just the lung, but also the kidney energy as well, as we transition toward the winter months. Do you want to chat a little bit about what we have here? Mason: (01:12) Yeah, it's just such a, bringing up, moving into winter, I just think it's always, for me, the value of autumn when I put it in context of the entire year, but especially the fact that we're going into winter and preparing for that time. Always being aware of the season that you're in is going to end and lead into another period and they all weave in and work in together. And if the lungs can be nice and vibrant and healthy, metal attracts water, that's going to descend down, become the yin of the body. I mean, if you're tired and exhausted and need more foundational essence, it's a really good thing to just tune into what Tans were saying then about letting go and supporting that lung tube. But yeah, what are you diving in to? I know you can't see them, but I think we brought astragalus, chi, reishi, cordyceps, Mason's mushrooms. Tahnee: (02:02) Yeah. Well, I mean, qi was the one that you put together, but we sort of chatted about the intention behind that. And when we look at what we are working on, when we're talking about chi, the lungs are really this capacity of the body to bring in qi from the air. Yes, there's also oxygen and CO2 and nitrogen, all these things coming in, but really when we look at the ancient traditions, breath is all about chill or prana. So we're trying to capacitate the body to store and condense as much energy into the body as possible. So yeah, like Mason was saying, when it's this time of year, you want to be resting more and you really probably want to amp up those self-care practises. There's a saying, and I think it's in the Suwen where it's like, "In summer you can get away with a lot more than you can in autumn and winter." Tahnee: (02:47) You just have to be a bit more careful and a bit more mindful. So that's why we would start to use those more protective herbs at this time. So chi, if you think about what qi is, qi is that life force that moves through the body, but it's also exists in different forms within the body. And we don't want to get too technical here, but there's a type of qi called wei chi, which is your surface immunity. Or I think of it more as your defence field. If you can imagine that you have a protective shell of energy around you and we've all felt what it feels like when that gets infiltrated, usually by things that travel, or lots of people, those kinds of things. Or when we just burn ourselves out. qi is sort of when we work on the wei chi, we're aiming to expand that barrier, I guess. An energetic barrier that we have, which protects us against energetic invasion and also physical, which can also correlate that to energetic viruses, bacteria, these kinds of things that try and get into the body. Tahnee: (03:45) And they're only getting if there's a pathway in. So one of the things that we do with preventative medicine is try to prevent that pathway from existing. And so most people do find that if they aren't taking care of themselves, they will get sick when the seasons change. And that's because the qi becomes really unsteady and our bodies are unable to handle that, and so we get unwell. Similarly through autumn and into winter, if we aren't maintaining that self-care practise and that ability to sort of maintain our healthy chi, then we are going to get weaker and more prone to infections and those kinds of things. So you don't have to get sick in winter. In fact in an ideal world, you wouldn't, so that's what these things are fun. So I love qi at this time of year, it has astragalus in it. It has a bunch of other herbs that support the spleen as well. Maybe you want to talk a little bit about your intention with putting together chi? Mason: (04:38) It's been a really appropriate blend for the previous season, being that of the earth, but even more so now in autumn. Even though these herbs are supporting that transformation of qi through to explain and what you eat, and then through what you breathe to become your nutritive qi that gets into your organs. But as Tanie is saying, if you can think lungs being the metal, I kind of also... It's energetic. Sometimes I feel like when my qi is getting strong, that regulatory qi that runs just underneath the surface of the skin and then can energetically push out. It creates this big metal shield. And that is what comes about through having strong lung qi and a capacity to transform the wei qi through what you breathe in. So through having astragalus as the one of the top herbs in there with the other beautiful lung herbs, white atractylodes, codonopsis, bringing in the Turkey Tail as well. Mason: (05:34) The intention was to support through fluid regulation, as well as a number of other functions, is to just simply cultivate qi within the lung through supporting that lung system in transforming between the yin and yang energy. And that is all you need to be doing is capacitating the lung organ through herbs, through living appropriately with the seasons, so everything's, as Tans was saying, it's starting to descend now a little bit. So you start getting a little less intense with the way that you're living. It's not so much fiery summer vibes. And if you do that, you cultivate that qi in through the lung, you create that shield, life feels all a little bit better. And so the qi herbs are funnily the ones that the Taoists will take constantly. They'll never stop them. And so you can see a reishi's in there as well. But astragalus' one of those top ones that they will say, "I just never stop." Because you never stopped wanting that strong, qi cultivation in through your organs and that shield, but this is the season. Mason: (06:42) And it's amazing how everyone, when the amount of hundreds, it must be thousands at this point, people who kind of clock on to taking qi herbs now. It's probably the one that's the easiest one for people to relate to because people really want to prepare for winter and fortify themselves. And so the biggest transformation of realising, "Ah, sometimes if I take herbs appropriately for the season, I see this huge change months down." That's probably, taking qi herbs in autumn is probably the one that will create the biggest perception, and people will see how you can transform your life if you get onto the herbs at the right time. Tahnee: (07:23) Yeah. And I mean, that's similar to why the mushrooms work so well as well though. A lot of them have, we were talking about the treasures in Taoism, so you're looking at Jin, Qi & Shen, and a lot of the mushrooms are triple treasure herbs. So they work on all three at the same time, or they will have sort of one or two really strong correlations or functions. So something like Mason's mushrooms is going to have things like reishi and cordyceps in there, which support lung function. And when we're supporting also the flow of the qi in the body, so Mason was talking about the spleen before, the lung and the spleen work really closely together. Tahnee: (07:59) So they're basically producing the qi that powers our body, and that's called true human qi in Daoism, in the translation obviously, and that relationship between healthy digestion and healthy assimilation and then healthy breathing. And then the ability for our bodies to be powered by that, that stops us from drawing from our reserves, stops us draining our Jing. So you'll see a lot of the time in the West, people breathe very shallow, there's not a diaphragmatic breath. You can hear Aria in the background. And so what we're aiming for in this season is to really prioritise a nice deep, expensive breath and supporting the body with this lung herbs. So Mason's is another one that we would recommend all the time, but we would also really specially look at it in these kinds of seasons where we want to build immunity and we want to start thinking about storing chi. So just like a squirrel is going to bury his acorns in autumn so he has something old for winter time. We're kind of looking to do the same thing in ourselves. Tahnee: (09:03) So it's something that I think is a really important thing to consider when we're thinking about seasonal living is, "All right, yes. So maybe you have been able to express and dream and vision in spring time, I've done that sort of party expression, joy thing in summer, and spent my late summer harvesting and assimilating and digesting everything. And now we're coming down into autumn." It's like, "Let go of what we don't need, focus on rest and prioritising our self-care and turning into these techniques and traditions that have this support for us." So this is where our herbal practise, for me, would really ramp up. In somewhere, I might be a bit loose with my herbs every day, in autumn, no looseness. Like, I'm on. And we'll be doing breathing practises, and you are supposed to sleep more so you maybe won't be waking up as early, but you'll maybe try and use those early morning hours to do breathing practises. And so Mason's got some other videos that we can share them, we can share some Pranayama and things like that, but that's something you want to bring in. And you'll notice it, if you're taking qi herbs, doing the breathing practises, working the upper body, you'll really noticed a shift shifted this time of year. We've also got cordyceps there, I think? Mason: (10:26) Yeah, it's just here. Tahnee: (10:26) So, do you want to talk about cordy? Mason: (10:26) Yeah, I was just, everything you said then has given me a bunch of insights. The preparation time you put in now, like the squirrel getting the acorns, means that if you let go of the summer energy, because there's also mourning going on within the grief within the lungs, and if you can successfully let go of the summer, you don't waste your grieving energy on grieving for summer. You can actually go and grieve the things that you're appropriately ready to let go off and have that beautiful experience of letting go and then the potential for new life to come through. The herbs support us with doing that. But with cordyceps, I was just thinking, what a lot of people do is hold onto that summer. And so you might feel the association that you have to cordyceps still being one of fire and wanting to feel your endurance and the capacity and the yang elements of your workout being potentiated. Mason: (11:18) Now we still work out in autumn, but you'll find that what will come forth as a quality is one that's less of complete activation. We're starting to actually just to descend, and so we're going for quality, not quantity. And so with the cordyceps, you will see the taking of cordyceps maybe the focus won't therefore be on you getting maximum output, but you'll take cordyceps and and have like a deepening of the quality of your breath practise. You might want to go a little bit more inside rather than looking at what you're outputting externally. You want to see what you can perceive and what capacity you're increasing internally through taking cordyceps during this time. And that could be really transformational. Doesn't mean that it doesn't actually help with endurance and your power and all those kinds of things. Mason: (12:09) It still absolutely does. And I've got a couple of friends actually, who are working on going for the CrossFit Games right now. And for them, it can still bring forward the qualities, but they're definitely focused on output. So it's make your own adventure, but just dip into that methodical metal energy that's there right now. That's just a bit more like I just said, standing solid and going a little bit more inside. And so if you can apply that intention to when you're taking your cordyceps, I think you might find you get even more output when you get around to those points like spring and summer next year, you'll find you've actually gone next level. Tahnee: (12:54) I think that's interesting. Because I often used to talk to shift workers when I taught yoga and they'd be like, "Oh, I can't live with the circadian rhythm because I work at night." And it's like, "Okay, but that's fine, you still need to have rhythm." So what humans thrive on, we're really animals at the end of the day, we are attached to this cyclical nature of the earth and how we're rotating around the sun and you know, this galaxy and the universe and all of these things. There's this kind of cycle that exists within everything on this planet, from the cells and the atoms in the body all the way up to the macrocosm. So if you're training for CrossFit games right now, and it's not a time for you to rest, you're still going to emphasise your kidney energy because that's sort of the foundation and the place where the metal is going to pour itself into. Tahnee: (13:47) And you're also going to at some point have time where you slow down and accumulate qi and allow everything to gather back in and the way in which the sort of concept of metal is expressed in the Daoist tradition is this sort of bowl that they used to have on the top of the mountains that all the dew would condense onto and they would capture the precious water from that. And this idea that the lungs being the sort of roof of the organs in the body, right up high, let's forget about the brain for a second, and they allow the qi to condense down into the kidneys and we can store that for our sort of next phase of development and growth and evolution. Tahnee: (14:25) This idea that we're kind of constantly on a spiral of evolution. This is really what we need to remember to have in our lives. So if you're someone who travels a lot, air hostesses that would always be in different time zones and it's like, "Fine, but you still need to have these phases of life where you slow down, condense, assimilate, use a kind of discernment." Like when Mason's saying that methodical nature of metal, metal is like the sword, right? It can cut and it can be incredibly discerning, and it can say, "No, enough's enough. That's too much, whatever, grief." Again, what Mason's talking about, you might start working with qi and kind of long herbs and suddenly have repressed memories come up. And that's not a bad thing, that's stored in your body as an energetic imprint and if it's moving, well that's something that we would typically say is good, right? Tahnee: (15:18) As long as you have the space in the container to feel that, and that's why there's this invitation to slow down and start turning within, which is what yin is all about. It's about the slow kind of feminine dark aspect, the inner aspect, that interiority. As opposed to yang being all of the expression and the outward, and it's about everybody else, it's not about me. So that's the invitation of this energy. So you might be watching this in springtime and feel a calling to that, and that's fine. You're leaning into an intuitive sort of sense of needing to be held in that way. And one thing our acupuncturist used to always say is, if you haven't been living with the seasons, and let's face it, even those of us that are aware of this, aren't perfect, it takes a while. Tahnee: (16:03) It takes a while for your system and your lifestyle to adapt to these ideas. It's not something that happens overnight. And he used to always say, "To even say that you're living with the seasons you have to live perfectly through at least one cycle. At least one year of full living to really even understand what you're starting to talk about." So I think it's a really interesting thing to start to feel into and explore. And as you start to learn about the stuff, you work with the herbs, they sort of bring out these experiences in here. And it's for me, such a powerful medicine, and I think like Mason's saying in another video, I think we were talking about our culture's just disassociated from nature, we've lost that. And this is a way to sort of regain some sovereignty and some deep connection to the source of life, which is the sun, the earth, the stars, the [inaudible 00:17:00], and all the other plants and animals around us. Mason: (17:02) Hmm, beautiful. Tahnee: (17:04) Anything else you want to say? Mason: (17:07) I might just finish off. I didn't bring any tremella, but tremella mushroom is just the final very- Tahnee: (17:13) Ah, it's tremella. Mason: (17:13) I mean, yeah, tremella just sits on a mantle in our kitchen. Tahnee: (17:21) We just have like a kilo of it, so it's not very attractive. Mason: (17:21) At all times. Just a beautiful nutritive, these are all food grade herbs, but tremella's like very much a food. So you can have more of it than most herbs. Very lubricating for the stomach, but very lubricating for the lungs, so if you do find yourself, it's a very dry season. And so this is why a lot of, there's Poria and white atractylodes helping to regulate fluids in the body through this spleen, and the lung does a lot of regulation of the fluid. And so ideally if you're healthy and not being an air hostess, that's different. If you're up in a dry environment like that all the time, ideally you can get through without getting any dryness coming up in your skin, which isn't bad if it does come up. If so, just focus on your hydration, but then that's where those qi herbs and then tremella can come in at another layer to bring some really beautiful hydration to your lungs and therefore your skin. Tahnee: (18:20) Yeah. Normally the lung correlates to the skin, to the sort of nose region as well. So we're kind of going to be seeing things expressing through there if there's imbalances, so like Mason's saying, if you're starting to notice that skin's drying out it is a good chance to look at how much you're burning through your energy and your chi. Could be that you need to rest more, hydrate more, take herbs like tremella. Be a good chance to see a practitioner and have a chat about what's going on for you. So yeah, if you're interested in more of this stuff, we're going to have more content coming. Mason: (18:54) Yeah, just subscribe, like, share, do all the things. The more you guys do that and the more you guys comment and let us know how you're finding this information, the deeper we will go, and I think everyone will benefit from that. But you know, if you want us to just shut up and say, "Take adaptogens!" You can let us know that as well, but we'll probably delete it. Joking! We're all laughing. Mason: (19:23) Hi everybody, let's go through some basic tips and ways to get in the flow with this season, with the autumn energy. The reason we are doing this is because when we are being exactly considerate, this is what the Daoist said, you got to be considerate of where the earth is in relation to the sun and the moon. And the way that we can get direct perception of such a macro concept is what's going on in the seasons. And we can emulate, and it's not even emulating, it's just going to where our body wants to go. And so by doing these little simple things, there's definitely ways that we can unpack each of these and go deep and personalise them as well, they're quite general. But by doing this, we are ensuring we're supporting the lung metal qi to cultivate and transform through that entire lung organ system. Mason: (20:14) When that happens, life gets a lot easier. Now, yes, but stop thinking about your 80, 90 year old self. The seasons allow us to go and enjoy the seasonality of ourselves, so there might be qualities here of this lung season, where you might just be a lung person. You might be methodical and tend towards being melancholy and all these kinds of things. You're rigid, it's hard for you to change, you're a perfectionist. We've all got an element of that there within ourselves, it might not be what's dominant for me, it's not completely dominant, but I really relate to this season. It's like absolute medicine for me as I'm such a creative open person. And sometimes it's hard for me to come back down to earth. For me it's definite medicine, but for everyone, we get to enjoy the seasonality of our emotions and ourselves and the process that it takes to evolve ourselves, so that when we get to 80, 90 years old, hopefully we've become elders who have earned the right to pass on our wisdom to those who are younger. Mason: (21:16) But it starts here and now, so the first one is really just getting into the general energy, you want to make sure that you're not really attached and holding onto that summer energy. And that's quite often, I know here in Australia, everyone's just, we think we've got a two second little winter and it's just like, "All right, this is just a space holder until we get back to the warmer months." But you know, really stepping into it and embracing of the fact that things are starting to cool down, days are a little bit shorter and just letting go. Summer is done. It's gone, let's accept that. And that's what this season is all about. We start very quickly there, then we can get actually into the reality that we are in autumn and we're in a yin descending energy. Mason: (22:04) Accepting that, embracing that. Then you're going to be able to get into the beautiful cleaning and dirty work that... I say dirty work because we are letting go here in this season. And it's not just a letting go. This is our first tip, getting into this energy, allowing this to come into presence in the way that you're designing your lifestyle, the way your practise looks, is getting into this letting go energy. But it's not always just an ambiguous, "Oh, I'm just going to let go of whatever there is that I don't need." That's an element, and we're constantly doing that with the breath, and as we do that, we're kind of chopping away some and taking on a big rug of perfectionism or unrealistic expectation or excessive judgement of ourselves that isn't really being useful for our capacity to perceive our own intrinsic value, and that's what we're looking for here. Mason: (22:59) But remember this metal, it's precise and it's not ambiguous. And so you'll consciously take that chef's knife or that samurai sword and contemplate and consider what you want to carve away and drop and let fall to the earth. So that in that trust of this process of letting go of that which you feel like, "I might practise not having that with me, I'll keep on cutting away that way of judging or that style of perfectionism or whatever it is, cut it away. Cut it away and drop it." It's in permaculture, that's chop and drop. That is what then goes in and puts nitrogen into the soil. That's what goes in and nourishes the soil so that it can become mineralized and lush and rich. And you can get that beautiful decomposing and decaying going on. Mason: (23:50) And then when you get around, you've had an appropriate winter. You get around to spring time, you're going to start getting a real reaping of new beautiful energy being breathed into your life. And that's the opportunity here, so if you can get in a presence that that is, you don't have to think about this all the time, but there's a particular energy of you drop in and feel that metal energy. You feel the qualities that we're talking about in how it personally feels to you and allow that to come to the surface during this season, then you're going to have a much smoother ride letting go. Mason: (24:24) Now, number two, very simple one. I know a lot of people, this is something I never thought I'd say when I was in my twenties, I was like... All those basic grandma little tips that come from Chinese medicine or even from my grandparents, it's like, "Cover up when you go out and it's cold. If it's windy, put a scarf on." That in autumn, and winter, but especially in autumn, when it kicks up and gets a little bit windy, putting that scarf on and protecting your neck from the cold and the wind, such a top tip. Mason: (24:56) And it's really relevant for me, when I was like I was saying in my twenties, because in my twenties, I just had so much time to do my personal practise and cultivate my energy and spend so much time in the sun. I was just able to do whatever I wanted to stay vibrantly healthy and I had a nice strong metabolism. And so I didn't feel the relevance of doing those extra little things like putting a scuff on making sure I've got socks on and shoes on, covering up when it's getting a little bit cold. And so I'm not letting that cold energy into my body. It's not a smart thing to be doing when you're yin. But as I've, I'm working a little bit more and I've got a child and I don't have all that crazy time to stay cultivated, these little tips, like putting a scaffold and stopping that wind from penetrating your body. Mason: (25:43) And what it does that wind is especially cutting in through the neck and it beats down at that surface protective wei chi, that protective energy that's like a shield. Can beat away at it, beat away, beat away, and that it penetrates. And then it's allowing a doorway for all those other pathogens, viruses and things to be able to get in during that season. So you might as well just cover up your neck. The benefits of staying exposed to the elements are in short little snippets, like that cold exposure. Go and do your cold exposure, but do it in short snippets, don't always be exposed to the cold. And if you're doing extremes, make sure your body's got the juice, the Jing, and the hates to be able to bring itself back to centre without too much fuss. Shoes and socks on, scarf on. Very important. Mason: (26:31) It's a dry season. Hydration is super important and it's a really wonderful time for you to be really focused on you're cultivating waters. Now, if you get into of the energy of the season, the metal will accumulate and attract water. And then that allows distil that down and send that down to the kidney. So you will have a very successful winter. You won't be spending winter healing from all the burnout from the yang months. If you can transition now into a yin time energy, you will start accumulating all this beautiful, these waters and this yin, this descending energy, this quietening down energy, and then you'll get to winter and you'll actually be cultivating, not healing. And if you want to be a really vibrant, healthy 80, 90 year, old, hundred year old and beyond, where you're not relying on drugs and surgery. I'm not saying that's bad or a failure if that's what happens, but if you want to have that intention, this is a really important season. Really, really important season. Mason: (27:29) And bringing up failure, this is a methodical time in terms of bringing the energy of the lung season. It's very objective, just very matter of fact, this metal energy. And so you can look at objectively there's things that you might've failed in doing. And don't avoid feeling that failure and mourning, say the loss of something, there are a lot of people in this season will go like, "Oh, if only I'd made this choice of doing this degree, or if I hadn't burned the bridge with that person." A lot of melancholy a lot of really consistently mourning or going over your failures because it's a perfectionist season. But if we can presence all those failures and accept what we've done, and then ease into them, we can start to see the value that was there in that failure and then integrate the lessons and move on very objectively. Mason: (28:22) This isn't a la-di-da like, "Oh, just slap some positivity pie on it." Put flowers on a piece of poo, the poo's still there. No, we want to look at the poo and see, and feel the intrinsic value of that experience. And you can bring that into your meditative practise and into your cognitive practise. That would be very useful. But back on hydration, lots of water. Water first thing in the morning. Start making maybe a little bit of warm water if your body has a hard time getting warm. Little pinch of sea salt can be a beautiful way to charge your water and then spinning your water and vortexing it. Get that electrical charge going. We love water with electrical charge. Shake it up. Don't just drink stagnant still water. Where do you see stagnant, still water in nature that's acceptable for drinking? You don't. Mason: (29:09) Animals and humans, we always go for the moving water because it's alive and it's vibrant. And that's the same I want you to be doing with the water that you drink and get the quality of water up. I'm just going to continue to be drinking wild spring water. It's the only way to go for me, but if I am drinking something that's not wild spring water, I'll be putting molecular hydrogen in it. And that's a tip and something that I think is really important for this day and age to make your water better. And it's just a little, little thing that you can add in. I get mine from supercells. Mason: (29:37) Next, we're going onto the food. Eating appropriately. We can go so deep on this, but the colour of the autumn is white and so you start moving into some like white foods, congee is just like the absolute, should be on the flag of autumn. We've got a beautiful congee recipe over at SuperFeast. You can go type congee into SuperFeast, and you'll be able to find that. But then obviously it's going to be seasonality, it's going to be know pumpkins and squash and pears and apples are going to start to come in. And the beautiful thing is you cook and poach those kinds of foods, they are really fluid forming. They deliver a lot of fluids to the body. And so you're going to find that with like persimmons and all these beautiful autumn foods, that they help to cultivate water within the body. Mason: (30:23) It's great to add tremella if you are particularly dry as well to your recipes as well, sweet and savoury, it's a really beautiful food. And then just little additional like hemp seeds, walnuts also deliver a lot of, particularly to the lungs and the large intestine, deliver and help cultivate some fluids. So it might be nice to start sprinkling them on some on top of some of your soups, crushing them up on some of your soups, a really great way to go about it. Exercise, exercise is going to start, the priority and the focus of your exercise and practise is no longer going to be, say the fiery gains of summer, but the energy of which we've talked about today. It's going to start to going a little bit less on the prioritisation of flogging yourself, getting gains, mass sweating sessions, and you want to stop bringing that methodical energy, that almost an analytical kind of energy to getting the value. You want to first of all, start with finding intrinsic value in yourself rather than flying out into ambiguity of getting gains in your body. Mason: (31:28) You also want to start looking at, when you're practising , you want to start watching for where you're judging yourself heavily, you've failed, you haven't hit this, at this age I thought you'd be here. So on and so forth, and then really get the value of your experience and then go forth with, and it's a really good season to have solid plans. Start tracking your physical practise, tracking for the year ahead where you'd realistically, because it's very grounded, realistic season, what you would like to achieve in your body. What's actually valuable to you and what's not valuable to you and has been projected onto you based on a past ideology you were or marketing messages, whatever it is, you can start really feeling what's valuable to you for your physical and energetic output through your meditation and your practise and these kinds of things. Mason: (32:19) But mainly to start relaxing, don't go too hard. If you're doing saunas, same thing. You don't want to be releasing heaps of fluid right now. So if you're having a sauna, or your infrared sauna, just open the door maybe a little bit, you're still getting blasted with those infrared, far, near, mid infrared rays, and they're still doing beautiful stuff at mobilising your body, maybe just don't sweat so much. And if you are, have a mineral complex or sea salt that you having and really focus on that rehydrating. What else have we got to talk about? Smell, right? So we want lots of time as we start descending, it's a lot of yin. Hopefully in a family flow, you can start doing a little bit of less, we're in a family flow, right now you can hear Aria in the background, not wanting to go to daycare today. But what you're going to see is like, hopefully you can start having less of the crazy obligations and social interactions that come with the summer months. Mason: (33:16) It's so beautiful when they're there, but you really need a reprieve and so hopefully you can start dedicating more time say with your family or with yourself just being in nature, at the beach, going for walks and particularly just spending time and then a little bit of contemplation, right? And then focus on the smell, engage the lungs through the sense. And so really focused this season on the smells that are in the forest or at the beach or wherever you are, even if it is in the beautiful suburb that you're able to go to nearby and walk through. That's what you want to be really focusing on. Same in your cooking. You're using more spices and engaging your senses and that'll get your lungs really salivating, and what happens when you salivate? You start secreting fluids, and that's what we want. We want lots of fluids coming out through getting engaged through our sense of smell. Mason: (34:10) Finally, we, no, no 'finally', that's it. Guys, just remember it's a very practical, it's a beautifully practical season and it's one that is absolute medicine for us in our Western worlds. And you don't have to do it all right now, you're going to have lots of these, hopefully. Lots of these autumns to do this. So start slow, be really intentional. Let go. Really start letting go, and then allowing yourself to perceive your own uniqueness, the uniqueness around you, the value you have intrinsically, the value around you. That happens when you can start letting go.

Today, women across the country are marching for the #March4Justice campaign, demanding an end to gendered violence, investigations into past allegations of assault, and the funding and implementation of gender equality legislation and parliamentary practices. I am so grateful to have the opportunity to share this conversation with Zara Noruzi, author and activist, about her experience advocating for women's rights in her native country of Iran. This conversation was recorded live, at Brunswick Heads, as the second of five live interviews as part of the ‘Resilience & Regeneration Roadshow', in collaboration with Renew Fest and Resilient Byron This is where we are holding community forums in villages around the Byron Shire bringing people together to discuss and action how we can create resilient communities. It has been an absolute pleasure to be involved in these forums and the community involvement and enthusiasm has been just awesome. I really can't wait to bring you the rest of these live conversations with some other incredible Byron Shire locals, which I will be releasing in between my regular fortnightly long-form episode schedule. So to my guest today… Zara Noruzi is an Iranian born woman, activist, and author of the book 'My Life as a Traitor', where she details her experience advocating for her beliefs in her native country of Iran. As a university student she started standing up for women's rights by writing articles, organising peaceful protests, and asking questions of the regime as to why women were denied basic rights. All perfectly reasonable and fair things to do… or so she thought. At 19 years old, she was arrested. She was held in prison, questioned, tortured, and starved. Just for what she believed in. Zara tells her story with such deep reflection. She goes into detail the impact it had on her youthful optimism, and she recounts the very limited human connection she had through that experience, and how important that was for her. She then goes on to describe how truly impactful our beliefs and actions can be, and says that our ideas are a superpower, that can have an enormous impact on those around us. But we need accountability. And this is the thing; we all say we want connected neighbourhoods and villages. We all want renewable energy. We all want resilient communities. But Zara asks: What are we willing to contribute? What are we willing to give up? Is it some of our time, instead of watching Netflix? Is it opening our doors to someone facing rental challenges? Is it paying more for the things that we know are better? Is it giving up watermelons in the middle of winter? It's not enough to say ‘this is what we want' and expect someone else to deliver it to us. We have to take action, and we have to bring to life the ideas and beliefs that we express. Zara's story and her way of speaking is so real, and she truly set the tone for the rest of the forum. I had people coming up to me after our conversation saying ‘Wow, that put things into perspective for me'… so I hope it does for you. Please enjoy this conversation, live, from the Resilience & Regeneration roadshow in Brunswick Heads, with Zara Noruzi

It's that time of year again, where we descend from the peak of summer months, from the highs of long days and energised bodies, into a coming back to earth and ourselves. This fulcrum between seasons, coming out of summer but not quite in the preparations of Autumn/metal time, corresponds with the earth element. It's a time to anchor yourself in a place of equilibrium and nurture where you are out of balance through solitude, grounding practices, and nourishing foods. From this place of harmony and groundedness allows the bridging of heaven and earth, where dreams and aspirations come into reality. On the podcast today, we have our favourite duo exploring the earth element and how we can support ourselves, our families, and all of humanity in this axis point between seasons. In their natural ebb and flow, Tahnee and Mason discuss the earth element in all its dimensions, foods and practices for grounding energy, and nourishment of the digestive system with a specific focus on the pivotal role of the spleen in this time.   "There's something to me, with coming back to the earth element, that you can nurture, support, and nourish your family through this kind of devotion to feeding and nourishing them in the best possible way. I think there's something so beautiful about that". -Tahnee Taylor     Tahnee and Mason discuss: Late summer, entering into the earth element. Exploring the harmony and groundedness that the earth element brings. Grounding practices for the mind/intellect and body Getting grounded to take specific action and manifest dreams. The spleen/earth relationship The role of the spleen. Signs of spleen and digestive imbalance. Spleen consciousness; The reasoning mind and our ability to make clear judgments. Foods to eat in the late summer/earth season to nourish the spleen and pancreas. Nourishing the digestive system to support clear vision and thinking. Supporting digestion through warming foods. Qi blend to support the spleen and earth element. Mother Earth, the ultimate source of nourishment; how this translates to our relationship with our bodies is this season.   Tahnee and Mason Taylor Tahnee and Mason Taylor are the CEO and founder of SuperFeast (respectively). Their mission with SuperFeast is to improve the health, healing, and happiness of people and the planet, through sharing carefully curated offerings and practices that honour ancient wisdom and elevate the human spirit. Together Tahnee and Mason run their company and host the SuperFeast podcast, weaving their combined experience in herbs, yoga, wellness, Taoist healing arts, and personal development with lucid and compelling interviews from all around the world. They are the proud parents of Aiya and Goji, the dog, and are grateful to call the Byron Shire home.   MasonTaylor Mason Taylor is the founder of SuperFeast. Mason was first exposed to the ideas of potentiating the human experience through his mum Janesse (who was a big inspiration for founding SuperFeast and is still an inspiration to Mason and his team due to her ongoing resilience in the face of disability). After traveling South America for a year, Mason found himself struggling with his health - he was worn out, carried fungal infections, and was only 22. He realised that he had the power to take control of his health. Mason redirected his attention from his business degree and night work in a bar to begin what was to become more than a decade of health research, courses, education, and mentorship from some of the leaders in personal development, wellness, and tonic herbalism. Inspired by the own changes to his health and wellbeing through his journey (which also included Yoga teacher training and raw foodism!), he started SuperFeast in 2010. Initially offering a selection of superfoods, herbs, and supplements to support detox, immune function, and general wellbeing. Mason offered education programs around Australia, and it was on one of these trips that he met Tahnee, who is now his wife and CEO of SuperFeast. Mason also offered detox and health transformation retreats in the Byron hinterland (some of which Tahnee also worked on, teaching Yoga and workshops on Taoist healing practices, as well as offering Chi Nei Tsang treatments to participants). After falling in love with the Byron Shire, Mason moved SuperFeast from Sydney's Northern Beaches to Byron Bay in 2015. He lived on a majestic permaculture farm in the Byron hinterland, and after not too long, Tahnee joined him (and their daughter, Aiya was conceived). The rest is history - from a friend's rented garage to a warehouse in the Byron Industrial Estate to SuperFeast's current home in Mullumbimby's beautiful Food Hub, SuperFeast (and Mason) has thrived in the conscious community of the Northern Rivers. Mason continues to evolve his role at SuperFeast, in education, sourcing, training, and creating the formulas based on Taoist principles of tonic herbalism.   Tahnee Taylor Tahnee Taylor is the CEO of SuperFeast and has been exploring health and human consciousness since her late teens. From Yoga, which she first practiced at school in 2000, to reiki, herbs, meditation, Taoist and Tantric practices, and human physiology, her journey has taken her all over. This journey continues to expand her understanding and insight into the majesty (that is) the human body and the human experience. Tahnee graduated with a Journalism major and did a stint in non-fiction publishing (working with health and wellness authors and other inspiring creatives), advertising, many jobs in cafes, and eventually found herself as a Yoga teacher. Her first studio, Yoga for All, opened in 2013, and Tahnee continues to study Yoga with her teachers Paul + Suzee Grilley and Rod Stryker. She learned Chi Nei Tsang and Taoist healing practices from Master Mantak Chia. Tahnee continues to study herbalism and Taoist practices, the human body, women's wisdom, ancient healing systems, and is currently enrolled in an acupuncture degree and year-long program with The Shamanic School of Womancraft. Tahnee is the mother of one, a 4-year old named Aiya.   Resources: SuperFeast Qi Blend  YingYang Wuxing For Inner Harmony with Rhonda Chang EP#89     Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast? A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We’d also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher, CastBox, iHeart RADIO:)! Plus  we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Mason: (00:00) Hey everybody.   Tahnee: (00:01) Hi, everybody.   Mason: (00:02) Happy late summer.   Tahnee: (00:04) Yeah, that's what we're here to talk about.   Mason: (00:08) So talking about the earth element today, I also like the way Rhonda Chang has been on the podcast. She says, not earth element, soil element. I like that as well. I go both ways though.   Tahnee: (00:23) Swinging around.   Mason: (00:25) It's a bit more tangible for me, because when I'm ... Every time I do one of these podcasts, it's a really good anchor for me, actually, practise. Everyone at each season, go going into a podcast about that season, and it helps you drop in and really ... And I'm walking around and I'm, "Oh, I'm feeling the wood element. And I'm feeling the quality of wood internally." And that's very obvious because that's wood, it's sprouts, it's growth. And fire's very obvious. Earth though, I'm, "Am I feeling the whole earth? Am I feeling Gaia consciousness?" Whereas if I go soil, this is spleen soil season. It's easy for me to get in and meditate on and feel about ... Feel that quality, that energetics of soil internally. And that's why I bring it up.   Tahnee: (01:10) Interesting. Yeah. Because see, for me it's more like a weightedness and I really relate to that centrality and the gravity of earth, as in it's holding us to it, and it's kind of drawing us back down. And so you think about the energy of fire, which is so high and I can feel there's kind of a neutral grounding at this time of year, which I've noticed in my energy that I've gone from being really busy and really social in summer and feeling quite active, to sort of ... I can feel the change. I can feel this kind of almost consolidation that kind of feels like it happens around this time of year. And earth is present in all of those transitions between seasons, so we feel that energy at least four times a year. But especially this one where it's kind of that drop from the peak of summer, but we haven't quite hit the depth of winter, or even the sort of descent of the sort of metal time of autumn time.   Tahnee: (02:25) So yeah, I can feel this sort of equilibrium, I guess, in this time. And I think it really shows you where you're out of balance. I've just been noticing that in me there's this invitation at this time of year to examine where I'm out of balance and out of harmony. And I think earth, of all the elements, invites harmony the most. The others can feel like they slide easily in one direction or another for me, but this one sort of always feels really grounded and then lands. So I hope that made sense.   Mason: (02:58) Yeah, I mean it touches on a bunch of things I was feeling might come up later, but we might as well dive into it. See, I think that's an important one for me, because I know there's a little bit of back and forth about ... This isn't actually ... This isn't a season, this is just another fulcrum between seasons. Which is true, it's important for me to kind of really ... That's been good practise for me to remember there's those few weeks, or however long it's present for me between every season where I come into the transition period. And I come into that ... Well, everything consolidates. I can fall on hard, solid ground and move between a water energy and a wood energy, which are really different.   Mason: (03:40) But here, in the late summer, always feels relevant because it's always ... It's a time when, A, we've had the summer. So we've never needed grounding more in the year than after summer. And I feel like the way the consciousness of each organ system kind of plays out, the G. Here we're going into the E, the YI, I'm not sure what the pronunciations, "Yee," or, "E," of this spleen consciousness. Being the intellect, the reasoning mind, being able to make judgments and have acceptance. And it's the intellect, the capacity to think and have good quality thoughts, or maybe have bad quality thoughts. After summer, we've just been flying on such a high, it's probably the time when we've been the most active. And potentially we've kind of moved away from say, in winter, you're going to see a real coming forth of our meditation and mindfulness, and really going in practise being the real ... Even though we might do it all year, it's really the focus during winter.   Mason: (04:49) Summer, maybe it's not the whole ... It's not coming to the forefront. And so we need to really ground down after that fire time and really check in with the quality of our thoughts, the quality of our intellect, and really ... And I was reading about someone's ... An interpretation, which really ... Because I love the dreaming aspect of the whole Daoist system. And because it's a big bridge between ... It's a major bridge between heaven and earth, that spleen energy, although there's many organs that play a role in that. This is where we get to really consciously wield the sword of how we are bridging between heaven and earth, or mainly our dreaming. What do we aspire for in our life? What do we feel our destiny is? And that's something that people might relate to in kind of visioning and visioning in that spring season, and having the vision kind of just being acted upon and come to life in the summer.   Mason: (05:48) But that spleen system, that spleen consciousness comes forth at this time of year, in those fulcrums between the season to really sit down, ground our thoughts and our mind, and have a look at basically how we're doing in bringing our dreams into manifest and grounding it from the heavens into this world. And I really like that, because it's probably ... I relate to it because it's probably something I skipped past, and that's where one of the biggest pieces are in this season. It's a really beautiful time to go in and have a look at that inner critic, and that ... Whether it's been ... Are we still remaining constructive? Are we still remaining acknowledging of everything that we actually have done? Are we sticking to the plan? Are we executing the plan effectively?   Mason: (06:34) All these things that our intellect can be like. Because the mind and the intellect, I feel sometimes it gets forgotten in the ... I don't know, in the health world that I've run in. Whereas that's something ... It's just so important for us to make sure that ... Not just have mindfulness and go into space, and not just quiet the mind, which obviously is another one that's really beneficial. But to really hone the mind and sharpen the mind so we can come better at bringing our dreams into reality. And we need to ground, and I think that will be really coming to the forefront for me this season.   Tahnee: (07:11) Yeah. I mean, the word that keeps popping into my head is substance. And I think when you think about what the spleen represents in the body, it's the substance, it's the muscles, and the kind of meat or the flesh of your body. And I think when you are kind of, I guess what I'm sort of ... The tangent I'm going on, having heard you just speak then was, yeah, there's this kind of substance that comes from acknowledging this transition and this element that kind of provides this real foundation and kind of bedrock on which the more lofty ideals can kind of manifest, and the spiritual ... I come back to Master Chia's work, we can't go off into the astro realms unless we have a really strong connection to the earth, and we remember her as mother and as the ultimate source of nourishment, and that we've chosen this reality to have this substantial experience so that our soul can ... Or our spirit can feel what it's like to be in this tangible form.   Tahnee: (08:15) And I think that invitation of earth and that kind of association with the mother, and nurturing, and the sweet flavour and all of these things that it has, it's really a lot to do with substance and with building us and who we become. And yeah, I think that idea of the intellect and the mind, I think clear thinking and clear seeing comes through a healthy digestive function, right? And we've got western medicine kind of correlating this idea of enteric brain, which is a very old concept that's kind of been revived recently, and-   Mason: (08:53) Can you go into that?   Tahnee: (08:54) Yeah, yeah. So basically we all kind of know that we have the spinal cord, and the brain, and all of this kind of stuff. And I think it was in the '40s, or it might've been even earlier, a man proposed that there was a gut brain, which was kind of poo-pooed a little bit at the time, there's no neural cells in the gut, it's all happening in the brain and in the nerves, and all that kind of stuff. And anyway, I think recently in the last couple of years, if not decades, there's probably someone who knows more about this than I do.   Tahnee: (09:26) But just from my research, there's basically been now evidence that yeah, the gut is heavily involved in producing neurotransmitters and in actually ... Stress response and all of these kinds of things. And that actually, yes, it's acting as a brain and it's signalling to the body to do certain things and certain functions at certain times. And so I, obviously coming from the Daoist perspective, think each of the organs is a brain, and believe based on my experience and what I've studied that that's what's happening, is they're all controlling our function through their lens, and our job is to harmonise that function and to harmonise their relationship with one another. And you can think of the brain as a mission control or something, but everything is kind of making things happen.   Tahnee: (10:16) But yeah, to take it back to the spleen, if you think about ... It's sort of this organ that in western medicine has again only recently been kind of recognised as being necessary as a part of the immune system, as a part of our defences. And one of our acupuncturist's favourite words is, "Bonds and boundaries," when it comes to the spleen. But if you think about the mother/child relationship, the boundary or the bond, the bond is very strong and the boundary is very small. A mother will do almost anything for her child. And you tend to see that in people who are ... I'm using air quotes here, "Spleeny." People who have a sort of tendency to bring balance in the earth element is ... They have a tendency to have really poor boundaries, to overstate their bonds, and also to have this kind of mind that runs wild on them. And that creates a lot of anxious thoughts and ... Mas and I are both put your hands up. Creates a lot of anxious thoughts and a lot of repetitive thoughts, and can really-   Mason: (11:14) Well the repetitive thoughts, you always use the word just ruminating-   Tahnee: (11:17) Yeah, digesting, right? And that's the thing that the spleen opens to the tongue, to the mouth. So we receive not only nourishment through our mouth, but also emotional nourishment. And if you have a tendency to over-crave sweet foods, or to need to lean on sweet foods emotionally, there's a very good chance that that's a sign of a spleen imbalance in your body. Similarly, anyone who's holding too much weight will probably also have some dysfunction going on with the spleen, because by its very nature, the spleen's not transforming the food into Qi, it's transforming it into mass, right? Into substance.   Tahnee: (11:53) And so this is not to say there's anything wrong with being a bit chubby or whatever, that's totally fine, but it really comes down to, if you're looking at this system as one of personal evolution, and personal understanding, and personal sovereignty, well then you're using all of this stuff as feedback for your own growth and understanding. And I think when you look at what the spleen represents, it's so beautiful and it can also be so detrimental. Because we all need more nourishment, and more love, and more care, and we need to direct that to the earth and we need to be able to receive that from the earth. And it's that giving and receiving, I think that can be a problem in our culture as well.   Mason: (12:34) Yeah. I mean that nourishment, everyone can put their hands just over there, the bottom of their left rib cage now and just send some good Juju into your spleen, which is the in organ. When we talk about the soil earth element, includes the pancreas, and the stomach being the yang organ there. Someone who was saying it's like the Goldilocks organ. It's not too hot, not too cold, not too soft, not too hard. It's fine, we were just playing Goldilocks at the beach yesterday with Aiya. It's very appropriate. It's subconscious. Subconsciously manifesting the organs into our playtime. But that's something when it comes to ... It's kind of like this ... When you get into your 30s, everyone's all of a sudden ... Me partying when I was 25, Friday night out just flogging yourself, and then you get to 30s and your idea of a perfect Friday night is pyjamas a little-   Tahnee: (13:36) Bed.   Mason: (13:36) Yeah, bed basically. I think there's just a time when your intellect does kind of get honed into one that we'd call adult or mature, or where you become ... Hopefully some responsible thoughts and intellect can start coming forth and you start making more responsible nourishing choices about which form within your lifestyle flow you're going to see consistency, maybe some discipline. But basically that's when you say nourishment-   Tahnee: (14:08) It's stabilising.   Mason: (14:09) Stabilising, exactly. And the other way it's put, that spleen, that the earth is the adhesive between all the other organs. It's what gives them ... It's the earth it's-   Tahnee: (14:20) The hub in the wheel. If you visualise that central axis on which everything spins, if you don't have good digestion, if you don't have good thoughts, if you don't have good boundaries and good bonds, relationships and things that nourish and support you, well then really those are sort of the foundations of a healthy life. You know... One quick tangent I wanted to jump on was Mas was just talking about the stages of life. And in, again, the sort of Chinese worldview, or the Eastern Asian worldview, the early ... I can't remember, I think it's the first fourteen years or it might be seven years and eight years ... Yeah, it's seven years for women and eight years for men, I think. So the first seven years are wood, so you're very yang, you're growing really fast-   Mason: (15:03) [inaudible 00:15:03]   Tahnee: (15:03) So you're very young, you're growing really fast.   Mason: (15:03) Like a sprout.   Tahnee: (15:03) No, it must be 14. Because anyway, you might have to Google this. For the first chunk of life you're wood. Yeah, you're this little sprout, you're growing, if you've ever been around a child, we have a four-year-old, never stop moving. Heal really quickly, run really hot, don't need to wear clothes all summer. You've got a picture in your head of that.   Tahnee: (15:23) Then we go into the fire stage, which is our twenties when we're really burning bright, we're really social and really trying to get ourselves out there in the world. Again, we can all probably relate to that, where there's this real drive and real fire and real burning purpose and passion.   Tahnee: (15:40) Thirties is when we hit that earth time. Yeah. And so we've landed and we've learned a few things along the way. We've learned what doesn't work. We've been burned. We've also worked out maybe where we fit in the world a little bit and we've worked out what we need and what we don't need and so we're starting to... The spleen's job is to... or the stomach and the spleen, their job's to separate that what we want to digest and eliminate the rest.   Mason: (16:06) Sorting.   Tahnee: (16:08) Yes. And that's... I can't remember the words right now, but it's sort and something. Anyway. But yeah, they're going through and determining what's necessary. And so that's really what this stage of life is that we're in, is this more grounded stage of life. And then you move through into the metal years where hopefully you've accumulated some wisdom, but you also give less shit. You're starting to cut some stuff out of your life, you might start to think about retiring, you might start to not deal with people that you would have put up with in your thirties or whatever. And then you're into a more spiritual age later on, where you're in those wisdom years, where hopefully you're contributing back your wisdom to the people around you, your society, your culture.   Tahnee: (16:50) So, that's in loose allegory for the human experience and the soul growth over those years. So, I think those of you listening in your thirties, yeah, you may feel like there's a stabilising and a slowing down and a consolidating, but I would invite you to see that as a very natural process, and something that doesn't need to be fought. Despite what I hear from friends who are like, "Oh my God, when I was in my twenties." It's like, no, now we get to reap the harvest of all of that work that we did understanding ourselves, all the things we tried, all the experiments.   Mason: (17:22) And that's, I think, important. We talk about the anxiety that's out there and we're not going to go into diagnosing anxiety or anything like that, but quite often it's related to the heart. But Tahns said it one day, she's like, "A lot of anxiety comes from that spleen earth energy as well, because you're just constantly chewing, chewing, ruminating, ruminating, ruminating." And when you just said, "Oh my God, when I was in my twenties, I was doing everything right", whatever, whether it's health, profession, there's a little bit of comparison. And another thing that comes into this spleen... Emerging from this spleen energy, is accepting. A real grounded accepting. Cool, this is where I'm at in my life, or getting to a physical practise. Cool. This is where my body is at today without going into all that comparison, because when you go into that comparison, you're going to start looking at your intellect, and your inner critic giving you a flogging.   Mason: (18:19) And so it's really important, I think it's really important for us to really accept this stage of life that we're at and with what's naturally and energetically coming with it during this time of life, or even if you're not in this time of life, during at the fulcrums of the season. And just remember the soil is at the centre of that elemental medicine wheel. And so we base a good chunk of your lifestyle around ensuring that this spleen, earth, soil element is going to be healthy because it is the glue that brings everything together.   Mason: (18:54) All the other elements, the reason there's able to be Yin yang adjustment through the body is because all the elements can pass through the soil and basically interchange and connect with these other elements. It's a transporter and a transformer. And so the spleen is able to... So those let's say the kidneys are able to get water received by them to the liver so it can become more pliable through the spleen. So same as like the fire is able to send heat down to the kidneys through the spleen, water is able to go between lung and kidney through the soil of the body as well.   Mason: (19:37) So when Tahn says it's a nourishing energy, it's a grounding energy. It's why all over blogs and Instagram and people's conversations around health when they've been going to these extreme diets, for instance, or you've been searching for what's wrong with you. At some point, if you will go with the process, you get a little bit accepting of the chop wood, carry water, we're in the Year of the Ox. And there's a little bit of Oxen energy to that soil. It's like, "Okay, cool. I accept where I'm at in life. And I accept I'm maybe not going to be able to find, keep on finding answers, it might be unsustainable if I keep on going extreme. I'm going to have to go a little Goldilocks here and get a little bit more consistent with my diet, maybe with when I'm eating with what I'm eating with, what my schedule looks like." So on and so forth.   Mason: (20:27) So that's always... I feel like we've given a good amount of context to what I find myself, which is, in my twenties, I wouldn't be such a spleen-y person, because I was... I remember really rolling my eyes when I was a raw foodist. I was doing all kinds of extremes. I was fasting a lot, so on and so forth. Because that really worked for me back then.   Mason: (20:51) But I remember just rolling my eyes whenever I heard anyone talking Chinese medicine principles around having breakfast, a nice nourishing breakfast, three square meals, and especially a really good breakfast at the start of the day. Ensure you do physical exercise and the same meditation, the same sequences, get really familiar with the way that you move your body, and you cultivate your energy, talking about like, hey, let's not drown the spleen in cold raw foods. And that is something I feel like there needs to be a real bridging, which funnily enough, that's what the spleen is making this connection between those worlds that are nut salads and smoothies.   Mason: (21:37) I get it, especially during these seasons, it's just so easy versus everything always needs to be cooked. Bringing a connection between those two segments of our own psyche, our own health practises, the health scene, the practitioners, like there's bacterial experts, gut bacteria experts that are just like, cool, whatever. You don't worry about... Just get different pigments and different fibres in. Don't worry about the temperature and so on and so forth. And then likewise, you've got the Chinese medicine, which is just as long as it's all really well cooked and energetically and check with the seasons. But there's going to have to be a little bit of crossing paths and conversation between those two worlds to get a little bit more wisdom there.   Mason: (22:23) But I think it's a good one for everyone to be really meditating on and remembering we're out of balance when it comes to the seasons. Most people have some small spleen deficiency, not most people, but a lot of people. And if you're trying to get back in flow with the seasons, you're going to need to be standing on solid ground. And the place to do that is to have a spleen friendly diet and a spleen friendly lifestyle. So yes, we will probably start talking about a few dietary principles during this season, a little bit of sense and why certain sweet... because it is a sweet flavour.   Tahnee: (23:10) Sadly doesn't mean sugar, though. I think there's a few things in there, just to backtrack a little bit. I think if you think of this concept of alchemy, which is really at the heart of these Daoist and the Vedic's other aspect of the tradition that I study, is the Vedic side of things. And at the heart of that is really fire as the element that really transformed humanity. And I think what I've really come to understand and to have a lot of reverence for is the... We just tried to light a fire yesterday with wet wood and it was a shit fight. Our neighbours probably hate us now. There was smoke everywhere. It was a really unpleasant situation for us and for them.   Mason: (24:00) We brought this [inaudible 00:24:01] all over Argentina.   Tahnee: (24:03) We did. I think that's a really nice allegory really for the digestive system because it's not like every meal is not going to digest well, we can light a fire 99% of the time. But I think over time, if you just keep adding damp wood and trying to light that fire, you're going to run out of chi, and you're going to create a lot of soot in the body, right? You're going to end up with a lot of inflammation and all of this stuff because the body is just not coping. And it doesn't necessarily... We've had rain solid for a week to get to the point where the fire won't light, right? So it's I think the conditions have to be against you or you've created an imbalance. And again, this can take time. A lot of people we speak to are like, "Oh, it was fine", and Mason was fine, when you were raw for a while.   Mason: (24:57) Yeah. Four years was good. And then I instinctively went, I'm going to move before something shitty happens.   Tahnee: (25:03) Yeah. And I think I can refer back to my very complicated relationship with food and see how much damage I've done to my spleen and my digestive function, through everything from disordered eating to controlling too much cold and damp and wet foods, to forgetting to eat because I get so in my head. There's lots of different ways in which I've created any sensitivity really that I have in my digestion.   Tahnee: (25:34) So I think there's this really interesting dance there that each person has to dance for themselves around how sensitive they are. I do believe you can rebuild digestive fire, absolutely have seen it, and I know that it's possible, and I've felt it in my own body where I can digest things I couldn't digest 10 years ago, but I do think there's this really interesting personal dialogue we have to learn to have with our body where we drop all of the bullshit from everyone who's throwing ideas at us, and we just come back into, well, what really works for me?   Tahnee: (26:05) And again, if you think as the stomach as a receiver and a warm environment in which food lands, it takes no knowledge of science to know that you're going to have to use energy to warm up cold food. That's just obvious. So if you're tired and weak, and you're using energy to digest, that's not going to be ideal. And so it starts to look at... It depends. If you feel really vital and you have a lot of energy, a lot of space, it's probably fine to eat a lot of cold wet food. If you don't, then maybe it's time to make a change. And it goes all the way through.   Tahnee: (26:41) And again, if you look at the spleen, if you look at it's role as really providing the nourishment for the blood, again, it comes down to, well, what is blood made of? And so again, we're looking at are we providing the foundations for healthy blood? Are we providing enough fluid? Are we providing enough nutrition? And how is that being alchemised by the body? Which is really the important part, because you can eat the best food and you can eat organic, and you can eat this and that. And if your body's just not doing anything with it, it's a waste of time. So really the invitation of this spleen and earth energy is to transform and alchemise everything that we consume, which does include emotions and even the words that we speak.   Tahnee: (27:20) And I think that's a piece that's often missed when we talk about health is it's what... I've got some stuff going on in my family right now. My digestion has been awful basically since it happened, because, and you think about, again, the archetype of family and what all of that means, there's this lack of stability and foundation for me that I'm now having to rebuild on my own. And so I'm seeing that mirrored in my body and I think there's this real need to remember that we don't just digest food, but we digest energy, and we digest emotion.   Mason: (27:54) Thoughts. Beliefs.   Tahnee: (27:54) Yeah, exactly. And so part of what you digest when you eat a certain way is the ideology of that system of eating. And so I think that's something we all have to just really slow down and take stock of and see where we want to align ourselves, but-   Mason: (28:11) Well, because it becomes your flesh.   Tahnee: (28:13) Yeah. It literally becomes what you're made of and it's that you are what you eat cliche, but it's true, right? If you're unable to digest your emotions, they're going to go somewhere in your body and you're going to hold them. And the muscles are really the overflow for what our organs can't digest. So if you've ever had a recurring muscle pain that comes about when you have an emotional experience, you can start to think, okay, well, let's say it's something to do with stress and the liver, and you might get a sore neck and shoulder. It's yeah, my liver is overburdened. It's created this excessive heat or this reaction, which is now being manifested in my muscle. My muscle's taking that energy away from that organ, and yes, doing the organ a favour, but now, I have a sore shoulder, or a sore neck.   Tahnee: (29:04) And so you can start to look back at, okay, well, what do I do now to nourish my liver chi? How do I support myself? How do I avoid recreating this situation? So you start to use yourself as a little science experiment. As a curious little exploration of what I can do. And I think that's one of the big invitations of this earth energy is to start to nourish yourself as you would want to be nourished. To look at yourself as deserving of that level of care and effortless, thankless care that a mother gives to a child, that the earth gives to us.   Tahnee: (29:43) And then in exchange, we're then able maybe to give that to others and it starts to build out this altruism. And the best expression of earth is this altruistic caring non-martyred, loving expression of unity and sharing...   Tahnee: (30:00) ... kind of unity and sharing and sympathy and understanding amongst everyone. And obviously we don't have that in the world, but that's a really great expression of it. And the other side of it, is this kind of narcissistic, controlling, needy, anxious, overthinking, kind of analysing that stuff. So, we're kind of trying to lean a little bit more on the former and a little less on the latter.   Mason: (30:29) Good. Rant.   Tahnee: (30:29) I've been talking for like 20 minutes.   Mason: (30:32) No, so good. I just went to lots of places just in terms of accepting that nourishment coming our way, because I was just thinking about... I'm going to talk a little bit about fasting and intermittent fasting, but I'm not going to go too deep and I'm definitely not poo-pooing you guys. I'm just talking about like, I think it's really clinically used or used with a very specific intention. I think it's great, but I came to my own conclusion that I don't think it's a healthy thing to have like a permanent inclusion in a lifestyle for me anyway.   Mason: (31:03) And definitely from what I can see, and we were talking about quality of flesh and quality of muscle. And I remember feeling really strong and being in a community of people that seemed really strong and had good looking muscles, but I could never shake that using something like that intermittent fasting, again, not poo-pooing, not saying this is fact, just going on a thought, just going up on a bandwagon, the quality wasn't there. I didn't like the quality of the flesh and the quality of muscle that I was seeing in my peers and I was seeing in myself.   Mason: (31:34) And I don't know why that was. I think because, one, I had a fanatical ideology and that's something I don't... I've learned what it feels like to create flesh from more fanatical ideology. And two, I really got caught in the logic and I think this is where the spleen can get the most damage in raw food diets, ancestral kind of intermittent fasting kind of style diets. All these things that kind of disconnect us from being grounded and allowing our pure logic and intellect to just... And accept the nourishment that's coming for us.   Mason: (32:10) In that spleen season, we can go into like, you know what, intellectually, it makes sense that as hunter and gatherers, we wouldn't be going out and we wouldn't have that abundance. And therefore for me, what I'm realising there is, is I felt guilty about the level of abundance that I have access to here, in this day and age and that this civilization for all the awful things and amazing things that it's done, I have a genuine mistrust of it. I don't accept any of the nourishment because there's other people that maybe aren't getting nourishment based on other political... This is me, my spleen mind running off and going.   Mason: (32:51) I don't actually deserve it. And therefore I try and logic my way or reason my way, intellect my way to a place, where I am replicating some kind of other diet under the guise of getting health outcomes or logic verse just getting grounded and not having to fly off and go for some crazy ideology, but just continuously grounding and starting with that point of nourishment, which is like why I was thinking of intermittent fasting. And then for me, it was huge coming to having a three-square meal thing. I felt like a failure going to that. That's like eating way too much, even though then the principal becomes only eat till you're like 80% full.   Mason: (33:33) But I was like, why am I doing this? Why do I have to eat? Because you're hungry and I've been there. I've done lots of fasting. I love that point when you kind of stop getting hungry. But when I became really grounded and I grounded my intellect in my mind, and I started accepting and looking and thinking about nourishment, accepting nourishment coming my forth, I don't think it's an absurd statement. to think the natural tendency that everyone is going to accept from their mother is to eat when you're hungry.   Mason: (34:04) So I think as well, if people don't agree with what I eat at this time because it's breakfast and lunch and dinner, and they're synthetic things. Breakfast time is something that was created by Kellogg's and blah, blah, blah. I get all that. You go through all that programming bullshit. And then you do get to a point in the morning though, when you're just hungry. And that's what the spleen is. It's very grounded. Well, should I eat or should I not? Should I fast, should I not? Are you hungry? Yes. Okay. Is there something like diseased in you that clinically you've seen that intermittent fasting is going to help you get through that and get back into a metabolic balance or perhaps get your pancreas working in alignment? You've got whatever it is.   Mason: (34:43) I could do it and heal, but then you always come back to the centre of the wheel of the earth and accept that nourishment. And yeah, I just really, I guess I just went off and did a little bit of healing then when you were talking about that. The stomach, sitting in there, I think they say it likes to sit at about like a 38 degrees.   Tahnee: (35:09) Yeah. It's slightly warmer than body temperature. I can't remember the exact temperature, but I think that's... I mean, it's interesting, you're talking about even receiving nourishment because that's kind of the archetype of the stomach, is it receives, right? It literally controls the receiving. It's like a compost bin. So if you've ever composted and you know that if you put too much wet stuff in there, it gets stinky. If you don't add enough dry stuff... So this is-   Mason: (35:32) Great analogy.   Tahnee: (35:33) Yeah. And I think people forget like it's soil, right? So to make healthy soil, you need carbon, you need all sorts of various things. I think the older I get, the more I think we should eat most things in a lot of variety all of the time, as in way more diversity than is probably promoted in a lot of the mainstream diet fads. But I really noticed for myself, if I don't eat a lot of high fibre food and well-cooked vegetables and stuff, if I eat too many starchy things, like spelt pancakes or whatever, I don't feel like my digestion flourishes as well. So I can feel that there's this kind of desire for the body to sort of compost these really natural foods, right? And you think about what we would have had access to. They are things like your fruits, your vegetables, your nuts, your meats, your grains and legumes and things that are prepared.   Tahnee: (36:32) And again, I watch YouTube videos of indigenous cultures preparing food. They spent all freaking day doing it. Like they're not ever eating a Twinkie or anything that's in a packet, like to prepare a legume or a grain that's soaking and that's sprouting and they're mashing and they're grinding. It's a process. And I think we've really lost touch with how much labour it takes to get food to a place where it's digestible. We just kind of plonk some stuff in a pan and eat it. And it's like, yeah, there's actually a lot of effort and time and energy. And that's one of the things that the industrial revolution did for us was it took us away from having to prepare our foods possibly to the detriment of our bodies. And I think we would all agree that hasn't been the best for human health.   Mason: (37:20) To an extent. I mean, there's definitely-   Tahnee: (37:20) Well, yes. Sorry. That's not true. Yeah. There's more longevity and stuff. But I guess in terms of those markets of like wellness, like that's-   Mason: (37:25) Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, and I was just thinking about exactly that, like it's another part where I draw back. I was just thinking about apples and thinking how... You were talking about indigenous preparation. I was thinking, oh yeah, they couldn't just go grab an apple. And I was like, but there's this amazing thing of like seeds going all across the world and us developing crops and biodynamic gardens bringing us these amazing produce, so we can use all this produce. Most of what we're getting locally and seasonally, pretty much none of it is going to be, for most people listening to this, like indigenous foods coming from this land or indigenous meat's. Nonetheless, that's like that can... But then you start bringing in preparation. We've had such a speed up of convenience, which to the extent has kept people fed, which is essentially a good thing, people to be able to be fed. Then you get excess, you get excess of crap, excess of corn, excess of wheat, and you get GMOs, all that kind of stuff coming in.   Tahnee: (38:22) Yeah. Cheap stuff. Yeah.   Mason: (38:22) But if you come back and you accept the nourishment and the abundance, but then, as you said, the spleen is going to like you putting a lot of time and preparation into... And if you can weave that back into your kitchen, if you can have...   Tahnee: (38:36) Well, I think it comes back to nature. I remember, I lived with a Japanese family. I lived with two. One was very modern and one was very traditional. And in the traditional one, the grandma got up every morning at 03:00 or 04:00 in the morning and she would start cooking breakfast and we would have a proper meal with like a soup and rice and sausage and an egg thing and sushi.   Mason: (39:00) Yum.   Tahnee: (39:00) Yeah. A proper meal for breakfast. And then we'd have the same thing for lunch if we were there and we'd have something else for dinner. And that's literally her gig was they grew the green stuff right next to the house. They bought some other stuff from the market. And I remember thinking, at the time being 16, eff that, I'm a feminist and I'm never going to do that. But there's just something to me, coming back to the earth element, that you can nurture and support and nourish your family through this kind of devotion to feeding them and to making sure that they're fed in the best possible way. I think there's something really beautiful about that. And it's taken me a good 20 years to see the beauty in that.   Tahnee: (39:41) But I think there's something in that, around the connection to nature as well. And if we're talking foods for the spleen, they are really a lot to do with those sort of naturally sweet kind of harvest foods, your grains, your nuts... Not so much your nuts, sorry, your grains, your legumes. You have root vegetables, that kind of thing.   Mason: (40:02) Yellowy foods. Yeah.   Tahnee: (40:03) Yeah. Like your pumpkin or squash.   Mason: (40:05) Squash, sweet potato.   Tahnee: (40:06) Yeah. And I think that if you think about how you feel-   Mason: (40:09) White rice is really a good neutral spleen tone applying food alone.   Tahnee: (40:13) Yeah. If you think about how you feel after you eat a big warm bowl of pumpkin soup or soup potato curry or something, you feel really like hugged in this... I interviewed Andrew Sterman recently, if you haven't heard that one go back and listen to it, but he talks about you want to feel like your belly's purring after you've eaten a meal. And I think just that sense that the foundation of your wellbeing is going to come through having that kind of happy feeling of food cooked with love, chosen carefully for what you need to balance your body and to really nourish and support [crosstalk 00:40:49].   Mason: (40:48) Massive diversity of what you're eating and different types of fibres. I think that interview was amazing. I think that combination of his and I interviewed Jason Jason Hawrelak on that. Increasing, he's just studying the microbiome in getting a diversity of bacteria there. And that's a beautiful kind of like... If you can listen to those and not try and put those two philosophies, because one's like naturopathic and the other one's Chinese medicine, don't try and lay them over each other, but just like the soil earth element, just feel that space between them and feel them communicating.   Mason: (41:21) And then from the other side of those two things that you could be interested in for better health outcomes, you can find what could come the other side is more nourishing and tailored. You've got the evidence on your side and tradition on your side of a capacity to make a family culture and have a food culture, which is going to get you through the other end with your spleen chief flowing, therefore, hopefully your other elemental organs flowing with greater ease, yin-yang transformation happening with greater ease. It doesn't mean everything's perfect in the body, but you're in flow. You're in communion. You're grounded enough to be able to take very specific action as well to manifest your dreams.   Mason: (42:08) And that's something I think, I feel it's probably like there's another little bit of a tangent, but it's something that you do see a lot as people go, like lots of dreams when you're in your teens or 20s, and then you kind of grow up. It's like in Hook, I always talk about Hook. Peter Pan, lost boy, and then goes, "I want to get married. I love someone." And so he goes over and he just forgets all his... Forgets Never Never, basically forgets how to dream and Crow and fight and fly, and how to have happy thoughts.   Mason: (42:48) But then the spleen season, if you're alive enough in spring and you have enough trust and confidence in yourself to start dreaming up and thinking, what would I like? What's going to really light me up and make me feel like I've really been able to do what I'm here to do, which is bridge heaven and earth, and bring some magic to me in this world? And that doesn't need to look extravagant or anything, just allow yourself to be in that dreaming.   Mason: (43:14) When it gets to these earth seasons, it's a really good time to... You're mature and start making your decisions and really quiet your mind. And really ensure that you're being critical and judgmental in a way that's really going to take you further towards living your best life, for a better word, and an expressed life verse being judgmental to others and yourself and critical of yourself, because that does eventually turn your flesh into kind of that energy. And you can feel it.   Mason: (43:54) I remember, after I got out of my raw kind of food worlds, I became quite critical of, and people probably hear the hangover of it, I talk about it all the time, critical of myself kind of falling into those ideologies for just how much I externally started to identify, became a bit resentful towards the health scene. I became resentful to the kinds of information that people would put out there with conviction, not knowing the whole of the system, just doing things willy-nilly, which I saw could put people in danger, which is probably because that's what I felt like I was doing, to be honest.   Tahnee: (44:37) Well, it's interesting about the spleen and the intellect aspect of it. If you are in ideology, that's a sign of spleen imbalance, right? If you think about what a lot of these diets do is they disturb the healthy flow of spleen qi in the body. And that affects the ability, the capacity to think. So people get myopic, they get stuck on, this is the only way. They can't digest that there might be two or three or four or five or six or a thousand different ways to eat.   Tahnee: (45:03) .... That there might be two or three or four or five or six or 1000 different ways to eat or to behave. And so it sort of becomes this my way or the highway kind of a thing. And again, it comes down to bonds and boundaries, right? Like a strong boundary against everybody else, and only my tribe is right. And that tribalism is really not what we need. Like our whole world is incredibly tribal right now. And it's not really in service to the growth of humanity, it's not in service to like our collective growth as people of a country or a state. Whatever your thoughts are on what's going on globally, there's a lot of stuff that isn't really that helpful. So I think when we think about this sense of like what the gifts of the spleen are, it's empathy, it's understanding that you may not agree with someone, but you can empathise with their perspective.   Tahnee: (45:48) Well, if your spleen is out of balance, you're not going to have that. You're going to think that they're wrong. You're going to be black and white. You're going to be divisive. Similarly, it's about altruism and about supporting the whole of humanity. Well again, if you're out of balance, you're not going to be feeling like that. It's about stability. If you're not stable, is it really working? And I think that's the, I mean, that's one of the things I believe very strongly with yoga is, if your practise isn't making you more stable, you're doing the wrong practise for you. And I think-   Mason: (46:17) That kind of links into like looking at what's your relationship like? What's your house like? How is your work life? Before you go out and try and save the world, making sure your own house is ... at least you're in the middle of ... at least you've got to practise consistently and you're getting your house in order.   Tahnee: (46:34) Yeah, and I think-   Mason: (46:35) I don't [crosstalk 00:46:35] like lofty ... I don't [inaudible 00:46:38] get it perfect. And then you can go out-   Tahnee: (46:39) No, well that's liver.   Mason: (46:41) Yeah.   Tahnee: (46:41) Perfectionist liver friend. But yeah, I really do think ... like I think that something we talk about a lot is I look to people who are our peers, or even really well known in the scene and they aren't stable. They aren't people that are steady and consistent. And I find there's something about that that I'm a little bit wary of, because I think, "Well, I'm more interested in learning from someone who's been around for a while and who's really spent time diving into their understanding and their experience." And that leads you to teachers that are older and that have been around a while. And they very rarely teach black and white. They very rarely say there's one way. I mean, "It depends," is pretty much the mantra of my life because it's like there is no right way.   Tahnee: (47:33) And all of this stuff is really just someone wrote this down because someone downloaded it probably from wherever you want to believe. I believe from some kind of source, consciousness. And they've been able to put it down in a language that we don't speak anymore, that's been translated through time. There's lots of arguments about what things mean. And then we're here having this conversation on a podcast, this is our understanding and interpretation of someone else's insight. And we all have the capacity to have these insights and these understandings. And I think it just becomes, again, about how we assimilate and digest these ideas. And so just to keep bringing it back to that spleen element, you're creating the soil of your life through composting everything you come across and turning it into your foundation, your stability. And that's, I think, the piece that is really important, is it's not about, "Oh, it's spleen time and I have to eat pumpkin," it's about what do you notice and observe when you lean in to what's abundant in your ...   Tahnee: (48:37) Like in my neighbourhood right now, there are lots of sweet potatoes around. They're at all the farmer's markets and they're everywhere. It's like, well, that would make sense to me to eat them because they're there, they're growing. And hey, oh, by the way, they also worked for spleen. Isn't that interesting? And I think this is this really kind of interesting thing that you start to notice these things, like you were saying, you start to kind of, year on year, develop and cultivate this deeper level of understanding and relationship with these things just through living, not through trying to put on some, "I'm a Daoist and I believe it's spleen time, and I'm going to do this."   Tahnee: (49:10) And I think that's the same with the herbs. Like if you're working with ... Some people might need spleen herbs a lot, all the time. They might just have a tendency to really go out of balance in that area, and they really need that support. I can sort of be like that sometimes. Other people might feel like they want to work with them around the change in season. Other people might just want to work with them when they feel called to. You can work with your practitioner and find out what's going to be appropriate for you at this stage of life. So I think there's so much diversity in how we approach these things, but-   Mason: (49:44) That's probably worth mentioning. Like when we're talking about spleen deficiencies, we're talking in a very general sense, allowing the soil, the earth Chi to flow smoothly through the spleen stomach meridian, which can mean many things for everybody listening to this, but it's just feeling generally in harmony. And especially at this point, your intellect, the good quality thoughts, beliefs, and then your digestion. And so it's like you look at are you getting bloating? Are you holding weight? Is there IBS? Is there a bit of leaky gut going on? Is there a runny stool? Is there, to a lesser extent, constipation, but still there? And remember, where there's spleen, there's dampness in the spleen, you imagine the soil's just sopping wet, soggy, but then there's damp heat and damp cold. And then when we look at the stomach, we're going to see generally it's going to be heat, stomach heat. And so you're going to look at things like indigestion and reflux and those kinds of things.   Mason: (50:52) But we're not trying to diagnose all these things. Make sure you're with ... If there's something in those areas and really digestively something really going wrong, or especially if psychologically, something you can not, you haven't been able to get on top of it, don't try and do the lifestyle changes. Don't try and shoulder the burden. Remember to accept nourishment, and there's going to be people out there, practitioners, they're going to be able to help you kind of hone in on that as well. But in general, yeah. I mean, when you look at the Qi herbs, they're all about supporting the spleen function and quite often the lung function, because that's what delivers us our vitality and our daily Qi, so all the organs can run and thoughts can move and all that kind of good thing.   Mason: (51:34) So yeah, at this time of year, for sure, especially when here it's so muggy and damp, I like having the herbs in the Qi blend. I felt really comfortable when it came out with the Qi blend, because there's so many ... Poria, is the mushroom in there leading the charge, able to transform that water. If there's too much water. And likewise, guys, all the mushrooms are basically known in Chinese medicine as the regulators, water regulators, like the Warren G of the water in your ...   Mason: (52:08) And then the roots, like Astragalus. So like your Homie Nate   Tahnee: (52:16) Stop.   Mason: (52:19) So it's a really good time to get those moving in, especially the mushrooms, moving that water. Because remember, if that water's ... what's going to be able to travel through soggy, sopping water? You can't ... I can't remember what the word is. Friable.   Tahnee: (52:38) Yeah.   Mason: (52:39) Yeah. Like to be able-   Tahnee: (52:40) Soil.   Mason: (52:40) Yeah, soil. So you think you-   Tahnee: (52:41) Can move through it.   Mason: (52:42) Yeah, you think water can move through it, or especially that's what you want to be able to do ... moving in there.   Tahnee: (52:47) [crosstalk 00:52:47] can push through easily.   Mason: (52:49) Yeah. Cheese can move through there. Worms are going to be able to be present there in the soil. Maybe not. Let's stay in the analogy with that one. But yeah, very general. But mushrooms are always ... I mean, the good thing about Qi herbs is they're all so general and you can't really go wrong. But as Tahn's said, some people will notice really big differences. You make all these lifestyle kind of changes that we've spoke about. Remember that it's a time to get grounded and have a look at your inner critic and your beliefs and all these things. Remember, it's a transitional time. So you do have the opportunity at the fulcrums of the season, as you do all the time, you can tune into that earth energy. But really, if you sit down, stop distracting yourself. That's why people go on social media breaks and like little holidays, because when you stop having all that information coming in, you don't have to digest as much and chew on as much. And therefore you can chew on what's present in your body and make little adjustments, transitions.   Mason: (53:45) Remember, to transport you over to another ... You can transport yourself back over into connecting with those dreams you had when we’re 20, and just with this maturity you've got, and start making really intellectually aligned, good quality decisions. And you have a look, "What's my beliefs that I have? Cool. All right, I'm going to have to ... I might actually start working on that belief." And then you go at it like an ox, like a chop wood, carry water. You just plough ahead and plough ahead at it. So really important for you to do that. But yeah, if you get into the Qi herbs, the mushrooms, you might see that you'll physically may notice a little bit more vitality. Your digestion might get a little bit more honed. It's very correlated with immunity. So it's actually the time of year anyway you want to start ... You always want to be taking the mushrooms as far as I'm concerned. There's a black and white statement for you to [crosstalk 00:54:38] say, that's the exception.   Tahnee: (54:39) Yeah. There's an exception to every rule.   Mason: (54:40) Generally, but Qi, I mean at this point Qi kind of starts really making an appearance, and then I go ... And then I start going real hard as I get into March. And then all of autumn it's like the focus, because they had the spleen herbs and the lung herbs, and then they start really fortifying your surface protective Qi, your [inaudible 00:55:03] Chi, going into winter. And it's important, especially with everything that's going on in the world. There's always immunological stuff going on in the world. Everyone would be in such a better position if we took herbs appropriately, lived a little bit more appropriately for the seasons. But people want the easy way out. And so this is the way that is going to bear fruits, and allows ... Ultimately we want the consciousness, from a Daoist perspective, the consciousness of each of our organs to be flourishing and freely expressed. As we are in alignment with the yin and the yang, we're able to go down in the night, up in the morning, go down in winter, come up in summer. Right now we're going to be ... You prepare. You get grounded.   Mason: (55:46) Prepare, we're going to be leaving these warmer months. Really get grounded and sit into that and allow yourself to feel all that, everything there is to feel, still enjoy it. And then you'll be ready to mourn the loss of the warmer months when we get into the lung season. But yeah, just make sure you don't miss these opportunities. Or even just like start touching them a little bit, and start getting into flow a little bit.   Tahnee: (56:11) Yeah. I think that's a nice segue into ... we'll be back for metal soon. And we hope you all are thriving out there. And-   Mason: (56:22) Well this is a nice one because this is relevant for Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere, since it's the Earth season. It may not be to the full extent of late summer.   Tahnee: (56:31) Yeah. You guys are sliding the other way, but yeah.   Mason: (56:34) Yeah. You're sliding the other way, and it's good to get practise in embracing this energy and feeling that these intentions come forth in the kitchen, or in your practise, in your meditation, when we go between the seasons, and especially when we go between summer and autumn. Any other little thing? No, I think I was just going to talk about saliva being the substance.   Tahnee: (56:57) I have so many other things. But I think, I mean, we have a daycare run to get to.   Mason: (57:03) Yeah, I do.   Tahnee: (57:04) Real life.   Mason: (57:06) Just embrace your saliva during these times, guys. That's the substance of the spleen. I was thinking about [Tani's 00:57:15] teacher, [inaudible 00:57:16] practise in the morning. Chew, chew, chew, chew for a few minutes, and collect all that saliva and then swallow it down and send a little hello to the spleen, with its own essence.   Tahnee: (57:27) Well, and I was thinking if any of you with students out there, it's a really disruptive time to the spleen. So any study, any constant reading, any intellectual work over the top, so too much of it. So it doesn't have to be any, but just like anything that's in excess, then you will feel out of balance. So just remember that's a good time of life to work with the chi herbs and to get supported with the kind of spleen aspect of your life. So try and stay grounded and steady in other ways. And if you are really out of whack because of what's going on around the world, again, probably a time to really work on your stability and your groundedness and your connection to the Earth, and remembering that you've got that ability to just sit and feel and connect. And don't let your mind get away with you. Practise whatever you need to practise to stay sane at this point. But yeah, just these are all pretty spleen disturbing times that we're in. So yeah, lo

Today's episode takes a bit of a different format. Usually I have long-form, intimate conversations with people, often in their home. And I like that. Something I really love about this podcast medium is its long-form, grassroots, intimate nature… which for me is completely different to our 24hr media & social media clickbait society. But today's episode was a live interview. Yes this is the first conversation in a 5-part series of live workshops, as part of Renew Fest and Resilient Byron's 'Resilience & Regeneration Roadshow'. This is where community forums are being held in 5 different villages in the Byron Shire, bring locals together to talk about and workshop what resilience could and should look like, and to build community networks and plans It's really exciting to be part these workshops and let me just say, these are not just fluffy conversations where people go home feeling warm and fuzzy. These are serious, in-depth, big thinking forums and I have been blown by away by the interaction and effort that participants have been putting in. All of these forums booked out very quickly and people are getting stuck in to these issues, which just speaks to our collective awareness and desire for connecting our communities. So like I said this is a new format… and given that this is the first in a 5-part live recorded series, I'm actually going to start by sharing the live introduction from the day. The forum is MC'd by Jean Renouf, who is a former international aid worker who has worked in developing countries all over the world, including in disaster relief and war torn environments. He is now a lecturer in the areas of climate change and community security at Southern Cross University, and he is the co-founder and chair of Resilient Byron; a not-for-profit that builds capacity and social infrastructure in the Byron Shire Region. Jean starts by introducing the purpose of the workshop, and gives a flavour of Resilient Byron. He then introduces me as the interviewer for the speaker who was supposed to be local Arakwal custodian, Delta Kay. Unfortunately Delta got caught up in last minute in Victorian coronavirus restrictions and couldn't be with us, which is actually quite symbolic given the purpose of the whole forum was to discuss resilience and adapting to change. But what it meant was that Jean stepped in as the main speaker for this one… and his stories are incredible, particularly his work in disaster areas. Not only do they put our ‘first world problems' into a bit of perspective, but they also have so many learnings and parallels that we can draw and compare to what we are going though collectively right now, especially following droughts, bushfires, pandemic, and economic uncertainty. For the four future live workshops with different speakers, which I'll release fortnightly in-between my normal, long form episodes, I'll jump straight into the interviews, but I really hope this introduction from Jean helps paint the picture of the importance of community assembly like this, and makes you feel, at least somewhat, like you were a participant. With that, I hope you enjoy the very first Resilience and Regeneration Roadshow, live from Byron Bay, and my conversation with Dr Jean Renouf

Today marks a special 100 episodes of the SuperFeast podcast, that's 100 episodes of inspiring conversations with brilliant humans progressing the world through health and wellness! Over the past 100 episodes, the SuperFeast podcast has had hundreds of thousands of downloads and connected with people from Nigeria to Greenland. This evolving journey wouldn't be what it is without you, the listeners, your interaction, and the energy you bring to this space. On Today's podcast our favourite dynamic duo, Tahnee and Mason sit down for a reflective conversation on the journey thus far; the most listened to episodes, the guests that filled them up, and exciting prospects for the future of SuperFeast podcasts. It's always magic when Tahnee and Mason share the mic, and with the 100th episode and a new year ahead of us, it's a perfectly aligned reason to have them back on the podcast connecting with the SuperFeast community.   Tahnee and Mason discuss: Reflections of the SuperFeast podcast, looking back six years from the Mason Taylor Show to now.   The evolution of the podcast landscape over this space in time. The most popular episodes/guests and the topics that consistently resonate with listeners (we've linked them all in the resources below). Health protocols in our ever-changing contemporary landscape; intentionally creating a healthy space to continue questioning beliefs, integrate opposing ideas, and move into a place of harmony, which is in alignment with every traditional system.  The guests that influenced and cultivated Tahnee and Mason's introspective journeys. Navigating the newly emerging health scape where holistic traditions are being meshed with more reductionist methods. The Women's Series; Tahnee's journey through the many dimensions of experience her guests have brought and the gift of sharing space with women who have so much wisdom to offer. Future directions and Visions. Sex; a popular topic that always gets ratings.  Gratitude and the value of reviews.    Tahnee and Mason Taylor Tahnee and Mason Taylor (recently married!) are the founder and CEO of SuperFeast (respectively). Their mission with SuperFeast is to improve the health, healing, and happiness of people and the planet, through sharing carefully curated offerings and practices that honour ancient wisdom and elevate the human spirit. Together Tahnee and Mason run their company and host the SuperFeast podcast, weaving their combined experience in herbs, yoga, wellness, Taoist healing arts, and personal development with lucid and compelling interviews from all around the world. They are the proud parents of Aiya and Goji, the dog, and are grateful to call the Byron Shire home. MasonTaylor Mason Taylor is the founder of SuperFeast. Mason d to the ideas of potentiating the human experience through his mum Janesse (who was a big inspiration for founding SuperFeast and is still an inspiration to Mason and his team due to her ongoing resilience in the face of disability). After traveling South America for a year, Mason found himself struggling with his health - he was worn out, carried fungal infections, and was only 22. He realised that he had the power to take control of his health. Mason redirected his attention from his business degree and night work in a bar to begin what was to become more than a decade of health research, courses, education, and mentorship from some of the leaders in personal development, wellness, and tonic herbalism. Inspired by the own changes to his health and wellbeing through his journey (which also included Yoga teacher training and raw foodism!), he started SuperFeast in 2010. Initially offering a selection of superfoods, herbs, and supplements to support detox, immune function, and general wellbeing. Mason offered education programs around Australia, and it was on one of these trips that he met Tahnee, who is now his wife and CEO of SuperFeast. Mason also offered detox and health transformation retreats in the Byron hinterland (some of which Tahnee also worked on, teaching Yoga and workshops on Taoist healing practices, as well as offering Chi Nei Tsang treatments to participants). After falling in love with the Byron Shire, Mason moved SuperFeast from Sydney's Northern Beaches to Byron Bay in 2015. He lived on a majestic permaculture farm in the Byron hinterland, and after not too long, Tahnee joined him (and their daughter, Aiya was conceived). The rest is history - from a friend's rented garage to a warehouse in the Byron Industrial Estate to SuperFeast's current home in Mullumbimby's beautiful Food Hub, SuperFeast (and Mason) has thrived in the conscious community of the Northern Rivers. Mason continues to evolve his role at SuperFeast, in education, sourcing, training, and creating the formulas based on Taoist principles of tonic herbalism. Tahnee Taylor Tahnee Taylor is the CEO of SuperFeast and has been exploring health and human consciousness since her late teens. From Yoga, which she first practiced at school in 2000, to reiki, herbs, meditation, Taoist and Tantric practices, and human physiology, her journey has taken her all over. This journey continues to expand her understanding and insight into the majesty (that is) the human body and the human experience. Tahnee graduated with a Journalism major and did a stint in non-fiction publishing (working with health and wellness authors and other inspiring creatives), advertising, many jobs in cafes, and eventually found herself as a Yoga teacher. Her first studio, Yoga for All, opened in 2013, and Tahnee continues to study Yoga with her teachers Paul + Suzee Grilley and Rod Stryker. She learned Chi Nei Tsang and Taoist healing practices from Master Mantak Chia. Tahnee continues to study herbalism and Taoist practices, the human body, women's wisdom, ancient healing systems, and is currently enrolled in an acupuncture degree and year-long program with The Shamanic School of Womancraft. Tahnee is the mother of one, a 4-year old named Aiya.   Resources: The Power of Menopause with Jane Hardwicke Collings (EP#77) Life-Changing Sex Makes Anything Possible with Kim Anami (EP#28) Yin Yoga with Anatomist and Yogi Paul Grilley (EP#59) Why Chinese Medicine is Failing Us with Rhonda Chang (EP#80) Ayurveda and Yoga-The Healing Arts with Myra Lewin From Hale Pule (EP#55) Reclaiming Pureness and Sovereign Living with Jessika Le Corre (EP#96) Tools For Healthy Living with Dr. Claudia Welch (EP#32) Authentic Sex with Juliet Allen (EP#31) Embodied Movement with The Movement Monk Benny Fergusson (EP#56) Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast?   A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We’d also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher, CastBox, iHeart RADIO:)! Plus  we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Tahnee: (00:01) Hi everyone. I'm here with Mason.   Mason: (00:04) Hi guys. How are you?   Tahnee: (00:05) Yay. And it's episode 100, which means we've made it through 100 interviews and chats with each other and others. And we just wanted to check in with you guys today because I was laughing to myself thinking about when Mason first tried to get me on the podcast and I was moy resistant as they say in Spanish. And I have really enjoyed it, actually, coming full circle and have had some amazing chats and have really enjoyed the opportunity to get clear on my voice and my interview style and how we connect with people and sharing it with you guys.   Mason: (00:49) Yeah, it's been great watching you step into that side of yourself because you asked great questions.   Tahnee: (00:54) So do you.   Mason: (00:55) Thank you.   Tahnee: (00:56) And it's really cool. I remember when I first met Mase about six years ago, he was doing a podcasting course, I think, or kind of interested in starting his own podcast or maybe you were in a mastermind group or something.   Mason: (01:10) I didn't go that far. I just signed up for the free seven steps-   Tahnee: (01:15) Trial.   Mason: (01:16) No, just a little guide, seven steps to set up your podcast. Went and did that with... Can't remember who it was through, but it was just one of those ones. It just popped up in a-   Tahnee: (01:25) An ad or something.   Mason: (01:26) Yeah, it was an ad and I was like, hmm, not bad.   Tahnee: (01:29) Yeah and I remember you had the Mason Taylor Show and if you're listening and you haven't checked out that stuff that was from probably five or six years ago now. And I remember having listened to podcasts, but I think it was not what they are now where they're just abundant in all spheres. It's been really cool to be involved peripherally and then more closely lately as SuperFeast podcast has evolved. And we're really excited about the next 100 episodes.   Mason: (02:02) Doing the podcast five years ago, it's interesting. It's a similar feeling to when I started SuperFeast and I was like, ah, it's probably not appropriate to sell medicinal mushrooms because the market seems saturated already. And then you fast forward five years and you're like, ah, no, that was like-   Tahnee: (02:20) [crosstalk 00:02:20]-   Mason: (02:20) Yeah. And like five years ago I was like, oh my gosh, there's a bajillion podcasts out there, but it wasn't at the point now where it felt something where it's accessible for absolutely everyone, to do it. It didn't feel natural. It didn't feel as much stepping out on a ledge.   Tahnee: (02:39) And I think, obviously, as a medium, it's just ballooned and it's been such an interesting thing to observe and we're talking the SuperFeast podcast, hundreds of thousands of downloads. People listening, I was looking at the country map before we jumped on, from all over the world from Nigeria to Greenland. I don't even know if people live in Greenland, but all over the place. It's quite wild to me to see how diverse and vast our listenership is. And even the topics that have really resonated with you guys because I guess we would not have picked them, but then looking at the statistics, we've got the semen retention and some of the episodes on sex, especially Kim Anami and Juliet Allen are really popular with you guys. And then female hormones, obviously a massive topic and one that are really of interest to the people listening to us. That's been, I think, a really interesting thing to reflect on as-   Mason: (03:38) Well, the interesting thing with the SuperFeast podcast is we didn't really have a strategy, which is something. It's like, all right, we'll take 100 episode kinda settler. And in terms of, strategically, it being like a marketing tool for the business, you would've thought that we would have sat down and gone, right, we're going to do these kinds of interviews with these kinds of people, these kinds of topics, but we didn't do that at all.   Tahnee: (04:07) People we're fans of or that we think would be interesting guests-   Mason: (04:09) Which I think that's a huge reason. For some people, I don't know, maybe for some of you, you wanted to hear about herbs and that's something that I've strayed from, but you can see we're in some of the top podcasts. It's the Reishi one, the Chaga one, ashwagandha-   Tahnee: (04:31) Cannabis-   Mason: (04:32) Yeah and then then like, cannabis is a little bit different, but yeah, nonetheless, it's something that I'd love to hear from you guys if those, even if it's just like a rapid fire, me talking about a particular herbal, Tahnee talking about a particular herb, if you want to hear a little bit more about that, I'd be super stoked to jump in there and do that. But it's been part of the beauty and I think part of the reason we've been... I think we've got so much structure in many areas of life. It's been it's in the business getting more structure in place in the business.   Mason: (05:07) It's nice having this open book, chaotic world and even though what I was saying is I think maybe there's a few of you listening, it'd be great to hear if you feel like more consistency is something that keeps you there, but I think it's been a huge reason why the podcast resonates with so many people is just this like open field of possible ideas and bringing the guys in and talking about Ayurveda and then classical Chinese medicine and then bringing naturopaths in. And we don't try and layer all these things on top of each other and make it fit a particular idea around health. It's just going out and exploring what's out there, which I feel like I've needed that in the podcast and it's helped me keep me motivated and [inaudible 00:05:54].   Tahnee: (05:54) Well, I think that's the bit you probably don't appreciate from the listener's perspective, but for us, running a company and being parents and life, it's a great way for us to stay really connected and to learn and to be inspired by people who are really on mission, I guess, for want of a better way of saying it and who have really devoted themselves to a particular topic or area of research. And I was thinking about the podcast that really moved me and I remember listening to Jane Hardwicke Collings, who I interviewed earlier this year, she did a piece on menopause with us and I was moved to tears by that interview. I just was so touched by her strength and her power and her capacity to capture what it is to be a woman in these transitory phases of life and-   Mason: (06:44) That was number 77, The Power of Menopause.   Tahnee: (06:47) Yeah. And then the other one, I was trying to think of the ones that really, really resonated. I was really excited to speak to Kim Anami and that's one that you guys have all voted is very, very popular. That was number 28. But coming back to Jane, that was one of the ones where people would stop me on the street and just say, oh my God, that podcast moved me. And everyone from young women who just birthed their first child to women in their 50s and 60s who were touched that someone had discussed those topics so openly. That was really special. And I remember being really moved by speaking with Paul, my yoga teacher, Paul Grilley, which I think he's number... We'll look that up. But yeah, that was a really special one for me because-   Mason: (07:36) That's number 59.   Tahnee: (07:37) He's been such a huge influence to me in my teaching and my life. And I know for you Mace, Rhonda's been a big influence.   Mason: (07:47) The Rhonda Chang interview's number 80. I think it's called, Why Chinese Medicine is Failing Us. It's been interesting. It's creeping up there more and more, becoming one of those cult conversations. You can see like this month it's got way more downloads than anything else [inaudible 00:08:10] actually-   Tahnee: (08:10) Still-   Mason: (08:10) Jane's there still like charging away and I assume that'll get up there. I like that because I think for a lot of you who are listening, I heard some people listen to one of mine and Dan Sipple's conversations, which if you want to just hear me and my mate, who's a naturopath, me coming from Taoist perspective, him naturopath perspective, and just seeing just how those conversations run side by side, but someone shared it on Instagram recently and was like they come for the talk on gut health, the conversations and the protocols on gut health and they stay for Mason's rants about ideology.   Mason: (08:50) And I don't know if you guys are still enjoying it or not whether I'm flogging a dead horse, but naturally, that's been something probably because I've been really going through some reconciliations within myself and some integrations with myself and also just really pausing to consider where in the health landscape there is room and tools being provided to people so that we're safe to go into a big rule set approach to health or a protocol, a healing protocol, and then where the skill set is in going beyond to well, what do you go to beyond that, beyond the labels and coming further into yourself and then realising that we're not going to land in a place of being sure and it's such a weird world, where we're in a completely new world when it comes to the accessibility that we have to health protocols and technologies and traditional technologies and traditional systems that it's all just experimental as anything right now. What is a healthy, ongoing space to keep on questioning our beliefs and questioning how we've integrated opposing ideas and then move into a place of it's in further and further harmony, which is in alignment with every traditional system. It's never ending and it doesn't ever stop evolving, but there is a way to surf it in harmony and stay healthy.   Mason: (10:13) That's been a huge one for me this year, which a lot of you would have heard and Rhonda's conversation is probably the biggest one in number 80, Why Chinese medicine is Failing Us just because it represents something I'm close to as a hobbyist with Chinese medicine and enjoying Taoists medicine, especially, and she's someone sometimes you're like, am I crazy here? Is there actually any difference? Is there an institution when it comes to health or the Chinese medicine that's different to how it was done previously? Is this just the natural evolution? Is it in fact unnatural? Is it bad or is it good? Is it great to have options? Where's the [inaudible 00:10:57]... But it was just all meshed in. It was just Chinese medicine is Chinese medicine is Chinese medicine is Chinese medicine. It represents the wider conversation around when something that was holistic gets layered on something that's reductionist. And so that's another one, that number 80 conversation was one I had seen people writing to me and stopping me on the street going far out, Ronda's is just a firecracker, but she's just nailed it.   Mason: (11:27) Am I crazy here? Is something that blurred here? We should be making the distinction that this is a new medicine and a new technology and not just pretending that we're practising the traditional style and with that, why isn't it working? And I feel that about a lot of things. I see a lot of people going down a health ideology that's got all this modern biohacking layered over it and we're like, yes, I'm doing the traditional thing and then I've watched it fail so many times and then going, okay... I'm going a little bit of a rant, guys, but this is just wrapping up my approach to the podcast. Going like, well, where does our faith actually lie? Does it lie in a system or in an ideology and a set of rules that we can identify with and that are external or is there something else that we can learn to have faith and trust in, which is self-regulating and never moving?   Mason: (12:27) And that's something that that conversation and reading Rhonda's book and talking with her really helped me go, no, I'm not crazy here, there's just a little bit more of a distinction that's needed, especially when there's so much coming. There's so many new systems coming out as Western medicine goes charging forth, thankfully, in other areas, as long as it's not getting layered over and bastardising everything that we've had there. If we're able to preserve that, then that's beautiful as well. A lot of this year in the podcast has been me wiping out a lot of that confusion and learning how to navigate this new emerging health scape.   Tahnee: (13:12) That's a way more complex than my year. My year was like emotions and amazing women, which I feel like that's such an interesting... I've felt that my personal journey was around this wider acceptance of the vast, many layered dimensions of experience that women have and also that everyone has and then also the themes around that. I think I've really learned to be less judgmental and to not always project my experience onto other people and not to try and always use myself as the reference. And I think it's been interesting talking to people who they're just so strong and grounded in themselves.   Tahnee: (14:04) I'm thinking about Jessica Le Corre right now. I spoke to her on my birthday, on my 35th birthday, and I feel she was a bit of a gift. That was episode 96. She just epitomises to me the place I would like to step into or the place I see myself stepping into as I get older. And she really, really moved me. And also I'm thinking of Myra Lewin, the Ayurvedic teacher. I think her episode was... Looking at one up, number 55. Ayurveda and yoga and she was another one I think that really moved me. Claudia Welch, I've spoken to a lot of women who are just proper powerhouses and I think that's something that I've really... Number 32's Claudia Welch as well. Something I've really kind of-   Mason: (14:58) It's one of the favourites as well.   Tahnee: (15:00) Yeah. I've always said to Mase, I'm going to be a really cool old lady when I'm 60. And I think speaking to these women that are elders and even if they're only 10 years older than me, but they've settled into themselves in a way that I think young women often haven't and it's really special to share the space with them. And just so many interesting and inspiring women and men, I think have graced our microphone this year.   Mason: (15:31) And that's an interesting reflection because I've definitely noticed that in you stepping into a part of yourself. I'm not sure what you mean by using yourself as a reference, not doing that as much. Is that-   Tahnee: (15:46) I think just sometimes because I've had a pretty interesting, vast life experience in some ways. And I think sometimes I can try and empathise through my experience instead of just allowing that person's experience to be separate from me a little bit. And I think it's just something that as you grow up, you realise you haven't seen it all. And I'm may be not clear [crosstalk 00:16:12]-   Mason: (16:12) No, no that's clear.   Tahnee: (16:12) Just coming to me at this moment, but that's what I'm feeling into that I've noticed, like assumptions I've made or going into interviews with a certain assumption or certain sense of where it's going to go and then just being completely stunned in a positive way where it's just been so much richer and deeper and more powerful and more educational for me on a really personal intimate level than I would have imagined. A chat about, say, I just did one, it hasn't come out yet, about PCOS and I've not experienced that personally. And I went in with some assumptions around what PCOS is just based on my experience in dealing with it with people who we speak to and then just having this whole more vast conversation around it, I suppose, than I would have been able to have with Amanda, this TCM doctor. I think it's great. It's humbling and it's inspiring and it just constantly reminds me to stay in that beginner's mind and that Zen mind of not knowing, which was a conversation we're having last night about acting rather.   Mason: (17:20) Oh, yes.   Tahnee: (17:20) [crosstalk 00:17:19]-   Mason: (17:20) Not losing yourself in the character.   Tahnee: (17:22) Yeah, and I think you can easily get your ego really wrapped up in knowing-   Mason: (17:26) Oh, in a narrative?   Tahnee: (17:27) Yeah.   Mason: (17:27) That's something at times I was like, all right, we've got to have a very specific SuperFeast narrative. And now the idea, for example, I remember the week after I had that conversation with Rhonda and we were really heavily exploring that area, which is something I feel like I've popped. It's like just because I'm exploring an area and really enjoying it and going in and getting good realisations doesn't mean that that's my narrative, doesn't mean that's the truth, doesn't mean that we can't explore other areas. It seems obvious, but for me, I'm such a purist sometimes. And I had that conversation with Rhonda and watching, looking at what's happened when we've used, say, Western diagnosis and Western diseases in with Chinese medicine and yet, the week after or even like you were saying, this podcast that came out before this one, is a Chinese medicine doctor exploring PCOS and that's fine and that's beautiful and I'm interested to hear about that because it's like...   Mason: (18:30) I think I've [inaudible 00:18:33] what I mean there, but I feel we are really opening up and exploring on the SuperFeast podcast more and more. And that's something I did notice this year, it was just how many elders you had. You'd come away feeling really solid, just really reflected, I think, where you've been moving. And for me this year, when I've had guys on the podcast, I've been chatting to young guys. It's been Sage Dammers and Dan Sipple and Taylor Johnson and another big one was Nick Perry. But I feel that's just where I've been at. I've been trying to explore. I didn't want to be led. I wanted to be in the dark and be talking to other guys who were potentially going through that same stage of life because I needed to work it out for myself. But I can see now I'm ready to have some conversations with those guys that have just really landed in themselves as well.   Tahnee: (19:34) Basically guys, this is our therapy and you're just along for the ride because I often think about that. I'm like, I'm not promoting SuperFeast, I don't have anything to sell, I just want to have a conversation.   Mason: (19:46) I've started to be good and in the intros sometimes promo products and things.   Tahnee: (19:50) But I'm like, it's funny because to me it feels almost separate from SuperFeast except that it informs my growth and my evolution and I know the team listens and gets value out of it and support us in the production of it. They're all engaged and [inaudible 00:20:08]. It obviously informs the SuperFeast philosophy and how we do things and often conversations are sparked from listening to the podcast on how we do things and what we can do better or how we can navigate our roles better and all these things. It's just an interesting thing to me that it feels so much less a marketing part of the business. It feels a personal exploration/soul nourishment/education piece. That's an interesting thing that I've been observing is like it's not really something I think of in a sales and marketing capacity. Even though I started thinking about it because one of our consultants placed the podcast within a marketing flow and I went, oh, I didn't even think of it that way. That's been an interesting little distinction for me this year as well.   Mason: (21:04) As the business mushrooms and I'm not out doing-   Tahnee: (21:11) Is that a pun?   Mason: (21:13) Mushrooms and it's growing in its own way and I'm not in front of people at markets anymore and you're not helping at events talking to people. And so the podcast continues to be a way to associate all those conversations because normally people come up to the markets back in the day when I was growing SuperFeast-   Tahnee: (21:35) You're having the chance.   Mason: (21:36) Or when people come to you. Well, yeah, someone was like, I have an autoimmune condition. I wouldn't be sitting there just promoting SuperFeast. I'd have this huge other exploring conversation that would always need to come back to the way that we're living in general, the way the diets looking in general.   Tahnee: (21:53) Totally. It's a part of a piece of a puzzle, not a silver bullet solution. And I think that's something we wanted to convey in this ramble was that we're really interested in the direction that you guys want to hear us go with this thing. We don't have a plan. We are just reaching out and when people can, we're interviewing them and we're recording stuff that we think is interesting or that people on our team find interesting, but we haven't heard a whole lot from you guys beyond the feedback. I've quit social media, so I'm not hearing from anyone, yay, but we'd love to hear from you guys about people you think we'd froth on interviewing, people you want to hear interviewed. I think as I look at the podcast circuit and there's so many of the same names popping up across all these different podcasts and sometimes I just think, it's like people just do the circuit and they do all the podcasts. And then I'm like, I want to offer something a bit more diverse and interesting, like voices-   Mason: (23:00) I think Matthew McConaughey just finished doing that.   Tahnee: (23:02) Doing the podcast circuit?   Mason: (23:02) Yeah.   Tahnee: (23:03) Well, why didn't we get him?   Mason: (23:03) Good question. We got to consider ourselves being more like the ballers and go for the big fish.   Tahnee: (23:08) I don't know if we're quite there yet.   Mason: (23:10) No, we're definitely not there yet.   Tahnee: (23:14) Matthew lived with my friend as an exchange student actually when he was 18. We have a contact. Anyway, but my preference is not to do the famous... Look, if they're famous and they kick ass and it's something I feel we could really contribute to your earbuds, but I think in general, you can find those interviews already. I want to do people that are maybe not getting a lot of publicity or that are doing the work quietly in their little corner and don't have that kind of capacity to generate fame for themselves or-   Mason: (23:51) And it'd be interesting to hear, just for you guys, if you like, if you're [inaudible 00:23:54] on SuperFeast podcast and you're just really enjoying it, what you'd like to hear. This year hasn't been a lot about us because I know a lot of people want to hear from me and Tahns about what's your diet like and what's your lifestyle? and I don't know if we've been exploring, just trying to land somewhere-   Tahnee: (24:19) I feel like we don't spend any time together at work. That's the biggest thing. We work together, but we both hold really different roles in the business, whereas I'm usually more in an administrative role and Mason's more in a marketing role. Our days at work don't overlap that much and I think we haven't prioritised taking this time to chat to each other in this capacity, which I think is more realistic in the new year as things have settled down a bit. COVID has been, for everyone I'm sure, disruptive to the flow and we've just landed back on our feet, I think, after that period of time. And so I feel I do podcasts at seven in the morning or late at night or around... A lot of people I speak to are in the States, so I'm often working with really bad time zones where I'm getting up really early or you're looking after Aiya It's not like we can go duck off together and record one.   Mason: (25:13) I think that'd be a nice intention for us to just set or just have the intention anyway to start lapping here and there.   Tahnee: (25:22) And I'm also not the kind of person who really likes sharing those things because I think it's odd, but I'm also happy to have people want to. For example, the pregnancy podcasts, which are just-   Mason: (25:34) That's what I was just thinking of.   Tahnee: (25:34) So popular and the prenatal preparation one and-   Mason: (25:39) And the nourishing her yin, the live event, that's like, I mean that's-   Tahnee: (25:43) See, those to me though require a lot of push for me to share myself and if I'm really honest, I feel uncomfortable. And I often think about what I've shared on this podcast and I feel really uncomfortable, but it's already done so... But I think it's for me, it's my own, I don't want to ever feel like people think they need to... Yeah, I just think it's one of those things where so much of it's a personal journey for me and not something I share publicly, but if that's something you guys really want to hear and Mase does get those requests a lot through his-   Mason: (26:20) I think every time there's a request, it's like, look, I know you guys aren't going to have an exact diet or rule. We'll see if we can lap over because every time we do tune in, it's just a little... I think it's weird because Tahnee and I don't get a lot, a lot, a lot of time to just sit down with each other and flesh these things out outside of a podcast. And it's like, let's not have a mic between us every time we get that chance to just do that-   Tahnee: (26:48) [crosstalk 00:26:48] together.   Mason: (26:48) We just have enjoy be together. But there's definitely room for us to jump on and just be like, this is what the diet has done in the last year and this is where the fluctuations and this is where we're trying to land. I've definitely started sharing a little because we get asked a lot about diet and everyone knows we're not experts on that topic, but we've had a lot of interactions with thinking about the diet and so we'll see. That's not a black and white conversation, so we'll see if we can colour it in and do some sharing around that one. Definitely, I can get the feeling if there's anyone that wants to learn about any particular topics in Taoist herbalism that I can share about.   Tahnee: (27:37) I've got a couple of things lined up just from my background, like yoga nidra. I've got a chat coming up with Rod Stryker next year. I have-   Mason: (27:46) [crosstalk 00:27:46] he's the one that Tahnee's been learning from him, but our yoga nidra that Sophia runs on a Wednesday, so everyone's been doing it.   Tahnee: (27:55) And with Nicole's teacher, whose name I don't remember, but she's amazing, too. And we have definitely got some podcasts on [inaudible 00:28:03] planned. I'm trying to get my Taois teacher Master Mantak Chia on the podcast, I'm working on it. I just think there's lots of people out there that we're connected to that would be great to feature because we know their work and we love their work. And I know Mase has Benny on regularly and Benny's a close friend of ours as well as an excellent genius of movement. What numbers are Benny if we're looking for them-   Mason: (28:32) We've had Benny twice. Benny, the embodied movement one is really most popular, me and him just riffing a lot. That's why I talk in that one because we're riffing. So number 56, if you want to hear me talking with my friend, or 87, if you want to hear Benny talking a little bit less interrupted.   Tahnee: (28:53) How could you not interrupt someone? Anyway, I'm sure there'll be more of that stuff. I think you and [Tanya 00:28:59] should re-record-   Mason: (28:59) Oh yeah, that's a good.   Tahnee: (29:00) Because Tanya's a close friend of ours, who's a permaculture lifestyle guru.   Mason: (29:06) The Mason Taylor Show, we've had a really good conversation with Tanya [inaudible 00:29:11], it's called, Dancing the Patterns of Permaculture. If you can go find number eight on the Mason Taylor Show, you can tune in with us talking about permaculture and then when we get her on the SuperFeast podcast, you can see the difference and the evolution of where that conversation goes. But yeah, that's a good call. There's a lot of people on the horizon. For some reason, I don't know, I thought you guys were all sexually liberated and maybe that's why you like the sexy conversations-   Tahnee: (29:42) Sex is very popular.   Mason: (29:43) It's by far the top one-   Tahnee: (29:46) Four or five?   Mason: (29:46) That's downloaded is Semen retention. Is that because, did that get shared around in a bunch of like guys circles? Or is it women going like, hold the phone, it is possible? Authentic Sex with Juliet Allen is way up there as is Tahnee's conversation with Kim Anami. They're seriously popular. If there's any aspects around sexuality and any experts that you'd recommend us listening to, we definitely don't like... I think it's nice. We like people on the edge, but sometimes... It's interesting to know what you guys are enjoying about that. We don't particularly feel we're being naughty or taboo talking about these kinds of things, but I think, for some of you, maybe you're enjoying the fact that it feels really edgy, us talking about this kind of thing. I'm not sure why that's so popular. Sex is great. And so it's an obvious reason, but yeah, if you guys want to send us an email or anything and just let us know, you're reflecting over the last 100 episodes why you've been drawn towards particular topics and others not so much, in particular, personalities more so. It'd be really great to hear and you'd all probably notice and appreciate Tahnee's audio is way better these days.   Tahnee: (31:14) That was our number one comment was fix Tahnee's audio and guys, I'm a quiet person anyway. So I'm learning to be more articulate in the microphone and I'm learning how to use microphones. Mason didn't teach me anything. He just gave me one. I'm working on it and that kind of feedback is really useful, too, because I'm new to this and we are often just making it up as we go along.   Mason: (31:43) Thanks gang. Hey, reviews. I know a lot of you, a lot of you listening have left reviews, but it's the classic, it's like-   Tahnee: (31:49) They always help.   Mason: (31:51) Well, they're fun to read. I really like reading them when they come through.   Tahnee: (31:56) We share them with the whole team, too, so that we have a Slack channel. If you don't know what Slack is, it's kind of like inter business communication system. Our whole team uses it and we have a channel called Awesome Feedback, and we put feedback from all different areas of the business. People who love receiving a love letter from the warehouse all the way up to podcast reviews or customer service feedback on how much someone's health has changed from using SuperFeast. And it's just a way for us to celebrate the success and the joy that SuperFeast brings in people's lives. We also have channels for complaints, so don't worry, we're not just totally sunshine and focusing on the positive, but we really enjoy sharing that with everyone and everyone really enjoys reading those and they always get lots of positive comments and emojis and love.   Mason: (32:44) It can be specific. Sorry, it can be specific as well. You can say like, oh my gosh, this episode was great and I really loved this about Tahnee or it doesn't have to be a big, wide, general review. You can get really nice and specific there.   Tahnee: (32:58) Just anything, if you want to share with us, we love it. And same if you want to email us or contact us, it's just both of our first names at SuperFeast.com.au. That's an easy way to get in touch or through the team email, which is on our website or the contact forms. You can just reach out to us and let us know your feedback and just stay in touch. Sometimes it's like talking to space. It's nice to know there are humans out there listening. And so apart from seeing that in the numbers yeah, it's a great way for us to get feedback. I think that's about all we wanted to say.   Mason: (33:34) Thanks everyone. Thanks for coming along for the journey.   Tahnee: (33:36) We'd be interested to hear your favourite episodes, too. Those are just some of my favourites, but if you have any that really resonated, let us know.   Mason: (33:45) Always appreciate you guys sharing them. I'm still there on Instagram. When you tag favourite conversations and tag me in it, it always makes me really smile. Just thanks for making sure that the word's getting out there. Hopefully we're a nice little sanctuary of very deep diving ideas without it being a place where anyone needs to subscribe to anything in particular. I'm hoping that everyone feels very non-judged and able to just really explore interesting ideas in this and through this podcast.   Tahnee: (34:25) Aho.   Mason: (34:25) See you guys.   Tahnee: (34:28) Bye.

We're very lucky to have one of Luke's true broadcasting gurus Judy Shelley, stop by for an epic conversation about controversial disqualified knowledges that emerge in chaotic times, under appropriately wild conditions in Melbourne's southern suburbs. Find out how things are just as wild up in the Byron Shire! While these knowledges may be judged on their respective merits, find out how every moment is an opportunity to become more unified, to protect and stand beside people we never quite understand for a more just world, or even a world we can bear to survive in. Judy is a veteran broadcaster with her flagship show "Multicultural Nation" a mainstay on the Byron Shire's Bay FM 99.9. Wherever you reside, be part of a community interested in diversity, justice and unique storytelling at Multicultural Nation's facebook page here. If you can forgive the poor sound quality for this episode, this is an instant classic that we'll revisit in future episodes. Tell us where the conversation needs to go next by emailing us at theleverpodcast@gmail.com. Leave your thoughts and feedback, and we'll discuss it on the next show. Subscribe and leave a review at the Apple Store, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Stitcher, Listen Notes, Deezer, and  http://www.facebook.com/dysatisfunctional. Follow UnreasonabLuke and if you want to support progressive Australian independent media, visit Luke's Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/join/lukestickels.

Welcome to the second installment of the SuperFeast Water Series. Today Mason chats to Chris Sanborn. Chris is the lead visionary behind Alive Water and the director of the Find A Spring foundation. Chris is an absolute living water enthusiast who devotes a large portion of his time and energy to sourcing and harvesting the most nutritious spring water available. In this chat the gents explore the differences between the various water sources available to the modern human, and how these sources can either nourish or impair the health of the body, mind and spirit. The question of focus is; could obtaining good health really be as simple as consuming raw spring water? Tune in to hear our take.  Mason and Chris explore: Chris's spring water journey. The health outcomes that occur when consuming wild spring water. How wild spring water connects us back to the earth and our innate nature as human beings. The difference between raw spring water, processed spring water and water that has been treated through the municipal system. The water filters Mason and Chris are loving. Bitcoin, meteor mining and US currency.   Who is Chris Sanborn? Chris Sanborn is the leading visionary for Alive Water and the Find A Spring foundation. When Chris is not building tools to access fresh spring water in the worlds best glass he enjoys spearfishing, hunting, and foraging. Chris envisions a future where water is more deeply revered as sacred. Through this process people will return to a deeper connection with the spirit and beauty of this earth.   Resources: Find A Spring Website Alive Water Website Alive Water InstagramAlive Water Facebook Alive Water Youtube The Water Shop Website     Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast?   A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We’d also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher :)! Plus  we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Mason: (00:00) Chris, thanks for being here, brother.   Chris Sanborn: (00:02) Thanks for having me.   Mason: (00:04) Absolute pleasure. Interesting. It's one I've known, heard you talking about water for a few years now. I think it was from the moment of inception of your company, which is A Live Water, because since you started, that's the water that I've been having, because I've been on a trip to L.A. at least once a year for the last five years.   Mason: (00:32) So, I've been advocating that the water that you're bringing down from the sweet, sweet springs. So, it's good to connect. This is the first time we've chatted. Part of the water series here at SuperFeast that we're doing, because I forget.   Mason: (00:49) We've got a lot of new people jumping on the health sovereignty train here. Even though I've been talking about spring water for 10 years, I'm sure it's the same for you, it's always good to give everyone a little bit of the refreshing dunk of the head into that fresh, effervescent spring water, so that they can get re-inspired.   Chris Sanborn: (01:07) I love that.   Mason: (01:07) No. It's what I drink. I know it's what you drink.   Chris Sanborn: (01:11) It's what a lot of people, most people don't drink. So, we've still got a lot of room to spread awareness.   Mason: (01:23) Tell me about this. It seems like a crazy idea. I actually had a similar idea, back before I started SuperFeast nearly 10 years ago, of going, "Maybe I'll bring a raw water to the market." I remember Vital was trying to do it at the time, not really getting much success. Then I looked at the logistics and I was like, "I'm just not going to be able to do it."   Mason: (01:47) But you've done it, then. You've nailed it, as well. Can you tell me about what it's been like so far, from the inception of your idea? Tell us what your company actually does, and tell us what that's been like, bringing it to this point where it's rolling.   Chris Sanborn: (02:04) It's been a lot of fun. Owning your own business is a roller coaster, especially when you're doing something that's really different, and changing the game.   Chris Sanborn: (02:21) Like you said, no one else was really doing the raw water thing when we started, and still, no one else is, to this day. Reusable glass, it's not a simple thing. It's not as simple as just packing water in a single-use plastic bottle and shipping it out the door. There's a lot of moving pieces.   Chris Sanborn: (02:44) So, yeah. I started maybe five years ago, just going to the mountain and collecting water, fresh from the spring. It just felt so amazing. There's certain foods, and there's certain superfoods that, there's rare ones, where you feel it right away. You're like, "Whoa, that's powerful." Nothing, for me, was as powerful as drinking fresh spring water, just feeling more energy, more peacefulness.   Chris Sanborn: (03:22) So naturally, I just wanted to share that with more people, since all the spring water available on the market is processed. So, at the time, it was, unless you were driving three hours to the spring, there was no way you could get that in Southern California. Other places, it's prevalent. There's springs that are close, especially Southern California.   Chris Sanborn: (03:49) Yeah, we started going out to the spring. It was a lot of fun, getting to go out to the mountains. I think there's something really beautiful that happens when you start to have that connection with water that our ancestors had, to see where it's coming out of the Earth, and tasting it fresh like that. You're in nature. You start to become aware of other things.   Chris Sanborn: (04:16) A lot of times, you go to a spring and there's watercress there that you can forage, berries. Whatever it is, it's kind of a good intro into foraging.   Chris Sanborn: (04:26) So, it's been a journey. We've evolved a lot. We've had the recent rebranding. About six months ago, I took over the Find-A-Spring project. So, that's been really exciting. We've totally transformed that side and added a lot of new features. You can upload test results now.   Mason: (04:55) Sweet.   Chris Sanborn: (04:55) You can ... Yeah, you can leave ratings, comments, photos, videos. You can have favourite springs, a lot more features. Which feels really good, to know that all the purchases that anyone's making for water delivery or a glass, are going towards supporting that global project of bringing more awareness and utility to the importance of having access to fresh, living spring water. So, yeah. It's exciting.   Mason: (05:30) Dude, that's so good for everyone. I think, again, it's been about nine years that I've been recommending that people go to findaspring.com. I'm really excited.   Mason: (05:40) Daniel Vitalis, he's been on the podcast before. He did such great work in that entropic element, to give people, basically, this is a database and rating system, guys, for wild springs, spring water, hot springs, cold springs, mostly for drinking water purposes.   Mason: (06:02) It's definitely helped me. As I've traveled around, I've found springs in the middle of Sydney, middle of Auckland, found springs going up and down the coast there, on the West Coast of America. As well, in the Blue Mountains, here in Sydney, for example, or out in the Dandenongs if you're in Melbourne. You go and find a spring. The spring's there and it tells you. More and more, you'll see people commenting on the etiquette there of the spring, and how to make sure it's respected and honoured.   Mason: (06:36) It's a beautiful community because going and collecting spring water, as you said, it's something that does connect us to the literal way that we've been drinking water for the entire time we've been here on this Earth. All of a sudden, it starts pressing on this industrialised, colonised mind, where people are paranoid about drinking a non-municipal source of water, or a non-processed water.   Mason: (07:05) Which goes to show, we're in a fundamental disconnect. The fact that you're providing clean water from Alive Water, and then also access via Find A Spring, where people can actually be. And the water's tested, as well, for contamination. We're trying to make this accessible.   Mason: (07:22) Can you talk about, first of all, what processed water is, and why that is something to be aware of? Also, in that sense, what you've found as the biggest benefit from people coming back to Alive, living water, as well as what the biggest hurdles are for people decolonizing away from processed and municipal water supplies?   Mason: (07:47) Three questions I threw at you there. Feel free to come back and answer it any way you want.   Chris Sanborn: (07:55) All right, yeah. I might need a reminder if I miss any.   Chris Sanborn: (08:01) Thank God for Daniel Vitalis and Leighton Anderson creating Find A Spring about 10, 11 years ago. That was the first resource I used to go find the spring that we started the water delivery service from. He also educated me on the difference between processed spring water and raw spring water.   Chris Sanborn: (08:35) Basically, every water delivery company, every spring water delivery company, certainly in the United States, what they're doing is, they're using ozone gas and/or ultraviolet light to sterilise and take out all of the life in the water, that could potentially go green. Because there are living microalgae in there that are healthy for us. They're what we're biologically adapted to thrive from. But obviously, it's not going to be very good for your bottom line, for shelf stability, if you have to not keep your water in a hot warehouse, hot trucks, all these things.   Chris Sanborn: (09:25) So, we had a lot of issues with that in the beginning, with the water turning green really quick. That's why we decided to move to this system where the water goes into refrigerated trucks, and then refrigerated storage before it's delivered. It's usually fine in peoples' homes, unrefrigerated, for up to a month, as long as it stays in a cool, dark place.   Chris Sanborn: (09:49) But at least in that way, people know they're getting their water as fresh as it would be coming right off the spring. Then, of course, it's not in these trucks and warehouses that are over 100 degrees in the summer.   Chris Sanborn: (10:06) It's just wild. When you look at the gambit of, most people, they're lucky if they're drinking processed spring water. It's like, "What's the next best thing?" There's a lot of these ultra-purists, that there's this notion that things are dirty in Western culture.   Chris Sanborn: (10:31) There's all these germs. We've got to wash our hands. Especially recently, a lot of fear with, "Oh make sure you wear a mask, and hand sanitizer, and social distancing," and all this stuff goes back to fear, people living in fear.   Chris Sanborn: (10:49) With water, specifically. It's like, "Oh the earth is screwed. Everything is polluted, so let's just filter tap water." Which, good luck getting out fluoride. That's really hard to get out. Even if you do, then you just have this lifeless, dead substance that has no minerals, so it's actually going to strip minerals out of your body, drinking ultra-purified water.   Chris Sanborn: (11:20) Then there's the ultra-alkaline, 9, 10, 11 PH, which is really not good for us. Basically what happens then is, is especially if you have a healthy, more balanced diet, you're drinking, a lot of people are drinking this super high alkaline, which is actually diluting their stomach acids, and making it harder to process food.   Chris Sanborn: (11:51) There's a lot of miseducation out there, a lot of ways to go.   Mason: (11:56) Out of curiosity, and our crew listening, most of them would have heard us, I think talk about that. Every now and then I have a rant about alkaline water. What alkalinity, acidity is your spring water coming out at?   Chris Sanborn: (12:15) It's different. I think you mean for the water delivery service that I have?   Mason: (12:22) Yeah, sorry. For the water delivery, yeah.   Chris Sanborn: (12:22) Yeah. Actually, I live been in Kauai, so we go and we collect our own water here.   Chris Sanborn: (12:28) But for Opal Springs, which is the water delivery service for, that services the majority of California, it comes out at eight, which is naturally alkaline. Then it actually slowly starts the drop towards neutral.   Mason: (12:51) Right.   Chris Sanborn: (12:52) Which is interesting. I think it just speaks to the fact that water is in this constant state of change. I think it's wrong to try and make it sterile and make it this pH. It's dynamic. It's water.   Mason: (13:20) Yeah it [crosstalk 00:13:21]   Chris Sanborn: (13:20) That being said, most springs are around the neutral level. There are some amazing springs that are slightly acidic, like 6, 6.5 alkalinity. I don't think there's any, there's no problems with those springs. Looking at what is the difference between the good spring and a bad spring, obviously, the number one thing is Industrial Age contamination. Which is a tough one unless it's a primary water source, which has never been on the surface before.   Chris Sanborn: (14:04) A lot of times, there might be a little bit of radioactive fallout, and potentially other things. But at the same time, we're breathing air with radioactive fallout. We're eating food with the rain. So, it's all perspective.   Chris Sanborn: (14:21) For me, going back to what I really look at for a good spring is very little to no levels of pollution, good minerals. You want to have a balance. There's some minerals, like calcium. You can have, like a mountain valley water, for example, their calcium is way too high, because it's hot spring water.   Chris Sanborn: (14:45) You boil it in a pot, and it gets all calcified, and white, and scaly. It's not the best. A little bit of calcium is good. Then, magnesium, potassium, all of these things that are in a good natural spring water, in their pure form without having to have it synthetically extracted from some vitamin source or whatever.   Chris Sanborn: (15:17) I think really, the amazing thing that natural spring water has, one is the natural microbes are probiotics and prebiotics that aren't really found in other foods. That's huge. That, alone, to just be drinking that source of health for our guts.   Chris Sanborn: (15:42) But then the other thing is silica, which a lot of people are deficient in, which is the skin, hair, and nails mineral. Most good spring water has lots of good silica in it.   Mason: (15:57) That's always my favourite spring water, when you're getting high silica.   Chris Sanborn: (16:02) Yeah. What's really cool is, some spring waters with high silica, you can actually see. If it's sitting for a while, you'll actually see rainbow crystals floating in the water.   Mason: (16:16) Awesome. Dude, so magic.   Mason: (16:20) For Alive Water, can you tell me about the source of that spring water?   Chris Sanborn: (16:27) Yeah.   Mason: (16:28) Also, just that big distinction you've made there. We've had a few building biologists, I don't know if you have them in America, but it's someone who comes and makes sure you realise that your home is like a layer of skin, and talking about biodiversity in the home, and obviously, how important are biodiversity of bacteria within the large intestine is. Likewise, in the home, and how it's a terrible idea to sterilise.   Mason: (17:02) What you're saying there, it's a nuanced conversation. Biodiversity in your water is what we've evolved with. If we're going to start somewhere with foundations of health, let's stick to what has worked for a long time, and keeping it within a bandwidth of, we know that this is healthy, and just how much I think this is why it hasn't happened, a business like yours hasn't happened in Australia. I've had friends who have tried.   Mason: (17:25) It's the effort, and energy, and love you need to put into refrigerating, keeping that water at a spring water temperature, from that point where it comes out of the Earth, all the way to when it gets delivered, which always amazes me.   Mason: (17:43) I'll shut up soon so that you can get on to telling us about your spring. I get messages, I think every fortnight from [inaudible 00:17:51], saying, "Would you like spring water this week?" I'm like, "I'm still over." I don't write back, but I'm not unsubscribing because it's so satisfying for me when I'm like, "Yes, here's my new address. Here's the Airbnb. Here's the instructions. I'm arriving Thursday. It would be amazing if you could get it to me Thursday. Friday, all right."   Mason: (18:09) Sure enough, it turns up. My six big vessels with sacred geometric etched glass. Of which I've taken one back to Australia, FYI That was a fun trip.   Chris Sanborn: (18:22) Good for you. That's the great thing about our glass is, we want to make it available everywhere, so people can go to their own springs. Wherever you are, some places might be longer than others, but typically, there's something good close by. Sometimes you've got to stock up. If it's a bigger trip, stock up for a while.   Chris Sanborn: (18:52) That water comes from Opal Springs in central Oregon. It's kind of like the High Desert up there, and then 800 feet, at the base of this canyon, it's just gushing out of this lava tube, 108,000 gallons per minute, with these little fire agates that look like opals. That's why it's called Opal Spring.   Chris Sanborn: (19:21) Consistent 54 degrees Fahrenheit and that water is what I, I am almost positive it's a primary water source, which is actually a fairly new idea. It's been very thoroughly scientifically proven within the last decade that the Earth either has these huge bodies of water below the crust that are even bigger, more water than all the oceans. Or there's actually a chemical reaction that's happening, that results in water gushing up out of these tubes.   Chris Sanborn: (20:06) I love this idea and this fact because what that does is, it gives us the hope that the Earth has a self-cleansing process. If we can just start to appreciate water more, and not putting horrible chemicals into the water supply, and the plastics. That's a whole conversation in and of itself, just the horrible things that happen just from people, with cleaning supplies, and washing their cars, and the dye industry, and on, and on, and on.   Chris Sanborn: (20:51) But I think the Earth can really regenerate itself. That gives me a lot of hope.   Mason: (21:00) Me, too. Very well said.   Mason: (21:03) The water, when it comes out, would you mind just taking me through? I'm so curious, what your process is, in harvesting; how you're harvesting, what you're harvesting in, what the process is, the time limit on taking it from there to a facility, how you're keeping it refrigerating, how soon from when you decant into your glass bottles to it being delivered, so on and so forth?   Chris Sanborn: (21:33) Yeah. Good question.   Chris Sanborn: (21:36) The spring itself has a cement encasement over the spring head. That's where we pipe from, to make sure, obviously, we don't want any chance for dirt, or animals, or whatever it may be, to get in there. It gets collected at the covered spring head. Then, for Opal Springs, it's actually pumped up. It's pumped 800 feet up this cliffside, with hydroelectric power, that's also produced from the nearby stream that the spring feeds into.   Chris Sanborn: (22:25) It's really cool. The way they do it there is actually not only renewable energy, but it also leaves a path for the salmon to continue their upstream journey, which I love. So, it gets pumped up. Then it goes into the triple washed, triple rinsed glass jugs, our two and a half gallon glass jugs. It goes directly into the jugs, gets the cap on it.   Chris Sanborn: (23:02) Then it goes into the plastic racks, which keep it safe from the glass shattering. Then it goes into a refrigerated truck. That's typically within a day, two days max, of it being bottled. Goes into a refrigerated 18 wheeler. The 18 wheeler goes to either our cold storage in San Francisco, or Los Angeles.   Chris Sanborn: (23:33) Then we pick it up from cold storage. Typically every morning, we'll pick up the deliveries from the day. Then, that goes to peoples' homes or businesses. Then we collect the empties to start the process all over again.   Mason: (23:51) When did you see, I'm sure you've had waves when you see adoption occurring. Originally, it would have just been the die hards and early adopters of spring water, all of a sudden taking advantage of this really cool service.   Mason: (24:11) But I get the feeling now you've been seeing more of a mass adoption as this is getting more normalised. It's always a good sign when raw water gets demonised in places like Forbes, and The Young Turks, and that kind of things, which that slander campaign happened three years ago.   Chris Sanborn: (24:31) Yeah. There was definitely a few millions invested in a slander campaign against my business and me, personally. That's how you know you're doing something right.   Chris Sanborn: (24:44) You look at cryptocurrency, which is something I'd love to talk about, if you're into it. It's just interesting how you see the same smear campaigns. Not the same, obviously, because they're very different things. But it's like, here's this technology that gives everyone financial freedom and abundance, and the media just wants to talk about how it's a big scam.   Chris Sanborn: (25:12) So, to answer your question, this last year actually, we've almost, not doubled in size, but we've grown 50% in size with no marketing. Which is just, it's amazing. I feel super blessed. Our customers are just so stoked, and they all feel the difference so much that they want to tell their friends. People feel it immediately.   Chris Sanborn: (25:42) I think even more so recently, we've had a lot of new business, just from people, "Oh, dang. Our health is really important. We might die if we don't take care of ourselves." That's ultimately the most important thing, is to not play into the fear, and all the stuff we shouldn't be doing, but more into the stuff that we just need to do to stay really healthy, like exercising, and sunlight, and local, fresh, organic foods.   Mason: (26:21) Yeah, I imagine lockdown did that for a lot of people. It was like it really split down the line of those that were like, "Cool. I'm taking it into my hands. I'm not just going to pander to my own intrinsic fear," And they started getting into action around their health. I imagine that would have been a tipping point for a lot of people, where you can bypass a lot of more colonial narrative around the way you should live, and just helps people cut through that, the propaganda, and come back to what matters. When it comes down to it, hydration, the water you drink, what's more fundamental? I imagine that helped a lot of people get over that little fear hurdle.   Mason: (27:05) Then, on the other side of that, you're talking about some of the benefits. I think it's something I forget to talk about because it's been over a decade, for me, exclusively pretty much, 98%, 99% drinking spring water. So, I kind of forget-   Chris Sanborn: (27:21) Yeah, and you're hanging out with all your friends that drink spring water, too. You're like, "Wait. Everyone knows, right?" No way, no one, hardly anyone knows.   Mason: (27:33) Hardly anyone. We're lucky, here. We've got a guy over the border in Queensland, that's got a good spring on his property. He harvests that day, and then comes over and delivers to you. But still, he's-   Chris Sanborn: (27:49) Oh, cool.   Mason: (27:49) Yeah. I do talk to him about it all the time, about, why don't you create a water that's not for drinking, that's for the plants and for the animals?   Chris Sanborn: (28:00) Oh, right.   Mason: (28:02) Because he's got that minimum regulation. In Australia, it's illegal to drink. For drinking water, it's a minimum UV.   Chris Sanborn: (28:08) Right.   Mason: (28:08) But I go and collect spring water when I want, but it's too good. We've got two of those barrels here at SuperFeast. At least our crew, they're collecting spring water that's been two days out of the Earth. It's better than nothing.   Mason: (28:25) But when you get onto that real, living spring water, you were saying a lot of people get onto it and then notice these benefits. What do you find is the most consistent benefit, just from getting onto spring water that you guys are delivering?   Chris Sanborn: (28:44) Sorry. My lawn guys came today, so I didn't hear the last part of what you just said.   Mason: (28:51) Yeah, that's all good. Say hello for me.   Mason: (28:56) I was just saying, when people get onto spring water, what are the common benefits? I forget to talk about the benefits and what I feel, especially in that immediate phase. So, what are those big and consistent ones, that people are feeding back to you from the Alive Water that they're getting onto?   Chris Sanborn: (29:16) It's interesting. I think when people start to drink living spring water, one of two things happens, or both things happen at different times.   Chris Sanborn: (29:25) One, their bodies are like, "Oh, my God! I can't get enough of this water," and they drink so much, because their bodies are ... There are so many people that are chronically dehydrated. The other thing that will also start to happen with some people is they're like, "Wow, I hardly need any water compared to what I was drinking before," because this water has so much good stuff in it that our bodies actually really thrive from. So, both of those things can happen.   Chris Sanborn: (30:02) Even just the taste; the taste is one thing that's an immediate thing people can feel. I've heard all sorts of stuff on what people had cured, from drinking real spring water; skin conditions, liver problems, all sorts of stuff.   Chris Sanborn: (30:24) I think at the fundamental level, it's like you're nourishing all yourselves more, so you're going to have more energy. You're going to probably need less food, because you're actually getting a lot of your sustenance from water. There are so many different things that it can benefit; everything, really. We're mostly water, so it's hard to pinpoint exactly one thing instead of just making a wider generalisation.   Mason: (31:02) I think for me, the realisation, as you said, you're mostly water. It's involved in every function of the body. Every bit of solid Jing matter within our body is watery. So, just enabling, giving your body a clean medium that, as you said, it's coming out in a natural ratio.   Mason: (31:28) People don't realise when we say processed water, people are like, "What filter should I use?" Just so you know, I get people on the podcast so that I'm not that annoying person that's just like, "I don't know," because I don't know. I don't care. Personally, I don't care. I'm trying to care a little bit more, because I'm investing in filters for my parents, and some friends who can't get access to spring water in a main city.   Chris Sanborn: (31:58) Yeah. Yeah, it's true. There's people who live in the middle of New York that just don't have financial resources to even be able to afford a vehicle to go out and harvest.   Chris Sanborn: (32:12) I'd be curious to know what you typically recommend. I do like the Berkey filters. I used to use those before, just because they say they filter out fluoride and keep in the minerals. I mean who knows, really? But yeah, it's a tough one.   Mason: (32:33) Berkey? How do you spell Berkey?   Chris Sanborn: (32:37) B-E-R-K-E-Y.   Mason: (32:42) Okay. I think I know the one you're talking about. That's not the chambered one with the little black mineralizing rocks with the white spots in it in the bottom, is it?   Chris Sanborn: (32:52) No.   Mason: (32:53) Okay. I'll have a look at it. I think Berkey's, I've got another mate in L.A., and I'm pretty sure that's what he uses, as well, but I will confirm. Because that's the other thing I'm trying to ask everyone on the water series. If you had to pick a filter, what are you picking, and what's the rationale behind it?   Mason: (33:09) That's probably, I'm more of a fan of something that's just trying to clear out as much of that positive charged industrial crap while maintaining some of the integrity of the water. I understand the going [inaudible 00:33:26] water, and completely stripping it, and then adding it back in.   Mason: (33:30) But there's something about that deconstruction and then trying to put together that recipe of what makes a water alive. There's a lot of assumption there, to think you're going to be able to do what the Earth does, to put a water in together.   Chris Sanborn: (33:45) Yeah, playing God.   Mason: (33:47) Yeah. It's a good option. I'll drink it. I'm not as hardcore as I used to be and just, "No! If it's not spring water, I'll just dry fast for a day."   Chris Sanborn: (34:04) I'm curious to hear. What do you do for your water right now?   Mason: (34:11) We've got, as I said, Tony from Wild Oasis is a good resource there, as that backup. Then I'm lucky enough to have a friend who lives up in the Byron, Hinterland. They have 200 acres up there. They've got a spring coming out of that dormant volcano, coming out of that volcanic soil, really beautiful high vibe spring. They've got that plumb in their house and feeding into the dams. It's a really beautiful spot.   Mason: (34:47) That place, it means a lot to me. They're family. That's where conceived my daughter. The waters there, they literally formed my daughter and formed me.   Chris Sanborn: (35:00) Wow!   Mason: (35:03) Yeah. So, it's one of those ones, it's private property. So people listening, please don't ask me for access to that.   Mason: (35:12) You definitely need to ask around, because it is around everywhere you're at. You go and talk to the old people, they'll generally know where a spring is. That's what we're doing at the moment, and then just doing the best we can with a whole house water filter. Which I'll share in another podcast [crosstalk 00:35:30]   Chris Sanborn: (35:29) That's [crosstalk 00:35:30] because that's the one thing that I found. I've been on a hunt for shower filters for years. I've probably bought, I don't know, a dozen different shower filters. I've tested them all. I've tested them before and after. I actually paid for lab tests. Do these actually work, even a little bit?   Chris Sanborn: (35:59) It's been shocking to see that the shower filters, the ones I've found anyway, haven't really done much. Yeah, if you're filtering in chlorine and fluoride, and God knows what else. If you're in a city, a lot of times it’s recycled water.   Chris Sanborn: (36:22) That's getting in your skin. So, the whole house water system is clutch.   Mason: (36:28) Yeah. To be honest, I try and not shower, and just go and jump in the ocean. But it gets to a point where sometimes I just don't want salt water on my body.   Chris Sanborn: (36:38) Yeah.   Mason: (36:41) As I've gotten a little bit older, it's something you were saying about, you don't need as much water when you're drinking spring water. There's a couple of books that talk about, like the indigenous mob here talking about living in the desert, and then having "whities" go and live with them, and saying, "You guys are not sustainable with the way you drink water. You drink far too much water. You don't need that. You don't actually need that much."   Mason: (37:12) I feel it comes down to, if you're walking in the rhythms of the land, and your inherent seasons, and where you come from, stress rolls off the body. When you're not stressed, you're not needing as many resources.   Chris Sanborn: (37:25) Yeah, makes sense.   Mason: (37:28) Yeah, definitely what you're saying. When you get onto a good spring water source, naturally you're not going to need to drink as much, because you are going to take a significant amount of stress off your body because you're on a real, living, good source of water, that's high in minerals and it's doing its job. Because it's in harmony with the Earth, it's nourished us in a species in that way, for a long time. So, there's something recognisable there.   Mason: (37:54) But then, for me, I've noticed as I've got a toddler, business is cruising. I've had to spend more times indoors. Stress has increased, stuff going on with family. My water intake goes up. It's simply not as effective, so I feel like that's a good distinction for everyone to remember.   Mason: (38:19) So, in that sense, even in that, that's why maybe sometimes I won't just leave myself salt water on my skin to dry me out and preserve me.   Chris Sanborn: (38:30) Right.   Mason: (38:32) If I'm up at the farm, at my mate's farm, a water permaculture farm. You know, you jump into the creek. You jump into the spring water. It's the best ever.   Chris Sanborn: (38:41) Yeah, that's for sure.   Mason: (38:44) Sometimes I like, I've got a spa at home. I'm going to move, doing that kind of thing, I like to soak in the winter. So, the filter I've got, I just went and asked, when I was living in Sydney, the people at the water shop. I knew a couple of those guys in Cammeray, there.   Mason: (39:00) So, I just called them up and asked where they were at. They said the best they had was the Aragon. Looking into it, I've got another friend who really likes that one as well, who I think is onto it. So, the Aragon, I got the 20 inch by 4.5 inch. I think it's a triple chamber scenario, but I know people will ask me about that.   Mason: (39:24) Then there's a Vortex upcoming, as well, which I'll talk about at another time.   Chris Sanborn: (39:27) Wow, that sounds great.   Mason: (39:29) Yeah. My friends just [crosstalk 00:39:31]   Chris Sanborn: (39:32) Do they do fluoride in Australia?   Mason: (39:35) We live in one of the only municipal councils where they don't do fluoride. I think [crosstalk 00:39:41]   Chris Sanborn: (39:40) Oh, nice!   Mason: (39:42) It's the Byron Shire. I believe it's Gladstone, just north of Brisbane that are the only ones that aren't doing it. Very lucky, but we have high chlorine where we are.   Mason: (39:52) So, yeah. We went and got our water tested by a building biologist. Then I sent that to the water shop people. They just helped me match what filter's going to be appropriate. Because obviously, I don't need to opt for something that's going to be specifically designed to get the fluoride out.   Chris Sanborn: (40:11) Right.   Mason: (40:11) So huge.   Chris Sanborn: (40:15) That's cool. That's really cool. [crosstalk 00:40:20]   Mason: (40:20) Yeah. I'm getting the Phion filter. I think it's by Haydo from Native Water. He's a Kangen guy, which I don't like Kangen, but I like him.   Chris Sanborn: (40:41) There's a few people that I love that are on the same train.   Mason: (40:45) Yeah.   Chris Sanborn: (40:46) I appreciate that.   Mason: (40:47) Let's not let opinions on water filters divide us.   Mason: (40:52) But him at Native Water, @native_water on Instagram, he's ordering me in a Phion structuring device, with a bit of clear tubing on either side, so you can see what the water's looking like that comes out of the whole house filter, what it looks like going into this Phion, and then how it's coming out structured. So, that's the next little upgrade we've got.   Mason: (41:14) Guys, I'm not a purist anymore. It's like, I'd like to be on top of it.   Chris Sanborn: (41:20) I feel you, bro. I feel you. Sometimes I'll be out, and I'm hungry, and I want some fish tacos. I'm like, "Oh, God. What kind of oil are they frying it in? What kind of pan?" You know what, fuck it. [crosstalk 00:41:38] Every once in a while, you've got to live your life.   Mason: (41:41) Dude, I'm reading-   Chris Sanborn: (41:42) I won't eat farm raised, I'll tell you that. [crosstalk 00:41:47]   Mason: (41:46) What won't you eat?   Chris Sanborn: (41:49) Farm raised, like farm raised fish.   Mason: (41:52) You've got to draw a line somewhere.   Chris Sanborn: (41:55) Yeah. Yeah.   Mason: (41:58) I'm reading-   Chris Sanborn: (41:59) But being flexible is good.   Mason: (42:00) Yeah. I don't know. I'm reading Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain at the moment. It's been a while since I've tuned into his work. I'm just like, "Dude, that heart based, potentially in excess going towards gluttony, but just the pure enjoyment of love, and a story around food, is something that's often void, in the purest health scene that comes from logic.   Mason: (42:24) It immediately comes from an instinct need to get healthy, and then it comes down to logic, and morality. What you lose, generally in the long-term, is this activation of your senses and the romance. Which is something that I'm reading Bourdain's book, going, "Yeah, that's what was void for so many years, the freedom to just go and enjoy." Just go and enjoy life in general. Like you said, just go and have the fish tacos.   Mason: (42:54) Dude, anything else? Feel free to throw in whatever you want to throw in about Bitcoin, as well, because it's been a while since anyone's mentioned Bitcoin on the podcast, I don't even know where it's at.   Chris Sanborn: (43:07) Today, I'll tell you where it's at. One Bitcoin equals $12,500 US. It's the highest today for the year, on a bit of what we call a bull run, where the price is escalating quite quickly. I'm quite happy that my investment has been paying off.   Chris Sanborn: (43:32) It's interesting. I think the allure with Bitcoin, crypto, the initial lore is, "Oh, cool." We can all actually have money that appreciates in value, instead of depreciates like fiat, government backed currency. Especially right now, they're just printing it out of thin air. It's backed by nothing.   Chris Sanborn: (43:55) So, what does that mean? It means, next year, $1 is going to be worth 90 cents of what it is today. Every year, it's appreciation. It's what happens. The value of money, of fiat backed currency, it just drops every year.   Chris Sanborn: (44:21) Whereas Bitcoin, there's only 21,000,000. It's actually a truly scarce resource. It's not like gold where, sure, gold's great, but there's the idea that what happens if we find a huge pool of gold, maybe on Earth, maybe on a meteor. There's actually meteor mining companies that are in existence right now, that will be launching within the next few years. So, what happens when that gold supply, what happens if it gets 100x? Then gold, gold's not worth so much anymore.   Chris Sanborn: (45:04) Granted, gold is a great store of value. The thing with gold, too, precious metals, they do have industrial applications. There's things that they can actually be used for in real world, that have real value. But as a store of value ... Going back to crypto.   Chris Sanborn: (45:25) So, cryptocurrencies as a store of value, are so far superior than fiat. If I wanted to send you $10,000 in Australia, what would I do? How would I do that? I'd probably have to go to my bank, send you a wire, they charge a fee. Your bank's going to charge a fee. It's going to take a few days to get to you. We've got to figure out the currency conversion rate.   Mason: (45:58) Do you lock it in previously, or do you go for the current exchange rate? All that, paying for that fee.   Chris Sanborn: (46:07) Yeah. So, say I wanted to send you $10,000 in Bitcoin. I can literally do it in 15 to 30 seconds. What's your Bitcoin address?   Chris Sanborn: (46:17) Now, there's even, for example, you could send me money to C Sanborn.cyrpto, You could literally send me $10,000 in Bitcoin. I'll get the money within a few minutes, and we'll pay maybe 50 cents to $1 to the network, for the fee.   Chris Sanborn: (46:37) When you just think about all of these things; that there's actually a finite supply, it's faster, and I don't need approval from anyone. I don't need approval from my bank. You don't need approval. It's our money. No one's in control of it.   Chris Sanborn: (46:56) All of these factors, and the other thing is, it's trickle down economics. All of these stimulus packages that are happening now, the public's getting a little bit of that money, but the majority of it's going to the corporations and the banks. Then the public gets a little bit that trickles down after that, whatever's left over.   Chris Sanborn: (47:19) It's just not fair. It's not the future of money. There's a reason that the Bitcoin price is on a bull run right now; all the cryptos, not just Bitcoin. Bitcoin's great. I actually really like Ethereum, because it's faster. There's a few different ones that I'm a big fan of.   Chris Sanborn: (47:51) It's really cool that recently, the big thing this year that's really changed the game, and this is why I'm confident in having most of my savings in crypto. Because I don't think there's going to be a drop in price like before. That's a big thing for people, "Oh, but it's so risky."   Chris Sanborn: (48:11) Well, it is. It is. I'm not going to sit here and pretend like it's not. But I don't think the price is going back down, because of what's happened this year is decentralised finance, or de-fi, for short. Now, this is the idea that we can all be bank less. I can actually loan you money, and you can pay me the interest instead of a bank, by basically holding these cryptocurrencies as collateral. If you don't pay me back, then I just keep your Bitcoin, or Ethereum, or whatever it is.   Chris Sanborn: (48:55) But then, obviously, you don't want to do that. You want to pay me back with low interest, because it's through two people, or bigger. There's these big de-fi platforms, where there's big pools of resources. So, it just makes sense. It's like, "Why are we paying the banks all this interest for these loans, when we can just bank each other?"   Chris Sanborn: (49:20) So, that's where the game changer is happening this year. More companies are starting to accept crypto. You can buy our glass on our website, anywhere in the world. You can pay with Bitcoin, Ethereum, whatever it may be. We accept it. There's big, big businesses now that are starting to accept Bitcoin. Microsoft is one example. Horrible company; I don't think I have any Microsoft products.   Chris Sanborn: (49:55) Just one example of some of the bigger corporations that are, they know they can't-   Mason: (50:04) Can't fight it?   Chris Sanborn: (50:04) ... That it's the most valuable resource now. There's more and more big financial players that are starting to wake up to the fact that it's the future of finance. It's fun. It's a fun thing to be investing in. I wake up every day, and it's like, "Oh, wow. I made a few hundred dollars while I slept," usually.   Mason: (50:30) The highs and lows. The highs and lows. You've got to keep your long-term. I think it was three years ago we started accepting Bitcoin on SuperFeast. It was good. It was pretty clunky, so I just for the mental health of my bookkeeper, I just took it off back then. It's getting to a point, if everyone starts demanding it, I can get that, straight back up there.   Mason: (50:59) It's always, you reminded me, it's been a while that I tuned into the conversation.   Mason: (51:05) You remind what is really exciting there is the decentralisation and the return to sovereignty. I know there's always going to be, the parasites will come to see how they can use it to control people, of course. It's going to happen, no matter what.   Chris Sanborn: (51:24) There are centralised cryptocurrencies now, as well. XRP is one. It's the number three cryptocurrency, but it's not decentralised. So, you've got to watch out. Not all cryptocurrencies are created the same.   Chris Sanborn: (51:50) But that being said, there's still a lot of advantages to centralised cryptocurrencies over others; just that it's faster, it's permission-less. Now, who benefits from that network? That's a handful of people, which isn't very cool. That's not the way of the future.   Chris Sanborn: (52:13) The cool thing that's happening now is, there's a new model of actually confirming that a block has, what's called, there's block chain technology. It's basically these blocks that, every block is a verification of who the new owners of these currencies are.   Chris Sanborn: (52:39) So that's how it moves. It moves in these block chains, with all the data from who owns it. It used to be, and it still is, for Bitcoin, it's proof of work. Did you prove that you have the most recent data with all the correct owners? Okay, yeah. That's proof of work.   Chris Sanborn: (53:00) Now what's happening is proof of stake. So actually, now what happens is, you have money in the network that you use for staking. So, you're actually, it's proof of stake, so actually, I'm making the network stronger and more secure by having my money in a proof of stake network. Now I'm actually gaining money just from having money in this cryptocurrency.   Chris Sanborn: (53:26) So, instead of the miners getting paid, now we're getting paid just for having money in these different cryptocurrencies. It's a game changer.   Mason: (53:40) That makes sense. If it's a people led currency, it relies on individuals, not on institution. If you're someone that has stake, and you having stake, and that being taken and shown within the block chain, and shown to be evident that it's up to date, then you are contributing to the increasing value of the currency.   Mason: (54:04) Therefore, you're going to get a little bit of a kick back, rather than that going back to a centralised place. Yeah, I think that makes sense. Did I capture that?   Chris Sanborn: (54:12) Yeah, totally. Totally.   Chris Sanborn: (54:14) All of these things are coming online right now. I think a lot of people look at it and they're like, "Oh, man! I should have gotten Bitcoin when it was $10, $100." It's like, Bitcoin's, sure it's at the highest it's been this year. The highest it's ever been is $20,000.   Chris Sanborn: (54:38) So, a lot of people look at it and they're like, "Oh, man. I missed it. I missed that magic window." But it's like, if there's only 21,000,000 Bitcoin, and the future of money, a lot of people speculate Bitcoin could easily go up to $100,000 a Bitcoin.   Chris Sanborn: (54:58) So, I think now's probably the best time than ever to invest. Like I said, there's more and more companies that do accept it. The companies that do accept it, it's easier now than ever to accept it. You can integrate, even on Shopify, you can integrate, I have, we'll use Coinbase.   Mason: (55:20) That's what I was thinking, as well.   Chris Sanborn: (55:24) Yeah. They made it a lot easier. I actually like crypto.com a lot more than Coinbase. The other thing with that, that's a game changer. I have a debit card with them, which I convert all my crypto into fiat. So, whenever I want to, I went to yoga this morning. I paid for my yoga with my Visa card. I converted it from Bitcoin.   Chris Sanborn: (55:48) So, it's a real world application. Why am I going to have money in fiat, when I could just have it in Bitcoin, that's accruing interest, decentralised. And I get 3% back on everything I spend on that card. It's just like, "What?"   Mason: (56:05) Yeah. I think it's getting to the point, I think it's the initial shock and awe of it where everyone was, "This is too good to be true." Then went [crosstalk 00:56:16] big waves. Then there was that big dip, which everyone says is a crash, which I definitely don't know.   Mason: (56:24) But you look over, as you do investments, you look over a 30 year period. It's most likely a dip rather than a crash. But the bubble burst. Okay, so it did. It's probably got many bubbles in its life.   Mason: (56:36) But it's probably getting to that point where I realise I'm not an investor. I'm not someone that should be following the advice in terms of finance. But it always does make sense that, just like we were saying, if you want diversity with what's living in your water, and you want diversity with what's living in your gut, and what's living in your home, you diversify how you're investing, rather than that narrative.   Mason: (57:01) Some people just like to go completely into stock, or completely into Bitcoin, or Ethereum, or whatever it is. But it's [crosstalk 00:57:08]   Chris Sanborn: (57:08) Like your thing, it is good, diversify. You don't have to go all in.   Mason: (57:14) That's probably a nice, easy way to go in. I have got a bad bunch of friends [inaudible 00:57:20] for a little bit was just like, "Right, it's all over here now." It's like, "Okay, let's not drink all the Kool Aid at once if you don't completely understand it."   Chris Sanborn: (57:30) Totally. Totally. It's easy to get carried away, when you see all of your money going up. It's definitely good to keep a level head. I hold gold. I do hold cash, of course.   Mason: (57:47) Yeah, yeah, yeah.   Chris Sanborn: (57:50) I hold a lot of crypto, mostly crypto. [crosstalk 00:57:53]   Mason: (57:53) And a lot of water.   Chris Sanborn: (57:56) A lot of water, and that's more valuable than anything.   Mason: (58:00) I value that. The conversations, that can be so grounded. Returning a bit of that freedom to humans, the concept of sovereignty. Sovereignty's not, you're sovereign or you're not. It's a resonance. It's a quality.   Mason: (58:19) So, if there's things that help you regain that quality of sovereignty, will you feel pretty free? Good. Let's explore it. It happens. That's what happens with the water.   Mason: (58:28) So, dude, I'll let you go. I'm sure you've got to go and pay the gardener.   Chris Sanborn: (58:35) Actually, I've just got to pee.   Mason: (58:39) Well, let's wrap it up.   Mason: (58:41) So, Alive Water is the company if you're on, is it just West Coast still, or are you expanding?   Chris Sanborn: (58:48) Just West Coast for water delivery. We ship everywhere on the planet for glass. It's expensive for most places outside of the country right now, but we're working on that, to have more fulfilment centres in the near future.   Chris Sanborn: (59:06) Of course, findaspring.com is global. Log in. Check your local spring and contribute to the community. There's a lot of ways you can do that leave a review, leave a comment, provide a water test. If you're really gung ho, maybe you could find a spring, if there's not one in your area that's not on the map, and pipe it. You'll be a hero in your community, for things like that.   Mason: (59:45) Absolutely. That is hero. That's God status in the community, if you're that person, and as well with the testing. I'm glad you guys have taken it over, because it's been a great resource, but it did need some new life breathed into it.   Mason: (01:00:03) So, that's really exciting for me, because it ensures that I'm going to continue to recommend it. Findaspring.com. Some of you listening have been following along for 10 years, and hearing us recommend that site for 10 years.   Mason: (01:00:18) It's nice when something has longevity. That's what your body's going to have if you get onto good water. So, go get spring water if you're on the East Coast. You were just talking about shipping the empty glass around the world, not the water. Right?   Chris Sanborn: (01:00:30) Correct, yeah. We pride ourselves in having the absolute best glass for collecting, storing, and drinking spring water, the whole thing.   Mason: (01:00:45) Because we've all, I've been there, collecting water, and then all of a sudden, you're driving back, and it just shatters on you. The glass explodes.   Chris Sanborn: (01:00:56) Oh, yeah.   Mason: (01:00:59) My little barina.   Chris Sanborn: (01:00:59) We've come a long way with our design product, with our design process. We've got a lot of good stuff that's live now, and a lot of good stuff that's coming. So, stay tuned for the evolution.   Mason: (01:01:13) Is it Alive Water, what's the website?   Chris Sanborn: (01:01:16) Findaspring.com and alivewaters.com   Mason: (01:01:22) Alivewaters.com and I'm assuming @alivewaters on Instagram? It's a good Instagram. Find A Spring's a good Instagram, as well. I actually did realise that it was starting getting used again, that Find A Spring Instagram. So, that's really inspiring.   Mason: (01:01:33) Thanks so much.   Chris Sanborn: (01:01:34) We haven't made the official relaunch yet, but we're getting there. We're getting things to where they need to be, so it's exciting.   Mason: (01:01:45) Sweet. So good, man. Thanks so much for coming on. It's been awesome.   Chris Sanborn: (01:01:49) Yeah, thanks for having me. Thanks for the great work you do. It was great to chat with you.   Mason: (01:01:56) Likewise. Tell Maria I will probably be getting another delivery next year. Who knows what's going to happen in this crazy world?   Chris Sanborn: (01:02:02) Yeah. Hopefully, we can do more travelling again soon.   Mason: (01:02:06) Yeah. Sweet, bro. Catch you.   Chris Sanborn: (01:02:08) All right. Aloha.

Dr Lauren Tober sits down with Ella Noah Bancroft, talking about decolonising the mind, returning to country and overcoming racism. Ella is a Bundjalung woman based in the Byron Shire in Australia. She is an artist, storyteller, director, mentor and founder of The Returning. Ella is a poetic feminist, passionate about re-wilding the world and the feminine force from the multifaceted lens of culture, heritage, gender, politics, identity and sexuality. Her work discusses themes of identity, intersectionality, culture, the feminine force and living a life of integrity, connection and creativity.And at the end of the interview, Ella reads to us her favourite poem from her new book It Takes Courage to Tell the Truth, called A Letter to My Daughter.

Paradiso is a free creative and independently published bi-monthly magazine, made locally with ten thousand copies delivered across the Byron Shire and beyond. This is one of my all time fave mags, not just because I am lucky enough to be pals with the founder and publisher, Lila Theodorus and Editor, Nat Woods, but because of everything it stands for. Celebrating stunning design, our incredible Northern Rivers entrepreneurial and creative community, beautiful story telling and damn fine print stock. Lila and Nat share the story behind how they arrived at Paradiso, along with the backstory behind pulling together this creative masterpiece, the planning, research, mapping of stories, contributors and design and the wild and woolly world of a street press mag gone digital during CV19. In this conversation between pals, these lovely humans share the inner workings of a magazine that is truly treasured by its readership. It was an absolute joy to record and a beautiful example of how women create magic together. Paradiso https://www.instagram.com/paradiso_magazine_/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/studio.musemuse/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/nat.woods_/?hl=en Share the podcast on Instagram https://instagram.com/odetteandco https://instagram.com/hackyourownpr

A podcast by Ella Noah Bancroft Rinat has a bachelor in marketing and social science, and spent her career putting disruptive services and technologies in the hands of millions. Now as an ex-telco marketer, she is doing the opposite. She is now a mother of one living with her husband in the northern rivers, NSW, Australia. She has spent the past year, volunteering in stopping 5G in the Byron Shire and to work with the community on strategies to envisage a future with safe technology. Her 5G story is called WeAreNotSAM and you can find her on Instagram revealing telco insider info. Researcher Brené Brown said it best, because stories are data with a soul. That’s the key ingredient for successful marketing strategies, for activism and for creating positive change through marketing campaigns and initiatives. In this conversation we talk about the implication of 5G, Safe technology for the future and the right to be heard in this democratic society. Rinat believes in people power and the right we have to demand safe technology not just for us but for the generations to come. For anyone who wants to gain more insight in 5G and the effects. A must listen. Connect with Rinat Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/stop5gnorthernriversnsw/ Instagram: @wearenotsam

Rinat is mum of one, living with her husband in the northern rivers, NSW, Australia. She has spent the past year, as an ex-telco marketer, volunteering in stopping 5G in the Byron Shire and to work with the community on strategies to envisage a future with safe technology. Her 5G story is called WeAreNotSAM and you can find her on Instagram revealing telco insider info. Today we are diving into her natural birth story that took place in Switzerland, in a homeopathic hospital. Want to access the free Bonding with Baby meditation? Access it here: https://youtu.be/tqNwPQ_h6u4

Sarah Wilson is on the pod with Tahnee today and just quietly the whole SF crew are pretty stoked about it. Many of you may recognise Sarah as "that I quit sugar lady", after all she pioneered the movement and has written and published many books on the subject. In 2018 Sarah sold the I Quit Sugar franchise and gave all the proceeds to charity, a legendary act considering the success the movement has had globally. Sarah is a journalist and activist at heart, spending a lot of her time avidly researching and seeking the truth, sharing her insights with absolute fervour through her books, media appearances, blog and social media platforms. Sarah's expertise and main areas of interest surround the issues of mental health, the environment and sustainability, politics and healthcare. Sarah is someone who "gives a shit", a deeply passionate soul on a quest to save what's left of the planet for generations to come. Sarah's approach is accessible, community minded and no fuss. Today we have the pleasure of discussing the theme's in her latest book, First We Make The Beast Beautiful, a personal text exploring anxiety and bipolar disease through lens of spirituality and philosophy.   "fight for rightness" - Sarah Wilson   Sarah and Tahnee explore: Anxiety and mental health, the highs, the lows, the gifts. Loneliness. Collective despair "we're in the middle of a human despair crisis, and it's completely understandable. We're all avoiding talking about it in that language because we're just not ready yet." Carrying what Sarah calls "radical hope" in your heart in these globally turbulent times. "I was like, what's the point of just feeling good myself when the planet's burning, you know? I need to get out there" The inextricable nature of politics and spirituality. The plight of the individual, where neoliberalism fails us and the importance of community. The corona virus and the toilet paper crises. Sarah's daily non negotiable's, think movement, meditation, real food and like minded community. Why walking is such an effective tool against anxiety. Non-consumerism and travelling light. The one thing Sarah does hoard - personal letters and postcards!   Who is Sarah Wilson? Sarah Wilson is a multi-New York Times bestselling and #1 Amazon bestselling author. A former journalist and editor of Cosmopolitan Australia, Sarah also hosted the first series of MasterChef Australia, the most watched show in Australian television. Sarah founded the I Quit Sugar Movement and has published 15 sugar-free cookbooks which sell in 131 countries. Sarah's latest cookbook, Simplicious Flow, is the world’s first zero-waste cookbook. Sarah's international bestselling book, First We Make The Beast Beautiful, reframes anxiety and bipolar disease through a philosophical and spiritual lens and has become both a #1 Amazon bestseller and New York Times bestseller. Sarah ranks as one of the top 200 most influential authors in the world (2017 and 2018) and has a combined digital audience of 3 million. Sarah closed the IQuitSugar.com digital business in 2018 and gave all funds to her charity trust. She know builds projects to assist both those in need and combat creeping individualism. Sarah is a foster carer and vocal anti-consumerist, hiking enthusiast and rides her bike everywhere. Her next book will be published in Australia and the US August 2020.   Resources: Sarah's Blog Sarah's Books First We Make The Beast Beautiful Sarah's Instagram Sarah's Facebook   Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast? A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We’d also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or check us out on Stitcher :)! Plus we're on Spotify! We got you covered on all bases ;P Check Out The Transcript Here:   Tahnee:  (00:00) Hi, everybody, and welcome to the SuperFeast podcast. Today, I'm here with Sarah Wilson. We're all big fans of Sarah at SuperFeast. I'm really excited to have her on the podcast. She has done so many things in her life, which is just such a beautiful kind of offering from her sharings on her blog and social media, all the way through to her published books. Many of you will know her from the I Quit Sugar franchise, but she was one of the youngest editors of Cosmo, if not the youngest editor. You can correct me on that later, Sarah. Tahnee:  (00:32) And she's also written this incredible book, First, We Make the Beast Beautiful, which has been going around our office for about a year now, and we've all really enjoyed reading it and getting into Sarah's wisdom around a lot of the mental health issues that people are struggling with these days. She's also been writing another book, so we'll hear about that in the podcast today, but I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time. We know how busy you are. It's great to have you here. Sarah Wilson:  (00:57) And she's also written this incredible book, First, We Make the Beast Beautiful, which has been going around our office for about a year now, and we've all really enjoyed reading it and getting into Sarah's wisdom around a lot of the mental health issues that people are struggling with these days. She's also been writing another book, so we'll hear about that in the podcast today, but I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time. We know how busy you are. It's great to have you here. Tahnee:  (01:15) Yeah. And, I mean, we've got two copies between about ... Well, there's 20 staff in our team, but like we've been going one upstairs, one downstairs. [crosstalk 00:01:25]. Sarah Wilson:  (01:25) Well, I hope there's lots of notes and turned over pages [crosstalk 00:01:28]. Tahnee:   (01:28) ...marks and notes as they read it, and it's really nice to read other people's takeaways, and, yeah, it's been a really nice little journey.. Sarah Wilson:  (01:35) Oh, I love that. Tahnee:   (01:37) It sort of brings me to how relatable your story is, really. Even though many of us haven't officially been diagnosed with anything or haven't had anything since we were quite young. I was diagnosed with depression at 17, but I decided to try other things, rather than medication. But many of us really related to what you were talking about, and I think it's so easy to kind of label people with labels and diagnoses with something, but when you really look at the humanness of that experience of the things that you really describe so beautifully, the fear, and the suffering, and the closing in of the walls, and just the uncertainty and the inability to be with that uncertainty, especially when we're young, I think there was something really potent about that, that we've all connected to, even though...   Sarah Wilson:  (02:27) Yeah. I think also anyone I speak to with depression or anxiety in whatever form it takes, everyone at the core feels that, even if they've been diagnosed with some pretty extreme so called mental disorders, they still feel that there is something more going on than just some chemical imbalance in the brain. And, of course, the science now shows that, that theory, which our generation grew up with, that it's a serotonin imbalance, therefore it requires medication produced by a pharmaceutical company, we feel that that's a dissatisfying end to the debate or to the issue, in part because medication doesn't always fix the issue, in fact in the main part it doesn't, but also I think deep down, we know there's something more going on. Sarah Wilson:  (03:18) And so, yeah, the book, as you know, is more of a philosophical and spiritual journey through anxiety, and it actually goes beyond seeing it as a problem, but seeing it as, as I call it in the book, a superpower. And it can become a superpower when we can sit with it and see its beauty, hence the title of the book, First You Make the Beast Beautiful, because it has been something in our evolution that serves a really important purpose, that the poets, the scientists, the world leaders, the top world leaders, shamans, spiritual leaders throughout history we now know displayed what we would now call mental disorders, predominantly bi-polar and OCD. And I think it's really good for all of us to actually go, "Ah, there's actually a purpose behind this, and if we see what the purpose is, we can start to then attend to the deeper purpose that our anxiety is alerting us to."   Sarah Wilson:  (04:19) And then that becomes a far more, gosh, nourishing, beautiful journey to be on, rather than, "Oh, I've got to find a better psychiatrist or a better drug, because this last one isn't working."   Tahnee:   (04:29) Well, it just becomes a self perpetuating prophecy with the medication that people aren't ... Also, that's what I really appreciated was you didn't posset that there was a solution, but that it was kind of this tapestry of weaving that each individual really had to do on their own to really fight the things that nourish and support them. And we live in a culture that is, in many ways, creating these symptoms in us, but we have to take responsibility for our own relationship with that, I think, and I think when you look at your journey, I can really see that, like, how you've come through all these different kind of, I guess, milestones that people would consider to be, on paper, really amazing. And obviously not to undermine them, they are amazing, but when look at what really makes a person happy, some of these things are not that, you know?   Sarah Wilson:  (05:18) Yeah. Tahnee:   (05:19) Yeah. Would you say that's been, I guess, something that's, I guess, had to become relevant for you as you've [crosstalk 00:05:25] just keep pairing away the things that are just not serving you to be you? Sarah Wilson:  (05:32) That's right. It's often about ... There's a couple of things. I mean, I think in the main, I felt terribly lonely, and I say this really early in the book. A friend to me, "Why on earth are you writing this book?" And I said, "Because I'm bored and lonely." And I was. I was bored of the discussions that were being had, that I had to either avoid or I was sort of reduced to in and around my anxiety, and I was also lonely in it because we weren't talking the juicy stuff that sat down at that deeper level, and even just talking about it is a salve, having deep conversations. I think we get anxious because we're not having these conversations, these meaningful conversations.   Sarah Wilson:  (06:11) So to your point about these so-called successes I've had in my career, I suppose I can see that they came out of my anxiety, so there's the flip side that I've been highly productive because I've had this yearning forward, this outward search, and I've constantly been seeking a better way to do things, a more nourishing life, and that's kind of led me on to these various projects. So I can really be grateful for that, but now, as I'm in my mid to late 40s and working out where everything sits, I can now see that all the decisions I now make about my career are just becoming easier and easier because I now know what is at my heart that I'm searching for. I've got a much better understanding of it. And I've heard a lot of people, after they've read Beast, they've gone, "Gosh, I now know what decisions I've got to make. I know now how to make those decisions."   Sarah Wilson:  (07:13) And as you know, Tahnee, in the book, I talk about how one of the worst thing about anxiety is that we get anxious about being anxious. Mostly because we don't have a dialogue around anxiety, right? We're told that we shouldn't be anxious, right? So we get anxious that we're anxious because we're somehow failing at life. Then we get anxious about being anxious about being anxious and we go down this horrible spiral. And my thing is, you know, what, do anxiety once. Do it once, move on. Sarah Wilson:  (07:39) And that's one of the, yeah, the salves that form that tapestry, as you put it, of solutions and ways of looking at things. There's no one thing, but there's a lovely conversation we can have, where gradually, and you'll remember from the book, I talk about it being a big knotted ball of wool. We don't necessarily find the end of that knotted ball of wool and we magically pull it and all unfurls into a nice strand that our life can that travel along. We just loosen that ball of wool so that we don't get so cluttered and anxious and tense. We just loosen it. We provide gaps and oxygen in and around it all. And so, yeah, I'm sort of really butchering your tapestry metaphor here by turning it into a knotted ball of wool, but I'm sure the listeners get the point.   Tahnee:   (08:31) Well, I'm imagining a loose weave kind of knit right now. Sarah Wilson:  (08:34) Yeah, thank you. Tahnee:   (08:36) But I think you mentioned that, like, "Sitting with your triggers," was the quote you used in the book, and I guess I've done a lot of yoga, so that's my background, being yoga teacher and stuff, and one of the big teachings and gifts for me, and one of my teachers describes it as widening your bandwidth, it's like you never can hold more volume, and so, yeah, the anxiety's moving through, but you can kind of feel it as this huge cone of energy, but you don't have to resist it, which I think is worse than actually [crosstalk 00:09:06]. Sarah Wilson:  (09:06) Yeah. Well, it can be there and you can have a great life, so we take broader bandwidth, and that's why a lot of the solutions, I'd say roughly half of the exercises and solutions I put forward, and nothing's as definitive as a solution, but you know what I mean, some of techniques to experiment with- Tahnee:   (09:24) Practical [crosstalk 00:09:25]. Sarah Wilson:  (09:25) ... are about expanding that bandwidth, so that you can hold the anxiety when it comes, and then the other half are things to do when anxiety strikes, so what you can do when you're in the middle of one of those and- Tahnee:   (09:40) If you don't have the head space to- Sarah Wilson:  (09:43) Yeah, yeah. Tahnee:   (09:45) ... put ... Yeah. Yeah, and I guess when you talk about that, coming back to that superpower metaphor, which I think, again, is a really powerful one, I tend to hear when I speak to people, and, I guess, being in the unique situation of hearing all of our staff, talking about their experiences reading it, a lot of them are quite sensitive people who went to uni and tried to get careers in Sydney, and realised that that was working for them and couldn't really understand why they were suffering on a mental and physical level. Tahnee:   (10:14) And they've tried moving out to Byron and Mullum, and trying to decompress and unwind, but they fall into a lot of the similar patterns and habits here, even though the pressure isn't there for them and, yeah, it's a really tricky one to go, "Okay, well, I am a sensitive person. I have to have certain types of boundaries on my time and my energy, but these are things that make me great at my work," because, seriously, these people are amazing at what they do because they have that sensitivity and- Sarah Wilson:  (10:42) Yes, that's right. Tahnee:   (10:43) ... you're able to translate that human experience because you have such a depth of feeling. But comes with its own pros and cons, right? Sarah Wilson:  (10:52) That's right. That's right. And that's why we can have better conversations about that so that we actually feel comfortable with it all. When we feel comfortable about something, the beast becomes less scary, and then we start to reframe it as a beautiful thing. Tahnee:   (11:04) And so what about ... Obviously right now, there's a lot of fear in the media and these times are really interesting, I guess, is- Sarah Wilson:  (11:13) That's one way of putting it, yes. Tahnee:   (11:15) Yeah, and, I mean, you're on social media a lot, well, not a lot, but you're there, you have a presence and you're sharing a really strong message. Do you find that awareness of what's going on creates more anxiety for you now, or do you have ways of managing that now that you've gotten a bit more mature in your approach? Sarah Wilson:  (11:34) Yeah. Look, it's a combination. As you mentioned, I'm writing my next book, and, as of yesterday, I've been able to give the title of it out publicly. It's called This One Wild Precious Life, which I hope gives a bit of an indication of what the book's about. But it's essentially a soul's journey through all these nebulous things that we're having to cope with, predominantly the climate crisis, which is incredibly anxiety inducing. So in some ways, Beast looked at our anxiety as an inward journey, it was our own personal anxiety. This next book goes outwards. It goes out into the world to what I call our collective despair. You know, we're in the middle of a human despair crisis, and it's completely understandable. We're all avoiding talking about it in that language because we're just not ready yet. Sarah Wilson:  (12:23) But, yeah, I think that the journey I went on with First, You Make the Beast Beautiful certainly prepared me for this. It got me pretty solid. And, look, after the book came out, after the Beast came out, I've got to say my life has changed. It was a bit like writing a whole series of books about sugar, right? I could never walk down the street again eating a Magnum ice cream, you know? It was just like it kind of set up the guard rails for my own wellbeing. But ditto, with this anxiety book, it really forced me to go down into the stuff I was writing about because I really wanted it to be a legit sort of pathway for people. I had to go there first, and it really built new muscles in my own brain. Sarah Wilson:  (13:10) So, yeah, I came out of it much stronger, much more philosophical, but also the conversations I had with people were just so nourishing. It was exactly what I wanted. It delivered what I needed, personally, which was a better conversation. So, yes, going into this topic, it certainly has steeled me for things, however, this book, which has taken three years to research. I've been researching it and writing ir now solidly for three years. And that in itself has taken me to even a deeper level of maturity. And you used that word, maturity. It's absolutely apt. It's been a process of really growing up. Growing up in that real sort of soul way. That hero's journey. Joseph Campbell's Hero. The warrior. Sarah Wilson:  (13:56) And I've got to say, it's a very female kind of warrior energy, which I've had to channel. I've had no choice because I've been talking to climate experts around the world. I've been really embedded in a climate debate and the activism and all of that kind of thing, and you can't unsee this shit, right? Once you've learnt the reality of it and you've accepted this is the science, this is categorically as real as it gets, you can't unsee it, and so you've got to find better ways to cope with it. Pathways in your brain that enable you to keep waking up every day with, what I call, radical hope in your heart.   Sarah Wilson:  (14:40) So, yes, the hardship, the harshness, the devastation, the despair, the shame, the guilt, everything that I've been feeling, I've gone through it, past through it, and it's made me even stronger and more resilient. And I'm hoping that when people read this next book, when it comes out in late June, that they'll feel they'll benefit in the same way because that's what we're needing right now. So, yeah, it's been the next chapter in things, and it's been very much about ... It's like the parable of the monk that goes and meditates in the mountain for years on end, and then suddenly goes, "What's the point of this? I've got to come down from the mountain and bring the wisdom into the village." Tahnee:   (15:21) Yeah, love it. Sarah Wilson:  (15:21) Yeah. And that's where I arrived, and I was like, "What's the point of just feeling good myself when the planet's burning, you know? I need to get out there, and even if [inaudible 00:15:32] with my anxiety and I've still got all the bloody baggage and the stuff following me around, I've got to get on with some- Tahnee:   (15:39) Something right? Sarah Wilson:  (15:40) Yeah, yeah, exactly. Tahnee:   (15:42) And so, I mean, when you're talking about these shame feelings and that, because that's a really common thing, I think, that causes paralysis in people, and it kind of comes back to the advice similarly really to what you talk about with anxiety and these other sort of mind disorders, I suppose, that people are diagnosed with these days. It's this same idea of almost the permission and the willingness to enter into that space of feeling those things, but not letting them become us, or letting us become them, I suppose. It sort of reminds me of the meditative and yoga traditions where they talk about that you've got the contents of the mind and then you've got consciousness, and they're not the same, and it's a [inaudible 00:16:26] to separate them out a little bit, like you're saying, create that breathing room and space around them so that we can feel that, yeah, we're all apart of what's going on, we've all participated in the creation of this problem and we can- Sarah Wilson:  (16:38) Yeah, I think that dialogue is a really great one during times of peace, but I would say that we are in a time of emergency, and I suppose a lot of my message is about taking that spiritual yogic kind of tradition, that thinking about not being your emotions, witnessing it, et cetera, et cetera, not getting caught up in that dialogue, which is, it's a wonderful skillset to practise for everyday living. However, I would say it needs to be ratcheted up a notch or 50, so we're [inaudible 00:17:15] this today. And this is something that I actually do explore in my next book, that spiritual traditions have always adjusted in times of crisis, and what they've done is got quite political and also moved the journey out into the world, and that's kind of almost the rally call that I'm putting to the wellness community that, yeah, was appropriate for us all to do a fair bit of self care there, sort ourselves out, but, hey, even if you're not quite ready, get out on the road and be of service because the planet needs us right now.   Sarah Wilson:  (17:46) So that's something that I actually really am mindful of. And it can sound a little bit harsh, but I think the times demand it, that we've got to actually stop thinking about our own wellbeing, we've got to start to think more collectively at the moment, and- Tahnee:   (18:03) What does that look like for you then? Because that was kind of the point of my question. If someone's paralysed by their own feelings and they're afraid to feel them and they haven't developed a capacity really to go, "Okay, it's okay to feel that. I can still do something." [crosstalk 00:18:16]. Sarah Wilson:  (18:16) Yeah. Well, you've almost answered that in some ways because I think that even if you haven't developed the capacities perfectly, and, look, either have I, there's never an end point in this bloody of the journey, it's kind of the point. But, no, it's actually one of the things I've found is that activism or getting engaged, being of service to others, even if it's just the next door neighbor's dog, it really doesn't matter. Being engaged and of service is actually one of the best, would you believe, fixers for anxiety because- Tahnee:   (18:51) Like the altruism studies and stuff. Sarah Wilson:  (18:53) That's right. You can now steer some of that energy towards something bigger than yourself, and quite often, what actually creates our anxiety is a sense of what's this all about? Surely this is about something bigger, you know? And all of sudden, we've been granted exactly that, a thing bigger than ourselves that we need to attend to. So I think that that's something that is ... I think that's actually a really great way for us to see things. You might not be ready, but it doesn't matter. Get out there and help, and that will actually get us, get you there at an individual level. It's kind of a two birds, one stone thing. Tahnee:   (19:31) Yeah, and I guess no action is too small, right? Is that what you're saying? Like, if anyone had any inkling to get off their seat and do something, go and do it, and just follow that. Sarah Wilson:  (19:41) Yeah. And I think when you're depressed or you're anxious, quite often what happens is we can actually descend into a state of inaction and numbness because we get overwhelmed, and my book actually tries to walk through all of that with the reader so that they can not let that sort of overwhelm them and send them into the numbness. But I totally grant that it can be difficult, but I also think that ... Nietzsche said that when we have a why, we can handle any how. And I think that once we grasp the idea that our why is to really fight for the planet, fight for the life that we cherish, we find that the how just comes. We get motivated.   Sarah Wilson:  (20:30) But, yeah, look, I take your point that when we're struggling personally, it can be very easy to descend into overwhelm and numbness, and the guilt can get too much, the shame, it's just all too much. It's a bit like ... It's an evolutionary response. We either fight or we flee, or we freeze when things get tough. But I think there is a call to arms, and I think that it's getting louder, and I think it's actually going to be a great thing. For those of us who've had that itchy feeling, we're not attending to the right things in life. I actually think that's at the core of many people's anxiety, is a sense that this is just not right. We're not living the life we're meant to be. Tahnee:   (21:15) [crosstalk 00:21:15] humans when you go to countries that aren't as developed as the ones we live in are just that, it's community, and it's connection, it's these things that don't really have anything to do with how much crap you have and what's on your Instagram profile or whatever, and I think ... But that's something I get really stuck on in the ... For example, when the bushfires were happening, I arranged a food drive here, and people were sending me the most ridiculous things, saying, "Oh, why are you sending them bottled water? It's plastic, it's bad for the environment all this stuff. And I was like, "Look, there are all these people with no food, they have no clean water, I'm going to send it to them. Shut up. Just go away." Sarah Wilson:  (21:53) Yeah. I think what we do is we also grasp onto absolutes in times of fear, and it is very much a reminder of how much we need really solid, good, visionary leadership in times of crisis, and, unfortunately, in much of the Western world, we don't have that. We still haven't transitioned from a period of, in the vedic tradition, and some of your listeners would be aware of this. There's this idea of you have a period of creation, and then you have periods of maintenance, and then you have periods of destruction, and we've been in a period of maintenance. Pretty much, stability, financially, the world has gradually improved in way ways. Globally, there's been a fair bit of maintenance, but eventually, that comes to an end and we go into a period of destruction. Sarah Wilson:  (22:48) And that happens across all species, across all lifeforms throughout history, and we need to adjust to that, and we haven't adjusted yet. We're still in that maintenance, she'll be all right kind of phrase, and our leaders aren't actually going, "No, you know what? This is an emergency." We're going to have to kind of lift and ... And it's sort of what we did during various war eras, right? Countries mobilised. There were posters everywhere, there was propaganda, governments did everything they could to get the world onboard. Now, whether we think war is great or not, it's part of the cycle of life and it happened, and we needed to mobilise one way or another.   Sarah Wilson:  (23:32) If everybody sat at home went, "Oh, I'm not going to do the rations. Somebody else can do that." Or if we didn't have a leader who went, "Hey, we're going to have to all tighten the belts, go onboard, do what we can, support this war effort because we've all signed up to it and it is for the greater good," we'd be in all kinds of trouble today. So that's what we need from our leaders. So it is really hard. At the individual level, we've got to engage and really fire up, and in some ways, shelve our own personal stuff briefly so that we can attend to a greater good, which in the end, actually attends to the original anxiety, you know? It's actually a wonderful thing. Sarah Wilson:  (24:10) And, look, just to give you some statistics on this, during the London blitz, for instance, in World War II, the admissions into mental wards and also suicide rates dropped to virtually zero. And the theory that's been postulated is that the country was all mobilising together. There was a sense of the collectives that everybody was able to tap into. And, as I say, everybody had a why bigger than themselves. And I think that's really interesting, and those statistics played out around the world. People's depression, anxiety, would you believe, also suicide rates just dropped because people were getting on with something else, something bigger, something collective, something very tribal. Tahnee:   (24:58) Mm. So that's the call, that we use whatever kind of soil we have to start to build this ground swell, I suppose, of momentum towards [crosstalk 00:25:07]. Sarah Wilson:  (25:07) Yeah. And I actually think a lot of us have been waiting for this. Tahnee:   (25:10) Yeah. [inaudible 00:25:11] at this stage from the top down. Like, it's just that's... Sarah Wilson:  (25:14) No. Tahnee:   (25:15) I'm not waiting for that to happen. Sarah Wilson:  (25:17) No, please don't. And I've always taken that approach, Tahnee, with sugar. Don't sit around waiting for governments and junk food companies to suddenly go, "Oh, yeah, sugar's not that great, let's change." Just start shopping differently, start cooking and eating differently. And so that was something that was really motivating me, gosh, all those years ago now, eight years ago, when I decided to start the I Quit Sugar movement. It's like, God, everybody was sick of waiting for someone else to do it, let's do it ourselves. Tahnee:   (25:44) Yeah. So this is an interesting dilemma then that lands for me when we talk about these movements because they create product and they create challenges, and I've read all this crazy stuff about [inaudible 00:25:57] travels the world, and does this and blah, blah, and I've heard certain criticism of yourself for making books and products and all [inaudible 00:26:06]. It's like [crosstalk 00:26:07]. Sarah Wilson:  (26:06) Mm. You can't send plastic bottles to people who have no other way of getting water, yes. Tahnee:   (26:10) No. Interesting kind of mentality that we have to ... Like you said, it's criticism and paralysis instead of action that can ... I mean, even on the flip side of that, it's also this kind of way of avoiding ... Like, wellness industry, for me, is such a great example because it's like rather than address the fact that don't you feel okay, which has probably got more to do with what you're exposed to, how much rest you get, the food you're eating, the kinds of things you're consuming through your senses, more even so than through your mouth. But, I don't know, buy a product, buy a spray, buy a cream.. Sarah Wilson:  (26:50) Oh, yes, the outward [crosstalk 00:26:53]. Yeah, that's right. Buy [inaudible 00:26:54] to the solutions. Tahnee:   (26:56) And it's part of this climate ... I mean, I'm conscious of it with our business. We're bringing products from China. The Chinese herbs, I believe in them, but at the same time, I'm like, "Why don't I have an Australian tradition to draw from? Why don't I have wisdom from our 60,000 year old medicine tradition. Sarah Wilson:  (27:12) Yeah. Tahnee:   (27:14) It's a tricky one and I think about it every day. We obviously do what we can. We have a sustainability officer and we work really hard to do everything we can to make it a sustainable as possible but- Sarah Wilson:  (27:24) It's so tricky, and I love that you are bold enough to own it and actually call out some of the uglier, probably, examples of what you have to confront as a business owner. And I think that's one of the best things we can do, first and foremost, is kind of own the ugliness of it, and then we can actually start talking real solutions and being far more compassionate with each other. Look, I face it as well. I had my father on the weekend going, "Oh, well, Sarah, you fly places. You wrote this book and you went overseas to do some of your research." And I said, "Yep, I totally get it, and you're absolutely right. And I feel grimy about it." Sarah Wilson:  (28:09) And this not by way of my own personal justification, but more as I think this is the discussion we feel collectively we need to have is that we live in this world, we are all of this world, and even if we're being very virtuous, and I'm sure, like yourself, you do all kinds of other practises and make sacrifices to ameliorate some of your carbon footprint. I don't own a car. I walk everywhere or rid my bike everywhere. I very much focus on having zero food waste in my orbit. Sarah Wilson:  (28:42) So there's various things I do, but, equally, and there's families, people out there, we all have our thing where we're unable to shift it. Some families obviously can't get rid of their car because life it set up around schools, especially up where you live, schools are 20 kilometres away, pretty much everything's 20 kilometres away. So that's got to be borne in mind. We live in this world, this world was created by us all, and we need to be forgiving of that. And I've got a phrase that I've worked to and over the summer a lot of people were going, "What do we do? What's one solution?" And it kind of plays into what you were saying earlier. We think that we can just go and buy a solution off the shelf, that somebody's magically going to come along with the fix and, oh, well, let's all go and buy it and we'll all be good. And that's a neoliberal system, right? Tahnee:   (29:33) Yeah, sure is. Sarah Wilson:  (29:38) And it's a lot more complex than that. It requires uproot of a systemic change, et cetera, et cetera. But what I have said to people, instead of a one size fits all salve that we can all talk to is we do everything we can. Now, everything that you can do or one of your listeners can do is going to look different to everything I can do, but it's very different to saying, "Oh, we do our bit," or, "I do my bit to make a bit of a difference." That's not going to be good enough. The only thing that's going to cut it is that we do everything that we can do. And so I can't decide what that is. It's a very much moral assessment we're all going to have to make, and if we are starting to discuss this issue through a moral lens, through an ethical lens, through a spiritual lens, we can start to make those decisions for ourselves. Sarah Wilson:  (30:27) At the moment, we don't have any dialogue around it. We only have the dialogue of, "Oh, we buy our way to green consumption," or, "We just feel really guilty about it and," I don't know, "go and play a video game, or get outraged on Twitter and flick through Netflix," you know what I mean? So I think, yeah, I mean, we live in this world, we all do. We've got to be forgiving of that, but we must do everything we can and we will start to feel enlivened, and of best service, and least anxious when we do everything we can. Tahnee:   (31:08) And that really makes me think of the dharma of each of us having something unique and powerful we can [crosstalk 00:31:15] without needing it to be like anybody else's. Like, I can do certain things that you can't do and vice versa, and we'll each make our unique ... And I guess if we're talking tapestry again, we all have to contribute ... Or even a jigsaw puzzle's maybe a better analogy, but we all have to [crosstalk 00:31:30]. Sarah Wilson:  (31:30) Yeah. Pema Chodron's got a really lovely ... And I know you're a big fan of her work. She's got a lovely phrase, which I like, which is, "Start where you are." She doesn't [inaudible 00:31:41] to be more complex than, simply, if you're a school teacher, start making the changes within your area of expertise and just start tomorrow with your kids in your class. If you are a stay at home dad, start where you are. And she actually uses that phrase to say, "Start where you are with your pain point." So, say, if you're lonely, or if you're anxious or whatever it is, that is your fractured space from which to grow and go to your edge, you know? Tahnee:   (32:17) [inaudible 00:32:17]. Sarah Wilson:  (32:18) Yeah. And so not only does it fulfil my kind of mantra, which is, "Come on, don't use excuses, let's fire up," but it also means that it gets rid of that overwhelming feeling, that, "Oh, God, I've got to somehow start up a charity and I've got to be perfectly happy and settled in my life before I can be of service." Nope. It's actually you're going to be of best service when you're a hot mess, you know? A hot mess struggling with it all and you start to ask the interesting questions, you know? And I think that that is actually a really relieving kind of way of looking at things.   Tahnee:   (32:58) When I think you've been an entrepreneur, and this is something that I get really frustrated with in these entrepreneury, hacky kind of circles because I'm like [crosstalk 00:33:05] of business and stuff that these strategies work really well for climate crisis. Like, I'm a mum, I run a business, I have no idea what I'm doing half the time, every project feels too big and overwhelming. I just show up every day and do something, and it all gets done, you know? And it's every single one of us can bring that same kind of like ... Anytime you start a business, you have no idea what's going to happen. It's a complete gamble. It's a complete risk. You probably, 90% of the time, fall flat on your face. It's cool. Sarah Wilson:  (33:32) Yeah. I'd love to see some of these life hackers with their podcasts on how to be as productive as all hell and making the rest of us feel as though we're somehow failing. I'd love to see them return some of their beautiful truisms towards the climate movement. But, anyway, that's a separate discussion. Tahnee:   (33:50) But, no, I think, yeah, look, that's something I think about a lot because we're all in this betterment culture, and I think especially being where both of us have come through, you know, you've come through fashion as well, and the wellness industry, and it's like it's all about being better, but it's in this really narrow kind of sphere. And it's the same with business. It's like, "Oh, I'm a really good business person," and something I love, Ken Wilber talks about lines of development and this opportunity we all have to develop along multiple strands, instead of just being super great in one area. And I see a lot of the skills people are developing could be really powerful. Sarah Wilson:  (34:27) I agree. I went on a podcast with Russell Brand, and he was asking me [crosstalk 00:34:31]. Tahnee:   (34:31) He's living Mullumbimby and we're all chasing him everywhere. Sarah Wilson:  (34:31) I know. I know he's up that way. But I did a podcast with him over in London a little while back, and he was asking me a bit about all of this. We were talking about a similar subject. And I was just sort of saying one of my frustrations is that the wellness/spiritual community often sort of say, "Oh, look, I'm not into politics. I don't get involved in it. I don't read the newspaper and- Tahnee:   (34:56) Gandhi! Sarah Wilson:  (34:57) Yes, I know. Yes, one word, Gandhi, or Jesus, or, you know? The spiritual has always been political. Always. We have spiritual uprisings when the political situation is so dire, nothing but spiritual tradition can lead the way. And this is something ... I mean, I basically believe, right now, if you're a yoga teacher or you're a meditation instructor or whatever, this is your moment. Tahnee:   (35:29) Totally, yeah. Sarah Wilson:  (35:30) And it's not the time to run from it and go and buy another pair of leggings that leach microplastics into the ocean, or wear a T-shirt into your class that says, "There is no planet B," while drinking a green smoothie from a disposable cup, you know? It's like the time to lead by example and to live out all the teachings that Buddha or the vedic tradition have taught us, you know? This is it. This is our moment. So that's something that I'm very frustrated with, is I don't see that kind of rally call catching on. Tahnee:   (36:10) But I think it's a really easy thing to bypass. Sarah Wilson:  (36:13) Mm-hmm (affirmative). Tahnee:   (36:13) The Gita's a great example, which is actually, maybe argumentatively, but its kind of what Christ's teachings were based on, and this idea of you have to go to war for what is right, you know? This character is asked by Krishna to go to war and to fight the demons. And this a spiritual text. It's one of the most famous [crosstalk 00:36:38]. And it's- Sarah Wilson:  (36:38) Yeah. We've cherry picked all the bits that we like. Tahnee:   (36:42) [crosstalk 00:36:42]. Sarah Wilson:  (36:43) We've cherry picked all the dreamy rainbows and unicorns, right, and we've left aside the stuff that is the real meaty stuff of every spiritual tradition, which is fight for rightness, you know? So, look, we're on the same page here, and it's taken me a while to work out that that's what's been going on, that we all sit there and we meditate and we go to yoga to feel really at one with our bodies. Well, hang on, what about being at one with the planet, and each other, and the oneness of life, you know? And that's what we've kind of literally, as you say, bypassed it. We've cherry picked spiritualism to the point that all that's left is this kind of numbed out, dreamy, spiritual goddessy type Narnia, you know? Tahnee:   (37:39) Don't get me started on that crap, but anyway.... Point about ... Because this is something that comes up for me a lot around what I hear and what I see, and it's this all is love, and, I mean, God bless where I live, but Byron Shire is... Sarah Wilson:  (37:53) Oh, yeah. I used to live up there. I lived up that was for a year and a half. Tahnee:   (37:56) Oh, yeah, you lived in the shed, I remember. Sarah Wilson:  (37:58) Yes, the army shed. Yeah, just outside Byron. Tahnee:   (38:00) I did a [inaudible 00:38:00] up here, actually, because he used to write about riding to the farmers market... Sarah Wilson:  (38:04) Yeah, that's it. Tahnee:   (38:06) Yeah, but that idea, I think, where we haven't actually had an experience of that, but we talk about these things as if we believe them, which is fine, that's a pathway to experiencing them, I think, but that's when this altruism and stuff comes in. It's like if you go and do karma yoga, if you are of service to people, if you ... Like, Gandhi, he had one robe for winter, one robe for summer, he walked everywhere. All he did was give, and give, and give, and it was one of the most transformative lifetimes of any human, and that's being one with everything, you know? It's like being really able to give yourself freely, and that's what all these traditions teach. They say clear out all the bullshit, so you can actually be non-judgmental and be non-critical, and do what you need to do in life, which that's the call for all of us, I think, and-   Sarah Wilson:  (39:02) That's right, that's right. And I think it's hard for people listening, perhaps, to go, "Oh, gosh, I kind of agree with this in my heart and I agree with it in principle." It's a really hard thing to know what it is that's stopping us from behaving that way, and my one answer to that is the neoliberal system. We've got a system which has basically put the individual on the pedestal, and whenever you're on a pedestal, it's also very easy to be knocked down, so as soon as things go wrong, whether it's the coronavirus, whether it's the climate, whatever it might be, all of a sudden, well, responsibility's on us, right? We as individuals have to fix it because that's the neoliberal model. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, just work harder. Sarah Wilson:  (39:54) Now, that works all very well when things are going well, but when things go wrong, all of a sudden, we can't cope on our own like this. It's just too much. We need the collective, we need to come together, and that's where the neoliberalism fails us. So that's another area that we need to start discussing. We need to start seeing that we're all caught up in these cycles. We all get caught up in not being able to go to yoga until we have the right pair of yoga leggings, and the right water bottle, and the right this, and the right that, and we think, as you said, we keep buying our way. We go and do another course and pay for somebody else to tell us what the answer is, and that's a discussion we need to really, really have, is pull apart that thinking. Sarah Wilson:  (40:38) And it's a big one, and, as I say, it took me three years to write this book. Trying to unpack it all and then reduce it from several hundred thousand words down to a readable length. So, yeah, I think we should not underestimate what a whopping great topic this is, but, hey, how much fun is it to pull it apart? Tahnee:   (40:59) Well, and think the place you're taking it from is that soul journey is kind of connecting in a different ... I mean, I haven't read the new book, obviously, but I can feel that there's a sense of if we bring it into our inner space and our inner truth and we can all connect on that level, then it takes us out of that kind of ego individual, like me over here protecting what's mine kind of thing, which is-   Sarah Wilson:  (41:24) Oh, yeah. We're so bored of that as well. Tahnee:   (41:26) Yeah. And, I mean, that just keeps sort of ... Like, I'm even watching with all the coronavirus stuff and just the way first there was all the racism, and now we're kind of in this, you know, I guess every day is an unknown at the moment, but you can just feel how people ... Like, people fighting over toilet paper in the aisles and [crosstalk 00:41:43] supermarket [crosstalk 00:41:43]. Sarah Wilson:  (41:43) Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's no better symbol, is there? There's no better symbol for what we're talking about than people reacting to their very valid fear and overwhelm, and the lack of leadership and guidance on all of this, the lack of community coming togetherness. Then the idea of running out and thinking that we can solve it by having more toilet ... I really don't know what toilet paper's going to do, you know? And, honestly- Tahnee:   (42:14) I haven't been able to work that one out of like ... And the whole [inaudible 00:42:16] like chickpeas or, I don't know, like, something [crosstalk 00:42:18]. Sarah Wilson:  (42:18) I know, I know. Spaghetti or something. But it does show just how fragmented we are, how disconnected we are, how out of whack we are when we go and do this, you know? I mean, we're buying toilet paper because other people are buying toilet paper and it's sort of everybody out for themselves, dog eat dog. That's what we've resorted to, and it's really disappointing us because that isn't the entirety of our nature. There is an element of our nature that is that, but throughout history, we've had community leaders, spiritual guidance that has actually veered us away from our worst tendencies in that way, mostly to keep us alive. We need the tribe, you know? Sarah Wilson:  (43:03) I mean, a virus is the perfect example, right? We need the tribe to come together, and we need to all agree that we're going to wash our hands and cover our mouths when we cough. Tahnee:   (43:13) Yeah. And [inaudible 00:43:15] and all the basic stuff, yeah. Sarah Wilson:  (43:16) Yeah. So we need to, as individuals, do these things, so that the collective can be saved, and we are not used to doing that. We're used to just making sure we're okay by buying toilet paper. Tahnee:   (43:26) Well, [inaudible 00:43:26], there's this sense that people are waiting for it to be fixed, you know? Like, I've been talking to people as I go around town and stuff, and like, "Oh, it'll get sorted out soon." I'm like, "By who? By us?" Because we're the ones that are going to have to sort it out. And I feel it's analogist to the climate crisis. It's like all the bushfires are gone now. Like, we've had months of rain, which has been great for the dams and everything, but I'm like, "It's not over. We can't pretend now that [crosstalk 00:43:51] rain and it's done. It's like we've got to keep remembering that these things ... I mean, I've been going to ... I did environment science at university when I was ... So I'm 35. When I was 18 I started. And it's like we were going to rallies and chaining ourselves to trees and stuff then, and it's like nothing has changed. We're in a worse situation, if anything [inaudible 00:44:10]. And it's just like, until everyone collectively starts to wake up, I guess, is ... Sarah Wilson:  (44:19) Yeah. Tahnee:   (44:19) Yeah. I'm curious though when you look at self care. Because this is something, when I was talking about the fact that I was going to interview you, people were kind of curious because you've obviously done a lot with food and kind of, I guess, wellness stuff, like you had that great series in the Sunday Mail, I think it was, with all the interviews with- Sarah Wilson:  (44:40) A Sunday magazine, in the Sun Herald and so on, yeah. Tahnee:   (44:46) Yeah. And I remember reading that actually and I was really enjoying it, but, yeah, you kind of have been walking around in this area for a while [inaudible 00:44:53]. So do you have tenets of self care that you do use [crosstalk 00:44:59] products. Sarah Wilson:  (45:00) Yeah, I do. I do have a few non-negotiables. As you say, I've been in the how to make your life better kind of space pretty much my entire career, one way or another. But, yeah, I guess I have drilled down to some stuff that actually works across all realms, business, health, and also life. Yeah, making the planet stick around for another couple of generations. But, yeah, so what works for me, and the great news is they're pretty much free, all of them. Free. Sarah Wilson:  (45:30) It goes against the neoliberal model, but there you go, should we be surprised? So, for me ... And they're all backed with science and very substantial science. So the first thing would be I have a morning routine, in part because stuff I do in the morning sets me up for the day, but it's also about omitting decisions. So decision making happens in the same part of the brain that controls anxiety, and if we overtax our decision making part of the brain, we get anxious, and so that's why you hear about all these life hackers who wear the same outfit and have the same boring breakfast every day. It's so that they don't have to make those kinds of decisions in the morning in particular. Sarah Wilson:  (46:07) So, for me, my morning routine also includes exercise in the morning. I've got a whole range of health complaints, which are able to be managed by getting oxygen through my lungs and just moving my body. So I'm not a fitness nut by any stretch, but I exercise every single day. And then, of course, I walk or ride. I'm just moving all day, every day. I meditate for 20 minutes, and I don't confess to be a good meditator. I'm very vocal on being a crap meditator, but that in itself is a practise, like never ever be scared [crosstalk 00:46:41]. Tahnee:   (46:41) [crosstalk 00:46:41] a good mediator. Sarah Wilson:  (46:42) Oh, I never believe anyone who says they are. Tahnee:   (46:46) [crosstalk 00:46:46] oh, it's still very hard. Sarah Wilson:  (46:47) Yeah, that's right. And the whole point is become, actually ... The whole point of mediation is to take that nice stillness into the rest of your life. Well, when you're a shit meditator, basically you're constantly having to bring yourself back to the breath or the mantra, more so than a good meditator, and so that sort of muscle of coming back, coming back to yourself, coming back to the truth, coming back to the oneness, you have to practise that far more, and so that muscle gets really quite developed. So that's one of the benefits of being a bad mediator. Sarah Wilson:  (47:20) So I do those things. Not eating sugar is really non-negotiable as well from a whole range of points of view. It's a great through line to simple, effective eating. When you don't eat sugar, you don't eat processed food because 80, 90% of processed food contains added sugar. So essentially means you've got to buy real food and you've got to cook it, and when you do that, you're a lot more engaged in things like food waste, making sure that you buy good quality ingredients. You cut out all the other crap, bad oils, et cetera. And so it just kind of is a win, win, win, and it cascades. Sarah Wilson:  (48:00) So in terms of having a one thing that you can do, cutting out sugar is a really great way of doing it. I still eat sugar, but it sort of manages to sit within what are considered the world guidelines, six teaspoons of added sugar a day. My body, naturally, that's what it can handle, and if I go over that, I've trained my body now that it reacts. It goes, "Nup, this is not great," you know? So that would be definitely part of it. I guess more recently, I've had to also have practises about being round good people, and by good people, I actually do mean people who are active in the climate movement because I find it very difficult if I'm around people who don't want to wake up.   Sarah Wilson:  (48:50) Now, my work is about being in the mainstream having these conversations, and so, for me, it's kind of particular. I do need to be around a tribe who know the language, who can support me in my feelings and we can talk at that level. And that is really important for anybody in the activist space or any kind of space where you're talking about tricky stuff. Yeah, they would be the ... Oh, and the other big one is going into nature. So, for me, I mean, there's been countless studies, something like 40,000 studies to show the effect of just walking among trees. So all kinds of things.   Sarah Wilson:  (49:31) My favourite studies point to the fact that, firstly, walking goes at the same pace as discerning thought, and I think a lot of our culture's ills comes from the fact that we don't think reflectively. And then, also, the walking mechanism, again, developed in the same old, really gnarly, fusty part of the brain that controls anxiety. So when you walk, it actually can modulate and it can shut down anxiety. So the left, right motion actually distracts us away from anxiety, and anyone who's a regular walker, I mean, knows that the anxiety just dissipates straight away. Sarah Wilson:  (50:12) So, yeah, walking, but walking in nature are things that I do daily, and then weekly or fortnightly, I make sure I get out to a forest and just bush land around Sydney or wherever I am in the world, I just get out and walk. And all of those practises are free. They're readily available, and, what do you know? They also stop you from shopping. Whenever you're out hiking on a Sunday, you can't go to a mall. Tahnee:   (50:41) Because I love your green shorts as an analogy for, you know- Sarah Wilson:  (50:45) Yeah, a symbol. Tahnee:   (50:46) Yeah, like we don't ... Yeah, sorry, [inaudible 00:50:49] a symbol for we don't do a lot of things. Like, I teach yoga and I teach once a week, but I wear the same outfit every week. I'm like, "Why do I need a wardrobe of yoga clothes?" Sarah Wilson:  (50:56) Good. That's what's called being a leader, a spiritual leader is. I mean, it's just ... Sarah Wilson:  (51:02) Yeah, look, the green shorts is laziness. I mean, I live a life- Tahnee:   (51:06) [crosstalk 00:51:06] the stuff and, yeah. Sarah Wilson:  (51:09) Yeah. I mean, it's not like I go out and think, "I'm going to have a ... I mean, somebody bought me those green shorts 11 years ago, and I don't see any point in having other shorts, so, yeah. Tahnee:   (51:21) I mean, when you travel, are you travelling light in general anyway with luggage? Sarah Wilson:  (51:26) Yeah. Well, for eight years I travelled with one bag. I lived out of one bag, permanently. Tahnee:   (51:32) I remember you saying in the book, yeah. Sarah Wilson:  (51:34) Yeah. And then it soon reduced itself down to final six months of having a carry on bag, so this was about 15 kilos, and so I still just manage to live as light as that. I mean, it's very addictive, and once you realise you don't need certain things, you start to go, "Well, do I need this or do I need that?" And as I started to wear things out or use things up, I really questioned whether I needed a ... I mean, I've never owned a handbag in my life. I don't believe I need one, so I just haven't bought one. Tahnee:   (52:08) [crosstalk 00:52:08]. Sarah Wilson:  (52:08) I mean, I was the editor of Cosmo and didn't have a handbag, it is possible. So, yeah, and then I just realised I didn't need a car. I was happier riding my bike. A bike, especially in Sydney, is faster, it's more efficient, and I get my exercise in at the same time. So, yeah, it just sort of evolved as a way of ... I mean, I looked at things critically and went, "Do I really need that? Does it," in that sort of Maria Kondo way, "Does it bring me joy?" And most cases it didn't. I just kind of looked at it and went, "Oh, that's just something I've got to store somewhere or find a way to use," you know? Tahnee:   (52:52) So my final question is do you have any little secret things that you hoard? I'm a book hoarder. Sarah Wilson:  (52:57) Oh, okay. What do I hoard? I'm just looking- Tahnee:   (53:02) [crosstalk 00:53:02] that you just haven't been able to shed? Sarah Wilson:  (53:06) Oh, I'll tell you the one thing that I've carried with me all along is I've got this big box and it's got every single letter and postcard that anyone has ever written to me. So I've got stuff from my grandparents when I was five or six, and, yeah, it's quite lovely. I sometimes sit down and I just go through letters my great grandmother wrote to me, and I've got a little card that my nieces and nephews have written, and I suppose, yeah, I've always kept those things. That would probably be it. But, yeah, even with books, I pass them on, everything gets passed on, and I'm that sort of in, absorb, out, share is my motto, yeah. Tahnee:   (53:53) Well, we're really grateful for all the sharing you do because it's been really inspiring to all of us, and- Sarah Wilson:  (53:59) Oh, thank you. Tahnee:   (54:00) I'm going to wrap it up there just because I'm aware of your time. You're still on book deadline. But, yeah, I mean, I know many people will be interested. If you do want to see the green shorts, I realise some people will be like, "What are you talking about?" So [inaudible 00:54:12] Sarah's Instagram and I'm pretty sure they're on her blog as well. And, yeah, so people can find you there at sarahwilson.com, and- Sarah Wilson:  (54:20) Yeah, sarahwilson.com, and then I think if you just type in Sarah Wilson:  to Instagram, it comes up. Tahnee:   (54:26) Yeah, we'll link to everything in the show notes. Do you have specific websites for the beast or anything like that, or are they just [crosstalk 00:54:35]. Sarah Wilson:  (54:34) Oh, everything, you can find it all through sarahwilson.com. There's a books page and you can buy the books, the e-books and so on, and soon enough you'll be able to pre order my next book. Not quite yet, but soon for Australia. It comes out in the US in October. And it'll come out in the UK shortly after that. Tahnee:   (54:55) Okay, great. So we'll put links to all those as they go live. Sarah Wilson:  (54:57) Oh, thank you. Tahnee:   (54:58) Yeah, well, people tend to listen over years, we've learnt. It's quite exciting. And, yeah, I just wanted to say thank you so much for sharing. I feel like that was a really, for me, inspiring conversation, and kind of- Sarah Wilson:  (55:11) Thank you. Tahnee:   (55:11) Yeah. Sarah Wilson:  (55:12) Yeah, no, I enjoyed it, too, and, look, I also very much enjoy your SuperFeast products. I think those products are wonderful. Tahnee:   (55:19) Oh, thanks, yeah. We'll hopefully, one day, have the Australian versions, too. We'll see [crosstalk 00:55:26] unravels. Sarah Wilson:  (55:26) [crosstalk 00:55:26]. Tahnee:   (55:26) I want to quote Seth Godin, "make a ruckus, everybody". If you've found any of this inspiring, please feel free to connect to Sarah and myself, and we will [crosstalk 00:55:34] out there in the world. Sarah Wilson:  (55:36) Yeah. Fire up and be of service. Tahnee:   (55:39) Thanks, Sarah, so long. Sarah Wilson:  (55:40) My pleasure. We'll speak soon, Tahnee. Thank you.

Zenith Virago is a woman grounded in the gifts of understanding the nuances of humanity and the basic need for people to mark important times in their lives with sacredness. Zenith serves those traveling through birth, marriage and death. Highly respected for her guidance and presence in the Byron Shire and beyond, Zenith is a jewel, a wealth of embodied knowledge and deep reverence for the human experience. Zenith is the founder, EO and Deathwalker Trainer for the Natural Death Care Centre, a Byron Bay based charity. Zenith is also the creator of The Vagina Conversations, a performance of local women expressing empowered vagina stories. 
Today, I look forward to speaking with Zenith about the relationship between birth and death. With one of her roles as a deathwalker, Zenith is attuned to the transition between living in this physical body and ‘the other side’. We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land we speak and listen on particularly on the 26th and 27th of January, a day of mourning.Interviewed guest: Zenith ViragoProduced and presented by Oni BlecherCopyright PBB Media, Oni Blecher and Zenith Virago 2020First aired on 99.9 BayFM Byron Bay Australia on 27th January 2020.This episode is sponsored by MooGoo Skin Care. www.moogoo.com.au.For a limited time our listeners can get a 15% discount on online purchases by quoting the code PBBPODCAST.www.pbbmedia.org

Zenith Virago is a woman grounded in the gifts of understanding the nuances of humanity and the basic need for people to mark important times in their lives with sacredness. Zenith serves those traveling through birth, marriage and death. Highly respected for her guidance and presence in the Byron Shire and beyond, Zenith is a jewel, a wealth of embodied knowledge and deep reverence for the human experience. Zenith is the founder, EO and Deathwalker Trainer for the Natural Death Care Centre, a Byron Bay based charity. Zenith is also the creator of The Vagina Conversations, a performance of local women expressing empowered vagina stories. 
Today, I look forward to speaking with Zenith about the relationship between birth and death. With one of her roles as a deathwalker, Zenith is attuned to the transition between living in this physical body and ‘the other side’. We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land we speak and listen on particularly on the 26th and 27th of January, a day of mourning.Interviewed guest: Zenith ViragoProduced and presented by Oni BlecherCopyright PBB Media, Oni Blecher and Zenith Virago 2020First aired on 99.9 BayFM Byron Bay Australia on 27th January 2020.This episode is sponsored by MooGoo Skin Care. www.moogoo.com.au.For a limited time our listeners can get a 15% discount on online purchases by quoting the code PBBPODCAST.www.pbbmedia.org

Australia is perhaps the least densely populated major country in the world yet a number of urban and coastal regional areas are experiencing a housing crisis where many people are now living without homes. The Northern Rivers faces significant challenges in terms of housing affordability and homelessness. Recent figures suggest that Tweed Heads was the 8th least affordable housing city in the world, that Byron Shire had the least affordable private rents of anywhere in NSW, with Ballina, Clarence Valley and Tweed Shire also in the top nine least affordable areas in the state (North Coast Community Housing Annual Report 2017-2018). What can we do to address this? Join facilitator Adele Wessell (Southern Cross University) in conversation with the expert panel: Tony Davies (CEO Social Futures); John McKenna (CEO North Coast Community Housing) and researcher Dr Sandy Darab (Southern Cross University) discussing "Living without homes - how can we fix the regions housing crisis?" Presented by the Lismore Regional Gallery and Southern Cross University, Thursday Night Live! is a monthly talks program putting critical, thought-provoking topics in the spotlight. Held on the second Thursday of each month. Cafe opens at 5.30pm and the panel discussion begins at 6pm.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has proposed a new national day celebrating Indigenous Australians. The announcement comes after another council has decided to stop holding citizenship ceremonies on January 26.  Scott Morrison criticised the move of Byron Shire council in Sydney as 'indulgent self-loathing' after it became the third council in Australia to cease citizenship ceremonies on Australia day.  Gabriella Payne looks at the issue

0:00:00 Introduction Richard Saunders 0:04:28 The Raw Skeptic Report... with Heidi Robertson Heidi tells us of her efforts, via her local council, to stop the Anti-Vax crowd from using council facilities in the Byron Shire of NSW. 0:23:30 The end of the world put on hold..... again. DATELINE AUSTRALIA – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – TSUNAMI HITS SYDNEY Yesterday, September 20th 2018 at 9pm, a tsunami wreaked havoc along the NSW coast from Newcastle in the north to Nowra in the south. Huge regions of Sydney where devastated including the seaside suburbs of Cronulla, Bondi and Manly. The Tsunami surge also wiped out inner harbour suburbs such as Balmain and Kirribilli, destroyed the Sydney Harbour Bridge as well as the airport and flooded the central business district. Waves reached as far inland as Parramatta. https://www.skeptics.com.au/2018/09/21/sad-day-for-doomsday/ 0:32:00 Maynard's Spooky Action.... Interview with Nathan "Mudyi" Sentence about promoting scepticism in museums, galleries, libraries and archives. Why does putting on a museum shirt make you an expert? Why does something written entering the archive make it history? Fake news is currently a much discussed topic, but for First Nations people fake news has been around for a long time - only it's called history. Nathan blogs at https://archivaldecolonist.com/ and tweets at @saywhatnathan 0:43:40 In the Zone From the pages of "The Skeptic" the magazine of Australian Skeptics, Richard Saunders gives an overview of 10 years of the Skeptic Zone Podcast. Also... RSVP for Australian Skeptics FREE Friday night trivia and meetup 12 Oct. https://www.skeptics.com.au/event/national-convention  

In this episode of Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond, in honour of world Gratitude Day, Friday September 21, 2018, we are discussing Gratitude, Gathering and the power of storing positive experiences in building true resilience, a more positive outlook on life and a whole suite of additional benefits! Dr Lauren Tober, a Clinical Psychologist, Life Coach and Yoga Teacher based in the Byron Shire is with us in the studio, she is the founder of acclaimed photographic happiness project Capturing Gratitude and runs a heart-centred practice in Mullumbimby - the Centre for Mind Body Wellness, where a gorgeous array of practitioners supports individuals in the local community to lead a life of wholeness, happiness, health and authenticity.Produced and presented by Annalee AtiaGuest, Dr Lauren Toberfor more information head to:www.pbbmedia.orgwww.laurentober.comwww.capturinggratitude.comCopyright PBB Media, Annalee Atia 2018. All rights reserved.

In this episode of Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond, in honour of world Gratitude Day, Friday September 21, 2018, we are discussing Gratitude, Gathering and the power of storing positive experiences in building true resilience, a more positive outlook on life and a whole suite of additional benefits! Dr Lauren Tober, a Clinical Psychologist, Life Coach and Yoga Teacher based in the Byron Shire is with us in the studio, she is the founder of acclaimed photographic happiness project Capturing Gratitude and runs a heart-centred practice in Mullumbimby - the Centre for Mind Body Wellness, where a gorgeous array of practitioners supports individuals in the local community to lead a life of wholeness, happiness, health and authenticity.Produced and presented by Annalee AtiaGuest, Dr Lauren Toberfor more information head to:www.pbbmedia.orgwww.laurentober.comwww.capturinggratitude.comCopyright PBB Media, Annalee Atia 2018. All rights reserved.

Today we are discussing the vital support continuity with a known birth worker can afford women during pregnancy, childbirth and especially postnatally. We have beautiful guest Nathalie Solis with us, Nathalie, recently returned from Germany is a birth doula and cultural anthropologist with a German-Guatemalan background. She has worked in Berlin, for the past 5 years accompanying women at a variety of births including births at home, at birth centres and in hospitals. She has worked with over 50 families from various cultural backgrounds accompanying their journeys before, during and after birth over a period of up to twelve months. Since 2017 she has been nased in our beautiful Byron Shire, in Bangalow, with her son and her husband. Currently contributing to a new childbirth education course with renowned French obstetrician and natural birth pioneer Dr. Michel Odent, Nathalie is committed to providing emotional, educational and practical one-on-one support to birthing families. She is passionate about offering non-judgmental, evidence-based, continuous care so that mothers feel heard, respected and cared for at all times. Produced and Hosted by: Annalee AtiaInterviewee: Nathalie SolisCopyright - 2018:PBB Media Annalee AtiaNathalie SolisLinks:www.thebyrondoula.comwww.pbbmedia.org

Today we are discussing the vital support continuity with a known birth worker can afford women during pregnancy, childbirth and especially postnatally. We have beautiful guest Nathalie Solis with us, Nathalie, recently returned from Germany is a birth doula and cultural anthropologist with a German-Guatemalan background. She has worked in Berlin, for the past 5 years accompanying women at a variety of births including births at home, at birth centres and in hospitals. She has worked with over 50 families from various cultural backgrounds accompanying their journeys before, during and after birth over a period of up to twelve months. Since 2017 she has been nased in our beautiful Byron Shire, in Bangalow, with her son and her husband. Currently contributing to a new childbirth education course with renowned French obstetrician and natural birth pioneer Dr. Michel Odent, Nathalie is committed to providing emotional, educational and practical one-on-one support to birthing families. She is passionate about offering non-judgmental, evidence-based, continuous care so that mothers feel heard, respected and cared for at all times. Produced and Hosted by: Annalee AtiaInterviewee: Nathalie SolisCopyright - 2018:PBB Media Annalee AtiaNathalie SolisLinks:www.thebyrondoula.comwww.pbbmedia.org

Were talking about blended families, parenting and fatherhood in this episode of Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond. Our guest Erik Adams is a father, long-time practitioner and supporter of the healing and wellness movement and local to the northern rivers in NSW, Australia. Erik ran Funkey Forest for many years, a well known Byron Shire retreat centre and later on managing the Mullulmbimby hub of Santos Organics, the shires respected food & lifestyle nerve centre. He currently runs a successful Wellness Centre in downtown Brunswick Heads and navigating But what of the times when you are not defined by work or purpose, rather just by being. Erik speaks of the impact of the labels we ourselves use and the value society puts on them, the difficulties many men face in becoming fathers and being in relationship and what happens when relationships break down.. what happens when you break down?Moving from being a couple with a child, to then being single then to being in relationship again with a partner who also has children and meanwhile your first ex is getting together with another and having babies.. Blended families can be complex at best, intriguing and sometimes downright fun. We discuss all this and more in this episode of Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond.Links:http://www.puravidawellness.com.auwww.annaleeatia.comwww.pbbmedia.orgCredits (music snippets):Salif Kaita, YamoreGeorge Harrison, Sat SingingCopyright:PBB Media 2017Annalee Atia

Were talking about blended families, parenting and fatherhood in this episode of Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond. Our guest Erik Adams is a father, long-time practitioner and supporter of the healing and wellness movement and local to the northern rivers in NSW, Australia. Erik ran Funkey Forest for many years, a well known Byron Shire retreat centre and later on managing the Mullulmbimby hub of Santos Organics, the shires respected food & lifestyle nerve centre. He currently runs a successful Wellness Centre in downtown Brunswick Heads and navigating But what of the times when you are not defined by work or purpose, rather just by being. Erik speaks of the impact of the labels we ourselves use and the value society puts on them, the difficulties many men face in becoming fathers and being in relationship and what happens when relationships break down.. what happens when you break down?Moving from being a couple with a child, to then being single then to being in relationship again with a partner who also has children and meanwhile your first ex is getting together with another and having babies.. Blended families can be complex at best, intriguing and sometimes downright fun. We discuss all this and more in this episode of Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond.Links:http://www.puravidawellness.com.auwww.annaleeatia.comwww.pbbmedia.orgCredits (music snippets):Salif Kaita, YamoreGeorge Harrison, Sat SingingCopyright:PBB Media 2017Annalee Atia

0:00:00 Introduction Richard Saunders 0:06:05 Grain of Salt.... with Eran Segev More in the series of interviews from QED. This week Eran chats to Dr Karl Kruszelnicki the Australian science communicator and populariser, who is known as an author and science commentator on Australian radio and television. http://drkarl.com/ 0:15:26 Maynard's Spooky Action... Blast from the past! In 1991 Dr Karl Kruszelnicki appeared with Maynard on radio to take listeners' questions. 0:20:40 The Raw Skeptic Report.... with Heidi Robertson The WHO publishes a list of websites that are found to "facilitate the access of public health authorities, health professionals and the public to reliable information". The Northern Rivers Vaccination Supporters group is now one of those websites. http://www.northernstar.com.au/news/victory-for-northern-rivers-pro-vaccine-group/3106653/ 0:27:39 Orgone Energy Orgone is a pseudoscientific and spiritual concept described as an esoteric energy or hypothetical universal life force, originally proposed in the 1930s by Wilhelm Reich. This "energy" was applied by famed race car driver Peter Brock in the 1980s. http://www.skeptics.com.au/?s=Orgone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro_F6tosOjk&feature=youtu.be&t=482 0:41:02 Anti-vaxxers target wrong man PETER Tiernan is being bombarded by threatening calls and messages from anti-vaccination activists and fears “one absolute nutter” could attack him or his family. All because some activists think he is Reasonable Hank, a pro-vaccination blogger who has been enraging the anti-vaxxers for years. The problem is Mr Tiernan, a 51-year-old physiotherapist who works in the Byron Shire, is not Reasonable Hank and never has been. By Janes Hansen http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/antivaxxer-activists-wrongly-identify-byron-bay-physiotherapist-as-provaccination-blogger/news-story/9b8bc34dda0476d36ea9484163eebf8f  

Now this will make you feel good!   Mandy Nolan is an Author, Comedian, Journalist, Mother & Wife.    Mandy has been performing for more than 20 years and is Based in Northern NSW. Msndy also runs Comedy courses in the Byron Shire.   Lindsay & Mandy recorded this podcast in Coffs Harbour whilst working at the Coffs Buskers & Comedy Festival.    Lots of fun topics get a run in the Webbisode. Accepting Critics and Blocking the Box to name just a few.    Plenty of Comedy Tips for the asspiring Comedians as well.   Hope that you enjoy.    #WYNWDYD

Sequoia Krop from Within Woman talks about travel, birth, sisterhood, and her life's calling towards Shamanic Womancraft, as well as the Red Tent Ceremony and other sacred offerings to the women of the Byron Shire. For more info www.withinwoman.com.au

Sequoia Krop from Within Woman talks about travel, birth, sisterhood, and her life's calling towards Shamanic Womancraft, as well as the Red Tent Ceremony and other sacred offerings to the women of the Byron Shire. For more info www.withinwoman.com.au

John Choi is partner of CHROFI. Established in 2000, the practice's founding design, TKTS, has been widely recognised for its design innovation and urban strategy. His awards include New York Art Commission Award, Jørn Utzon Award for International Architecture, and the New York's Building of the Decade. He is Adjunct Professor at the University of Sydney, and serves on the board of 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. Choi will discuss the recent work of the firm, which includes Stamford on Macquarie, $100M boutique residential tower in Sydney, Lune de Sang - a forestry estate in the Byron Shire hinterland, and other civic and master planning projects currently undertaken by his practice.

Aired live from the Bay Fm studio in the heart of Byron Shire 12th of Nov 2013. Joining us on the show is Efrat Wolfson who will be sharing with us all about Nappy Free also known as emotional elimination communication ECC. Efrat lives in Mullumbimby Northern NSW with her family.

Aired live from the Bay Fm studio in the heart of Byron Shire 12th of Nov 2013. Joining us on the show is Efrat Wolfson who will be sharing with us all about Nappy Free also known as emotional elimination communication ECC. Efrat lives in Mullumbimby Northern NSW with her family.

Our guest on today's show is Millie, Byron Shire mum of 5 discussing how as parents we come to make the little and big decisions that parenthood presents us with. If you are a pregnant, a new parent or well into your parenting years, this show is for you.Presenter Taneal BlakeCopyright PBB Media and Taneal Blake 2013www.pbbmedia.org

Our guest on today's show is Millie, Byron Shire mum of 5 discussing how as parents we come to make the little and big decisions that parenthood presents us with. If you are a pregnant, a new parent or well into your parenting years, this show is for you.Presenter Taneal BlakeCopyright PBB Media and Taneal Blake 2013www.pbbmedia.org