Podcast appearances and mentions of mark they

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Play Episode Listen Later Apr 20, 2024 61:40

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com ----more---- Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder, Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark. Yucca: And I'm Yucca. Mark: And today we are talking about golden ages of the past and as well as turning to look at golden visions of the future. Yucca: Yeah. I think this is going to be a fun one. We were saying right before we hit record, it's it's a right for tangents as well. Mark: yes, yeah, I imagine we're gonna, we're gonna fall down some rabbit holes on this for sure. Where this originally came from was a conversation that we had in one of the atheopagan community Zoom mixers that happens on Thursday nights, and, or and Michael, who is a member of the Atheopagan Society Council, raised this as a topic and he pasted into the chat a sort of semi facetious myth That many in the mainstream pagan community seem to embrace, which is this idea that once upon a time way back before before the Bronze Age, sometime in the late Either the Copper Age or the Late Stone Age, that there were people living in Asia Minor and in Europe who lived peacefully and in an egalitarian society where that were not characterized by patriarchy and where things were very groovy. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: That patriarchy came along with these bronze sword wielding invaders and the result was militarism and class stratification and eventually the snowball that led us to capitalism and to where we are today. Yucca: Very familiar with the story and the narrative. It pops up in a lot of different forms. Mark: It certainly does. And it's a compelling narrative, right? Because part of what it tells us is it's not inherent in humans to be the way we are now, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: you know, that having a male dominated society is not just a human thing, that it's A cultural thing that took over Yucca: Mm Mark: from something that preceded it. And so it's understandable why that's appealing, because it offers hope, right? It says, well, we could get out from what we're in now. We could move in another direction. So, there's a lot of this backward looking, kind of nostalgic glow in these sort of root myths that inform much of modern paganism. Would you agree with that? Yucca: I think so. And I think that there's also the more recent ideas of the unbroken line of Grandmothers practicing this witchy tradition that was secret, but it survived through, you know, all of the Christian takeover and, and all of this and that, that connects in a little bit with an idea that we have that something that's old is automatically good. Or, automatically has more authority because it's an older idea. Mark: Right, that it's valid, because it's persistent, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: right, because it's lasted for a long time, it must have some kind of validity. Yeah, that's a really good point, and it's definitely something that crops up a lot in arguments about religion generally, not just about paganism or witchcraft. Yucca: Right. Mark: Of course, that was Gerald Gardner's story. Right, Gerald Gardner, the creator of Wicca although he claimed that he wasn't the creator of Wicca, he claimed that he was initiated into a lineage of, an unbroken lineage extending back into the mists of time of this tradition of witchcraft. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: maybe he believed that, maybe he didn't, but it's been pretty well established that it's not true. Yucca: Right. Mark: there's a, there's a book by the, the, pagan and witchcraft scholar Ronald Hutton, called The Triumph of the Moon, which very thoroughly and meticulously goes over all the different threads of this and establishes there's not really much there there. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: Great book, great book, highly recommend it. So, so that's another of these, you know, these stories about antiquity. Holding a different way of being that we, that we need to grab onto and try to work our way back to, right? Yucca: Right. Mark: And I was thinking about the Norse traditions, the, the heathen traditions as well. And in that case, what seems to be lionized most is Vikings, right? There's just a whole lot about Vikings. Yucca: Mm hmm. Which I get! Very, very, like, appealing visuals, and Feelings and aesthetics, and yeah, Mark: adventurous, and there's all these sort of macho, warlike values of honor and courage and strength and duty and all that kind of stuff that are all, you know, I mean, they're very macho, but they're, but they're, they're good Yucca: I get the appeal. Yeah, Mark: Yeah, I totally do, too, Yucca: I think that those are, that those can be, can be really good values, right? I don't think we should throw the baby out with bathwater with that, but you know, there's potential with anything for abuse, but you know, those are some pretty, those have their place, Mark: Yeah, yeah. But once again, it's rose colored glasses, right? It ignores the fact that people who went Viking, which was a verb, not a noun you know, you went Viking they were farmers most of the year. I mean, they were just working the soil like everybody else and, you know, getting food. And, you know, they were farmers and they were traders and, you know, all that good kind of stuff. Which is, you know, a much less heroic kind of myth than, you know, paddling an open boat across the North Sea to, you know, to, to strike into foreign lands and, you know, take stuff. And I can understand why that part of the story doesn't really get included so much but here we are, we're on a tangent, right? But still, it's about golden pasts. Yucca: Right. Mark: So, Michael's host, Michael's, you know, quote that he put in the chat was very thought provoking because as we learn more, it becomes pretty clear that none of these golden era of the past myths is likely to be very true. There are kernels of truth Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: them. I mean, have, have there been women that were herbalists and knew natural cures for things in an unbroken line since the time of Arwen? Antiquity? Certainly. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yeah, of course there have. Now, were they practicing a particular kind of religious framework around that? Probably not. Yucca: Probably changed with the time as the society around them changed, and their view of the world changed, and, right? Yeah. Mark: I mean, you know, it's like, did it make that much of a difference whether you invoked some goddess when you tied on a poultice or whether you invoked some saint? It, you know, it may, it may have been exactly the same thing. So, There's all this past stuff and that, that led to a very thought provoking conversation about kind of the nature of nostalgia Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: and this, this very human quality that we have of looking back on times in the past and seeing them fondly, even if they were terrible. Yucca: Right. Even if we lived through them, or, but especially the ones that we didn't. I saw a short video recently of she looked like You know, maybe 16, 17 year old talking about how she was born in the wrong era, that she should have been from the 80s, right? And I remember, you know, being a teenager and, and the kids around me going like, Oh, we should have been hippies. We were meant to be hippies from the 60s. And it's, I think people just do that. Yeah. Even if it's, of course, in the 90s, the 60s seemed like forever ago. Right. Mark: Yeah it's, it's very funny. I, I mean, I was born in the early 60s, so I have, and my father was in a PhD program on the UCLA campus, so I have Other than memories of events, which I have pretty vividly, like the assassinations and Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: body counts announced on Tuesdays and Thursdays on the news, and, you know, the riots and, you know, a lot of stuff like that, but I remember going to my father's lab And all of the students that were around him, and they were all hippies, they were all, they were all dressed in that particular way because they were college students in the late 19, in the, you know, mid to late 1960s. And there, there is, a flavor of that era that I can remember and that feels, I don't necessarily feel drawn to it, but I feel almost like it's something lost that I wish I could recapture somehow. the same thing is true of the 70s and the 80s. It gets muddy towards the 90s and later than that, and I'm not sure whether that's because we tend to have more nostalgia for times when we're younger, or whether It's because the internet came along and culture got a lot blurrier. Suddenly, I mean, it used to be like, you can recognize music from the 70s and 80s. By the 90s, I mean, there was a swing music movement, and there was all, there was the world music movement, and there was all this, you know, sort of backward looking. Yucca: I, I'm not sure I agree with that, because I think if I hear a 90s pop song on the radio, it instantly is, I can instantly place 90s or 2000s so that I would, I would guess that it is more of a 90s pop song. the age and how old we were when we were engaging with that, rather than becoming less distinctive. Mark: That may very well be the case. I may simply have not been paying as much attention. Yucca: right. Mark: You Yucca: Well, and just being in a, Mark: career by that point. Yucca: yeah, different life stage, and at least my memory of the way time has worked is, it just keeps speeding up. Right? When I was four, that a year was an eternity. A week was so long, and now I'm like, oh yeah, a year, like, you know, and I'm told it keeps getting worse. It just keeps going faster and faster. Mark: does, and I'm not sure whether it's a function of A year being a smaller and smaller proportion of your overall life and memory, or whether it's that we get into routines that cause months to fly by at a time. I'm really not sure what that's about, but it's a little frightening how quickly the years just start to go. And that's one of the reasons why, yeah, probably so, but that's one of the reasons why I feel it's really important to have a ritual practice to create sort of sublime moments. Either by myself or with other people, of shared observation and celebration of life. So that those, those moments stick out. I don't look at the last year and see nothing but just going to work and doing the tasks and stuff. There are special days that, that I remember. Yucca: I think novelty slows us down a little bit, and makes us pay a little more attention. Mark: Yeah, yeah. That's why traveling is so wonderful, right? Yucca: mm hmm. Mark: everything is new. You're in a place that's unfamiliar. And you point yourself towards experiences that are going to be novel, like experiencing museums and cultural events and architecture and art and, you know, being, being in cafes and hearing foreign language around you and, you know, all the various things. And so we tend to have much more detailed memory of times when we travel than we do when we're at home. So, it seems kind of natural that these sorts of narratives would, would appeal to people. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And I think that they may have been part of the appeal of paganism for some people. I mean, some people get into it for a vision of a better world. Some people get into it for a desire for magical power. Some people get into it for a desire for connection with and reverence of the natural world, like us. And I think all of those are compelling reasons why people are attracted to modern paganism. And I'm Yucca: combination of those things, too. Mark: absolutely, for Yucca: Yeah. Mark: for sure. Yucca: I think, also, being There's also, for some people, an attraction to being different, right, wanting something that is a little counter cultural, regardless of what the specific values are, but just something different, because whatever it was that they were doing, was not working. And so they're looking for anything that is different than whatever that was. Mark: Yes, and, and paganism specifically works very well for those folks because they tend to be folks that don't fit in very well. And paganism is very, inclusive, by and large. It's very accommodating to people who may be neurodivergent or may be strange or may just be very unique people, right? And what I saw when I first came into paganism was that there was this celebration of the uniqueness of individuals, which is something that I have worked to carry forward in my own pagan work because I think Everybody's amazing, and they all need the opportunity to show their amazingness and to have that affirmed and lifted up. Yucca: Yeah. Well, that's a good lead in to, to thinking about the now, and I guess the golden future, right? We're talking about the golden past. So, what about our visions for the future? Mark: Yeah and, and I should say that I do think that a lot of these golden past narratives, whatever their factuality, I think they're a distraction. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: if they were true, I don't think that matters very much. Because we're not then, and we're never going back then. We're only going to be here, and we're going to go forward into the future. Time doesn't work in a backwards manner, it only goes forward. So, my focus, oh go ahead, Yucca: I, I do think though that there is some value in examining those for looking at what do we value and what do we want to bring forward. So, do we, if we're thinking about, so yes, recognizing that it's probably pretty much a myth about our, our pre Bronze Age egalitarian societies in which, War was not a thing, and there weren't skirmishes and conflict between groups. But seeing that there is a recognizing our longing for that, I think is valuable. I think it's important to, to also recognize that that may not be factual, but that there is value in that. Mmhmm. Mark: certainly, of that we would like to have a world in which there was peace, in which there was inclusiveness, in which there was a better human relationship with the natural world. Yucca: Right. Mark: And, Yucca: hmm. Mm Mark: and one of the things about those myths is that they tell us that it's possible because it happened in the past. Yucca: hmm. Mark: I just choose to believe that it's possible because I think it's, it has to be possible. Yucca: Because we can choose to make it that way. Mm Mark: Yes. And we have chosen as humans to go far afield of that. Even, even in some of the ways that we have really excelled and succeeded as humans, like through science. You know, the newest science is generally applied first to creating weapons. Yucca: hmm. Mark: It's usually applied for figuring out ways to kill people. And that is a very, very sad commentary on the divorce between values and reason. That we have become very effective at applying our reason In problem solving and to understand the nature of the universe, but the concept of ethical constraints around that is, it's very tenuous. I mean, there is a field of scientific ethics, but I haven't seen much example of that actually applying except in the experimental sense. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: It's like, you know, no, we're sorry, you, you can't test this weird dangerous thing on live people, Yucca: Right. Yeah, we've got our review boards that we've got to get past to be able to do human or vertebrate subjects, but that's where it pretty much ends. Mark: yeah Yucca: you want to do anything with an invertebrate or anything that isn't an animal, and it's, you know, there's, there's no red tape. Mark: yeah. Yeah. So, you know, re rethinking these things in a really deep sense is important. It's really important. And immediately that makes you subject to some accusations of being very unrealistic because you're, you're thinking far beyond the bounds of what the currently constructed society can do. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mm Mark: And and of course also being accused of being radical, right? Because To make those changes would be a radical shift in the way humanity works. Don't think either of those accusations is very persuasive, myself. Yucca: hmm. Mark: I think people are so adaptable, and we have so many examples of cultures that have not been colonized by, or have only been partially colonized by, the Western mindset that has taken over virtually everything. in the world that operate differently, that I believe we do have choices about the way that we go forward. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mm Mark: And it starts with values. It starts with making decisions about what we consider to be sacred and what we consider to be worthy. And where we draw ethical lines around not doing things that we can do, but we really shouldn't. Yucca: hmm. Yeah, agreed. Mark: Because there's an awful lot of stuff that we do that we really just shouldn't do. Yucca: Yeah. Can and should. Those are two different things. Yeah. Mark: And there is a terrible tendency, and I mean, we see this in children. Given the opportunity to make something go boom, Yucca: Oh, not just children. Mark: Yeah, I know, everybody likes to make something go boom. It's it can be really fun. But when the implications are, you know, environmental devastation and, and loss of lives we really need to resist that urge to make things go boom. Yucca: Yeah, we need to maybe get that out of our systems when it's, you know, little pop cans with and vinegar and baking soda and things like that and not do it with, you know, People and buildings and mountains. Mark: And cities, and yeah, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So that's what I think. I think that this vision of the future starts with ideas that are around values, rather than structures. But in order to get those values really to propagate in a mass sense, it is going to take some major structural overhaul of the way humanity operates. And fundamental to that is we have to find an alternative to capitalism that works better for the planet. I think one thing that would help a lot, Would be if there were something, and I am, I'm just sort of spinning and talking while I'm thinking here, so maybe I'll end up in something really stupid, but I think international shipping is a big problem. For one thing, it causes a tremendous amount of of carbon into the atmosphere, just astronomical amounts of pollution. Yucca: Right. And so many other things. I mean, our, I think that decentralizing a lot of that would be really, really helpful. Mark: I agree. Yucca: you know, just the supply chain things that have happened over the last few years is just the tip of the iceberg with that. But if we could, return a lot of our means for survival to be in our own hands, in a more local setting, I think that that would be incredibly powerful because on so many different levels, one, just the practical, if something happens, then so many people are without a paddle, right? But also, it's really easy to control people when you control their ability to survive. you Other means to survive, right? Yeah. Mark: the exploitation of cheap labor facilitated by international shipping because producers can go shopping for the most destitute people they can find, pay them as little as they possibly can in order to produce consumer goods that then get shipped back to rich countries where people pay for them. And I mean, That's, that's not just a horror story, that is the standard operating procedure of manufacturing in the world. That's, that's, that's the way it is. Yucca: That's the origins of most of the objects around you right now. For most people, I don't know, some of you might be actually out you know, sitting in a tree with just your phone and some earbuds in. If so, that sounds awesome. But I'm guessing most people listening right now are probably in a constructed environment. In your car, in your house, you know, in a bus, something like that. Mark: Yeah, yeah. Yucca: So Mark: And there's nothing wrong with that, and I want to be very clear, I'm not shaming people Yucca: we're in the same boat, Mark: Yeah, I mean, we all have to live, you know, we're talking on computers here I've got headphones on that I am absolutely certain were made in China by someone who was not paid nearly enough for the service of having created this product. Myself, as, you know, similarly a wage slave in capitalism If that person was actually paid a reasonable wage, I might not have been able to afford these headphones, right? So the whole system reinforces itself, and no one is innocent, and no one other than the decision makers on this are really guilty. Yucca: Mm hmm. I'm Mark: You know, we, we all, we're all doing the best we can, given the system that we have, but that system needs to shift, unless we just decide we're gonna eat up the world and go extinct. Yucca: not so fond of that, Mark: I'm not either, I, that's just, you know, as, as golden futures go, that's really not one for me. Yucca: this is a topic that we did do several years back at this point. We did talk about misanthropy and I do see a a strong tendency of that in our culture today. Which is, I find, very saddening. But I, other than I don't agree with that from a value perspective it's very, it's very counterproductive. It really doesn't help us solve any of these problems, to be really down on, well, we should go extinct, it would be better for the, for everybody, or for the rest of the world, or, you know, all of that. It just, I don't think that, I don't buy that. I think it's not a very strong argument. It's kind of a, it's a cop out. Mark: Yeah, I was gonna say I agree with you, I, I don't have much truck with that either, and I think it's intellectually lazy. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: I think it's just, oh, there's a huge complicated problem, I don't want to think about it, maybe let's just go extinct. and, and it's a very uncompassionate, non empathetic way of looking at humanity and at, you know, The crises that we confront and I hope to do better than that and I think that we collectively can do better. Yucca: I think so. And I think it relates to our ability to choose what we are going to focus and pay attention to. And I think that's some of what we were talking about before about the nostalgia. When we're in that, we're focusing on just specific aspects of the past. Right? That nostalgia for the 60s in the hippie era. Well, there was a lot of things that really sucked about that, right? But when we're longing for it, we're not longing for the war and the turmoil and all of that. We're longing for the parts that were really positive about it. And so we, we have the ability to really shape the way That we behave in the world based on what we focus on. Not that we shouldn't pay attention to that, we certainly should pay attention to the negative things, but do we focus on solutions to those things? Or do we focus on the misery of how bad it sucks to be human? Yeah, enduring those things. Mark: Right. Right. Yeah, that's exactly right. And one of the things that I find increasingly frustrating is, is that tendency to simply say, well, we're screwed. And so let's stop trying. Yucca: hmm. Mark: Now, trying is going to involve some dislocation because capitalism gives us lots of goodies. It's totally unsustainable, but it gives us goodies that if we were to move into a sustainable modality, we probably wouldn't have nearly as many of. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: But the odds are good that we would actually be significantly happier because Instead of filling our desire for happiness and for satisfactions with the purchase of things, we would have stuff like culture and community and relationships and, and, and celebration like Pagan celebrations around the year, that kind of stuff. Spirituality art. All of those things that really are shunted to the side by the capitalistic frame, which is that all of those things, because they can't be monetized very well, aren't very important. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And so the challenge is moving out of that structure in a way that doesn't cause harm as we do it. Mark: Or the, the, the so called soft landing. You know, there are so many indicators that point towards some kind of collapse or crash coming not very long from now between climate change and and various economic indicators and so forth. You know, it is likely that there is going to be some real privation in our future, but Yucca: And there is. There is. Mark: he will, and there already Yucca: future. I think that there's a lot of places that we can point to in this moment and go, right here, here, here, here. Mark: Right, yeah, I mean, any Appalachian town that had the top of its mountains shaved off by a coal mining company, and then, which then marched off to, you know, do its next project in Brazil and left all those people with no work in a destroyed environment, I mean, that's a microcosm right there of exactly what capitalism does. And we need to have a more For want of a better word, holistic understanding about economic development. Economic development needs to be something that benefits people in the ways that most matter, and it is sustainable over time, rather than this endless boom bust thing that we see so often through capitalism. Yucca: Well, I think remembering the root of that word is helpful in this. The echo is home. That's what the word means, is home. So it remembering that everything that we're doing, we are doing, To our home, Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: so, Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: which we are part of, Mark: Right. Yucca: right? A home isn't just a house. A home is the people and the culture in that house. Right. It's all of the structures that the people depend on, that they're part of. Mark: And a part of the way that we can start pointing in this direction, I think, is through media. Because people need You know, we're so disconnected now. I mean, let me speak for myself and what I see around me in American society, right? People are very disconnected. They're often disconnected from their own families. Because of the nature of the job market under capitalism, families are atomized to the far corners of the world. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: As people seek jobs and go and work it becomes very hard for people to build communities because they're moving around looking for economic opportunities. Yucca: Right. Mark: And they're working themselves to death so they don't have a lot of time to build community and relationships and culture and all that kind of stuff. So I do feel that getting some of those warm, fuzzy, kind, empathetic values out into media is a way to kind of start the process. Mean, I can think of a couple of examples that just sort of reminded me of. Oh yeah, people can be kind to one another, people can, people can love one another, people can accept one another for who they are. And one of them is the Australian slash adults animated series, Bluey. Yucca: Absolutely. Mark: Yeah, I mean, as a mom, you, you know about Bluey, Yucca: Oh, I absolutely do. The parents in our household will be watching it, and the kids have left the room. It's a great, yeah, it really hits home. Very sweet. Mark: It's very kind and very thoughtful, and It's the kind of thing that, that moves the sorts of emotions that I think we need to be fostering more. You know, there's so much stuff out there that's all sort of, you know, post apocalyptic, war like, you know, blockbuster drama, and superhero vigilantes, and all that kind of stuff, and I just think people need to be reminded of how good it feels to be kind. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: the other one that I was thinking of is sensate. Did you ever see sensate? Yucca: No, I'm not familiar with this one. Mark: It's the word sense and then the, the letter, the, the numeral eight. Yucca: Okay. Mark: And you have to trust it because you won't understand what's going on until about three episodes into the series. It has Daryl Hannah in it and a bunch of people that I didn't know. But it's beautifully done. It's super queer, so it's very inclusive in that kind of way. And wonderful. It's done by the By Lana and the people who did The Matrix, Warszawski's, I, I, it's a, it's a long, seemingly Polish or Czech name that I, that I believe begins with a W. And both of those sisters are trans. When they made The Matrix they hadn't transitioned yet. So, interesting storytelling, interesting world perspective, just really worth checking out. Yucca: hmm. I've written that one down. I'm guessing that's not something you can watch with a five year old in the room. Mark: Probably not, no, there's, there's some sex in there, and, Yucca: wait for after bed. Mark: yeah and when they announced that it was cancelled, there was such an outpouring of, of rage that they made a movie to wrap it up, so that, there, the, I think it's two seasons and then the movie. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: It's either two or three seasons and then the movie, but anyway, yeah, worth, worth checking out because once again, it's like, oh, cool, interesting, unusual people being happy with each other. This is great. And, and it's a, it's a dramatic story. It's got tension. It's got conflict. It's got, you know, intrigue and all that good kind of stuff. It's not just people standing around being happy with one another, which unfortunately is not entertaining. Yucca: Yes. Although I wish that there maybe was some of that out there. Because sometimes that's what I, that's what I need to watch, Mark: yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. It's yeah, it's a funny thing. It's like, media can be like a companion in some ways, but what it reflects back to us can be really impactful on our worldview and on our feelings. And so getting, you know, getting a lot of the cruelty and, coldness out of what we consume. And building a market for that more kind, inclusive, warm human kind of way of being, I think is one of the things that we can do to start to shift things in the world. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And then of course there's activism. I mean, you need to, you need to just advocate that people not be exploited. That the planet not be exploited. And, Yucca: And of course, our, our everyday, just the way that we move through the world, right, working on ourselves about the kindness that we bring to the world, or don't bring to the world with us, Mark: Yes, yes. And that's particularly hard right now, actually, with the cultural divide in the United States, at least, where the rhetoric is so vitriolic. And Yucca: both sides, Mark: both sides, it really is. Yucca: demonization that happens, it's hard to breathe sometimes with Mark: It is. Well, and, you know, a lot of that is inspired by leader figures. I mean, there's, there's a lot that can be laid at the feet of Donald Trump simply for how abusive he's willing to be to other people. And people see that and say, Oh, well, then I can do that too. Yucca: right? Mark: It's, it's just Yucca: And I don't think it's a conscious process, for the most part. I don't think people actually say those words in their mind, to themselves, but that that is the takeaway, again, across the board, right? Not pointing to one aisle or the other, that that's, you That's a, it's something that's grown, at least my awareness of it has grown in the last few years. I think that it's something that's not just my awareness, I think that's a trend that has really really spread. Mark: Yes Yucca: and I think some of that is enabled by the systems that we have. Especially with format that social media has right now. And I think social media can, can take different forms, but the form that it has right now is very, is about creating the us versus them mentality, because that's what gets the clicks and that's what gets the advertising dollars. Mark: Yes. Yes, and to be honest, if it were not for the fact that the atheopagan community spaces are online social media spaces, mostly. I wouldn't be on them at all. I, I know that Facebook does bad things to me. I, I can tell that Facebook is doing bad things to me, and I can tell by the way the algorithm curates my feed that it's trying to rile me up, it's trying to get me mad. I get this endless stream of, like, right wing Christian stuff. Yucca: Well, because you look at it. Mark: Well, even if I don't interact with it, it's Yucca: but it sees how long you are, even if you don't click on it, it sees how long you stay over that page. So the, if you just keep scrolling past it, don't look at it at all, it won't give it to you as much. But it sees that you linger for that half a second on it, and then it'll give you more the next time, because it worked. Right? And that, that is a content that, it doesn't actually look at what the content is, it looks at whether you engage with the content or not. Mark: This is why I love groups, because there are no ads in groups. Yucca: You can just go right in. Yeah. Mark: in and you see the posts that people have made in the groups, and that's it. The, the curated feed is something that I try to avoid as much as possible. And, I mean, I used to use Twitter for rapid news, but now that's turned into a cesspool. I'm not, not gonna Yucca: Oh, I would say that it always has been. It's had some rough times recently, but it's It's definitely a model for all of that. Yeah. And of course, I mean, it's, each of the platforms have their, their issues. But, well, this has actually been a huge tangent. We we left the golden golden age topic half an hour ago, right? Mark: Well, what would that golden age look like? To me, the balancing act there, the place where I won't go is the so called dark green resistance. direction. There's a book called Dark Green Resistance and it's, it's very problematic in a number of ways, one of which is that it's extremely ableist. It basically declares that industrialization is, and, and the products of industrialization are things that we're going to have to give up in order to get into sustainability. And so basically everybody who's disabled and needs that support or needs, you know, prescriptions or whatever that is, they Yucca: So the, the folks who rely on insulin or other things like that, too bad. Mark: They can just, too bad. They're, they're, they're washed out. And so I find that very offensive and, and unproductive. I think, and unrealistic, to be honest, because the fact is that people, Yucca: We're not going to do that, Mark: no. People do, they, you know, these are family members, they're people that we love. We're not going to do that, and we're not going to let it be done to ourselves, either. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: So Me Yucca: I, I really dislike the framing of the nature versus humanity, Mark: too. Yucca: right? That's just so unproductive because we are, we're part of, we're part of all of it and we have to take care of us to be able to take care of the whole system. Because, Mark: And, and I have another tangent, which is that our, that that conceptualization of the separation between nature and humanity actually informs some of the early environmental laws that we have in this country, like the Wilderness Act that was approved in 1964. Which discusses in its preamble the idea of lands untrammeled by man, which, Yucca: except that we've been here for 30, 000 years. Thank you very much. Mark: In a completely racist way erases the presence of native people here for that entire time. Yucca: who have been actively managing that there isn't any news. Maybe some areas in Antarctica. But other than that, there's, there's no land on Earth that we haven't actively been managing for thousands of years. Mark: That's right. Yucca: That's not, yeah. Mark: Yeah, that's right. And there is still a divide within the environmental community between those who. are apoplectic that the National Park Service might allow these little tiny anchors to be pinned into rock so people can climb, because it's, it's inserting human technology into nature. And people who are much more reasonable, who understand, climbers are some of the best environmentalists there are. They love the outdoors, they love the wild, they love the wildlife, they, they, they donate, they, they volunteer, they vote, they do all the things that we need to do for our environment. And you're gonna, you're gonna tell them to get lost because they because you're upset about a totally invisible thing way up high on a rock face? I just, it's, it's, it ain't right. Yucca: Right. And there's a lot of other examples, you know, we can choose different fields for that. But that's definitely one of the ones that's like, really? That's, that's, that's, that's, That's the, okay, Mark: yeah, that's, that's the hill you're gonna die on. Yucca: what you're going to fight with? Okay. Yeah, because it's, okay, full disclosure, I am a climber, so, but but that's not even like arguing about roads, which you could have the argument of if they're improper, if they're not put in right, then you get erosion and trickle down effects from, like, problems with that. But yeah, Mark: there's a lot to be said for roadless areas. When the roadless area policy was implemented under Bill Clinton, it did some very good things for some large, unsegmented Yucca: absolutely, Mark: of wildlife habitat. Yucca: yeah. So, I see a lot of problems that have been created by roads. As a restoration ecologist, when I go in, that's one of the first things that we see is, oh, I haven't even walked up that way yet, but I know that there's a road that way. Right, so it's, it's something that, I just brought that up as something that I could see why people would be arguing against a road, but why somebody's going to argue against the little piece of metal in the, the rock all the way up there, Mark: makes no sense whatsoever. Yucca: most of the time you don't even know is there unless the person is actively climbing, right? Yeah. Mark: Yeah, exactly so. And, I mean, there, as you say, there are other examples of this as well. I mean, the, the terrible wildfires that ran through the Giant Sequoia National Park. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: killed 20 percent of the giant Sequoia trees. And the reason that that happened was because fire suppression practices for a century had built up fuels such that when fire finally went through there, the temperatures were so high that these giant trees were killed. So the Yucca: catastrophic fires. Yeah. Mark: because there wasn't beneficial fire, which is a natural part of the landscape and has been used by Native people to manage land for thousands of years. But that's what happened. Big catastrophic fire, a lot of the trees died. National Park Service decided, okay, well in order to help offset this, We need to plant some giant sequoias. We, you know, we need to propagate and then plant some giant sequoias. The same gang that I'm talking about, organizations like Wilderness Watch, went ballistic. No. You have to leave it alone. Wilderness is, is just that. You, you must, you can't touch it. You can't do anything to it. It must just be left to do whatever it's going to do, which on rangelands means you're going to end up with a whole bunch of invasive non natives, Yucca: You starve, you starve it. That's how you turn a range into a desert, is by fencing it off, because our grazers are gone, Mark: mm hmm. Yucca: right? And if you fence that off, and we don't have any grazers, it can't, you have just disrupted resource cycling. Right? You can't get nutrients into the soil. You're gonna get, you're gonna kill all your grasses, and yeah, you just end up with invasives. And then, you end up with bare, you end up with dirt. Mark: With bare dirt, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, this is, and I'm sure we can come up with myriad examples of this, but these are a couple of examples that have come up in the course of my work. And it's very frustrating because everybody involved in these conflicts wants to be doing the right thing, but some of them have some very strange criteria for what that is. And, Yucca: Well, and Mark: you know, I go back to, let's go with the science, let's go with what's practical, let's go with, let's, and, and particularly, to my mind, when we are still, especially in the West, having ongoing conflicts over whether nature is to be rendered into marketable resources. or allowed to flourish as nature. Surely we need to do something so that the people that care about that will continue to care about it, right? There's, there's a very human component to all of this. Yucca: That, those of us who are, embedded into these ecosystems as part of them and rely on them for our survival, that we are, that we're not left out of that, right? Because one of the problems that happens in my state a lot is that there's a real disconnect between the urban and rural, Communities, and the urban communities will have louder voices often, and will make choices for how, what they think is good for the land, forgetting that, like, yeah, but then we have no, like, then we're going to freeze to death this winter. If you, if you say that we can't cut any firewood, we're going to freeze. Like, you can't survive in this climate if you don't heat your homes, and great, you've got propane. You don't have to even think about it because you've got natural gas and propane and all that in your city, but, you know, we still need to cut down a couple of trees each year. Mark: Yeah. Yeah Yucca: so it's a, it's, it gets very, very complex. Emotions get high with that stuff. Mark: for sure. Yeah, so as I said, this is a big, long tangent, and I knew that it was gonna be, but it's, it's important. It's an important topic, and one that, that conservationists, We struggle with, you know, we struggle with one another about it. We sue on opposite sides of, you know, of these issues. And I don't have any, you know, quick simple answer for that, but it goes to this idea about what is the golden future. If the idea of the golden future is that, Nature is a park with fences around it. That's, you know, with, you know, all the abundant wildlife and sparkling springs and all that kind of stuff. That's not a realistic future vision. not how those things work, Yucca: and then we all live in that Wall City Mark: right? Yucca: But yeah. I think that whatever the future ends up looking like, that critical examination and reflection is, is really, I think that that's, that's key. That we not only be able to look at ourselves, but be able to look at our society and look at what, and examine what is it that we want, and how do we work towards that, instead of just sort of, just hitting the ground running and just going with whatever's happening, right? Mark: and especially what produces quarterly profitable returns. Yucca: Right? Because that, I mean, that doesn't take very much thought to realize some of the problems with that. Yeah, Mark: And there are things that we could do, there are policy things that we could do, that would make a huge difference in this. If, if legally you could not sell a stock for two years after you bought it, the economy would utterly transform. Because suddenly, The health of the, of the operation itself, and then of course you layer on environmental responsibility, social responsibility, governance responsibility, the so called ESG that the right wing is freaking out about if, if you put it that way. Corporate behavior in a frame like that, and make sure that people who invest are actually investing long enough that it, that they actually care about the performance of the company, you will have enterprises that actually succeed instead of simply cranking out something and then, you know, people can dump the stock, Yucca: mm hmm. Mark: and they will behave in a much more responsible fashion. So, there's, there are a lot of things we could do, there are a lot of things we could do. And we're not doing them, yet. Yucca: The fact that they're there is something that I find very hopeful, Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: right, that there are things that, that's just one solution, right? And if there's one solution, how many others are there, right? So, Mark: Yeah, and far smarter people than me are, are, they're working on this stuff. They're, they're trying to figure out what kind of a, a system we could have. One of the challenges that I have in reading some of that stuff is that it's often very academic and, and Disconnected from the realities of the world because I'm a politics guy, right? I'm a, I'm a, I'm an implementation guy. I, I want to see how does your idea, how does that get traction and move forward in our society? Yucca: mm hmm. Mark: But those are answerable questions in many cases. I think that golden future can happen, and it won't be golden all the time. That's, Yucca: just like everyday life, Mark: yeah, Yucca: right? Yeah, Mark: but we can certainly build a world that is much kinder. Much more inclusive, much more sustainable, and where people are a lot happier than they are under capitalism, because capitalism makes misery. Yucca: For most people. Mark: Except for a very tiny elite. Yucca: Even then, those folks don't look very happy. Mark: They don't. Yucca: They look terrified, and you can see them going crazy. So, it doesn't, it really doesn't, what we've got going on now, and I don't know if maybe there are some elements of capitalism that are things that, there's some positive elements that we could move forward with and other things we don't want to, but what we've got going on isn't working for most people. Mark: That's right. Yucca: So, I think we need to look, to really look at what do we want to move towards instead, and how to build that. And I don't think that we're, personally, I don't like the tearing everything down, because I think a lot of people get hurt in that process. I think it's something that we need to work towards in a, to transform. not to try and destroy and rise out of the ashes because that rarely ever works. There's quite a few countries to take a look at where that, in recent history, where that's been disastrous. That's not how it, you know, people Mark: Usually what it gets you is some kind of strong armed dictator who, It promises people that they'll be safe. Yucca: So, how do we make these changes in a way that supports and nurtures as many people along the way as possible? Mark: That is the problem before us. It is. Yucca: And it's worthwhile. It's I'm grateful that that's something that we get to think about. Mm Mark: you know, I really am too. And we're, we're at a moment in human history where I don't believe it's too late, but we're definitely talking about the big picture now. we're going to make decisions that are going to impact the big picture in a significant way. And it's kind of meaningful to be alive at this time and to have a role in advocating for the kinds of values and, and ethics and behavior that we want to see. Yucca: Yeah, and getting to, to choose that, right? Mm hmm. I Mark: I mean, there are a lot of people that don't have a lot of choice about the circumstances of their lives and they aren't good circumstances, but they don't have a lot of choice about that. And they just have to keep repeating the same thing over and over and over in order to barely eke out an existence. It's a privilege to be able to work at a different level than that where you can hopefully have some traction on the future. So you were right. We had a lot of tangents. Yucca: was gonna say, I loved it. This is great. Lots to think about. So, thanks for a great discussion, Mark, Mark: Yeah, thank you. Really enjoyed it. Let us know what you think, folks. The Wonder Podcast, queues at gmail. com. That's The Wonder Podcast, all one word, and then the letter Q and the letter S. Yucca: and we'll see you next week.

VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: DIF and California DOR - Discover how California's Department of Rehabilitation is revolutionizing job readiness through a sector-specific strategy

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 1, 2024 28:38

Mark Erlichman is in the studio today, Deputy Director of the VR Employment Division with the California Department of Rehabilitation. Learn how this DIF Grant innovates by aligning services with industry needs, not location, and creating targeted support in tech and more. They also combined the Career Index Plus with the artificial intelligence program SARA to create customized Individualized Plan for Employment (IPE) portfolios. Operational in just three months! #Innovation #DisabilityEmployment #SectorStrategy. Listen Here Full Transcript: {Music} Mark: You know, we can continue to complain about all the additional reports and data, but if the payoff is worth it because it's something you want and need it to do, it becomes a much easier grant to write and a much easier effort to justify and support. I think the counselors and their staff should drive the program. They're the ones that work with the consumers in our businesses. They're the ones who understand what's going on way better than I would sitting in my office on the third floor in Sacramento. I'm happy to be a conduit and connect people or anybody or has any questions at all about our project. We know collectively, the VR program is so much smarter than any one individual State. Intro Voice: Manager Minute brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management, Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host Carol Pankow. Carol: Welcome to the Manager Minute. Joining me in the studio today is Mark Erlichman, Deputy director, VR Employment Division with California Department of Rehabilitation. That is a mouthful. So welcome Mark. How are things going in California? Mark: Well it's going well as always. We have interesting times when the state budget comes out. So we're looking forward to the next week. But all in all, I think we're very proud of the work that we're doing. And I think we're really where we need to be as a program. Carol: Well of course, and you're working with Joe and I love Joe, but Joe is like, go, go, go, go, go. So I'm sure you guys are running on that treadmill at top speed. Mark: Yes, you know him very well, and it's exciting to work with Joe because it's never a dull moment. And the more progressive we can get, the more supportive he tends to be. So it does give us an awful lot of incentive to continue to be creative and push the envelope. Carol: That's very cool. Well, I want to give you a little nugget of what has happened since February of 22, when you recorded a podcast with me. It was our very first one we did in the series on Rapid Engagement, and I have to tell you, it was our most downloaded podcast we've ever done by like triple. It was wild, and I feel like that podcast was the beginning of a little bit of a revolution. On the rapid engagement topic. I was super excited about that, and so I wanted to let you know that when I think about California VR, I always think about how innovative you guys are. And I'm really excited to talk about the Disability Innovation Fund Career Advancement Project. And so in the fall, I did a series of three with three of the other programs, and I couldn't get you. I kept trying, and Karen Grandin, project officer at RSA, is like, have you talked to California yet? I've said, I'm trying to get Mark, so thanks for being on. I really appreciate it. I just want to give a little recap to our listeners, because they may have forgotten a little bit about kind of why this particular DIF grant came about. And the grant activity here for the Career advancement is geared to support innovative activities aimed to improve the outcomes of individuals with disability. And these were funded back in 2021, and they were intended to identify and demonstrate practices supported by evidence to assist VR eligible individuals with disabilities, including previously served VR participants in employment who reenter the VR program to do the following things. They were looking at advancing in high demand high quality careers like science, technology, engineering and math. All that STEM stuff. Entering career pathways and industry driven sectors through pre apprenticeships and registered apprenticeships, improving and maximizing competitive integrated employment and reducing reliance on public benefits. And I remember at that time too looking at when they published the announcement, they had some really kind of disturbing data on what was happening with our VR program. So the timing was perfect. And of course, you all jumped right on the bandwagon and put something in. So let's just dig in and talk about your grant. So, Mark, would you remind our listeners about your story and how you came to VR? People are always interested, like, where'd you come from and what's your role there? Mark: Thank you. And I appreciate the summary of the innovation grant. So we did see these as a phenomenal opportunity to look at work we wanted to do and then just expand on it. And it really was up my alley. I actually started my career back in the mid 90s, 1994 to be exact, as a rehab counselor, and I worked as a rehabilitation counselor in a fairly rural area working with migrant farm workers with the transition age, population supported employment and individuals that were exiting the prison system and were still justice involved. And I really got the opportunity to learn to love my job and to recognize and realize how complicated and how wonderfully difficult doing this job correctly can be, but how rewarding it is, particularly when you see individuals who did not believe in themselves, begin to believe in themselves, and to really build themselves up and move themselves forward. So as I moved up, for some reason, I kept getting other opportunities and got promoted a couple of times and worked my way up within the Department of Rehabilitation here in California. Since 1994, I think I've had nine different jobs, most recently June of 2019. So six months, kind of before Covid was even a thing, I took on the role of the Deputy Director responsible over our field operations. So I work with our 13 regional districts, and we work with all individuals, with the exception of the blind/visually impaired who were served out of a different division. But everyone else, including our business services and our student services, are served out of our division here and very fortunate to have this opportunity. And like you mentioned, lots and lots of pressure, both from above and from below. I have about 1400 staff who have really done a remarkable job in continuing programs and services. Even through the Covid pandemic. We actually served over 134,000 people last year, which is 30,000 more than we served even before Covid. So people came back. And our staff have done a remarkable job in serving them. And then pressure from above, with Joe really saying, if we don't step up, if we don't do a better job in customer service, and serving the public, then we don't really deserve to exist as a program. And so we take that seriously as well. So I've been very fortunate that I've had a good career here in the department, but I'm also very grateful to work with the teams that I've been able to work with. Carol: It's very cool. I always knew you guys were part of the big four, because I always think about California and Texas, Florida and New York as the four biggest VR programs out of the 78, so there's a lot of added pressure to that. The numbers are just exponentially so much bigger. That is wild. But I think your experience leads you to what you did with writing this grant. So give us a little bit of overview about the grant, the proposal you wrote, and what you were hoping to accomplish. Mark: The premise of the grant really was that expertise in careers and understanding sectors can be just as valuable as their expertise in disability and in other areas. As a counselor, one of the things I mentioned, I have a variety of consumers that I work with and a variety of ages, disabilities, ethnicity, gender. There are a lot of variability. The main thing they had in common was their zip code. They all lived in the proximal area that was near my office, and that's how I got to work with them. And I began to notice is that being able to work with a lot of different individuals, with a lot of different vocational goals, I had to start learning about how a teacher or a butcher or a nurse got a job, which is widely different. How a teacher gets a job is nothing like how a butcher gets a job. So each time I had to try to figure out, well, how do I get information? This is pre-internet, but I think it's still applicable now. I actually had to go talk to teachers and talk to nurses. And I went to talk to a butcher at a grocery store because the only butchers I knew were at the grocery store, and they told me, no, don't have your consumer come here, apply for jobs here. So 60 miles away, we have something called Harris Ranch, which is one of the largest beef providers in the country, and they hire somewhere between 50 and 60 new butchers every year. And if you get a job there and you get trained there, you can really work anywhere else. And I go, wow, if I wouldn't have asked, I wouldn't have known. And the other thing that I realized is I had two consumers who wanted to be teachers, forget their disability, they had way more in common with each other because of their vocational goal and their career goal. Then somebody with the same disability, same age and same zip code. And so it really made sense. So it maybe makes sense to align our expertise and our caseloads based on something other than proximity. So the premise behind our grant application was, let's align our caseloads and have staff and dedicated teams that are specific to industry sectors that can work with individuals regardless of where they are in the state, regardless of their zip code, regardless of their disability, but that have the same vocational goal because those counselors in those teams, they can work with the industries and understand how industry hire and recruit and retain people and help our consumers mentor them and support them in getting jobs in that area. The other reason behind the application was the feedback we got from our businesses, and I don't know how many of our VR programs have had business satisfaction surveys for our business customers, but the feedback we've gotten regularly and that we had three in-person sessions, focus groups with our business partners, and we have an employer or business survey. Almost universally what we hear, we hear two things. One, you don't understand our business, and two, you're not sending us consumers that are ready for employment. And so understanding that we can align other than by zip code, and we need to better understand our businesses. That's how we arrived at the premise for this grant. And really the grant application that we work with our partners at San Diego State to put together what apparently turned out to be a competitive application was that we were going to create sector specialist teams that included a counselor and a business sector consultant that would be located in areas where there's a high concentration of that sector, for example, information technology in the San Francisco Bay area, biotechnology in the Los Angeles area. And so they would have contact with those industries and work with those business leaders and go to industry events, learn how those industries hire people, and then come back and provide that information and support to individuals that are seeking careers in those fields. We have five teams that are supporting six different sectors. They're working with people all over the state. So we have a lot of remote work with our consumers. We use Zoom and other technologies to keep in touch with our consumers. We use local resources because we still have local offices, but their primary counseling and guidance comes from people who really, really, truly understand the needs of the industry and how people get jobs in those industries. Carol: I love this idea. In fact, Jeff, my producer for the podcast, we talked after we visited with you yesterday a little bit and we went, this is cool because when you think about that, and I never was a counselor, but I could empathize with our counselors. They would talk about it. You know, you have to understand all of these occupations. And it's difficult because there's all these nuanced things that you aren't going to necessarily always remember, because maybe you place somebody in that industry a year ago, so you're not remembering all the little fine points to it. But if you keep within those sectors, I would think that people could really feel good about it. And I was curious how your staff are feeling about these sector specific teams, because I would think for me, you'd have a rich level of knowledge, you'd feel super competent, you would really have this great perspective and ability to help people in a very deep way. So how are your staff responding to it? Mark: They're thrilled. There's 1400 staff that work in our division, and we have very small cohort working on this. So we have five counselors. We have three business sector specialists and a manager. And they push the envelope. They ask for things that I wouldn't even have thought of a year ago that based on their experience, they want to try out. This team is so enthusiastic about their jobs that I'm hearing from business leaders that are saying, we're so glad they think that the counselor that they're working with is not just a resource, but they feel like that's somebody that they want to steal away from us because of the conversation and the understanding. They get to go to industry events. And we went to a biotechnology conference and everybody's wondering why we were there. And by the end of the conference, the stack of business cards and business contacts that are business specialists and the counselor came back with was incredible. The opportunity to create work experience, work sites and internships, do some career exploration, and some informational interviews for our consumers. It's almost unique. I think every one of our consumers has an opportunity to do a paid work experience, because the businesses are saying yes to us, because we're asking them based on a personal relationship that these business consultants are developing. They're really enthusiastic and energetic, and it's so much fun to talk with them because, like having a conversation with our director, Joe, they push me and they push us to think differently and to move in a different direction, which is, I think, the way it should be. I think the counselors and their staff should drive the program. They're the ones that work with the consumers in our businesses. They're the ones who understand what's going on way better than I would sitting in my office on the third floor in Sacramento. Carol: Yeah, I love that. I have to back up, though. I want to ask you a question about I know when you approached this grant, you've written another DIF grant before. So you've been around the block a little bit. I know when I talk to our other folks from the other states, everybody seemed to struggle with year one. You know, RSA is like spend the money, you know, and everybody says, oh, I'm trying to hire and I'm trying to do all these things. You were smart, though. What did you do differently with this DIF grant than you did before that helped you with that year one start? Mark: I don't know if it's smart or if it's experience based on experiencing the same problems. I think we do learn from past efforts when we wrote this grant. So part of the grant, and I think many of the grants that were written and that were awarded included staffing. So you wanted to hire staff and put staff on this effort and have dedicated staff to work with the consumers and to run the project. So and we did. We got eight I think, we got nine allocated positions to manage and to implement this project. So what we did was we identified what skills and talents we were looking for and what experiences we were looking for in those nine staff. We went out and talked to our district administrators and some of our managers and said, okay, which one of your existing staff have this experience and this knowledge? And we just assigned existing staff, incumbent staff, who were well trained, had demonstrated knowledge and skills in that area and were enthusiastic and energetic. We assign them to this grant, and we just use the funds and the resources that we got from the grant to hire nine new staff to backfill. Whether they were regular generals, counselor, or they're a counselor for the deaf, we just backfill behind them. We didn't have a runway. We just started right from mid-flight. And that made a huge difference because we didn't have to train people to be counselors. And we didn't have to recruit. We didn't have to wait for announcements or advertisements. So we actually started working with consumers. I think almost three months in, we already had started enrolling consumers. Carol: That is awesome because I know every single other group I talked to this long lead time for getting people on. And so year one kind of ends up being a little bit of a bust. You hate to say it quite that way, but. And it depends your state processes, it can take you almost nine months to get the people on board, and especially training them and doing all of that. So I thought that was super brilliant. Can you remind us of all the sectors you talked about a couple, what are they? Mark: Yeah. So we have six sectors within five teams because we kind of split up our advanced manufacturing and transportation. There's a lot of money that's going into infrastructure around transportation, and some of it is different than advanced manufacturing. So those two sectors, advanced manufacturing and transportation were kind of combined. But we also have biotechnology. That's another one of our sectors. It's very well paid and things that you wouldn't think of like phlebotomy lab. That's Biotechnology, Genetic engineering is Biotechnology, manufacturing medications is Biotechnology. That was one of our sectors, another one of our sectors. Health care, and that's predominant in all of our local planning areas in California. So health care is another one. And our information technology communications is the other sector. And so those are five. The sixth sector actually is our green industries. There's a lot of effort, particularly in some of our regions in California around green industries, green energy. So those are our six sectors split among our five sector specialist teams. Carol: I think that's pretty cool. And it's diverse. It's like a diverse type of work. So you're crossing all of it. I know there was another piece too, in your application where you talked about you were going to link Career Index plus that labor market tool. So for folks that may not be aware of it, it's awesome. And I love the Career Index Plus. We used it when I was in Minnesota. I think very highly of it. But you were going to pair that with Sarah to create, which is another AI tool that people use, but you're going to use it to create customized and comprehensive IP portfolios. Talk a little bit about that. Like what are you doing with that? Mark: Well, we were very fortunate we actually wrote that into the grant. And you know, to bring those experts into the conversation and to help us adapt the TCI Plus for California and for what we were looking for. And the same thing with SARA. SARA is like a digital assistant where you can program it to send reminders and messages to consumers and then get messages back from consumers and have that information uploaded to our case management system. And we're in an aware state. So we actually had APIs created that allowed us. So when SARA sends a note out or we get a response that actually becomes kind of automates that, communication chain into case notes in our system and TCI Plus as well. We worked with TCI Plus that actually can upload information into our plans. But for us, what I think is the beauty and really the fortunate part about having us incorporate this as part of the grant was that our staff and I mentioned this, you know, the really, really creative and very enthusiastic staff, those staff helped inform the design and the contact and the connections and what was needed. It really was a very good partnership that allowed the staff to work in the way they needed and wanted to work based on what they were learning from the businesses and what they were learning from our consumers and what our consumers needed. And the best results are when the people on the ground, the boots on the ground, the staff that are working can influence and help design the tools that they're going to be using themselves to support our consumers. Carol: Do you think some of the work that you guys did with this part of the project can be replicated for those other states that also use SARA, and they may use Career Index Plus? Do you think there's some things that are transferable to other folks that might be interested? Mark: I absolutely think so. If nothing else, having a conversation with the staff that are using these and how these were adapted, including the TCI Plus staff and the SARA team and those conversations, there isn't anything that really reinforced in this grant and or other grant as well. There's nothing that we've done or design in here that we can't continue to do after the grant period ends. For me, the most unfortunate thing and a hint or a tip from somebody working on these grants is make sure that if you're doing something that turns out to be really valuable or a tool that becomes really, really useful, that it doesn't expire, that you can then continue it, because the worst and most unfortunate thing you can do is find out something is great, and then have to stop doing it, even if down the road you can bring it back. And so that's how we design in our work with TCI Plus and SARA really was designed in the fact that this can then be scalable up across our whole organization once it's proved efficacious, and once the design and the systems are in place that work for our consumers and staff. Carol: See, I like that about the DIF grants because they are the gift that can keep on giving. Somebody does it. You know, you're trying out this stuff in your state and then you can get this out to other people and they start going, oh, we can do something like that here, because there's nothing that would prevent them from trying a sector specific strategy right now. For some of the other folks, it just gives you that like, oh, that's a different way to think about it. I really like it. And since you're talking about tips, do you have any other tips for our folks that may be wanting to apply for a DIF? You know, sometimes people are on the fence. They're like, ah, is it going to be too much work? I don't know if I want to do it. We get a lot of calls. People are like, what should we do? It's like, well, you got to decide that. But do you have any advice for folks? Mark: The way we approached these last two and we applied for two of the last three, we identified things that we wanted to do and we would likely would do anyway had we had the resources to do so. So I would start with, what are some things that you had put on the table that you weren't able to do in the past? Because almost always what you've been working on or what you want to do is almost always designed or thought of to address an existing problem or take advantage of an opportunity. And so when we look at the DIF grant opportunities, we know we read what was in there. And in there it talks about, you know, preferences and what the interests of the grantor in this case are saying. We want to focus on careers or the next on subminimum wage. It's more flexible than you think it is. And what the tip is, look at what you wanted to do anyway. Look at the priority in the grant and say, okay, how does this align with what we want to do? And then write a grant for something you want to do anyway, and you would do anyway, but that this gives you the resources to do that. It's much easier to write that way, and you get a lot more organizational, institutional buy in, because these are things that people have either been pitching or been trying to do all along. And now this is an opportunity to do that. We hear a lot about administrative burden, and there's a lot of reporting, and we provide feedback that there's a lot of reports, a lot of meetings, a lot, but in perspective, the value that you get from it, and, you know, we can continue to complain about all the additional reports and data. But if the payoff is worth it because it's something you want and needed to do, it becomes a much easier grant to write and much easier effort to justify and support. Carol: That's an awesome tip. I love that because I have not heard that yet. And I just think that is really, really smart. So what are you guys seeing for results? Because I think, aren't we going into year three of this. Mark: Yeah, we're just in the very beginning of year three. Carol: Yeah. So what are you starting to see like what's happening. Mark: So we applied for and we got $18.33 million for the five year period of performance. And like we mentioned like I mentioned earlier, when we're talking about we were able to start pretty much in the beginning or towards the beginning of year one. And we'd split up the funds over five years. And one of the things that really comes up is, are you expending your funds and RSA they really interested, you know, don't send anything back. So we're actually we're well on our way to expanding our funds. And it's not because we're frugal or not frugal, it's because we actually have enrolled over 615 participants already. And so our goal is 1400 over the five years, and we're actually able to enroll people even in year five because of the extension that we're able to get. So yeah, we are right on track to enroll the 1400, even though a lot of people are just starting, as you noted, our sectors, they're all high wage. Almost all of them are in STEM occupations. They are in highly skilled jobs. These are jobs that we believe lead into careers and into long-term, family sustaining wage employment. And that is because even though we're just starting year three, so and people are most of them are in college or in some type of technical training or vocational training. Already seen 52 people go to work. So we've had 17 closed successfully. So the not only do they go to work, they spend the 90 plus days they were satisfied with their employment and they were closed successfully. We have 11 more that are just have gotten their career placement. So it's not a job placement we have, we're doing 52 placements. We're not considering a job placement to be an employment outcome unless it's in their final terminal career position, because almost all of these participants are offered paid work experience along the way and when they needed, we do some interim employment because people also need to support themselves. And so we have 24 of our consumers are working in their field, but not in their terminal job. But what we're really proud of is out of those 52 people that are working their average wage at the time that they started work, or at the time that they were, their case was closed for the 17, their average wage is $29.76 an hour. Carol: So it's a little higher than the average we usually see on the chart. You know, RSA comes and they show the chart across the country. And what is it like 12 bucks or something that people are making or maybe 13. So it's significantly more. Mark: Yeah. And for those that are not still in school or in training, I think that our average hours worked, which is another thing that comes up. It's not just how much are you making, it's, you working full time? Do you have benefits? I think our average hours work weekly for those individuals in their career was over 40 hours a week. Carol: Wow! Mark: So when you multiply full time plus about $30 an hour, that's family sustaining wage. And I think that's what's really, really exciting about this is individuals are successfully employed in a career that can support themselves, even in California, which is really a high cost state. Carol: But your participants in this, it's a wide variety. You know, people think, oh, what's the characteristics of the population that you're serving? Mark: Yeah. When we wrote the grant, we wanted to make sure that individuals from underrepresented communities, and when we're talking about underrepresented, not just individuals from brown or black communities, but individuals who historically aren't directed into STEM occupations or high wage occupations. And we do that where there are individuals, have an intellectual developmental disability, behavioral health, disability, and women are not directed or encouraged to get into engineering or STEM occupations either. We wanted to make sure that we're not just directing people who are going to ask for these careers or are directed these careers anyway. We want to make sure that individuals that were Hispanic, African American or Black Native American individuals with intellectual developmental disabilities and women that we were focusing in on our recruitment and directing and writing plans for these high wage, high skilled jobs. And so right now, even though we're still kind of early on, of the 650 consumers, 70% of the participants are either Hispanic or Black, African American or Native American. And so that's 70%. 43% of our participants are female. We want to get to at least 50%. But when we look historically in these occupations, if you're looking at IT typically we are seeing, if you're lucky, if you approach 20%. So we really are proud of the efforts to make sure that we're fully inclusive and we're not leaving anybody behind. These jobs, these careers, they should be available to everyone. Carol: This is super exciting. I'm always excited about what you guys are doing, but I love being able to share with our listeners across the country because I don't know when you all get a chance to speak at CSAVR and say all your really great things you're doing, but I like getting those seeds out to people early because it's cool stuff. So are you willing? I know you've been in the past. I know what the Rapid Engagement and number of people said, Oh, I reached out to Mark, I felt really bad. But again, if there's folks that are interested in reaching out about what you guys are doing on this, are you willing again to take an email or something? Or how should people best contact you? Mark: Probably email would be the best because that way I will definitely see it. I think I probably spend 80% of my time staring at a screen, so the email probably be best. I try to get back to people right away. Any information, or if somebody wants to be connected with our business specialist or one of our partners, we actually have some really, really exciting partners that are working with us on us as well, and I'd love to connect people with them as well. We have our Stanford Neurodiversity Project is helping us in ensuring the individuals that are neurodiverse get the services and supports that they need, and the businesses that are employing them get the training so that the same thing with our UCLA Targin center, they're working with us to make sure individuals with intellectual developmental disabilities can benefit from the training and the supports that are available. And we also working with San Diego State University and like you mentioned, TCI Plus and SARA. So I'm happy to be a conduit and connect people. Or if anybody has any questions at all about our project or want to share some other, again, if people have ideas or you have other sector strategies out there also, we'd love to hear that because we're absolutely willing to steal and to take other people's ideas and incorporate them into our projects, because we know collectively, the VR program is so much smarter than any one individual State. Carol: Very cool. So could you give us your email address? Mark: Sure. It's. Mark dot erlichman e r l i c h m a n at d o r dot ca.gov again. So that's Mark.Erlichman@DOR.CA.gov. Carol: Awesome. Mark, I really appreciate your time. I know you're one busy guy. I was so glad to get you for a few minutes. I really appreciate it and I'm hoping to circle back with you all, you know, closer to the end of the project. I'd really love to get an update and I'm sure you'll be like, we are like 1800 people and I know you guys, you're going to blow it out of the park. So I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Mark: And we appreciate the compliments, appreciate the confidence, and as always, we really love your podcast. Love the resources and supports that you provide out to all of us. And I'm looking forward to hearing about the other projects as well. So thank you. Carol: Well thanks Mark. Talk to you later. Mark: Take care. Bye, Carol. {Music} Outro Voice: Conversations powered by VR, one manager at a time, one minute at a time, brought to you by the VR TAC for Quality Management. Catch all of our podcast episodes by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening!

Core Ritual Skills

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 19, 2024 43:34

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com Suntree Retreat 2024: https://theapsocietyorg.wordpress.com/news-and-events/suntree-retreat-2024/ Season 5 - Episode 5 ----more---- Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder, science based paganism. I'm your host, Mark. Yucca: And I'm Yucca. Mark: And today we're going to visit the four core ritual skills. Now, obviously, there are a lot of different things that can be useful in leading rituals and in in participating in them, but these are four clusters of activity. That if you're good at them, you're going to have a lot more success both in leading rituals and in submerging yourself into the ritual trance y state, the flow state where you can really have effective things happen in rituals. Yucca: Great. Mark: that's what we're gonna do today. Yucca: And this is more from the lens of a group ritual than necessarily a private ritual because there's a few things we'll be talking about, like the speech part, which maybe you might do in a private ritual or maybe you don't. But when you're, when you have that interaction between multiple people and what we're going to be talking about, you can apply a lot of that to your private rituals as well, to your solo or individual. Mark: Sure. I know people who are who are pagans and whose solo practice involves a lot of dance, for Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: because they're very movement oriented people and that's, that's what they do even, you know, in the privacy of their solo rituals. Yucca: Right. Mark: so yes and, and beyond that, these are good skills just to have in the world, you know, it's, it's helpful to have these. So why don't we start with public speaking, Yucca: Yeah. So, especially when you are leading the ritual, the words are how we communicate with each other and communicate these really complex ideas. We're gonna communicate other things through our body language, through movement, but when we're trying to communicate nuanced ideas, it's words. Mark: right? And this is the, the whole cluster of things that go into verbal communication, right? So it's not only speaking in coherent sentences and, you know, having an interesting modulation to your voice so that you're not speaking in a monotone. It's engaging. People are, you know, want to listen to it, but also the physical ability just to project your voice out, right? So that people that are in that space can hear what you're saying. All of those things are, are, they're learned skills. All of our speaking abilities are learned skills. I mean, we watch little kids slowly accumulate the ability to communicate about complex Yucca: Right? We start with a half a dozen sounds. Words that are instinctual, that are, I'm hungry, I'm in pain, and that's it. Everything else that, how many thousands of words do we know in each language, right? Each language's vocabulary amazing, Mark: Yeah. Yeah. And clearly, evolution has strongly favored our capacity to do this because a whole lot of brain space is taken up by our capacities to learn language and to speak. And then, of course, the whole separate factor of being able to read and write, which is a different set of skills, right? And a set of skills that we're not really talking about so much today. Yucca: right, Mark: Now, not everybody is a natural. Public speaker. I feel very fortunate that I happen to be gifted in that regard and that I can just sort of improvisationally talk about things that interest me not so much about things that don't interest me, but that's an ADHD thing, I think, Yucca: mhm. And I'm the opposite. Speaking is very difficult. I didn't speak till I was four. This is all learned and hard earned hard, it was difficult to learn to do, and I'm not comfortable with public speaking, despite doing it for a living but it's, if I was to be leading a ritual, it would be something that I would do. be practicing ahead of time. And that's just different ways of being, right? You just kind of need to know yourself that, Mark, it seems like you could just kind of go into it, you know, have a little bit of an idea and be able to know what to say in the moment. I'd have to think about that ahead of time. Mark: yeah, often I can just go into it with kind of a mental outline. If I'm giving a long address, like an hour long, Something. I'll work from a, an outline, but that's usually only a page. So it's just, I don't know, it's, it's something that, that I have an aptitude for and I feel really fortunate for that. And I also don't take any credit for it because it's just a genetic die roll. I happened to, to land that. The, so there are a variety of different techniques that you can use in order to improve your ability. To, to do public speaking, it's, it's very, very difficult for people to remain interested in watching someone read something aloud. Yucca: Right. Mark: That's very challenging. So if you can speak from an outline, like on an index card, that can be A much better way to go, but if you need to, like, write out the first sentence of every paragraph or something to kind of give yourself a launching point to go from there are just some practical things you can do that will make it easier for you to do that in a ritual context. Use a binder, for example. It looks a little more formal, and you don't have to worry about pages shuffling all over the place. You can hold the binder, you know, like people do when they're singing in a choir or something like that, and just refer down to it, and then look up to make eye contact with people in the group so that they feel engaged. That eye contact piece is very important. Yucca: Yeah. And the, and it's a practice thing as well, but the length of eye contact is going to depend on how many people you have in your group. But often Your one to three seconds is kind of that sweet spot where it's, you're acknowledging the person, but not, it doesn't become uncomfortable. You're not, Mark: Right. Yucca: having it feel like they're being examined or peered into. It's There's just that moment of connection. Now, if you've got a group of 20 people, you don't have time to make three second eye contact with every single person there. But if you have a group of four people, then that's a, you know, you just gotta have to judge it in the moment. Mark: Right. In the, in the case of that group of 20 people, you can pick individuals out of the group that you make that eye contact with and then maybe use a different set the next time you look up so that eventually everybody feels kind of included. And the, the trick with eye contact, which I know is very uncomfortable for some people, is that you can look somebody right between the eyes, straight between their eyebrows, and you're not making eye contact with them, and they won't know it. Yucca: And it's, yeah, it still feels like it. Rather than focusing on, you know, when you're making true eye contact, you're really looking at one of the pupils, right? But you don't actually need to do that, yeah. Mark: Just, just that little bit of difference at any kind of distance at all, they're not going to know. In many cases in ritual settings, we're working under low light conditions, so that makes it even a little bit fuzzier. And that's a way that you can keep yourself from becoming as self conscious as you might be by looking someone straight in the eyes. Yucca: Right, because if you are, now this is if you're leading it, you are keeping track of a lot of things. in your mind at that moment. But for the eye contact, being a participant in a ritual, there's the eye contact with the person who is leading it and with the others, and that's just a nice, that's a nice trick to have, just a nice tool, not trick in like a manipulative way, but just a nice tool for your social toolbox. Mark: Sure. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's a way to self, save yourself from a feeling of, that you're too exposed. Because that's the thing about eye contact is that it feels very exposing to both of, both people who are, who are meeting their gaze. And so if you fudge a little bit, it, it can make you feel a little bit less exposed and more confident. Yucca: right. Mark: Now I, I, oh, go ahead. Yucca: Oh, I was going to say, and it can be something on just the eye contact is something that can be very powerful when it's consensual, right? Like if some of the most powerful experiences I've had with others is just sitting and having a few minutes of just looking into their eyes. Mark: Yes. Yucca: And it can just be really, really moving just a very powerful experience. But it has to be consensual, right? And that's, that's something that we need to mention about everything with ritual, is that there needs to be consent for whatever is happening in the Mark: Indeed. And that's why it's important to give people an overview at the beginning of a ritual about what we're going to do. Now, that doesn't mean exposing every little detail. It can be fine to have things that are surprising not in a negative way, but you can have, you know, surprises along the way that transformative and go, Oh, wow, look, that's what's happening now. But you do want to make sure that everybody has pretty well signed on to going on this ride with you. That's, Yucca: Especially if there's going to be any physical contact, Mark: Oh, yes. Yucca: right? Like, if people are going to hold hands or, you know, put their hands on someone's shoulder or anything like that, that's, it's really important that people know that that's what they're getting into. Because people have very different experiences with that. They don't owe it to us to explain why they're not comfortable or are comfortable with it. That's their business, right? Mark: Exactly so. Um, and I, I referenced a minute ago something, and I'm, and I'm glad that I reminded myself about this because, okay, so, so you're listening to the things that we're talking about here. You've got your, your outline in a binder, and you're, you know, reading that first sentence or getting the reminder of what that next little statement is supposed to be about, and then looking up and looking at people between the eyes so that you don't have to feel uncomfortable about actually meeting their gaze, and then you realize that you can't see what's on the page because you're in low light conditions, and then you get out your flashlight, and And try to hold it in your mouth and read at the same time. And it doesn't work Yucca: for everyone listening, Mark literally put a flashlight in his mouth in that moment that you just happened to have right next to you. Mark: Yes, there happened to be one on my table here. So what you want to do is you want to have some sort of a light source that will clip to your binder, One of those, you know, little, you know, night, Yucca: lamps so that you don't wake your partner up in bed, sort of thing, or yeah, Mark: Very useful tool for a ritual leader to have. They make a, a little light, they've got a little shade on them so that it isn't blinding to other people. And it really gives you the light that you need without being too obtrusive. Yucca: and you can get them in kind of a, an Amber, reddish light, too, and that's really nice because that doesn't spoil people's dark vision as much as like a bright white or blue light might. Mark: Right. I actually saw a park ranger giving a campfire talk using one of those. Yucca: Mm. Mark: seemed like she was new or something, and, you know, didn't quite have the whole wrap down yet necessarily. She Yucca: memorized the entire thing. Mark: Right. She did a great job, but she had to refer to notes and didn't actually use a binder. She used a clipboard, but, you know, same kind of deal. Yeah, and, and she used that amber color. So that people could look up at the stars because part of her part of what she referenced was was stars. Yucca: Right. It was a nighttime activity that you were doing. You weren't out in, you know, the middle of the day, noon, the baking sun. Not in Mark: right. No, we were around a fire and the fire, of course, made some light, but the, but not. I mean, it's going to, that's, that's right. It's going to cast a shadow towards your face, so that's not going to do any good. And it's flickering to begin with, which just makes it very unreliable for reading. So that's a, you know, a little, a little tip that, you know, will actually do you a lot of good if you're doing public speaking in a, in a dark, Yucca: would really encourage people not to use your phones as your light when you're in a ritual setting because just the presence of a phone or a tablet or something like that can really pull people out of the present moment. And the, there's, we, we have a pretty big issue in our society where, with the what is it called? Fubbing? Where people, when their phone is out? In social situations, and somebody's looking at the phone, and then the person who's interacting with them is getting the social signal of, I'm not interested in what you're saying because I keep looking at the phone and so there's a, a lot of people have a emotional, often unconscious, but emotional response to the other person's got their phone out, they're not interested. Mark: right. Yucca: So when we're dealing with symbology and metaphor that, that can be something that's very triggering for people, is to have that phone out. Mark: Great point. I'm really glad you brought that up. And that's another reason why you don't want to have your notes on your phone or on a tablet. I know it's convenient. I know it means that you can just type everything up without printing anything out, any of that sort of stuff. But removing, removing most forms of digital technology from the ritual circle, It helps, and I'm not entirely sure why it helps, but it does. There's something about that technology that is just so riveting for people, it draws their attention so heavily, it becomes much more difficult to be present, and that, of course, is core to what we work to do in a ritual space. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: Um, I, I'm reminded, I've just started, I've started game mastering a game for the first time in 37 years. Yucca: Oh, wonderful. Mark: had our we're playing Shadow Dark. And we started week before last, I'm gonna run another session this week. And one of the things that I, I, I told them, this is gonna be the most painful thing that you're gonna have to do all evening. I made them stack all their phones on the table. If you touch them, you take damage. Yucca: oh, that's brilliant. Mark: You, you, you Yucca: But yeah, it hurts. It can be really uncomfortable to be separated from it. Mark: Sure, because whenever people are, are distracted or bored or uncomfortable, their go to is to bury themselves in their phones. And it's, you know, we, we had a very lively, good social interaction throughout the game because people were engaged with one another rather than with their phones. So, you know, waiting for their turn. So, yeah, that was a great thing. Yucca: Mm hmm. You know, I think that there's a lot of parallels between game mastering and leading a ritual. Mark: I Yucca: So many overlaps between those skills, because on both, you're, you're, it's, both things are collective storytelling, and as the ritual leader, or as the game master, you're guiding that experience, but you're not controlling that experience. Mark: Yeah, that's absolutely true. And, and that has occurred to me before as well that tabletop fantasy role playing games or, or any genre of tabletop games are, they're a group ritual. They, they are a thing that we do, we get together, they have certain kinds of cultural conventions, like rolling dice and, you know, waiting for your turn and all that kind of stuff. And they are consensual behaviors to create a group experience, which is what a ritual is, right? Yucca: Right. Mark: Yeah. The goal isn't necessarily personal transformation, it's entertainment. Yucca: Yeah. Although sometimes, there's, you can have some pretty emotionally powerful experiences. Mark: yes, absolutely. Yeah, I've had players weeping, I've had players falling off their chairs laughing. There's, there's, there's, there's a lot there. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So, that's, Yucca: Yeah, let's go to our next one, Mark: Yeah, that's public speaking. And the good news about public speaking is that the more you do of it, it will become easier. It won't necessarily become easy, but it will become easier. And that's true of all of these skill sets that we're talking about today. The next one that I want to talk about is singing. Yucca: which shares a lot with much of what we've just been talking about with the speaking, but has, has some additional Elements added onto it. Mark: Right. And it does different things. It taps different parts of the brain, and it's much more accessible to the emotional self than, than linear language. There's something about intoning and making harmony and the kind of poetry that tends to be associated with with the songs that you sing in a ritual state, in a ritual setting, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: all of which, It's just transformative. It moves you emotionally, and that is, of course, a very important part of what we work to do. Yeah, Yucca: And depending on what the song is, it can still be vocal without being verbal. There's many rituals that I've been to that have just had Just had sounds, like, just vowels with the, with the tune and that, that's a nice thing for those of us who aren't really wordsy people or who find lyrics to be difficult to, to catch on to. Some people are really fast with that, right? You put it, my, my youngest, you put anything in a song and he's got it. He's got the lyrics to it. He's got the words. And like, how are you even singing? You know, we'll listen to songs in languages he doesn't speak, and he's singing along with it, right? So some people's brains work that way, and other people, I can, I can get the melody, but what are the words to that? I don't know. So it's a nice opportunity sometimes to have the songs that are just sounds that people can just join in with if they're comfortable with it or not, right? Mark: right. And that raises two really interesting things for me. The first of which is that I like for it to be a convention in the rituals that I do that if someone just can't get the lyrics or doesn't like the lyrics or whatever it is, they can just ah along, you know, they can just sing the vowel ah and still, still get the melody out there, right? So that they're participating, so that they have a role, and that's a perfectly acceptable role. The other Is that there's this wonderful practice called circle singing. I don't know if you've heard of this. Yucca: Keep going, because it could mean several different things. Mark: it's a directed, like, like a choral director kind of program where The choral director will sing one line and will teach a group of the participants that line, and they'll sing it over and over and over again, and then the choral director sings another part for another three people that interlocks with that first melody, so what you end up with is this, and you can have, you know, three, four, even five parts if you're really good at this what you end up with is this very intricate, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. Sort of tapestry of sound the musician Bobby McFerrin does this a lot. He used to do a New Year's Eve singing in the New Year's circle song event at the Glide Cathedral in San Francisco every year. And it's just, it's a cool way for people that aren't going to do lyrics and may only need to You know, seeing a very simple, repeated line to still be fully engaged in participating in making something that's really cool. Yucca: yeah. Just make sure that there's a group of people for each line, that you don't have one person trying to remember and carry that so that when they do so that they can Use the other person as help for when they forget the line or get a little bit confused because they're hearing the other song and, you know, so don't try, don't put one person on the spot for it who's not, you know, the professional singer. Mark: right. You can also do this with round. There are a lot of, of musical rounds that, you know, you teach one line to one group of people and another line to another group of people or you teach the whole thing to everybody and then you start them off set. So one person sing, you know, one group sings the first line, and then the second group starts singing the first line again as the first group continues to do the second line, and you just go around like that. And rounds can be very beautiful and really trance inducing to sing. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So singing, it's, and I know there are a lot of people out there who are like, I'm tone deaf, I can't sing I can't carry a tune. That is true for some people. It is true for some people. And what you may want to do instead is to learn how to use your voice rhythmically. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: So, instead of having to carry tones, you can just bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, kind of along with whatever the, the rhythm of the musical piece is, so that you still have a way to plug in. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: But the other thing is that a lot of people who think that they're tone deaf just haven't tried. They haven't, they haven't practiced. I, I wouldn't, Yucca: And not try, but Mark: try isn't the right word. Yucca: built the skill over that have that it has it doesn't necessarily come natural Mark: Right. Yucca: to build that skill is something that takes time and takes exposure just like we were talking about with the public speaking Mark: Yes. That's, that's, that's what I meant. I didn't like the word try either, so thank you. Yucca: but yeah it may be something that just takes the exposure and time and and really and it's going to take different amounts of time for different people right and we're all coming at it from different emotional experiences Mark: Right, right. Yeah and this actually leads us to our third skill set, which can be something that you can replace singing with. This is rhythm and drumming or percussion of various kinds. Because there are people out there that have a wonderful sense of rhythm and are terrific in a percussive sense and just particularly good at following a tune. And that's okay. That's perfectly alright. Um, the, the evocative nature of rhythm and drumming and what it does in our bodies cannot be overstated. know, a good complex drumming riff almost forces us to move. I'm a very heady person, and I grew up over medicated for ADHD, so I twitched all the time. I had lots of tics. So, you know, my body kind of betrayed me a lot, and I've always had kind of an ambivalent relationship with it because of that. The, but still, when I'm in a ritual circle and there's good drumming going on, I want to move, you know, I, I, I want to go. Yucca: yeah, that's, I share that experience. I'm also very, very much in my head a lot of the time, but it feels like it just pulls my awareness down and into my body and kind of spreads it out to a more body awareness and just brings me down to that connection and I feel much more connected with the ground and the rhythm and the, it's just very powerful. Mark: Yes, very much so, and I've, I have a lot of conjectures about why that might be, most of them having to do with a mother's heartbeat. Yucca: yeah, because we all started out hearing. Hearing it, Mark: yeah, Yucca: her pulse was there. Mark: right, all the time, and it got faster and it got slower and, Yucca: and you got the, some of the, not all of them, but some of the hormones crossing the placenta into you, so you're sharing some of those feelings with her as you're associating what her heart is doing. Mark: right. Yucca: You're also getting to hear all the gurgles of her digesting and all of that stuff too. Mark: Right. That's true. Yucca: But that heart, that ever present heart, Mark: Yes. Yes. And the sort of the, the softening sound of the lungs, breathing in, breathing out. There's probably a little bit of a stretching sound with the diaphragm Yucca: You probably feel that, too, as you're taking up more space. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: And then you probably kicked her in the diaphragm a few times and she went, Right, no Mark: out maybe, maybe not to do that again. Yucca: what your experience later on in life, we all started That way with that very primal experience of being before our minds and brains had really developed the way they are now before, at least I think, I mean, we're human beings, but, you know, even before that, but before we really did. come into being an aware person in the way that we are Mark: sure. Yucca: individuals on the outside, that's, you know, I like thinking about all of that, about thinking about that transition between going from just being a part of her to being our own people, and then, yeah, Mark: And the whole sort of unboxing experience of, you know, turning the lights on in various parts of your brain and, you know, all that kind of stuff. It's really fascinating. Yucca: yeah and just the, I think the development of how we, so this is something, we often talk about you know, growing a baby, right? And as the mothers, we are, sort of, except it's actually the baby that's growing themselves. Their body is telling themselves what to do. We're supplying all, we're supplying the home for that, all of the supplies, but from the moment that, that cell, is following its own instructions and becoming its own person. And it's just amazing the different, you know, what we do know of it and the different steps of, like, when certain things develop. Like, when they start being able to sense light, right? About halfway through, you can shine a light on your belly and they'll start kicking because they can see the light. But a week before, they couldn't see the light. They didn't respond to it because they Physically couldn't see it, and now they can, and I, it's just a, I think it's an amazing process, and we, we've just barely begun to, to scratch the surface of understanding what's, what's happening. And we all went through it. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Don't consciously remember it, but I think it affects us later on, which Mark: Oh, I agree. Yucca: the rhythm, Mark: Yeah. I absolutely agree. Yucca: it's speculation on our part that our connection to rhythm is connected to that heart, but it seems like, this seems like a logical path to take. Mark: Yeah. And I mean, many babies when they're very young will be responsive to rhythmic music. Yucca: Absolutely. Mark: know, it's like if there's, if there's a strong, steady beat in something, they will move to it. Yucca: Yep. Mark: So that's all to say that it's coded very deeply in us to be responsive to that. You know, to the pulsing of rhythm and the ability to create that, even if it's just a steady beat, like a heartbeat kind of beat. It doesn't have to be Zakir Hussain playing the tablas. I mean, if, if you're, if you have a good sense of rhythm and you're interested in putting in the time that it takes to develop, you know, those wonderful Middle Eastern or African or Indian or Yucca: Or any, yeah, there's Mark: any culture, you know, Amazing repertoires than, you know, do that because we need more of that in the world. But just the ability, you know, I have a good rhythm sense, but I'm, I have ADHD and it's very hard for me to do things that I'm not good at for a long period of time until I become good at them. So I just have a frame drum, a simple, round. Frame drum. And I use that for creating sort of a drone y rhythm, heartbeat sound in rituals. And it makes a big difference. Yucca: mm hmm, Mark: It's a really big difference. So I really encourage all of you that are developing your, your ritual tool set, you know, to get shakers or claves, you know, the wooden things that hit against one another or Or a drum and just start, play around. It's fun. It's fun to do. Yucca: And earlier we were talking about, you know, some of the caution around phones and technology and things like that, but I do think that there can be a place for the recorded music as well especially when it comes to the drumming and keeping a beat and things like that. When you have a group of people. And you have multiple instruments. I mean, to me, that's golden, right? You have the whole group doing it. But if you're in a solo situation, or, you know, your hands are busy doing lots of other things, or whatever it is, you know, there's a lot of great things recordings of, of drumming and rhythm and things like that. Mark: Yeah. And there's been a resurgence or, or a surg I guess, which is sort of the first thing of of groups that do very sort of ritually trancey kind of music groups like Dead Can Dance and Wardruna and ung and you know, some groups like that, that really, you know, they're really exploring that. That way that rhythm can really influence us at a physical level and that stuff can be great ritual music, can be really useful. There's actually a page on my blog that is musical suggestions for ritual, and there's a long list of different possible things that you can choose from for, with different kinds of flavors and styles. Yucca: Mm hmm. Yeah. My suggestion would be, though, listen through to what, to what it is before you use it in your ritual. Because sometimes there can be a little bit of a surprise in there that was like, Ooh, that was not, that was not what I was going Mark: That wasn't what I was looking Yucca: this ritual. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. Yucca: Yeah. Now that, I think. moves really nicely into our final one, which is movement itself. I have a hard time hearing a rhythm and not moving to it. Mark: Huh. Yucca: Because it's just, as we were talking about, it's just so powerful. There's, I mean, they're so connected. The Venn diagram of, of rhythm and movement to me are, they're not quite a circle, but they're pretty close. Mark: They're pretty close. Yeah. And I, I find rhythm to be such an invitation to movement and because I'm so heady most of the time, my body is really thirsty for that kind of activity. So it's, there's a very, there's a liberating quality. To, you know, moving, like moving in a ritual circle and dancing and, and, you know, interacting with a fire and interacting with other people and just all that. That sense of freedom. It feels like flying in a way. It's, it's, it's a very strong, very free, very, very filled with yourself kind of feeling like you're expressing yourself in a really full way. Yucca: and a couple of things to keep in mind if you are the one designing or leading the ritual with a group of people to have options for different levels of mobility. So some people may need to have a chair or something to be sitting in, and may not necessarily be able to do a big spiral dance around the fire or something like that. And so having natural options for them. To be able to participate is really important. Go ahead. Mark: Yes. And what I was going to say is that when you blend These ritual skills, you can give people opportunities to do things that, that are within their abilities, right, that are consistent with their aptitudes, what they're interested in doing and what they can do. So, you know, you can have some people who are sitting and drumming and other people who are up and dancing and singing, you know, or You know, some combination thereof. I remember I was at a Fire Circle ritual. God, it's gotta be seven years ago now. And there was all, you know, we were, we were in this really high point in the ritual and dancing and, you know, the drums are thundering along, you know, very intricate, super talented drummers. And then suddenly they stopped and everybody slowed down but kept moving. While someone did a spoken word piece, and it was beautiful, it was just this, this, this rapt moment, you know, when you could almost still hear the echoes of the drums because it had been so loud and so fervent and so intense and then suddenly downshift and it all went into this other place, Yucca: someone suddenly starts whispering and everyone has to lean in to listen to what is that whisper? What are they saying? Mark: Exactly. Yucca: wow. Wow. Mark: Which is why I like the, the center portion of a ritual after invocations and creation of a safe container to be somewhat improvisational, you know, that there's room for different people to contribute different things if there's time and if that's the kind of ritual that people want to do. But I've had great experiences with that sort of thing. So movement and yes, people can be very self conscious. I, you know, as I described, I had a difficult relationship with my body and I didn't start dancing until I was in my late twenties. And a low light condition helps. Yucca: Right. Mark: You know, that sense that you're not being watched by other people really helps. Yucca: And a timing in the ritual I think can make a really big difference for people because it is something that is a little bit, can be a little bit uncomfortable that. Most people are not comfortable jumping straight into dancing, right? So, it might be something that needs a little bit of warm up to get to the place where people feel like they can can do that, right? So maybe you, you work towards it with some of the spoken and then moving into the singing and then into the dancing. And just, just kind of know your audience, right? If you're working with a circle that you see every You know, every Mark: Few weeks or Yucca: then you're going to have a, it's going to be a very different relationship than this is the once a year summer solstice celebration that you're doing at the Pagan Pride Festival. Mark: Right, right. Yeah, that's a really good point. You know, obviously, making tailorings and adjustments for for whoever it is that you're going to be working with in a ritual is really key and there is a way to work with people of every level of ability, every level of ability. Of uniqueness, in terms of their aptitudes, their capacities there's, there's stuff that can be done that can help people to come into a ritual space. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: So, it's, it's, but it, having these four tools in your quiver there's a mixed metaphor, having, having these four arrows on your tool belt, Yucca: Yes. Mark: It's a good way to start because then you have the capacity to pull out whatever seems to be the right thing for that group of people at that particular moment. Yucca: Mm hmm. Yeah. And these are things that you can incorporate into your solo practice, and that's where a lot of the practice that we've been talking about. We'll start, Mark: Mm Yucca: right, becoming comfortable with the singing or the dancing I'm saying those ones in particular because those ones are ones that I think are really hard for our culture. We have a very, very sedentary culture. We're very much expected to stay still and seated and especially in social situations. We find, we're very uncomfortable with movement overall. Mark: We're also uncomfortable with sound, to some degree. I mean, this varies from culture to culture, but, I mean, British people will tell you how loud Americans are, but having lived in Spain, Americans aren't that loud. Yucca: No, depending on which part of Spain though, right? Even Mark: Well, yes. Yucca: in Basque country, their opinion of the Andalusians, you know, is wildly different, Mark: Oh yes, Yucca: But yeah, so it depends on, on what cultural context but speaking very, very broadly of, of you know, North American, so American and Canadian, we tend to be compared to say, somebody from the Mediterranean, we tend to be pretty, we tend reserved and I'll, you know, we don't talk with our bodies as much and we don't get up and dance and, you know, that sort of thing is very difficult for us. Mark: right, Yucca: And so it might take some time getting used to doing that on your own and then practicing in a group and the more times you do it, you know, the, the The more practice you have, the more skill that you're going to build up in that. And it's okay if it takes some time, but it's worth it, I think, right? Because I think that those rituals can be really powerful and just very enriching, Mark: yeah, yeah, that's definitely been my experience and I don't claim by any means to have fully mastered any of these things even the ones that I'm naturally good at and so it's a work in progress and that's always great because it's not about getting there, it's not about arriving, it's about the process of evolving over time, which is what we're about. Yucca: right? Mark: For as long as we get, we can evolve. Yucca: Yeah, it's kind of like an evening walk. You don't take the evening walk to get to a place. You take it for the enjoyment of going out and, you know, the birds are singing and changing their tune and the air feels cool and, you know, all of that experience. It's about that. Mark: Right. Exactly. So this has been a cool conversation, Yucca. Thank you so much. Yucca: Yeah. Well, and I look forward to, in just a few short months, doing some rituals with you and the rest of the folks coming to the Sun Tree Retreat. So that's coming up. Mark: We're actually releasing the program for Suntree Retreat this week. Yucca: Mm Mark: there's, you'll if, you know, you're in the community in various ways, you'll see various promotions to, to make sure that people can download that and take a look at all the Rituals and workshops and, and things we're going to be doing. So, and shout out to Michael O'Halloran, Michael O'Halloran of our community who's done a lot of work on that program. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: thanks everybody. We really appreciate your listening to the podcast and welcome your, your input and your questions as always. We'll see you next week.

Comfort in Your Own Skin

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 21, 2023 30:58

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. Inner Critic episode: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/the-inner-critic-1612153312/ The Jewel ritual: https://atheopaganism.org/2015/03/05/the-jewel-a-solitary-ritual/ S4E26 TRANSCRIPT: ----more---- Yucca: Welcome back to The Wonder: Science Based Paganism. I'm your host, Yucca, Mark: And I'm Mark. Yucca: and today we are talking about psychological freedom. So, to do your practice, to feel, to be vulnerable, all of that good stuff. Mark: Yeah, because this is so often a challenge for folks who are first coming into naturalistic pagan or atheopagan practice, especially if they're deconstructing from other religions that are much more about conformity and obedience. Yucca: Right. Mark: There's that feeling of being watched. There's this sense of shame about either doing it wrong or that you're doing it all at all. There's Yucca: Just that judgment, all of that. That icky judgment all over the place. Mark: it's just a real minefield, and so we wanted to talk about it and make some suggestions and just normalize that this happens, right? This is, yeah, this, this is a real thing. There's nothing wrong with you if you're feeling it. And maybe there's some things we can suggest that might make it a little better. Yucca: Right. Because this is something that comes up a lot in different words but a thing that people deal with, right? Mark: hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Especially when they're first entering the practice, there are a lot of people who are like, Well, I don't do rituals, but I go for walks in nature. And that's fine. That's perfectly fine. If your experience of a ritual is going out for a walk in nature and having that kind of communion, there's nothing wrong with that, and you don't have to do anything else if you don't want to. But there is something about investing a place in a moment. in deliberate psychological manipulation of yourself in order to get freer and happier and wiser. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And that really is what our, our path is about. And there are so many voices in our society and especially in the mainstream religions that discourage you from being freer and happier and wiser. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: That we We want to help facilitate movement in that direction. Yucca: Right. So there's a lot of different things that could be contributing to this. One of the things may be the critic voice. And we've, it was quite a few years ago but I think one of our best episodes where we talked about the critic voice, and I'll put the link to that in the show notes if anybody hasn't listened to it before but that critic, that, that voice has a, a function, right? It, it came about trying to protect you and there, there may be some of that happening when you are When it's, okay, so, when you get a wound, let's say you get a cut it, when you need to clean that cut out, you need to do it, because otherwise you're gonna have dirt and sticks and whatever it is inside that wound, but it hurts, and so you have this instinctual response of pulling your arm away, not putting your arm under the water and washing it out, and sometimes that critic is Is the, that instinct to pull the arm away and not let that happen, protect, stop it, don't let it happen. So I think that's going on to a certain extent, and then also, we aren't, we don't really learn in our culture how to really check in with ourselves and be really honest with ourselves, especially when it is the vulnerable. Right? We're taught to just kind of look the other way and, you know, man up or, you know, whatever the particular phrase is for whatever your gender or culture is, but it's, it's like, we are encouraged to be soft and be okay with the parts of us that are soft. Mark: Right, that's absolutely true. Particularly for men, but, but, it's true for everybody. Yucca: Right. That's why I use the man up expression, Mark: Right. Yucca: Which, you know, it happens with women as well, but it, but it seems like the pressure is, looking from the outside, it seems like the pressure on, on men and, and young boys especially is much, much stronger Mark: Yeah, the vice that is applied to those that identify as men is so compressing that the only emotions permissible are anger and the only response that's available is violence. It's just really, really challenging to step out of that and say, no, actually, my feelings are really hurt. Yucca: And I am a whole human who has all of these feelings. All of these things are human and I, I get to be and have all of these things too. Mark: right. And it's ironic to me because there are many who point to ancient cultures like in the Norse Eddas or in Greek mythology, and there are men who weep in these stories. Right? Who, who are, you know, devastated by events that happen in the stories, and they weep, and somehow that just kind of gets ignored in the modern drawing forth of these, Yucca: Right. Well, I think it ties back around to something that you mentioned at the beginning about the more controlling religions. Mark: Yes, Yucca: are, the religions are part of a larger framework for, of culture and that we, we're, We have a lot of cultures right now that are really on there being a group that controls another group. Mark: yes, yes. The, the largest and most powerful religions in the world, and this is not just Christianity, it is Christianity, but it's also Islam, and it's also Buddhism, and it's also Hinduism, is Orient, are oriented around obedience, Yucca: Right. Mark: around supplication to what we believe is a mythical, supernatural presence, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: and And self flagellation in so many ways, you know, I'm unworthy, I'm a sinner, all those things. And emerging from that, which is, let me just say right now, a tremendously courageous act. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: We see people coming into our, our community who, I mean, we have people that were pastors. They come into our community that were not only, you know, following that, that path, but had all eyes of a congregation on them to encourage them to toe the line. And they said, this is wrong. I'm gone. I'm leaving. Yucca: Wow. Mark: And that is extraordinary. It is just extraordinarily courageous. But it carries a lot of baggage with it. Just because you say, I'm not going to do this anymore, doesn't mean that its frameworks and its mental habits don't come with you. And so, Yucca: got a lifetime of habits and unconscious beliefs. Mm Mark: exactly, exactly. And so, we've been talking in the Facebook community recently about, for example, that sense of embarrassment at being observed while doing your atheopagan practice. And so, You know, even having someone in the house or just kind of, you know, it's like a soap bubble when it's new, right? It's just so fragile and precious and you don't want it destroyed by critical eyes and the critical voice in your head. And that is absolutely a legitimate experience and feeling, and I want to start there. Yucca: Absolutely. Mark: you're, there's nothing wrong with you for feeling those feelings. It absolutely makes sense, Yucca: they're there. They're, they came about for a reason. Yeah. Mark: especially if you are accustomed to being in a religious community where everybody watches everybody else to make sure they're conforming, Yucca: Right? Mm-hmm. Mark: which is not ours. That's, that's just not what we're doing. It's radical, and it's different than the mainstream, but it's what we're about, and if that's what you want, then we welcome you and encourage you to, to find your path. Find, find what's meaningful for you. I can guarantee that there is no focus in the world, no alter in the world. I use the word focus that looks like mine and that there is no spiritual practice of athe paganism that looks like mine. And that's great because Yucca: Even though you've literally published books on it. Mark: yes, absolutely, because I want it to work for the people that choose to embrace it. I don't want them to do it like me. I want them to do it like them. Yucca: Right. So starting with the acknowledgement that that, that, that feeling, that soap bubble feeling is, is valid, right? Mm-hmm. Mark: Absolutely real. And so the question is then, well, what do we do with that? Right? And Especially when you're in the context of having had a lot of pain, pain of separation, pain of castigation by former community members who call you an apostate or a heretic or whatever it is, an infidel, whatever they label you. It's really easy to feel like I just, I can't do this either. I just. I just have to wander away and just have this kind of very gray, unexceptional life, because when I try to be me... It just sets off all these alarm bells that are really, really hard. And I think this is certainly true of our marginalized community members. They understand what that is like. You know, our queer members, they understand how hard it is to stand up against the mainstream culture and say, Sorry, this is who I am. I'm going to be me, and you're going to deal with it. And that's how it's going to be. Yucca: Well, and especially when you're figuring out who me is, right? When you, when you got the sense of, I know that's not me, but I also still am figuring out what me is. Is and trying to have that, the, the space to do that and giving yourself the grace for that in the face of this very oppressive trying to, what's the word? Force conform, conforming on you. Mark: Yeah Yucca: yeah. It's a, it's a challenge, right? Mark: Yeah, and our impulse as humans is to move away from discomfort, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and that's... Natural and normal, I mean, you know, as mammals, our thing is generally move away from the pain, as animals generally move away from the pain, move toward the pleasure, right? But that said, Yucca: 600 million years later because of it. Mark: exactly, it worked really well, but humans are complex, and we have choices that go beyond the simple animal choices that are built into us, right? Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and so what that means is that at first, you may have to simply say to yourself, this is going to be uncomfortable. This is, this is not going to be completely, completely okay with me because it's going to churn up all this sentiment that's been laid down at the bottom of my self. Yucca: Right. Mark: that's gonna bring up experiences and pain and memories and all that kind of stuff, and you just have to kind of sit with it. And my recommendation for the first thing to do to address that is ritual activity around self esteem. There's a ritual called the Jewel that I've referred to before that's on the Atheopaganism blog, and it'll be in my forthcoming book. The, and we'll, we'll put a link to it in the show notes. And what it's about fundamentally is looking yourself in the mirror and realizing this is a good person, this is a person of value, who's unique, an absolutely unique snowflake of the universe. There's never been one like you, there will never be one like you, and that's terrific. Everything about that is wonderful. And so, living in the fullness of that, walking through the world with your shoulders back, understanding that you belong here, that's, that's the mindset that we're hoping to get to. Took me a long, long time to get to it, and sometime I'll tell the story about all the things that were necessary for that to happen because I came out of a very abusive, very difficult childhood. But having gotten there, having gotten to the point where there's a core self esteem of just knowing that I am a person of value, no matter what happens around me, no matter what somebody says to me, it changes everything. makes you able to make choices that are in your own best interest. Yucca: Mm hmm. Hm. Mm. Mm hmm. Yeah. And working on that, doing one ritual about that, don't expect yourself to just switch some, flip some switch, right? This is a continual process, this is, this is a lifelong thing but the process itself is worth it. Mark: Yeah. We live in a very instant culture. We want immediate gratification for things. You know, I'm hungry, give me the fast food. I'm bored, give me the entertainment. And so it's easy to just sort of assume that There must be some kind of a magical activity or pill or something that can make everything okay. that's not the world. The world is sometimes things are work. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And if you can just stay steady and love yourself enough to know that you're worth it, and gather community around yourself that you can see yourself reflected in their eyes and know how valuable you are. Then the change can come. Yucca: So, first, doing some work on the self esteem and that, just that recognition that you know what you're doing is, you've got a right to be doing it, right? This is, it's, you get to do the things that are going to help you. To feel better and work towards your goals and visions and, and that's, that's okay, right? Mark: yes. And, I mean, I don't know how you feel about this, Yucca, but I go pretty far with my understanding of what that kind of thing means. I want people to be safe, I want them to make sound decisions for themselves, but sometimes, in order to get where they're going, it involves drug experiences, or periods of promiscuity, or something. Something, right? Sometimes you have to just kind of break the boundaries of your self definition Yucca: Mm Mark: so that you can become the butterfly that you're in the process of becoming, Yucca: hmm. Mm hmm. I think Mark: I'm not recommending either of those things. I'm not saying you should go, you should go right out and find some drugs. That's not what I'm saying, but what I'm saying is the moral constraints. Of the mainstream culture that lives around us, they're not built for your happiness. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: They're not built for anything other than your obedience. Yucca: Right. Mark: don't have to do that. Yucca: I think for each person, it's going to be a really, really, really individualized path, right? And so for some people, maybe some of like what you were talking about with some sort of substance that might be really helpful, but it may also for someone else, simply the act of, of stepping out of that obedience is a, is just a radical, Act, Mark: Mm hmm. Yucca: So I think it's really going to depend on, on each person, but in both of those cases I think it's really important to look at what you need in this situation to make it safe for you, right? So yes, breaking through something on that real emotional level, but also remembering that you are a human being, you are a squishy little breakable animal on the physical side with pretty complex tangled up messy emotions on the inside. And that you've got to take care of yourself and not damage yourself in that process. Mark: And that's, that's why I said safety is paramount. And it's, it's tricky, it's paradoxical, because sometimes being a little unsafe is kind of the thing that you need in order to break out of the boundaries of your solid little life. But, but not, Yucca: your limits, right? Mark: right, right, Yucca: That's just to go on a slight tangent with that as a parent, with kids, letting them make Take risks, right? Because they have to learn to be able to do that. They have to learn what the, you know, if they're gonna climb that tree, or they're gonna do that thing, right? They, they need to be able to figure out where their body's limits are, where they're, all of that. And if you don't take those risks, and you don't get a little bit hurt, then it really stunts you in the process, but at the same time, your job is to make sure they don't die, right? And so, I mean, I think sometimes it's helpful to think about ourselves in the same way that we might want to, we need to parent ourselves sometimes, and that, and recognize that, yeah, we've got to take those risks but we also need to recognize that, okay, if you're going to climb the tree, don't climb it over the sharp, Rocks and the cliff. Like, choose a different tree, okay? Practice off a different tree than the one that's gonna, like, be a 50 foot drop. Mark: I think that's really well put yeah, because as I say, it's this. Walking a knife edge between pushing your boundaries, being a little transgressive, and also keeping yourself safe. And that can be really challenging for people, but, I mean, we're talking about edge cases now, but in some cases it's just... Lighting incense when somebody else is in the house, you know, or playing your ritual music loud enough that your roommate will know that you're doing something witchy in there. And, and getting to the point where it doesn't matter to you anymore, where you're like, yeah, this is something I do. I own this. It's good for me, and I'm proud of it, and you're welcome to your opinion, but it doesn't have a lot of traction with me. Yucca: Right. Mark: Unless you think it's great. I'll let it in if you think it's great. Yucca: Yeah I really, I really appreciate that. And there was something in there that you said about, you know, we're talking about edge cases. I want to circle back and say that another thing that we tend to do in our culture is to downplay our own experiences and say, oh, you know, I don't have it that bad. Right? I've, you know, oh, I'm not worthy of this sympathy because, you know, there are, you know, there are children in Africa or whatever, right? And no, what you are going through is what you are going through. You don't have control over other people's experiences, just yours. Right? And whatever you're going through, it's valid. Mark: It counts. Yucca: counts. You count. Those experiences count. There's not a, there's not a trauma that's too little or a trauma that's too big. It's, it's you. And you got this. Mark: Yeah. And, and people that have repeated to you that you don't really have anything to cry about, those were not your friends. They, they were not your allies, they were not, they were not telling you what you really needed to hear. Because, Yucca: Well, they, they may have been someone who loved you, but was, was deeply wounded themselves as well. Right? That in most cases, people probably weren't trying to hurt you in that, but that, That they also didn't know. That was what had happened to them, and that was how they were dealing with the trauma. Right. Mark: Right. And it bears saying, you know, to zoom out to the 30, 000 foot level and look down, this whole thing about being, being yourself as an individual, it's been evolving steadily since the 18th century, but it really only took off about 50 years ago. Yucca: Mm Mark: And so our generational wounds that we inherit. from the behavior of our parents and our grandparents and all that. They're very real. Yucca: hmm. Mark: You know, those, certainly, parents and grandparents of my generation were not taught to grow. Yucca: Mm Mark: They were not taught to to have kindness with themselves. And so, to the degree that you have suffering around this kind of issue, it's not your fault. You know, this, a lot of this stuff just rolls downhill, and it's slowly, slowly eroding out because we're getting better. Yucca: hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mark: And that's the good news, right? We're getting better. All of us, collectively, we're getting better. And what atheopaganism is about, in part, is getting better. Yucca: Right. I love it. I'm glad that we're doing this. Mark: yeah, I need to... Me too. It I feel so much freer in this community, even to stumble and fall down than I have in any other context in my life. And, you know, sometimes I, I'm wrong and I get, I get called out for being wrong, and that's great. There's nothing wrong with it. It's... It's fine. But most of the time, what I hear from this community, and what I see other people hearing in this community, and what I keep saying in this community to other people is, You're great. You rock. I want you to be, you just keep doing you, because you are cool. And, I mean, that's how I feel about you, Yucca. Yucca: Likewise, Mark. Mark: It shouldn't be so damn hard to learn to be happy. But it is, and this is the work before us. Right? So, so let's get to it, you know? Let's... Let's take those walks in nature, and do those rituals, and listen to the music that makes us dance, and do the things that make us happy, and kiss the ones that we love, and Yucca: And live. Mark: be those great people in the world, you know? I mean, all of us have met somebody that just shone like a beacon, you know? They just had that glow about them. And if you're truly at peace with yourself, and you truly want the best for others around you, That'll be you, Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: you know. As quiet a person as you may be, or as loud a person as you may be. It'll still be you. Yucca: Yeah. And the process of becoming that person is wonderful as well. Mark: stories, oh my god. Yeah, all the, all the adventures, all the, all the internal transformations, the revelations. I remember once... I must have been 25, something like that, and I had terrible self esteem and a critic's voice that was louder than anything else in my head. It was, I mean, I was just chronically depressed and self destructive and, I mean, I cut myself and I stepped out into traffic suddenly and I smoked cigarettes and I just did all these things. And I suddenly had this brain revelation one day that, If I was really a bad person, it wouldn't matter to me that I'm a bad person. Yucca: hmm. Mark: I wouldn't care. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: fact that I was so worked up about whether or not I'm a bad person meant that I wasn't one. Yucca: Mm hmm. Mark: And everything changed. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: It didn't solve everything, but a big piece of weight fell off of me just in that moment because I'd come to understand the insanity of self hatred. Yucca: Wow. Mark: Well, listen folks, Yucca: Hmm. Mark: We really care about you, Yucca and I do. We want you to be happy. we want this path to, or whatever path you choose, You know, whether this is just a way station that you're on your way towards moving into something else, that's great too. But we want you not to be cruel to yourself and to be proud of who you are and bring that out into the world because we need so much more of that, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: so much more of that in the world. And we'll see you next week. Yucca: Take care everyone.

WOW! Wonder and Paganism

Play Episode Listen Later May 29, 2023 42:34

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. S4E19 TRANSCRIPT:----more---- Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm your host, Yucca, Mark: and I'm Mark. Yucca: and today we're gonna talk about wonder. So that's what we're about, right? We're about, this is the wonder. So we're gonna explore the idea of wonder, and then we're also gonna talk about a few things that inspire that in us as well. Mark: Things that make us go Wow. Yucca: Yep. Mark: Yeah. The. The reason that I suggested that the name of the podcast be The Wonder is that I think that that is at root, the spiritual motivation, right? That you know to, yes, there's the desire for meaning, there's the desire for a sense of place in the world and purpose in life and all those kinds of things. But fundamentally, I think. That sense of just being awestruck by the, the fact that we exist, the fact of the universe and the world existing. I just think that's really a core spiritual sentiment and or, or experience. And so a lot of what I focus. My rituals on and, you know, efforts at creating oth, you know, materials to support other people in creating their rituals is about fostering that sense of wonder and awe. Yucca: Yes. Yeah. And there's. There's so much of it really, it, it, whatever, wherever your interests lie, there's, there's just so much to explore and and it's one of those sensations that's very hard to describe, but it's really feeding in. Its to experience that. Mark: Yeah. I mean, the more I learn about the world, you know, in, you know, in microcosm or in macrocosm, the more often I wanna say, wow, that's amazing. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: You know, I, I think about, I mean, there's, there's millions of examples, but talk so toxoplasmosis. Let's, let's start there. Okay. This is a virus that is communica that cats get, and it's also communicable to humans and to other mammals. Toxoplasmosis controls your brain when it goes into rodents. They get careless, they get bolder and braver and And more fool, hearty. And that works perfectly for cats, right? Yucca: Yes, it works out right. Mark: so now cats have toxoplasmosis, right? And cats that have toxoplasmosis are friendlier. They are more apt to be domesticated. So then they move in with the humans, and the humans by contact with the cat's. Feces can get toxoplasmosis, and one of the things that it makes them really want to do is to feed the cats. Yucca: Yes. Mark: So, I mean, literally all of this stuff is scientifically demonstrated. All of this is this little tiny virus, which is, you know, just a little string of genetic information. And all of this stuff is true and it, you look at this and just go, my God, how is this possible? Yucca: Mm-hmm. And it's, and it's all over. Right? I know that that's something that is regularly tested for. If you're, if you're pregnant, they test, they go, oh, do you have a cat? Okay, let's test you for that. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Yucca: yeah, and I don't know if there are, what health implications there are for that other than it does have some impact on personality, right. For people as well. That it makes them more like that they. Their relation to ship to risk is a little, just like with the mice, is a little bit different than it might be if you didn't have the infection. Mark: Yeah, and it makes them a little bit more agreeable as well, just a little bit more amenable to going along with whatever somebody else suggests which is just a hell of a thing. You know, we, we think we have free will. We think that we are piloting our ourselves through our lives, and here comes this little bug and it actually distorts our decision making process. Yucca: Well, it challenges the, the idea of who self is. There's a lot of things today that do that, that really have us look at what is me really, Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: Right. What, and especially when we start getting into the realm of, of the microbiome and where do we start drawing the line between my microbiome and my cells? Which ones are me, which ones aren't? Are we saying we distinguishing between d n a? What about mitochondria? All of that stuff starts to we're starting to find that the lines between all of that are a lot more blurry than we used to think. Mark: Right e each of us is a, a functioning interpenetrated ecosystem. One emergent property of which is this thing called consciousness. But that is that because it is an emergent property of a body, which is an interpenetrated ecosystem is heavily influenced by what's going on in that ecosystem. And some of that is human, d n a and some of it's not. In fact, more of it is not than is. Yucca: So let's, let's, before we can, there's a whole bunch of different things we can discuss, but let's come back to the idea of wonder a little bit before going into some of the specifics of things that that feel, that evoke that sense in us. One of the things that we were talking about when we were coming up with what topics we wanted to discuss was the idea that, that some people have that wonder has to also include ignorance that you can only have wonder if you are ignorant about it. And that's something that I wanna say that I don't agree with. Mark: Me Yucca: think that wonder often has a, has humility as part of it. That's certainly for me, is often a sense when I look at the night sky. There's this, I'm just overwhelmed with the awe and the wonder of all of it and the knowledge that I know very, very little about it, but I also know a lot about it. Right. That's my, that's my field. I know a lot about that little red dot right there that we call Mars. Right. For me only makes it more awe-inspiring because there's even more, the, the knowledge of all of that is part of that awe, but also the recognition that there is a lot that I don't know. But it doesn't have to be. Awe isn't just what I don't understand. There's awe at what I do understand as well. Mark: Right. Yeah. When we were talking about this, I was mentioning that a, apparently there's some academic who has written that naturalistic paganism is somehow. Either faulty or not real in some sense. Because the awe that happens when you don't, the awe that comes from mystery is somehow has a cache that the awe that comes from knowledge doesn't. And I really disagree as you do Yucca. When I'm standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon. I can be awestruck by what a gigantic big hole that is. But the fact that I know that it's billions of years of accumulated layers of sedimentary rock that I'm looking at, that just changes everything. Understanding that the slow uplift of the Kibab plateau allowed the Colorado River to carve that amazing, magnificent earth temple. Is that really blows my socks off. So, so, you know, in the same way that I'm, you know, filled with wonder by a, a beautiful rainbow, even though I understand how refraction works Yucca: And then you get to be awed by that Mark: yes, Yucca: and then thinking, and then it leads to, wait a second, our eyes perceive those particular colors. Why is that right? And tracing all of that back and we're back to, you know, jellyfish. We'll come back to jellyfish in a while. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. So, you know, what I find is that scientists who. Truly embrace the scientific mindset. And there are many scientists who don't. There are many scientists who are, they're either ego involved with their findings or they're just very, very narrowly focused and you know, are very invested in being emotionally dispassionate. But, but the scientists that I know that are truly filled with that, that humble curiosity. Just to, you know, I just want to find out how does this work? Einstein was one, Fineman was one. Hawking was one. Carl Sagan was one. You know, these are people that are, you know, elated at, at what they know about the universe. Filled to the brim with joy about. About what they know and about what they can observe. Because they're looking with informed eyes, not, not just looking at something and go, wow. Going, wow, that's very cool. And it's mysterious. I don't know what it is. Yucca: Yeah. You know, last episode you'd mentioned the pale blue dot. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: From Sagan. Right. And that's one that often comes up for me thinking about with the awe, just seeing, you know, just that one image you can think of, that particular image. Which by the way, the new Horizons. Which is the craft that went to Pluto and is currently exploring the, the Kuiper Belt is in its second extended mission. And one of the things that they are currently investigating whether they can do, is seeing if they can turn it around and look back because the camera that they have aboard new Horizons is first of all, far farther out. But it. Much more advanced camera being something that was launched in the two thousands rather than something launched back in the seventies. And so fingers crossed that we might have another image looking back from even farther at the moment. It's currently studying the ice giants from the other side, which we'd never done before. So, but, but coming back to the, to the original one that. Just looking at that image that it is something big that we're looking at. Right. But we had, we've used the examples already of thinking about awe in terms of the Grand Canyon or the night sky, but there's also awe in that tiny dot, right? It is huge because we're looking at an entire planet, but we're also just looking at a, what looks like just a moat of dust and that, and awe doesn't have a. A limit to size. Right. A is not only in the giant, in the huge A is also in the tiny and the quiet, and it just at any angle that you're looking or listening at, there's just that, I mean, I just don't even have the words to say it because it's such an experiential thing. Mark: Well in the, in the contemplation of scale itself. Right. Even just contemplating the nature of scale, you know, we know so much about the subatomic world now, right? We, we, we know quite a bit about, you know, the realities that are happening down at the quantum level, and here we are. I. You know where microorganisms are. Incomprehensibly small to us. Our own cells are incomprehensibly small to us. You know, we have dust mites living in our furniture and we have eyelash mites living in our eyelashes, Yucca: Those delight me. I love those so much. Mark: me too. I think they're so cool. So, you know, the tiny goes all the way down and the big goes all the way up. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And that in and of itself is awe inspiring, that the universe is so intricate, so, so amazingly finely, finely defined that it has all those different layers of scale and that it has since the Big Bang. You know, from the very beginning, from the Big Bang, we started out with little, tiny, tiny, tiny proto particles and. Things have been snapping together into increasingly complex emergent phenomena ever since. If we didn't know anything about physics, if we didn't know anything about evolution, if we didn't know anything about cosmology, we couldn't appreciate any of that, and it is awesome. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: It's just awesome. Yucca: One of my favorite things that I do with my students is I have a four minute video that is of the scale of the universe, and we start at a plunk length and we go all the way up to this, the observable universe. And it's just you're zooming out, right? And you're just going out, you know, each time it's 10 times larger. And yeah, I start by asking them, okay, everybody, I wanna get a vote. Do you think humans. Are, do you think humans are big or humans are small, right? Are we big? Are we huge or are we tiny? And I get a vote from everybody, right? And mark that down. And then we, we watch this video and it takes about two minutes to get to humans where you can see humans from going from the smallest theoretical size, and it still takes a while to get to the smallest confirmed size, but just watching their faces. As we're going out and them going, wait, what? What? And then we start getting up into the bigger scales and the bigger scales, and we're getting all the way up to galaxies and super clusters, and then we're up to the observable universe, which probably there's way more universe, but there's a limit to how much we can see. Right? Mark: Right. Yucca: And then asking them next. Okay. Does anyone wanna change their vote? And the quality of their voice is different after watching this video. Right? And you're just seeing them for the first time go, wow, wow. There's nothing like that. And of course, almost all of them change their vote at the end to both, right? Is yes, we are unbelievably huge. And then, but we are tiny. Mark: But we're minuscule. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. That's, that's a super great lesson for, for science students. Yucca: I think for any, I mean, these are specifically for my science students, but I, you know, in any, I think that's a great one. In, in any field, right? Whether somebody's going into science or not. Just a perspective on the world. Mark: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And So, you know, one of the things that I've said about atheopagan is that it's the spirituality of the verifiably real. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: You know, there's, there's, it's possible, theoretically not consistent with any scientific theory, but con contextually it's possible that there are gods, right. We don't have any evidence that would lead one to conclude that, but you know, we can imagine that that might be true, right? Yucca: Sure. Mark: Irrelevant to me Yucca: Maybe me too. That's the thing I was gonna say, I don't really care if Mark: if there's so little evidence for it. There is so much here that I am just knocked out by, and it gives me so much of a sense of meaning and joy and, and appreciation that I don't need to extend to stuff that requires me to suspend my disbelief in order to, in order to embrace it. I just, I don't need to go there. Yucca: Right. Well, why don't we talk about a few of the things that that recently have given us. That sense of, of wow. And also I wanna put in a, an overlapping feeling as well as that delight, right? I think that delight and wonder aren't necessarily the same, but for me, they often come together, Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: right? So a couple of the ones I wanna talk about are just ones that I just find delightful as well as awe-inspiring. But do you wanna start? Or, Mark: why don't you start while I'm figuring out what I'm gonna do Yucca: sure. Well, we, we've been on the space one for a while. So there's, I have some non-space stuff as well, but there's, I. A, a paper that I read recently, and actually it was by the PI of the mission. We just talked about New horizons. So Alan Stern and he's talking about I wows. So I Wows are internal water, ocean worlds. So these are planets like, Europa, like Pluto and Celis, it turns out that oceans are really, really common in our solar system and presumably beyond our solar system, right? And so what we are seeing is that we've probably got these worlds that have water, liquid water inside with thick crusts of rock or ice on top. And we've never been able to go down into any of these oceans. There's not yet. I mean, maybe one day. But. There's a lot of conditions in these places that we think would really be good for life. For instance, with Europa, we think that there's probably hydrothermal vents at the bottom of those oceans that there's, you know, that's probably saltwater organic compounds, all the things that we would need for Earthlike life. And so in this particular paper, which I think is gonna end up being one of those papers that people look back on like Dyson's paper about trying to find extra solar civilizations and things like that. But what he pointed out in this is that these eye wows are much better places for civilizations to evolve. Than worlds like our own, which are ews, external Water, ocean Worlds, because worlds like Earth we're subject to how cranky our star is being. Right? It depends on how close or how far away from we are from our star. Asteroid impacts, right? That's how to pretty big impact, so to say on the ecology over the years. So, Civilizations now and again, we don't know if anybody else is out there. We suspect there's, you know, trillions upon trillions of planets. That's a lot of opportunity for there to be civilizations, but that these worlds would be more likely than Ewos to develop civilizations. Now, if that was the case, this is the part that makes me just delighted to think about if there are civilizations, they would be very unlikely to know that stars existed. Because their world would be under 60 kilometers or hundreds of kilometers of ice. And eventually maybe, maybe they might drill through that and go up to the surface and find out that something's there. But they wouldn't necessarily have the same drive that we've had to go explore the stars because we see them, right? We see the stars right there. Now. It's harder to get off of our planet than we'd be to get off of one of those planets. Assuming that we're talking about eye wows that are. Smaller planets, right? Like, like Europa is the gravity's much, much lower there. Mark: but you have to get through those kilometers of ice or rock Yucca: oh yes. And bring all your water with you. I mean, we gotta bring our air with us too. But if you're from that, you're gonna have to bring your water. You're unlikely to be using the same sort of light. They probably wouldn't see what the part of the electromagnetic spectrum we do. Also, if they're there and they are using radio, which would be very odd for them to have figured out radio if they didn't have. Other type of using visible light, but that probably wouldn't leak through the ice, so we might not even know they're there. So it just delights me to think that the universe might be, we might be the weird, weird aliens that live on the surface of planets in the harsh light of a star where everybody else out there is, you know, swimming around and, you know, they're the occupy people, right. So that delights me. Mark: Very cool. We've talked about this before, but if you haven't, go see the movie Europa Report. Yucca: Yes. Mark: was, it was made on like a shoestring budget. It was made for like $8,000 or something. Some insanely low amount, and it is a fantastic science Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: really worth seeing. Yucca: Also before we do, I just wanna make a comment real quick. Some of you might have noticed my usage of the term planet that is consistent in planetary science. We do not use the IAU definition that is never been used, actually used in any science. So referring to. Bodies like Europa, Pluto, ENCE, all of that as planets is consistent with the scientific usage of the term. So just if anyone caught that, that is that's how we use it in the field. So, yeah. Mark: Yeah. That it is, that's all inspiring. You know, the idea that these self-contained worlds could be, and of course what that, what that does is it begs the question well, okay, is our universe a bubble of something that's in a matrix of something larger? Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: It's seen seems that that's the way that reality works. Could the Big Bang have been an extrusion of force space into, you know, further dimensions that have other stuff in them that, that's going on? Yucca: One of my. Personal favorites is Black Hole Cosmology, which of course is still outside of the actual realm of science because it's not something that's falsifiable at this point. But it's a very popular idea among cosmologists is that inside each black hole is a new universe. So the Big Bang is basically a white hole from the black hole of another universe. And inside of each of our black holes is another universe that just keeps. You know, creating more and more and more universes. That one makes me really happy. Mark: Yeah. And there, once again, you see the, the magic of fractals, right? That same repeating pattern happening over and over again with every iteration, slightly different. None of them, none of them identical, but repeating in patterns over and over and over again. Yucca: Slight difference between each universe, that actually allows for natural selection. Mark: yes. Yucca: Because if you have universes which are more likely to make black holes, then they're more likely to pass on their slight differences. But again, we don't know. This is, we're just playing with ideas at this point. Right. This is, we don't have any evidence to support this, but it's, but they're fun ideas. Mark: and they're fun ideas that can inspire awe and wonder just through being somewhat scientifically informed. Right. That's all I wonder that you can't access if you're not somewhat scientifically informed because you don't, you don't understand the concepts. So once again, this idea that things need to be capital M mystery in order to be awe-inspiring is just, it's just not right. I don't understand where that person's coming from at all. Yucca: Well they do them. We'll be over here talking about Wonder and new research and all that. Mark: and having joyous and happy lives and building community and making the world a better place. Yucca: Sounds pretty good. Count me in. Mark: sounds, sounds okay to me. I'm, you know, that, that's, that's worthy use of my time. So what was I had a couple of examples, but you know, I'm looking out the window right now and I'm just watching tree branches blowing in wind. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: And understanding that there is a mathematical language that can describe that, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: one of those leaves has a friction coefficient. And it has a particular springiness of its stem and of the branch that it grows from, and the wind is turbulent and it shears through all those different surfaces and it causes very specific kinds of motions, none of which are ever exactly the same. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Time, but all of which can be somewhat predicted. You can, you can predict that it's gonna go back and forth in some kind of way. And I mean, in the, in the einsteinian sense. What that means is that chaos mathematics is the language of God, It's not in a, not in a literal deic being kind of sense, but that the, the, the universe has a mathematical language that will describe it, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and that I just find stunning. Just stunning Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and, and, and particularly the constants. Which are just weird. They're all irrational numbers, right? They're, they're strange, but they're there. They're, Yucca: those numbers. Yeah, Mark: yeah, they're demonstrably real, you know? So e and pi all, you know, all of those I, which of course is impossible. You know, and all of these can be used to describe actual stuff happening in the universe, and it's just glorious. Yucca: it is. And we come back to that tree. is gonna come in a slightly different direction, Mark: Oh, right, Yucca: that tree is doing some pretty amazing things that until recently we didn't really give credit to plants to be doing. So that tree has roots that goes down into the ground and what it's doing up above. Cuz it's photosynthesizing, right? It's taking air. And from the air it's taking co2, so carbon dioxide, and it's taking water up from its roots and then it's taking photons, it's taking light coming from our star, and it's making sugars out of that. And oxygen. Now it's not making the atom of oxygen, it's making the molecule, right? Stars make the atom right, but it's sticking them together and make that oxygen that we're breathing and it's gonna use the sugars in its cells. But one of the things that it does with those sugars that it makes is it makes what we call exudates, basically these sticky liquids that it sends down to its roots and it releases into the soil. And it can make different kinds of exudates depending on what its, let's call them nutritional needs are. So the, the plant is made outta the same stuff we are. So it's a carbon-based life forms. Of course, it's mostly carbon and oxygen and hydrogen, but it also needs things like calcium and it needs boron and it needs all of these other things. And they're in the ground. These, they're just pieces of the earth. So the rock, but the plant can't get it from the rock, but who can get it from the rock is microbes. So there are microbes that are really good at getting that, let's say calcium, getting that calcium out of the rock, and then through the food web, getting it into a form that the plant can then take up with its roots. So if the tree needs calcium, it will release the right exudates to actually breed. And grow the bacteria who can get the nutrients that it needs. So plants figured out farming hundreds of millions of years before we ever existed. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: And one of the really cool things that just in the last few years we've been finding out about is something called Rizo. So, The roots of plants. And we're not just talking about some special plants, we're talking about the whole kingdom here. Not only will they grow the particular populations of bacteria that they want, but they will literally take them into their roots and eat them. They abs, they take them in and literally eat bacteria. They feed on the bacteria, and some of them they will actually. Like partially eat and then spit back out so that they grow again and they actually move them right because that, that root will continue to grow. And so they'll move them several centimeters or even farther before spitting them, half digested back out, they grow again. And so they're cultivating, they're ranching and farming bacteria. And so it's a just. That would look out your window at that tree. That's what your tree is doing right now. Not just your tree, but the grass, the flowers, the ivy growing up, your wall. They're all doing that and they're interacting on these on levels that we had no idea, and we are just barely beginning to learn about the incredible interactions with them. Mark: It's pretty awesome. Yucca: Yep. Mark: Pretty, pretty awe inspiring. It really is. And yeah, I mean, The kinds of things that we have discovered. Like when I first learned about complexity science, I read this book, I read, there's a book called Complexity by Mitchell Waldrop, and it's a popular science book. It's, it's really, it's about creation of the Santa Fe Institute, Yucca: Yeah, I actually read that book as a, so I'm from Santa Fe and in high school well the equivalent was high school. Yeah, I did a, I did a program at the institute and we, we literally read that book, Mark: Uhhuh. Yucca: so, yeah. Mark: Well, that was my introduction to complexity science, Yucca: Oh, Mark: and I literally would, you know, read four pages and then skip around the room Yucca: Yeah. Mark: you know this question about, you know, about emergence and about, you know, scale Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: is so central to the entire story of the universe. It's everywhere. It's in everything. And asking those fundamental questions about, well, why, you know, why, why, when you put these disparate elements together, why when you combine two gases, does it create a liquid? What's up with that? The, the, the property of emergence itself is one of those things that just makes me awe-inspired. You know, why? Why stars? Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: You know, why, why are there these accumulations that, that cause transformation where suddenly you've got this gathering that gravity has been pulling together of dust and gas, and then all of a sudden at this one transformational moment, Kapow, you've got a star. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: It's asking those kinds of cosmological questions that I just find just thrilling. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And again, in whatever direction Right. It, you know, we've been talking about our particular interests, but I mean, there's just, it's just any, anywhere you look, any direction, Mark: sure. Zombie ants that are colonized by particular molds. Right. Yucca: Yeah. The cor decept. Mark: yeah. Yucca: And ants, speaking of emergence, that's where a lot of the research has been done is with ants and how the ant colonies work and how they end up with their behavior as super organisms where they're, it's made of lots of little individuals and yet they have personalities. A whole colony has its own personality that grows and changes over time, which studying helps us better understand. Humans on that way too, because we're each individuals. But if you look at communities and communities on different scales, but also communities on the scale of like countries where the, the countries will have their personalities that they're this made up from just these smaller parts and we're just following these, you know, simple rules that then translates into this emergent behavior and it's. I mean, it's fascinating and something, again, we're just barely, barely starting to even grasp that that's there, Mark: Right, right. Yucca: so, Mark: Yeah. So look around. You know, there's so much to be just wowed by and, and the, the next step in that process in my experience is gratitude. I am, so, I. Thrilled to be able to be taking this ride and appreciating all this incredible stuff that's happening, to be a part of this universe that's just amazing. Just amazing. At every level, at every scale, it's doing stuff that's just like, oh my God, how, how, how, how is that happening? Yucca: Right, and just for the briefest tiniest moment, we get to be a piece of the universe that gets to think about itself. That gets to see itself and experience itself as a conscious being, but it's just a moment. It's a blink of an eye, Mark: Yeah. What good fortune a Yucca: right? Mark: what? Incredible luck. You know, when you consider the odds. The, the astronomical odds against any one of us, you know, particularly having arisen through collision of genetics and, you know, the, the experiences that happen to us through our lives. There, there will, there will never be another one of you. There has never been one of you, and it's miraculous. Yucca: Yeah, and every single thing that happened before in every one of your ancestors, it had to happen exactly the way it did for you to even exist. And just, there isn't a word to describe how unlikely our existences. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: Right. Astronomical is not a big enough word. Mark: no, it's not. Yucca: It's just, you know, in my house we've been talking a lot about grandma, grandmother Luca recently. Right. And how so Luca is the last universal common ancestor and about how life has never stopped between each of us and her. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: Or it, or whoever they were, right? That we're going back at least 4 billion years of choices. Now there's been, it's split off, right? There's lots of things, places where it stops, right? But in order for you to exist, it hasn't stopped that whole time, Mark: Right. Your ancestors all the way back to microbes never died before they could reproduce. Yucca: Before. Yeah. Mark: They never did. All the way back. Billions of years, Yucca: life didn't stop between you and because you didn't, you didn't, you weren't magically just suddenly alive when you weren't before you rewind to the times all the cells that made you, you rewind to that back. They were a single cell inside of your mother. And rewind her cells back and you keep going. That cell, that life has just been there the whole time. Now it started at some point and think, trying to think about that. Wow. Mark: trying to figure out exactly how that is. Although there's behavior that we can see in long chain molecules and modeling that we can see through things like the Game of Life, which give us some tantalizing hints about how that all could have worked, Yucca: Right. Mark: but we haven't been able to replicate it, and maybe we never will. It's entirely possible. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Or maybe we will, and that will raise a whole bunch of new ethical questions for sure. Yucca: My goodness. Yes. I am hoping and also not hoping that we get to, speaking of Europa earlier. And just saying you're Oprah. Cause it's the closest of them. There's a whole bunch of other ones that we could go to too, but it's a lot easier to get to Jupiter than it is to get to Saturn or Neptune. Right. But, you know, I'm hoping, and also not hoping that we get to, in the next couple decades, go down and take a look and see somebody else down there. Mark: Boy, Yucca: we do, Mark: pretty amazing. Yucca: that's a, that's, that's Pandora's box right there. But, you know, eh, it'd be a incredible, Mark: Yeah. Well, we have kind of bombarded you with our enthusiastic WOWness about, about the universe. Yucca: Which any of these topics could be their own podcast and themselves. Mark: Sure. They, they could be their own podcast series in and of themselves, you know, any of these topics because they're gigantic topics and we're only skipping over the, the, the top high points of them. But, you know, one of the, one of the worst things I think that. Our mainstream culture does is discount the value of appreciating these sorts of things. Oh, well that's just a sunset happens every day. Yucca: There's a limited number of sunsets that will ever happen. Mark: that's right. And there's certainly a limited number of sunsets for us. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: We're only gonna get a certain number of them, so it might make more sense for us to go out and go, oh, how beautiful. Yucca: And you also don't know how many you get. Mark: Yeah. You don't. Yucca: Hopefully you get a lot more, hopefully you have thousands and thousands to come, but you might just have the one. Right. And that's another one of those just amazing things about, about being alive, about be about being Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: just existing at all. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. we could go on forever, Yucca: Well, we couldn't, Mark: I think but I, well, we could go on until we died, Yucca: Yes. Mark: but I think we should probably stop and maybe save some of that time and energy for other things. Yucca: Sounds good. Thank you so much. This was a lot of fun. Mark: It was, it Yucca: you everyone for being here with us. So. Mark: We'll see you next week.

Talismans

Play Episode Listen Later May 22, 2023 27:16

Talismans video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML-sED3fAzY Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. S4E18 TRANSCRIPT:----more---- Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm your host, mark, Yucca: And I'm Yucca. Mark: and today we are talking about talismans and touchstones and things that we do during the course of our day to remind ourselves that we are on a naturalistic, pagan, pagan path and to remind ourselves of our practice. Yucca: Right. And these could be things, we could have objects that help. Remind us but also moments in the day or activities that we're doing that we can use as, as metaphorical touchstones, right? Mark: Right, right. I mean, we've talked about a daily practice before. Those tend to be. In the beginning and the ending of the day, not in the sort of rush of the middle of the day. So what we're really focusing on, on with this podcast is more about what do we do just to bring back to mind that we're on this path and that these are our values and that kind of stuff, while we're in the midst of all the various business that we have to take care of during the day. Yucca: Right. So why, actually, why don't we start with one? You were just telling me about that. This was one of Michael's suggestions who we've had on the podcast before he was on the council. And you were saying it was 13 o'clock. Mark: 13 o'clock. Yucca: o'clock, yeah. So what's this 13 o'clock thing? Mark: Which is one o'clock in the afternoon of course. Michael is Irish and apparently there is something that happens at noon every day in Ireland on the public television stations which is called the Angelus, and it used to be a. Catholic thing with, you know, images of the Virgin Mary and all that kind of stuff. And the idea was that you were supposed to stop and pray or contemplate or just kind of remember, you know, that this is your religious path. Well, it's, it's become much more secularized now. They have images of the Irish countryside and. That kind of stuff instead. But it's still kind of a lovely idea. And so Michael suggested that because we have 13 principles and there are 13 moon cycles, and we just like that Yucca: 13. It's just fun. Yeah. Mark: Yeah, it's, it's a cool prime number. That we celebrate something like that at 13 o'clock every day. And just take a minute. That's all, you know, 60 seconds, that's all that it takes. What I do, I've put it in my phone as an alarm to remind me when it's Yucca: buzzes at you at one o'clock, Mark: Well, I actually get a 10 minute warning so that I can finish up whatever I'm doing right there and have a minute, but at, at, at the stroke of one. What I do is I just grasp my suntry pendant that I always wear, that I got at the Suntry retreat last year, and just imagine that I am floating in space, looking down at the earth. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Watching it slowly turn underneath me and just recognize, you know, as Carl Sagan said, this is everyone you've ever known. Everything that's ever happened in human history, all that you'll ever Yucca: king, every baker, every, yeah, every conflict we've ever had. Right. Every. Mark: event, every birth, every celebration, every cataclysm, all those things are embodied in this little planet floating in space. And so I just sort of meditate on that for about a minute, and then I let go of my pendant and go about my day. But I find it's a really wonderful addition to my practice and it's nice to have a little intercession in the middle of the day. That's about my spirituality. Yucca: Hmm. That's great. I love that idea. That's, that's where noom comes from the term originally, isn't it? Weren't there Mark: I think it, yeah, because it was originally Noce Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Noce, which is one of the. Catholic masses that celebrated through the course of the day. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: I don't know what I, I know the first one is Matins and the last one is Vespers. Leys in the middle. Yucca: Yeah. So I think that's where the term is coming from, but I don't know enough about it. I just remember hearing that at one point that that's the origin. So it's a but I, I very much like those. I. And Islam has a, a similar structure of throughout the day having the different, the, just a small ritual throughout the day just to remind us. Right. And I think that there's a lot of, of power in that. Just stop for a moment and kind of have that reset. Right. Mark: Right. Yeah. Because I mean, it's so easy to get caught up in all the busyness of everything we have to do in order to keep the functions of our lives going. But one minute of time just to. Refocus on the big picture I think is really, for me, it's been very meaningful and has kind of contributed to my happiness. So, it's something I'm doing and I really appreciate Michael for suggesting it. Yucca: Yeah, that's fun. Mark: So what are some other things that we either practices or. You know, carrying of objects or keeping them in a, in a, a bag or a purse or putting them in our car. What, you know, other things that we might do to remind us during the day of our path. Yucca: Well, there's one that in my family on my adopted side, my stepmother is having a by the door. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: Which is like a the other versions what might be like a Honda Fatima or it's like a protection against the the evil eye, but it's this beautiful, stylized hand. And the traditional belief behind it was, you know, it's protection from the evil eye. But that's something that, you know, growing up we would always have by the door and it would be something that We would just touch on the way out of the door, Mark: Hmm. Yucca: Not as a belief literally that that's somehow going to protect us. But just as a reminder of, hey, I'm stepping out of the home. I'm going out into the world and just to be more aware. Right. And just to kind of, you know, shields up, right? So it's almost like the button of like shields up right? Going out, leaving the, the sanctuary of the home. And so having something like that and I actually have the one that, that I grew up with in, in my home now, and it's just by the door and it's. It's just a nice reminder every time of coming in and out of the home space. Mark: And does everyone in your household do that? Yucca: The grownups do, it is too high at the moment for these smaller hands, but as they get older, I think they, they will. Mark: Ah-huh. Yucca: the one that we have is, If enthusiastically touched, could come down and break, so Mark: Oh, okay. Yucca: get a little bit older. Yeah. It's one that's made from broken pottery. Mark: Oh like Yucca: made from broken. Yeah. It's a mosaic made from broken pottery from Jerusalem. So it's, it's really beautiful and I would rather it not get crushed, but when they're when they're a little bit calmer, Then maybe they'll get, they'll get to do that particular one. Mark: Okay. Yucca: So in the meantime, they're, they've got plenty of other stuff to do. But that's, that's a type of object that's really nice. And I, although I don't drive a lot anymore in my hanging on my rear view mirror, I have a little bead that when I get into the car, it's just a, I just kind of give it a little boop. And just as a reminder of, Hey, I'm getting into the car, I'm taking on a big responsibility with the life of the passengers, my life, the life of anyone else on the c the road. And just take a moment to center and ground and then, then be on the way before just rush. You know? Cause a lot of times we're so tempted to get in the car. You've got the keys, you know, you've turned the car on before your seatbelt's even on and just, no, hang on. Slow down. About to drive this, you know, very, very heavy piece of equipment, very, very fast. So let's take a moment. So those are two that I have on a kind of a very practical level, but they, they really have that special meaning, so, Mark: I, I like that. I mean this, this sort of illustrates that you can imbue anything really with a particular meaning if you associate a practice with it. So, you know, just a little bead. It doesn't need to be anything fancy. It can just be a little something so that you you know, it, it becomes a part of your pattern as you, you know, you put the keys in, you put the seatbelt on, you, you touch the bead, you start the car, and it's just a part of the routine. Yucca: Yeah. So what about you? Do you have any other ones that you do? Mark: You know, what I do is I carry I carry some talismans and I've, there's a, there's a blog post, or it may be a YouTube video actually, because I think I did it while my arm was broken and I couldn't type. Yucca: Think it is a YouTube video. I think I've a long time. It's been several years, but yeah. Mark: Yes. That would've been 2017 when my, when Yucca: I'll see if I can find the link to that and put that in the show notes. Mark: Great. Yeah, so that's about talismans and the ones that I carry and what they mean to me. And what a talisman is really is just a little. Something a little token of some kind that reminds you of something specific. So, for example, I have an Arrowhead, which was one of the giveaways from. A, an earth honoring ritual that we did at Pantheon a few years ago. And it reminds me of the broader Pagan community and also of deep time being a, a, you know, a found arrowhead. So that's one. There's another, that's a smooth stone. That I got at a fired circle gathering, and it reminds me of that community and the, the people that I have in my life that really love me. So I have fi and there's a little mala bead that looks like a skull that is a memento mori. It reminds me that I'm gonna die and that I need to seize the day. So there are five or six of these little things. And as well as the suntry pendant that I wear around my neck. All of those serve to, kind of, to bring deeper meaning to my daily operation. You know, if I reach in my pocket for my comb while there are those talismans reminding me again that I'm on this path and I'm, I'm doing this, and it's more meaningful than just kind of wandering through life without. A sense of purpose or meaning? Yucca: So do you have a, is it. Is that part of a ritual in the morning, just to stick those into your pocket or are they already in your jeans and when you put your jeans on in the morning? There they are. Mark: They're already in my jeans and when I put my jeans on in the morning, there they are. The only time they come out is when I wash my jeans and then they go in another pair of jeans. Yucca: they're, they're switching pants. Okay. Mark: Yeah. But like for example, I bring them, you know, when I'm wearing dresses, Slacks to like a job interview. I bring those with me because they, you know, they're the, the emotional underpinning for me, right? They, they serve to represent all that community support and enthusiasm and history that I have as a basis on which to be confident and put myself forward. So, Yeah. So, and I've been doing this for a very long time, and of course, once in a while you'll lose one. And that's okay. These things happen. And, you know, I, I do a little ritual to charge each one when I first start carrying it, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: To give it its meaning. To associate it with that particular meaning. And I find, you know, this is a very old tradition. I mean, Roman soldiers used to carry little, you know, rolled up lead tablets with inscriptions on them of things that they, you know, wanted to happen for them, or ways they wanted to be protected. And we as atheopagan and, and naturalistic pagans, we can do the same thing. Yucca: Yeah, some of the ones that you mentioned reminded me of a few things that I have. But they're not objects. They're actually tattoos. Mark: Ah, Yucca: So a few years back at this point, we did an episode on CILs and I hadn't, sigils weren't really a big thing for me at that point but I played with it. Afterwards. Well, we, we did it a little bit before and I had kind of experimented with it so that we could prepare for the episode. And then I ended up deciding one of them after a few months, I went, you know what? This is really working for me, and I decided that I actually was gonna tattoo that on myself. So I did. Now I have on my left hand because I'm right-handed. Well and multiple other reasons as well. Cuz I wear my watch on my right hand. I wanted to access it on my wrist, but I did some white tattoos, which barely show up because I'm, I'm very very pale skinned. So the white just looks kind of like a scar almost. And so I put some marks on. And so I have one on my wrist. Which is for, for fo remembering where my focus is throughout the day, right. And to be paying attention to the things that I actually have influence over and I can control and not stressing constantly about the things that I. I do not have control over. Right. I have no control over what this weather is going to do, but I do have control over how I'm going to respond to that. Right. And another one I have on the back of my hand is a Memento Mori reminder. And throughout the day, I actually touch these on a regular basis. Just to remind, remind myself. It almost feels like pushing a button, like a Oh, right. Okay. Remember, Where's your focus, right? Or hey, this is, this is what you've got, right? Today is what you've got. You don't have tomorrow promised. And you know, that's okay. Right? What are you doing today to, to really live? Because nothing is guaranteed every day, every new day is a bonus. It's a gift, right? So those are. Those are, those are things that I felt strongly enough that I wasn't going to change my mind about whether or not I had that in 20 years. If I'm lucky enough to be here in 20 years, I'm still gonna be thinking about being lucky to be here in 20 years and where I'm focusing my energy on. But if there's certain other things that I'm working on in particular, I actually really like to use Henna. So Hannah's really nice because it, depending on where you put it on your body, right, there's certain areas where it's gonna fade right away. If you put Hannah on your palm, for instance, it's not gonna last, last for very long. But other parts of your body, it might last, you know, or you're not touching things as much or you don't produce as much oils. But you'll get several days to maybe a week out of time of having that symbol literally on your body or that reminder literally on your body. So. Mark: That's a great idea. I, I love that. I don't have any tattoos. I have design for two tattoos that I want to do, one of which is the Sumtry symbol. But I've just never had the free money to invest in having somebody do it. But one day I, I love that idea and I love the idea of You know, of, of recognizing that some of these things are permanent modes that you're, that you want to pursue in, in life. You always want to be aware of your mortality and its implications that you always want to be able to, you know, focus on what you're able to influence and not stress about the rest. Yeah, so tho those are very tallman. And I think. As, when we look at like tsi, the ice, the so-called iceman, the the, Yucca: Yeah, they had lots of tattoos in various places. Mark: right? And they were very obviously magical symbols of some kind. They, they were not, they were not particularly decorative. But you know, that that man had tattoos, which were clearly meant something. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: We will never know exactly what they meant, but we can conjecture that they were protective or for luck and fortune in hunting or, you know, any of those kinds of things. And so I, I think the history of tattoos, you know, really kind of feeds into what you described for yours, Yucca. That's really, really great. Yucca: and I think there's, so I have, I have other ones too that were done by artists. I've got quite a bit on my back and And those were very meaningful and special too. But there's also something about, for the really simple ones, the doing it yourself. There's something very, Mark: Hmm. Yucca: there was, it was very nice to do that. So just the poking stick, the old style, you know, you just have your, you can buy the kits right, and get the right ink. You don't wanna just do any ink. You have to get the right ink to put in your body and you don't wanna be putting in your lead ink or things like that, right? But that in itself can be a ritual. And actually having an artist do it as well, Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: you can really make that a really special thing. Mark: Sure. Well, and you've got all the endorphins that are provoked by the pain of the, of the tattooing. That puts you in kind of an altered state. I mean, people talk about how tattoos can be addictive Yucca: Yeah. Mark: and I, you know, I understand that. But that, that trans state, that state of being altered by the tattooing process is. Very much a ritual opportunity. It's you know, it's a, a state where you can, being in that trend state, you can apply a layer of meaning beyond simple decoration. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: To the, to the, the symbol that you're putting on yourself. And, and most of the people that I know who have tattoos, they associate meetings with them. They, they, they're not just decorative, they, they, they're there for a reason. Yucca: Yeah. That seems to be pretty, I mean, I can't think of anyone who I've asked about their tattoo and they haven't had some elaborate explanation about, you know, oh, this is, you know, the pair of sewing scissors because my mother and grandmother and I used to this and that, and you know, there's often, often stories that go along with it or, You know, things like, you know, this is my this is my five years sober tattoo, or my, you know, that kind of stuff, Mark: Or the semicolon for people who have survived suicide attempts, for example. Right. Not the end of the story. There's more to the sentence. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: All, you know, there are, there are a lot of different kinds of symbols like that that are very meaningful to people and that I think are some of which are intended to be communicative. You know, they're supposed to tell a story to someone else, and for others it's just you telling the story to yourself when you see them on your body. Yucca: and that's why for me, I chose white. I wanted them somewhere that I could see all the time, but I didn't want something that was gonna be flashy to someone else. Right. So that's why, I mean, I don't think most people even notice it. Right. But it's about, Mark: I certainly never did when we met at the Century Retreat last year, I. Yeah, I, I never noticed them. Yucca: Well I had, when we, then I had the one on my wrist, I didn't have the one on my hand. But again, I don't think it's showing up on the Mark: I can't see it on the screen through Zoom. No, I can't see it. Yucca: I think maybe it shows like you can barely see it, but I see it and that's what matters for me. Mark: course, of course. Yucca: my more visible, my more like elaborate ones. I do still have them so that I can cover them if I want, but the, the stigma around them is really faded, right? People don't get worried about that anymore. It used to be a big deal, but now it's a I don't know if the statistic is real, but it's supposed to be like a third of American millennials have a tattoo, Mark: Hmm. Yucca: like that. Wouldn't surprise me at all. Mark: Me neither. I mean, you see them everywhere and you know, I, in professional office circumstances, I've, you know, worked with a lot of people who, you know, they have sleeves and and all that. So yeah, it's, it's very common to me. I've just never really felt the opportunity. It's, it's not that I'm in any way morally opposed So, yeah, what we're talking about here really is about how do you create symbolic meaning that reverberates through you in the course of your daily operations as opposed to your daily practice, which might be, okay, I do this formal thing in the morning, I do a formal thing in the evening. That's great. But you know, I, I wanna be reminded of my values on a regular basis, and I want to be reminded of the things that I've learned that help me to be wiser and kinder. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: So, you know, having those kinds of practices I think is a good way to have a touchstone to go back. those principles because, you know, the world can frazzle you, Yucca: He can't. Yeah. Mark: you know, really pull you out of any sense of centeredness in yourself. Yucca: As you were saying that it occurred to me. There's other points throughout the day that aren't things that I use, but that would be opportunities for other people if it's something that they do. If you wear makeup every morning, Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: a great time. Right to c incorporate some something in there. And just the act of getting dressed too, like you talk about having the items that you keep in your jeans, but you know, is there, is there something when you are dotting your clothing that you are reminding yourself about the, the values that you have or so things like that. Mark: Not ordinarily, but certainly when I'm dressing professionally, like if I'm putting on a suit, I'm putting on a suit of armor. And, you know, I put on a suit to go to war because the kinds of contexts where I need to be dressed that way tend to be ones where I am advocating. Yeah, I'm advocating for something. I'm, you know, I'm, I'm trying to make a change. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And either that or I'm defending myself which is, you know, another, another possibility. So. You know, clothing and costume is another whole conversation we could have. And, you know, maybe we will at some point Yucca: think we should, yes. Mark: I think we should too. Because decorating ourselves in various ways is highly communicative to the people around us. And We make choices about what we wanna say. You know, we, it talks about what class we are, it talks about what gender we are. It talks about what what kind of work we do. It, it, it says a lot of stuff. Our education level. Yucca: views, our, you know, yes. All kinds of things. Mark: Yeah. So let's, let's put a pin in that and, Yucca: Yeah, we'll come back to that. Mark: Yeah, we'll definitely come back to that. But you know, the whole self adornment thing, you know, beyond the practicalities of being warm enough or cool enough I, I think are, are an interesting vein to explore for people that are working to fold meaning into the operation of their lives. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: So this is, you know, sort of a. Whirlwind examination of all this stuff, but I, I, I think the, the fundamental point that I want to communicate is that you know, if there's a special rock that you like and it reminds you of something like a beautiful day at the beach or something, don't feel weird about carrying that around. That's, that absolutely makes sense to carry that around. Yucca: That's very human. We've been doing that a long time. Mark: Yes. Yes. And we can do it intentionally and it can become a part of our, of our practice. Yucca: Yeah. Well, this was a fun one. Thank you. A. Mark: Yeah. Thank you, Yucca, and we'll see you next week.

Spring Activities for Pagan Kids (and Kids at Heart)

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 17, 2023 35:14

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. S4E14 TRANSCRIPT:----more---- Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm your host, mark, Yucca: And I'm Yucca. Mark: and today we are going to talk about children's activities for springtime. In most places by now spring has sprung and there are green shoots and leafing trees leafing out and flowers and the sweet smell in the air. And the weather has become, if not mild than milder. And it's, it's just a time for celebrating spring and. And we often associate childhood with spring. Yucca: Right. And I wanna say that before we get going, we're gonna be talking about kids, but a lot of these activities can be for kids of all ages, right? Just because we're going to be thinking about children doesn't mean you can't be your. 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, whatever age you are. Right? So if you've got kiddos in your life, that's awesome. And if you just wanna feel a little bit young at heart, then that's great too. Yeah. Mark: Yeah, that's a really important point I think, because I mean, at least as I celebrate the Wheel of the Year when there's a focus on children around the time of the spring e Equinox, and then going into young adulthood around mayday. It's, it's not only to celebrate those members of the community that are at those stages in their life, it's also to celebrate those qualities in ourselves, right? We, you know, we all still have a kid inside us and that playfulness and Astonishment of discovery and kind of wonder and awe that that comes in a childlike view of the world are great things for all of us. Yucca: Yeah, so this time of year we've. The new life or the waking up of life happening, the popping back in a lot of our holidays have to do with this reemergence of life and newness of things. Is there anything else that, that really speaks kid to you about this time of year? Mark: The bright colors. Yucca: Hmm mm-hmm. Mark: You know, the colors of flowers, the, the mating plumage of birds the, the fruit trees leafing out and flowering and we associate bright colors with this. Both with childhood you know, those kind of primary colors that are used in a lot of children's toys and so forth. But also with this time of year with brightly colored eggs and jelly beans and things like that as well. So, that's something else that I associate with this time of year is just really super colorful, bright color palette. Yucca: Right. Yeah, I see that too. And for us also, the getting back outdoors. And our climate, this really is when we can be spending lots of time outdoors again. I mean, we, we do anyways, but it's far more pleasant to do it when it's not literally freezing, right? When you can go out and, oh, you don't have to have the shoes on and you can not worry about bundling up every, you can just go out, right? You don't. Make it this whole ordeal to get them all wrapped up and to get you and the, you know, you can just go, there's just, there's a, there's a freedom, there's a just sort of, what's the word I'm looking for? Like Mark: Well, there's, there's an exuberance that goes with that, right? I mean, you, you feel that soft air on your skin. Yucca: yeah. Mark: You know, that wonderful soft spring air on your skin and after being indoors for months, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: that's a, a very pleasant change of pace. Yucca: Yeah. Well, why don't we get into some of the things? Yeah. Mark: okay. That's what I was gonna suggest. Let's do that. Yucca: All right. Well, we were brainstorming a little bit before and came up with a huge list of stuff to get into and I'm sure that we'll miss some of the things. Mark: will. Yucca: but the first thing that really pops into my mind is the spring cleaning. I know you might think of this as more of like a grownup sort of thing. But I think that at least for us, having the kids fully involved with all of the household activities is really important because they're part of our society too. Right. And if you want them to be able to do their laundry when they're 20, well, They need to start doing their laundry earlier on. They need to be part of that process, not have it be this huge ordeal when suddenly they're on their own and Oh goodness, right? Like, no, they just, you know, they're part of the household. They're, they're involved in that. And so same thing with any other activity we're doing. And so the spring cleaning it, there's something about spring. I know it's cliche. There's, I think we've recognized it for a long time, that it's, you know, you're opening up the windows, you're letting that fresh air in. There's that new beginnings happening in the outside world, and so we kind of bring that into the inside world. And I, I think it's really important for the, you know, their agency, their self agency and that, and getting to choose, okay, well, you know, let. Get rid of these things, they don't fit you anymore. Is there one or two that you wanna save as a keepsake? And if so, where are you gonna fit that? Because there's a limited amount of space right there. Right. And just having them be part of that process and, you know, making it kind of a fun thing, I think is, is really powerful. Mark: Sure. Yeah. When you've been closed up inside for months, things pile. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: just, just a lot of junk. You know, you, you put something down and forget about it and then two months later it's still there. Well, it's time to move that thing now. Yucca: With three things on top of it. Mark: well, yeah. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And one thing, you know, kids really like doing adult stuff. They like being involved in things that feel real. Right. So, you know, you'll. You know, kids with like toy razors and, you know, stuff like that cuz they, they want to pretend to be adults Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and so, you know, hey, why don't you help me clean out the garage is, I mean, you know, to an adult that may sound like I don't want to clean out the garage, but to a kid it's like, Hey, I get to clean out the garage. Yucca: Yeah, I mean, it depends on how you sell it. Right. And it depends on what else they're doing. If you're saying, why don't you stop playing Minecraft right now and come do something else, you might not get the buy-in, right? Mark: Yeah. Yucca: you, you gotta kind of think about how to do it and have it be an invitation. And I mean, it's such a tricky balance that, you know, every family figures out what works for them with their values and the particular people that are involved. But for me, I, I try and be very careful about not making it a requirement. Right. Not making it this sort of, well, if they aren't, you know, if they don't wanna come work with me in the greenhouse, like that's okay. I wouldn't force my partner to do that. Right? So why would I, you know, force my kid to do it? I don't wanna make it this obligation thing. And so there's a, there's some trust in there, right? That kind of has to be built between the people involved. And, but most of the time I find that it ends up is, you know, if I'm mindful about what space they're in, they often are pretty interested in coming and participating and doing. You know, their share of it. That's not to say that we don't have things that are their responsibility, right? They certainly have their chores and things like that, but when it's inviting them to come do new things and learn new things and participate with, fully, participate in that, like the adult world of running the households making sure that it isn't this gloomy pressure thing I think is really important. Mark: Yeah. And I think as you say, there are ways you can sell it. You know, if it's, if it's like, you know, in the morning at breakfast, The next three days are special days. They are spring cleaning days. We're going to, we're going to, you know, get our whole place together here. It's really exciting. So I'm gonna be working in the garage who'd like to help me? Yucca: Yeah. And ooh. You get to pick out the music when we're in the garage, right? You're working with me in the garage, you're the one who gets to pick the song or you know, that kind of thing. And again, it's just always gonna depend on the particular person, because for some people that's exciting. And for others they're like, I get to pick out the music, so what, like, that doesn't mean anything to me. Right. But, you know, yeah. But setting aside, it's that time. And. This is one thing that this kind of general parenting thing that we found because I know that a lot of other parents really struggle with the, ourselves included. I'm saying this is something that we as a society have is that struggle with the balance between screen and non-screen time. That we try and set an expectation of, well, during the morning time, like that just isn't screen time. Nobody's doing screen. And the hardest thing is just if parents aren't doing screen, kids aren't doing screen. It's just not, that's not, when you do screen. Screen is something that happens in the afternoons and sometimes into the evening, but not at night. Right. Like you just set up the expectation. And just kind of have to stick to it and, and be the, the model for it. And I always find that the hardest part. It's easy for me to like tell them what to do. Be like, you can't be on the screen. It's a lot harder for me to put mine away, but it's absolutely ineffective if I tell them not to do it while I'm sitting here doing it because they're not stupid. Right. They have humans. Humans have a fierce sense of fairness. yeah. So, Mark: Yeah, and you know, the, the, the concept of injustice is something that we developed very early. Yucca: Oh, Mark: Yeah. You know, if you're doing it and I'm not allowed to do it, there's something wrong. Yeah. So one thing that, it occurs to me, because we were gonna talk in a moment about decorating the house for, for the season. Right. And it occurs to me, you can actually tie this to the spring cleaning piece, where it's like we clean it first and then we decorat. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mark: to get to the fun, crafty decoration part, we gotta clean it first. And so it becomes, you know, a kind of a seamless project where the whole thing, you know, we're decorating, but of course to decorate we've gotta get this stuff out of the way first. Yucca: Yeah, you, you gotta have a clean wall to do that with. Get rid of those hand prints. We all have those hand prints. You know what hand prints I'm talking about, right? Yeah. There's just so many of them everywhere, so I love that. Yeah. And again, just always making it into that kind of fun thing. The point of it is to, is I think of it as to be joyous, right? That this is, this is life we get, you know, why is it that we want our houses to be clean well, so that it feels good to be in them, right? So that we're healthy so that we enjoy being in them so we can be productive. But why do we wanna be productive so that we can be happy, right? It all comes back to, you know, what's to. Just enjoying the life that we have. Right. And, you know, we we're taking care of our loved ones, but again, so that they can be happy because we love them. Mark: Really well said. Yeah, I, I think it's important to always, you know, root. Root, our actions, our re you know, and our recommendations of actions in exactly that, you know, how is this making your life better or how is this making the world better or both? Right. You know, those, those, those are the, you know, to, to my mind, those are the two edicts that we have being alive, you know, live a really full, joyous, amazing life and. You know, leave something better than it was when you got here. And I mean, that's a very fulfilling kind of life to have. And so, yeah. Exactly. So Yucca: Yeah, so there's the decorating, the spring decorating. I always think bringing some of what's happening in the outside world, into the inside world. I was just sharing with Mark earlier, our daffodils have just start, so we're recording on the 15th. So where I live, our daffodils just bloomed. And Mark, you were saying they were blue for you. It was January, right? Mark: of January. Yeah. Yucca: Yeah. But a couple cut daffodils, you know, in, in a little. We don't have any fancy vs. So it's mason jar, right? So we have it sitting in a mason jar on the table and bringing in some of the things. We still have a lot of our feathers up and things like And just bringing some of the stuff from outside in. And of course, my kids love bringing in rocks. We have piles of shiny rocks all over the place. The cat then goes and knocks down cuz they're the perfect size for knocking down. So in the middle of the night, you're Mark: You got a whole ecosystem going there. Yucca: We do, yes. And then you step on them. And it just reminds you that you're alive when you step on rocks, brought in by children, knocked over by cats and all of that. I think the, that gets at just to re to remember also that, that. When it comes to kids, you just kind of gotta go with the flow with them sometimes. And they're not gonna be perfect at things. They're learning. This is them learning for the first time. And we've had years and years of practice at everything from, you know, how to move our hands to regulating our emotions when we're disappointed and, and they haven't yet. And this is them learning to do that. And so, It can be tricky to let go of some of the expectations of how it's gonna look and how well to get it done and just say it's okay. It, it's really okay. As long as it functions, as long as, you know, nobody's in danger and gonna get hurt and it's healthy. Right. You're not, it's not dirty to the extent that it's unhealthy or something like that. It's okay. Right. You know? so, and I think that's good to remember with ourselves. Coming back to the, there being inner children and all of us just to, to give ourselves that Grace A. Little bit sometimes too. So Mark: Yeah, that's, that's well said. I, I really agree with that. Yucca: yeah. Mark: you can bring in flowers from the outside. You can bring in like bows from a lilac bush that's blooming or cherry tree that's blooming. All of those things make for pretty nice sort of tabletop decorations. You can bring in bright, bright spring leaves. I mean, we tend to think of leaves as being more of an autumn thing. But those bright green spring leaves, you can string 'em on. And hang them up or just use them sort of to carpet the horizontal surfaces in your, your house, whatever, Yucca: Or a little clear bowl, like if a little glass bowl, put those in them. It, you know. Very beautiful. Yeah. So next, why don't we talk a little bit about crafts. So art, there's art and craft, right? And people are gonna, there, there, there's a vinn diagram there and where they overlap people is gonna depend on each person's preferences, right? For me, I think about art as something that doesn't necessarily have a purpose other. Just the, the process of making it and the enjoyment of looking at it. Right. Whereas the craft has a, has another purpose behind it. Like a, kind of, the traditional kid craft is weaving the pot holder or something like that. So you have the process of making it, but then it's also an object that has a, has a, a purpose afterwards. Right. Mark: Uhhuh Uhhuh. Yucca: so springtime, there's definitely lots of the sorts of, you know, making the bird feeder or that kind of outdoor sorts of things. What we look for is things that the kids can do that's important to the. The household where they get to be part of what needs to happen, and that has a real purpose to it. Because again, coming back to they're, they're not, they're smart, right? They know when we're just making something up to give them busy work and they know when it's something that really matters and it's so important for their. Like they're self-efficacy, right? To, to know that they are contributing and they are able to contribute. So when we can come up with things, tasks for them to do that can be uniquely theirs that are kind of crafty sort of things. I think that's a really nice opportunity. Right. And that's just gonna depend on what's happening in your, what your household is like. What are you rural, urban, are you. Temperate, tropical. You know, all of those things are gonna vary. Mark: Right. Although that said, bird feeders are a pretty good choice because there are birds pretty much everywhere Yucca: Yeah. Mark: of one kind or another, and if you put out food for them, they will eat it. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: They, they, they will show up and they will eat it. We have a very active couple of bird feeders here at our place. One for hummingbirds and one for PA birds, and yeah, they they sure go through that bird seed. It's amazing. Yucca: Yeah. Well, and that's one of the, the jobs, which is my kids, they go out and they. They take out the bird seed and they clean the water dishes as well, because we we're in a very dry environment. So having water out is almost more important for our wildlife than. The bird, the seed, right? It's easier to find food than it is to find water. But we wanna make sure that that's clean so that we're not spreading diseases, right? So they go out and they swap out, depending on the dish. We have a couple that they bring the dish in and we just swap it out every day, right? So it gets washed every day with the dishes and then it goes back out. And and so that's one that that they know. If they don't do, then the birds. Get their food, the, then the chipmunks don't get their food and the squirrels don't. Now, I could imagine for a kid who struggles with anxiety, that might not be the, a good fit for them, right? Where if they, that might be anxiety inducing. But depending on the personality, you know, for mine, that that's something that is an empowering experience for them and just as, as their grownups, we just need to be kind of tuned into how is this? How is this likely to be received with the particular person that we're shepherding and, and helping? Right. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: But it's lovely for them to be like, oh, I haven't fed the birds yet. The poor things. They're gonna be so hungry. Right. And it's like all the eight in the mornings like, yeah, it's okay. You could go do it. They'll, they'll appreciate it. Mark: they're not quite that fragile, but yes, you, you remembered and it's your job and that's great. Yucca: So, and I think I shared my favorite one. This is not a spring activity, but just for a suggestion of types of activities that we did this year that worked out so lovely. Is our, our house We heat with passive solar and a wood stove. And so we have to light a fire in the cold months of the year. And so in the fall, the, the kids gathered lots of little sticks and made the little Kindle bundles. And that was their job. And so, When every time we lit a fire, we were lighting it with the bundles that the kids made. Right? So that kind of activity, and that was just so lovely because every day it was something they, they're a little bit too young to actually be starting the fire on their own right. We're really big on them doing. Doing lots of stuff in the household, but they're still, my, my oldest is only six and a half, so I th you know, wait a few years till she's lighting fires. But she still got to be part of that really important thing. And the littlest, he got to be part of that as well and get to feel like, wow, I contributed, I'm part of the family. I'm important and. You know, I, I plan to be there as long as I can for them, right? I, I wanna make it to the triple digits if I can, but there will be a time when I'm not there to help them and they have to do it on their own, right? And so I want them to be as, as prepared for that as possible in a way that is as Smooth, right? As, as could, can be, right? Because people, we'll figure out how to do it. Humans will figure out how to survive. But if it can be as painless a process as possible, I think that's nice. Mark: I think so too. Yeah. Yucca: then they can spend that effort on, on something else. Mark: Mm-hmm. So yeah. So do you want to talk about other kinds of craft activities? I mean, the, the, the classic for this time of year is dying eggs. Yucca: Absolutely. Mark: It's a little late in the year this year for doing that. But it's still really cool especially if you use, especially if you use natural dyes. And. There are techniques you can use to put like leaf prints on the sides of the eggs and stuff, really make them beautiful. And it just then, then you have hard boiled eggs you're going to eat. And just a little more color to your breakfast. Yucca: Yeah, and you can also if you're using natural dyes, you can boil your eggs, peel them, then dye them. And then you actually, when you eat your eggs, you have colorful eggs. And that usually goes over pretty well with the kids, Mark: I Yucca: right? It, it won't go all the way through to get that top, you know, few millimeters or so. So you get like the little ring and if you slice the eggs in the like discs, that's really nice. Mark: Okay. Yucca: oh, and doing deviled eggs and dying it different colors. That's really fun. Mark: Okay. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: I can't imagine deviled eggs with blue blue yolk mixture. Yucca: yes. Well, and if you, if you dye the the outside of it a little bit too, and this is, and this might be just a little kid thing, but a lot of kids that I've known really like when you, when you play, when you present the food in a more fun way. Right. We, we we'll make little like scrambled eggs and I have cookie cutters and so I'll fry them in the pan in the cookie cutters. So it's the shape of a T-Rex when they eat their eggs. Right? So much more fun. Now you have t-rex eggs, right? So, and you could definitely Mark: And then, Yucca: the sort of spring themed things, right? Mark: then they can, they can tell their friends that they had dinosaur eggs for breakfast. Yucca: Well, and they did My, my kids are very fond of telling me that chickens are dinosaurs, Mark: Oh, okay. There you go. Yucca: yeah. Mark: They sure act like dinosaurs. Yucca: Yep. Well, why don't we talk also about the outside stuff, because since spring, you know, this is when we can get back outside. There's all kinds of fun games. There's all the, you know, the classic childhood games. You're capture the flag. Hide. Yeah, hide and seek. You know, setting up little like scavenger hunts. Oh, speak. As long as we're talking kids. One of the traditions that we have started doing now that, that we're in the losing teeth time period, is we don't do any of the like tooth fairy or Santa Claus or any of that because I'm uncomfortable with. Lying about it. Right. And I know some peop that's just something that is not comfortable for me. So instead of having a tooth fairy come and give the kids money, we do a scavenger hunt every time they lose a tooth. And then there's something like a little prize at the end. Yeah. Mark: Nice. Nice. So there's still a ceremonial recognition of this thing that's happened and a fun activity and a little reward. Yeah. Yucca: For the, my oldest one, they lost their first tooth. They'd been asking for a watch for a while because I wear a watch. And I had been reluctant to give them a watch because the. Pretty rough with their hands and breaking things and all of that. But when they lost their tooth, I got a watch for them and that was their prize. But each of the steps on the scavenger hunt was going to places where they have done things that they've been growing up and maturing in the family. So they went to the greenhouse where they help water the plants and we went out to the wood pile where they help go get wood and out to the bird feeder. Where they feed the bird. Right. And going from spot to spot with a little note about like, How you've been contributing and growing up. And then at the end, they got to get their watch. They were mature enough and that they had shown they were mature and old enough to get their watch when they lost their first tooth and all of that. Mark: Oh, that's love. Yucca: so so I think that they're with families, it's, there's so much. Possibility. And it's just, it's coming up with ideas like that. It's just you get to play, right. Play with these ideas of what, what is it? And, and bringing in some of the silliness to it or the fun, you know, I tried to write as teeny, teeny tiny as I could with that, right? Cuz we were, pretend we were playing with the tooth fairy thing. She's very insistent though that that stuff doesn't exist. She's. You know, we don't believe in God's. They're important stories, but we don't believe in them. And the tooth fair is kind of like a God, but not really. Because I don't have any books about her. And I'm like, okay, well we could give you a book about her. So, but coming back to the, the outside stuff, I think that getting outside, playing outside and something that we don't, it's amazing how much we don't have of this in our modern lives, but just having free unstructured time is just so critical. important for littles and really important for adults too. Just to be able to be out and just do whatever your curiosity leads you to, or notice that butterfly that's going there, or, you know, enjoy. Taking that stick and seeing how many times you can break it in half, whatever it is that coming up with your adventure games, your make-believe stories about how you can transform into a giant snake or whatever it is. It's just so, so important for kids. And the spring just feels like perfect for that because we, you cannot do all, you can do that stuff inside, but there's something very different about being outside out of the physical structure. Right. Out of these boxes that we live in, these literal boxes, right? If you're inside, I'm guessing that there, a few of you might be listening to this on a walk right now, but the vast majority of of people listening, I bet you're inside a box right now. You're inside a metal box, which is your car. You're inside a, a wooden frame box, which is your house, or maybe it's concrete or steel. But we spend a lot of time in these really defined structures that just feel very, very different than being outside with. Messy lines and flowing forms that are moving because there's a little bit of wind going through them in the clouds and there's just so much more, I don't even know the words, but you know, it's, it's outside is messy. Right. Mark: Yeah. There's so much more to experience out there, obviously. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: It's, it's always moving and changing. The sky is always changing. And it's full of those shaggy fractal shapes, right? The repeating patterns that make up the shape of a, of a coniferous tree or a particular kind of shrub or whatever it is, and having those kinds of patterns. For some reason is very reassuring to people. It's good for our mental health to see those kinds of things and we find them very beautiful which is, it's good for us. The experience of beauty is good for us. So, while you're outside, you might want to have something to drink. So I have a recipe for raspberry lemonade. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: And so let me give you this, it's pretty, should be pretty simple. You can jot it down, you know, you can stop the podcast, jot things down, and then continue. It is tasty and refreshing childlike beverage for spring. So, what I'm, what I'm about to, to tell you about serves 12. Yucca: Ooh. Okay. Mark: So you need three quarters of a cup, and I'm not gonna give the metric conversions. I've got 'em, but I'm, I'm not gonna give them three quarters of a cup of fresh or thawed, frozen raspberries, nine cups of water, two cups of freshly squeezed lemon juice, which is about 12 lemons, and then two cups of very fine or powdered. Which is less than was in the original recipe that I adapted this from. Because I like my, my lemonade kind of tart. I don't like it. Super sweet. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: So you puree the raspberries in a blender and strain them through a siv to take the seeds out into a pitcher, and then you add everything else and whisk it together until the sugar dissolves and pour over ice and. It's very simple, but it's delicious. Really, really good. And if you need an adult version of this, it goes well with vodka. Yucca: Yeah. And with the sugar you could probably put less in, taste it, and then just keep adding to taste. Mark: Yes, that's a, that's a good idea because people have different amounts of tolerance for sugar, different amounts of, of taste for sugar, so Yucca: But it seems like it's such a simple, easy recipe that you can just add in as you need. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: Yep. And it's, it's a delicious, tasty beverage to have on one of those warm spring days. Yucca: Yep. Mark: When kids have been running around and running around and running around and running around and they're finally starting to flag, might be time to plunk them down and have something with some electrolytes in it and you know, get some water into 'em. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then before we know it, it'll be the hot time of year, right? Mark: yep. Yep, indeed. It's not far off for sure. Yucca: Hmm. Well, is there anything else, mark, that we should touch on in our Mark: You know, not that I can think of Yucca: activities? Mark: other than just to encourage everybody to go out and play, you know, go out and, you know, kick a ball around or, you know, do whatever it is that you like to do outside. That's fun. It's this is a great time of year in the Northern Hemisphere to be out under the sky and just really enjoying the great outdoors. So, really encourage you to do that in whatever manner works best for you. Yucca: Yeah. Well, thank you for joining us, everyone. Mark: Lovely to, to have you with us. As always, thanks so much for supporting the podcast. And just a quick reminder, the conference that we're doing in June ticket sales are still registration is still open and will be until a few days before the conference. The. We'll, we'll put the link to how you get the information and register and all that kind of stuff in the show notes. Yucca: And I will be doing a kids activity. So there will be an activity for kiddos if they want to come and join us for this, for that. So, yeah. Mark: Okay. Thanks everybody.

Imagination and Paganism

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 20, 2023 31:07

The Re-Enchantment of Life: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/re-enchantment-of-life/ The Inner Critic: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/the-inner-critic-1612153312/ Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. S4E10 TRANSCRIPT:----more---- Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm your host, mark, Yucca: and I'm Yucca, Mark: and today we are going to talk about paganism and imagination. Yucca: right? And this is a, this is a really important and key topic in a lot of different ways and it gets approached From many different directions in, again, different ways, but we don't always, we don't always talk about what it it really is, and that that's what we're doing. Mark: Yeah. And particularly in kind of mainstream pagan circles, we. Because what is imagined and what is more likely to be true based on evidence often gets all jumbled together. We, we don't actually acknowledge that we're working with the imagination Yucca: And there's a negative connotation to it too. Like, oh, you're just imagining Mark: right. Yucca: right? Like if you suggest that, that, that's almost, that's an insult, right? Oh, that's just your imagination. Mark: right? Yeah. We say it's just your imagination, right? But when you think about it, why just imagination is amazing. Imagination is arguably the thing that makes humans different than any other creatures that we're aware of. Our, our ability to. Envision the abstract Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: to to have ideation that that innovates, you know, that comes up with novel stories, novel inventions, novel concepts, novel philosophies, all of those things. That's all imaginations. Yucca: Right, and even though things might be imagination, they can still be very, very meaningful to us. , think about your favorite movie or book that you knew that those characters didn't exist. Those things never happened, and yet it's really meaningful and impactful to you, and it had a, as a, a very real response in your body and your mind. Mark: Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, there have been a couple of times in my life when I have actually fallen in love with a movie character. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And it's been painful for, you know, two, three days until it wears off. Because I really wanted to know that person. I wanted to see that person, and they don't exist. So, and, and you know, this was when I was younger mostly, but now that I'm old and cynical, it doesn't happen so much. , but You know, that's the same physiological response that happens in response to a real person. Yucca: right. Mark: And that, I think, goes to this question of why we can confuse the imaginary with the real because our, our minds are not very good at distinguishing. Between what's imaginary and what's real. We, we react in exactly the same ways our brains fire in exactly the same ways in response to stories or ideas that they do in response to real world events. Yucca: Right. And we rewrite memories, Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: And each person's interpretation of the same event can be very different, Mark: and it will get more different over time as they reinforce their take over and over again. Every time they recall that memory, they rewrite it and it get e evolves a little bit. Yucca: It's telephone, but that, did you ever play that game as a kid? Right. You one person whispers and then it whispers to the next person and next person and see how it changes by the time it gets to the last person. And sometimes they're close, and sometimes, well, sometimes one of the kids will purposely put something fake in there, but sometimes it transforms, right? Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: And our, our minds do that. Our imagination does that. Mark: They certainly do. Yeah. So, one of the things that we do, especially as adults to try to distinguish these things is that we, we identify the times when we are doing what's called suspension of disbelief, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: right? So we go into a movie, we suspend our disbelief for a couple of hours, and we submerge ourselves into the story that's happening on the. And our awareness leaves the fact that we're sitting in a cushion chair in a dark room, looking at a screen and listening to soundtrack it, immerses in the events of the movie as if they're happening to us and. Then when the movie's over, then we stop suspending our disbelief and we leave. And our experience of the movie, in terms of its quality is often a function of how deeply we were affected by that suspension of disbelief. Right? And this is something that is really an issue for those of us who are atheopagan or other non feist pagans. Naturalistic pagans, right? Because for folks that are entering our community from the atheistic side, all this imaginary stuff can be very uncomfortable. Yucca: right. Mark: You know, the we're looking for evidence, right? We're, we're looking for proof that whatever it is that we're talking about actually exists or it's not worth talking about is the, the culture. Yucca: assumption. Mark: Many, many atheistic circles, and I'm here to say, first of all, it is worth talking about because it's core to the nature of humanity that we are these imagining creatures and there's a lot of value that we can have out of our. Experiences and, and in our lives by cultivating imagination and using it appropriately to have experiences like in rituals. Yucca: Right. so there's, it really is something that we can very consciously use, right? And it could be in a ritual, but it can also be there's, we, you know, we did an episode a few years back about bringing the magic into everyday. Mark: Yeah. Enchanting the world. Yucca: exactly. There we go. We'll, I'll put a link to that in the show notes. Because that's definitely one of the ways that we can use imagination that really serves us right. When we're careful, when we're not careful. Sometimes our imagination can be harmful to us. Right? We imagine something that, you know, that that person is mad at us and they, they were just tired. Right? Or we imagine. That the shadow, you know, when we're little, that those shadows are actually monsters that are gonna come and get us. But then we can also use it for okay, ritual. We can use it to bring a little bit of enchantment to our life. We can really enrich ourselves. Mark: Yes. Yes. And so for those of us that are naturalistic pagans, a lot of what we're doing is walking this careful line. Where we're not falling over the edge into worlds of imagination and fantasy and thinking that they're real. And I know that there are gonna be people that are gonna be mad at me about saying that, but you know, the evidence at least would suggest that God's an instrumental magic and ghosts and spirits and stuff like that aren't Yucca: realm of ferry or. Mark: Yeah. That they aren't really. They're wonderful stories. And they're tremendous flights of imagination that we can work with, we can do cool things with. But they don't exist in the same sense that rock exists. And so here we are as naturalistic pagans, carefully walking that edge where we say, all right, we value evidence. Right. We value what's provable. That said, we are the storytelling ape homos, right? Some wonderful anthropologist, I don't remember the name. Called us The Storytelling Ape Yucca: I like that better than Sapien sap. Mark: yeah, me too. Yucca: Oh Mark: Yeah, we're super wise, wise, twice. Yucca: Yes. We're wise, wise, we're so wise. Really believe us. Seriously. Mark: Judging by our works, maybe not so much. But we are definitely storytelling creatures and it is essential to the culture making of every society that we tell stories and that we have narratives that inform our values and our worldviews. So Yucca: Well, and we even do that in science, right? That's how we understand. That's and it's just what, where are we getting the information for the story? But we're still telling it all the same and we're still putting in We're still putting in metaphor and poetry and things to help us understand and try and imagine what happened 13.8 billion years ago or something like that. Mark: Right. Right. And we use. We often have used the cultural narratives that dominate our societies, especially in the past. You know, the Newtonian physics, for example. The kind of clockwork universe of everything, you know, working in, you know, neatly meshing little systems that all follow these laws. And a lot of that was true and useful. But it turns out it was a little more complicated than. Yucca: And we do that today when we talk about how our brains are wired, right? We talk about them as, and we talk about long-term short-term memory. You know, we talk about things as if they're computers now. So, and we're just taking those that. Narrative and, and applying it in a way that is useful. But as you're saying, it may not be completely accurate, but it serves the purpose. And we do that with you wanna describe the motion of a ball through the air? Well, you're never gonna be able to actually perfectly describe it, but you can get close enough and that still serves a purpose, Mark: right. A model is a story. Ultimately, a model is a, a narration of. Activity over time, which is what a story is. And so, you know, we, when, when we're talking about what we believe to be true, we use stories that are supported by evidence. But when we're talking about expressing our inner realities, our inner self, our personalities, When we're talking about developing culture or artistic expression, or working with our psychology to transform ourselves in some way, whether it's to transform our emotions or to heal our wounds, or to, you know, do any of those powerful things, the world of imagination and storytelling becomes this powerful. Built-in system that is encoded into the way our human organisms are constructed that we can use to powerful effect. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And that's what we believe as naturalistic pagans right now. It's a little bit different in the mainstream pagan community where all that stuff may be tossed together and you have people that believe that they're elves. There's a lot of wishful think. In the mainstream pagan community, people who believe in things because they really want them to be true, which isn't a criterion that naturalistic pagans use for determining what we believe to be true. Yucca: Right. Mark: and I mean, there's pros and cons to that. I mean, there's, there can certainly be a lot of wonder and magic and enchantment and. You know, fascination about believing in, you know, that kind of fantasy stuff. But I've also seen people really get on the wrong side of it with a lot of fear and paranoia about, you know, hexes and psychic attacks and stuff like that, that they need to do wards against. And, you know, it creates anxiety at the least. And I've seen that actually cross over into real paranoia. You know, kind of textbook paranoia, including the the delusions of grandeur of thinking that somebody, that you're so important that somebody's gonna go to the trouble to try to hex you . But you know, if that's the world people wanna live in and that's, that's the way they decide that they want to navigate their life, then great. More power to. It's just not the way we do it. Yucca: Sounds exhausting to me. Person. Mark: Yeah, so much. So much uncertainty. So much. Always, you know, there, there could always be something mysterious out there that's about to get ya. I, I wouldn't wanna live that way myself. So talking about imagination and we, we implement imagination in our rituals. Many of our rituals are, are keyed to stories, right? Like a healing ritual. Okay? This thing happened to me. I'm wounded by it. Or it embedded something in me. Right. You know, faith healers do that whole thing about removing things from the body. Or traditional indigenous practitioners sometimes will remove darts or other sort of spirit things from the body in order to take the harm away from the patient. Right. Yucca: Right. We can I share real quick an example of one that we did last night? We so we have a wood stove and we still chilly enough that we're using it. And so we took the log that was gonna go in and spat on it. So there was a particular emotion that we were trying to like release, and so we spat on it. So it was something physically, visually coming from our body, and then we wrote on the wood what it was and put it into the fire. So that we could transform that into the heat that was going to support the family and take care of us during the winter. Right. And that was our story of we're taking this thing out of our body, putting it in and using it and transforming it into something else, Mark: Sure, and and I would imagine that that felt great that it worked, Yucca: At least for my part, I feel pretty good about it. ? Yeah. Mark: Whereas if you are like, you know, an atheist coming brand new into our community, you might look at that and go, wow, that's super weird. Yucca: Oh yeah. Go spit on some firewood. What are you doing Mark: What are you doing? But the answer is what you're doing is you're working with your consciousness, you know, and. You know, our consciousness works very well with metaphors and similes. It works very well with the concept of correspondences where, okay, I am going to establish a connection between myself and this piece of firewood by expelling something from myself that is inherent, that is of my body onto this firewood, which means that now we're connected, right? And I'm gonna write a purpose, a goal, an outcome on the firewood. We're gonna put it in the fire to undergo a transformational process, which will radiate energy that I can feel, and that's going to cause a transformation in my psychology. That is actually a pretty logical story. It doesn't have evidential support in the way. You know, the story of general Relativity has evidential support, but it has a coherence which can totally work with our, with, with the human mind. That makes a lot of sense to me. Yucca: Yeah, you just accept your certain premises and then it all logically makes sense from. Mark: mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. , and that's what we, oh, go ahead. Yucca: what we do. Like when we watch a movie you were talking about earlier, we sit down to watch that movie. We go, okay, this is a movie in which there are dragons and magic, and there's the like, and we accept that there are dragons and therefore if there are dragons, oh well it would make sense that people would ride on their backs or whatever happens, right? We just, it all makes sense based on those starting assumptions. But we're gonna make up some, we're gonna. In that case, I decided to imagine that there was a connection between me and that wood. Right. And I, there was a conscious choice to imagine that, but it still worked to imagine it. It still had the impact. Right. Even though, okay. Yeah. Literal there. I'm not literally putting an emotion. An emotion isn't a thing that you can put on a piece of wood. Mark: No, an emotion is, but an emotion is a psychological process. And psychological processes are real. They aren't real the way rocks are real, but they're real within the, the ongoing network of activity that's happening in our brains. Right. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And. You know, this may be a whole other episode about what do we mean when we talk about what's real, right? Because the imagined has a reality to it. It's just not, it, it's a, it's a belief reality rather than a factual reality that's there, there's a difference there. You know what I say to folks that are new to the podcast or new to our communities who are coming from atheistic scientific backgrounds you know, rational evidence-based perspectives on the world. This is, this is the tricky, well, there are two things. There's, there are two, there are two tricky parts to get your mind around. The first one. That the use of these imagination tools can have real world impacts for yourself and your life. The second is getting comfortable with using them, because typically what happens is there's a critic voice in your head, which begins to yammer about how stupid it all is, and it really undermines. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Your your confidence in using these tools at first, but that voice can be worked with. We, we did an episode a while back on the critic voice that I really encourage people to go listen to. Yucca: We'll link that in the notes as well. Mark: Great, great. And over time and with experience, you will find that that voice fades and you become. Much more confident as a practitioner, as a magician, as a, whatever you want to call it. As someone who uses these psychological tools to benefit themselves and to benefit others. Yucca: Yeah. Frankly, I think that's pretty inspiring. I think that's a pretty kind of hopeful way of approaching. Mark: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I mean, as when I, when I stepped away from the Pagan community, after I had some really bad experiences it wasn't very long before I started realizing how impoverished my life had become because it lost all that inspiring stuff. It all of that, all of those practices, all of those rituals, all of those. School witchy things, all of those psychological helps to myself had been removed and they, and they'd not only been removed from me, but they'd been removed from people that I used to do stuff with as well. So, it was good to realize that, that none of that was necessary. It was just a matter of kind of figuring out what your terms are. Yucca: When you say none of that, you're referring to the Mark: to the departure. Yucca: okay. Mark: Yeah, the, none of, none of that. Leaving it all behind was necessary. I had, I had thrown the baby out with the bathwater and what I needed to do was to go and recover the baby and, you know, dry off the bathwater, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So, do we want to give some more examples of kind of differences between the, the imaginal and the Yucca: Yeah. Well, I think, I mean when we talk about ritual, that's what we're doing. We're imagining, Mark: mm-hmm. Yucca: right? But what about, are there some places outside of ritual that you think that is helpful in. Mark: I think there are lots of little techniques that people use that are kind of like mini rituals. You know, they may not go through a set of formal steps, but certainly affirmations, you know, those just, just simple messaging to yourself in encouraging ways. You know, whether it's before, like I have a job interview next week, I have two job interviews next week, in fact, and, you know, I will kind of psych myself up you know, before those meetings. You know, I'm competent. I know what I'm doing, I'm likable, I'm happy. I'm you know, those things that will make me appealing as a job prospect. As a job candidate. I think there are lots of things that people do that are small that give them benefit. In my initial essay, I write about athletes with Lucky Jerseys or. Yucca: TED bands or whatever. Mark: Shoes or you know, a lucky way to tie their shoe laces or, you know, whatever those things are. And you can look at that, you know, from a strictly dry scientific standpoint and say, well that doesn't make any sense. You know, the way you tie your shoes is gonna make you run any faster. But studies, numerous studies have shown, actually it. Because it increases your level of confidence in your capacity Yucca: Right. Mark: and confidence is such a huge arbiter of success or failure. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: when you're talking about fractions of a second in speed, making the difference between somebody qualifying for the Olympics or not, every little bit matters. Yucca: Yeah. Every fraction of a second. Cause that adds up. Mm. Mark: So, yeah, I, I think there's lots of things that people do and they don't even really realize. Many of them don't even really realize that what they're doing is a, a use of imagination in order to give themselves a boost. Yucca: Hmm. There's another one that I thought of while you were talking about that, and that's daydreaming. That's something that I think most of us do. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: Some more to other than others, but that, that we're imagining, we're telling stories in our head, and I know for me that the, what narratives I'm telling when I'm daydreaming have a big impact on how I feel throughout the day. Right. If I do a day, if I'm daydreaming and I'm, you know, kind of doing it, something that's like an argument or a conflict or daydreaming about, you know, how am I gonna handle some disaster or something, I don't. Feel the same as when I'm daydreaming about something that feels a little bit more empowering or in which I'm behaving in my daydream in a, in a the way that I want to be. And so there is a lot of influence we have in directing those daydreams to influence what it just feels like to be us as we're going through our day. Mark: For sure. That's a great example. And actually, regular dreams, while sleeping can be very similar. I mean, how many times do we wake up feeling sad or anxious or happy or, you know, just depending on what the, Yucca: What the dream Mark: what the dream was. Yeah. Yucca: That's a topic we should do soon. I don't think we've ever done a Mark: When I'm dreaming. No, we haven't. We Yucca: really do that. Mark: We should. Yeah. Yeah, let's, let's write that down somewhere. Yucca: Yeah. I think I could just cut you off there. What were you saying? Mark: oh, I, I don't know. Nothing important. The, I think that this topic right here, About differentiating between the imaginal and the literal and being able to walk the line that incorporates both so that your feet are on the ground in a realistic manner, and you're not spinning off into fantasies about stuff that may not exist, but at the same time plunging ourselves into the imaginal within. Within a container that we choose to make changes and improve the quality of our lives. This is really the central operating principle of naturalistic paganism more, more than anything else, I think. Even reverence for the earth. I mean, reverence for the Earth is what makes us pagan as opposed to say Buddhist, you know, working with our psychology. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: But what differentiates us from mainstream paganism is this, I would say, Yucca: Yeah. I see. It's a lot to think about Mark: It is, it is. I, I was talking about this before we started recording. I wrote a blog post about cursing in hexes this last month, which you can find at atheopagan dot org. Yucca: Mm-hmm. , we talked a little bit about it last episode too. Mark: We did. Yeah. I, I think that's what inspired me to write the blog post. But this, this whole question of the imaginary versus the literal and factual comes up again and again and again. And it's definitely the friction point between, you know, literal theists and naturalists. And I think that some of that may have to do with some degree of misunderstanding about what the naturalistic position really is. It's not that we're discounting all of those experiences. Those experiences are really valuable. It's just that we're not, we're not populating our cosmology with these. Figures that appear to arise from the imagination. Yucca: Right. We're, we're framing our understanding of it in a very different way. Mark: Yes. Yucca: Yep. Mark: So I encourage our listeners to kind of kick this around in your own heads and, you know, where, where does imagination play a role in your practice, in your. Kind of day-to-day operations. And where, where does a more evidence-based approach figure? The, because I think coming to be comfortable with this idea of kind of code switching between, between, you know, the world of imagination and fantasy and storytelling and. Metaphor and symbol and myth, all of that incredibly rich, multiple worlds of amazing stuff, and yet remaining tethered to the ground in a, in a factual and evidentiary based way. It. That's really kind of the core of the art in the naturalistic world, I think. Yucca: Yeah. Well this has been a really interesting one. Thanks, mark. Mark: Yeah. Thank you, Yucca. I think it's interesting too, and the, the more I think about it, the more interesting it gets . I, I love talking about this kind of thing, so thank you. Yucca: Yeah, and we really appreciate all of you being here with us, and look forward to seeing you next week. Mark: Yeah. Remember, you can always reach us at The Wonder Podcast Qs or the Wonder Podcast queues short for questions@gmail.com. Yucca: Okay, see you next Mark: you next week.

Solitary Pagan Practice

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 6, 2023 41:30 Transcription Available

Remember, we welcome comments, questions, and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. S4E8 TRANSCRIPT:----more---- Mark: Welcome back to the Wonders Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host, mark, Yucca: And I'm Yucca, Mark: and today we're talking about being a solitary practitioner of atheopagan or non theist naturalistic paganism. Yucca: right. And. I think a, a really good place to start here is to start with, well, what does it mean to be solitary? Mark: Right, because that's kind of a moving target, right? I mean, back in 1985, there were practitioners who literally only got information from books and. Had no connection with anybody else who was practicing. They were just kind of out there on their own. And there are still people that are out there on their own, but at least they have the o option of the internet to connect with people of like mind. I like, oh, go ahead. Yucca: of in, in many pagan groups, especially Wiccan groups the coven had a really important role and that now, you know, I wasn't around to remember this, but my understanding was that that was kind of the default assumption that people would be part of a coven or a group, and Mark: Yeah, that's, that's how I remember it, was that there was an assumption that you would gather a, a group. who would be a ritual circle of some kind, whether it was organized as a wicked coven with, you know, the high priestess and high priest, and this sort of teaching model, which is very common in sort of tradition, traditional British witchcraft, garden witchcraft and Wicca generally, or it was a more egalitarian model where the circle or the coven was. Equal group of people who weren't there to be teaching people who would then calve off to create their own circles. They were just there to do rituals with one another. That's the kind of thing that I've been involved with for 32 years with the Dark Sun's Circle. We are just deeply connected family now who do rituals together and. you know, we have no intention of hiding off people or teaching them to be priests or any of that kind of stuff. It's just, it's a different model. But I think that the point is that there's kind of a spectrum, right? You've got people that are really super alone and they're the only people they know that do this kind of practice at all. And then you've got people on the other end who are fully engaged in social. Ritualizing and they don't do stuff on their own. They only do things with groups of people because that's what works for them. Yucca: Right. And there's another element now that's very different than in the. Eighties or the nineties is that we've got this internet thing where, and media is very, very different now. I mean, there's things like this, like podcasts and there's social media groups and Reddit and Facebook and Discord and YouTube channels and all of that stuff that that just didn't exist. and that really changes the ways that people can interact. And I think that changes the way that we, we look at these terms solitary and I guess on the, what would be the other side of the spectrum? Mark: Communitarian communal, community oriented, something with a calm in it. Yucca: Yeah but, but I think I really value what you've been saying about it being a spectrum because it, it's not just like a, you know, you're on your own or you're in a group, that it's, there's a whole range of how people can interact and how they see their practices and, and that's changing over time as what's going on in the world changes too. Right. A lot of people Were doing a lot on their own during the shutdowns. Right. Mark: Right, Yucca: and yet many people were doing more with others. That's when we saw a lot of growth in the atheopagan community was during the time where people were searching for that connection and it, we figured out how to do stuff online that we would've never considered before. Mark: right. Yeah, exactly. The other thing that the internet has done is it has caused an explosion of. Ways to do things. What I remember from the late eighties and early nineties was, well, there's a way to do things. You draw a circle and then you call the quarters and elements, and then you call the gods and then you do a working, and then you unravel all the things that you just did. And you know, that kind of wicked structure was the structure. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And. There was not very much, there was a lot less understanding of the nature of ritual and the, the subtle skills associated with ritual. Generally. I mean, when you look at early neo paganism, you're looking mostly at kind of white, middle class college educated people at that time and. They had no idea of how to conduct rituals. They were just figuring it out and using the map that was presented to them with 40 years of additional ritual experience. Now we are well on into pe. There being people, a lot of people that have a lot of experience with creating ritual states and altering their state of consciousness through ritual activity and So there are a lot of different ways to do it. And now that we have the internet that can disperse that information, people are informed by a wide range of different things. It's not just Scott Cunningham's, you know, solo practitioner's Guide to Wicca. Yucca: Yeah. And, and a much broader range of people involved as. Mark: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I remember, Well, this has something to do with the community that I was in, which is part of the reason why I left it. But there were debates about, you know, whether gay people belonged in in these gender polarized rituals. Right? Yucca: Where it was like every other, like male, female, male female and like the structure of the circle Mark: Yeah, stuff like, stuff like that. And, and it was like, I mean there was just this, this severe lack of consciousness about a lot of stuff. And as there has been better thinking about that, at least in the circles that I move in Obviously, you know, people have felt a lot more welcomed, right? Gay people feel more welcomed, neuro divergent people, disabled people people of color. One hopes, and it's not that that is a solved problem by any means, Yucca: Right? We Mark: a long way to go, but at least in the circles that I'm moving in, in the Pagan community, there is. To move in a better direction. And that was not really true when I first engaged with there, there. And it wasn't that that people were bigots necessarily, they just were clueless. Yucca: Right. Mark: They didn't think about this stuff. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: So anyway, going back to solitary practitioner nurse what we have now is the situation. Simply with access to the books that are out there. And let's be honest, the number of books has exploded since, you know, since the publication of D of drawing down the moon and the spiral dance, which happened on the same day, Halloween of 1979. The number of available books on ritual and paganism has probably grown 10,000 fold at least. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And what that means, and then there's the internet, right? So the, the, the faucet for information is the fire hopes. It's, it's endless. You will never collect all the information there is. These topics. So you have to pick and choose and you pick and choose what works for you and what appeals to your values and your sensibilities. And so the solitary practitioner of today, I think, is much better equipped in some ways to build their practice and and, and get a lot of different choices. Rather than just, oh, well, Scott says I should do this, so I'll do it. Yucca: right? Yeah. So I, I mean, I find that very encouraging. I think that's, yeah, I think that's lovely and I think that there's more opportunity as well to to connect with community when it, where it works for you, and then step back into. Your own solitary practice and your own day-to-day daily practice. Mark: Sure, sure. Because there, I mean there are some people who are very, very introverted and they may not want to engage with a group at all, or they may wanna go to a Hallows event at Halloween, the height of the witchy time, and that's kind of their hit of. Communal experience for the year. Right? Or maybe they go to a, a built-in mayday thing and a Hall saan thing, Yucca: or participate in online discussions. Mark: right? Yucca: Maybe they're not doing ritual with other people, but they're discussing these ideas and you know, sharing the cool images that they have of their garden with the morning dew on it or something like that. Mark: Yeah. Or their focus, their alter or you know, some piece of art that they created that's thematically along the lines of of what their practice is about. Yeah, all of those things are very true and I mean, obviously that's why we have the Ethiopia, pagan, Facebook, and Discord so that people have opportunities for those kinds of discussions and that kind of engagement. and the, the Zoom mixers that we have as well, so people can come together, see one another's faces and be in a space. Yucca: Right. Mark: And just because you do some of that doesn't mean you're not still basically a solitary If you, if you aren't meeting with a group of people that you do rituals with on a somewhat regular basis, even if it's only every two, three months, you're still basically in a solitary practice. And so that's what we're talking about today. What's, what's useful for that kind of practice? What kind of approaches are helpful? What are some things to keep in mind? Yucca: Right. So let's talk about, let's, we've got a lot of different directions to come at this, so let's talk about some of the possible topics. So I think a good one to start with is the daily practice. And that's one that we definitely have talked a lot about here on the podcast. But it's always worth coming back to Mark: Yeah, because being a pagan, other than the fact that nobody can really define what that is, other than that it means, you know, that we self-identify as pagans. But being a Pagan is a, it's a state of being. It's not a. You know, it's not like you, you pay for your membership card once a year and now you're a pagan, like belonging to the aaa. It's about what we do. And so having a daily practice or a weekly practice or a monthly lunar cycle practice, something that's Yucca: regular practice of some kind. Mm-hmm. Mark: practice. Where you are acknowledging the passage of time and what that means to you and, and doing stuff in a ritualistic manner, which can be all kinds of things. I mean, it can be everything from kind of formally working in an alter focused sort of setting. With tools and symbols and elements in order to bring yourself into a contemplative flow sense of, of mind in order to transform your consciousness. Or it can be planting seeds under the full moon in your garden because that's meaningful to you and it's how you would like things to grow. You know, and saying a little chant over them or implanting a, a figure or a symbol next to them to give them sort of a magical quality, right? The range of options is really broad but you, but you really need to have, so, Yucca: Right, and I, I think a good place to start with that would be what? Really observing and thinking about what your goals are, right? What are you trying to achieve with your daily practice or your regular, whatever your practice is. So that's going to influence what particular practices you'd actually do based on what it is that you're trying to achieve. Mark: Right, and I think it's fair to say that there aren't really any. Off limits goals for a practice like that. If your goal is, I want to feel witchy, Yucca: Awesome. Right? Mark: awesome. That, that, that is totally cool. Great. Yucca: I'm on board there with you. Yeah. Right. Mark: your cauldron out and light some candles and burn some incense and do the thing. I like that a lot. I enjoy it. It's very ple. And when I'm in that state, I find I can transform myself in ways that are really powerful. So go for it. That's great. If your focus is primarily around self-healing or around growth or around philosophical contemplation of big questions like. What am I doing here and what's the universe for? And that kind of stuff. All of those totally lend themselves to a Yucca: you get through, get through a a day that, you know is, is really busy. Right. Mark: Yeah. Assembling, assembling skills that help you in times like that and practicing them. Yucca: Right. And it can also, you know, the skills that help you be a better, whatever your profession is, or a better student or a better parent, or whatever it is that you are, that matters to you. It's, it's about you and your life. Not, you know. Does Mark and Yucca prove of it? Does it match their life, right? Like, Mark: right. Yucca: yeah. Or, you know, God's sitting on clouds in a heavenly throne or anything like that, Mark: Right, because remember, everything that we're talking about is within the context of a naturalistic framework to paganism. So we don't believe in the supernatural stuff. Yucca: right? Mark: We believe in the psychological stuff, but not in the supernatural stuff. Yucca: right. This is all, these are tools that we're choosing to use in order to live the kind of life that we want to live. and each person decides for themselves what that life is. Yeah. And it's not like if you make a different choice than someone else, that you're a bad pagan or a good pagan. That's, that's just not part of the framework that we're operating with. Mark: Oh, this actually brings up a, an interesting and controversial topic, which is hexing. Yucca: Ah. Mark: The reason that I don't do that is because I don't want to be a vindictive person. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: I don't want to be the kind of person that that lusts for revenge, Yucca: right? Mark: and that's why I don't. You know, wish harm on people. For one thing, my understanding as a naturalistic pagan is that my wishing harm on them isn't harming them at all. It's, it's harming me, but it's not harming them. Yucca: that's my experience too. The more I dwell on it, the more I just feel bad about the whole thing. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Right. And you know, wishing harm on someone else. I think that when I am doing what we might call magic in, in quotes, is really changing how I. So if I am, if I'm texting or cursing or somebody, I think I'm just doing that. To me, I don't think I'm doing it to them doing it to me. Mark: Yeah. That that is. That is my experience of it. The reason that I mentioned this is that, you know, we talk about how, what motivates you to have a practice can be many different things. Well, within Paganism generally, there are some people who just lust for power. You know, they want supernatural power and they like to play around with supernatural power that they believe they have. So it, it helps them to feel powerful to do, you know, what they think of as hexes on other people curses. Right. Now I don't believe that any of that stuff works, so I just want to keep in mind that everything that we say here is about a naturalistic science, consistent reality-based. Practice. So when you think about, you know, what are you in this for? If you just want to feel witchy and powerful, that's great. Don't hurt yourself with it. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: You know, it, it's, it's a good rule for life. Don't hurt yourself. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: We, we try teaching that to kids when they're really young to, you know, that hurts. Don't. Yucca: Yeah. So. How about staying motivated? Mark: Yeah, that is a big one. Yeah, because and that, that dovetails with that whole issue of the critic voice, the internal voice that says, this is stupid. You're making an idiot out of yourself. You know, none of this has any effect. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Which can sap your motivation. You know, and there's another voice right behind it that is the sort of defeatist voice, which is, oh, what's the use? Yucca: right. Mark: Well, the use is, it, it adds sparkle to your life, right? It adds color and magic to your experience of daily living to do these things. Yucca: Right. Mark: That has intrinsic value. It's not, it's not extraneous and it's not self-indulgent. It helps you to be a happier, wiser, more together person, and all of those things are important. Yucca: Yeah. and you're building skills, those things that you're choosing to focus on every time you are doing them, you're, you're building your ability in that. And even if you miss, right, oops, oops, I forgot I missed it yesterday. Oh, I missed it for a whole week. Right. You can always just do it again. Just start again. Right. Mark: We learn things through trial and error and. The things that are hardest to learn, we have the most errors while we're in the process of learning them. Right? Hard stuff to learn takes practice. So if you wanna have a daily practice and you've got it planned out for one thing, make sure you're biting off as much as you can. Chew at a. So maybe an hour of grand opera ritualizing every day is not the thing. Yucca: You wanna work towards that, great. Right. But if you're, if you're starting that from, you've done nothing. Regularly and you're trying to build that into being a habit, it's a lot to to jump into. Right? So we're not saying if that's something that you wanna do to not do it, but think about whether that's a realistic thing for you, where you're at right now. Mark: Right. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: But if you, if you construct a daily practice for yourself where simply lighting a candle or two, or, and maybe saying some words counts as your daily practice, you can always add more stuff in later, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: right? But the fact of doing it on a daily basis, becomes really important. Yucca: right. Mark: and what will happen is your understanding of yourself as a practitioner will strengthen as you do that, because that critic voice that says, ah, you're just kidding yourself. You're, you're, you're not a, you're, you're not a witch. You're a, you're an idiot. Yeah. That voice. That is gonna inherently get weaker and weaker when you can look back on six months of, no, I do this every day and I pay attention to the turning of the seasons and the faces of the moon, and I'm aware of my interstate and I, I navigate that interstate and I use psychological tools in order to ground and calm and get myself through difficult situations. I, I am a practitioner. I, I am a pagan, I am an atheopagan or a naturalistic pagan. And so that voice that says that you're faking, it gets weaker over time, and that's the way that you wear it down until after a while it just shuts up. I don't get that anymore. I go, I go to my focus and I, you know, start to do ritual stuff and I don't get that. That voice at all anymore, but it took a long time to get there. Yucca: Right. And we did do, it's been a couple years now, but we did do a whole episode on dealing with the critic voice. Mark: Yes, Yucca: so certainly it's still a presence in my life. Not for ritual. Something that I'm very confident in with ritual, but other places it's still, it's there, right? It's something that, that we all deal with, so, yeah. Mark: And that's, I mean, to be honest, that's part of the journey. It is. That is just part of the journey of life. And when I look at where I was 20 years ago, that voice was stronger than it is now. And that means I'm steadily chewing away at it getting, you know, getting better. And it, I. In many senses, just getting better is kind of the point of living, isn't it? Ex having wonderful experiences and getting to be a better and better person. Yucca: Yeah. what about ritual for the solitary. Mark: Yeah. This is something I haven't really written about on the blog. , but I think about writing about it on the blog now and then because, you know, in the, in the atheopagan book and on the blog I presented a, a five part, well, six part really structure for a ritual, right? Starting with preparation, which is the sixth. So preparation, arrival. Qualities, working, gratitude benediction. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Those are those, those six pieces. But when you're working and, and those work very well for structuring group rituals it's not, as I always say, it is not the only structure that works. It's just a structure that works. So if you're getting started, it's something that's reliable, but you can always improvise and. In different directions, depending on what you feel Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: when you're working with yourself and you don't need to kind of coordinate a bunch of people's experience together, you can be a lot more fluid. Yucca: Right. You can pivot and go in a different direction than you were going to do. And you know, you can suddenly stop talking or stop singing and just sit if that's what you need, or get up and dance or do something different than what was planned. But when you're reading, when you're leading a ritual for. 10 other people, that doesn't always work. Right, because you're considering their experience as well as your own experience. Mark: Right. You have to consider where you can take them with you when you're leading a group ritual, but when you're by yourself. Whatever your impulse is, is where you can go. Right? So if it's picking up a deck of Terro cards and doing a quick three card reading, or if it's, as you say, you know, breaking into dance or breaking into song, or grabbing a pen and a pad of paper and scribbling down a poem or ideas or. Or even what the, the critic voice is saying to you at this moment so that you can get it out and get it onto paper and then crumble it up and throw it in the trash. Whatever that is. Over time as you become a more practiced practitioner, you'll learn to follow your instincts on this and. Really rich, rewarding, personally tailored rituals that follow exactly what you need to do. Yucca: Right. Mark: And they may last three minutes, they may last two hours. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Just depends on what you need and what you want to do. Sometimes I just like to kind of marinate in the magical world in the the witchy feeling. I just, I like to be in that. I like to contemplate the, the things on my focus that remind me of that light candles in my room and look around at my witchy space and go, yeah, this is really a cool place to be. I like this. Other times I just wanna call any anxiety I have about going forward. In the day and do that real quick and then move on with my day. Yucca: Right, and I wanna assure people who are just getting into ritual that, that, even if it doesn't come, Naturally or quickly at first. It is, it is a skill that can be built. And so it, when you're first starting out, y you might not feel comfortable yet just changing the plan and going with the feel and just adapting. And that's okay, right? You just, it's okay if what you need to do in the beginning is work with a particular structure. Everybody. There isn't an end goal that everybody's going towards, that we're all moving towards. It's gonna be a very different journey to different places for different people. So you can, if you hear somebody describing something like you hear Mark or me talking about our experiences with ritual and you're not feeling that same thing, that's not a failing on your part. , right? Like you just have a different experience and over time you're gonna build different experiences and, and skillsets. Mark: Right, right. And, and bear in mind, an awful lot of the schools and practices of pagan ritual or religious ritual generally, honestly, are about helping you. To go into that ritual state of inner calm and focus and presence. And so use them right light incense. Read a poem that takes you into a particular vibe. That's where you want to go. You know, be in candlelight because it's a lot more conducive than electrical light. As you become more practiced, you may find that simply stepping in front of your focus and contemplating the things there allows you to kind of downshift into the ritual state because you're so accustomed to going there and you're so accustomed to having that experience in that spot, right? But that's something you learn to do. The incense. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: why they use it in, you know, Catholic churches, in orthodox churches. Yucca: All across the world. Mark: yeah, all over the world. There's there's reasons why things like dragon's, blood, and sandalwood were among the most valuable commodities that were transported all over the world during the Middle Ages, well, all over the Eastern Hemisphere during the Middle Ages because they had that psychological impact on people. So, you know, avail yourself of those kinds of tools. Music put on music that helps you feel a particular way that, that, you know, kind of connects you into your body and gives you a feeling of your animal nature and the power of that. There are, there are so many sensory things you can do. One of the things that I do sometimes that helps me is I'll have a glass of wine, just one, but it's enough to sort of lessen my inhibitions, quiet that critic voice, and make it possible for me then to go into my thing, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: whatever that thing might happen to be. Honestly, it, it's just about, and, and the reason that I choose wine rather than some other kind of alcohol is that, first of all, when you drink a glass of wine, you know exactly what you're getting. I mean, it, they vary from like 11% to 14% alcohol, which is not that big a variation. You, you, it's a pretty carefully titrated dose, right. But the other reason is that red wine is so explosively delicious in, in all those different flavorful ways. There's just a way that sipping a good red wine makes me go, oh, life is good Yucca: you find the thing that works for you, right? Yeah, I'm not a wine person. That's, that's why I, I chuckle at that because I appreciate your appreciation of it, but I have a very, very different experience when I drink it. Mark: I think I would have to move away from where I live, if I didn't like wine. Because it, it's all that we grow around here. I mean, we grow some apples most of which end up cider actually. But generally it's, it's one country. So you were saying. Yucca: I love the idea of it, but I just, I just don't like it. Mark: have you had good wine? Yucca: I've had wine that people have claimed is good when they've given it to Mark: Ah, well Yucca: but I don't, I Mark: didn't like it. Okay. Yucca: don't particularly, you know, Mark: Well, the definition of good wine is wine that you like. So you've, you know, however, Yucca: haven't, Mark: However cheap it is, however, you know, disrespectful It is. If you like it, it's good. I, I do not truck with the snobbiness around wine. Yucca: That's a whole world. That's Mark: it, it is and it's, it's everywhere where I live and and it's pretty annoying to be honest. the the self importance that people can get around rotten grape juice. Yucca: Yeah. Well, and it's certainly. . You know, I think it, it goes without saying, but we're certainly not saying that you need to have any sort of substance to help you with a ritual or something like that. But, but that this, this is one particular tool, right? This is, and, you know, find that, again, find the tool that's gonna be the thing that, or the things that help you, right. Mark: You can have a similar taste experience maybe with a, a perfect peach or a couple of dark chocolate chips, you know, the same kind of that, Yucca: cup of thick broth or something Mark: right? Yeah. Something that gives you that, that deep sense. You know that your body is being nourished and you are. Your senses are being pleased just by the simple fact of existence in doing this thing. There's, there's just so much to be said for that. And there's a reason why pagans are thought of as being hedonistic. Because we embrace pleasure, we embrace joy, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And, you know, joy can be a portal into a ritual. Yucca: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. So what else? Anything else that you wanna touch on? For solitary Mark: I, I'd like to say a little bit more about, I mean, we, we talked about kind of unstructured ritual time. I really want to encourage people that are primarily solitary practitioners or who are just. Building a daily practice or a, a regular practice create that environment Yucca: Hmm. Mm-hmm. Mark: you see in your mind as being the magical place. You know, do that. If, if you don't have a, a space, a personal space right now that enables you to do that, see what you can do about fixing it up to make it more that. Yucca: Right. Mark: I know, you know, some folks are in the broom closet and they don't wanna reveal that they have a practice to other people around them. And that's fine. And I totally respect that. Maybe you have some things that you can take out and set around the room when you do your ritual Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: that will help communicate that vibe. Yucca: right? Or a. Right. If a journaling book or, or even something like a picture book that has just that feeling to it, right? That the artwork has, that particular feel that you're going for, looking for you know, there's a lot, a lot to do. Mark: Right. You mentioned a journal and that's a really useful thing for a lot of solitary practitioners is capturing. What they did ritually, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: you know, whether it's tore readings or whether it's just lighting, some candles or anything that feels like it was special or different, you know, keep it, keep a a, a nice leather bound, cool looking magical book and write the dates in and, and capture that stuff because if you do that for a long time, you'll find that when you, when you skip. And look at your earlier entries, you've evolved. Yucca: Yes. Mark: You, you will have changed things that used to feel kind of hokey to you or like they weren't really working, are now really effective. And they, they, they feel effortless. So, Yucca: you found this new thing through that process that you know you found the thing that really helps you just enter that state, you know, right away or something. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. And of course, as we always say, pay attention and keep going. That's, that's the way to a, a richly lived life. And it's, it is the pagan life, I believe. Pay attention. Know what's going on in the world around, you know, what's going on in the world inside of you and keep going. Yucca: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Mark: So I'm really glad we did this episode Yucca, because we did another one a few years ago about solitary practice, but I feel like there really was a lot more to say. And I know that so many, especially new practitioners who join our community through the pod, through hearing the podcast or hearing about it from someone else and joining the Facebook or Discord communities or seeing a YouTube video in many cases it's kind of mystifying. They, they almost feel like they need permiss. You know, to do ritual stuff, you don't need permission to do ritual stuff. You can do it all on your own, but if you need it, you have mine. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: You have my permission to gather what cool stuff is to you, whatever that means. I know what cool stuff is to me around yourself and start doing ritual behavior. It'll feel good and it's a starting. Yucca: Right. And it really. It opens up so many doors, right? So many possibilities and, and as such a tool when we really need it in life, and having practiced it. When you practice, then when you really, when the time comes that you actually need the skill, you've got it right? Mark: And I think, I mean, that, that is true in the ultimate sense. Like when we're dying, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: I have a feeling that having learned to navigate my inner world and, you know, calm or disregard or overcome or whatever the, you know, the demonn voices that we all have within us, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: I have a feeling that when I'm dying, it's gonna be kind of an. Road, I, I, I don't have to be terrified. I don't have to be filled with remorse. I mean, there are a lot of, there are a lot of experiences that people have in their last moments that I think could be pretty terrible. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And. I, I think that becoming familiar with working with your own psychology is a means to easing that process. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: I can't prove it It's Yucca: It's, it's a, it's a feeling you got. Mark: yeah, it's a, it's a supposition. Yucca: Well, I hope you're right on that. Mark: I hope I am too, but I hope I don't find out for a long time. Yucca: Yeah. . And in the meantime, it's what we got every day, right? Mark: every day, every beautiful day. Yucca: Yeah. Well, thanks, mark. Mark: Thank you, Yucca. It is always so great to talk with you. Yucca: Likewise, and we'll see you all next week.

Exit Strategy by Julie Hoverson (19 Nocturne Boulevard reissue of the week)

19 Nocturne Boulevard

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 9, 2023 28:24

Gamers on their way to a convention run afoul of violent criminals on the run. Can they use their "skillz" to survive? [warning - some violence, language, and mature situations] Written and Produced by Julie Hoverson Cast List Abby - Beverly Poole Mark - Brian Lomatewama Justin - Mathias Rebne Morgan Brianna - Lyndsey Thomas Tyler - Michael Faigenblum Clark - Brandon O'Brien News Report - Gwendolyn Gieseke-Woodard Man - Bill Hollweg Music of DARKEST OF THE HILLSIDE THICKETS! used with permission Show theme and Incidental Music: Kevin MacLeod (Incompetech.com) Recorded with the assistance of Ryan Hirst of Neohoodoo Studio Editing and Sound: Julie Hoverson Cover Design: Brett Coulstock "What kind of a place is it? Why it's a van on a road in the middle of nowhere, can't you tell?" _______________________________________ EXIT STRATEGY Cast: Mark - Game Master, in a wheelchair Abby - strategy girl Justin - the driver, Mark's brother Brianna - nurse, dating Tyler Tyler - wiry LARPer, dating Brianna Clark - a criminal Thug - another criminal SOUND FOOTSTEPS OLIVIA Did you have any trouble finding it? What do you mean, what kind of a place is it? Why, it's a car on a stretch of road in the middle of nowhere, can't you tell? MUSIC SOUND INSIDE CAR NOISES SOUND Music plays on the radio SOUND "BING" FROM THE DASHBOARD SOUND Justin turns down the stereo JUSTIN We're riding E. [up] Eyes peeled for a gas station, everybody! MARK Hey, Justin, remember when it used to be sooo cool to cross the state line? JUSTIN Yeah - some things just lose their charm as you get older, little bro. MARK And can drink legally in your own state... ABBY Don't drink and game. It dulls your edge. JUSTIN You've got enough edge for all of us, Abby. BRIANNA [slightly off, giggles] I would too. TYLER [slightly off] That is so great. You are so great. ABBY You do realize we can hear you? JUSTIN Keep it clean back there. I'll lose my damage deposit on the van if it comes back stained. BRIANNA Ew! We were just-- TYLER [defiant] I was just telling Bree that if she ever got possessed by a demon, I would totally kill her. BRIANNA [squeaky] Isn't that sweet? ABBY [baffled] Yeah. [whispered] What do you think brought on this declaration of undying love? JUSTIN Tyler brought his DVD player. I think they're watching Evil Dead. ABBY Oh. [that explains it] MARK You guys are all going to help with the "Super Five" tournament, right? I can count on you? ABBY Well-- MARK Well? ABBY [hesitant] I was checking, and the final round of the "AfterBlast" championship is in the same time slot. MARK [excited] You really think you have a chance? ABBY Hell yeah. I plan to kick ass and take names. MARK That rocks. JUSTIN I-- I noticed you were the only - um - ABBY Discernibly female? JUSTIN Yeah, that - name on the semi-finals roster. ABBY Yup. Time to represent. MUSIC JUSTIN Pit stop! MARK Man, you are this close to losing your deposit. JUSTIN Shit. Your chair's packed! BRIANNA I got you, Mark. SOUND DOOR SLIDES OPEN, SHIFTING SOUNDS AS SHE GETS OUT SOUND FRONT DOOR OPENS BRIANNA Come on, then. TYLER [teasing, going off] No groping my girl, now. MARK Hey! My hand slipped. Once. BRIANNA Girl. [snort] I am a woman. [grunts as she gets Mark on her back] OK, hold on. Tyler, got the door? TYLER [off] Getting it! SOUND QUICK FOOTSTEPS ON CONCRETE SOUND DOOR OPENS. MEN'S ROOM SOUND FLUSH, STALL DOOR OPENS MAN Hey! You can't be in here! BRIANNA Puh-lease. I'm a nurse. Almost. [sarcastic] And you should get that looked at. MUSIC AMBIANCE NIGHTTIME ROAD, VERY QUIET MUSIC VERY QUIET ON THE STEREO JUSTIN [quiet] Hey Abby? ABBY [quiet, tired] Hmm? JUSTIN Just wanted to see if you're awake. ABBY Really? Nice of you to check. JUSTIN Well... I'm not sure how much farther it is to the motel, and I was starting to fade a bit. Help keep me on the road? ABBY [half yawning] Sure. What's on your mind? JUSTIN Any chance you and I - you know - sometime? ABBY [half a laugh] I've sworn a blood oath not to date any man who can't beat me in a fair game of AfterBlast. JUSTIN Really? ABBY Something like that. No offense, OK? You're nice. But we're kind of different worlds. JUSTIN I used to game-- ABBY Used to. You traded in your dice for the corporate world. JUSTIN It's not that bad-- [sudden change] Whoah. ABBY What? JUSTIN Nothing. Just - there's headlights behind us. They weren't there a minute ago. ABBY Must have come round a corner. SOUND CREAK, TURN ABBY [turned to look] Hmm. How fast are we going? JUSTIN Why? ABBY They're catching up. Should I wake everybody? JUSTIN Well... if there's a crash, they're better off asleep. Relaxed. It's a fact - why drunks walk away more often-- ABBY It's still coming. Can we get off the road? JUSTIN There just isn't any place to go! The ditches are ... gaping black chasms! ABBY What's our speed? JUSTIN Seventy. So far. SOUND GROWLING ROAR, GETTING CLOSER ABBY How much can you push a minivan? JUSTIN Don't know. It's a rental. ABBY All right. [thinking] Turn off the headlights. JUSTIN What? ABBY There's a good moon - the road is straight as far as I can see right now - can you hold the wheel straight while you're blinded? SOUND ROARING REVVING APPROACHES JUSTIN I... guess-- yes. SOUND HEADLIGHTS TURN OFF JUSTIN [heavy breathing] ABBY Once our eyes adjust, we can look for a turnoff - in the dark, with the headlights, we won't see it until it's too late. JUSTIN Does that work? ABBY I don't know. Yes! There, to the left, a road. JUSTIN We're going too fast! ABBY Start the turn early, and run in at an angle. It should work. MARK [half asleep] Yeah, the roll factors are considerably less-- JUSTIN Roll factors? MARK "Street Wars," core manual. The turn gauge modifiers. JUSTIN Whatever, here we go! SOUND SCREECH MUSIC AMBIANCE OUTSIDE SOUND TICKING OF THE ENGINE MARK I'm suitably impressed. JUSTIN Thanks. Me too. ABBY It worked! JUSTIN A flat tire-- ABBY Just one. MARK --is not bad, all things considered. ABBY [encouraging] Besides you missed the ditch, and the car didn't even flip. MUSIC SOUND ON THE ROAD AGAIN TYLER Doesn't this whole thing remind anyone of a movie? JUSTIN Movie? What, Texas Chainsaw Massacre? ABBY Wo! We do have the right carload for leatherface. MARK Hey, Justin, don't pick up any strangers, kay? I don't wanna be the first to die. TYLER No.... OK, think. A brother and sister in a car, in the middle of nowhere-- BRIANNA [helping] In the middle of the day-- TYLER Run off the road by a huge spooky truck--? Hmm? MARK That wasn't a truck. ABBY It wasn't? MARK While you guys were watching the road, I watched it go by - It was big and square-- TYLER A truck. MARK No. Better than that - I saw words on the side. BRIANNA A truck? MARK [sigh] Nope. I must have made a perfect success on my perception roll, though - it was an armored car. JUSTIN In the middle of the night? In the middle of nowhere? ABBY Radio. There must be something. SOUND RADIO ON, SURF CHANNELS, STOP ON AN AD MARK I like N-P-R. ABBY News channel, bub. [Moment just listening.] JUSTIN OK, enough with the ads - give us some news. TYLER If this was a movie, the minute we switched over, the news bulletin would come on right then. Cheesy, eh? BRIANNA It's just a genre convention - a way of condensing all this boring time spent listening to-- JUSTIN Shh. SOUND TURNS VOLUME UP NEWS ...the third armored car hijacking this year, and the second one with fatalities. Three security guards were injured in the attack-- JUSTIN Wow. We should call someone. ABBY Already on it. SOUND CELL PHONE BEEPS ABBY Damn. No reception. NEWS --two are in critical condition. Pursuers lost the car in a high speed chase when the hijackers realized they were being tracked and dumped the onboard GPS at the side of the road. JUSTIN Well, the motel must be close. They'll have a phone. NEWS Police believe that one of the hijackers may have been injured in the attack... SOUND CLICK RADIO OFF - no music here MARK I thought we were supposed to reach it by ten? JUSTIN Well, with all you small bladdered people, we had a lot more potty breaks than I allowed for. And, o'course, getting run off the road... Changing the tire... TYLER There was that. BRIANNA Think your Uncle Joey'll give us a discount for coming in so late - half the night, half price? TYLER I'll ask him. [yawns] In the morning, though. MUSIC SOUND CAR, SNORING FROM ALL BUT JUSTIN SOUND BUMP, THEN CAR PULLS TO A STOP JUSTIN [trying to stay awake noise] Holy crap, I think we're here. ABBY [waking] Mmm? Oh good... JUSTIN One moment and I'll go and check in... ABBY No, I'll get it. Gotta pee anyway. Small bladder. [yawns] All that. JUSTIN [receding] I didn't mean.... SOUND CAR DOOR OPENS AND SHUTS SOUND FOOTSTEPS ON GRAVEL, DOOR, BELL JINGLES ABBY Hello? Hello? SOUND RINGS DESK BELL SOUND DOOR OPENS SOMEWHERE ABBY [calling] Look, I'm sorry to be coming in so late! We had car trouble. Can we get a room? [beat] Hello? SOUND FLUSH OF A TOILET ABBY [needs to pee] Oh, jeez. [deep shaky breath] Hello? SOUND DOOR OPENS CLARK Hey. Sorry about that. I was catching a few. You want a room? ABBY Yeah, my friends and I - if you have a room with a couple of queens, we'll be fine. CLARK Uh, sure. Probably. [looking around] Nobody really here, tonight. ABBY Could we have the one out on the end, then? CLARK Don't see why not... um... ABBY Says here it's room 14. CLARK There you go. [unconvincing laugh] So tired my eyes won't focus. SOUND KEY SLAPPED ON TABLE ABBY How much? CLARK Oh, pay when you leave. ABBY Hmm. Are you Joey? CLARK Joey who? ABBY [sharp intake of breath, then faking being ditzy] Sorry - you look a lot like the cousin of a friend of mine. CLARK I get that a lot. SOUND FOOTSTEPS, DOOR OPENS ABBY Oh, can I use your bathroom? It's kind of an emergency. CLARK [too sharp] No! I mean, sorry - no can do. Absolutely against policy. Too bad you didn't get a room closer in, eh? ABBY [flat, suspicious] Yeah. SOUND DOOR SHUTS, JINGLE MUSIC SOUND HOTEL ROOM DOOR SHUTS, FEET STUMBLE AROUND, BAGS DOWN, ETC. SOUND BODY FLOPS ONTO BED JUSTIN I am dead. As driver, I call a bed. SOUND WHEELCHAIR ROLLS MARK I'm with you. SOUND FLUSH BRIANNA I suppose Abby and I should share the... other...? I thought she said the room would have two beds? SOUND DOOR OPENS ABBY That clerk didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. Did you park right next to the door Justin? JUSTIN [half moan] Yes. Why? ABBY I have a bad feeling about all this. TYLER Any chance it has something to do with all the spooky movie talk in the car? BRIANNA And the guy who ran us off the road? ABBY Maybe. JUSTIN Well, unless you're ready to drive - and pay for the extra insurance - We're not moving from this spot until I wake up. ABBY But the clerk - there was something wrong there. Really. God, for a chance at a spot hidden roll. MARK [more awake] Describe him. BRIANNA [groans] Come on - it's beddy-bye time! MARK Abby's got good instincts, Bree. You know how hard it is for me to fool her. ABBY That's just in game. I'm not-- JUSTIN [half asleep, but trying] But you are the only girl-- BRIANNA [half-hearted] Woman. JUSTIN --to make it into the ... strategic final thingee-- ABBY Ok. Shit I'm tired. [long deep thinking breath] He wouldn't let me use the bathroom. He didn't try and hit on me. Didn't know which number room was the one on the end. Didn't ask how many "we" were. Didn't know which rooms have queen beds. Didn't ask for a credit card. TYLER So? He's dead tired too. Big whoop. It's [looks] 2 freaking 55 in the morning. MARK Jeez, folks, we've had sessions which went long past 3! What's wrong with you? JUSTIN [muttered into the pillow] Getting old. MARK Yeah. You 25-year old over the hill codger, you. Abby, what would you do now? ABBY What? MARK This is the scenario. Right here. What would you do? TYLER Sleep. BRIANNA Seconded. JUSTIN [Snoring] MARK Assume it's unlikely we can drive out of here - at least not conveniently. How would you secure the room? ABBY [perking up] We could set watches-- TYLER [mumbled] Screw you! ABBY I can't watch all night. Adrenaline is only good for so long. MARK That guy struck you that bad? ABBY Yeah. I'm probably just-- MARK Let's assume otherwise. We have a map - of sorts - on the door there. Take a look. ABBY I - well, I got the room on the end, since we'd have a better chance of seeing or hearing anyone coming. MARK [chuckles] ABBY I can't help it. I'm already in strategy mode. Ok, the room has windows at the front and back and a bathroom that abuts the next room. No windows in the end wall. If we could keep an eye either side-- SOUND FEET ON CARPET, CURTAIN PULLED ASIDE, THEN WHIPPED BACK INTO PLACE. ABBY Oh, shit. MARK What? ABBY God, I hope no one saw the light. MARK I'll turn it off. Let them think we're asleep. SOUND CLICK OF SWITCH MARK Now? ABBY It's the truck - car - whatever! The one that almost ran us off the road! MARK [gasps] Are you sure? ABBY Come and look! MARK I believe you. We need everyone if this is a real situation. Shit. ABBY There's woods - cover - right out back. If Tyler was up, he could go look. MARK He's not going to be up any time soon. ABBY I know what will-- I'm going to take a chance and get my other bag from the car. I'll see what I can see. MARK I'll try the phone-- ABBY No! MARK Why? ABBY Switchboard - I saw a switchboard in the office. MARK Shit. Major "notice," though. Good one. SOUND DOOR OPENS MARK Abby? ABBY I'll be careful. MARK [encouraging] I'm glad it's you. SOUND DOOR SOFTLY CLOSES MARK Shit. SOUND A moment of just snoring MUSIC CREEPS IN, JUST A BIT MARK [snorty, "almost fell asleep" noise] Abby? What time--? Shit. SOUND WHEELCHAIR SHIFTS MARK [urgent hiss] Justin! Wake up, dammit! JUSTIN Wha--? MARK Wake Up! SOUND DOOR OPENS QUICKLY, FEET COME IN, DOOR SHUTS AGAIN MARK God! You nearly gave me a heart attack! ABBY Sorry - I spotted someone out in the parking lot, just after I got in the van, and I didn't want to move again until it was clear. JUSTIN [almost awake] What's going on? ABBY I'll get Tyler up. MARK Go for it. I doubt you'll have much luck. ABBY Ah, but I have a secret weapon - I always pack a sixer with me to gaming cons. SOUND SLOSHING OF LIQUID MARK [almost drooling] Energy shots. ABBY Un-huh. It may take a minute or two, but we'll get everyone up and running. MUSIC TYLER All you had to do was shout "Bob! Bob is coming!" and I woulda been up and running without the taste of ass - Bob was the demon in the larp last weekend, and man was he-- MARK Shush. EVERYONE [Murmurs of assent] MARK Let's assume this is not a drill. EVERYONE [a bit undecided murmurs] ABBY I know there's something odd here. I feel it. JUSTIN Are you sure you're not just jittery about the tourney? ABBY Probably am, but that doesn't make me think I'm wrong. BRIANNA [Still groggy] What do you want us to do? MARK Tyler, are you up for something that could be really dangerous? TYLER Hell yeah. BRIANNA [cautioning] Tyler? TYLER Well, how dangerous? MARK Abby? ABBY Out the back window of the room, I think I saw that armored car that nearly ran us down. It's parked in a dark spot. If it's really the one, and there's any chance it's the same one that was stolen, there's a good chance we've walked in on a den of thieves. We need to know. Can you get within range of it and have a look? TYLER Gimme a second. SOUND FEET. CURTAIN MOVES BRIANNA When you say "really dangerous"--? MARK They already killed a couple of guys during the holdup. I can't see them hesitating at shooting a few more bystanders. BRIANNA Tyler? ABBY Bree, I've Larped with him, and if anyone can really sneak, it's Folemon. BRIANNA But that's his character! ABBY In live action games, there are things you either can do or you can't, and sneaking is‑‑ TYLER [voice slightly different - "in character" as Folemon] I spy the brigands' carriage. I will hence and reconnoiter. BRIANNA Be careful. TYLER Fair maiden, with you to return to, I cannot fail. [kiss on hand] Douse the lanterns, lest my shadow betray me! MUSIC SOUND LIGHT TAPPING NOISE, WHICH GOES ON THROUGHOUT JUSTIN What are you doing? ABBY What does it look like? I'm checking for trap doors. JUSTIN You're joking. BRIANNA Didn't you see that movie Vacancy? There was a trapdoor in the bathroom floor. ABBY That was so annoying. They were so stupid about that. JUSTIN About what? ABBY Did you see the movie? JUSTIN Well, no. ABBY They could have easily blocked the hatch. But they didn't and ended up fighting guys popping up out of it. BRIANNA They couldn't block it - they tried. There wasn't any heavy furniture. ABBY [derisive laugh] What do you call this? SOUND DULL THUMP JUSTIN A mattress. ABBY Have you ever had to move one? From a dead lift? And if that's not enough, the trapdoor was right next to the tub - you just soak the damn thing and no one - not even Schwarzenegger-- BRIANNA Well, back in his prime-- ABBY Is going to be able to shift it. JUSTIN You ...actually ...thought about this? ABBY [matter of fact] It's what I do. SOUND KNOCKING BRIANNA Lights out - it's the door. SOUND SCUFFLE OF MOVEMENT BRIANNA Tyler? ABBY Folemon! TYLER [muffled] I return triumphant! SOUND DOOR OPENS AND QUICKLY SHUTS AGAIN, LOCKS TYLER And, I have a prize! SOUND TAP ON SOMETHING METAL SOUND LIGHT CLICKS ON JUSTIN What the--? MARK No, that's good. If we can get to the authorities, we can prove we saw the damn thing. JUSTIN You coulda taken a picture - you think they're not going to notice a missing license plate? TYLER [chuckling, full of himself] I think they'll have other things on their mind. ABBY Oh, god, what did you do? TYLER I had my thieves tool handy-- JUSTIN What? BRIANNA Pocketknife. TYLER So I hobbled their horses. ABBY We need to go now. JUSTIN You did what? BRIANNA He let the air out of their tires. Tyler, sweetie, speak English so I can stop translating. TYLER Hey, what? They won't be able to come after us-- ABBY But they will know someone was spying on their truck. They might not notice the plate, but-- aagh! TYLER I was... um... in the zone? My character would have-- MARK Understandable. Let's deal with it. Were there any other cars out there? TYLER Not out back. MARK Justin? JUSTIN What? MARK Any other cars out front? JUSTIN I didn't notice. Sorry. MARK See what happens when you give up gaming? You lose your edge. You remember anything Abby? ABBY Not in the parking lot. I can take a look. MARK Hold off. What do we have for weapons, if it comes to that? JUSTIN Jack Shit. ABBY Torchiere for a club. BRIANNA No - no heft. ABBY We can wire the doorknob as a last resort - give someone a bitch of a shock. TYLER Shh! [They all do.] SOUND SLIGHT CRUNCH, MIGHT BE FOOT ON GRAVEL MARK Posts. SOUND VERY QUIET MOVEMENT ABBY Uh-uh. BRIANNA shit. MARK The front? BRIANNA Movement. ABBY Window? Door? BRIANNA Distraction. [starts moaning, loudly - very sexy] ABBY Stay out the way of the window. BRIANNA Uhh! [whispered] Watching. [Up] Ohh! TYLER [joins in] JUSTIN You won't be able to hear-- ABBY Neither will they! SOUND WINDOW SLIDES OPEN WITH A PROTESTING SQUEAL ABBY Shit. If we're going out this way, we're doing it sharp and hard. MARK Out front? TYLER [still groaning] BRIANNA Someone's right outside. Ohh! Just a shadow. Ohh! Peeping or about to try something. Ohh! JUSTIN This is insane. This does not happen in real life. MARK Look, bro- you can play along, and worst that happens is you look like an idiot with the rest of us, or you keep saying it can't be real and maybe take a bullet. Why not play along? JUSTIN Shit. What do you need me to do? I am not joining that party. [Moans continue intermittently] MARK Can you see what's at the top of the closet? Usually if there's access to an attic space, that's where it would be. JUSTIN Sure. MARK And you're tall enough. JUSTIN No problem. [suddenly serious] If this is some psycho situation, you know I won't let anyone get you, right, bro? MARK Shithead. Get everyone else out first! I'm the burden - now get in the damn closet. SOUND CLOSET DOOR OPENS ABBY You're not a burden. MARK Physically, I'm a drag on the party. ABBY Mentally, you're the only one keeping us together. So you can just shut up. MARK OK, shutting. BRIANNA He's making a move. MARK Shit. SOUND KNOCK ON THE DOOR BRIANNA [loud] Ooh! Oh, shit! Huh? TYLER [loud] What the fuck? MARK Abby? Where are we? ABBY Tyler, get behind the door. Ready to slam it if you gotta. TYLER Check. SOUND KNOCK AGAIN ABBY Brianna, the torchiere, stay below the window, trip anyone coming in. BRIANNA On it. SOUND KNOCKING INSISTENT ABBY [trying to make up her mind] Door - wall - wall - door. Shit! [deep breath, then calling out] What? SOUND SHIFTING FURNITURE CLARK You all right in there? ABBY What? CLARK I heard a noise. JUSTIN [whispered] See? Normal. ABBY No. At the very least, he's peeping. No way he'd hear anything from the office. [up] Everything's fine. We were watching a movie. MARK Good one. JUSTIN Oh, this is idiotic. SOUND WALKS, UNLOCKS AND FLINGS OPEN DOOR TYLER Hey! ABBY No! SOUND GUNSHOT, BODY DROP JUSTIN [screams in pain] SOUND DOOR SLAMS CLARK [screams in pain] ABBY Bree, can you get the lock, without getting in front of the door - it's crap, but-- BRIANNA Done. Justin - is he--? SOUND LOCK FUMBLED SHUT JUSTIN [sounds more annoyed than hurt] I'm shot. ABBY At least now we know it's not a drill. SOUND GUNSHOT, WINDOW SHATTERS ABBY Down! SOUND BODIES FALL, WHEELCHAIR RATTLES AND TIPS MARK Get him. I'll cover Justin. SOUND CAUTIOUS STEP ON BROKEN GLASS ABBY [scream, distracting him] SOUND FEET TURN ON THE GLASS, GUNSHOT ABBY Bree! BRIANNA Yaaaah! SOUND THUMP - BODY DROPS CLARK Yowtch! ABBY Sit on that bastard. Tyler, check for backup? SOUND HEAVY CRUNCH ON GLASS CLARK [Whimper] TYLER On it. SOUND CAR STARTING TYLER Oh shit - he's in for a surprise. Front's clear. JUSTIN You seem to all be ignoring the fact that I've been shot. MARK I've been applying pressure. JUSTIN To my mouth. MARK oh, yeah, I was supposed to be stopping the part that got shot, not the part that shot off, right. ABBY Brianna, swap - you take a look at Justin, see if we can move him. I'll hold down the ...fort. TYLER Fart. [Snickers all around.] CLARK [Moans, then grunts when Abby turns him over] SOUND CRACKLE OF GLASS UNDER HIS BODY ABBY Need something to tie him with. TYLER Gotcha. Thieves tools to the rescue again. SOUND RIPPING FABRIC - GOES ON FOR A WHILE BRIANNA Tyler, toss me your flint and steel. SOUND CATCH, THEN FLASHLIGHT COMES ON BRIANNA Looks superficial. I was hoping I knocked you down quickly enough, but I wasn't sure. JUSTIN I've been shot. BRIANNA Yes, but not badly. I'll bandage it in a second. TYLER Here's your fifty feet of rope... ABBY Check the back? TYLER I am fleet enough to be in all places at once. SOUND ENGINE STOPS TYLER Oh. ABBY [grunts as she ties a knot] OK, shithead. Talk. CLARK What? ABBY Well, we have your gun. And a pocketknife. You want to choose which one I do you over with? CLARK What? I was just-- ABBY Shooting in through our door? CLARK I thought you were - TYLER Shut up. ABBY No, let him talk. I want to hear this. CLARK Nothing. ABBY Oh, well. How many friends you got out there? CLARK None. ABBY So that's Christine out back? Or are you Knight Rider? CLARK Ow! No - No! Stop! JUSTIN Let me. I'm the one he shot. CLARK No! There's just the two - and B-Ball's shot. ABBY Anyone else? JUSTIN Is this what you were doing? CLARK OWWW! No, no one! ABBY What about the real clerk? CLARK Oh - um - ABBY Right. We need to dump this guy somewhere. TYLER Out back? ABBY Chances are, we can get out the front. JUSTIN Chances? I don't want-- ABBY No worries. Tyler - eyes on the back until I signal, OK? TYLER Sure thing. BRIANNA What now? ABBY We do what we have to do. Mark, you ready to take a chance? MUSIC SOUND OUTSIDE - DOOR OPENS SOUND WHEELCHAIR BUMPS NOISILY OUT THE DOOR ABBY No shots. Good. We're moving out. Justin, you're behind me and the chair - get your ass into the car and start it. We'll pile in, peel out, and worry about belts and seats later. JUSTIN Are you sure this is safe? ABBY Nope. Tyler? Got the rear? TYLER Got it. ABBY Bree, you're first in. I'll cover you. SOUND GUN CLICKS READY BRIANNA Check. Hold tight! SOUND WHEELCHAIR GRINDS ALONG THE GROUND TYLER He's coming! ABBY Everyone - Move! Justin - get it in gear! JUSTIN Yeah... SOUND JINGLE OF KEYS, THEY DROP TO THE GROUND JUSTIN Shit! ABBY Dammit! Bree, get your ass to the other side of the car! SOUND HEAVY FEET RUNNING ON GRAVEL TYLER I'll-- SOUND GUNSHOT ABBY You'll go. Move it. I'll cover you. [solemn] Don't fumble the keys. TYLER I won't. SOUND RUNNING FEET TAKE OFF ACROSS THE GRAVEL, snatch up the keys. SOUND GUNSHOT ABBY [Gasps as she shoots] Damn, that's a kick. SOUND GUNSHOT SOUND CAR DOOR OPENS ABBY Yessss! SOUND ABBY SHOOTS SOUND SIDE DOOR SLIDES OPEN ABBY [yelling] Stop shooting at the crip, you scumbag! You'll be sorry! SOUND WHEELCHAIR MOVES SLOWLY, ODD FOOTSTEPS AS ABBY CROUCHES BEHIND IT ABBY Nice to have friends, isn't it? SOUND GUNSHOT ABBY [yelling] You really should stop that! THUG [evil laugh] ABBY I told him. TYLER Come on! ABBY Bye-bye SOUND WHEELCHAIR PUSHED, ROLLS SOUND GUNSHOT SOUND GRUNT OF PAIN [CLARK] SOUND RUNNING FEET SOUND CAR REVVING SOUND JUMP SOUND GUNSHOT, PINGS OFF METAL OF CAR TYLER [grunting to pull her in] Come on! SOUND CAR MOVES, FEET DRAG BRIANNA Here. SOUND GRAB, DRAG ABBY [grunting] SOUND DOOR SLAMS SOUND TIRES SPIN IN GRAVEL, CAR ZOOMS OFF ABBY [sigh] OK, whose lap am I in? MARK Mine. Sorry about that. ABBY Hey, we're all here, no one got shot-- JUSTIN I did! MARK And we had to dump my chair... ABBY No one got killed, and we're back on the road. I'm gonna feel like shit for the tourney, but who gives a crap? [giggles] [All join in the hysterical relieved laughter.] MUSIC SOUND OUTSIDE ROAD - MORNING NOISES ABBY [waking up noises, suddenly awake with a gasp] MARK [whispering] Shh. It's ok-- SOUND RUSTLE AS SHE TRIES TO SIT UP ABBY Was it - It was a dream? MARK Hell no. But once you passed out, we figured you deserved it. Let you sleep. ABBY Oh... MARK Hey Justin? When's the next bathroom? BRIANNA And a phone. JUSTIN Like anyone's gonna believe us. BRIANNA You did get shot. TYLER And I still have my trophy. SOUND PING AGAINST METAL OF LICENSE PLATE MARK Shh. Abby's out again. ABBY Hmm? [rousing herself] Like hell! Justin? Crank the music!! END

god time english woman talk energy news holy watching normal wake front shit dvd gotta gps gamers eyes thieves screw evil dead texas chainsaw massacre no no crank exit strategy relaxed cheesy snickers adrenaline mmm thug vacancy bball knight rider ohh shh reissue peeping moans larpers uncle joey douse pursuers mark you justin oh mark no mark yeah julie hoverson mark tyler justin tyler nocturne boulevard tyler tyler mark let mark they justin it justin yeah justin you mark see mark hey mark out justin there

Surviving the holidays as a pagan

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Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com S3E42 TRANSCRIPT: ----more---- Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-Based Paganism. I'm one of your hosts, Yucca, Mark: And I'm the other one, Mark. Yucca: and today we're talking about surviving the holidays as a pagan. Mark: right? Yucca: Yes. So welcome to December . Here we are. There's, there's a lot to go into with this, and later on in the month we're gonna come back and talk about the different traditions and projects and things that you can do. But today we're gonna start with the, the kind. The, the more secular approach to the holidays and all of the family expectations and all of that cultural stuff that's going on. They kind of, everybody shares regardless of whether they're Pagan or Christian or whatever they are. Mark: Yeah, exactly. One of the things that is very weird about the mainstream culture is that it, it seems to load nearly all of its holiday festivity into a five week period or six week period at the end of the year, when historically there would've been. Celebrations around the course of the year, you know, harvest holidays and, and so forth. And there would've been. You know, several days taken out to celebrate those things. And so it seems as though with all of this ology compressed to this very short period of time, it can just be very overwhelming for people and it can give them a sense of never quite doing it well enough, Yucca: yeah. Mark: right? That that feeling of the obligation to make it perfect and that it never is quite Yucca: right? It's supposed to be special. It's supposed to be this magical, but, but, but, but, but, but yeah. Mark: right. Yucca: And whenever I hear people talk about it, There's almost always this underlying, there's this exhaustion behind it, right? There's this, there's an excitement about it and there's so many wonderful things, but people just seem so exhausted just because of what you were talking about. Trying to get all of that in, take a whole year's jolliness, and stick it into those few months or few weeks, excuse me, not months. Mark: Yes. And I think, you know, some of that is this sort of set of unfair expectations that we put on people to, you know, to create this. Event Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: set of events. But I also think that there's other stressors that go into that, into that mix. You know, it's like you're gonna have to deal with your family more if you, if you do that, you know, for most people it's like, okay, I'm gonna have to deal with my family more. Well, there are usually, for most people, there are stressors around that. Yucca: Right. Even if you, even if you dearly, dearly love your family, there's all of those dynamics I find getting back together with my siblings. You know, we're adults. We've been adults for decades, but instantly it's like we're children again with this. Same, you know, picking on each other and all of the ridiculousness, you know, and, and we have a, a pretty decent relationship. But that's even with a decent relationship that, you know, there's still all of that, all of those emotions. Mark: Sure, sure. And I think that, you know, with parents particularly, you know, parents will treat you like a child for your whole life. Un unless they're really pretty together, parents Yucca: Well, Mark: figure out that you've, you've finally grown up. Yucca: but it's hard that all kind of blurs together. Right. You know, it was yesterday. They were changing your diapers. Mark: Right, right. And you know, this brings, you know, it brings you into engagement with philosophies of parenting, right? Because maybe the grandparents just want to indulge, indulge, indulge, indulge. And you as a parent have to put some breaks on that and say, no, I'm sorry. You know, candy for breakfast doesn't work. Yucca: Or enforcing that the kids get to have boundaries. The kid gets to say no, you know, or things like that, you know, Mark: Yes, you do not. Yucca: particular thing is that Mark: do not have to hug Weird Uncle Ralph Yucca: Yeah. So, and then, you know, on top of that, in, at least here in the Northern hemisphere, the weather has changed. We're in a colder time of year. People are indoors. There tends to be more illness, and we're not even taking into account, you know, covid or anything like that, but just people are, there's, people aren't always feeling good this time of year, and we're encouraged to be eating all of these sweets and foods that we normally wouldn't eat. And so, We're putting ourselves in these, yeah, more alcohol. We're just in a more vulnerable place emotionally and physically and asking so much of ourselves at the same time and so much of others, Mark: Right. Right. And that Then, oh, Yucca: buy everything. We're being asked to buy everything and be told about how it won't be magical without it, and you need this and you need that, and you're getting tricked by, by companies that spend millions and millions of dollars to get your attention. Mark: Yeah. And that of, I mean, the, the financial stresses, you know, that's a whole other level of stressor that, you know, that happens with Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And Yucca: And this year particular, right? That's something that happens every year, but there's a lot of challenges right now with all of that, just, you know, on a global level. Mark: Right, right. Yeah. So there's all that. And then if you were of an a. Religion. Then there's the layer of, okay, well how do I then live in a a way that I find fulfilling and meaningful? And not run a ground on somebody else's judgments. Right. Whether it's that you're weird or that you're evil , it's, you know, because either of those are pretty, yeah. Either of those are pretty unpleasant to wear, honestly. And so that's this sort of brew that the holidays is, right? It's all those kinds of things. The long list of. Tasks that have to be done and the decorating and the the buying and the just everything. Plus. You know, wanting to be as a non theist pig and wanting to say, you know, actually it's the winter solstice for me. That's, that's what I consider most meaningful. And here's what I'm gonna do to carve out some time to observe that on top of Christmas or Hanukkah or, you know, whatever, whatever more mainstream holidays you may be going to celebrate. Yucca: And I wanna pause this here for a second and say, it might sound like we're sounding a lot like wrenches right now. We are both Mark and I adore the holidays, and this time of year we're just starting with the, okay, how are we gonna address the, the self care and the balancing? And again, next week we're gonna get into here's some fantastic traditions and things you can do. But, but that we do really need to look at it from lots of different angles, right? And underst. , there is stress and we do need to take care of ourselves during this time period, as well as the, the more joyous side of it all. Mark: That's right because the hope, of course, is that we come out of the holidays feeling fed, right, feeling energized by all of the, the festivity that we've had. Even if it's tiring we can catch up on sleep, but you know, to feel as though we've had these meaningful kind of golden moments in the course of, of going through the holidays. That's, that's really the goal. And in order for that to happen, you gotta take care of yourself in the meantime. Otherwise, the current of the holidays will just sweep you along and That's a very out of control feeling, and it's not good for you. Yucca: Yeah, so why don't we start with the kind of commercialism side, right? How, what are some strategies that people can have to be more aware of that and more intentional with it? Mark: Okay, well the first strategy that I think is really important is to broaden the definition of gift. Because capitalism obviously wants to sell you a product. They wanna sell you a thing in a box. and that thing is made of resources that were carved out of the earth and may very likely end up in a landfill in not too short order. Yucca: Right. Mark: So it may not be the most, it may not be the, the, the best choice to choose a thing in a box. Now let me, let me put a caveat in. When it comes to children, you know, to to smaller children, my philosophy is let them have the equivalent of the, the secular winter solstice, holiday, the Christmas, because they will feel terribly deprived and terribly sad. If they don't have that experience, that doesn't mean they have to be mountain with gifts, but, I, I believe that in the case of children, you give them Yucca: of it. Yeah. Mark: And you give them things in a box. Yucca: Yeah, we do both. We'll talk more about this, but my family, we do, we do both Solstice and Christmas as separate holidays. Mark: right? Right. So, broadening the definition of what constitutes a gift means experiences. Experiences can be gifts. And that can be. Tickets to a concert. It can be a date night. It can be you know, we're gonna go dancing in this particular place. It can be you know, let's just go get coffee and talk for two hours. When do we ever get a chance to do that? It can be, let's go for a hike. There are lot, and, and many of those things don't have to cost much or any money depending on your relationship with the person. It can be. How about a massage or there are just, there are a lot of different things that you can do that will be in many ways, more memorable for people and don't involve the purchase of a thing in a box. Yucca: right? Mark: So broadening the definition of what constitutes a gift, I think is really important. In some cases, broadening in some cases, a gift can be something like, here's three hours of free childcare, right? I'm gonna, I'm, I'll watch the kids. You, you go and do whatever you want to do. Believe me, that's a very, very welcome gift for a lot of people. Yucca: is. I will wash the kids and wash your dishes if you want. Extra. You know, a bow on top there. Yeah. Mark: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, these are things that are tremendously kind when someone, you know, opens an envelope or you can put the, a little gift certificate for whatever it is in a box, right, and wrap it, and all that kind of stuff. People will gen generally be very warmed by the fact that you want to put personal attention and time into your relationship with them. Excuse me Yucca: things that you create. I mean, one of my favorite gifts I ever got was a, Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: I mean, brother-in-law wrote us a poem and it was just so thoughtful, and you can tell that he really worked on it. And it, you know, I, I have it up. I don't put a lot of things on the wall. I've got it up on the wall because it just has stayed with me for all of these years, just how amazing it was, Mark: How lovely. Yeah, and people are creative in all kinds of ways. I mean, the handmade gift. Not to be confused with the Handmaid's Tale, the hand hyphen made gift is a wonderful thing. You know, whether, whether it's a piece of writing or a piece of music or a compilation CD of music that you think the person would like or a Or, or something from, from a local artist, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: because I mean, to me there is a categorical difference between an artwork that was created by a local artist that is trying to sustain themselves through their art and something that was manufactured in a factory in China. Yucca: Right. Mark: They're, they're just, they're not the same. You know, supporting your local producers of beautiful objects, right? That's a wonderful thing. If, if, if the kind of person that you want to make a gift for is the sort of person that appreciates that kind of thing, then by all means, you know, do that. And I should say, now, I, I mentioned kind of the, the first part of my formula earlier, which is about making sure that children have. Gift receiving experience. What we do is we don't do gifts as adults. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: We really don't. I mean, when, when we need something, we, we get it. Yucca: Mm. Mark: and so what we have done in the past is we put up a, we put up a yule tree, a mid-winter tree and decorated and all that great stuff, and we put treasures underneath. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Things that we have that we just love, that are really cool. Like I have an antique uranium glass slipper that that phosphorouses under ultraviolet light because it's uranium glass, right? They used to make that and it's just this very beautiful little thing. So it's one of the things that goes under the tree and it gives us a sense of kind of wealth. You know, look, look at the cool things that are in our life. You know, objects from nature to appreciate, you know, antlers and bones and skulls and abalone shells and, you know, all these wonderful things. So we, we don't do the gift thing for adults. And we might make an exception once in a while if there's something that seems like particularly needed or wanted on the part of some adult that we love. But the amount of stress that is taken off of you by not having to buy a thing for this long list of recipients. Is profound. It will make a huge difference in your experience of the holidays. Yucca: Yeah, it really does. And I, I wanted to add on a little bit with what you were saying. You talked about the different types of gifts and then also for the children. You know, giving them the, the traditional kind of box gifts, but that's something that you can do both of, and as time goes on, the ratio of which kind of gift they're getting as they're becoming teenagers, as they're growing into adulthood, it shifts what, what you're doing with them, Mark: Right. Yucca: And so then it's just a natural thing and it's not, it's never. Being deprived. It's about just what this is really about, is about the, the love for each other and the gratitude and the giving and the, you know, to use the to be stereotypical, the spirit of giving, right. It really is. Right. And, and being about that and not the, the object right now there is also, there are a lot of, of practical things that this time of year. You know, coming out of harvest, being about to go into the, to these very cold times of year when there's not a lot coming out of the garden, there's not a lot being produced, of being ready for the cold to come. So there's, there's some practical part about, you know, the giving the socks, the, that sort of thing that just. To being prepared materially for what's to come there. There's an element of that as well, which I think is important just to keep in mind that that's one way that we do show love is to make sure, hey, you've got, you've got your warm socks for the year, right? Mark: Yeah. You're, you're, you're gonna be comfortable. Yucca: yeah. Mark: Yeah, that's, that's a, that's a great thought. In Iceland, it's traditional to give books for Christmas, and Christmas Day is a day of sitting around in warm socks, drinking hot chocolate and reading books. Yucca: Oh, wonderful. Mark: The, Yucca: Cuddling with kiddies too. I, if they've got cats, right? Cat cuddling. Mark: Yeah. You know, those kinds of traditions they make for some very warm memories. They really do make for some super nice times. And having downtime like that in the holidays is another thing that's really important. When we talk about when we talk about self-care that's certainly one thing to be considering is when am I doing nothing? Yucca: right? Mark: know, it's, it's, it's hard to imagine that it's possible, but you gotta do nothing sometimes. Yucca: Or at least. Have nobody else's mind in yours. Cause we've really lost solitude, especially in the last decade or so as, as the social media and smartphones and all of that stuff has just kind of invaded into our personal lives. So there's so little time that we're ever simply alone with ourselves, and I think that that's essential, right? I think we're social animals. We need to be around other people as well, but, , but especially in the dark of the year, Mark: Yes. Yucca: to be alone a little bit is, is just vitally important, Mark: I, I completely agree. And ironically, the inverse is true as well because you, it's a time for gathering with loved ones and for, you know, celebrating the fact that we have people that love us in our lives and, and all that good kind of stuff. But you can go overboard with that. People, people, especially introverted people, or neurodiverse people who get overwhelmed by too much social stimulus really need their, their alone time. And so it's important to, to plan for that and make sure it happens. Yucca: Yeah. And thinking about both, it's kind of like in the dark of the year. We we're celebrating the light as well. I mean, that's a lot of what the Christmas tree with the lights on it is about, is bringing that light into the dark. But we're recognizing and seeing both. It's a celebration of both. So I think that that's one way to look at it with the, with the family, but with self as well. Right. Solitude and company. Mark: So wanted to talk a little bit about a couple of other gifty sorts of ideas. There's always food, know, baked goods. I mean, an incredible gift would be, you know, cook dinner for people and bring it to their house, you know, the week before. Before the big event, you know, something, you know, just when things are going super crazy, you know, give people a meal that they don't have to think about. You know, just, just being aware of what people's needs are and, you know, thinking about your own, you know, your own. You know, where are the places where you get really exhausted and you think, oh God, I wish I didn't have to do X. Well, if somebody else did X for you, wouldn't that be amazing? Yucca: Mm-hmm. right. Mark: Yeah. So, I really encourage that, that the incorporation of that, that personal touch into gifting Either through experiences or through handmade things or through which includes baking and cooking and all that good kind of stuff. And then also because there is there's a guilt factor in in. Commercial acquisition as well. Just really being mindful, you know, of where things come from, who you're buying from. There are, you know, there are tons of Etsy stores, there are tons of indigenous sort of. Internet based stores that you can order things from, you know, figure out who you really want to be giving your money to. Is it some international conglomerate with shareholders, or is it, you know, just somebody who's trying to, trying to get by? Yucca: Hm. Wonderful. Well, why don't we, why don't we talk about the second part of this which is the family gatherings or the social gatherings. Maybe not necessarily family, but maybe the office gatherings or whatever it is because it's a big one, right? There's a big one in terms of whether you are of the same religion or not, but also just dealing. The various personalities when people are in this kind of heightened place to begin with. Mark: And I, I think a great place to start with that is the recognition that in those circumstances, everybody is under a certain amount of stress, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: except possibly the most garous extrovert, the. Pretty much everybody else is feeling some level of what are people gonna think of me? You know, how this is the office party. How is my boss thinking of me? You know, there's, there's weird Uncle Ralph his weird opinions. How am I going to avoid getting reigned into a long conversation with him? All those, all those things, right? So under having a little compassion for the other people in the room is very helpful in, in my experience. It is, it is so challenging for us as people, and this is a weird thing to really get that the other people around us are fully fleshed out human beings with internal lives and, you know, their, their own. Yucca: story. Mark: Their own journey, their own aspirations and their own internal voices that nag at them and all that kind of stuff. There's a, there's a term for that, that realization called Saunder which when I heard that, I was glad that there was a word for it, because I think it's really important that people have that experience of others. It makes them more compassionate and more humane. Sa, S O N D E R. Yucca: Mm. Okay. Mark: And I'm not sure what language it's in. The, so that, that's a place to start is understanding that everybody may be a little bit on edge, a little bit keyed up because they're. At, at some level, when you're doing social engagement, there's a performance aspect to it, right? know, I, I wanna make sure I'm acting appropriately. I wanna make sure I'm, you know, not displeasing the people around me, all that kind of stuff. Yucca: Right. Reading everything correctly and Yeah. And responding and, and, and just being compassionate for those people. Yeah. And for yourself too, right? Yeah. Mark: Yeah, so, so now you've got these social engagements that you've gotta go to. Well, how do you take care of yourself, especially as someone who practices aio paganism or non theist paganism, or some other variety of naturalistic earth honoring path. You know, as someone who is an outlier. Philosophically and spiritually, how do you kind of stand in the truth of yourself while at the same time not picking fights with others that may have strong opinions about that? And I guess my first answer to that is that if their opinions are strong enough, you don't. Yucca: great. Mark: You, you, there's no point in, in, you know, trying to win an argument with some rabidly, right wing, evangelical Christian who just wants to tell you that you're going to hell. Yucca: Right. So the, so the first step is, is this something that you're going to engage with or not? Right? And in many cases, you may simply choose not to, but in the situation, in the event that you do choose to, right? Then thinking about before you go into that, how are you going to prepare and how are you going to respond for it? You know, you, you might choose something like doing some sort of, you know, shielding ritual before you go in, maybe doing some. Premeditation on role playing of likely scenarios that are gonna come up. Practice, practice some of your deflection techniques or expressions that you're going to use. If it is, if you've decided that it's really valuable and worth it to you to be there for whatever that reason is, right? Cause it's not our. Job here to be telling you what you should or shouldn't do. We're not, you, right? We have no idea what it feels like to be you or the shoes that you're in, but we're just encouraging you to think about how to protect yourself in that situation and still get the, what you're trying to get out of it. But no, at the end of the day, you're, you can't control anybody else, right? You cannot control the outcome. You can work on trying to get the outcome you want, but know that you're not, you can't control. Mark: Right? Yucca: Right? And if you're gonna go into this situation, you've gotta be prepared for that possibility. Mark: Yes. So part of thinking about that, how you're gonna protect yourself is how disclosive do I want to be with this particular group of people. It's your office party, for example. If the subject comes up, you may wanna say, well, my family celebrates the winter solstice. You don't need to go any further than that. You have a right to have your religious beliefs in the workplace, just like everybody else does. But, so you may want to sort of express this is, you know, this, this is what me and my family do. And then there may be questions, well, how does that work? And what's that about? And you can explain as much as you're comfortable with in Yucca: Or not, you don't. Mark: or not. Yes, exactly. Yucca: And here's the thing, depending on how you feel about it, you don't, you don't owe them that. You also don't owe them the truth. Right. Mark: true too. Yucca: That's, that's up to you. If you don't feel like that's something you wanna get into, oh, wonder how was your Christmas? Oh, great. You don't need to say, oh, actually I don't practice, you know, I don't believe in Christmas or Mark: I don't Yucca: like that. Mark: Christmas. Yucca: You know, you don't owe 'em anything, it's fine. It's however you wanna handle that. Mark: Yep. Yep, that's true. And that's, that's an example of where, of where, you know, being literally truthful can actually be a lot more harmful than, you know, applying the, the, the social lubricant of the little white lie. That just lets things keep clicking along smoothly. And of course we have to be very judicious about deciding when those things apply, but it bears saying that A lot of people would be a lot lonelier if they were fully candid about everything in their lives. with everybody around them. Yucca: Mm-hmm. And so, you know, we've been talking about the context of an office party, but that may also be the same, but you have the same things to think about with the family gathering whether you're the one organizing that or the one attending it, or, you know, And again, maybe it's not just one gathering. Maybe you've got three gatherings and you're going to the in-laws and yours and all, and then all of the different sides, you know? So this is something I would encourage kind of sitting down, like literally sitting down and just having a little strategy party with yourself, right? If you do journaling or something like that, it's a wonderful time just to maybe make some, just write down some of the. Possibilities and the strategies that you wanna have and what, what are your values and, and what do you hope to get out of it, and what do you wanna protect yourself from? And, and just be, go into it being aware because once when you're aware, you have a, a better chance of being able to respond in a way that you want to respond when you're not caught off guard. Yeah. Mark: right. Yeah. And the other thing to remember is that. And this is something that may not leap immediately to mind for people that come out of traditions like Christianity that require that you only be a Christian and not anything else, naturalistic, paganism is not like that. You can go through all of the rituals of, of a Christian Christmas gathering and no harm, no foul. You haven't offended anybody or betrayed yourself or hurt yourself or anything. Yucca: Yeah, there's Mark: You can. Yucca: gonna be mad at you about it. Mark: That's right. You, you can, you can have and still do all of your own celebrations and rituals on the solstice or as close to the solstice as works for you. And there's nothing wrong with that. So there's nothing hypocritical about it. So you don't necessarily need to, you know, lead the, the prayer to Jesus. But you can bow your head and just sort of be there. That all that's up to you. And it's, it's perfectly okay to play along in order not to create conflict. Yucca: Yeah. As long as that feels good to you, right? If it, if, if that doesn't feel good to you, then you don't need to be, you don't need to put yourself in this, that situation, right? So, Mark: Yeah. And, and that really is important to say because there are, I mean, I know there are a lot of people for whom it's like, I couldn't not go to my parents' Christmas. Gathering. Right? I couldn't not go to that. Even though they know that they really need to betray themselves deeply to be there. And when confronted with that kind of a paradox you really need to think seriously about whether you're gonna go. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: You know, it might, it might actually be the, the better part of Valor to just say, I, I can't come this year. I, it just, it doesn't feel like it would be right for me. Yucca: Mm. Mark: And you don't have to go into any more detail than that. Yucca: And here's the 10 of cookies that I baked for you, Mark: Yes, Yucca: Or whatever, whatever it is that might smooth it out. Mark: Uhhuh Yucca: Yeah, so we actually last year we did a, a full episode specifically on this. So if this is something that people are, are kind of wanting more of definitely check out our episode from last year on, on this. Mark: was that a year ago? Yucca: It was a year ago. Yep. Mark: Oh man. Yucca: right. We would've talked about this early December maybe, maybe even late November. So it just flies. But why don't we transition now to some of the things that we can do during this. Time period in preparing for the holidays, throughout the holidays in terms of self care. Right. And again, we'll get later into some of the traditions and stuff that you, we can do the specific holiday celebrations. But but is there something that you would suggest to start with Mark? Mark: Well, I start with the body. Yucca: Mm. Mark: I mean there's all the psychological stuff that we, that we go through at this time of the year, and there are all the techniques that we have for working with the psyche, but getting enough sleep, Yucca: Absolutely. Mark: eating, eating some semblance of a decent diet, even if it's a little heavier in sugar than it usually is, it's sugar and fat. Don't worry about that so much, but make sure you're getting protein. Make sure you're getting a vegetable Yucca: whatever it is that, you know, works for your Mark: for you. Yeah, exactly. And get that sleep. Be aware of how much you're drinking. Yucca: mm-hmm. Mark: Because it seems like all of these gatherings in, in many cases, there's, there's alcohol going on. So if you do drink, just really be aware of, of how much you're drinking and if it starts to feel like that's not what you wanna be doing pair it back. You know, tell people, and you can facilitate that for yourself by bringing something to drink for yourself to a gathering. Right? There's wonderful like. Sparkling cranberry ciders and pomegranate ciders and things like that. There are some really delicious things now and I'm gonna put in a plug for my, my local brewery, Lagunitas Brewing Company, which has a great beer called a n a, which is it's, or I P n A. It's like an ipa, but it's na, which is no alcohol. And it's delicious. It actually tastes like a beer, but it doesn't have any alcohol in it. So, it's worth checking that out if you need to. So, you know, enough said about that. If you don't drink, this can be a very challenging time of the year. So, take care of yourself. If you go to meetings, go to meetings do the things that you need to do in order to keep all that in. Yucca: right. And just a little tip with our bodies, if you can get a little bit of sun early in the morning, that just, just even if it's a couple of minutes where you're outside and you. Kind of turn your face towards the sun. It really does make a big difference in terms of resetting your clock and, and kind of helping you out with that, with the sleep patterns and just getting your body to be doing the things that it needs to be doing at the right time, because this time of year it can be really. Really tricky on our bodies and our rhythms as and as we have the lights on all the time and later on, and when is it dark and when is it not? And, and our, we are, first and foremost, we are physical creatures, right? We are animals with, you know, millions and millions of years of adaptation to a certain environment, which we are not living. Mark: Right. Yucca: We, we are animals in captivity, right? We're, we're. And so just trying to be aware of that a little bit is a, is a good start. Mark: Yes. Yucca: So, yeah. Mark: that brings us to the, the psychological things that we can do in order to support ourselves and. To me, the number one thing there, if you're taking care of your, your physical self, the number one thing there is to go back to that first principle of, of naturalistic paganism, which is pay attention, right? If there's snowfall, watch the snowfall for 15 minutes. Listen to the rain on the roof, crack the window open so that you can smell the smell of the rain. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Go for a walk in the snow. Notice what birds are around, if any. Just, you know, notice what phase the moon is in. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: There's so many. There are so many simple things that we can do to keep ourselves re-grounded in the fact that, okay, I'm on a, I'm on a physical planet that's going through a physical set of processes and all this culture stuff is fantastic, but I'm still just on a physical planet doing physical processes and it's all gonna work out. Yucca: Speaking of the moon December has the mites, which is one of the biggest meteor. There's two really big meteor showers a year. And if you get clear skies pretty much for the rest of the month even if you don't get it on the night that it's peaking, you've got some good chances to see some really beautiful meteors. So if you get a chance just to be out there and, and right now, Mars and Jupiter are both really bright up in the sky. Even if you're in a city, those are, are probably gonna pierce through that light pollution and just be really beautiful. Just to take a moment and just take a look, Mark: Yeah. Yeah. So other psychological things and it, I, I put this in the psychological category, even though it's a physical thing. Take a shower. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Especially if you go through any kind of a stressful experience, take a shower, there is something about, and there's literally something physical about it. It's not just the sensations all over your body that create more of a grounded sense of being in your physical self. There, there is a way that splashing water creates negative ions that tend to kind of ground out the the, the kind of zazi feeling, the jed feeling that you can get from having From having social interactions or being in a crowded store or any of those kinds of things. So that's really a go-to as far as I'm concerned. Yucca: I don't know about the ions, but I know that it, that for me, the rush, the sound of the rushing water and that just being able to control those, that that sensory input is just, is really amazing. Like, I'll do a shower and then a bath, right first the shower to kind of wash it to like to, to do like, okay, the feeling like I'm washing it all away and then, The bath of just getting to just feel like melting into that water and Mark: Soaking in the heat. Yucca: And I, I like to actually run to be in the tub while it's filling, so it has that, that sound, that rushing waterfall sound and it's filling up. And that's one of the favorite things that we do in. In the holidays because I don't have a tub where I live. We don't actually have hot water either, so we, we just heat our water up on the stove to like do dishes or something like that. But we go into town to my mother-in-law's. She's got the big bath tub with water heater and it's like, oh yeah, we can do some nice relaxing for a long time. Mark: nice. Very nice. Yucca: yeah. That's a wonderful thing about the holidays, but there's other things too. Like a shower is a really wonderful one. But if you don't have access to that, right, there are other types of things that you can do that feel like you are transitioning, that you're switching between these. You know, you're getting away from some of that stress. You're letting go. I mean, there's the shaking, there's the dancing, there's the stepping into a ritual space, and we've talked a lot about this on, on the podcast. And you can do things like going into a, the dark room, right? Turning all the lights off, and then things like that. Mark: right, right. Coming back to yourself psychologically is very important at this kind of time because it is so easy to get to be what we call ungrounded. You know, it's easy to get your thoughts spinning if you're dealing with family. It's easy to get all the old messages from the family going again, right about ways that they criticize you or that they don't respect you sufficiently, or that they haven't recognized how you've changed. Yucca: And all the things they do that are just so annoying that drive you crazy. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: All those things that you feel about them. Mark: so all that stuff can be going in your mind, and if you just let it keep going, then you can become increasingly stressed and more and more kind of separated from yourself. So. Sit down and just breathe for five minutes. It doesn't have to be a super long time. Yucca: Off. Take the, the earbuds out of your ears. Mark: yeah. Get, get away from the gadgetry for a minute and just, you know, the other thing that I find is very, very helpful, and this sounds. Like, sort of brute force magic making. But get a big rock you know, a rock that weighs 15, 20 pounds. Sit it in your lap, sit on the ground, or sit on the floor and just sit cross-legged if that's comfortable for you, and just sit that rock in your lap. And. Yucca: just ground with it. Mark: Just wait. Yucca: Wait. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. You'll, you'll be amazed at what a difference it makes, just feeling that gravity pulling you back to the earth. And it, it clears the, clears all the spinning stuff out. It's, it's it's a powerful technique. Yucca: Mm. Yeah. Love that one. Mark: S. I I discovered that, or, or innovated it or whatever it was. My, my former wife was in a really kind of panicky space. She had I don't even remember what the circumstance was, but she was in this very hypermanic. Very anxious space and you know, was telling me about all the reasons that she felt that and that this was so, and she wasn't a pagan. And so I said, well, you know, we. We, we do stuff with things like that. So have a seat, you know, sit on the ground. And I put this big rock in her lap and she immediately began kind of to giggle. It was like, . That's great. That's so great. And sure enough, you know, given 10 minutes or so, her consciousness had really sort of changed. But yeah, so that's why I keep a big rock around. Yucca: It's great. Yeah, so this, this really can be such a lovely time of year and a really, really meaningful time of year and, and, You know, getting ready, ending out this year and getting ready for a new one and, and all of that. And so it's just a time that can also, you know, can be stressful. And so it's a good time to be aware and just really be present with ourselves and, and really honest with ourselves about what it is that, that we need, what's feeding us what's not. And thinking about. You know, what do we value and what obligations do we or do we not have and, and how to handle that. So, yeah. Mark: And if there are things that we feel obligated to do that we really don't want to do, are there alternatives? Is, is there some other way to get at that? You know, is it possible to. I don't know. I, I, I don't know what the example is. If, if the holiday meal with the family is a nightmare, maybe a restaurant, you know, there, there are, there are other ways of coming at this. If, if it's Yucca: Yeah. Just some creative thinking about it. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Yeah. So. So we hope that you all have a wonderful intentional holiday season Mark: Yes. And may cramps come, but not take you away in his bag this evening. Because in, in, in Bavaria it's Crumps knocked. So, hope that you don't get whipped with Bert's twigs too much or hauled away in his bag. Yucca: That's great. All right, well thank you everybody. We will see you next week.

Vein.fm

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 29, 2022 49:22

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncFy1zRA9HM 28 DAYS LATER Written by Alex Garland CLOSE ON A MONITOR SCREEN: Images of stunning violence. Looped. Soldiers in a foreign war shoot an unarmed civilian at point- blank range; a man is set on by a frenzied crowd wielding clubs and machetes; a woman is necklaced while her killers cheer and howl. Pull back to reveal that we are seeing one of many screens in a bank of monitors, all showing similar images... Then revealing that the monitors are in a... INT. SURGICAL CHAMBER - NIGHT ...surgical chamber. And watching the screens is a... ...chimp, strapped to an operating table, with its skull dissected open, webbed in wires and monitoring devices, muzzled with a transparent guard. Alive. Behind the surgical chamber, through the wide doorframe, we can see a larger laboratory beyond. INT. BRIGHT CORRIDOR - NIGHT A group of black-clad ALF Activists, all wearing balaclavas, move down a corridor. They carry various gear - bag, bolt cutters. As they move, one Activist reaches up to a security camera and sprays it black with an aerosol paint can. INT. LABORATORY - NIGHT The Activists enter the laboratory. CHIEF ACTIVIST Fucking hell... The Chief Activist takes his camera off his shoulder and starts taking photos. The room is huge and long, and darkened except for specific pools of light. Partially illuminated are rows of cages with clear perspex doors. They run down either side of the room. In the cages are chimpanzees. 2. Most are in a state of rabid agitation, banging and clawing against the perspex, baring teeth through foam-flecked mouths. They reach the far end of the lab, where on a huge steel operating table they see the dissected chimp. FEMALE ACTIVIST Oh God... The dissected chimp's eyes flick to the Activists. Blood wells from around the exposed brain tissue. Tears starts to roll down the Female Activist's cheeks. CHIEF ACTIVIST (to Female Activist) Keep your shit together. If we're going to get them out of here... The Finnish Activist is checking the perspex cages. FINNISH ACTIVIST I can pop these, no problem. CHIEF ACTIVIST So get to it. The Finnish Activist raises his crowbar and sticks it around the edge of one of the doors - about to prise it open. At the moment, the doors to the laboratory bang open. The Activists all turn. Standing at the entrance is the Scientist. A pause. The Scientist jumps to a telephone handset on the wall and shouts into the receiver. SCIENTIST Security! We have a break-in! Get to sector... A hand slams down the disconnect button. SCIENTIST ...nine. The Chief Activist plucks the receiver from the Scientist's hands, and then rips the telephone from the wall. A beat. 3. SCIENTIST I know who you are, I know what you think you're doing, but you have to listen to me. You can't release these animals. CHIEF ACTIVIST If you don't want to get hurt, shut your mouth, and don't move a fucking muscle. SCIENTIST (BLURTS) The chimps are infected! The Activists hesitate, exchanging a glance. SCIENTIST (continuing; stumbling, FLUSTERED) These animals are highly contagious. They've been given an inhibitor. CHIEF ACTIVIST Infected with what? SCIENTIST Chemically restricted, locked down to a... a single impulse that... CHIEF ACTIVIST Infected with what? The Scientist hesitates before answering. SCIENTIST Rage. Behind the Activists, the bank of monitors show the faces of the machete-wielding crowd. SCIENTIST (desperately trying to EXPLAIN) In order to cure, you must first understand. Just imagine: to have power over all the things we feel we can't control. Anger, violence... FINNISH ACTIVIST What the fuck is he talking about? 4. CHIEF ACTIVIST We don't have time for this shit! Get the cages open! SCIENTIST No! CHIEF ACTIVIST We're going, you sick bastard, and we're taking your torture victims with us. SCIENTIST NO! You must listen! The animals are contagious! The infection is in their blood and saliva! One bite and... FEMALE ACTIVIST They won't bite me. The Female Activist crouches down to face the wild eyes of the infected chimp behind the perspex. SCIENTIST STOP! You have no idea! The Scientist makes a desperate lunge towards her, but the Chief Activist grabs him. FEMALE ACTIVIST Good boy. You don't want to bite me, do you? The Female Activist gives a final benign smile, then the Finnish Activist pops open the door. SCIENTIST NO! Like a bullet from a gun, the infected chimp leaps out at the Female Activist - and sinks its teeth into her neck. She reels back as the chimp claws and bites with extraordinary viciousness. At the same moment, a deafening alarm begins to sound. FEMALE ACTIVIST (SHRIEKING) Get it off! Get if off! The Finnish Activist rips the ape off and throws it on to the floor. The infected chimp immediately bites into the man's leg. He yells with pain, and tries to kick it off. 5. Behind him, the Female Activist has started to scream. She doubles up, clutching the side of her head. FEMALE ACTIVIST I'm burning! Jesus! Help me! SCIENTIST We have to kill her! FEMALE ACTIVIST I'm burning! I'm burning! CHIEF ACTIVIST What's... SCIENTIST We have to kill her NOW! Meanwhile, the Female Activist's cries have become an unwavering howl of pain - and she is joined by the Finnish Activist, whose hands have also flown to the side of his head, gripping his temples as if trying to keep his skull from exploding. CHIEF ACTIVIST What's wrong with them? The Scientist grabs a desk-lamp base and starts running towards the screaming Female Activist... ...who has ripped off her balaclava - revealing her face - the face of an Infected. She turns to the Scientist. SCIENTIST Oh God. She leaps at him. He screams as they go tumbling to the ground. The Chief Activist watches in immobile horror as she attacks the Scientist with amazing ferocity. INT. CORRIDOR - NIGHT Another ACTIVIST makes his way down the corridor towards the lab. ACTIVIST (HISSES) Terry? Jemma? 6. No answer. ACTIVIST Mika? Where are you? He reaches the door to the lab, which is closed - and... ...as he opens it, we realize the door is also soundproofed. A wall of screaming hits him. He stands in the doorway - stunned by the noise, and then the sight. Blood, death, and his colleagues, all Infected. ACTIVIST Bloody hell. The Infected rush him. FADE TO BLACK. TITLE: 28 DAYS LATER INT. HOSPITAL ROOM - LATE AFTERNOON Close up of Jim, a young man in his twenties, wearing pale green hospital pyjamas. He has a month's beard, is dishevelled, and asleep. We pull back to see that Jim is lying on a hospital bed, in a private room. Connected to his arms are multiple drips, a full row of four or five on each side of his bed. Most of the bags are empty. Jim's eyes open. He looks around with an expression of confusion. Then he sits up. He is weak, but he swings his legs off the bed and stands. The attached drips are pulled with him and clatter to the floor. Jim winces, and pulls the taped needles from his arm. JIM Ow... His voice is hoarse, his mouth dry. Massaging his throat, he walks to the door. 7. INT. COMA WARD - LATE AFTERNOON The door to Jim's hospital room is locked. The key is on the floor. He picks it up and opens the door. Jim exits into a corridor. At the far end, a sign read: COMA WARD. There is no sign of life or movement. Jim walks down the corridor. One of the doors is half-open. From inside, there is the sound of buzzing flies. INT. HOSPITAL WARDS - LATE AFTERNOON Jim moves as quickly as he can through the hospital, still weak, but now driven by adrenaline. All the wards and corridors are deserted. Medical notes and equipment lie strewn over the floors, trolleys are upended, glass partition doors are smashed. In a couple of places, splashes of dried blood arc up the walls. He reaches A&E. On one wall is a row of public pay phones. He lifts a receiver, and the line is dead. He goes down the line, trying them all. In the corner of the A&E reception is a smashed soft-drinks machine, with a few cans collected at the base. Jim grabs one, rips off the ring-pull and downs it in one go. Then he grabs another, and heads for the main doors. EXT. HOSPITAL - LATE AFTERNOON Jim exits and walks out into the bright daylight of the forecourt. The camera begins to pull away from him. JIM Hello? Aside from a quiet rush of wind, there is silence. No traffic, no engines, no movement. Not even birdsong. EXT. LONDON - SUNDOWN Jim walks through the empty city, from St. Thomas's Hospital, over Westminster Bridge, past the Houses of Parliament, down Whitehall, to Trafalgar Square. 8. A bright overhead sun bleaches the streets. A light drifts litter and refuse. Cars lie abandoned, shops looted. Jim is still wearing his hospital pyjamas, and carries a plastic bag full of soft-drink cans. EXT. CENTRAL LONDON ROAD/CHURCH - NIGHT Jim walks. Night has fallen. He needs to find a place to rest... He pauses. Down a narrow side street is a church. He walks towards it. The front doors are open. INT. CHURCH - NIGHT Jim walks inside, moving with the respectful quietness that people adopt when entering a church. The doors ahead to the main chamber are closed. Pushing them, gently trying the handle, it is obvious they are locked. But another open door is to his left. He goes through it. INT. CHURCH - STAIRWELL - NIGHT Jim moves up a stairwell. Written large on the wall is a single line of graffiti: REPENT. THE END IS EXTREMELY FUCKING NIGH INT. CHURCH - GALLERY LEVEL - NIGHT Jim moves into the gallery level, and sees, through the dust and rot, ornate but faded splendor. At the far end, a stained- glass window is illuminated by the moonlight. Jim pads in, stands at the gallery, facing the stained-glass window for a moment before looking down... Beneath are hundreds of dead bodies. Layered over the floor, jammed into the pews, spilling over the altar. The scene of an unimaginable massacre. Jim stands, stunned. Then sees, standing motionless at different positions facing away from him, four people. Their postures and stillness make their status unclear. Jim hesitates before speaking. 9. JIM ...Hello? Immediately, the four heads flick around. Infected. And the next moment, there is the powerful thump of a door at the far end of the gallery. Jim whirls to the source as the Infected below start to move. The door thumps again - another stunningly powerful blow, the noise echoing around the chamber. Confused, fist closing around his bag of soft drinks, Jim steps onto the gallery, facing the door... ...and it smashes open. Revealing an Infected Priest - who locks sight on Jim, and starts to sprint. JIM Father? The Priest is half way across the gallery JIM Father, what are you... And now the moonlight catches the Priest's face. Showing clearly: the eyes. The blood smeared and collected around his nose, ears, and mouth. Darkened and crusted, accumulated over days and weeks. Fresh blood glistening. JIM Jesus! In a movement of pure instinct, Jim swings the bag just as the Priest is about to reach him - and connects squarely with the man's head. JIM Oh, that, was bad, that was bad... I shouldn't have done that... He breaks into a run... INT. CHURCH - STAIRWELL - NIGHT Down the stairwell... 10. INT. CHURCH - NIGHT ...into the front entrance, where the locked door now strains under the blows of the Infected inside. JIM Shit. EXT. CHURCH - NIGHT Jim sprints down the stone steps. As he reaches the bottom the doors are broken open, and the Infected give chase. EXT. CENTRAL LONDON ROAD - NIGHT Jim runs - the Infected have almost reached him. A hand fires up a Zippo lighter, and lights the rag of a Molotov cocktail. As Jim runs, something flies past his head, and the Infected closest to him explodes in a ball of flame. Jim turns, and sees as another Molotov cocktail explodes, engulfing two in the fireball. He whirls, now completely bewildered. WOMAN'S VOICE HERE! Another Molotov cocktail explodes. The Infected stagger from the blaze, on fire. WOMAN'S VOICE OVER HERE! Jim whirls again, and sees, further down the road... ...Selena, a black woman, also in her twenties. She wears a small backpack, a machete is stuck into her belt - and she holds a lit Molotov cocktail in her hand. ...Mark, a tall, good-looking man - throwing another bottle. It smashes on the head of the last Infected, bathing it in flame... The burning Infected bumps blindly into a car. Falls. Gets up again. 11. Blindly, it staggers off the road, into a petrol station - where an abandoned car has run over on the pumps. The ground beneath it suddenly ignites, and the petrol station explodes. EXT. SIDE STREET - NIGHT Selena and Mark lead Jim into a side street. JIM (DAZED) Those people! Who were... who... MARK This way! Move it! Jim allows himself to be hurried along. EXT. SHOP - NIGHT Selena stops outside a newsagent's shop. The shop's door and windows are covered with a metal security grill, but the grill over the door lock has been prised away enough for Selena to slip her hand through to the latch. INT. SHOP - NIGHT Inside, most of the shelves have been emptied of confectionery. Newspapers and magazines litter the floor. The magazine covers of beautiful girls and sports cars have become instant anachronisms. At the back of the shop, a makeshift bed of sheets and sleeping bag is nestled. This has obviously been Selena and Mark's home for the last few days. INT. NEWSAGENT - NIGHT Jim, Mark and Selena enter the newsagent's and pull down the grill. MARK A man walks into a bar with a giraffe. They each get pissed. The giraffe falls over. The man goes to leave and the barman says, you can't leave that lying there. The man says, it's not a lion. It's a giraffe. 12. Silence. Mark pulls off his mask and turns to Selena. MARK He's completely humorless. You two will get along like a house on fire. Selena, who has already taken off her mask, ignores Mark. SELENA Who are you? You've come from a hospital. MARK Are you a doctor? SELENA He's not a doctor. He's a patient. JIM I'm a bicycle courier. I was riding a package from Farringdon to Shaftesbury Avenue. A car cut across me... and then I wake up in hospital, today... I wake up and I'm hallucinating, or... MARK What's your name? JIM Jim. MARK I'm Mark. This is Selena. (BEAT) Okay, Jim. We've got some bad news. Selena starts to tell her story, and as the story unfolds we see the images she describes. SELENA It began as rioting. And right from the beginning, you knew something bad was going on because the rioters were killing people. And then it wasn't on the TV anymore. It was in the street outside. It was coming through your windows. We all guessed it was a virus. An infection. You didn't need a doctor to tell you that. It was the blood. 13. Something in the blood. By the time they tried to evacuate the cities, it was already too late. The infection was everywhere. The army blockades were overrun. And that was when the exodus started. The day before the radio and TV stopped broadcasting there were reports of infection in Paris and New York. We didn't hear anything more after that. JIM Where are your families? MARK They're dead. SELENA Yours will be dead too. JIM No... No! I'm going to find them. They live in Greenwich. I can walk. (heading for the exit) I'm going to... to go and... SELENA You'll go and come back. JIM (pulling at the grill) Yes! I'll go and come back. MARK Rules of survival. Lesson one - you never go anywhere alone, unless you've got no choice. Lesson two - you only move during daylight, unless you've got no choice. We'll take you tomorrow. Then we'll all go and find your dead parents. Okay? EXT. TRAIN TRACKS - DAY Jim, Selena and Mark walk along the Docklands Light Railway in single file. Ahead is a train. Behind the train, as if spilled in its wake, are abandoned bags, suitcases, backpacks. Mark drops pace to let Jim catch up. 14. MARK How's your head? Fucked? No reply. MARK (gesturing at the city) I know where your head is. You're looking at these windows, these millions of windows, and you're thinking - there's no way this many people are dead. It's just too many windows. Mark picks up a handbag from the tracks. MARK The person who owned this bag. Can't be dead. Mark reaches in and starts to pull things out as they walk, discarding the personal possessions. MARK A woman - (car keys) - who drove a Nissan Micra - (teddy) - and had a little teddy bear - (condoms) - and carried protection, just in case. Marks tosses the condoms behind him. MARK (DRY) Believe me, we won't need them anymore than she will. He hands the bag to Jim and walks ahead. Jim pulls out a mobile phone. He switches it on. It reads: SEARCHING FOR NETWORK. The message blinks a couple of times. Then the screen goes blank. Jim looks left. He is now alongside the train. The inside of the windows are smeared with dried blood. Pressed against the glass is the face of a dead man. 15. Jim drops the phone and breaks into a run - running past Mark and Selena. MARK (HISSING) Hey! EXT. GREENWICH COMMON - DAY Jim, Selena and Mark jog across Greenwich Common. Jim gestures towards one of the streets on the far side of the green. JIM (LOW VOICE) Down there. Westlink Street. Second on the left. EXT. WESTLINK STREET - DAY The street is modest red-brick semi-detached houses. They stand outside Number 43. Jim waits while Selena scans the dark facade. SELENA If there's anyone in there who isn't human... JIM I understand. SELENA Anyone. JIM I understand. Selena shoots a glance at Jim. Jim is gazing at the house. MARK Okay. EXT. BACK GARDEN - DAY Jim uses the key under the flowerpot to open the back door. INT. HOUSE - DAY Jim, Selena and Mark move quietly through the kitchen and the downstairs of the house. 16. Surprisingly, everything is neat and tidy. Washed plates are stacked by the sink, newspapers on the table are neatly piled. The headline on the top paper reads simply: CONTAINMENT FAILS. They reach the bottom of the stairs. Selena gestures upwards, and Jim nods. They start to ascend. At the top of the stairs, Selena sniffs the air, and recoils. Jim has noticed it too. His eyes widen in alarm. MARK (WHISPERS) Wait. But Jim pushes past and advances along the top landing, until he reaches a door. By now the smell is so bad that he is having to cover his nose and mouth with the sleeve of one arm. Jim pushes open the door. Inside, two decomposed bodies lie side by side on the bed, intertwined. On the bedside table are an empty bottle of sleeping pills and a bottle of red wine. Mark appears behind him. Jim stares at his parents for a couple of moments, then Mark closes the door. INT. BATHROOM - DAY Jim sits on the toilet, alone. He is crying. In his hand is a piece of paper: "Jim - with endless love, we left you sleeping. Now we're sleeping with you. Don't wake up." The paper crumples in his fist. INT. LIVING ROOM - DAY Jim, Selena and Mark sit in the living room, on the two sofas. Jim looks dazed, uncomprehending. Selena watches Jim, her expression neutral. SELENA They died peacefully. You should be grateful. JIM I'm not grateful. Jim's words hang a moment. Then Mark talks, simply, unemotionally, matter-of-fact throughout. 17. MARK The roads out were all jammed. So we went to Paddington Station. Hoping: maybe we could get to Heathrow, maybe buy our way on a plane. My dad had all this cash, even though cash was already useless, and Mum had her jewellery. But twenty thousand other people had the same idea. (A MOMENT) The crowd was surging, and I lost my grip on my sister's hand. I remember realizing the ground was soft. I looked down, and I was standing on people. Like a carpet, people who had fallen, and... somewhere in the crowd there were infected. It spread fast, no one could run, all you could do was climb. Over more people. So I did that. I got up, somehow, on top of a kiosk. (A MOMENT) Looking down, you couldn't tell which faces were infected and which weren't. With the blood, the screaming, they all looked the same. And I saw my dad. Not my mum or my sister. But I saw my dad. His face. A short silence. MARK Selena's right. You should be grateful. SELENA We don't have time to get back to the shop before dark. We should stay here tonight. Jim nods. He isn't sure what he wants to say. JIM My old room was at the end of the landing. You two take it. I'll sleep down here. SELENA We'll sleep in the same room. It's safer. 18. EXT. LONDON - DAY TO NIGHT The red orb of the sun goes down; the light fades. As night falls, London vanishes into blackness, with no electric light to be seen. Then the moon appears from behind the cloud layer, and the dark city is revealed. INT. HOUSE - NIGHT Jim is on the sofa. In the moonlight, we can see that his eyes are open, wide awake. Selena is curled on the other sofa, and Mark is on the floor - both asleep. The house is silent. Jim watches Selena sleeping for a couple of moments. Then, quietly, he gets off the sofa and pads out of the living room, down the hall to the kitchen. INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT Jim enters, standing just inside the doorway. He looks around the room. On one wall, a faded kid's drawing of a car is framed. Above the counter, on a shelf of cookery books, an album has a handwritten label on the spine: "Mum's Favorite Recipes". Jim walks to the fridge. Stuck to the door is a photo of Jim with his parents, arm in arm, smiling at the camera. Jim is on his mountain bike, wearing his courier bag. FLASH CUT TO: Jim, sitting at the kitchen table as his Mum enters, carrying bags of shopping. Jim walks over to the bags and pulls out a carton of orange juice, which he pulls straight to his mouth and begins to gulp down. His Dad walks in from the garden. JIM'S DAD Give me a glass of that, would you? JIM (draining the carton, and giving it a shake) It's empty. CUT BACK TO: 19. Jim touches the photo, their faces, lightly. Jim is facing away from the back door, which has a large frosted-glass panel. Through the glass panel, unseen by Jim a dark silhouette looms against the diffused glow from the moonlight. Through the kitchen window, a second silhouette appears. Then there is a scratching noise from the back door. Jim freezes. Slowly, he turns his head, and sees the dark shapes behind the door and window. A beat - then the door is abruptly and powerfully smashed in. It flies open, and hangs loosely held by the bottom hinge. Standing in the doorframe is an Infected Man. Jim shouts with alarm as the Man lunges at him - and they both go tumbling to the floor. At the same moment, the figure behind the kitchen window smashes the glass, and an Infected Teenage Girl starts to clamber through the jagged frame. The Man gets on top of Jim, while Jim uses his arms to hold back the ferocious assault. A single strand of saliva flies from the Man's lips, and contacts Jim's cheek. JIM (SCREAMS) Help! Suddenly, Selena is there, holding her machete. The blade flashes down to the back of the Man's neck. Blood gushes. Jim rolls the Infected Man off, just in time to see... ...Mark dispatch the Girl half way through the kitchen window. The Girl is holding Mark, but her legs are caught on the broken glass. Mark jabs upwards into the Girl's torso - she stiffens, then slumps, and as Mark steps back we see he is holding a knife. Jim hyperventilates, staring at the corpse on the kitchen floor. JIM It's Mr. Bridges... Selena turns to Jim. She is hyperventilating too, but there is control and steel in her voice. 20. SELENA Were you bitten? JIM He lives four doors down... Jim turns to the Girl sprawled half way through the window. JIM That's his daughter... SELENA Were you bitten? Jim looks at her. Selena is still holding her machete at the ready. JIM No... No! I wasn't! SELENA Did any of the blood get in your mouth? JIM No! SELENA Mark? Jim turns to Mark. He is standing in the middle of the room. Stepped away from the window. The Girl's blood is on his arm - and he is wiping it away... ...off the skin... where a long scratch cut wells up fresh blood. A moment. Then Mark looks at Selena, as if slightly startled. MARK Wait. But Selena is swiping with her machete. Mark lifts his arm instinctively, defensively, and the blade sinks in. Selena immediately yanks it back. MARK DON'T! Selena swipes again - and the blade catches Mark hard in the side of the head. Mark falls. 21. Jim watches, scrabbling backwards on the floor away from them, as Selena brutally finishes Mark off. Selena looks at Mark's body for a couple of beats, then lowers the blade. She picks up a dishcloth from the sink counter and tosses it to Jim. SELENA Get that cleaned off. Jim picks up the rag and hurriedly starts to wipe the Infected's blood from around his neck. SELENA Do you have any clothes here? JIM (fazed, frightened of her) I... I don't know. I think so. SELENA Then get them. And get dressed. We have to leave, now. With practiced speed, Selena starts to open the kitchen cupboards, selecting packets of biscuits and cans from the shelves, and stuffing them into her backpack. SELENA More infected will be coming. They always do. EXT. HOUSE - NIGHT Jim and Selena exit the front door. Jim has changed out of his hospital gear into jeans and a sweatshirt. He also has a small backpack, and is carrying a baseball bat. EXT. LONDON ROAD - NIGHT Jim and Selena walk: fast, alert. But something is not being said between them... until Jim breaks the silence. JIM (QUIET) How did you know? Selena says nothing. Continues walking. JIM (INSISTENT) How did you know he was infected? 22. SELENA The blood. JIM The blood was everywhere. On me, on you, and... SELENA (CUTTING IN) I didn't know he was infected. Okay? I didn't know. He knew. I could see it in his face. (A MOMENT) You need to understand, if someone gets infected, you've got somewhere between ten and twenty seconds to kill them. They might be your brother or your sister or your oldest friend. It makes no difference Just so as you know, if it happens to you, I'll do it in a heartbeat. A moment. JIM How long had you known him? SELENA Five days. Or six. Does it matter? Jim says nothing. SELENA He was full of plans. Long-distance weapons, so they don't get close. A newsagent's with a metal grill, so you can sleep. Petrol bombs, so the blood doesn't splash. Selena looks at Jim dispassionately. SELENA Got a plan yet, Jim? You want us to find a cure and save the world? Or fall in love and fuck? Selena looks away again. SELENA Plans are pointless. Staying alive is as good as it gets. Silence. 23. They walk. Jim following a few steps behind Selena. A few moments later, Jim lifts a hand, opens his mouth, about to say something - but Selena cuts him off without even looking round. SELENA Shhh. She has seen something... A line of tower blocks some distance away, standing against the night sky. In one of them, hanging in the window of one of the highest stories, colored fairy lights are lit up, blinking gently. INT. TOWER BLOCK - NIGHT Jim and Selena walk through the smashed glass doors of the tower block. It is extremely dark inside. Selena switches on a flashlight and illuminates the entrance hall. It is a mess. The floor is covered in broken glass and dried blood. The lift doors are jammed open, and inside is a dense bundle of rags - perhaps an old corpse, but impossible to tell, because the interior of the lift has been torched. It is black with carbon, and smoke-scarring runs up the outside wall. Selena moves the flashlight to the stairwell. There is a huge tangle of shopping trolleys running up the stairs. Selena gives one of the trolleys an exploratory tug. It shifts, but holds fast, meshed in with its neighbor. Then she puts a foot into one of the grates, and lifts herself up. Shining her light over the top of the tangle, she can see a gap along the top. JIM Let's hope we don't have to get out of here in a hurry. She begins to climb through. INT. TOWER BLOCK - NIGHT Jim and Selena move steadily and quietly up the stairwell, into the building. Reaching a next landing, they check around the corner before proceeding. Through a broken window, we can see that they are already high above most London buildings, and on the wall a sign reads: LEVEL 5. 24. SELENA Need a break? JIM (completely out of breath) No. You? SELENA No. They continue a few steps. JIM I do need a break, by the way. Selena nods. They stop on the stairs. Jim slips off his backpack and sits, pulling a face as he does so... SELENA What's up? JIM Nothing. She gives him a cut-the-crap expression. JIM I've got a headache. SELENA Bad? JIM Pretty bad. SELENA Why didn't you say something before? JIM Because I didn't think you'd give a shit. A moment, where it's unclear how Selena will react to this. Then she slips off her own backpack. SELENA (going through the bag) You've got no fat on you, and all you've had to eat is sugar. So you're crashing. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot we can do about that... 25. Selena starts to produce a wide selection of pills, looted from a chemist. SELENA ...except pump you full painkillers, and give you more sugar to eat. She holds up a bottle of codeine tablets, and passes it to Jim. SELENA As for the sugar: Lilt or Tango? JIM (CHEWING CODEINE) ...Do you have Sprite? SELENA Actually, I did have a can of Sprite, but... Suddenly there is a loud scream, coming from somewhere lower down the building. Jim and Selena both make a grab for their weapons. JIM Jesus! SELENA Quiet. The scream comes again. The noise is chilling, echoing up the empty stairwell. But there is something strange about it. The noise is human, but oddly autistic. It is held for slightly too long, and stops abruptly. SELENA That's an infected. Then, the sound of metal scraping, clattering the blockade. SELENA They're in. INT. SHOPPING TROLLEY BLOCKADE - NIGHT Two Infected, a Young Asian Guy and a Young White Guy, moving with amazing speed over the blockade. 26. INT. STAIRS - NIGHT Jim and Selena sprint up the stairs. Behind them, we can hear the Infected, giving chase, howling. They pass level eight, nine, ten... Jim is exhausted. SELENA Come on! JIM (out of breath, barely able to speak) I can't. Selena continues, and Jim looks over the edge of the stairwell, to the landing below... ...where the two Infected appear, tearing around the corner. INT. STAIRWELL - NIGHT Selena sprints up the stairs... and Jim sprints past her, in an amazing burst of energy and speed. They round another bend in the stairwell... ...then both Jim and Selena scream. Standing directly in front of them is a Man In Riot Cop Gear - helmet with full visor, gloves, a riot shield in one hand, and a length of lead pipe in the other. The Man lunges past both of them, barging past, where the Infected White Man has appeared at the stairwell. The Riot Gear Man swings his lead pipe and connects viciously with the White Man's head. The White Man falls backwards against the Asian Man. Both fall back down the stairs. The Riot Gear Man turns back to Jim and Selena. MAN Down the corridor! Flat 157! Jim and Selena are stunned, but start to run down the corridor. The Asian Man is coming back up the stairs. Jim looks back over his shoulder in time to see the Riot Gear Man deliver a massive blow to the Asian Man's head. 27. INT. CORRIDOR - NIGHT Jim and Selena run towards Flat 157. The door is open, but as they approach, it suddenly slams shut. JIM AND SELENA (hammering on the door) Let us in! GIRL (O.S.) Who is it? SELENA Let us in! The door opens a fraction, on the chain. The face of a girl appears. She is fourteen, pale, solemn-faced. GIRL Where's Dad? Jim looks back down the corridor. At the far end, the Man appears. He is holding the limp body of one of the Infected - and he tips it over the balcony, where it drops down the middle of the stairwell. MAN (CALLS BACK) It's okay, Hannah. Let them inside. The door closes, we hear the chain being slipped off, then it opens again. INT. FLAT - NIGHT Jim and Selena enter past the pale-faced girl. The flat is council, three-bed, sixteenth floor of the block. It has patterned wallpaper, and nice but boring furnishings. It is lit by candles. The entrance hall leads straight to the living room, which has French windows and a small balcony outside. On one wall, a framed photograph hangs, which shows the Man standing beside a black taxi cab. Next to him is a middle aged woman - presumably the Man's wife. Hannah sits at the cab's steering wheel, beaming. Another photo, beside, show Hannah sat in the seat of a go- kart. The Man follows Jim and Selena inside. 28. MAN Come in, come in. They follow the Man through to the living room, and Hannah recloses the front door, which has an impressive arrangement of locks and dead-bolts. INT. FLAT - LIVING ROOM - NIGHT In the living room, the fairy lights hang in the window, powered by a car battery. Lit by their glow, the Man goes through a careful ritual of shedding his gear, helped by Hannah. First, he lays down the riot shield. Then he puts the bloodsmeared lead pipe on a small white towel. Next, he removes his gloves - and places them beside the bar on the towel. Then he folds the towel over the weapon and gloves, and puts it beside the riot shield. Finally he removes the visored helmet. Jim and Selena watch him. They look pretty rattled, not really knowing what to expect. After the Man has finished shedding his gear, he turns. MAN So... I'm Frank, anyway. He extends his hand to Jim and Selena. Jim hesitates very briefly, then shakes it. JIM I'm Jim. SELENA Selena. Frank beams, and suddenly he seems much less frightening and imposing. If anything, he is just as nervous as Jim and Selena. FRANK Jim and Selena. Good to meet you. And this is my daughter, Hannah. (turning to Hannah) ...Come on, sweetheart. Say hello. Hannah takes a step into the room, but says nothing. FRANK So... so this is great. Just great. It calls for a celebration. 29. I'd say. Why don't you all sit down, and... Hannah, what have we got to offer? HANNAH (QUIETLY) We've got Mum's creme de menthe. An awkward beat. FRANK Yes, her creme de menthe. Great. Look, sit, please. Get comfortable. Sit tight while I get it. Frank exits. Selena, Jim and Hannah all stand, until Selena gestures at the sofa. SELENA Shall we? Jim and Selena take the sofa. Hannah stays standing. FRANK (O.S.) Where are the bloody glasses? HANNAH Middle cupboard. FRANK (O.S.) No! The good ones! This is a celebration! HANNAH Top cupboard. Another short, uncomfortable pause. Hannah looks at Jim and Selena from her position near the doorway. Her expression is blank and unreadable. JIM This is your place, then. Hannah nods. JIM It's nice. Hannah nods again. Frank re-enters. Frank is beaming, holding the creme de menthe, and four wine glasses. 30. FRANK There! I know it isn't much but... well, cheers! EXT. TOWER BLOCK - NIGHT The moon shines above the tower block. INT. FLAT - NIGHT Jim, Selena and Hannah all sit in the living room, sipping creme de menthe. Frank is disconnecting the fairy lights as he talks, and pulling the curtains closed, rather systematically checking for cracks along the edges. FRANK Normally we keep the windows covered at night, because the light attracts them. But when we saw your petrol station fire, we knew it had to be survivors... So we hooked up the Christmas tree lights. Like a beacon. Finished with the sofa, he sits on the armchair. SELENA We're grateful. FRANK Well, we're grateful you came. I was starting to really worry. Like I say, we haven't seen any sign of anyone normal for a while now. JIM There aren't any others in the building? Frank shakes his head. SELENA And you haven't seen any people outside? Frank's eyes flick to Hannah. FRANK We haven't left the block for more than two weeks. Stayed right here. Only sensible thing to do. Everyone who went out... 31. SELENA Didn't come back. FRANK And there's two hundred flats here. Most of them have a few cans of food, or cereal, or something. SELENA It's a good set-up. FRANK It isn't bad. He puts a hand on Hannah's shoulder, and gives it a squeeze. FRANK We've got by, haven't we? INT. BATHROOM - NIGHT

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DEATH

The Today's Leader Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 10, 2022 41:23

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com Death and dying workbook: https://atheopaganism.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/death-and-dying-workbook-blank1.docx Freewill.com S3E35 TRANSCRIPT:----more---- Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science based Paganism. I'm one of your hosts, Mark, Yucca: And I'm the other one. Yucca Mark: and today we are going to talk about death. Yucca: death. Yep. It's, well, it's October. Although it's a topic which is relevant every day, every moment. Right. Mark: That's right. But particularly we're going to talk about the naturalistic, pagan perspective on death and approaches to death. And talk about some things that we can do to prepare for our own mortality and just about the perspective that it gives us generally. Because death is. Arguably the fact of our lives more than anything else. It's, it's the thing that's hanging out there, setting the context for everything else that we do or, or that we contemplate doing. Yucca: Right? And it happens to us. Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: Right. There's no, Doesn't matter what religion you are, what gender, where you live, what kind of living thing. If you are living, then eventually you stop. Right? Mark: right. And that's why it's been called The Great Equalizer because it doesn't matter how wealthy you are, eventually you are going to kick it. And there's, you know, you can do all kinds of medical things to try to extend yourself probably with a great deal of suffering associated in most cases. But eventually it's going to end. And so at this time of year this is the time of year when pagans often contemplate their mortality and their their relationship with the fact of their death. And so we are dedicating this show this episode to to that, to talking about exactly that. We'll have other episodes later on in the month about sort of other facets. Yucca: Like ancestors and decomposition and you know, that kind of stuff. Mark: right. All those kinds of great, halloweeny wonderful topics. But this, this one is just about the blunt fact that we're gonna die and so are you. And we all have to come to terms with that in whatever manner we can. Yucca: Right now, I wanna emphasize though, that this isn't all a doom and gloom, you know, sad, negative kind of thing. Certainly many of us are quite uncomfortable with the idea that one day we will not exist, right? But as we're gonna talk about, there's actually. Some real upsides to that. Right. And there's some really, I think that there's a tremendous amount of, of beauty in that. But a good place to start actually is how naturalistic paganism differs from some of the other branches of Paganism when it comes to our views on death, or at least on what's after. Mark: Right, right. As naturalists, we use the scientific method and critical thinking to assess what is most likely to be true. And given, given that the evidence is that there is no afterlife, that when we stop, we stop our brains stop maintaining the, the neural net of information that constitutes our personality and memory and all those things. And that heat radiates away from our body that that energy radiates away from our body as heat Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and the body cools and we're gone. Yucca: And the, the pieces that were us, they break apart and become part of other things. Right. Mark: Right? And that's the decomposition story, which is. You know, stay tuned for that cuz it's actually so exciting. Yucca: a Mark: It's so exciting. Yucca: yeah, and it's, and that's the, that's the death that's happening always. Right. There's, there's the death at the end, right? Where like you just stop completely. But the, but the, the little, the little hundred deaths every day are more than hundreds. That just is part of being life is is this a really cool one to talk about? But yeah, we don't, we don't see the body as not us. Mark: Right. This is an important distinction. I'm, I'm glad you brought that up, because the idea of dualism what's sometimes called Cartesian dualism after Renee Decar, who first postulated it in a. In a philosophical kind of way, the idea that there is this spirit or ghost or soul within us that is separate from the body and that persists after the body dies. There really isn't any evidence to support that, that I'm aware of. And. Yucca: But the idea is, is embedded very, very deeply into our culture, into our language and it's, it's, it's all around us. Mark: It is. It is. It's, it's, When we talked about dualism in an earlier episode, we discovered that we don't even really have good language for talking about the understanding of the self as a unified hole. It is the body, You know, we say my body as if it was something different than, My mind. It's, it's all the same thing, but we, the, the way that our language is set up makes it very difficult even to articulate that concept. Yucca: Right Mark: So the body stops working for whatever reason. Maybe a disease, maybe an injury maybe just the accumulation of a a thousand tiny Yes. Or, or a thousand, just tiny errors in cellular copy copying over time. So you know, you're 105 years old and things just finally give up. They just stop and then we cease existing in our, in our opinion, in our estimation, we cease to exist. And that can be a very terrifying prospect for some people. But I don't find it that scary myself because I realized that for 13.7 billion years, I didn't exist either. And it didn't bother me in the least. I wasn't there to be bothered. It was okay. And we were talking about this before we recorded. We've also had some experiences where we've been put under general anesthesia. And that part disappears too. I mean, that's just time chopped out of your life where your body was still there, but your consciousness was suppressed because your body was, you know, under the influence of these chemicals that were introduced to it. And there wasn't any suffering during any of that either. I just was absent. Yucca: Not that I recall. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Yucca: And, and that's what, not what was described to me by those who were conscious at the time. Right. But yeah, that, at least for me, those are times that are just like, it's just gone. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Right. Look at the clock. And it's different than when it was when I last remembered looking at it. And that's not quite the same as as sleeping, because with the sleeping, there's a, sometimes there's a missing chunk there, but it's a very different, there still is some sort of awareness there, a very different awareness. But it, it's, it has felt like a very different experience. Mark: Yeah, I've often thought of, of during sleep the, the sort of dreaming process as being kind of like the brain running a screensaver. You know, you get all these images. You, you know, you have these sort of very, you know, strange and magical kinds of na narratives and stories and snips of scenes and things like that. And there's definitely something going on while you're sleeping most of the time. It's not the same as just winking out the way you do under general anesthetic. Yucca: Well, this is maybe a topic we should come back to at another point, because I don't think we've ever talked about lucid dreaming. Mark: Oh, we haven't. You're right. We Yucca: that's something that, that I do. And I don't know if that's something you do, but that would be a really, really interesting topic. So let's write that down. Mark: good. Yucca: maybe that's a good mid-winter topic that kind of, I associate, you know, mid-winter with the dreaming and the dark and, and all of that. So, Mark: a good one. Yucca: yeah. But with death it's, at least it seems like it's, that's it, right? Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Yucca: So what's that mean for us now? Right. We're not dead yet. We will. Mark: right, Yucca: this moment we're not. Mark: right. I would like to say one more thing Yucca: Oh, yeah. Mark: the, the way that other. Other religious traditions and particularly other pagan traditions, do approach the fact of death. Many of those are dualistic. In the Buddhist idea, for example, the idea is that we are on this wheel of karma that we're trying to get off of. And so when we achieve enlightenment, then we leave the wheel of karma and there's no more suffering and so forth. Which. So my mind has always been a very dark way of framing reality. It's the, you know, that the world is endless suffering. Well, the world is endless joy too. How, how come, How come we're paying all the attention to the suffering So that's, that's just been Yucca: does it, does it have the same connotation, the the word suffering when said in a Buddhist sense as it does. In a kind of conventional sense. Mark: That's a good question. I believe it does, but I can only speak from my experience having been married to a Zen Buddhist for 10 years. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: I, I can't, I, I have not done a ton of reading in the Buddhist arena and I don't know that much about. But I do know that it is once again, built on that dualistic idea that the body dies. But there is something else that persists that goes forward. And it may not be exactly you as a personality, but it's some intrinsic Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: quality of you that's in the process of being polished up in order to, you know, attain this, this enlightenment. Of course the, the mainstream monotheisms, they've all got. Sort of punishment or reward afterlife idea. And that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me either for lots of reasons that we don't need to go into. But it's a pretty cruel framework in my opinion. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: You know, it's, it's extortionary and it, it threatens people and it terrifies little children. It's a, you know, telling children about people going to hell is a horrible. Yucca: Right. Mark: But in the pagan sphere, what we see very often is a more generalized idea of reincarnation. It's very codified in Buddhism where like, okay, you know, if you've done these particular things, maybe you'll come back as a cockroach. Yucca: There's particular, yeah, there's particular levels and yeah. Mark: right. In, in the Pagan sphere, it does not appear to be as well defined in that sense, but there is a broad a broad credulity in the idea that you do come back in some manner. I've been told by people that people that are in their family where once related to them in other ways, in a past life, those sorts of things I don't know where they get that information, but they believe it. So, you know, those are, those are other approaches to the fact of mortality that I feel really sort of skip the important bits of what mortality can give us. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Knowing that we're going to die is actually a tremendous gift Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: approach it that. It, it contextualizes our lives. You know, it's this thing that's hanging out there. We know we've got a limited amount of time, and that means that our time is very precious. We need to be careful with it. We need to make judicious decisions about what we're going to do with our time and what source of goals we're going to pursue. Yucca: Yeah. And really think about what matters. Really What, Because if I've, I have a limited number of days. You have a limited, We each have a limited number of days, Mark: Yes. Yucca: and on top of that, We don't know the number of days either. Mark: Right, Yucca: Right? We hope that there will be many, but this could be the last one, Mark: right, Yucca: or it could be in thousands, right? Mark: right. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yeah. And knowing that, knowing that they're wheeled on a day when you're not in it really does give it, It gives you pause, it gives you it, it gives you an opportunity anyway, to think very carefully about what matters to you. About what your values are, about what you would like to be left behind in the wake of your life, in the way of legacy. And of course, that's one of the Ethiopia Pagan principles, right? Legacy. The idea that we are responsible to subsequent generations, not only of humans, but of the fabric of life on earth in general. And so. I mean, I very deliberately have made my career around environmentally and publicly beneficial work. That's, that is the, the work that I've chosen. And there have been costs associated with that. A lot of them financial because working in the nonprofit sector, especially for smaller organizations, just doesn't pay as well as a lot of other things. I have never been able to get my mind around doing some of the things that some people do for money, knowing that all that, that's all that's going on. There's just money making happening there. And I, I can't apply my time to something that seems so meaningless to me. I, I. I need to do something that's more substantial and fulfilling than that with my time. And I'm not criticizing anybody else's decisions. You know, they're, they're, well, you know, they're sovereign beings. They get to make their own decisions about what they consider important to do in their life. But for my life the, the environmental work that I've done, the, the social services work that I've done and the spiritual community work that I've done are all really important pieces to me that I hope have persisting impact after I'm gone. Yucca: Right. Yeah. And of course there's sometimes things that we need to do that we would really rather not be spending our time doing, but that That that are things that have to, that have to happen, whether that's dealing with, you know, illnesses or taxes or just, you know, having enough to, to be able to, to feed your family or things like that. But I think that, that the recognition and the, the memory that the, of our death that's coming can help us to. Put all of that in context, right? And think about how we're going to choose to live as we do those things that we don't want to be doing. Right. So we can on, on the big scale, really work towards the things that, that are meaningful to us. But know that every moment, even the moment when you are, you know, scrubbing the toilet, that that's, that's one of your moments, right? Mark: Right. Yucca: And how are you gonna live that, So, Mark: So finding ways to be joyful and finding ways. To take deep satisfaction in living becomes in the context of a, of a life without an afterlife, it becomes essential, Yucca: mm-hmm. Mark: right? This is all that we've got. So we must then find ways to, to derive happiness out of it, to derive as much joy as we possibly. In a, in a conscientious way. Obviously not at the expense of others. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Which honestly, I have a hard time imagining how you can have much joy if it's at the expense of others, but Yucca: Right. Mark: maybe, maybe someone can. Yucca: Well, if you are aware of it, Mark: Right, Yucca: right, as long as there's that awareness piece, Mark: right. That's like the the Ursula Ursula Gwen story. The people who leave Oma. Yucca: I'm not Mark: you know that Yucca: that one. Mark: It's a, it's a utopia. Oma is a city and everyone is happy, and everything is beautiful, and it's all magnificent except once a year, every citizen, they're all paraded through this dungeon under the city where there is a poor, neglected, starving child. Yucca: Mm. Mark: Whose suffering is necessary in order for all the happiness above the surface to happen. And there are a certain number of people every year who leave the city. They go because they won't make that deal. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So I like to think that I would be one of those. Yucca: Dr. Hub borrowed that concept for one of their episodes. There was a space whale. Mark: Hmm. Yucca: City of London, I think was based on that, was suffering. So that, so the, the plot there sounds pretty much the, the same, Mark: hmm. Yucca: one of the new ones, not one of the old ones, Mark: Okay. Yeah. Okay. That was your tangent for this week, folks. Yucca: Well, at least number one, we'll see. I don't know, that's all. Maybe we've sort of done a few already. We went into dreams, so, Mark: that's true. Yucca: Yeah. Okay. Mark: okay, we're, we're gonna die and we're going to live well as a result of this knowledge. That's, that's where we've gotten to so far. But there are some things that we can do to prepare for our deaths that are great. Kindness is to those who survive us. Yucca: Mm-hmm. and for us in the process, depending on what kind of death you have, , Right. Some deaths. You don't know that they're happening and some you do. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: So, yeah. Mark: So those include things like advanced health directives, instructing decision makers about how they. What your wishes are in terms of do you want to be kept alive on machines in a vegetative state? Do you not want that? If it's unlikely that you will ever recover to a point where you're able to care for yourself? Do you want the machines to be turned off? All those kinds of questions. Knowing that medicine is a for profit enterprise and that end of life is the most profitable part of that enterprise in the United States. They will keep you alive on machines if you don't tell them not to. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And it's important to do that if that's not the way you want to go. Yucca: Right? Mark: There are other financial things a will or a trust or you know, some sort of arrangement for what's supposed to happen to your money and your stuff. Yucca: Mm-hmm. And your dependence, if you have. Mark: Yes. Including, you know, what goes to which dependence and, and all that kind of, and, and your dependence. If, if you, if both you and your partner or partners Yucca: If you have, if you Mark: are suddenly killed if you, if you have them. Are suddenly killed, then the question of where your dependence go becomes really important. And that needs to be written down and enshrined somewhere, not just something in your head. Yucca: And this may not just be your human dependence, but if you don't have children and you have pets, that's something to think about as well, so that they, they don't just end up at the shelter. Right? Mark: right. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: There are other Sorts of things that are very helpful for people when there is a death that can just ease the process a lot. I mean, all of us that have been in grief know the kind of brain fog that descends when there is a painful death. It's hard to concentrate and feelings keep welling up all the time and to be asked at the same time to go digging through someone's desk to find a life insurance policy is, It's an almost insurmountable demand Yucca: Right, And to be on the phone and being told that, No, we can't give it to you because you're not the person and you're going, Yeah, but they're dead. But you know, all. Mark: And then you have to go and get a death certificate and provide that to them. And I mean, there's just so much adminis trivia that goes into the processing of a death. having all of that information together in one place in what I call a death packet Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: is a tremendous gift to those who survive you. Passwords, passwords to social media accounts, to your online banking to your, your 401k or whatever, you know, retirement accounts you might have. All of that stuff is essential in modern times to be able to do the things that you want to do. A list of people who should be notified with their contact information. Yucca: right. Mark: There's, there's a lot of different things that go into this. But the good news is we have a workbook Yucca: Yes. Link in the in the show notes. Yeah. Mark: Yes, you can download a blank of the workbook and fill it out. And it, it has everything in it. It's got a, a section for filling out all the information that would be necessary to write an obituary, for example. You can make your preferences known about what you'd like done with your body. What kind of services, if any, you would like to have happen. To recognize your death. And it, it may sound scary and creepy to do this, but as I always like to say, just like talking with people about sex doesn't make them pregnant, working on the fact of your mortality doesn't make it any more likely to happen soon. Yucca: Yeah. It just means that when it does, it's gonna be an easier process for the, For your loved ones. Yeah. And this is, this is a great time of year to be going through and doing this because we're thinking about death. And it's seasonally and we're seeing it around us, and and it's nice to, to have it on the calendar to be able to go back and review that, right? Mark: Yeah. One of the elements of my death packet is a farewell letter, Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: and I revisit that every year at this time of year just to make sure that, you know, everybody that I want acknowledged, want to be acknowledged is acknowledged. And that Yucca: If things have changed in terms of what you wanna say or not. Mark: all, all those kinds of things. Yes. So it's. And it, it's a great opportunity just to pull the thing out and review all the information. It's like I noticed the last time I went through it, I had moved and I hadn't changed my address. Yucca: Mmm. Mark: So that was necessary. I had to make those changes. Once again I can already think of some things that I'm gonna need to change for this year as well. Yucca: Right. Mark: so, but once you've done the big task once. Then it's just a matter of updating little bits of information here and there as you go along, and it's not very hard to do. The important thing is that loved ones know where to find your death packet. If you have like, a filing cabinet with legal papers and Yucca: fire safe chest that you have and you Mark: That's, that's a good place for it to live, maybe in especially colored folder so that people know, you know, they can go directly to that folder and pull it out. What I do is I keep a paper copy, a printed copy in my desk, and then I keep the soft copy, The Microsoft Word file on the desktop of my computer. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: So it, and it's labeled My Death, that's the name of it. So, with a cute little skull icon that I put on Yucca: Yeah, is your paper one you could put in a little folder, you know, this time of year you can find like the Halloween themed folders and stuff in the school section. Mark: Uhhuh. Yeah. It's a good idea. Yucca: little dancing skeletons or something like Mark: Mm-hmm. , I like it. Yeah, so. I strongly encourage our listeners to, to take on this work. It's it can be a little intimidating you know, to sort of take a deep breath and go, Okay, I'm gonna die. What do I want done with my body? What do I, you know, what? Yucca: Yeah. Mark: What, what, what are the answers to all these questions? There is a tool that's available for download online. It's something called the Five Questions that you can look for and that, that walks you through some similar kinds of planning questions about how to organize your, your death planning. But the workbook that you can download from the link in the show notes is really very thorough and it, it contains spaces for all of the different kinds of information that you're likely to need. Yucca: Right, and, and you could make a little thing of it when you do it. You could make it a little. Self party for the afternoon, right? Pick out, get your favorite drink, get your favorite treat, and carve yourself a pumpkin and sit down at the table with it. And there might be things that you won't be able to do right away, like gathering certain pieces of information, but you could start working through it and starting that process. Or you could do some of it in ritual, you know, make it. Make it an enjoyable thing that is maybe a little bit less intimidating to approach just so that you, that you do it. Because any piece that you do will be better than having not done it at all. Mark: right. Yucca: Right. And so maybe, I mean, I encourage everyone to, to go through the whole packet and do everything, but maybe you just wanna start with, Okay, I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna get a will in place. Right. And I'm not, you know, I, I don't have the, the mental space right now to write a letter to everybody, but I can get the, the will in place, or I can make sure that I have beneficiaries on my bank accounts or whatever it is that you need to do. Right. Just starting with so, Mark: I want to tell people about another resource that's available online for free, and it's a, it's a resource called free will.com, and literally that's what it is. It's a wizard that walks you through the steps to create a will for free, and then you can download the. Documents and print them and have them signed and it's legally valid Will Yucca: Do you put in what your state or country is in Mark: you do? Yucca: laws are different about how many witnesses you need or that sort of thing? Okay. Mark: It's only for the US and Canada, unfortunately. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: But. Yucca: I would suspect there's probably similar resources though for different countries. Mark: many other countries. I would agree. I would agree. But it's a, it's a pretty nifty little thing. I, I went through it and I thought, you know what, what came out the other end was, it had a lot of legalese in it, but it definitely included everything that I wanted to, to be included in my will. Yucca: Mm-hmm. , right? So that's a great, a great place to start. Mark: They also do advanced health directives. There's, there's a wizard for that as well. Yucca: Okay. Right, Because again, many of us probably aren't at the traditional places in our lives where that's something that we would be starting to think about. But as we've said, we don't know. We don't know how many days we have, Mark: Nope. Nope. The odds, the odds may be low that you are going to die soon. But they aren't zero. They're never zero. Yucca: Right. Mark: As long as we're alive, we are subject to death. So we have to be prepared to as great a degree as possible, both for our loved ones but also for ourselves. I don't want to be in a semi-conscious state on a ventilator Yucca: Mm. Mark: for. Days, weeks, years. I, I, I really, really am opposed to that. There's pretty good evidence that there is some brain activity in a lot of the people that are in that condition, and that just sounds like hell to me. I don't want it. And I'm very, very clear in my directives that I do not want that. I, I want you to pull the plug, if that's the state that I. Yucca: Right. or for me, I wouldn't want to be in my last moments worrying who's gonna take care of my kids. Mark: Right, Yucca: Right? Mark: right. Yucca: Oh, how, you know, being, having to be stressed about these things that I don't wanna leave undone Mark: Mm-hmm. Yucca: for, for others. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. So I, I'd kind of like to leave this on a, on an upward note. I feel like one of the things that is very hard about death in, certainly in American culture, but I think this is true in the West generally, is that we're so phobic about the subject that we don't talk about it and get ourselves comfortable with it at all. We don't even try to do. And there is a movement the, the so-called death positivity movement that is happening now that's working to overcome that, that's working. You know, we conduct death salons in various places for people to talk about their feelings, about their mortality, their fears, their their concerns, what they'd like done with their bodies, all those kinds of things. And. I just feel that that's a very important movement. To some degree the denial of death is the denial of life Yucca: Yeah, and that's one we'll definitely come back on when we talk about death on a kind of larger concept. Mark: Right, right. And to me, embracing what this is that we are. Here on Earth is necessary in order for us to honor it, as sacred as it is. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And so I really encourage you to look at this as a great opportunity. You know, when you, when you really sit down, you know, across the table from your death maybe, maybe you have some life priorities that you want to change. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: Maybe, maybe there are certain things that you absolutely have have been dedicated to the idea that you're going to do someday, and maybe you need to move up the schedule on those to make sure that they happen, Yucca: Right. Mark: right? Um Yucca: Well, and to think about how you are living today, because how you live today is how you, that is your life, Mark: mm-hmm. Yucca: right? That is your life that you live. And I find it very helpful In my morning ritual, I remind myself, I say out loud that I remember I will die, and that actually is so uplifting and motivating because it goes today matters. This, my experience, this tiny, I get to be this tiny sliver of the universe for this short period, which I hope will be in the triple digits. That's my goal, but that's still tiny compared to the billions of billions of years of the universe. And here we are and we get this moment. And because we die, it is so precious and so special every. Mark: Absolutely. I like that I may steal it. I, my morning ritual does not include something like that at the moment, although it does include a death acknowledgement in the evening. The Yucca: I stole it from the stoic . They have a whole thing about it. Mark: So yeah, look at, honestly, look at this as an opportunity. Folks. Being in denial about our death isn't gonna stave it off. It isn't gonna change when it happens. One second. So, taking a clear look at, taking a clear look at everything generally is a good idea, but particularly Yucca: of this podcast, Mark: it kind of is. Yeah. It kind of is. Let's, you know, let's, let's not gussy things up with, with fantasy. Let's, let's do what we can to know what's true. To look at that very clearly and then make our decisions based on that. That's kind of what we're about. So, especially in this month of October, which is, you know, the, the, the spooky witchy month really encourage you to take that step if you haven't already, or also like to congratulate those of you who have done a lot of that planning. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Good for you because it's, it's generally good for all of us. When people do that, among other things, what tends not to happen is that people tend not to get gouged for thousands of dollars by funeral homes because, you know, people will put much more modest wishes in their, in their declarations, in their death packet. and that's good for all of us because that industry really needs to be reigned in. It's very destructive and it, it, it needs to change. Yucca: Well, and, and whatever your particular wishes are you. You can assure those, or at least you can make it more likely that that's what's going to happen, right? By, by voicing it. So whatever, whatever your particular desires and approaches and, and all of that and if it's something that, that you honestly don't care, let let your loved ones know that, right? Let them know, I seriously, I'm dead. I don't want the casket. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: I don't care. Save the money. Right? If that's your approach or if, hey, it is actually really important to me that there be this coming together of the, of the people in my life and this moment. And you know, you know, you can say that and you can think about that and, and I think that you can learn a lot about yourself too in having that honest conversation with yourself, that exploration. Mark: right. As you explore what the options are, you may find that some things that people assume are true are not. For example, you are not required to have your body involved. And it's a terrible, toxic thing that we do to the Earth that I really don't want any part of. But I mean, you can, if you want to, that's fine, but you are not required. Some states require that an un embalmed body be buried within three days after the death, Yucca: Yeah, there's so different states are gonna have different regulations you're gonna wanna know. Yeah. But that's one of the things that you can do in your October. Death visiting. I don't know what we could call it. Mark: I like that. Yucca: yeah, and if you mo, if you move states or, you know, you just check up on, okay, so what's, you know, what is it like here in Montana versus Connecticut, or, you know, whatever it is. Yeah. Mark: right? Yeah. So there's a, there's a body of knowledge and there's kind of a world to explore there of how to, how to get exactly what you want out of this, or at least to tell your loved ones what you want. And of course after you're dead, it won't matter to you. So Yucca: Yeah. Mark: they, if they don't do what you want Yucca: You won't know. Mark: you won't know, and the worst thing that will happen is that somebody will probably say, This is not what they would've wanted. Yucca: Yeah, so well, this has been good. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: it's inspiring to, to come back to this each year and think about it and, and just again, remembering this is our little sliver. This is our little moment. Mark: Right. So do what you can to have a good death and as smoother transition as possible for those around you who survive and and live well. Live well and happily. Yucca: Yep. All right. Well thank you everyone, and we'll, we'll see you next week. Mark: See you then.

united states american death live halloween canada earth west kindness connecticut montana sort buddhist folks buddhism documents pagan passwords hub oma paganism sorts microsoft word five questions zen buddhist cartesian yucca markit mark you mark yeah my death mark oh mark so mark yes mark right mark they mark see mark okay mark as mark absolutely

442 John & Mark Cronin- 5 Pillars of Success for Johns Crazy Sock

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 28, 2022 40:46

Our show today is an incredibly special show for everyone, It is as insightful as it is inspirational. It is a story that showcases how with a great mindset anything can be achieved.The story of John's Crazy sock, the world's largest sock store, is one of John Cronin and his dad Mark They are the co-founders of John's Crazy Socks, a social enterprise with a mission to spread happiness. In five years, they bootstrapped their start-up into the world's largest sock store with multi-million-dollar sales in 88nations. John may have Down syndrome, but he always says, “Down syndrome never holds me back.”--------------------------------------------------Connect with John's Crazy Socks.Website - https://johnscrazysocks.com/Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/johnscrazysocks/Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@johnscrazysocksYouTube- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChQzvQju2SQiW9rIf5JNsVQ---------------------------------------------------Video versions of this podcast are available on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/c/TonyCurl/Our Podcast is hosted at https://www.spreaker.com/show/the-todays-leader-podcastOur podcast is recorded on the Riverside.fm Platform https://riverside.fm/?utm_campaign=campaign_1&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=rewardful&via=tonyIf you are looking to build better leadership skills, check out The Today's Leader website at todaysleader.com.auWe are driving a leadership revolution and BUILDING TOMORROW'S BEST LEADERS, TODAY!Today's Leader is a collective, The mindset to make a difference and the ability to create an impact. Our Emerging Leaders Masterclass can be found at https://www.tomorrowsbestleaders.com/course/emerging-leaders-roundtable-masterclass#/homeThink & Grow Business Hosts our Today's Leader Masterminds. TAGB where we focus on personal, professional, and business growth. Book your free 30-minute discovery call at https://thinkandgrowbusiness.com.au/book-your-free-discovery-call/You are standing Stronger, Braver, and Wiser. Don't forget the golden rule â€œ Don t be an A-HoleWatch our Video Podcasts on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/c/TonyCurl/Follow on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-todays-leader-podcast/Check Out our Top 10 Leadership Podcasts: https://todaysleader.com.au/the-best-leadership-podcasts-for-2021/#purpose #leadership #communication #conversations #clarity #todaysleader #tomorrowsbestleaders #mentoring #mondaymentoring #development #developmentplan #highpotentiall #techready #careerskills #management #people #process #crisisleadership #simplebusiness #productivity #legacy

Paganism is Different

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 23, 2022 51:52

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com S3E28 TRANSCRIPT:----more---- Yucca: Welcome back to the wonder science based paganism. I'm your host Yucca. Mark: and I'm mark. Yucca: And this week we have a really interesting topic. We're gonna be talking about. Religion in general, what is religion? What purpose does it have? And also looking at how naturalistic paganism differs from the, the big three in Western society. Mark: Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this conversation because these are questions that I've spent a lot of time researching and thinking about parti. When I was first pulling the threads together, that would become Ethiopia paganism. Obviously when you think about, well, why do people have religion, then you have to start asking yourself what is a religion, right. And everything sort of tumbles downhill from there. It's very interesting. Yucca: Yeah. And you'll certainly get different opinions on what a religion is. We were talking about before this, how there are some folks who will say that they'll define religion in such a narrow way that really only Christianity, Judaism and Islam fit into the category. And they'll kind of ignore the rest of the many, many different possibilities that humans have, you know, just today, not even thinking about what we've had in the past and may have in the future. But we're gonna be taking a little bit more of a, a broader perspective on that. Mark: Right. Yeah. I mean, for those religious scholars and anthropologists of religion who focus down on a very narrow, definition of religion that only slots to those. Kind of major movements throughout the world. To me, that's begging the question. I, I think what we ought to be looking for is what are the human needs that are being met and by what kinds of mechanisms and how can we generalize about that into a definition of all of those kinds of behaviors and needs. And crystallize that down into a definition for what a religion is that that's been my approach. Yucca: Right. Mark: So let's get into it. Yucca: Yeah, we should say before though, that we will be comparing a lot to those big three that we've been talking about and that's, you know, it's not to be picking on them or singling them out or anything. It's just that the societies that both mark and I come from are very steeped in these. These are the Christianity has really influenced and shaped so much of our cultures in ways that we're aware of it in ways that. often, you know, unaware of as well. Mark: Right because we are so. Inured to them. They're so normal to us that it doesn't even occur to us that it's possible to live any other way or to think any other way about the world. Particularly we're going to be talking a lot about Christianity because that's what the really dominant religion in the United States where both of us live, but. A lot of what we're saying could also be applied in areas that are dominated, say by Islam or by conservative brands of Judaism or other faiths that share these kind of general characteristics. So it's not to pick on Christianity particularly. It's it's more to say this is what we're most familiar with and what we see. Creating the subtext for the over culture of where we live. Yucca: Mm-hmm right. Mark: So let's get into it. Where, where should we start? Yucca: Well, I think with, you know, what a religion is and the purpose of a religion, right. And those two are kind of blurred together. Right? Mark: Right, right. And of course, depending on what religion you are, you'll have very different answers for that. Because if you ask a Christian, what the purpose of their religion is, it's salvation, right? You're, you're supposed to follow these rules and. Cate yourself to this God, and that will get you a ticket to heaven with various terms and conditions applying depending on what the faith specifics are. Yucca: The particular sect within there. Yeah. Mark: Right. But when we look at a, in a broader sense not religious specifically, worldwide. And over time we can see that what religion has done is provide certain things for populations of people. It's given them a sense of shared values. Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: It's given them a sense of community and connection with one another. It's given them a way of making sense of the calendar in terms of celebrating a, a set of seasonal holidays around the course of the year. And it's answered big questions that That people ask, like, you know, why am I here? What am I here for? What's the purpose of living? What is, what is the nature of the universe even, Yucca: I mean, it's, it's creating the context, right? It's how do we understand our context, us, our relationship to community and the world. Mark: right, right. And. As we look throughout the world, we can see that people's spiritual expression. Does those things for them, no matter what kind of spiritual expression it is, even in monastic communities, their communities, right. Yucca: mm-hmm Mark: Um, very, very rare to find people who are so monastic that they, you know, essentially go to a cave and do their thing by themselves. Because humans are social creatures and mostly we like to feel connected with each other in some sort of shared. Enterprise, right. Some way of organizing our society so that we can eat and we can be safe and we can be happy as best we can. So. When I was studying all this stuff and, and I really went down the rabbit hole into brain structures and how the brain evolved that I won't really get into now, but the appetites of the various systems of the brain map, pretty, pretty well onto the things that religion provides. Right. And. considering all this stuff. My conclusion is that a religion is basically a combination of three things. The first is a description of the universe or a cosmology, and that can be heaven and hell in purgatory and the, the, the world in between, or it can be a wheel of karma that you're trying to get off, or it can be. The, the narrative described by science, which is the one that we subscribe to the, the description Yucca: shifting and changing. Mark: yes, Yucca: Yeah. But we've got several standard models that we're working with at the moment. Right. And those get challenged and they change slightly. And. Mark: right. But there's. There's a fundamental belief underneath that, which is that science, that the universe is a material set of processes, which are governed by laws and that those laws are consistent throughout the universe. And that we can understand them. and learn to be predictive of what's going to happen in a given situation, based on our understanding of how those material processes work. That's a very, very different understanding than a, you know, super mystical Christian view where, you know, the mind of God is unknowable and we, we just never know what's gonna happen because anything is possible. Yucca: mm-hmm Mark: Yeah. So. Cosmology is the first piece. The second is the set of values. Every religious movement. Every spirituality, coalesces around a set of things that things that they think are right and wrong, things that they think are sacred and to be protected and revered and things that they, that they think are profane or or worthy of disrespect, not necessarily the last one, but definitely the first one. And that's important because part of the way that you build community is by having people of like mind, right? I mean, we talk about a pagan community and you know, you're not gonna find any group that's really much more diverse than that. But the one thing that we do have in common is that most of us share a set of values around. Independence around personal sovereignty, around consent, around equality around inclusiveness. And of course there are exceptions to these rules, but they are not the rule. They are the exception. Yucca: Right. Well, and, and those particular qualities or properties when there's exceptions. It's usually there's one or two exceptions, but then the others are held, right. Mark: Right. Yucca: Kind of like a metal in chemistry. Right. You have all these properties, you remember in chemistry class that made you memorize, like, oh, it's conductive and it's ductile and all the, you know, there's but there's a few exceptions, right? Mercury is liquid at room temperature, but it's still a metal, but most of the others they're, they're solid at room temperature. Right. So it's like that. Mark: Yeah, exactly, exactly that. So you've got your cosmology, you've got your set of values. And then the last is a set of practices. And this is where a religion differs from a philosophy, in my opinion, UN under my definition, because a philosophy can have a set of values and a cosmology, and you can talk about 'em all day long, but that's not the same thing as a a. As a religion, which has holidays rituals, observances modes of dress dietary restrictions, in some cases, all these kind of strictures around behavior and, and prescriptions of behavior. That go into a, a ritual practice. And so when I was creating atheopagan, this is the model that I used. The cosmology was the easy part because all I had to do was point to science and say, listen to them. The values part, I spent a lot of time on thinking about what the definition of the sacred is. And I came up with the four sacred pillars and then the 13 principles, which are ethical principles for. Best to live our lives. Yucca: Which we have episodes on. We should revisit that soon. Actually. I Mark: We should. Yucca: We really should it's but because I think that would've, we were still the beginning of 20, 21, or we might've still been in 2020 when we did those, but the, yeah. Mark: It's it's been a while. So the idea there, and this, this is something that was a little radical for the pagan world because the pagan world, people tend not to wanna be told what to do. They're very, very. know, reactive to the idea of anybody controlling them. So there's very little in the way of developed ethics in most of paganism at least modern Neo paganism. Yucca: Right. Mark: And I feel like lets us off the hook for having to be ethical people. We do have responsibilities to the earth. We have responsibilities to one another. We have responsibilities to future generations and we need to conduct ourselves in a manner that's consistent with that. And then there are also principles that just have to do with how to be a happy and a good person like Humor and perspective, for example, you know, being able to find the humor in things and being able to laugh at yourself are ways to stay humble and there are ways to enjoy your life and to be able to deal with hardship in a way that that lightens it to some Yucca: Mm. Mm. Mark: So that was the value system, the four pillars and the 13 principles. And then came practices and that's where the paganism part really came in with the wheel of the year holidays daily practices, observances of the cycles of the moon rituals, just for whatever purposes we need them for like a job search or. Recovering from grief or Rite of passage to become, you know, to go from being a teenager, to being an adult, for example. And the pagan community really what's the word I'm looking for? Excels really excels at that aspect of religiosity because we're encouraged to create our own rituals and we learn to be really creative and effective at transforming consciousness through the use of ritual technologies. Yucca: Right. Mark: So. Yucca: We're often described as the religion of doing right. It's about what we do. And there, of course is the belief component. But the, the, one of the things that unites pagans often is what we do. Not necessarily what we believe. Mark: right. What they call an ortho religion as opposed to an oxic religion. Right. Yucca: yeah Mark: this is very different than many of the. The predominant Christian sex that exist around us because they have prescribed rituals. I mean, the sermon may be different every week, but the ritual itself, the mass, all that kind of stuff. It's the same all the time. And it it's very carefully stipulated. Exactly. You need to do at a given time of year and the priesthood don't have a lot of flexibility in that. Whereas in paganism you may not have priesthood at all, which we don't in atheopagan. Yucca: Right. Well, I mean, anyone can become a cleric if they, if they wanna go to the website and sign up so that you can, you know, perform marriages legally and that sort of thing. But, but we don't have anything where. Anybody is in a higher position or any sort of hierarchy, Mark: That's right. Yeah. The idea there is everybody should have the. To marry other people or conduct funerals or whatever, if that's what they want to do and provide that service to the community. But being an atheopagan cleric is a service commitment. It's not an elevation in status. Yucca: Right. Well, you're not from a different cast. Mark: No. And you're, and you're not a gatekeeper of secret knowledge or, you know, special rights that only you can do or any of that stuff. We don't have that. Some pagan traditions. Yucca: mm-hmm. Mark: and that's, that's what they do, but it's not what we do. So that's what I think of when I think of a religion. And what I'm always looking for is can you think of any religious traditions or spiritual traditions that don't include those three things? Yucca: No. I mean, I can think of. The one thing that I can think of that isn't, that doesn't usually get listed as a religion, but has, well, no, some of the, some of the philosophies kind of start to. Blur into that with particular practices. Right. But then they don't come along with Cosmo. I'm thinking of stoicism for instance, but stoicism doesn't come along with a, with a cosmology, but it comes a you've got values and practices, not necessarily holidays. So, but in terms of something that is seen really as a religion all of the ones that I have exposure to. Seem like they've got something there. Now many of them don't have, there was something that you didn't say, and that was God's right now that may be included in some people's cosmology, but we don't think that you have to believe in a God or a deity to be, or the supernatural at all, for it to be a religion. That's just one particular flavor of cosmology. Mark: right. And it's the kind that has ended up dominating the religious spiritual space for thousands of years. But that doesn't mean that it's the only way to have a spirituality, which I mean, some people try to debate with, but we've got thousands of people that are practicing this thing. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: tell us that it's not spirituality or not religion? Yucca: Or it's just spirituality at a certain point. Like I, for me, it becomes like a, okay. Fine. You can say we're not a religion, but I mean, we are like, you could say that we're not, but we are in, you know, we have legal status to say so as well, Mark: That's true. Yes. We, we have been recognized by the internal revenue service as meeting the characteristics for a religious nonprofit organization. So, Yucca: paperwork. Mark: there, there is that. Yeah. I think one of the things. Religion and spirituality that it's always important to bear in mind when we talk about this stuff is that there are no universally accepted definitions for either of those terms. Yucca: right. Mark: And very learned people with lots of letters after their names, who specialize in these things, disagree, vehemently about what they need. So it's. It's not really our job to try to resolve all that. All I know is that of all of the spiritual or religious traditions that I have been able to learn about worldwide. They've all had a cosmology, a set of values and a set of practices. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: And in many cases that cosmology is populated by one or more gods or spirits or sacred powers of one kind or another. I'm thinking about the African diasporic religion with the law and I, I know very little about this, but those, I don't know whether those are considered gods or whether they're considered to be, you know, powerful spirits that we, we create arrangements with through our own ritual behavior and offerings. But all of those are. Stories that we tell ourselves about the nature of the world. Right? And that's what a cosmology is. Science tells a story about the nature of the world. Just like all those other ones do. The difference is that science uses evidence and analysis and critical thinking to, to support the claims that it makes. Yucca: Mm-hmm well, and one thing about the cosmology is that it seems to often reflect the political and social structures that the people. And I dunno if this is a chicken or egg sort of situation, but that the people are in, right. So if we are looking at Christianity and we're looking at the development of it and what parts of the world it came from and what the political structures were at those time periods. Well, you know, it makes a lot of sense. I mean, the words even have, have carried over, right. People refer to God as the Lord. Right. And this would've, this is coming from a time period where people, you know, we had very defined. Cast system where we had the peasants and the Lord and you know, different names depending on what culture. And I think that that's probably one of the reasons that it has one of the many reasons that that particular religion has been falling out of fashion the recent time is because our political structures are moving from. That there's the, the nobility and the peasantry. I mean, on some levels we have this extreme gap that's happening as well, but we just don't, but there isn't the loyalty to it. Right. We're not loyal to our one percenters. We have very different feeling towards them. But that in the, in the past, there was, there was a reason to try and keep your, the, your peasants or country people. Having a sense of obligation and loyalty to the nobility. Mark: Right. And I think it bears saying that that's not a coincidence. I mean, the religious systems that have been chosen by ruling classes in order to maintain the the. Their power is not an accident. Constantine chose to convert the Roman empire to Christianity. And in the process, he redefined so much of Christianity into an authoritarian religion that you were supposed to submit to. Yucca: Right. Mark: The and at its root. Almost all flavors of Christianity are still that ENT. They, they poit a ENT relationship with the divine or the sacred that we're supposed to bow down. And there's something wrong with us that has to be cleansed. And we have to seek salvation in order to get this stain off of us. All of that works very well if you're the king. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Right. That works really well. If you get to decide who gets the thing that washes off the stain and who doesn't and if you're collecting the taxes, right? Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: So a symbiotic relationship between between religion and political power has existed in almost all places at almost all times. I mean, I would say the same thing about Buddhism. Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: Because in the case of Buddhism, the entire belief is life is suffering. Learn these mental techniques so that you can suffer less. Yucca: mm-hmm Mark: That's great. If you live in a completely authoritarian, totalitarian state, it it's not, you know, stand up and fight. Instead, it's sit quietly and learn these techniques that will help you not to suffer under this, you know, deeply unfair and oppressive system. Now in modern times many Buddhist, especially in the west have adopted strongly political positions and they advocate that out of their values of things like loving kindness. And that's great. But when we look at the history of where it came from, I think it's fair to say that once again, it was a choice that worked really well for the ruling class. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Paganism is very different than that. Paganism is religion with agency. We don't see ourselves as. Sinful or inherently damaged. We don't see ourselves as needing absolution of some kind of sin. Yucca: Right. Mark: We see ourselves as beautiful and luminous and flawed and problematic, and everybody has their trauma and damage that they work to recover from. And we all work to lift one another up as best we can. In order to achieve the, the actualization of ourselves as individuals and as a community. Yucca: right. And we see ourselves as natural and part of this world. Mark: Yes. And this world, is it for us, not an afterlife that you're trying to qualify for, or that you're afraid of. You know, there's, there's none of that extortionary model going on there. Some pagans do believe in some kind of an afterlife, but not to the extent that they're willing to you know, Have a miserable life in this life so that they can go to VHA that that's that's. Yucca: Right. Mark: That's just not the way that we approach these things. And I, I have to say just as a caveat, I'm generalizing about pagans. Now. It's very hard to generalize about pagans. There's probably somebody out there who's suffering for Valhalla, just, just to make me wrong. But generally speaking, what I'm saying here in my experience is what's true. Yucca: That reflects my experience as well. Yeah. So we're making some big, big generalizations. That's it seems to be the general case. Mark: So we really need to talk about this sin thing. It is profound. How impactful and damaging it is to people who live in societies that are dominated by the idea that people need some kind of spiritual washing in order to be okay. Can be I mean, And it permeates so much of our society. I mean, I, I think about Jewish mother jokes. Right. And they're all around guilt and you know, sense of, you know, I'll just sit here in the dark. Well, and then I'm gonna feel guilty because I wasn't sufficiently kind to my mother. Right. Idea that we should be living with guilt and shame and that our bodies are dirty and that sex is dirty. And all of those things, we are just so awash in that, that we can't even imagine a society that where it isn't. So even for those of us that are living our lives, Explicitly not to be that way. We are still inside ourselves, struggling with some of that same shame, some of that same body consciousness, because we were steeped in it, growing up in this culture. Yucca: Right. Yeah. Even, even coming from families that were pagan families or were atheists, right. It's just all around us. Right. Mark: right. Yucca: I mean, I can tell you as a child, how many times I heard someone go, Ew, that's so wrong. Right. That's just wrong. Right. Just about normal, you know, human things, right. Or, you know, you showed your shoulder. Oh, no Mark: Oh no. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Oh God. Yeah. And just because of, I mean, I was raised in an atheist household but. An extremely Sort of sexually phobic household, Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: shameful. I mean, I never even got the talk, right. A, a book appeared on the coffee table for a week and then disappeared. And apparently that was supposed to tell me about sex, but I never read the book, so I kinda missed out on all that. I had to figure it out later. But yeah, you know, lots of shame, lots of just the usual kind of Protestant stuff. So that's one way that the pagan approach and particularly the non theist pagan approach really differs from these predominant religious movements that dominate. Our society. Yucca: Right. Is that we're choosing to not use that framework. Right. Although it's something that we have to be conscious about because we're surrounded by it. We are, you know, we, we, it's part of the history that so much, so many of us come from that we can often fall back on it without even realizing that that's what we're doing. Mark: right. And there can be added dangers because if you're sex positive, for example, but you haven't really got your mind around consent. Yucca: mm-hmm, Mark: And you still haven't figured out that you're still steeped in patriarchy. Well, then you become an abuser, right? You become someone who's who assaults people. So it's really important for us to internalize all of these things as a package, you know, recognizing the ways that things are distorted and rendered unfair and iJust. In our culture so that we can be conscious about how we conduct ourselves, even in the context of being sex positive. Yucca: Right. Mark: This I think is, can be said to be. The big failing of the sort of sex free for all of the late sixties, early seventies. It was still very male dominated and the whole idea of consent culture hadn't really rolled around yet. Yucca: Right. Mark: So there were a lot of women who ended up having experiences that they did not want to have. And Hopefully, at least we in the pagan community have learned since then. I've been encouraged to see so much emphasis on consent and and integrity around relation relationships and sexuality in the pagan community. Yucca: Yeah. You know, that was something that I was so delighted to see at the sun tree retreat where consent, and I'm not even talking about sexual consent. I don't know. Maybe people were doing that. I didn't wasn't involved in any of that, but, but it just feel like may people, it was just so normalized where people, you know, asked permission to give a hug. Right. And I had my, my. My oldest child with me there, and nobody touched her without her permission. I watched over and over again, and that's not something that happens in our normal culture. People just think that they can touch a kid without the kid's permission. They might ask me as the parent for my permission, which is somewhat bizarre to me that. I mean, I appreciate asking the parent, but it's actually the kid who it's their body. Right. Whether you can, you know, pick them up or hug them or hold their hand, or, you know, you ask the kid. And that was something that, that just was so normalized at the sun tree retreat was just delightful to be around like, oh, I just feel so safe with all of these people. Like everybody is really respectful of that. And it was just, and it wasn't awkward, right. Because the first time we try and start making changes in a culture, it feels weird and awkward, Mark: It does. Yucca: right. To be like to stop and ask before you touch somebody, if it's okay to do so. But, but we've made that not awkward. Mark: Yeah. Yeah, that was lovely. I, I really appreciated that too. You, you touch on a subject that I think is another major difference between the mainstream religious traditions and. Hours, which is the possessory model Yucca: Right. Mark: because in UN under patriarchal religion, children are possessions and women are possessions of men. Yucca: yeah. Mark: And I mean, that's just all very awful, but in my opinion, but that's. The way it rolls and that possessory model extends to the entire rest of the world where life becomes something where of wealth or goods or particular desired things becomes the purpose of living and. And worst of all, in my opinion, land ownership, Yucca: Hm. Mark: I, I have a real problem with the idea of land ownership. Yucca: Mm-hmm Mark: I, I don't think a human should own anything that outlives that that's, that's going to be around for billions of years after they're gone. And I know that that's the model that we have and, you know, that's how capitalism works. Everything is a possession. Everything is a commodity to be bought, but in my own experience if land is in the commons and we're all responsible for taking care of it, and we have an, an internalized reciprocal relationship with the earth, I think we just end up in a much better. World, Yucca: Hmm. Mark: but of course that's just a thought experiment on my part. They were, they were doing it here in the Americas before settlers got here. But Yucca: It depends on which group, but yeah, right there was, there were, there were and are many, many different tribes. Yeah, I mean, that's a, that's a whole nother topic. That'd be interesting. There'd be a lot to, to sort out with that. Mark: I mean, it's, it's tough because you have well-intentioned land stewards. Right. And you, you want them to be able to be the people that are managing lands because they're doing it well. Right. Or at least they're trying to be doing it well, like the national park service which sometimes does it well, and sometimes does it not so well, but it's Yucca: we're private folks. Right? Right. Like I work with a lot. I mean, myself, I'm a landowner and I have a lot of, and I work with other landowners and in working on restoring our ecosystems and, you know, Mark: Yeah. Yucca: there's also, there's a. There's also a, a risk when things are sometimes what everybody is doing, may not always be the wisest thing to be. Mark: Yeah, fair enough. Yucca: There's, you know, there's certainly certain, you know, health or so-called health and political movements that are happening right now in certain places and not in others. And some that I look at and I go, whew, I. I think you're off. I think you're really off. I don't think that that's what the sciences is that there really isn't good evidence for that. I think the science is being misrepresented and yet things are being forced in one way or another. The part of the world that I'm from. We, we have had traditions here for hundreds of years and had people come in with very strong ideas about what we should be doing with public lands and not, and, you know, killed very old traditions. Right. You've got people coming in and thinking that that you shouldn't be that cattle on the land is bad. Just universally, no nuance there. Right. And then peop and then the people who've been doing it for hundreds of years, can't do it anymore. And their, you know, their livelihoods and their culture and their traditions have just been taken away because people came in and who were outsiders? Frankly, right. They come in from Northern California and from all these other places and go, you're doing our way now. And then they split anyways, they're gone. Most of the people who made those who made those rules, aren't even here and leave the, the destruction in, in their wake. So I, I hear on the one hand what you're saying that I think that it's a, that it's a very tricky matter, Mark: Well, I agree. I agree. And it's always. Once again, you know, the, the other big aspect of the over culture, other than the religious overlay and all the sort of value pieces is capitalism. Yucca: mm-hmm Mark: And it's very hard for us to imagine any other system than capitalism because we're steeped in that too. And it's a fair question. Well, if you're not gonna have capitalism, what are you gonna have instead? Yucca: and how are you gonna transition there Mark: Right. And how are you gonna get there? And that's, it's a legitimate question and I don't claim to have all the answers to that. What I know is that, you know, especially here, you know, watching what happens here in California, where we're so populated, you know, every, every. Get rich, quick developer wants to grab parcels on the edge of cities so that they can throw up some kind of quick, make a buck project and then head out of town. They're not gonna own it. They're just gonna throw it up and sell it. And, you know, we lose a lot of farmland that way. We have whole huge sprawling cities built on top of some of the finest farmland in the world. Yucca: Right. Mark: So. I don't know. Yeah. Yucca: a pretty impressive fault line too. Mark: Yes. Yucca: I might not be the, just putting that out there might might be maybe someplace that you might wanna reevaluate where you're putting large population centers. That's another question looking at well then where, where do you put large populations that Mark: Well, you D well, you don't put 'em somewhere where you don't have any water. That's that is where I would start. Yucca: that's a, and that's gonna be a problem in the area. We are look at it with the developments going up here and going, but there isn't you're you literally will not have water in 15 years. Like, what are you doing? Right. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: So, Mark: Yeah. We're gonna see suburban ghost towns. I'm sure. In places that just simply can no longer serve water to the, the people that they're under contract to. Okay. But we're, we're a. Yucca: off the field. Yeah. And, and I should say, I did mention, you know, I. I actually do level folks in Northern California, but that was, that is one of the specific areas where we've had issues, where people come from a very different cultural area, very different attitudes, access to resource and money. And then, you know, come here, make a bunch of changes and then split to the next new, cool place to be in. And. Know, those of us who were just kinda left behind, like, oh, thanks. that? Okay. You just you know, tripled our property taxes and priced out of our own town and destroyed our livelihood stake. So yeah. Mark: Let's go back to religion. Yucca: Religion. But the, the attitude, some of those attitudes, I think. They come out of our, what we've been talking about with the religious cosmology and the political systems, which informed those cosmologies Mark: Yes. Yes. I really think that's so, the, the very concept of democracy struck right at the heart of the domination by Christianity of the west. Yucca: mm-hmm Mark: Um, the, because of course the. The core principle of political rulership in Europe anyway, was the divine right of Kings, which was a declaration that was made by first the Catholic church. And then, you know, church of England and whoever that the Yucca: Jesus said give onto Caesar. Is that where they were getting it from? Mark: I have no idea, honestly, I don't, I don't know where it comes from, but there was some kind of I rationalization and that, that if your king is cuz God wants you to be king and therefore the structure of our society unfair and oppressive as it may be is God's will. Yucca: Mm-hmm. Mark: And the idea of democracy really strikes. The, the foundations of that. And as problematic as the founders of the United States were in so many ways and as Yucca: Even for their own time period at many boy. Mark: yes. In, in some cases, even for their own time period nonetheless. What they chose to do in setting up the United States was really very radical at the time. Now it it's not radical anymore. It needs a refurbish, but at the time and of course it was an inspiration for the French revolution. Yucca: mm-hmm. Mark: Which was also seeking to overthrow specifically the domination of not only the royalty, but of the clergy class the, they, they very much called out the churches as being culpable in the oppression of the people. Yucca: Yeah, it's a really interesting time, period. Mark: Very. Yucca: I mean, I think most time periods are interesting, but there's, there was so much change. Happening in the Western world at that point. Mark: Yes. Yes. And unfortunately what ended up happening was that they ended up with a dictator, but eventually they became a democracy and now Francis in reasonably good shape overall in terms of actually having a functioning democracy, of course, they've got a weird fascist part of their country that wants to vote. Marine Lappen. But other than that, but I, I digress. I digress, Yucca: gone on one tangent already. Mark: right. Let's okay. Let's leave it there. So when we talk about paganism, really what we're talking about is a, a radically different way of understanding ourselves, our relationship to the world, our relationship to our society around us and how. We envision an ideal world, all of those things. And it took me a lot of years to kind of soak up all of those things because you know, a lot of it, it's not like there's a book, there's no secret text in paganism. That'll just tell you, well, you know, here it is, this is, this is how we understand the world. And that's part of the reason why. You know, it's good for us to do a podcast like this to sort of spell out, you know, this is how we have come to understand living as pagans in the United States confronted with the issues that all of us confront. Yucca: Right. Well, and we should, at this point, say we do not speak for all naturalistic pagans. We don't speak for all athe pagans. We're, you know, We can talk about general themes that we see in most people or most atheopagan. But, but again, we're two people, right? And that's a, that's another big difference is, you know, we're mark. You're not the, you're not the Pope of, of atheopagan. Right. Mark: I'm the Nope of atheism Yucca: And, you know, there is a, there is a atheopagan society council. And, but again, we don't have the that's that's like you were saying, those are positions of service, right? That's that's, those are jobs that we're doing to try and help the community. Not because we're bossing and making decisions for everybody else. Mark: And that's a part of the core values of paganism is that we value diversity. And in valuing diversity, that means that we have to acknowledge that we're not all going to get into lockstep in March. Now hopefully we can agree about some common ideas and you know, proceed from there in order to help improve our world and to have good lives. But we also have to acknowledge that there are gonna be people on the fringes that disagree with us about core stuff. And they're still pagans. Yucca: Yep. Mark: They're still, you know, they're still doing rituals and maybe they're worshiping gods or, you know, observing the wheel of the year, whatever it is. You know, we're not, we're not trying to gate keep people who don't fit our model. Yucca: Yeah, well, and there's, there's a good cautionary tale about being in lockstep. There's a bridge in R. Which is a city in Southern Spain, and it has a very famous, beautiful bridge. And it's the stone bridge. It's amazing. It goes across this huge Gorge, but it's the second bridge that was built because the first bridge that was built, they went across, there was a procession. I think it was Simon. And they, the bridge collapsed because everybody was in step when they went across the bridge Mark: So they hit the residence frequency of the bridge Yucca: it collapsed. Yeah. Mark: it to death. Yucca: Yeah. And so when they rebuilt the bridge, they built the most overdone, its beautiful stone bridge. It's huge. Really look it up. It's just amazing. But Mark: It's gorgeous. Yucca: okay. Yeah, I lived there for a year. So walked across that bridge, you know, every day just stunning, but yeah, the first bridge came down and that's not, you know, there's warnings about other bridges. They tell you don't do that. When you go across, you know, you have to, don't be in step. Mark: The Romans learned this they, they had outstanding orders that their legions had to break step to cross bridges. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: and it's still a military thing today. You know, if you're gonna cross a bridge, you do not March across because you never know if you're gonna hit the wrong frequency and knock your bridge down. Yucca: So, bring that back as a metaphor of, you know, I think it's probably a pretty good thing that we aren't all in step with each other because we could, you know, we could hit that wrong frequency. So Mark: Yep. Yep. So what else did we have on our, on our Yucca: You know, Mark: of things to talk about? Yucca: we had to put as a category to talk about specifically how we differ from Christianity. But I think we've really been covering that. We kind of woven that in. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention specifically about that? Mark: Not, not that I can think of except insofar as acknowledging religious trauma. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: A lot of people arrive in both atheist spaces and in pagan spaces, having really been wounded by their experience with mainstream religions. Because they've been told that they're valueless and that they're tarnished and that they're That, that their only value is as a servant of God and that they're sinful and all those things. And in many cases, and particularly people that are marginalized you know, who, who can suffer greatly at the hands of mainstream religion. And I just feel like. It's important for us in the pagan community to acknowledge that this is happening and to do what we can to provide resources for people so that they can heal. When I've attended atheist conferences, what I've seen is a lot of angry people who just wanna argue against religion Yucca: Right, Mark: and, you know, having never been. A Christian or, you know, a member of any of those religions. I don't have that injury. And so my question is always, okay, well, so we're atheist now. What, Yucca: right. Mark: how do we live? How do we be happy? What's important. What, you know, what do we do? Yucca: Right. Mark: So, I really encourage our listeners. If you feel like that woundedness describes your situation, there are organizations and we can put a link in the show notes for people who are recovering from religion to get help and you know, really welcome you to our communities, if you choose to be in them. And Hope that you will find yourself feeling better about that stuff soon and able to move on into a better part of your life. Yucca: Right. Well, and that's also something to emphasize that we don't believe. What we do is necessarily the best fit for everybody, right? We're not worried about converting anyone. You know, we wanna be welcome welcoming and inclusive and invite, but certainly we have no interest in trying to go and. Make you believe the way we do or change your opinion on this or any, you know, this is, you know, this is by, this is a at will thing that we're doing, right. You're invited to join us and we'll love if you do, but if you don't, that's fine. Right? Mark: As, as, as people have sometimes said, if you don't like it, you can't have any Yucca: And so, well, This has been a good conversation. Mark: Yeah, I think so too. Thank you, Yucca. I really enjoyed kicking this around with you and I imagine we'll get some interesting feedback as always you can reach us@thewonderpodcastcuesatgmail.com and thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week. Yucca: By everyone. .

DIY Ritual Tools and an Invitation

Retirement Planning - Redefined

Play Episode Listen Later May 9, 2022 52:50

Join us on Zoom next Saturday for a LIVE recording of THE WONDER! The link is https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85648189246?pwd=a21Wb1RmMXJ3VVFFWG5mZit5cHhLZz09 Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com S3E17 TRANSCRIPT: ----more---- Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder: Science-Based Paganism. I'm one of your hosts, Yucca. Mark: And I'm the other one. Yucca: And today we're talking do it yourself, ritual tools. So we've got a pretty big list of fun kinds of things that you can be doing. But before we do that, we actually want to get into the why maybe, why would you want to be making these tools yourself rather than just buying the really gorgeous one that you see? Don Amazon or wherever it is. Mark: Right. The the, the first reason is obviously expense. You know, there are some very beautiful, a cult ritual tools that are made out there and they they cost. If you have that money, then it's fine to spend on those. But beyond that, there's the environmental concern about the. Putting one more thing. That's eventually gonna find its way into a landfill into the, the material stream and all of the associated packaging and shipping and all of those kinds of things. So those are, those are things to be cognizant of, but also there is that when you make something for yourself, you feel more deeply connected to. When we talk about sentimental value, that's what we mean. We mean that something has a personal meaning to us. That's associated with the story, you know, the story of how you made it or where the materials came from or what was happening at that time in your life. All of those kinds of stories that sort of cling to the object and help you to to have a deeper emotional relationship. All of which is. rich material for doing rituals. Yucca: Right. Yeah. And they, and these are things that can. They can build on each other. Right? So you have the ritual in which you're making the tool and then the first ritual that you use it in. And then the next one, then the next one, and it starts to have this, this long relationship that you have with it that you have that association every time you pick that up, that, Ooh, it brings you back to those right. Mark: Right. Yeah. So. I'm a big believer in this. And maybe some of that is because many times in my life I've been really broke. But. It's also, I mean, I've, I've said this quote before, but it really stuck with me, which is probably why I've said it a bunch a morning. Lori Zell once said to me, you know, if you can't do it with a stick, you picked up on the way to the circle. You can't do it at all. And that may be a little broad, but I do think that rituals that are effective are a function of skills. Just tools, you know, the arrangement of a bunch of physical objects doesn't make for any emotionally powerful ritual. And so the tools that we make, if they're meaningful to us, they can be more impactful and can help us to enact a more, a more compelling, powerful ritual. Yucca: Right. And we should note, you said skills, right? And skills are things that we build through practice. You don't start skilled at anything. Right. Humans start with a few instincts, you know, we can cry and we curl when we fall and we know to, to nurse and, blink, if something's coming our way, that's about it though. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: The everything else, walking, talking, all, everything. Those are all skills and ritual is skill too. Mark: Yes. Yucca: And, and building your tools, creating, crafting those that's a skill as well. And you don't have to be some incredible artist or craftsman for that for you to still be able to build that relationship into your, your items that you're using. Mark: Right. Right. And so. We've talked about the various kind of core ritual skills in podcasts before skills like drumming And movement and public speaking and singing those kinds of things that can be powerful. Movers of emotion in a ritual. Right. That's not really what the focus of this episode is. This is more about, you know, what about the material stuff that you use when you, when you lay out a focus or alter in order to do a particular ritual? Well, what's there and. What does it say to you to see those items there? And one of the things that can help those items to speak more loudly is for them to have a real association with you. So making it yourself can be a really cool thing to do. And in some cases, making it yourself can be as little as peeling the bark off a stick, you know, That's it. That's all that there is, you've got a stick and you like the shape of the stick and you, peel the bark off it and now you've got a want, it doesn't have to be, you don't have to put silver inlay in it. It's, it's just a stick. You like. Yucca: And you, and it can be something that everything is meaningful to you to write in, because if you buy that beautiful silver inlaid one, maybe it has some particular symbols on it, or it's got some runes or something in it that. It doesn't mean anything to you or it does. And it means something very different to you than it meant to the person who made it. And that doesn't quite have the right association, but that stick could be just the right curve for you. it could be the right species, or it just, just felt good in the moment. Right. Or you're designing when you're laying that out. Maybe you've got your cloth in and you can put it the way that is meaningful to you. And it's going to be completely. To someone else, but it gives you that, that freedom that you wouldn't necessarily have, if it wasn't you crafting and creating it yourself. Mark: Right. Right. And I do want to put in a shout out for artists. Yucca: Absolutely. Mark: You know, it, it, if you want to contract with somebody that, you know, has a lave and turns beautiful WANs and have them do a bespoke wand, that's Exactly. you know, the way that you want it to be out of the materials that you want it to be, you know, more power to you. We, we need to support our local artists. I'm I'm all in favor. But you don't have to have a sort of professionally crafted wand in order to have a wand that will feel good And work in the context of your ritual practice. Yucca: And you don't really need a wand either. Right. But if you do want one then awesome. Right. So, so don't think that anything we're saying here says you have to do this. You don't have to have a wand. You don't have to have, you don't have to anything. Yeah. Mark: That's that's really kind of core to what our whole practice is about this. It's not science-based paganism is not authoritarian. You know, we, we think of religions very often in that context because the big mainstream religions are authoritarian, but that's not our orientation to things. Our, our spirituality is creative and expressive and so. You know, doing something creative or contracting for something creative that expresses something that you feel that's all to the good now. If you want something that feels good in the hand and you can kind of point, you know, directing energy, it feels like or, you know, March around in a circle, cutting A line between what's inside the circle and what's outside the circle to define a safe space. Then something like a wand can be a really nice thing to do. I have several of them that I use for different purposes. I have one that is just a stick from red, from a Redwood, and it's a very nice stick. I've had it for a long time. And there it is. It's a stick. I have one that is a piece of dried kelp from the. And I mean, you can still kind of sea salt crystals on it and stuff. You know, when I'm, when I'm wanting to invoke that sort of primal power, like the ocean has that, you know, the, just the sheer force and, and power and history and life bringing capability and all those things that we associate with the ocean and with water, then that's generally what I use it for. I have one that's a human feet. That I, that I've used as a wand in in Hallows circles ceremonies. And I have another, that is an Oak branch that has a little silver dragon kind of twisted on to it that I, I put onto it. But it's a very special Oak branch to me because. It was part of a larger piece that I found in a state park and I took it off of that piece and I've seen the rest of it on hikes many times. So it feels like it's connected to the land here. And so you. see me telling these stories about these, these items. You can make items that have stories like that too. So, Something to consider. Yucca: Right. And just with wherever you are. So ones, aren't something that I do a lot, but I do have one that's actually made from a choice skeleton. So in the Southwest there's, we've got lots of different kinds of cactuses. And one is this one that they often grow these straight long stocks. And then when they die, it leaves behind this hollow wooden tube with holes in them. And they're just, they're just. Beautiful. And we've done all kinds of things with them. One of my favorite things is actually to fill them with a sewage and give it to the birds. So they have a fun time with that. But one of these ones I took and it was a walk that I had done. Well with my, one of the first walks that my daughter was able to do, and she was big enough to do one of those and we brought it back and we boiled it. And when you oil it up, it just becomes just so beautiful. And there are a couple of little spines left to take the mow those off. And so now that has that all of that association of the. The walk and the land and the birds, and then the oil, which was the tallow from one of our cows. And like, that whole thing there. So it's just, it's nice to hear you talk about, redwoods and things that, your experience with that, because we're doing the same thing in very different places. Mark: Right, right. Yeah. That's a wonderful story. And, and that's a great example of, you know, Part of what we always talk about here is paying attention and getting better connected with what's happening in nature. What are the, what are the, the natural artifacts that are sort of characteristic of where you live? You know, what are the trees? What are the. The plants you know, if you're in a coastal area, are there seashells that are particularly characteristic? I have an abalone shell that I've used for many years for offerings, pouring libations, burning, incense, all those kinds of things. And that brings me to the next kind of thing you can make, which is a concavity that will hold a liquid. Yucca: So a cup or a vessel Mark: A cup or a vessel of some kind. whether it's a dish or a chalice. Generally speaking, it's, it's very common for people to put something liquid on there. Ritual focus. I mean, it might be a glass of wine. It might be a bowl of water. It might be a it might be a potion that you make, right. That you stir up with herbs and essential oils and, you know, whatever, whatever else needs to go in there in order to. Put all the associations together, you can do that. In, you can do that in a large sense with a cauldron which is another thing that many of us want to have it, unless you're a really good black Smith. I recommend purchasing Yucca: That particular one. Mark: that, that particular thing rather than making it, but you can also do it in a bowl or in a chalice one freaking. Activity in many pagan rituals is a period of eating and drinking usually after the main working. And it's kind of a, it happens during the time of gratitude when you're, you're enjoying the fruits of the ritual and of being alive. You're sharing, breaking bread with the other people that you're working with, if you are. So there's a very community oriented feeling to that. So having some sort of cup or chalice or wine glass or whatever it is is another thing to have as a ritual tool. I have a chalice from a local Potter that I've used for many years. It has a motif of grape leaves on it for the, Yucca: What's your region is. Mark: Yes, very famous for so, but you can make your own you know, you can, you can mold it And fire it, or you can Yucca: And if you can dig the clay up too, if you happen to be somewhere. Yeah. We have several bowls that we've made from the clay that we dug up and then fired it. So we pit fired it on our own land as well. Mark: very nice. Yucca: Yeah. And so that, but you can also make things now, this won't work for holding liquid, that you can still make clay. You can still dig up clay and just not fire it and use that maybe for, and we should talk about this one as well, for things to hold your fire or your incense or your candles or things like that. Mark: Right, right. And that is another thing that. very frequently goes on a ritual. Altar is some, some form of fire. There's something about adding fire to a ritual alter or focus. Kind of says this is alive. Now it has, it has this active dynamic chemical process happening. It's not just a static arrangement of objects. It's something that is dynamic And alive. Yucca: And what it does with the light, it just makes it look like it's all it's dancing and, and it can, it has that ability to just pull you back. At least to me, it feels like this pull back through time of the thousands and thousands of generations before us of just of us being. Gazing into fires, looking at fires, being around buyers, cooking, it's just, you know, back inside the caves and there's this really powerful, just instantly can transform the feeling. Mark: For sure. Yeah. I, I, I feel the same way. I mean, we've domesticated fire ever since homo erectus, which was well before modern humans and there's just, there's something very. And very we have we have a symbiotic relationship with fire in the same way that we have one with dogs in, in many ways. We would not be where we are now, if it wasn't for our domestication of fire. So bringing that into the ritual space becomes very powerful. And especially if you're doing your ritual after dark, which which I tend to do for personal rituals and Not so much for seasonal observations. I like to do those during the daytime more except for Hallows. And you'll the rest of them. I like to be during the day. Yucca: Yeah. You know, I share that and I wonder if it's like this for you for me the night, field's a little bit more intimate. Mark: Hm. Yucca: a little bit more, I feel a little bit more vulnerable, a little bit more open. And so when I'm doing any personal work the night, just, I just feel more. Present with it. Then during the day, there's so much happening there. So, you know, I'm still able to create the separate space in this, away from it to do a ritual, but there's just something about it at night or at the transitions to the Dawn. And dusk are also time to Mark: right. Yucca: I'll do a lot, depending on what the ritual is. Mark: Of course. Yeah. I think that's very well said. I, I feel the same way. There's something about, you know, standing naked in front of my altar with the candles burning and no other light in the room and it's just flickering and there's this sort of other worldly liminal space that gets created Bringing us reeling us back in from that long tangent. That means you need to have a candle. Right. You need to have something. And that can be as simple as a flat stone that you melt wax onto so that then you can stick the candle down onto it, or it can be as elaborate as a candelabra or something like that. But you can make it. It's entirely possible to make your own in, in a bunch of different ways, sometimes people will use like a shot glass and Mount that onto some sort of a base to use as a candle holder. You just have to be careful that you don't let the candle burn down too far, because if it's not Pyrex glass, then, then the glass can break and that's no good. Yucca: Yeah, which is something that going back to the fire, just as a note if you are having some sort of fire, like a fire circle, something to be aware of is to be careful about putting rocks into your fire or next to the fire. Mark: Oh, yes. Yucca: if there's moisture in them, depending on the type of rock they can actually burst and you don't want to get hit by that. So just as like a quick little aside there, that reminds me of it. Mark: That's a really good point. And my, my experience with doing fire circle festivals has been that yes, you have rocks in the fire, but you let them burn for 24 hours before you have people gather around them. Right? So that if any of that exploding that was going to happen has already happened and you definitely don't want to be pulling. Boulders out of a stream or from a, from a stream bank that's Yucca: Yeah, right. Cause it could seem like I see it being like a beautiful thing of putting the rock in and then you come and get it the next day. And it's more whatever, but like with all of these things, especially when fire is involved, whether it's on your, your altar inside your bedroom or whether it's out around a circle, you just, just to be. Have that part of your brain still on, that's thinking about, Hey, you know, what's, how is this all connected? Mark: well, and you can help your, you can help yourself to feel less anxious and focused on that danger question by having the proper equipment to put a fire out. Immediately to hand. So, you know, if, if there's a fire extinguisher in your house, bring it into your room. If that's where your, your altar is and that's where you're going to do your work. Just sit it against a wall somewhere. It doesn't have to do anything. Yucca: And you can get those little mini fire extinguishers. We actually have one in each room. I'm gonna, you all are listening, but I'm going to hold it up and show mark right here. That was right within here. Mark: There it is Yucca: is a little one and they have little not very expensive. I think this was like a $15 thing that, you know, you can hang them in your rooms and they're there. They last for a long time. A lot of these you can get refilled. And if they are starting to go down, then you can save and you can look up some safe things that you can do with them in terms of making dry ice and things like that, which could be very fun for a ritual to have your dry ice to work with. Mark: Yeah, I've used dry ice in rituals before. It's really fun because you, because I mean, you, you put it in sort of a a deep vessel Yucca: And Mark: and the fog just. Billows. up. Yucca: And the way it moves across the floor. Yeah. Mark: so cool. Yucca: So you could do some wonderful things with that. Going back to the candles though. Another thing that we've done now, this might not be the, a seasonally appropriate time, but we've done ice candle holders, so you can make ice. And what we've done before is we've taken the. Like the muffin liners that are the silicone ones so that you can get it off really easily. So you fill those with water, you put it on a little trace, that'll then fit in your freezer and then take the, the silver line liners that come around tea candles and put something in them and weight them down so that it is in your. Muffin liner that you filled with water, and then you put that in the freezer Mark: An ice freezes around. Yucca: freezes around it. Yeah. And then you bring that out, take the little silver liner out and you put the actual candle in there and then it it's beautiful. The way that the light dances in the ice. And you would, if you're using it on an altar, you're going to want to have a little plate underneath it because it does melt eventually. But if you're having it like in an outdoor they could see people using this for like solstice or for February holiday. Right. And just out with the snow or the cold. And you've got the little tiny light in that vast darkness. And that's a really fun one too. If you've got kiddos and you can freeze things into the ice as well. Mark: Ooh. Yucca: So that's a good one to do. Mark: nice. I like that idea a lot. That reminds me of another thing that you can do With candles, which doesn't require a candle holder. It just requires a paper bag, which is to make luminaria which can be really kind of dramatic looking. If you make a bunch of them like to line a passageway or a path up to a place where you're doing a ritual you know, you, you put the little team. In the bottom of the paper bag. Wait Yucca: SIM with sand at the bottom or dirt. Mark: Yes. Some sand or dirt to weight it down so that you know, a wind doesn't blow it over and then light the bag on fire, all those kinds of things. Yucca: And those are also known as farolitos. So you might've heard them called either way. Mark: ah, little lighthouses. Yucca: Yeah. The Illuminati say like, at least here that's like a Southern term and then in the north we call them Mark: Ah, Yucca: so Mark: I like little lighthouses. That's great. But I lead. Yucca: yeah. They're the little ones. They're beautiful. So. That's something that might for Christmas Eve, my city does, it's an old tradition and of course it's got all the, like the Christian associations of leading Marianne and all of that, but it's still, it's still really very magical to be in the cold dark. And hopefully that'll start back up over the next few years. It was kind of, it wasn't much of it the last few years. Mark: Well, I hope so. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So you've got your fire container. Got your liquid container. You've got your pointer slash cutter. And we should talk a little bit about knives because a knife is something that is very commonly used in rituals. Almost always used symbolic. Just as sort of symbolically cutting the connections between two things or between a person and something in their life or something like that. But sometimes you also use the knife to inscribe a symbol in the wax of a candle, for example, or a. Maybe to do a craft project in ritual space where you're carving a piece of wood in the shape of something particularly meaningful. So having a ritual knife is a good thing. I actually have two of them, one of which is my sort of utilitarian knife that I think. Cut things with, and the other of which is a, an obsidian knife with an old candle that I made. And the, the point is sharp, but the edges are not. So it's definitely just a, just a symbolic knife. Yucca: I've seen someone I know had a, I think it was actually like a little letter Oprah. But it was a fancy, it was like an Excalibur, like repaid, but it's beautiful, you know, it's this little and it's not very sharp. So you could have, your knife could be an actual sharp knife, or it could be something that's just shaped like a knife or a sword or something just kind of in that, that vein, just depending on what your comfort level is with it and your purpose. Right. So I would imagine the two knives that you described, you'd use those in very different circumstances, right? Whether you choose the obsidian versus your, your utilitarian one, Mark: Right, right. Yeah. The utilitarian one doesn't even live on my focus. It it lives down with the supplies, cause it's just this sort of crappy old life that I use for this stuff. But the but the, the obsidian knife is on my focus and has been for 25 years or something. I don't, I don't remember when I made it. Maybe it's a little bit less than that. Yucca: Now this isn't in the realm of making, but I could see someone having like a real nice Leatherman on their focus. Right. I can see that as being a real, having a real strong association for them, especially if they were using it for its intended purposes. And then you're also using it like, oh, this is the thing that I used to cut this, or to get it into this can or whatever it is. And when, oh, and the car broke down, I had it. And here it is now I'm bringing all of that with me, into my ritual for this thing that I'm fixing in my life or I'm working on. Mark: Yes. And it, it means I have all the tools available to do what I need to do. Right. Yucca: Right. And I've invested in. And I've invested in the really good ones, right? Yeah. Mark: Yes. My Leatherman tool is a miniature one. It's about four inches long made by Winchester. Actually, it's the only thing I've ever owned made by Winchester, but it's very well machined as you would expect from a firearms maker. And it's, but it's identical to a Leatherman tool. It has the pliers and all that kind of. Yucca: Right. Yeah. And just, we are, we have no brand affiliations. We're all sponsored none of that stuff. Mark: no, Yucca: So that would be a strange twist. Mark: that would be a really strange twist. Yeah. Yucca: some other things kind of classics is a broom. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Okay. Mark: I make a. Every summer solstice. I make a sunroom. I go out and I find a place where there's some tall, wild ride rowing and that that can get like five feet high, four, four feet, five feet high. And so I cut it off at the bottom. And then I use, and I, I unwrapped the cord from the existing sunroom and I have a handle that is this kind of natural piece of Oak that I found. And then I use the new. The new rye and bind it with the cord, same cord again, and tie it off. And it makes this broom. I do this on the, on the summer solstice and then it sits out in the sun all day on the longest day. And the rest of the year, it lives in my house. And you know, along about January when it feels like there's never going to be sun again, I can pick it up and wave it around. And. Symbolically bring the feeling of some sunshine into my house. Yucca: Nice. You have another kind of similar thing. Don't you have a. That you make an burn at you make one time of the year and you Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I use corn shucks to make a little doll. That's called the rain baby and that the rain baby is born. At river rain, which is the February holiday it's like in bulk or Bridget. But where I live, it's the time when it's raining cats and dogs and will be for a month, or at least when we're not having a drought, it will. And so I make this little figure out of corn shucks, and it sits on the focus for all of the Sabbath. Going forward until we get to Hallows and then it burns in the fire and dies. And then it's time for another one when we come back around to February. So, and people make little corn dough, little dolls or puppets for any of a variety of different kinds of reasons. Some people make them to represent their family, you know, because. Feel really connected to their family and want their family members with them when they do rituals others do them to represent people they don't like, so they can do mean things to them. Just all depends on what you're trying to get done. Yucca: Yeah, so those are things right. And also going back to the. You know, the broom can be used for sweeping things away in ritual, right. For cleaning up or for breaking the ritual. Let's say you did like opening up the, the circle. Let's say you, you literally put something down like salt or a colored sand or something like that, where you drew in the dirt where you're standing, then you can take the broom and sweep that away. Mark: Sweep it away. Exactly what works really well for that. If you don't have sand, I mean, sand works really well and it's obviously completely benign, so that's a really good choice. But baking soda is it's very, it's it's, it's cheap. It's brilliantly white and it's harmless it. Won't. Yucca: well, and in this case, if you're working inside and you're on a carpet, then you can vacuum that up. Isn't that supposed to be good for cleaning your carpet? Mark: it's supposed to be good for the smell for any smells that have soaked into your carpet. It's supposed to be good. yeah. Yucca: So if that happens to be the time that the landlord who should not be coming into your house without asking, but if that, if they are, and they find you sprinkling something on their carpet, you're you're cleaning, right? Yeah. Well, what about other things that you can mark with? Because that's something that you're often going to want to do, right? You're going to be wanting to mark the ground or Mark A. Good candle, or maybe even your skin. Mark: a sigil. Any of those kinds of things. I do have a old fashioned Squibb type pen, you know, with the Stephen. You know, the, that you dip in an inkwell and, and run and rub with. And, and the shaft of it is a bone. I bought it at a Renaissance festival a long, long time ago. And it's really cool. So that's what I use when I'm doing like ritual inscriptions on parchment and stuff like that. I find that just having really. Quality materials makes a difference when I'm doing rituals. So I wouldn't use, you know, a legal pad. Instead I would get some good quality paper from like an art store to do that kind of work. And there's something that's just wonderful about, you know, dipping the pen into the ink and, you know, That's scratching sound on the paper and, yeah, it's great. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: But besides that, like, if you wanted to write something on yourself, for example, first of all, make sure you've got washable Sharpies that you're using. Yucca: Or Mada. Niemi not a Sharpie. I mean, what's your skin, but think about, you might want to use something like face paint or henna or something like Mark: Sure Yucca: Right. Because remember. Mark: the head is going to stain though. Yucca: Yeah, that that would be purposeful, right? If you were doing something like a sigil. But yeah, don't, I wouldn't suggest writing you. Your inner most vulnerable thoughts on your arm and then go into work the next day with everybody reading that. But if you could, if you can put that into a single form or put it into, you know, something like that, but face paint is a great option or for a less toxic option, like the children's markers, there's still not Mark: That's that's what I mean. That's what I mean, the washable. ones. Yucca: Okay. My Mark: not a regular Yucca: like a Sharpie, like a permanent marker, cause that Mark: no, no, no. That's, that's a really bad idea. Yucca: yeah. Mark: I'm glad you clarified that. Thank you. Yucca: Yeah. but, but some of them, so yeah, your, your kids markers, or you can actually get face paint markers still, they're probably not fantastic to be putting on your skin. Mark: Probably Yucca: But then you could also, you might not be able to write very well with these, but if you're thinking about trying to be connecting with your land where you live or the park near you, there's all kinds of plants and things that you can use to make little dyes with. Mark: Yeah. They'd make pigments for sure. Yucca: And that can be just a fun rabbit hole to go down. Right. It's find out, you know, what are the Mark: just be sure you got the right? plants. Yucca: right? Yeah. Well, it's better if you're, you know, you want to be careful when you're, if you're consuming any, any of those, but if it's just, if you're going to be staining paper or cloth, that's another one we should mention, right? The fabrics. Mark: Yeah. Lengths of fabric that you can use to establish the surface for your alter or focus. And those can be a various different kinds of patterns and colors depending on the season or the purpose of the ritual. I have some that are, you know, sort of spiderweb pattern and black others that are, you know, red and colorful and more springy in summary. It just, it depends on what you're working to do, but having those different lengths of fabric is a good thing to sort of stock up on. Yucca: Yeah. And you can use them in, in so many different ways. You're seeing putting it on the altar, but you could use it in dance or as a symbolic curtain that you're pulling back, or, I mean, all kinds of things. Mark: Right. Right. And they don't have to be super expensive. There are remnants at fabric stores for one thing. And also even. Sarongs for example, can be really affordable cotton sarongs and they have beautiful patterns on them. So that's another direction to look. If you have an international store somewhere near around you, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Another thing that I have that I really like using is a seashell, an abalone shell because we have abalone that are native to the coastline near here where I live. But also because abalone. Widely treated throughout the Americas. It was very prized by indigenous votes for use in various kinds of decorations. And it's been, you know, Pacific abalone. I'm pretty sure was found in the dig at Cahokia in the St. Louis area, you know, Southern Illinois So obviously it was really prized and really valued. Otherwise why would you transport it over all that distance and, you know, Yucca: Yeah, you have to carry that, that somebody walked it there. Mark: That's right. That's that's exactly right. So, I, I really enjoy having one of those shells. I can use it to burn herbs in or to burn incense. Abalone actually have little perforations in them, so it's not very good for holding a liquid. There. are little key hole things. In the surface. But other than that, they, because of that opalescent surface that reflects green and blue and all those wonderful colors. They're So pretty. They, they really make a nice thing to have on an altar, but there are lots of different kinds of shells that would also make, you know, really be a nice thing for an altar. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And I find that they are. Symbol of nature. Generally just have the beauty that nature can produce. Yucca: Yeah. So, are there any other kind of big categories because it's gonna often depend on what kinds of rituals and the purpose and your specific, you know, individual tastes, but are there other big categories that people would be likely to, to want a tool in, Mark: Well, another thing that we talked about that isn't really so much a ritual tool as it is kind of a seasonal marking that we talked about before we started recording is a reef. Yucca: right. Mark: People often make Reeves on a seasonal basis, maybe for the five stations of the wheel of the year. What I find to be a useful approach to that is to go to an art supply store or a craft store, but not hobby lobby some somewhere Yucca: We don't go to hobby Mark: We don't go to hobby Yucca: We don't go to hobby Mark: Yeah. Yucca: We have a Michaels, but. Is there a little bit better, but they're not, Mark: they're not, they're not Yucca: they're not actively homophobic. They might actually be, but they're not actively Mark: They're not pouring money Yucca: people over. Mark: into hurting LGBT people. So, but back to the Yucca: Yes. Mark: you can you can buy a Wicker ring. It's a woven ring of Wicker that is serves as the base for a reef. And then you can decorate that wreath with seasonal flowers and with ribbons and with all various kinds of nice things that remind you of the season. And then you can hang it on your door on your front door, or you can hang it up in your room or in. Living room in a prominent place, whatever, whatever seems appropriate to you. But what's nice about that is that it gives you a project to do every season and and it's sort of a declaration in a way, you know, okay. Spring is here, Yucca: Yeah, but the new one Mark: where I'm putting the new one up It's no longer late spring. It is now summer. So. Yucca: and you can having that, that pre-made ring is really nice, but you can also. Make your own initial ring, right? So take your, the different trees that are meaningful to you and take some branches and, you know, do whatever that particular tree is going to need to, to treat it and then wrap that with wire and then you just swap out each season, you swap out what you have on it. So you could, you could start with the, with that initial pre-made piece, or you can make it depending on what you were. Finances. And what materials you have, Mark: right. Yucca: It might make more sense just to buy it than to buy the wire that you would then need and the Clippers that you would then need and all of that. So, yeah. Mark: And we, we almost forgot the most important thing. Something to sit on. Yucca: Right. If you're going to be there for awhile, you might want your nice your cushion or your, what was the one who was the name of the. Mark: Oh, the, the. Buddhist meditation cushions are called zafu, Yucca: Yes Mark: for sitting Zaza in. Right. And they are very comfortable to sit on there. They're densely packed layers of cotton. As I get older, I find that sitting like cross-legged on the floor is increasingly painful. So I have generally gone to a chair at this point. But it, it is nice if you're, if you're laying something out on the floor, it's nice to be down on that level and with all the stuff that's around you. So, you know, There are so many different ways to do rituals and so many different purposes for rituals that it's hard to generalize about what kinds of tools you might be likely to need. But these are tools. The ones that we've been describing are the kinds of tools that you might come back to again and again, they're, they're they're multipurpose and they, they serve, they serve good uses in a lot of different kinds of rituals. Yucca: It's like building a kitchen, right? It's you know, your cutting board. You're not going to need your cutting board for every meal. You're not going to need that particular knife for every meal, but Ooh, probably a few times a week. It's going to be real nice to have the one that does the job that you want it to do just right. Mark: right. I haven't bought or made a ritual tool other than. And a femoral craft. That's going to be destroyed at some point or burned or something like that in many, many years, but there is a real satisfaction in knowing that you have all that stuff so that if you need to, if you feel the need to do a particular kind of ritual, you don't suddenly find yourself. Oh, but. This really requires a special knife and I don't have a special knife. Yucca: Yeah Mark: That kind of feeling. Oh, I did think of one other thing that you can do with a chalice. There are, I have two, I have two fun things to do with fire. So remember the part of, remember the part about the the fire extinguisher? The first one. And you can do this indoors. You just need to be careful. I, so propyl alcohol, 90% alcohol, not the 60% alcohol, but the 90% alcohol burns beautifully, and it burns at a very low temperature. So if you have a chalice or, you know, something else that can withstand heat, you can. A small amount of that in in that container and light it on fire and flames will leap up and make a beautiful dance until all the alcohol is burned away. It's, it's really pretty dramatic. And especially for banishing work for dispelling things. I've done rituals for other people where they really want something to go away. And boy, you know, you, if you slip the symbol of that into the, the chalice or, or font or whatever it is, pour that alcohol and then light it up and it's all leaping and going, they can really see that it's going away. Yucca: Oh, that sounds lovely. Mark: Yeah, it's cool. And the second trick, don't do this one indoors. Is the use of a handful of instant coffee creamer like coffee mate, which is basically just fat and sugar in a powdered form. And of course, powders and dusts are highly explosive because they have a lot of surface area. It powders and dust that are made of flammable material are explosive because they have so much surface area. They burn very, very quick. So tossing a handful of coffee creamer into a campfire we'll make these sort of fireball that will burst up from the flames. And, you know, if you're, if you're in the midst of invoking something important and it's time to, you know, here's the climax of the ritual and then boom, you throw this into the fire and Kapow, the giant burst of flame comes up. It's really dramatic. So it's one of my favorite ritual special effects. Yucca: Yes. Oh, that sounds fun. And again, I just cannot emphasize enough. My, my state is on fire right now and very right next to the. One of the largest fires we've ever had in the history of our state. So I'm just, just remember your fire safety, everybody fire is wonderful and incredible, and it can also just consume everything. So make sure that whatever you're doing, you thought out and you're doing safely. Mark: Right, right. Yeah. And candles candles particularly can be deceptive because the flame is so small, but you don't want to get them too close to anything else. Or the flame gets a lot better. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Right. If you, if, if there's anything hanging over it put your hand. If, if there's anything over, you know, above The candle, put your hand underneath it. If you can't stand the heat. From the candle that you feel coming up, then move the candle because it's too close. There's too much heat coming up. That's a trick you can use to be safe. I usually use chimney candles on my focus because they're stable. They're enclosed inside a glass cylinder. And they burn down and get farther and farther away from the lip of that Yucca: The chimney are those like the St scandals. Mark: well. It's at these don't have any saints on them. They're just call them columnar Yucca: but it's the same. I like, you would often find them with saints, but this is, it's the same kind of concept. Mark: Yes. Just a glass, you know, a tone narrow cylindrical glass filled with wax and the WIC. Yucca: So one of those was sagging on them once, Mark: Oh, I know Yucca: make him roll and roll in his grave. Mark: there's a whole series of saints of science. And you can get other people to you. Can you get Ruth Bader Ginsburg? You can get Martin Luther king. There's a whole bunch of those. And I think that's pretty cool. I wouldn't mind having Ruth Bader Ginsburg on my focus right now. Yucca: Thank you. Someone gave my kids a little story book about her and they're really into it right now. They want to read, they want to read the Ruth book. So it was like, cool. Awesome. Mark: Nice. Yucca: So, we didn't, there's so much, there's so much more, we should probably wrap up because we've been gone for a while now, but just thinking about all the different, like types of things that you could use and rituals and things that you can make. And we didn't talk about braiding things and books and all kinds of things. Mark: Yeah. There, there is a lot to talk about. But the. core point of this podcast is, you know, look around and see what are the things that attract you? You know, a lot of times when we're pagans, we collect a lot of natural things, pine cones and bones and all that kind of stuff. Well, what can you make with those? What, what, what might you put together, or maybe you don't need to make them, maybe you just use them as ritual tools by themselves. Like my Redwood stick. But, you know, be, be imagining in a different way, what those things. are. Maybe they're not just decorative. Maybe there's something that can have a symbolic meaning for you as well. So, we need to tell you that next week is a very unusual Episode of the wonder, because we are going to be recording this at the century retreat that Yucca and I are going to next In Herson. Yucca: we'll only be a few feet away instead of a few thousand miles. Mark: It is, it is hard to imagine, but that's actually going to happen. And Yucca: of you listening, we know are going to be there as well. So really excited for that. Mark: You can, if, if you're in the atheopagan is on Facebook group, there's an event there for the Saturday mixer, which says, you know, pay attention. There's a different time for this particular week for the, for the 14th of May. And what you'll do is you'll log into the zoom. And you can participate with us as we record the podcast, we're going to do a Q and a session and kind of a report about what's going on at century retreat. But mostly we're going to interact with people who call in and just have a good time. So, and then the audio from that will be posted on Monday as usual, or maybe a little later, because we may not have the ability to do that until after you get home yet. Yucca: Well, yeah, so it might, it depends on what, I don't know what the technical setup is. You said that there's pretty good wifi there. Mark: There's pretty good wifi in the dining hall. Apparently it's a little spottier in the other buildings. Yucca: Yeah. So I'll, I'll bring everything and we'll, hopefully we'll get it up at our regular time. But if not, it'll probably be you know, Monday night when I get a drive back home. So it's, it'll be, hopefully it'll be the same time, but we'll, you'll get that. You'll get your little lit pop-up when it comes. So depending on what app you're listening on, so. Mark: All right. Well, I am really excited for that. It's been coming for a long time. We've been talking about it and it's finally upon us. Yucca: Yeah, you're about to leave too. Aren't you? Cause you've got a ways to drive to get, since it's in Colorado, near in Mark: In California. Yeah. I leave Wednesday morning early. So I've still got a little bit of time. We're recording this on Saturday as usual. So I've, I've still got a little bit of time, but there's oh, there's just so much to do between now and then it's it's very exciting. I'm just, I can't wait. Okay. Yucca: thank you so much, everyone. Mark: Yep. Thanks everybody. And hope to see you on this, on the live zoom call next week. We'll post it in the in the podcast notes for this podcast, Yucca: Cool. Mark: how to join next week. Yucca: Great. Yeah. So just look at that. It'll be right above the transcripts since as usual. And we look forward to seeing y'all Mark: Yeah. All right. Have a wonderful week.

Ep 46: The Most Important Birthdays In Retirement Planning

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 26, 2022 21:32

There are certain age milestones where you should really pay attention to your retirement planning progress. On this episode, we'll look at the most important birthdays as you approach retirement and cover the exact things you should be checking off your to-do list at each age. Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Mark: Hey, everybody. Welcome into another addition of the podcast. This is Retirement Planning Redefined, with John and Nick and myself, talking investing, finance, retirement, and birthdays. Mark: We're going to get into important birthdays in the retirement planning process. As we get older, I don't think any of us really want birthdays, but these are some things we need to know. They're pretty useful. Some of this is pretty basic. Some of this stuff's got some interesting caveats in it as well. So you might learn something along the way. It can go a long way towards that retirement planning process. Mark: We're going to get into that and take an email question as well. If you've got some questions of your own, stop by the website, pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com. Mark: John, what's going on, buddy? How you doing? John: A little tired. Got woken up at 2:00 in the morning with two cranky kids. Mark: Oh yeah. John: So if I'm a little off today, I apologize. Mark: There you go. No, no worries. You get the whole, they climb the bed, and then you're on the tiniest sliver? John: I got one climb into bed, I think kicked me in the face at one point. Mark: Oh, nice. John: Another one climbed into bed missing out on the other one, because they share a room. Then I had the sliver. I woke up almost falling off the bed. Mark: There you go. And usually freezing because you have no blankets. John: Yeah, yeah. Mark: That's usually the way it goes. Nick's sitting there going, "I don't know what you guys are talking about." Mark: What's going on, buddy. How you doing? Nick: Yep. No. Pretty low maintenance over here. Mark: Well, that's good. Hey, don't you have a birthday coming up? Nick: I got a couple months still. Mark: Okay, a couple months. Nick: Yeah, I just got back from a trip a few weeks ago. Some buddies that I grew up with, a group of us have been friends for a really long time, I guess, going back to middle school. We're all turning 40 this year, so we rented a house in Charleston, and all survived. Mark: Nice. There you go. Nick: Yeah. It was good. John: This is how you know Nick's turning 40. He came back with neck pain. Mark: Exactly. Nick: Yeah. Mark: Hey, when you start to get a certain age, you start going, "When did I hurt that?" It's like, "I didn't even do anything." Yeah. You don't have to do anything. Mark: Well, you know what? That's a good segue. Let's jump into this. Mark: We're going to start with age 50. I turned 50 last year. First of all, the thing that sucks is you get the AARP card. I don't know about all that. That's annoying as a reminder that you're 50. Mark: But the government does say, "Hey, let me help you out a little bit here if you need to catch up on some of the retirement accounts, help building those up." Talk to me about catch up contributions, guys. Nick: Yeah. Essentially what happens is when you hit 50, there's two types of accounts that allow you to start contributing a little bit more money. The most basic one is an IRA or a Roth IRA, where the typical maximum contribution for somebody under 50 is 6,000 a year. You can add an additional thousand to do a total of 7,000 a year. The bigger one is in a 401(k) or 403(b) account, where you're able to contribute, I believe it's an extra 6,500 per year. Nick: This is also a good flag for people to think about where, hey, once that catch up contribution is available, it's probably a good time, if you haven't done any sort of planning before, to really start to dial in and understand your financial picture a little bit more. Because if you talk to anybody that's 60, they'll tell you that 50 didn't seem too far back. So that's a good reminder to dig into that a little bit. Mark: Yeah. It adds up. It's not necessarily chicken feed. You might hear it and think, "Well, a thousand dollars on this type of account over a year, or 6,500 on the other type of account, whoopedidoo." But if you're 50 and you're going to 67, let say, for full retirement age, and we'll get to that in a little bit, that's 17 years of an extra seven grand. It's not exactly chicken feed, right? Nick: No. It's going to be big money down the road. Mark: Yeah, exactly. So that's 50. Mark: John, talk to me about 55. This one's really similar to 59 and a half, which most of us are familiar with, but most people don't understand the rule at 55. So can you break that down a little bit? John: Yeah. We don't see people utilize this too often, but an example would be let's say you're 50, 55, 56, and for whatever reason, you leave your current job. You have an opportunity, at that point... John: Let's give a bad scenario. You get laid off. If you didn't have a nest egg saved up in savings, there's an opportunity to actually access some money from your 401(k) plan without penalty. What you'll do is, basically, you take the money directly from the plan, and you just have it go to your bank account, and the 10% penalty's waived. John: Now, some people need to be careful with this. Once you roll it out to an IRA, this 55 rule here, where the 10%'s waived, ceases to exist. It has to go from the employer plan to you directly in that situation. It's a nice feature if someone finds themselves in a bad situation, or they need access to money, and the 10% penalty's gone, but you still have to pay your income tax on that money [crosstalk 00:05:03] Mark: Of course. Yeah. That caveat being, it's only from the job that you've just left, right? It can't be from two jobs ago kind of thing. It's got to be that one that you've just walked away from, or been asked to leave, or whatever the case is. That's that caveat. John: Correct. Mark: It's basically the same rules, Nick, as the 59 and a half. It's just is attached to that prior job. But 59 and a half is the more normal one. What's the breakdown there? Nick: Yeah. Essentially what happens is, at 59 and a half, you are able to take out money from your qualified accounts while avoiding that penalty without any sort of caveats. One thing to keep in mind is that usually you're taking it out from accounts that... Nick: For example, if you're currently employed, the process of taking it out of the plan where you're employed can be a little bit different, but it's pretty smooth and easy if you have an IRA or something like that outside of the employer plan. Nick: One other thing that happens in most plans, for people at 59 and a half, is, and we've seen it a bunch lately, where a lot of 401(k) plans have very restricted options in fixed income and those sorts of things, where most or many plans allow people to take inservice rollovers, where they're able to still work at their employer, but roll their money out of the plan to open up some options for investments outside of the plan. Nick: That's not always the best thing for people. Sometimes the plans are great. Fees are really low. Options are great. So it may not make sense, but oftentimes people do like having the option to be able to shift the money out without any sort of issue. Mark: Okay. All right. So that's the norm there. You got to love that half thing. You always wonder what the senators or whoever was thinking when [crosstalk 00:06:56] John: Finally, they got rid of the 70 and a half [crosstalk 00:06:58] Mark: Yeah. They get rid of that one. Yeah. We'll get to that in just a minute as well. Mark: John, 62, nothing too groundbreaking here, but we are eligible finally for Social Security. So that becomes... I guess the biggest thing here is people just go, "Let me turn it on ASAP versus is it the right move?" John: Yeah. So 62, you're now eligible. Like you said, a lot of people are excited to finally get access to that extra income. You can start taking on Social Security. John: Couple of things to just be aware of is, any time you take Social Security before your full retirement age, you will get a reduction of benefit. At 62, it's anywhere, depending on your full retirement age, roughly 25 to 30% reduction of what you would've gotten had you waited till 66 or 67. Mark: They penalize you, basically. John: Yeah. Nick: Yeah. Actually, if you do the math, it ends up breaking down to almost a half a percent per month reduced. Mark: Oh wow. Nick: Yeah. It really starts to add up when you think about it that way. John: Yeah. We always harp on planning, so important if you are thinking about taking it early, once you make that decision, and after a year of doing that, you're locked into that decision. So it's important to really understand is that best for your situation. John: Other things to consider at this age, if you do take early, Social Security does have what they call a earnings penalty slash recapture. If you're still working and taking at 62, a portion of your Social Security could be subject to go back to them in lieu of, for a better term, [crosstalk 00:08:27] Mark: It's 19,000 and some change, I think, this year, if you make more than that. John: Yeah. Mark: Yeah. John: Yeah. Anything above 19,000 that you're earning, 50% goes back to Social Security. [crosstalk 00:08:36] Mark: Yeah. For every two bucks you make- John: 5,000 goes back to Social Security. So that's really important. John: Something that I just want to make, last point on this, is that earnings threshold is based on someone's earned income, and it's based on their own earned income, not household. That comes up quite a bit, while people say, "Well, I want to retire and take at 62, but my husband's still working. Am I going to have a penalty if I take it?" The answer is no. It's based on your own earnings record. Mark: That's where the strategy comes into play too. Because if you are married, then looking at who's making more, do we leave one person's to grow, as we're going to get into those in just a second, to grow towards that more full number. Mark: Again, that's all the strategy. It may make sense for one person to turn it on early, and the other person to delay it. That's, again, part of the strategy of sitting down and talking with a professional, and looking at all the other assets that you have, and figuring out a good move there. Mark: Nick, let's go to Medicare. 65 magic age. Nick: Yeah. Actually, my dad turns 65 this year. So we've been planning this out for him. He is a retired fireman, so he has some benefits that tie in with his pension. Nick: One of the things that came up, and just something that people should think about or remember, even if they are continuing to work past 65, is it oftentimes makes sense to at least enroll in Medicare Part A. You can usually enroll as early as three months before your birthday. The Medicare website has gotten a lot easier to work with over the last year or two. Nick: Part A, the tricky thing is that you want to check with your employer, because usually what happens for the areas that Part A covers, which is usually hospital care, if you were to have to be admitted or certain procedures, it's figuring out who's the primary payer, who pays first, who pays second. So making sure that you coordinate your benefits. Check in with HR, if you're going to continue to work. Nick: If you are retired and are coming up on that Medicare age, make sure that you get your ducks in a row so that you do enroll. Most likely you're going to start saving some money on some healthcare premiums. Mark: Technically, this starts about, what, three months early? It's a little actually before 65. I think it's three months when you got to start this process, and three months before and after. Nick: Yep. Yeah. You can typically enroll three months before your birthday, and then through three months afterwards. There can be some issues if you don't enroll and you don't have other healthcare, at least for Part A. There can be penalties and that sort of thing. Nick: Frankly, with Medicare and healthcare in retirement, this is a space that we typically delegate out. We've got some good resources for clients that we refer them to, because there are a lot of moving parts, and it can be overwhelming, especially when you start to move into the supplements and Advantage plans, and all these different things. Mark: Oh yeah. And it's crucial. You want to make sure you get it right. A lot of advisors will definitely work with some specialists, if you will, in that kind of arena. So definitely checking that out when we turn 65. Mark: Again, some of these, pretty high level stuff, some of this stuff we definitely know. But we wanted to go over some of those more interesting caveats. Mark: Let's keep moving along here, guys. Full retirement age, 66 or 67. John, just what? It's your birthday, right? John: It is your birthday. That's the time that you can actually take your full Social Security benefit without any reduction, which is a great thing to do. Then also that earnings penalty we discussed earlier at age 62, that no longer exists. Once you hit your full retirement age, 66 or 67, you can earn as much as you want and collect your Social Security. There's no penalty slash recapture. John: When that happens, people have some decisions to make. If they're still working, they can decide to take their Social Security. I've had some clients that take it, and they use that as vacation money. I've had some other ones take it, and they take advantage of maxing out their 401(k) with the extra income. Or you can delay it. You don't have to take it. You get 8% simple interest on your benefit up until age 70. John: So full retirement age, you got a lot of big decisions to make, depending on your situation. But you want to make sure you're making the best for what you want. Mark: Definitely. Nick: Just as a reminder to people that that 8%, and you had mentioned it, but it does cap out at age 70. So there's no point in waiting past 70, because it doesn't increase any more. Mark: Right. Thanks for doing that. It wasn't on my list, but I was going to bring it up real fast. So yeah. People will sometimes email and they'll say, "Hey, I want to keep working past 70. How's that affect Social Security." It's like, "Well, you're maxed out, so you got to just go ahead and get it done." You can still work if you're feeling like it. Your earnings potential is unlimited, but it's just a matter of you're not going to add any more to it. So I'm glad you brought that up. Mark: John, you mentioned earlier, they got rid of the other half. Thank God. The 70 and a half thing, just because it was confusing as all get out. They moved it to 72. Nick: Yeah. Required minimum distributions, as a reminder for people, are for accounts that are pre-tax, where you were able to defer taxation. 401(k), traditional IRA, that sort of thing. At 72, you have to start taking out minimum distributions. It starts at around 3.6, 3.7% of the balance. It's based on the prior year's ending balance. It has to be taken out by the end of the year. Nick: An important thing for people to understand is that, many times, people are taking those withdrawals out to live on anyways. So for a lot of people, it's not an issue at all. However, there are a good amount of people that it's going to be excess income. Nick: Earlier mentioned, hey, at age 50, really time to check in and start making sure that you're planning. One of the benefits of planning and looking forward is to project out and see, hey, are these withdrawal going to cause you to have excess income at 72, where maybe we're entering into a time that tax rates could be higher, tax rates could be going up, which is fairly likely in the next five to 10 years. So if we know and we can project that, then we can make some adjustments to how we save, should you be putting more money into a Roth versus a traditional, and how we make adjustments on the overall planning. Nick: So making sure that you understand how those work, and then the impact that it has on other decisions to take into account for that situation, is a huge part of planning. Mark: Definitely. Those are some important birthdays along the way. You got to make sure you get this stuff done. 72, there's the hefty penalties involved if you don't do that. Plus you still got to pay the taxes. All this stuff has some crucial moments in that retirement planning process, so definitely make sure that you are not only celebrating your birthday, but you're also doing the right things from that financial and that retirement planning standpoint along the way. Mark: Again, if you got questions, stop by the website, pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com. You can drop us an email question as well, if you'd like. That's what we're going to do to wrap up the show right now. Mark: We got a question that's sent in from Jack. He says, "Hey, guys. I've thought about meeting with a financial advisor to plan my retirement, but I've never used a budget or anything like that before. So I'm wondering, should I budget myself for a couple of months before I meet with a professional?" Nick: Based upon experience, putting expense numbers down on paper is one of the biggest hurdles for people to get into planning. But with how this question is phrased, I would be concerned, because it's kind of like the situation of starting a diet. You start a diet. You're going to eat really good for two to three weeks. You're trying to hold yourself accountable. You're functioning in a way that isn't necessarily your normal life. Nick: One of the things, as advisors, that we want to make sure that we understand are what are you really spending. It's great to use a budget, but if you're budgeting to try to look good in the meeting, which we've seen happen, you're painting a false picture, and you're not letting us know what the finances actually look like. Nick: So I would actually say to put down the real expense numbers in place, let's see what it really looks like, and then if we need to create a budget after we've created a plan, then that's something that we can dig into. Mark: Yeah. John, let me ask you, as we wrap this up, sometimes people associate seeing a professional financial advisor with a budget. Also, people have a cringe to the B word. They think, "Well, I don't want to live on a fixed budget," or something like that. Mark: That's not necessarily what we're talking about, right? That's not probably what Jack is referring to. He's just trying to figure out, I guess, more income versus expenses, right? John: Yeah, yeah. The first step is to analyze your expenses. That could be what he's referring to as far as, "Hey, should I take a look? Should I get my expenses down before I meet with someone?" John: I'd agree with Nick, even if that's what you're looking at, versus the budgeting, I would say no. I think the first step is sit down with an advisor, because they can assist in categorizing the expenses correctly based on today's expenses, versus what expenses are going to be at retirement. John: I think it's important just to get going rather than trying to prep. Because we've seen a lot of people that have taken ... They've been prepping for years to meet. That's years where they haven't done anything, and they've, unfortunately, lost out on some good opportunities, otherwise, if they just said, "Hey, I'm going to sit down first, see what's going on." Mark: Yeah. It gives you that built-in excuse. John: [crosstalk 00:18:26] Mark: It gives you that built in, "Well, I'm not quite ready." Well, you might never be ready if you play that game. Especially a lot of times when it's complimentary to sit down with professionals, have a conversation. Most advisors will talk to you, no cost or obligations. So why not right? Find out. Just get the ball rolling. That's the first step. It's usually the hardest part too. Nick: Yeah. One thing that we typically tell people is that we are not the money police. We are not here to tell you that you can't use your money the way that you want to use it. Nick: The way that we view ourselves, and what our role is as an advisor, is to help you understand the impact of decisions. Whether those decisions have to do with spending money, saving money, whatever, it's to make sure that you understand the impact of your decisions so that you make better decisions. That's it. Mark: There you go. Yeah. It's your money, at the end of the day, your call, but certainly having some good, well, coaches in your corner, if you will, advisors to help advise, that's the whole point. But I like that. Not the money police. Mark: All right. That's going to do it this week, guys. Thanks for hanging out. As always, we appreciate your time here on Retirement Planning Redefined. Don't forget. Stop by the website. Mark: If you need help before you take any action, we always talk in generalities, and try to share some good nuggets of information, but you always want to see how those things are going to affect your specific situation. Mark: If you're already working with John and Nick and the team at PFG Private Wealth, fantastic. Then you already have a lot of this stuff in place. But if you have questions, or you're not working with them, or you've come across this podcast in whatever way, or maybe a friend shared it with you, definitely reach out and have a chat. pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com. Don't forget to subscribe on whatever podcasting platform app you like to use. Mark: We'll see you next time here on the show. For John and Nick, I'm your host, Mark. We'll catch you later here on Retirement Planning Redefined.

talk llc investment options advantage charleston medicare fees required thank god birthdays roth social security aarp roth ira retirement planning markit john it mark john john yeah john so mark yeah john let mark well mark oh mark right nick no john finally mark let mark they nick yeah mark all nick so mark okay mark hey mark nick nick for nick one john now nick just

You Deserve Pleasure

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 18, 2022 25:49

Suntree Retreat: https://theapsocietyorg.wordpress.com/news-and-events/suntree-retreat-2022/ Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com S3E14 TRANSCRIPT:----more---- Mark: Welcome back to the wonders. Science-based paganism. I'm mark. And I'm one of your hosts. Yucca: And I'm Yucca. Mark: And today we're going to talk about pleasure and sensuality and how we relate to that psychologically and what we can do for ourselves in order to more deeply. Enjoy our lives in essential sense. It's spring time and it's getting warmer out and people are wearing less clothing and it's just kind of feeling like everything's getting going again and we're coming up on Mayday or bell pain. So we thought this would be a good time to do this episode. Yucca: Exactly. Yeah. It's definitely something for any time of the year, but particularly right now it feels, it feels like a good moment for it. And yeah. And we'll come back next week. We'll be talking more about Mayday or belting and some of the themes that can go along with that, which will, we're getting into a little bit today. We're going to focus more on that physical pleasure side today. Mark: Right, right. Yeah. Next week we can talk about rituals and observances and all that good kind of stuff for the holiday. But thematically, this is something that's kind of a bigger human issue so where should we start? Yucca: Why don't we start with the idea of pleasure, because this is something that in. Paganism. We tend to have a different take on then much of the over culture does. And a lot of the other religions Mark: Yeah, that's certainly been my experience. I mean, one of the earliest things that I heard when I entered the pagan community was that one of the things that defines us as different from the predominant over culture is that we, our pleasure pauses. And that is it's principle 10 of the atheopagan principles. It's something that I have not only observed broadly in the community, but also have taken into myself as something to embrace. Not without struggle. I should say. And we're going to talk about that a lot. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: But fundamentally from a values standpoint, we don't think there's anything wrong with enjoying. Quite the contrary, Yucca: Consensual, right. Few episodes back. We talked about. About consent and all of that. And we're, this is all assuming that this is consensual, you know, this is, or we're talking about in yourself, but in no way, are we saying that, you know, it's okay for you to just do something that hurts somebody else? Cause you like it. That's not what we're talking about. We're saying that it's, it's okay for you to feel good. In fact, it's probably really, really good for you and good for everybody around you and the rest of the world, because. Miserable people are not good company and aren't very effective that change. Mark: No, no. And having spent many years in the activist community, I can testify to the. You know, the sort of bitter angry zealots that that are interspersed amongst the activist community, who they just, they don't have a positive word to say about anyone or anything. And you can just tell that they're miserable and you know, really what they need is a lot of kindness. And. A lot of pleasure to just kind of transform the idea that they have of the world is a horrible place. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And it's, you know, we're not saying, we're not saying that there aren't horrors in the world because there are so, you know, we're not implying, oh, you know, feel good, have a great time. By itself. You know, this is within the context of understanding that there are terrible things in the world that we need to change and we need to work to change. But while we're doing that, we're living our one precious life. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: precious life is to be enjoyed. It's it's, you know, we have all of these nerve receptors all over ourselves, not just to Not just to tell us when something is injured or hurts, but also to bring us pleasure. Right. Otherwise, a massage wouldn't feel good. Sex wouldn't feel good. A delicious pastry wouldn't taste good, Yucca: Long bath or, Mark: Or. Yucca: a nap in the sun. Yeah. Mark: all those wonderful things. We have pleasure centers for a reason and it is perfectly okay for us to stimulate them. And there's no, there's no downside to that. So long as everybody who's involved is consented, which kind of brings us to. The the over culture. I mean, we just talked about the pagan culture and we can talk more in examples about that, but. The over culture has a radically different way of looking at this. That's rooted in Christianity and Christianity, particularly Protestant Christianity, since the Protestant reformation is deeply suspicious of pleasure. And in many cases shaming about it. Yucca: Right. Mark: It, there are lots of arbitrary rules about where, when you are allowed to feel pleasure. And when you're not Yucca: And what specific times? Right? Mark: there are arbitrary times of year when you're supposed to deny yourself things that you enjoy, just because reasons, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And all of this conspires to inculcate within us, this feeling of discomfort at the least, but in many cases, real shame around enjoying ourselves in a sensual sense. And that is crippling to people. It's very, very hard to be a happy person. If that's the context that you, you live. Yucca: Yeah. And I think one of the sources of this is control, right? It's a way of controlling people. Shame is a way. Making sure that that system, that structure is maintained. And when you have people feeling bad and shameful about the things that they could be doing that might, that might make them realize that they don't need to be doing what you're saying, or don't need to be following this, or it's, you know, that, that, that whole system starts to crumble when people just. Don't feel bad about these things that they're supposed to. And, and you mentioned this coming from a lot from the Protestant and I agree, but I think that it, it comes from that a lot, but it influences all of us today, whether we're from those particular religions or not, that has a huge influence on everybody. And especially if, if you went through the school site, Right. There's a few, a few folks out who might have that this point been unschooled, but pretty much everybody else went through the school system, which was designed to control you based on, on a lot of different things. But one way denying you from, from enjoying things and punishing you for enjoying those things and making you do these other things. Mark: Right. And teaching you about obedience to authority and denying yourself in the name of somebody else's rules. Yucca: Right. Don't question, right. That's not, you know, it's not whatever, it's not respectful. It's not proper. It's not don't you want to learn what are all these, these things. And so I think that, that it happens that has happened to all of us to some degree. Yeah. That we are making the conscious choice as pleasure, positive Higgins. That's a nice one. That's a piece in there that, that we don't want to agree with that, but it's something that we have to think about not necessarily every day, but think about because it's, we're surrounded by it. We're steeping in it, it slips back in without us even thinking, without realizing, being conscious of it. Mark: right. Yeah. I mean, even after 35 years of being a pagan I, I confront this on a daily basis, right. Because the window of my room faces onto the parking area of the complex that I live in. Now, people aren't generally walking around, it's unusual for somebody to actually pass in front of my window, but I have to get dressed. And I don't sleep with clothing on. So, which is pleasurable by the way, at least it is for me, which is why I do it. Just Yucca: know about you, but the nice sheets, this like Mark: Oh yeah, Yucca: And you get underneath the sheets and you can like rub your legs together. And it's just wonderful. Mark: yeah. Yucca: That's one of my favorite things. Mark: Huh. yeah. so, Okay. Agreed. But then I have to get out of the bed and suddenly I am on display to the neighborhood and. I work very hard not to have that impact, you know, so that I'm not rushing. I'm not, you know, running to the closet to get myself a pair of pants. I'm not doing any of that. I'm taking my time and doing the things that I want to do in the morning. And by God is somebody outside gets offended. Then I'm going to deal with that when it comes along. But yes. Yucca: Okay. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. So, and you know, thus far, no one has seen me and we've been here for almost a year. Because you know yeah. Yucca: depend that long. Wow. Mark: well, yeah, we moved in in oh, no. We, we got noticed that we had to move in. May we moved in July, Yucca: Okay. Mark: so it's 10 months. Yucca: No, it's practically a year. Wow. Okay. Mark: Time flying. So, you know, here's, here's a perfect example. It's like at this time of year I mean, we just had a little rain here, so it's a little chillier now, but we've been having days that are like 75 degree days In the best of all possible worlds. Other than maybe a hat and some sunblock, I wouldn't wear anything. I would just go outside and walk around. Cause it's nice and the sun feels good on your skin, but we live in a culture where you can't do that. And it's actually enshrined in law that you can't do that for no reason. Other than that, the V over culture, which is driven by Christian ideas. Encourages this idea of shame of the body and shame of central pleasure. And it's just, it's a shame. But when you think about it, it's a pretty clever con Yucca: Hm. Mark: because, okay, we're going to make you ashamed of. These natural things that you gravitate towards and we're going to call them sins. And then the only way you can get the sins taken off is through our institution. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Right? It's like, it's rather like having a car where the parts are only made by. The particular company that manufacturers your car. And so you will keep going back to them for parts over and over and over again. So we were talking about this before we started the recording and there is a word for this. There's a term for this, which is purity culture. And you had said some really interesting things about that Yaka. Yucca: We were talking. Places where we see this. And one of the places that I see this is in is around diet culture, whatever the particular diet is. You know, people talk about, you know, clean eating and you know, clean lifestyles and all of these things. And I think that that framing is a, is a really destructive and harmful framing. Mark: Because what is, what is dirt? Right? What is dirt? Dirt is soil the most miraculous stuff on earth. Yucca: it's earth. Right. Mark: the stuff that gives us life. Yucca: Yeah. And, and also stuff that gets used, like cheat meals and things like that. I'm like cheating. Like what you, what are you implying by all of this? Mark: Right. Yeah, When, when you say cheat, you're automatically asserting a moral framework, right? There is a virtuous behavior and there is an unvirtuous behavior. And the virtuous behavior inevitably has to do with some sort of shame-based thing You can see it on the labels of food products. You know, it'll say natural or low fat, or, you know, low sugar or, you know, all these things. Yucca: the thing is. Mark: Whenever the thing is that are, that is. directly keyed to a shame response that you have within yourself because you learned it because you learned it from parents, from authority figures, from the society at large, from advertising. And for one thing, there's no such thing as purity. There just isn't, it doesn't exist. It's Yucca: Yeah, it's made up. It's not. Mark: an arbitrary and destructive idea, just like virginity, it's an argument. It's a, a destructive idea that doesn't help anything. It just doesn't help anything. For another. It, when it's pursued to its logical extremes, it has very destructive impulse impacts. I'm sorry. I mean, certainly you see it in ever angelical Christianity where teens are being bombarded with these messages about their bodies, about sexuality, about relationships, about all this stuff. And it is so. Harmful. And there aren't countervailing voices in many cases to provide an alternative perspective. Yucca: it's not even just starting with the teens, it started way, way younger than that. Mark: You're right, Yucca: Yeah. It's you know, that we will start to hear about it from the teams because sometimes there's the team because of the teams will start to talk about. Right. But the younger, the kids, they don't know that they don't have platforms to talk about it yet, but but yeah, there's just some, there's some stuff out there that's like, wow. Like, oh, that, that hurts just to think about, you know, just the, the you know, just being. Ashamed of your body, of yourself, of your gender, your sex, whatever you are, you know, on top of just all of the other things about how, you know, we're with the advertising about, that's always there to try and convince us that. Not good. We're not perfect. And here's the thing to make us perfect. And, and even once you get the thing, it doesn't work because you never, that never was the problem in the first place. And there's just all of this about just trying to tear the person down. And we just internalize that even when we're aware that it's happening, it's a conscious effort and fight to not internalize it. Right. Mark: Yeah. I mean, we, in this culture, we encourage people not to like themselves too much. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Right. Because that's pride, right. Heaven. Forfend that? You should be proud of who you are. Yucca: Especially if you're a woman, Mark: Well, particularly if you're a woman Yeah. Yucca: I mean, it happens to everybody, Mark: Or gay or non-binary or trans yeah. It's. I D I, I get worked up when I think about this, it it's so destructive and it's so completely unnecessary. All that it is, is a set of tools that were used to perform social control, starting thousands of years ago, certainly centuries ago in its latest incarnations. And we are still stuck with it. And one of the things that is really outraging the Christian right wing in the United States right now, is that the younger generation ain't having it. They're just not, they're not, they're not viewing these authorities as authorities. They're not following their moral codes. Pursuing new relationship structures. They're experimenting sexually there. They're just not doing it. Yucca: Yeah. And those older powers are freaking out. Mark: They are. Yucca: Yeah. That's where a lot of these ridiculous, you know, don't say gay and bills and things like that are coming from. Mark: right. Yeah. I mean, Presuming that we're still around in 50 years. I think we will see that this time will be seen as kind of the last gasp of the evangelical. Right. Because they. They're trying to nail down everything they possibly can for their agenda now, because they know that their voting power is dwindling rapidly. It'll only be a few more election cycles when they, you know, when their generation has dwindled away enough that they're no longer able to call the shots. That's my theory anyway, and I'm, I'm cautiously optimistic that that's what will actually happen. So, pleasure it. Yucca: circle back around with think it's good. Mark: we think it's good. We, we think your body was built for pleasure and you should be having some. And what that means to you individually can vary widely You know, for some people it's like, you know, elaborate sexual escapades for some people it's having their head scratched. You know, for some people it's a foot rub for some people it's, I'm sitting in a hot tub, for example, or I'm having a massage or eating something delicious without feeling guilty about it or. Taking some kind of recreational drug, which as a sovereign individual, even though it may not be your, your legal right, is your right as a person, you, you have the right to make choices for yourself about what happens with your body. And that's one of them. You have a Right. to make. Yucca: Right. Mark: You just have to be careful in relation to law enforcement. If it's not one of the sanctioned drugs in our society Yucca: walks, right. Just getting that, it's getting some fresh air and breathing that in, or you know, Sandra between your toes or I was joking before getting, but there's a serious, if you've never tried, it is one to give bag of rice and put your bare feet into a bag of rice and just wiggle your toes around. That's one that is just delightful. Some Mark: have to try that out. Yucca: Yeah. I mean, some people don't like that kind of sensation, but it's, you know, a bag of rice or a bag of beans. Some people really like that. There's just something about it. Or But just something that, that feels good and that you experienced, you know, in your body, right? Those that there's mind pleasures too, but there's also something about just being really present with your body, enjoying whatever this feeling is. Mark: Right. Right. And, and that doesn't have, you know, as, as the examples that we've been talking about make clear, doesn't have to be a sexual thing. If you're an asexual person or any romantic person, it can still be, you know, those, there can still be these central pleasures that, you know, that, that fill your body with those good feeling chemicals. The The Mary Oliver poem, very famous Mary Oliver poem. Wild geese says you do not have to be good. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. And that's that's truth. That is really true. You do not have to be good by the lights of this culture. I mean, don't get yourself in trouble because then you won't be getting pleasure. Yucca: Sure. Mark: You know, being punished arbitrarily for things that shouldn't be punishable. But just let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. And, you know, for some of us it's work, you know, we have parents that drilled into us that, you know, various things were shameful. Don't, don't let that slow you down. No in your heart that you deserve the pleasure that you have, and that it's okay for you to do something just for that purpose. It doesn't have to be productive. It doesn't have to be it doesn't have to, you know, be economically contributing. It doesn't have to make anybody else happy. You, you know, if you're doing it with anybody else to know it's presumed that you have consent, but it is enough just to make yourself feel pleasure. Yucca: Yeah. And to let go of that deserve not deserve stuff. That's just a way of, of just trying to maintain control over you. You deserve it, but Mark: It's that inner critic again, right? That inner critic will tell you that you don't deserve something or that You should, feel shame about something. And as we talked about before, the critic is not on your side, it's the voice of, of culture, of authority, of parental messages. It's not on your side. And you do, you deserve to come out from underneath. The oppression of what that voice wants you to believe. You can be more than that and you, and you should be I'm I'm I'm I getting my I'm wagging my finger at you and saying you should be because you are more and that's, that's the important point is that you are more than that. And and your life is more than that. And so live it live it. So, do we have more to say on this topic or shall we save it for next week? Yucca: I think this is a good place to pause and come back next week. So we'll, we'll return to this a little bit next week, but we'll also talk about the other side of. What it, what belting or may day or all the many different names, again, whatever this, this may holiday is. There's a lot to say about that. So Mark: Yeah, absolutely. One more thing yeah, which is the century retreat, which the last day of is a month from the day today that we're recording. So it's in four weeks, but if you're thinking of going, you really need to get your registration in. The deadline for registration is April 25th because we have to tell the retreat center How many meals we're ordering. And so we have to have a count by April 25th. So, go to the atheopagan society website, which AP society.org and go to the events page. And there's a link there that will take you to everything that you need to know about the event. But and we hope that you'll join us there both Yucca and I will be there. And I talked with some other folks this morning at the Saturday zoom mixer who are going to be there and we're all getting really excited. Yucca: Yep. Just around the, really around the corner Mark: It really is. Yeah. So thank you, Yucca. Thanks for a great conversation. Yucca: likewise.

100th Episode - Happy Equinox!

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 15, 2022 46:06

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com S3E10 TRANSCRIPT: Read the rest of this entry » ----more---- Mark: Welcome back to the wonder science-based paganism. I'm your host Mark. And this is our hundredth episode. We are so excited. We have been, uh, talking with you and, uh, presenting our ideas and kicking them around between ourselves now for a hundred episodes, which is. a tremendous amount of talking. We're kind of shocked actually. Yucca: Yeah. And it doesn't, I mean, it doesn't feel like that long on the other hand it really does feel like that long, but a hundred episodes. Mark: Yeah. averaging about 40 minutes a piece. So, you know, that's 4,000 minutes of, of a conversation and that is a long time. Uh, we'd have to do the math to figure out how many hours that is, but oh my God, that's, that's a lot of, that's a lot of talking. Yucca: I had just under 67 hours. Mark: Jeez. Yucca: Yeah. So almost three days straight. Mark: Yep of continual conversations. So that's, that's a lot of time. We are so grateful to you, our listeners for continuing to listen to the podcast, and I'm glad that you're getting something out of it and hope that you continue to and we really appreciate those that have, uh, kind of bumped the podcast to others and encouraged them to check it out. We get new listeners all the time and it's just very encouraging. We have new members of the community that come in having first heard of, uh, these ideas and atheopagan ism and non-obvious, science-based paganism through this podcast. So, we're just really gratified at how well it's resonated once we started to do this. Yucca: Yeah, thank you so much, everyone. And, and also thank you for the reviews and comments on platforms like iTunes, because that helps it get to more ears. We're not super concerned about, oh, how many stars did we get? But the more stars that we do get, the more people I get a chance to listen to it. And so we really appreciate all of those reviews that you have left us. So thank you. Mark: Uh, call out to feed spot, which keeps ranking us in the top 10 pagan podcasts. Yucca: Yes. Mark: In our first year, we were number nine in the top 10. And then in our second year we were number eight in the top 10. So we're, we're very excited about that and really appreciate the, uh, the publicity. Yucca: Uh, number seven at the moment Mark: Are we Yucca: we are. Yes. I don't think that will ever make it past, say drew to cast or anything like that. But, uh, yeah, there's some podcasts that's been that have been going for a long time, but it's amazing to think that, wow, we're in our third year of this. Mark: Right, right. Yeah. And we don't have as, as crazy good. A name as three pagans in a cat. Yucca: Yes. Plenty of cats actually. Mark: we do, yes. Yes. We have plenty of cats, but uh, but we didn't put it in the name of, our podcast. Yucca: yeah. Mark: There you go anyway. Thank you everyone. This is a real milestone for us. When we started this, it was this great idea that Yucca had had. And I had been hoping to create a podcast for a long time. And when Yucca approached me. And floated this idea. I said, well, Hey, how about if we do this as a partnership? And it's just turned as it turned out to be a great way of producing a, a recorded piece or recorded channel? Yucca: Yeah. And thank you. We've become really good friends over the last few years. I look forward to this every week. This is one of the highlights of my week is just to get out, to get to hang out and talk with mark about these cool topics and, and share with all of you guys. Mark: I really feel the same way. So thank you so much, Yucca. Okay. Well that said it's coming up on Equinox time and that is the topic for today's. Uh, podcast is, uh, the spring Equinox. And, uh, Yucca: here we are. Mark: here we are, again, once again, this is our third episode to talk about the spring Equinox, uh, because we've just passed our two year anniversary as well, which kind of makes sense. I mean, there's 52 weeks in a year. So if you're two years. Plus a few weeks old, you get to a hundred episodes, Yucca: That's right. Yeah. Mark: because we took a few weeks off, Yucca: Yeah. So sickness, you know, nothing major, but times where just life just wouldn't let it happen. Mark: right? Yucca: So, yeah. Mark: It amazes me that there have been as few of those as there have actually, because we're both pretty busy and we're doing a lot of stuff. And yet we've found the time for these conversations every weekend. So that's pretty cool. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So the spring Equinox, the Vernal Equinox, or what I call high spring, because where I live, that's really what's going on now. The Hills are all green with bright, new grass and wild flowers are blooming everywhere. There's tons of California poppies and the milkmaids are already gone and we've got Lupin that's blooming, and there's just. You know, the creeks are still running with water from the rains that we had, which is pretty much finished now. So it's, uh, it's a, uh, kind of a happy springy, hopeful time when life is waking up again and we get to see all the beautiful results of that. Yucca: Yeah. And we were just talking about before hitting the record button here and at my home, my daughter and I were noticing that the male finches are getting their color back. They don't completely lose it in the winter, but he gets a little bit more dull, but now they're getting the color back and he can hear them singing. And it really, it's starting to feel like spring for us. We think of it as, as our first spring. And because it's kinda making, it's not quite made up its mind, whether it's spring or not, we'll have these real nice, warm, beautiful days and the animals will be out and the bees will even be out. And then it'll snow Mark: Ah, Yucca: drop down yesterday. It was, it was like 15 degrees. Which I think what's that like negative eight or nine in Celsius. Mark: Celsius. Yeah. Yucca: now, you know, I'm a little bit too warm in my short sleeves, so it's kind of a strange time of year, but it's feeling you could feel spring. It's really quite, it's a nice breath of fresh air. Mark: Yeah, I have some of that sort of paradoxical experience today actually it's the air. temperature is actually not all that warm. I think it's around 60 degrees. But in the sun it feels. Very temperate and wonderful. So I am in shorts for the first time this year, uh, pulled them out and put them on today. So that's kind of an exciting thing. I'm looking forward to a lot more days of shorts before days when it's so blazing hot, that even shorts is too much. Yucca: Yeah, well where we are, we don't do shorts much at all because Mark: Because you're at high altitude. Yucca: So, well, for a lot of reasons, Prickly things. But the more you can just keep the sun off your skin, the cooler you're going to be. So, yeah. But also we should mention that the Equinox, this is something that has been observed all over the world by many, many cultures for millennia, because this is a point that has. Astronomical meeting as well. When we think about earth as a planet orbiting the sun we often people will say, oh, the Equinox is a point where there's equal, might a date. That's really only going to be the case. If you are on the equator. That's not going to be the case when you're at higher latitudes, whether those are north or south, but it is the point when the plane. Yeah. Imagine Earth's equator as a plane reaching out into space. And then also imagine another plane, which is the plane that we orbit around the sun on when we're crossing those two planes are touching each other. That's the moment in our orbit that we are around the sun. Mark: Right. And as you say, there have been many celebrations of that around the world. My favorite is that in Japan, the, uh, spring Equinox is happiness day, which I think we could use a lot more of in the world. So that's pretty cool thing. Happiness day. I don't know anything about how it gets celebrated, but I would imagine that it's got some. You know, contemporaneous quality with the blooming of cherry blossoms and you know, all of the wonderful spring things that we see, uh, around this time of year. So, we wanted to talk a little bit about how we celebrate this holiday. As I said, I consider this to be high Springs, so it's kind of. It's kind of the moment when we've stopped the dreaming and planning phase that winter and, uh, the cold months, uh, bring us, you know, where the ideas. Germinated or rather where they, the idea is just get, you know, created in the first place. And where plans are made about what you're seeking to do over the course of the, of the year. And then along comes. Hi spring and well, at least where I am the ground isn't frozen anymore. And you can start doing things like sprouting new plants for our garden and implementing those plans that you had previously. And it's, it's exciting. It's a time when work can begin. And I think that that's kind of a common thread that runs through celebrations of this time of year, all around the world. It's a time of waking. From the long sleep of winter and really kind of getting, going again. Yucca: Yeah. Yeah, I definitely have those themes as well. It's also the time for us when we tilt our solar panels into their summer position. So we switched them twice a year and now it's enough that okay, we can tilt it, that it was really, really steep angle in the winter. And now we can lean it back and be catching that sun that's higher in the sky and just be like, we got to get to work. We also have a very brief period of time where we can get lots of work done outside and the rattlesnakes 70 woken up yet, because once they wake up, you've got to be a lot more careful about stomping around, outside. Mark: course, of course. Yeah. We have a lot of rattlesnakes in Sonoma county, but not really in the domesticated areas. So I don't really have to worry about that unless I'm going on a hike in the state park or something like that. The, and it's warm enough here that snakes are active Yucca: Alrighty. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. They're, they're already active. And, uh, and aggressive actually, cause they're hungry. They haven't, they haven't done much over the course of the winter. And now they're now they're out to get something. Yucca: Oh, yeah. Well, our mammals are definitely waking up. We've got lots of little chipmunks and things and they don't do a true hibernation. Uh, they'll come out during the warm days. In the winter, just to kind of stock up on, on what they can find, but they've, they're definitely out and about, and having their little chipmunk wars and fighting with the other creatures. That's a lot of fun to watch that, but it's also the time where at least for my area this is when a lot of the birds are beginning their mating rituals. This is when, if you keep chickens. So is when a lot of delaying picks back up. Because many of them will lay less during the winter, just because of the light that's triggered by, you know, how much light there is. And we've never been the folks to want to put lights in their coops to try and force them to lay more. So this is a time that we start to think about, uh, the really celebrating the birds and the eggs. And so we've been gathering. We have several years worth of collected feathers that we gather, and we put them on, on little strings and hang them up around the house. Just to remember that whole part of the ecosystem. That is it's an important piece on its own, but it's also really critical for our survival. Mark: Sure. Yeah, And I mean, as you say, I mean, one of the reasons why celebrations at this time of year, or, uh, deeply associated with eggs is that it's the first high protein food source that's been available. Reg that's been abundantly available to people following the winter. Uh, and so people all over the world, people above the Arctic circle celebrate, you know, Eating eggs at this time gathering and eating eggs at this time of year. People. In Eastern and central Europe are known for the amazing decorations that they can do of the, the, the chicken, eggs and goose eggs, uh, particularly the Ukrainian punky. I have, uh, uh, a Ukrainian Bisaga goose egg which I'm going to be putting on my altar because of Ukraine as well as the season. So it's a. It's a very old tradition to celebrate birds and, uh, laying and eggs at this time of year. Yucca: yeah. And bunnies because yep. The bunnies, they there. The other small mammals they're coming back out and, and doing their thing. Mark: Right, right. Yep. And the opportunity to eat rabbit and eat eggs is something that was really a big deal too. European antecedents after living on stored root vegetables for months, uh, Yucca: Well, mostly dried meat. It would have been a very, you know, they would have been in good state of Quito for, for a couple of months at that point. Yeah. And then coming out. Okay. Cause it's a cyclical. Now you can start using some of the green stuff again and oh, by the time we get to the autumn and then that's when we've got all the fruits and honey and all that good stuff, but it just it's, we know that things are still alive. And it's not that things are being reborn in the spring, but it's like, they're waking up, they're coming back and some things, yeah. Some things have very short periods of time, your annual plants. But that seed wasn't dead that whole time. It was just laying dormant in the ground, waiting for the right conditions to pop up and sprout. And we're still a few weeks from that, but it sounds like where you are. There that's what's happening Mark: it's well underway. Yeah. And it's not a big surprise. That people in, you know, in prior times believed that, uh, things were coming back to life because they didn't really understand, you know, humans don't hibernate. We, we demand way too much energy to be able to do that. And so our understanding of the way that life worked was, you know, well, when you lie down and stop having activity, you're dead. So if you then stand up and start having activity again you you've come back to life. And so the metaphor of rebirth is something that's sewn very deeply into spring. And of course, Christians celebrate that with the resurrection. And, you know, there are all kinds of traditions that go along with that. Yucca: And, you know, I suspect that I suspect that there was an intellectual understanding that there was a difference there, but it didn't matter because it was the, the two concepts were close enough that it might as well be that. And so why, why distinguish between that linguistically and, and in your stories and myth? Right. Because I think that we definitely know that, okay. The. You can see the barest slowly breathing, you know, that they're alive right there, but they're going to come back understanding what was happening with plants. I think might've been trickier in terms of, but we've been saving seeds, you know, for 10,000 years. So I would be cautious to, to sometimes we can act like, oh, the humans of today, we know so much more than the humans of the past. And I think we have access to more information. More quickly, but we weren't dumb. We were Mark: I, I, I wasn't in any way implying that that's what we were, but on the other hand, the, the concept of spontaneous generation was something that persisted for a couple of thousand years. Uh, the idea that that rotting neat, spontaneously generated maggots and flies, Yucca: right. Mark: You know, this. Yucca: just something in the air. Yeah, Mark: there was a magical process that happened that suddenly brought forth life from death. And it took a long time before we understood that that's not the way that things work. And there was this entire microbial world that we just couldn't see where things were taking place. Yucca: the, yeah. And that way, when that idea was introduced, it was, uh, A lot of people that not like that Mark: Oh, round Yucca: Yeah. Mark: roundly disapproved. Yucca: Yeah. Even when they were able to see it in those there's amazing early microscopes. There was still a lot of thought of, oh, this is trickery of some kinds of scam, you know? Mark: Well, and even as late as the mid 19th century the, the Roman idea of disease has spread by bad air, which of course in Latin is malaria. Was still very much the dominant paradigm in among scientists and this led to terrible problems. The the intake for drinking water in London was downstream of the outflow for their sewer. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And they had terrible cholera outbreaks and it wasn't until a scientist whose name escapes me, uh, put, you know, actually, and, and what was most frustrating about all this from, from today's standpoint is that they were collecting all the data that could have told them that that model didn't work. And they just weren't looking at the pattern because they were so sure that it was bad air that was causing disease. Yucca: Right. Which is, which is onto something. In some circumstances it's not bad air, but that things can be past air. Yeah. Right. So sure you see that that's something that could have been observed in the past and worked in certain circumstances, but then we just applied it to everything and, you know, that's Mark: Because Galen. Yucca: because Galen said, so. Mark: Because Galen, which was the explanation for pretty much everything in medicine for more than a thousand years, humans, according to anatomical texts, humans had gizzards. Up through the point where dissections were finally allowed. But until Vesuvius who started actually doing human dissections and drawings of what he was actually finding, it was believed that humans had gizzards because Galen had dissected chickens and had assumed that they had that humans had all of the same structural parts. Yucca: What did they think we used? Stark is there's four. Mark: They didn't ask that question. Yucca: Okay. I was not familiar with this. Mark: Yeah. It's so yeah, Galen was the standard for nearly 2000 years. It's really remarkable. There's a wonderful book called the ghost map, which is about the, the overthrowing of the, the bad air, uh, paradigm, uh, based on the cholera outbreaks in London. And, uh, it's, it's sort of a scientific. Well well-worth reading. I recommend it. Well that was Yucca: we get, how do we get onto that, Mark: oh, spontaneous generation and, uh, you know, life Yucca: back to life waking up. Yeah. But the, so that, that reawakening is, is something that I think a lot of places, depending on what's happening in their, their climate, but that that's shared in a lot of different. celebrations is, Hey, we're waking up. Mark: Right. And so you'll see on the altars, you'll see flowers and eggs and symbols of rabbits, birds. And you know, it's, it's very common for example, to have some sort of a bird for a special dinner, like, uh, a chicken or a goose or something like that. Although I, Easter is associated with ham. I'm not quite sure how that fits into the model. Yucca: Well in Lam. Mark: oh, in lamb. Yucca: Lam is, and that has the like, but that the lamb makes sense from just the mythology perspective of, you know, Jesus being the shepherd and all of that, but also just the timing. Wow. Right. So you would have a little bit earlier on the, the goats and the kids in the lambs would have been born, and then you're gonna end up, you can't support the whole herd. You've just had a whole bunch of them in, so probably you're going to eat some end up eating some of the males. And this is around the time that you do that. And then, you know, you keep your larger flock and you're going to later on, you'd have your button. But the lamb is that is a very different kind of taste and meat and experience. So it just lines up at the right time. Mark: Yep. Yucca: The ham, I think, I, I don't know, we'd have to check, but I think that's more of just an American tradition that that was what was available. But if someone knows the history to that Mark: we eat a lot less lamb and sheep here than people do in other parts of the world, including Europe. And it may just be that That just got swapped out. Yucca: That might be the case. Yeah. mean, that's our main, that's our main houses is household diet is bovine based. So lamb and beef and, and that sort of thing. So, but that's not super common for the whole, the overarching culture. Mark: No. Yucca: So. Mark: So we've talked about the kinds of things that you might find on altars for, uh, an Equinox celebration. The sorts of things that people do in rituals are often around the themes we've been discussing. Like, uh, how shall I put it revitalization? Yeah. It's, it's not, it's not actually coming back to life, but it's. The world is suddenly very busy. There's A lot of business taking place when a month before there wasn't so much, at least that you could see there may have been things going on under the ground and in the microbial realm, but mostly. Yucca: guy. Mark: Right. It's slow. It's just very slow when things are cold, life is that way. And so now, as it gets warmer, suddenly there is a lot of work to be done because growth seasons are limited and food stores in seeds are limited, right? So they'd better get to work or they're not going to be strong and vital enough to reproduce. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So those. Those are themes that we can bring into our own lives. You know, the, the revitalization of our efforts, the sort of rejuvenation you know, a return to some youthfulness, right? Uh, some vigor of the kind that we see among those that are young. So we can Make commitments to various things that help us to feel vital and active. Uh, the weather has improved in most places. So people go out outside more and do more kind of outdoor, active activities. All of those are good things for celebrating the spring. Yucca: Right. And another common theme. This one, for me isn't as a big of a thing, but for many people. The Equinox, but the equinoxes are a time of balance because you've got the balance of the night and the day. And although it's not going to be perfect, it's pretty close to being balanced. And so for some people, that's a really important element of it is to be thinking about, you know, the, the dark and the light in our lives and in our efforts and our experience. Mark: Yeah, there's a there's a temperance quality that many celebrate around this time of year. The, the idea being. Yes. Be enthusiastic, but also, uh, be responsible, right? Yes. Be uh, fun, loving, but also pay your bills, that kind of thing. Right. Because when you've been cooped up in. Winter conditions for months, it can be easy to go a little crazy once you're, Once you're allowed Yucca: you can stretch again. Yeah. Mark: Uh, and so the, the temperance aspect, the the balance aspect of the equinoxes reminds us well. That's great, but. know, use your wisdom, you know, you haven't, you've accumulated some life experience. Go ahead and apply that. So that you're, you're still safe and, and take care of yourself. Yucca: Yeah. So are there any particular traditions that you have for the Equinox? Mark: Well back in the before days, uh, before COVID, what we liked to do was to have a little gathering of friends and particularly friends who had kids and we would get together and dye eggs and make little, uh, Equinox? baskets with real grass, not plastic grass uh, which is the weirdest don't even get me started. And, uh, and candy and things like that. And we would play childhood games. We drink pink lemonade and play Candyland or chutes and ladders. You know, the, the kinds of things that people in elementary school, you know, can really enjoy. And so it was a day that was mostly focused around children. And that's also consistent with the thing that I do, which I've mentioned on the podcast before, which is to map the arc of a human life onto the wheel of the year. So that this time becomes the time. That's kind of about kids from the age of maybe three or four up until they're say 11 or 12, when they start becoming teenagers. Yucca: So childhood really. Mark: Yes Yucca: Right. Cause before that, you know, before three, like yeah, there's pod sort of toddler, but it's, that's like infancy and toddlerhood, which is a little bit different. Mark: That's right. That's right. And that actually is more the February Sabbath, right? The, you know, the, between the Equinox and the winter solstice, that's, that's much more around infancy and you know that the, the very beginnings of life, so. I, I like to do that for a couple of reasons. And one of them is that I think it's valuable to have a holiday that really centers children. The, I mean, to some degree you will can do that depending on how you celebrate it. But I think. It's it's healthy in its way to have a holiday that centers each cohort of life, whether it's, you know, kind of robust adulthood, you know, responsibility taking care of things, learning. Being in the full vigor of your adult vitality or whether it's being middle-aged or whether it's being an elder. And then of course you get to Hallows and that's around death and composting and the part of the cycle that we don't experience. I just, I, I really see value in. Uh, having celebrations like that around the course of the year. So because there are some of those phases where people feel invisible and unappreciated, particularly in middle age and then in, in elderhood. But also I think children can get shunned to decide quite a bit, Yucca: Oh, Mark: By gatherings of adults and it's. I think setting aside a time that specifically for kids that way is helpful. Yucca: Yeah. Yeah. I really liked that. I remember you telling, telling us about that. Well, The, uh, so three equinoxes ago, actually, this was one of our first episodes. Right. So I think we had one, maybe there was the equinoxes, maybe our second episode Mark: I think so. Yucca: Yeah. So I think that's great. You know, Mark: Yes. and then our fourth, our fourth was about COVID. Yucca: Oh know, Mark: So as soon as we started everything changed. Yucca: right. And I remember us going, there's this thing that's kind of starting in the world. Do you think we should maybe mention this a little bit? Oh, let's see how it goes. Oh, wait. Mark: Yeah, Yucca: this is, this is here for awhile. This is Mark: really here. Yep. Yucca: That's yup. Mark: So, how about you? How do you, I, I hear that you celebrating the birds and the, you know, the avian communities what are the kinds of observances that you do for this time of year? Yucca: Well, a lot of things as the family is starting to grow, you know, we've transitioned from what our personal private practices were as individuals to, you know, how do we do this as a family and, and the kids. The youngest is three now. So, and the oldest is five and a half. You gotta put that half. And she was very insistent on that, but that's, Mark: about what, Yucca: it's a big, Mark: of that life of her life that is. Yucca: is. I remember being the Mark: is a big percentage. Yucca: Yes. So five and a half, very different than five. But you know, they are old enough to be participating in most things, you know, they can't carry as heavy things as we can, but, you know, they couldn't carry the stick while I carry the rest of the firewood or whatever it is. And there's just a lot that is, is happening in the world in terms of. I'm not talking about the world is in town and city and stuff, but just in terms of like our little piece of land and all the things that need to happen. And so there's just a lot of doing this time of year that started doing and observing, and we did several fires. We have a little campfire in the winter, but it was a lot harder to do that when it was really cold. And so, you know, we're starting to have some nights where we can be out and at the, the fire again, and that sort of thing, and just finding, finding little pieces of stuff and and it's still just a tad early for the planting for us, but. Week after March, we'll probably start some of our starts inside that need a long time, like the tomatoes, for instance, any of the tomatoes and peppers and things like that, that really need a long, uh, melons don't tend to do very well here. But if we were to do melons, we'd start the melons, that sort of thing. So the greenhouse is getting ready to go and and it's. That time where, like you were saying, the planning part is done now it's the now it's like, get going, start doing. Yeah, but then we still have a few days where, oh, sort of cold we'll come back and you can just snuggle in with the cup of cocoa and just be like, okay, I don't have to do anything today. It's too miserable out there. That's really what it is for us and then loving having the feathers everywhere. That's just really kind of, and we've tied a few little bells to some of them, so we'll have like a string with feathers on it and a bell on the bottom. And sometimes when you walk by the feathers, we'll just move in the air. And the cat has gotten quite a few of them. So someone, if you really like one of the feathers, you've got to put it out of reach of the cat. Cause he'll Mark: see. Yucca: So it's just a lovely, lovely. Yeah. Mark: That's wonderful. Yeah. I really, I really liked the sound of that. Yeah. I'm reminded when you talk about your winter fires, those are the fires where the front half of you is warm in the back. Half of you is freezing. Yucca: Yeah, and I am one of those people gets cold really easily. I don't have a lot on me. So I put this a ridiculous amount of blankets. We have some outdoor blankets so that we can just be a bundle of blankets. And even then it's like, okay, how close can I get to the fire safely with all of my blankets? And then the smoke, like the wind changes and goes in your face and then switch to the other chair, fall asleep. Mark: Right. Yeah. Be because inevitably, Yucca: Oh, yeah, Mark: it just does that. Yeah, I'm thinking of burning a fire in my fire pit for the actual Equinox day. I'm going to be doing a little ritual with uh, with the local cups. group, covenant of Unitarian Universalist pagans Yucca: just a Mark: in my local area. That's, that's a national network of Unitarian Keegan. Groups. Yucca: Folks. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. And, uh, I'm, I'm very uninterested in Unitarianism itself. I like their values a lot, but the, the, the ear and not alive enough for me. Not energetic and, you know, kind of body-based uh, so many of the things that we've talked about, I mean, I go to a U a T Unitarian service and I just want to take my clothes off and start beating a drum. It's like, come on people be the animals now. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And you know, a lot of that is because many people who are who are Unitarians are atheists or agnostics, and they're very sort of heady and intellectual. And the reason that they're doing Unitarianism is because it's very open-minded and it has very progressive values and they're very activist in their orientation. So there's, there's a lot of good reasons for people to be interested in that, Yucca: And they're very widespread too. You can, and a lot of different communities that you can find a group. Yeah. Mark: So I'll be doing that. But I think that when I get home, I'm probably going to light a little fire and sit on my patio and maybe I'll drink a non-alcoholic beer. I found one that I really like. Yeah, there's actually a non-alcoholic beer. That's good. It's made by log Anitas and it's called IPNA for non alcoholic. Yucca: Okay. Mark: Uh, so it's, uh, that's what I've been drinking lately. I am now 10 weeks into my six months alcohol fast. So yeah. Yeah, it's kind of a, kind of a good thing. I've lost weight. Of course, because alcohol Yucca: Has a lot. Mark: there's, there's no more empty calorie than an alcoholic calorie. Yucca: Yeah. And even a small amount. It's not easy on your liver. Yeah. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: So that whole, the whole system. Yeah. So, Do you w in your new home do you have a space? You talked about the patio. Is there plenty of something that's built in or do you have one of those little, what are they called? Like the Roman fire pits, like the Mark: Well, it's not built in no, it's, uh, it's a, uh, an iron frame was sort of a bowl. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And then there's also a sparker rester, which is a grill that can go over the top of it to keep sparks from flying off, which I would use later in the year. I'm not very worried about fire now, but later in the year I would use it because we've had a lot of wildfires here and people are pretty twitchy about fire. Yucca: Right. Yeah. We ha we have a similar set up here to an area that's cleared. There's no trees for. Several several meters, at least and in the middle, and then we've got the bowl that it sits in and the little screen like you're talking about, but I mean, the screen we don't use until a little bit later in the fire, because. You have to lift it off and put your word in. And so when you're tending to it. Yeah, but just, you know, we used a lot of safety around that and the fire does not get left. And it's bad for the iron bowl, but we pour water on it afterwards too. Mark: Yeah, Yucca: rested one out that way. Cut holes in the bottom Mark: in a place where the rain can drip on it. So it's getting a little fin. We might have to get another one sometime soon. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: But it's really important to have a place where you can have a fire. I it's just. Of all the pig and things. I think having a fire is pretty important. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So what else do we have for, for talking about the Equinox season? Yucca: Just excited that we're here. There's new things beginning. Actually you have a, a new thing coming up that listeners could be involved Mark: that's right. Thank you for reminding me. I am teaching a class starting on the 27th of March and it will be three 90 minute sessions every other Sunday. So. Yucca: this is live class right over, over, zoom. Mark: live a live class over zoom. The title of the class is atheopagan is the clerics path. And so the focus it'll go into, you know, what atheopagan. Perspectives on the world and all that kind of stuff. But the main focus is really on. If you decide that you want to become an ordained cleric, which you can do at the atheopagan society website for free, you just have to indicate that you endorse the atheopagan principles. But that is a community service role. And so this class is about the kinds of things that you can do as a cleric. Like. How to design rituals for weddings or funerals, how to do rites of passage how to do a ministerial counseling for people and how to know when to refer, to refer someone to a professional how to, uh, do prison ministry or, uh, I don't like that word ministry. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Prison outreach say, you know, to support people that are being pagans or atheists or both in prisons or in hospices or in hospitals, all that kind of stuff. So it's going to be a really cool class. I'm excited about it. And it's 75 bucks for the whole class. And there are details about it on the atheopagan website, which is atheopagan ism.org. Uh, if you're in the Facebook group, there's also an event, uh, that you can look for, uh, that will give you all the details about it. And, uh, I hope you'll join us. I, uh, I've already got a bunch of registrants and I think it's going to be a really cool class. So hope that if that's something that interests you, that you'll you'll come on. Yucca: And since it's a, a live class, you get a chance to participate, right. This isn't just texting back and forth. So when you have questions and you want clarifications then mark, you can be responding at an organic and, you know, awakened alive way thinking that's the spring. Yeah. Mark: And the sessions are going to be recorded. So, what that will do is if you have to miss a session, we'll just send you a link and you can then watch the, the session that you missed. So, you know, I just, and, and there will be time, you know, for me to help you with your personal practice, if that's something that you're interested in we. I just, I think it's going to be a really cool thing. I'm excited about it. I'm designing the participant packet now and I just, I think it's going to be really cool. So. Yucca: Yeah. Sounds like a ton of fun. So, and will you tell us again where, where everyone can find Mark: Yeah, you can find information about it. There's a post on the blog, the atheopagan blog, which is atheopagan aneurysm.org or in the Facebook group, there is an event in, in the group that you can look for the clerics path. If. You're just curious about it and can't remember those things or can't find it, go ahead and send us an email at the podcast email address and I will respond to it. And that. is the wonder podcast queues@gmail.com. The wonder podcast, Q s@gmail.com. And I look forward to hearing. Yucca: Yeah, and we love hearing from all of you. We've gotten some amazing emails over the years, and if you have ideas and suggestions for our next hundred podcasts we'd really love to, to hear. Mark: We certainly would. Yes. And thanks so much to the folks that have written in thus far. We, we read everything that gets sent to us and we've, uh, themed some shows on ideas that people have sent us. And pretty soon coming up in may, we're going to do a live podcast broadcast from. From the century retreat, which is the atheopagan gathering that's happening in Colorado Springs. And so during the lunch break on one of the days, we're going to broadcast from there and we can interview people about the experience they're having a retreat and all that kind of stuff. So you'll be able to be plugged in. Even if you aren't able to go to the event itself. Yucca: Yeah, which still has just a few spots, right? Mark: Yeah. I, I think we've got eight spots left. That's the last that I heard was that we had eight spots. Yucca: So if you're interested and you've been holding off and now is the time to register. Mark: Right. Yeah. And it's a very affordable event. I mean, the event itself with lodging and meals comes in at around $300. If you're staying in your accommodations, that you can, you can pay for a private room, that kind of stuff. It ends up costing more, but. You know, That's a hundred dollars a day for all this wonderful programming activity and you do of course, have to get yourself to Colorado Springs. That's that's, that's the tricky part, Yucca: that is near Denver. If you're flying or, you know, Mark: as I understood. Yucca: if you're driving. Mark: Right. As I understand it, it's about another $35. One way to go from Denver to Colorado Springs area. That's that's what I heard. So. I'm not, not that much to get very close. And the Colorado Springs airport is about 30 minutes away by Lyft from the retreat center. Costs about $33, uh, for a Lyft is my understanding. So it's very doable. And we hope to see you there. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: In the meantime, Thank you so much for being a part of the first hundred episodes of the wonder science-based paganism. And we are delighted to be a part of your life. Thanks so much. Yucca: Thank you everyone.

Am I a good Pagan?

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 28, 2022 38:32

Vostok SOS - Vostok-sos.org/en People in Need - peopleinneed.net Voices of Children - voices.org.ua/en Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com S3E8 TRANSCRIPT:----more---- Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder: Science-based Paganism. I'm your host Mark. Yucca: and I'm Yucca. Mark: And today we are going to talk about that ever present question. Am I a good pagan? But and not meaning me personally, but you know, for each of us that's a pagan asking ourselves, am I a good pagan? Am I, am I doing this right? And we're going to get to that in a minute. And it's a very interesting conversation with a lot of things to be said. But before we do that, we need to say something about what's happening with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Yucca: Right. And we should also mention the time of recording right now. We are recording Saturday night. So a lot might happen tomorrow Sunday, between, and then Monday between when we'll actually be listening to this or whenever it is that you're listening. So just bear in mind that we only know what has happened since Saturday evening. Yeah. Mark: That's right. Yeah. And things are moving very fast. So, it's likely that there will be new developments between now and then, but obviously we're appalled by this unwarranted baseless invasion. There's a lot to be said about it. The, the level of personal upset to see a desperate. Just exercising, raw power and invading another Western country is it's bizarre. It hasn't really happened in Europe in a, in a substantive way since the end of world war two. And it is very similar to world war II in in a number of very disturbing way. Yucca: Yeah, well, and, and even just setting all of that aside, just the, the amount of pain and the amount of human pain right now just for, you know, not thinking about sides or any of that, but just how much suffering is happening. And you know, None of it's necessary. Yeah, Mark: It was all chosen rather than, I mean, suffering happens in the world. Suffering happens to people, but none of this had to happen. It's all happened because one dude chose to make it happen. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: I know that people in the atheopagan community have been very upset about this, what feeling helpless and wondering what to do. You know, doing rituals of solidarity and you know, that kind of help them feel like they're able to do something and also doing substantive actions to actually help the people of Ukraine. Yucca: Both are important, Mark: Both are living with the horror of, this is something that even those of us that are not on the front lines have to do. and we may be very privileged not to be on the front line, but that doesn't mean we're not impacted. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: We, we are. Yucca: take care of ourselves just because we deserve to take care of ourselves, but also we can do a better job in the world, helping when we're coming from a more balanced place. Mark: Yes. Yucca: We're not quite as, as frazzled and all of that. Mark: Yes, exactly. And when we are in our centered place, we can also make wiser decisions about how to help you know, because. There's a part of me. That's just like, we need to take the 82nd airborne over there and just kick the living snot out of Putin in order to prevent him from doing this and make sure that he doesn't do it anywhere else, but that probably isn't the wisest impulse that I have for creating war between two nuclear powers. So, you know, those rituals can actually help people to get to that wise self where they are able to make more common, measured decisions. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: before we move on to the topic of the day, we did want to provide people with some resources. That they can use to to make donations, to supporting Ukrainians who have been forced to flee their homes. And I have three of them here. The first is called Vostok S O SOS and their URL is V as in Victor, O S T O K hyphen S O s.org. Forward slash E N for the English website. They are a Ukrainian, humanitarian, psychological support, nonprofit, and that kind of humanitarian support is going to be very important for the Ukrainian people. Now, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: the second is called people in need. Which can be found@peopleinneedalloneword.net. And that's a check humanitarian non-profit that is already operating in Ukraine. So they have programs in Ukraine. They're on the ground there. And then finally there is a, a Ukrainian children's charity called voices of children, which can be found@voices.org dot U a forward slash E N for the English website. And that is of course services to children and families they can all use. Yucca: Go ahead. Mark: Yes. we'll put all of Yucca: Yeah, this is, yeah, this is all going to be in the show notes too. So you can go ahead and click on these, but please continue. Mark: So, you know, they need money. That's, that's really the need now that the need is resources. So spare what you can Yucca: because those little bits there's been little bits really do add up. Mark: They certainly do. I mean, you know, we have seen so many crowdfunded situations in the United States where millions of dollars have been accumulated in small contributions. We certainly have the wherewithal to do this. And another thing that you can do That was suggested on the atheopagan Facebook group is you can look for Ukrainian artists on Etsy and buy their stuff. 'cause one thing that happens in a war zone is that the price of everything skyrockets and ordinarily people can't afford food. They can't afford fuel. Even as they're trying to flee the country, they can't afford gasoline, even if it's available. So, you know, those, those quick transfers over PayPal into the the accounts of Ukrainian artists can make a huge difference for them. So that's something else you can continue. Yucca: That's that I would've never thought of that. That's a great idea. Mark: There is a particular kind of dog called a Mokosh doll. Mokosh is a Ukrainian goddess kind of the, the forest mother and they're these beautiful little dolls. And we can put a link to. Some information about that in the show notes as well. But it would be, I mean, having one of those dolls for your altar might be a great thing, right? You know, it might feel good. And you would know that you had put that money into the hands of someone who's whose heritage and culture and legacy are endangered have be in danger of being extinguished because of lot of miracles. Yucca: Yeah. And recognize that maybe the shipping might be a little bit delayed on it. So don't give up, don't leave them a bad review for that. The understanding that there's some circumstances that might affect their ability to ship things to you at the moment. Mark: Well, what I'm going to do because I have a color printer is I'm going to print out the picture of the doll and put that on my focus right away. And that'll, that'll have to do until, Yucca: you started. Mark: comes. Yeah. So having said all that we wish you. Equanimity as best as possible in the face of these terrible world events. And of course we are thinking and hoping and caring about the Ukrainian people and everyone else who is negatively impacted by this. I mean, the Soviet conscripts can't be any happier about being forced to do this, then. Yucca: Well on their parents and children and yeah. Mark: yeah. Yucca: Right. Imagine I don't even want to go there, Mark: Oh, I said Soviet, it's actually Russian, but it tells you kind of how it feels, right? The same thing all Yucca: reminiscent. Yeah. It's it feels, but So we're that our hearts are there right now. Mark: Yes. Yes. So am I a good. A question that many of us ask ourselves, honestly. And this topic came about because I got inspired to write. We, we, we did our literary interlude last week with some of the stuff that I've written over time. Yucca: And thank you again for that. That was just so lovely. That was so much fun to do. Mark: thank you so much, Yucca. And I got some very nice comments on it too. So thank you folks. And as sometimes happens, when I dive into my sort of literary side for awhile, I got inspired to write on Sunday last week. And particularly I was thinking about. You know, the dynamic between you and me, Yucca and how different our lifestyles are. The different ways that we're living our lives. And of course I'm much later in my life. So my opportunity to sort of drop everything and go with. Route is just much more limited, right? Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So I wrote this I wrote this poem called in the belly of the beast and I'll read it now and then talk about what it means. IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST My leg is caught in the trap. I will never be free. I will make money and buy my food, pay my bills. My leg is caught in the trap. I will never be free. I will assume rights to what I have no right to Though I interrogate this over and over. My leg is caught in the trap. I relate to my body as a far country, a vehicle. My wildness is crushed by whiteness and fear. My leg is caught in the trap, but I can see far from this place to a time When the people will understand the love in a vegetable. When they will know the beauty that surrounds them. When They will refuse to break it for greed or malice, when those so afflicted Will be healed and held by all, Loved until the dark dream passes from them, until they are restored Until with beauty all around Day by day It is finished. ________________________ I really do feel that way. Sometimes my leg is caught in the trap of capitalism. I, I work to make money. I buy products, I buy my food, I don't grow it. And so that. Gets my little critic, voice going and, you know, saying, well, you're bad pagan. You, you shouldn't, you shouldn't be doing that. You know, all of our favorite words should shouldn't be doing that. You should be abandoning everything and running off and living in a tree. And. Obviously that's not realistic, but it does make me think about what can I do in my lifestyle to be, have less of a footprint even than I'm doing now. What can I do to be more closely engaged with the ecosystem around. So we thought that we would talk this episode about, well, what does it mean to be a good pagan and how do you figure that out for yourself? And what do you do if you don't think you're doing as good a job as you want to, and stuff like that. Yucca: Right. Well, and starting with as pagans, we don't have a Pope. We don't have. Yeah, some guy telling us and deciding, you know, what it, what does it mean to be a good pagan? And that's one of the first places to start is okay. Nobody else is telling us, which I personally think is a bonus. So now, now how do we figure it out then? Right? What does it, what does that actually mean? And, and how does that change to in, in, in a changing world? Mark: Right. And. we should be clear, you know, we are speaking from the standpoint of a non-ferrous science-based paganism, Right. Because for many pagans, It's like, well, I'm, I'm doing the rituals to the gods. I'm worshiping them. And that's what they want. And so I am being a good pagan. That is not our path. Our path is about The earth, the real physical material earth here. I'm not a romanticized idea of nature, but the reality of the fabric of life being better acquainted with it and being more gentle with it and doing what we can to protect and foster it. Yucca: Right. It's about our relationship with it, Mark: Yes. Yucca: I, and, and the rest of what it is, which includes other humans. We often like to do this separation where we're like, oh, here's humans and here's nature. But no part of, part of the work that we're doing is recognizing that this is all part of the same thing. Mark: right, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: It's and so what that means is that each of us for ourselves has to decide, you know, am I connected enough with. I do I really know enough about the cycles of the area where I live? Do I know enough about the creatures who live here? Is that piece important to me or is, or is more of a macro understanding, more important about climate and you know, plant communities rather than individual species animal communities, because all of those are perfectly legitimate ways to approach being, being connected. Yucca: Right. Mark: You know, we watch for the days to get longer. Well, that's observing nature, Right. We notice the phase of the moon. That's observing nature. We notice when, in my case, the hummingbirds start to come back or, you know, to my feeder or When the white pelicans are going through the Laguna de Santa Rosa, which is a big wetland complex near where I live. Those, that kind of information, that kind of knowledge helps me to feel like I have my feet on the ground here. Like I, I have my ear to the ground. I I'm listening for what nature is doing. And to me that's an important part of being a science-based pagan. Pagan. Yucca: Yeah. Agreed. Completely agreed. And, but, and there's also things that we've talked about on this channel before, or this podcast before is the, some of the values that come along with this, that, that we choose that we are going to. We think this is sacred. We think that this is worth trying to embody and protect. Mark: Right, right. Yucca: there are values and principles and, and that's something that, as we've talked about before that individuals to at least in, in this practice choose for themselves, it's not assigned. Somebody doesn't come in and say, you need to devalue this, or you need to, you know, believe in this principle. It's something that upon reflection we come to thinking, okay, what do, what do I really feel? Or what do I want to feel and believe and working towards that because there's not always, we're not always there, right? Because we're coming from, we're all coming from this. Background of, you know, what cultural influences and family influences and all of these things that we're not even aware of. And sometimes those aren't in line with what we want, but it's a process of becoming aware of where we're at and what we want, where we want to be. Mark: Right. I want to talk a little bit about the atheopagan principles in four sacred things right. now, because those can look like a dogma. Theoretically. It's like, oh, you know, you, you need to beef up on principle for that, that sort of thing. That's really not what they're for. What they're for. Is there an articulation of a progressive and environmentally conscious worldview and the ethics that go along with. You know, the ethics for behavior that go along with a kind inclusive, ecological happy way of living. And so, you know, if, if people just say, well, I'm not interested in the principles and stuff That's fine. They, they can be non theist. Science-based pagans, you know, pursuing a path. It's all fun. Some different thing. They aren't, atheopagan being an atheopagan means you've embraced those principles, but that's okay. There's lots of different paths. Yucca: Yeah. And let's, let's clarify that again. Say that, that atheopagan and some is one path of. Of science-based paganism, right. We're not the only path, but, and that's, that's, that's good. That's fine. Right. It's just a one particular interpretation that we happened to be quite fond of. Mark: Yes, that's right. And so if you do embrace those principles, if, if those 13 principles and four sacred pillars, if they make sense to you and you read them as so many people do, and then come back to me and say, oh wow, you, you, you put my values on paper, look at that. If, if they really do resonate with you and, but you feel like maybe on one or two of them, Kind of dragging your feet or falling down a little bit, that creates an opportunity then to improve, right. And opportunities to improve are great. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: It's not about being a bad pagan. It's about how do I be a better person and pagan? How, how do I more closely meet my own value set as I go through my day? Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And I mean, you know, there are so many different ways to do that. I mean, there was a time when I was this guy with a briefcase in a suit, wearing a pentacle underneath it, you know, going to lobby congressmen and, you know, members of my state legislature on behalf of environmental policies. Right. I was really in the weeds with land use and transportation and water policy and wastewater policy and all that kind of stuff. And to be honest, I was not as connected with the cycles of the land where I am because I didn't have the time I was working 60 hour weeks, you know, being an advocate for what I really cared about. And that was a perfectly legitimate path. so. There are lots of different ways that you can do a good paganism. The question is, how do you feel about it? You know, do you, do you feel that your your practice in your observance and your, the way you're living your life meets your own expectations? If it does. And don't let that critic voice, you know, that we talk about so often don't let it tear you down. You know, her ROIC expectations of ourselves are unfair. Yucca: Yeah. And that's, I think we really need to, to spend a moment with that, that sometimes what we expect of ourselves is not realistic. Right. And we can, and so many times we can think that we're going to, if we're surrounded by this. The hero, the hero that does it all. Or the, you know, you take care of the, the mom or the whoever who just does everything. They do the full career and the kids, and then the environment, and they're saving everything. And they're working in a soup kitchen over here and that, and, you know, in all of this and all of those things, those are great. But also we do have to look at ourselves as, as organisms and go. What is possible, Mark: Yes. Yucca: it, is it all possible? And, and that we're not failures because we can't do all of it. We're just real, right? We're not, we're not stories. We're real people that still have to take care of their physical bodies and have a, have a limited number of spoons. Mark: Right. We have mental health to consider. We have our socioeconomic circumstances to consider, you know, the, the ability to be the mom who does it all is the position requires a position of tremendous privilege. You need to be able to have the resources to be able to do. The career and the kids and the, the volunteer work and the community leadership, all that kind of stuff. And there are people that are able to do that, but I guarantee you, the overwhelming majority of those folks have money. Yucca: Yeah. And we're not saying that they're bad people for having it Mark: Oh, no. Yucca: but, but that, you know, it's not realistic to expect that you're going to be able to do the same things as other, as everyone else, or that you're going to be able to fulfill these, these, like God-like ideals that get put out. But we can look. Where are we really at and what is really important to us and start to prioritize and, and see, you know, what is going to make the biggest difference for me. And what's gonna let me move more towards that. Maybe jumping towards all of whatever it is that you want to do all at once. You know, it might not work out, but can you make little changes here and there that are going to influence your overwhelmed over. Overall wellbeing, kind of like what we were talking about at the beginning about taking care of ourselves ritually in intense times like this in the world, so that we can then be able to come in at whatever needs needs our attention from a more balanced place. Mark: Right. Yeah. I mean, maybe it's just it's as little as I promise myself, I'm going to take a walk in nature once a month, you know, maybe, maybe that's. Maybe that's as much as it is because you aren't getting out into nature and you'll find for one thing, you may find that you have a hard time limiting it to once a month because it's awfully good for you. And you can feel a whole lot better after you've had that walk. But you know, just that little addition, you know, those, those two, three hours of, of being out in nature, breathing fresh air Can can fundamentally change your sense of your quality of life and your sense of yourself, Yucca: Wait, Mark: Because Yucca: can have a domino effect there, right? Mark: sure, because then you have more in the way of resources internally, right? You have more spoons. Yucca: Yeah. You know, there's, there's certain themes that we can talk about that we can speak from, from our own lives and just, you know, people in general and that one of getting out in nature and. You're not a nature-based pagan. Probably just pretty good for all humans, you know, regardless of their particular views towards nature itself, just to, to get all of those, those benefits of the fresh air and the sunshine and the, you know, all of that. So there's certain things that we can speak to, but there's also going to be things that are going to be really individual to your situation. Your values, your goals that, know, we can give broad ideas, but it really comes down to you reflecting on your own life Mark: Right. Yeah, because nobody can decide that you are a good or bad person or, or pagan or anything else. Other than yourself, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: I mean, there, there are plenty of disciplines out there where you get external assessment and confirmation of your performance. If you want to be a, a competitive figure skater, then you're going to deal with people rating how good a competitive figure skater you are. But when it comes to this, and this is so personal it's so. You know, our spirituality is so wound up in who we are and our, our sense of ourselves in life and in the universe And, our sense of belonging and purpose. This, these are decisions that you can really only make for yourself. And so the answer to the question, am I a good pagan? Has to be, I am. if I think I am. I am. If I've decided that I am. If I, if I give myself a a 75 on my internal assessment, well, maybe there's something I need to add. you know, maybe there's, you know, maybe there's a call that I need to make to my state Senator about a bill that I feel really strongly about. Just leave a message at their office. Something that feels like. Tangible activity outside of my ritual activity, in my own relationship with nature. So, oh, go Yucca: decide that, you know, it's not a 75, if you're feeling like it's a 40 or something like that, you. It doesn't make you a bad or unworthy person. It's just that you feel like you have that you've got a progress to make, and there's something exciting in that, right? Because Mark: cause it's potential. Yucca: Yeah. Look at that. And, and whatever age you're at too many, I think that it, even if we don't know how much life we have. Right. We could be in a car accident tomorrow or, or something like that. But, but if you go, if you go down the route of it's too late to make any change, well, then you're just never going to make the change. Like, there's not really a point in doing that because you just won't make the change then. So we, you can that you still have. again, you don't get to know where it's going, but, but you get to make the steps that you have now and know that now there's something, something there in the future. Mark: Right. Right. And, you know, bear in mind. I mean, especially in Western culture, we like stories that are kind of tied up with a bow at the end, you know, where all the loose ends are sort of neatly tied off And it's all, it's all very, very precise and very pretty. Yucca: And then they lived happily ever after, Mark: Yes. Yucca: boring. Mark: Well, it also sounds like a lie cause that ain't what happens to anybody. Yucca: Relationships are take work. Mark: They are work. and on some days they are not happy. And that's okay. That's part of the whole deal, but You know, part of, I think part of what really hurts people is the expectation of happily ever after when the work has really just begun as they start a relationship. So, where was I? I don't remember. Yucca: Well, we had been talking about. Mark: I know about about life as this journey, right? With these, with these opportunities to grow. And that doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to get to the place that in your eye, in your highest ideal, you might want to get before you die. And that's okay. You know, it's okay to have sort of dangling in. And so even if you feel like you don't have very much time left, you can still start, right. You can still begin to pursue the, that ideal of what you would like to be doing in your practice and in your life. Yucca: right. Thank you. Yeah, very well said. So. We were trying to make a list before we started recording of, you know, from our perspective, what is a good pagan. And it was, it was kind of hard to make that list. I mean, what we ended up writing down was working towards a better world and paying attention. That was, that was really, those were the core ideas for, for us. And then from there, you know, what are you paying attention to? What does a better world mean to you? You know, what is that work there? So there's, there's so much in that. Mark: Yeah. And paying attention is both internal and external, right? So you're paying attention to who you are and your own growth. And you're working to foster that and to become a wiser and better person. Right. And you know, to be honest, wherever somebody is on that journey, as long as I see the effort that they're making to be, to be kinder and better in. I, I give them a pass, you know, for an awful lot, just because I can tell that they're trying, that, that makes, that makes a tremendous difference to me. And, you know, assessing the people around me, are they trying to grow or are they just defending themselves? And so that internal work can include your ritual work. It can include your meditation practice. It can include your, your tarot practice any of those kinds of things. And then the external paying attention can be about seasons and cycles and observations and holidays, and all those kind of. Communing connection with nature, things that we so associate with the pagan witchy archetype, right? Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And then there's the working to make the world a better place part. And for a lot of people, this is really hard because, you know, if you have a, if you have a job in an office for a bank, for example and there's nothing wrong with. But it's hard to imagine, you know, how am I contributing to the improvement of the world in some way? Well, you know, maybe, maybe you want to join some organizations, help them to do some good things. You want to pick one organization to give to them every month and, you know, get involved as a volunteer and really be an advocate for their mission. Maybe you want to Start getting more involved in your local politics go to your school board meetings and your city council meetings and start paying attention to those kinds of things. There are lots of different entry points for how you can speak up about your vision for a world that is good to all of us and to the ecosystem. Yucca: Right. And, and also your, the way that you treat other people, because we're in incredibly powerful in our social interactions, you know, the, the difference on what. Your day feels like when someone gave you a sincere kind smile versus someone just sort of scowled and barely paid attention to you. And if you're that person who is. Giving honest, sincere smiles. Like it seems like, oh yeah, that's a small thing, but really that can be huge in someone's life. And the more, and it's a practice, right? The more you practice that the better you feel in general in your own life and the, you know, the better people feel around you. And there's just that little, you know, you can be that the start of that little ripple. Right. So, you know, sometimes it's just, just choices like that, of stopping for a moment. Doing a quick ground and just behaving in a more loving way. Mark: Yes. And particularly with people that are, that are serving you, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: You can tell a lot about a person by how they treat waiters and baristas and people collecting tolls at the toll bridge and Retail workers. of all that, you know, people are absolutely equal to you and to me and to everybody, you know, we are all equal. We're all human, we all deserve dignity and respect. And so, you know, if, if you, if you struggle with this, then. You know, try to contemplate that. Try to sort of fill in, in your mind when, when dealing with your kind of frontline service workers, you know, to remember that they have a whole life behind them. And you know, they're a thinking being that has an internal dialogue, just like you do. It, it can be. It can be kind of a revelation to realize as you watch people go around that they're not non-player characters that they're, they're fully fleshed out human beings with agency and and sovereignty. Yucca: and they're the main character in their story. Mark: Exactly. Exactly. So, and so what kind of character are you going to be in? Their story becomes the question. Are you going to be an ogre or are you going to be a helper? You know, someone who is kind and appreciative for the service that they help you with? Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So, There's so much to say about this, but I feel like we've probably arrived at a good point. Yucca: I think so. Yeah. I think that just a theme again is just that there's again, so many directions to go with it that there's, there's probably certain directions that you feel. More connection with that are going to be what's appropriate for your life or meaningful in your life, more than others. And you know, maybe we should come back to some of those specifics at another point, but I just really encourage everyone listening to just think about where in their life, those, you know, where, where to put your initial. And what's, what's it going to be for you because it's going to be different for you than it is for me, or for mark or for anyone else. Mark: right, Yucca: And we need that. Not only is that normal, but that's really that just from an ecological perspective, that's really important. You need a lot of different, different things, doing different organisms, doing different jobs, filling different niches. Mark: Yeah, strong ecosystems are diverse ecosystems. And so, you know, humans have the capacity for tremendous diversity. And that is a good thing because we're so adaptable and we have so many capacities. So, thank you for for inspiring a piece of writing for me last week. I really appreciate that Yucca. Yucca: Thank you. It was, I loved it. It was, it was really wonderful. Mark: well, I'm glad. Thank you. And thanks to all of our listeners who we so appreciate. Be sure to drop us a line@thewonderpodcastqueuesatgmail.com. That's the wonder podcast, all one word Q s@gmail.com. If you have topics, suggestions, or comments or criticisms or questions or any of those kinds of things, we welcome them. So thank you so much. And we'll see you next time. Yucca: be sure to check out those links that we mentioned at the beginning. Those will be in the show notes. So thank you everyone.

Community Revisited

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 25, 2022 45:57

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com S3E4 TRANSCRIPT:----more---- Mark: Welcome back to the wonder: science-based paganism. I'm your host mark. And today we're going to talk about a subject that we have already done. One episode about. But it was nearly two years ago, Right. after the start of the Corona virus pandemic. And I listened to it today and it just seemed really stale and that topic is about community building. And so particularly we want to talk about community building today and also doing that in the context of the pandemic. How can we build an experience community when we're having these concerns? Yucca: Right. I mean, it really seems like we're in a different, a different era than we were when we did that first that first pass at this topic. And I think we were very hopeful about how quickly things were going to resolve themselves. I don't, I certainly didn't. I didn't expect that we would still be where we are right now. Two years later. Mark: Well, at one point in that podcast, I, I remember hearing myself say when I listened to it this morning well, when we get a vaccine and everything goes back to normal, then blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, we have a vaccine, but things have not gone back to normal. And there's, there's still a lot of concern and a lot of, a lot of loss happening around this pandemic. So, Yucca: for the vaccine and, you know, fully support, you know, go ahead, get that, you know, if it's something that you, you are able to, and that's really, really important, that's part of this solution. But as we're seeing that, unfortunately it's not quite as simple as we were hoping it would be. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Those viruses, they mutate so quickly. And of course there's all the whole socio political stuff around getting vaccinated or not really complicated things, but from our standpoint, you know, we're very much a yay science Yucca: Yeah. Mark: here. And so we really encourage you to get the jabs. Yucca: Yeah. And I just want to remind folks that there, there are still populations that cannot, I have a child who cannot get the vaccine yet. It's not available to him. And so, you know, for us as a family, It's you know, every, I think that everybody's still being careful, but we have to be super careful. And, and, you know, if you see that, you know, we're very masked up and super social distancing it's because we have a very vulnerable member. We know we don't want him getting it sick and we don't want him passing it on to his elderly grandparents and all of that. So anyways, this is probably very familiar territory to everyone. So this is the context that we're talking about. Can we hit it again? Right? This is our context today. Mark: Yes. Yes, exactly. So, so the first thing really to do when you're talking about anything is to define your terms. Right. As an aside that I just had a, ridiculous Twitter exchange with a fist at a Christian who was certain that he was going to prove to me that his God existed, but he was unwilling to define what it meant which is a little problematic when, when you're talking about logical proof. Yucca: Right. So defining let's start. Yeah. What are we talking about? Mark: I think we're talking about a variety of different social situations. Community can be a small group of five or six people. It can be a large population of people who all share something in common and feel a sense of shared values and interests. And in the pagan community, we tend to. We tend to have sort of concentric rings of community. Right. Many people belong to covens or circles that are relatively small working groups that they do a lot of their rituals with. But then they're also part of a local community, which. May hold pagan, pride events or public rituals or something like that. And then they may see themselves as part of a national movement that has conferences and festivals that you go to. And, and then part of an international community as Well, Yucca: Well, and, and to jump back down, actually on that local level, they might be part of a community, which is maybe an interfaith where it's this kind of various, you know, non dominant religions that are, you know, there's kind of the right, like vaguely new age people. And the pagans kind of have a a community going on in their, in their area. Mark: right. The the we're not the big three folks. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: Who it's interesting, at least where I live in this, maybe because the, where I live in this kind of blue bubble in Northern California, but in the interfaith circles that I go to, I find that. Pagans and sort of alternative folks are, are disproportionately present. There's more of them than there are proportionally in the overall population. Whereas the interfaith groups may only have a couple of attendees that are Christian, for example even though they're Christians everywhere, Yucca: Sure. How was it with the Quakers? Different, there's like two very different branches of what Quakers could be, but do you tend to have the kind of more, I dunno what to call it? Prim and proper that the Quakers, Mark: yeah. the more kind of peace and activism oriented Quakers who are, tend to be sort of less deterministic about theisim you know, for them, it's much more of a practice and, you know, listening for that voice from within themselves. And maybe some of them consider that to be a voice of spirit or of God or something like that. But others don't Yucca: Yeah, that's the certs that we've got mostly in my area and they tend to be the ones that will show up and be at many of the space in some many of the spaces that are shared with pagan folks. Mark: Right. Yucca: It's very interesting. We also have quite a few sufis as well, but kind of in that area. you. Mark: Yeah, the last interfaith thing that I did, it was, I don't know, probably 15 people in there were two Quakers in two sufis. And the sufis were the only Muslims represented. There weren't any other more sort of mosque going muslims. And of course, none of the evangelicals are there because why would you. spend time with people who are wrong? Yucca: Oh, there's then to convert them. Mark: right, right. So community. is something that we as humans need we're social animals, and it feeds us to interact with others. Even those of us that are really introverted, still can get something out of engaging with others that we see as being like us, and that we have an affinity for. Yucca: Well, there's that emotional need of the sense of belonging, which I think is really, really important in the community. Right. And I think that's very important for our, our mental health. Even those of us who are introverts. Right. Mark: Yeah. that the feeling of belonging is something that comes up a lot in pagan circles in my experience. And particularly in non-ferrous pagan circles, because people say, oh, I thought I was alone. I thought I was the only one that, you know, that thought this way. And now there's this community of people that I can belong to. Right. Without having to sort of hide what I really believe. Any of that kind of stuff. And I know that for a lot of people who are sort of social socially misfit, socially disconnected people who are just different and they they're, they're not interested in kind of gliding along the path. That's been carved out for everybody in our society. Many of those are really gravitated towards paganism. Many of them are, are neuro atypical or. Too bright or you know, or have other sort of social impediments? Um, Yes. So, so let's talk a little bit about different ways of being in community and we're, we're going to talk some a bit later on, we're going to talk some about recruiting community, finding people to be connected with some techniques that we can use. Some strategies that we have for finding ways. To find people to connect to because it's particularly hard right now with the pandemic. So the next thing to talk about after understanding what community is and why we want it. And that can be I should also say that can also be very functional. You know, if you want to do, if you want to have a book club, for example, you probably don't want a book club of 75 people. You, you know, there, depending on what the interest of the area of shared interest is, there are different sizes of community that you can look at having, but let's talk about how to approach. A new community or, you know, coming to enter an area where you might be able to recruit people who reflect your own interests and share passions that you have. So you can build community with them. Yucca: Yeah. Well, I think one of the first things to do is to listen, And Mark: Yes. Yucca: that's listening on many levels, listening to yourself, but also listen. And paying attention to the other people, to the, to the cultural expectations with the sub cultural expectations that you're stepping into. And not just sometimes when we get excited, we can just do all the talking and kind of run over someone else and just taking a moment to, you know, consider are you talking? Okay. So. With the animals that we have in our homes, sometimes like dogs are, have really different personalities and cats just like on a species level. The individuals have different personalities too, but the way that you're going to be friend to cat, and the way you're going to be friend to dog is different and you need to stop and listen and figure out, you know, is this a dog or a cat that you're dealing with or something else? Mark: Right. Yeah, that totally makes sense. And not only listening, but being genuinely curious about other people that's, that's really important because a lot of the social glue that builds communities is just a general sense of am I seeing, am I appreciated? Does this person like me, and one way that you can show that a person likes you is by being genuinely curious about who they are and what they're into. So that's a really important piece as well. I think, you know, if you, if you enter a new space and right now we might be talking about county scale pagan disc, or a discord chat or or a zoom call, right? Not something in person, very likely because of how things are. It's a pandemic right now. You know, really kind of going in there and, you know, not only saying, you know, here's who I am and here's what I'm into, but also asking other people what they're into and who they are is a great way to start building that sense of community around yourself. And who knows, maybe your idea of doing a book club is something that a bunch of other people are really going to get excited about. Yucca: Right or there's something. Wow. That idea that they had, he didn't even know how much you wanted that idea until you heard them say it. Mark: Right. Somebody wants to do moon rituals, every full moon. Oh boy. I've always wanted to do full moon rituals, but I can never make myself do them. Right. I just, I don't ever really get around it, but if it's in my calendar to get together with this group, And I've got some accountability with them because they're expecting me to show up. Then I can start doing this practice that I really have been wanting to get into. Right. So that's exciting both for you and for them that's, it's a win-win. Yucca: Right. Mark: So, a subset of this is talking about being non theist pagans in the broader pagan community. Right. And we've, we've talked about this before. There can be some friction there, there are people who are very defensive about the reality of their gods and. They're very threatened by the suggestion that there may be someone in their circle who doesn't believe that their gods are real. This is a little bit of a tight rope to walk, but it's important to both not be in the closet and not be a jerk about it. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So you can just say, you know, You know, cosmologically feel logically. This is where I am. I'm a science-based science seeking pagan or witch. And. And I'm a non fist. But you don't need to get into an argument with somebody about whether their gods exist or not. Look for commonalities. I mean, if somebody starts to get bent out of shape about that, you can immediately go to, for me, the earth is sacred and this ritual is about the sacred earth. I mean, You're invoking Gaia, Right. The, the world. We share that in common and we can do this in common. Yucca: All right. And, and also be walking that line, be tactful too, about when you. When you state what you believe, you know, maybe not in the middle of, you know, you, you wouldn't come out to your parents at like your sister's wedding kind of thing right. In the middle of when it's not about you. Right. It's about her. It's about that. Like, you know, so in the middle of a ritual, if you know, that's what they're into, like, you don't need to be like, no, you're wrong or, or something like that, just, you know, kind of, you know, read the. And, you know, like mark, you were saying, you don't need to hide, but, but just be aware of what's what's going on. And, and when, when it's important for you to state it, when it isn't, you know, it goes back to that old using pick your battles, like where are you going to be putting your energy right now? Mark: Right, right. And an important consideration as a part of that is the principle that I call your house, your rules. If somebody else is organizing a ritual, I am not going to give them a hard time about having God. It's their ritual, their rules. If I want to participate, then I'm going to have to, you know, go through that process. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: I mean, even if it means that I'm just kind of standing quietly while they're, you know, invoking their deities and I'm, you know, just kind of waiting for that part to be over. I'm not going to be interrupted and I'm not going to be argumentative. And you know, that's just not right. But if you're the organizer of the ritual, you don't have to put gods in, in order to accommodate somebody else, you know? So your house, your rules, Yucca: right? Yeah. That's that's great. Mark: the most important, oh, go ahead. Yucca: oh, well, This was going to take us in another direction code, so please continue. And then I'll then I'll take us off in another direction. Mark: Okay, that sounds good. The important thing to keep in mind, and this is something that most people will respond to in a positive way. Most people will stand down their defensiveness. If you go to this principle, which is that everybody has the right to their own spiritual path, right. Everybody is an individual. Everybody develops in their own way. Certain things appeal to people that, I mean, there's a lot of people out there that really want to be told what to do, what to believe. What to value that whole authoritarian model really works for them. And they're not going to be pagans there. They're going to be Christians or they're going to be Muslims or you know, something else. And they're entitled to. They have a right to it. That's the spiritual path that they choose. So if you get into one of these sort of friction moments, I think it's really important to go back to that. This is my spiritual path and I have a right. to it And you have a right to yours and they don't have to agree. Yucca: right. And what I was actually going to say is you also can set your boundaries about the types of interactions you want to be involved in, and you completely have the right to do that. And to be able to say that, you know, I don't want to be treated in certain ways and I'm not going to engage if I'm going to be treated that way. Right. So you can do that. Mark: right. Yucca: and when forming, when entering, when looking for a community or being in a community that's growing your needs and boundaries, you know, those are really important. You don't need to make other people have the same boundaries as yours, but you can set those rules for yourself. Mark: Right. Yeah. And there are communities out there. That aren't a fit for you. You know, there, there are times when, you know, there may be particular personalities that are really dominant in a given community and they just are you, you and they, excuse me, you and they are like oil. You just don't mix. And if they're already well-established in that community and you're coming in from the outside, you're probably going to bounce off and go and look somewhere else. And that's okay. It can be sad that there isn't that openness to diversity, but we don't get to control what other people do only are. Yucca: There's certainly for me been some groups, especially online groups. You know, there's just an accepted communication style, which is just too kinda too rough for what I'm comfortable with. Right. Where, you know, people are more okay with doing jabs and kind of putting words in other people's mouths. And while there's certain value and things that I love in it, I'm going, you know, I just, I, I just don't have the bandwidth for that. So. That's cool. Do you all, do you, but I'm going to go over here and I'm going to, I'm going to have stress, stress myself out and I want community, but I'm going to find a little bit of a gentler community, you know, and that's fine. Mark: Right. Yeah. And being in a community is something where you can, I mean, you can even do it on a pad of paper. You know, it is very much a costs, benefits kind of consideration when you're in. And, you know, I've found myself in communities before where I finally realized this is damaging me more than it's benefiting me. I got it. Other communities where it's like, wow, this feeds me overwhelmingly. And it's got some things about it that I don't really like, but I can shine those on because this is so good for me and overall So, positive. And it's important for you to be aware of that. As you participate in a community or as you approach a new community, just really to be aware of how are my needs getting met here? How is this working for me? And it's okay to ask those questions. You don't have to just sort of suffer along because everybody else is suffering a lot. Yucca: Yeah. And if they don't interpret themselves to suffering, that's fine. Right. They might not be, it might be fine for them or maybe they are, and that's their choice. Right. Mark: Right. Yucca: you can take care of your, you gotta take care of yourself. And then most of these cases everybody's going to be an adult. Right. So they can just go ahead and make those choices. Mark: Right. And if they're not going to be an adult, you don't want to be there anyway, Yucca: Yes. Mark: because you know, life is too short to not deal with grownups who aren't grownups. Yucca: Oh yeah. Mark: It's, it's hard. And you know, obviously we're all working to be. As adult as we can, as conscientious and as wise as we can. And we are where we are. But, you know, if, if you have, I mean, one thing that happens in religious communities a lot, and it does happen in pagan communities a lot is that you get these charismatic sort of dominant personalities and. They get the bid in their teeth and start expecting that everybody's going to kiss their ring and it gets really toxic and it is perfectly okay for you to recognize that that's poison to you and you're not going to play that game. That is perfectly okay. Yucca: right. Mark: So let's talk a little bit about how you might go. people that might form a community around you. right. Obviously you're looking for people who are, have shared interest with you. So if you're really interested in Toronto, for example, you use you meditate on tarot cards as a way of tapping your unconscious and you know, accessing your intuition. And you want to, you want to talk about that with other people? That's, that's a great opportunity. It's something you could put out on meetup. It's something you could announce in a, in a Reddit group, Reddit, subreddit. And see I mean, especially now during the pandemic, there's, there's less geographical challenge than there used to be. Just to be the meetings were like, well, you have to happening by video conferencing. We have a much better opportunity to engage with people who are all over the world. Yucca: Right. Yeah. And it's, it's just normalized, right? Like everybody knows how to get on zoom or whatever platform it is. And, and, you know, some people are tired of it because they're working on it or going to school on it or doing all those things. But, but it's not as awkward as it was a few years ago. Mark: Right, right. Yeah. It's, I mean, Everybody from little kids to grandparents there, they're all doing zoom now. It's big. It's become sort of a secondary a second nature communication channel for us. Yucca: Right. We've changed. The verb used to be, oh, Skype with them. Now you zoom Mark: that's right. That's right? Yucca: It's her, Skype's not happy about that piece to be the verb. Yeah, Mark: but they didn't update their product in a appropriate way in there. They've got a crappy product now, so Yucca: yeah, Mark: just not nearly as good as zoom is. Yucca: So anyways, let's, we're talking about finding shared interest, right? Mark: right, Yucca: then, he might find interest within, you know, people who share more than one interest to. Mark: Right. You know, if you find yourself in a couple of different venues, maybe online and the same person is in both of those and you really like what they have say, maybe that's somebody that you would reach out to. If you're interested in forming a little circle and saying, Hey, you know, I I'd like to do rituals once a month. What do you, you know, would you be interested in helping to put together an online ritual circle with me, Or if they're in your local geographical area, you could say, well, maybe we could do this online for now during the pandemic, but eventually we would look to getting together in person. Yucca: yeah. depending on your comfort level, there might be, you might be able to do some in-person, but distanced, you know, if it's a, if you're interested in outdoors type things, did he go hiking or, Mark: Right, Yucca: know, things like that. Mark: right. Yeah. Yucca: you can feel pretty, pretty safe that, you know, you're 10 feet away from each other in the outdoors. You're probably. Okay. Mark: yes. Yes. And that's good for you in all kinds of ways. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yeah, but that's, I mean, it's good for you because it's exercise and it's good for you cause it's getting out into nature and it's good for you cause it's building community. So all of those things are great. One of the things about building a group of any kind is that you need to have some agreement. Yucca: Yes. Mark: And groups can get in trouble by assuming that there's a tacit agreement to how we're going to behave with one another and not explicitly articulating what those agreements are, because then if somebody violates them later and is abusive or harassing or something like that, there's nothing to point to, to say this isn't okay here. Yucca: Yeah. Well, and even if they're not being abusive or harassing where you just have the conflict that, you know, one person was saying LOD, I didn't think this was okay. And the other person was going, what do you mean? Why isn't this? Okay. We never said anything about it. Why is that a problem? Mark: right, Yucca: Or that you wouldn't think that, you know, I was in a pagan kind of group for a long time that it was the one person had the assumption that we shouldn't publicly disagree with each other. And I would publicly disagree with them and had no idea that I was like, seriously, offending this person. By disagreeing with them because, you know, I thought I was doing it polite fully with gentle language and I feels and all of that, but they were just like horrified by it. Didn't tell me for a long time that that was a problem. Right. And I had no idea. I'm like, wow. Mark: Wow. Yucca: never my intention to hurt you, but Okay. Mark: wow. That's that's kind of a big one to keep to yourself. I Well just, well, Yucca: Yeah, well, but, but there are some, we were coming from just very different backgrounds in terms of, you know, they, I was, I come from a background. I come from the sciences where disagreeing with somebody is not a bad thing. You're just trying to work towards the truth. Mark: Right. Yucca: chosen. They were from that whole like arts, humanities feelings. Those are all great things, but there's just a different culture around that. Yeah. Mark: Yeah, for sure. That's actually something that gets science-based pagans kind of sideways of many other pagans, because our orientation is, you know, what's true matters and we want to interrogate claims, Right. So, you know, if you claim that you have psychic powers, well, why do you claim that? And where's the evidence and you know, what are, what are the odds that that's just a coincidence, as opposed to, you know, some sort of actual psychic thing, that's our orientation. And for other people, it can be highly offensive, Yucca: Right. And then, and it can be taken. Yeah. Well, I know that, I mean, the situation that I'm referring to and I'm kind of being vague about it to be respectful of people's privacy, but I learned later that me challenging the ideas felt to them. Like I was challenging them as a person in their validity when I was just. Disagreeing with things that I thought were factually incorrect, like claims and statements. Mark: Right. Yucca: Right. But for them it was like, no, this is part of my identity. This is part of me. And you're saying this publicly, Mark: I think it's very, I think it's very challenging, especially given the way that we're encouraged to internalize our worldview by the over culture. I think it's very, very challenging for people to separate their identity from what they believe. To be true. And that's a core aspect of scientific training. It's, it's an absolutely necessary piece of scientific training and many scientists don't actually do it when it comes to their religious beliefs. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: They do it in their area of Yucca: we're good at Mark: their, their area of research. right? Yeah. So, but when it comes to, you know, religious beliefs, you know, cosmology about. You know, heaven and hell or all that kind of stuff. Then they may very well subscribed to all that stuff, without asking any questions about it, any of the natural questions that would arise. So that is really tricky and it's something that we need to be sensitive to, but it's also something that shouldn't shut off conversation. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: I. I feel wounded that you have questioned. My cosmology is not a valid statement. You know, I'm sorry you feel wounded. I have not meant to attack you at all. You're a perfectly respectable person. I just disagree with this idea you have, and I don't see why you have it. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So going back to agreements and conduct standards it is helpful. I mean every, every mediation negotiation I've ever been through, you know, it starts with the agreements about how we're going to behave and how we're going to deal with conflict. And it is worthwhile to spend a little time on that, because if you can get agreements about that stuff upfront, it will smooth the way for your group's history. Tremendously. Yucca: Oh, yeah. At whatever your group is. We're talking about pagan communities, but my partner's a professional DM online and puts out before doing the group an agreement of expectations and people get to like comment on it and all agree. And those games run so much smoother the other ones where you know, that we've been in the past where people. Kind of, you know, fight and don't know, and don't like, everybody has different expectations. So just having the conversation in the beginning is so, so key. Mark: Yeah. And it's another one of those adulting things, Right. I mean, it can be a little uncomfortable to raise the issue that we may have conflict to raise the issue that somebody may feel that someone else has treated them in a, in an inappropriate way, but not talking about it. Doesn't prevent it from happening. Yucca: Right. Mark: It's just like, Def talking about Def doesn't make it any more likely to happen to you suddenly. Yucca: And it doesn't make you a bad community that you have conflict. It doesn't make you same thing with partnerships. Right? If you fight, if you're having a fight with your partner, like that's just being human, right. How you then handle it. That's different. Right. But some people go, oh, you know, we don't have to talk about how we'll do conflict resolution because we're never going to have it. We're so similar where this like, no that's humans, we disagree. We accidentally hurt each other. Sometimes we purposefully hurt each other and we need to address that within ourselves when we do. Mark: Sometimes we get mad and we say things that we really wish we hadn't said, and we do things that we really wish we hadn't done. And there needs to be a way to address that and repair it. And having those agreements makes a big difference in, in being able to get to a good place. Again. Yucca: Yeah. And there's going to be different levels, right? We're not saying that like, every single friendship needs to have like a, like a huge book of written down, commandments with the amendments and all of that. But, it's going to depend on the scale and the frequency, but that there should be some agreed upon that you, that you're working from the same page. And sometimes an actual written agreement might be really helping. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, that's actually true in relationships too, that, you know, written agreements around how we're going to do conflict, you know, how we're going to do decision-making, you know, it's like, no, I'm, it's not okay with me. If you run out and spend $5,000 on something that we didn't even talk about. not. Okay. So, you know, what are those thresholds? What, you know, what, what do we need to both talk about? Right. Yucca: Where our boundaries for privacy, right? What, because that's going to be different for different people. Mark: Yes, it is. So it sounds sort of technocratic And You know, rule-bound and all That kind of stuff, but honestly, these kinds of agreements help facilitate better communication, better relationships. And you can actually get closer because there's more safety Yucca: And respect, right. That respect is, is part of that safety. Mark: Right. Yeah. So I wanted to tell our listeners about an initiative that's happening in the atheopagan community right now. Cause I know that a lot of our listeners are, are in that community. That I'm very excited about. I announced it in the Facebook group yesterday. We are currently in the middle of finalizing. Conduct standards and and agreements for dealing with conflict and anti harassment policies and anti-discrimination policies, all that kind of stuff. And we're doing all of that. This is for atheopagan context. And that would include the Facebook group and the discord server and all that kind of stuff. But more to the point, we're now looking at. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: we're going to roll out a program called affinity groups. And What that means is that people can form their own little atheopagan groups. They don't have to be little, I mean, it could be 75 people or something. Around a topic of interest or a geographical area, or, you know, whatever is the common thread that binds those people together. And then those groups can meet on their own on whatever platforms they find useful, whether it's Facebook or discord or Mastodon or whatever it is. Yucca: One? I have not heard of Mark: I just heard about this. Mastodon is a open source, highly private Twitter, like thing. It's a microblogging context. I haven't actually seen it, but apparently it's like, there's no, there's no data capture. And so for people that are really, really focused on online privacy, it's something that's desirable. Yucca: Hmm. Like the animal that is named for, Mark: yeah, me Yucca: anyways sorry to derail you there. Let's let's keep going. Mark: that's okay. So I expect we're, we're about to open the the conduct standards to to, for community comment. In, in the atheopagan Facebook group and discord server, that will happen tomorrow because I'll be getting the last of the comments from the atheopagan council by tonight Yucca: So that actually means tomorrow will be. The first day that people will be listening can be listening to the podcast because this is Sunday night that we're recording. And so the podcast usually goes live Monday morning, but sometimes, sometimes life has other plans you know, sick kids or cars or whatever. And it will come out a little bit later, but we shoot for Monday morning when we can. Mark: Right, Yucca: So that will, that should be by, by the time you're listening to that, that should be there. Mark: That should be available. And so we invite you to take a look at all that stuff and comment on it. You know, if there's something that's missing, please let us know if there's some, you know, form of language that just doesn't sit Right. with you. That's fine. This is important because these new atheopagan affinity groups will not be moderated by anybody. Other than themselves. They're they're self-managed right. They're your groups you can do with them, what you want. But what we do ask is that you sign a charter that says, you know, we're, atheopagan, we believe in a naturalistic world and these four pillars and 13 principles, and our group has this purpose. It's a thing you can print. And I don't know, put on your wall or whatever the charter for your, for your new group. But it also includes the conduct standards and stuff, so that if there is a problem if someone comes into the group and, you know, starts private messaging, somebody. Sexually explicit pictures or something. You have a document you can point back at it and say, this is totally not okay. And you, you know, you know that it's totally not. Okay. Cause we have it here in writing. Yucca: Yeah, and this is a great, you know, it's open every, everybody knows that that's not a secret. What the expectations are here. It is. We all have access to it. Yeah. Mark: So I am really excited about this affinity groups idea. I think it's the next, the next step for our community is for people to start to have a control over forming their own communities of interest. You know, the, the atheopagan Facebook group is about to hit 4,000 people. It's large Yucca: Yeah, it's definitely. And things happen fast too. It's like, ah, you Mark: They do. Yes. They happen really fast, which for the moderators is a challenge. And Yucca: for the, the affinity groups. Especially yeah, later lots of different areas, but you know that that's another form. There's going to be a little bit more intimate form of community. Mark: Right. The idea there is you get to know one another, you know, let's say you've got a group of like nine people or something. You get to know one another and you form friendships and those friendships can deepen. If your affinity group is focused in a particular area, like, you know, atheopagan of New Jersey, When the pandemic eases or there's a really reliable medication for it so that people don't get definitely ill. Then you can meet in person and see where that takes you. So I am super excited about this. I think it's, it's definitely a step whose time has come and You know, a lot of what we're about is building community around these ideas and these beliefs since. So, this is, this is an important moment for that. I think. Yucca: Yeah. Well, I'm glad that we came back to this topic and we probably will come back to it again, because this is, this is just a really important thing about being human and being pagan and just in the world. Mark: It is, it is I should put in one more plug for the century retreat in Colorado happening in Colorado Springs on May 13th through 16th. That is an in-person gathering of non-ferrous pagans. The programming is now available. You can download the PDF with all the workshops And activities and all that kind of stuff. At atheopagan and some.org. Yucca: And we will be doing a live podcast from, from the retreat. Mark: we will wifi permitting. We, we will, we will do that. Yucca: Well, if the wifi doesn't permit, we'll still record it and publish it. Well, we'll definitely do a podcast coming from there. Hopefully we'll be able to do it live though. Mark: to do it live. Yeah. And have other people join us here on the zoom call would be really nice because I know that there are folks that are, you know, they're either in Europe or. Australia or they're just unable to get to Colorado Springs for one reason or another, that would still like to be a part of this. So I, I think that's really an exciting thing. So we invite you to register for that. It's cheap. I mean, you have to get to Colorado Springs, but. It's $215 for the three days that includes all your meals. We just sent the meal orders to the to the retreat center and we're going to have some really lovely food and plus lodging. So, and lodging can be as cheap as 70 bucks for camping for the three days, or it can be camping in a year, which I think is. Actually maybe the, maybe the year is $70 and the camping is $22 or something. I don't remember. Yucca: Yeah, but they're, they're fairly low for. Mark: yes, Yucca: Yeah. And, and Mark: then there are Yucca: there's the option for if people are local to the area, you know, you can live in your home and come hang out with us during the day. Right? Mark: Yeah. I mean, if you're, if you're within driving distance, then by all means, you know, register for the event and come in and just do the stuff with us. It's going to be great. We're going to have wonderful rituals and workshops and a lot of socializing and it's just in a dance party and it's going to be really fun. Yucca: Yeah. So just around the corner may is very soon. So Mark: believe how close Mae is now. We've been talking about this for a long time. Yucca: yeah. Mark: Yeah. Okay. Well, Thank you so much for listening as always. We really appreciate our listeners and we get great feedback from you and great ideas about things to talk about on the podcast. And I'm just super grateful to be able to do this and have listeners. So thank you. Yucca: Thank you everyone. Mark: See you next week.

Transitions and Ritual Planning

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 18, 2022 47:42

The blog post with the downloadable Ritual Planning Workbook is at https://atheopaganism.wordpress.com/2018/12/11/starting-a-practice-creating-rituals/ Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com S3E3 TRANSCRIPT:----more---- Yucca: Welcome back to the wonder science-based paganism. I'm one of your hosts Yucca. Mark: And I'm the other one, Mark. Yucca: And this week we're talking about the transition between seasons and also about planning, both your practice and rituals. Mark: Right, right. we arrived at this topic because as we record this, which is on the 17th of January happy Martin Luther king day, everyone the we're sort of at this. Midpoint between Sabbaths where you will is a long time ago and a brightening or in bulk or whatever you want to Yucca: Candlemass. Mark: Or river rain is I call it is still. What three weeks in the future, if you count it as the actual midpoint, like the 7th of February, something like that. And so it's one of those sort of dead spots where, you know, the UL imagery really seems stale. Many of us have taken down all of our decorations and stuff by. And yet it seems a little premature jump into the next holidays, images and symbols and that kind of thing. So what do you do in transition? What, what about this moment? Speaks to us and, and how can we, you know, keep that as a lively part of our practice as well. And then that got us onto the, the general topic of transitions in life and, you know, planning for those, addressing those so forth. Yucca: Right. And how some transitions are. They just happen that you don't get to play on for them. Boom. They happen you, whether you knew they were coming or not, and others seem to stretch out and you're not really sure. And oh, when is it? When is it not? And there can be just so many different kinds and we have so many different emotions surrounding that. But before we get too much into the transitions, why don't we address a little bit more this in between stage? And of course, different people in different climates are going to experience this differently, but certainly for where I am, it's just, doesn't quite feel like we're there. You know, we're definitely out of solstice, but you know, we've, we've taken down most of our souls to see things and it's still winter, but. A lot of the, we haven't really started to do our next activities. And there is, you described it as like a dead spot, but there's also a little bit of a piece there. Right? There's an anticipation, but there's a little bit of arrest and a peace. And just being present in the season without feeling like there's a pressure for any of the. To perform more or any of that. Mark: You know, that's a really good point that I hadn't thought of that. As you mentioned it, it occurs to me that one of the things that's sort of necessary for art and ritual and celebrations are kind of an art form way. need that. blank canvas to contrast with the color that you've painted on it. Right. So. I mean it, maybe it makes sense for us to have periods of time that are just sort of normal there. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: they're just, just normal passage of time. Slotted to one holiday or another, but just the, Between. time when the altar goes back to kind of, sort of alter about the things that we care about and value and it doesn't have to be a seasonal thing necessarily. I kinda liked that thought that, that, that makes a lot of sense to me. Yucca: Yeah. And I think that there might be times like that in our lives as well. Right. Not just within the season, but within the larger. Cycle right where we're in between these big things were in between these, Mark: Hmm. Yucca: know, we've talked before about these rites of passage, these huge things that can happen in people's lives, but sometimes we're just this present in the life now, and there's not a lot happening. We're just sort of between. Mark: That is in some ways, kind of a dangerous time people because they feel like they've fallen into a rut. They feel like there's less of the adventurousness of, of change. Yucca: Yeah Mark: so it becomes really important to. To go back to that thing that we talk about over and over again, paying attention, Yucca: right. Mark: finding, the beauty in the moment, you know, celebrating gratitude for even the small things in our lives, because not always going to be climbing Kilimanjaro or, you know, moving across the country for a new job. I mean, there are, there are things there, there are big moments that. Divide chapters in our lives, then there's the middle of a chapter, right. When you're just kinda doing it. if you don't have those established periods, then your life has kind of chaos, you know, you're, you're sort of leaping from new experience to another. Well on the one hand may sound really attractive, but it's very rootless. It's impossible to build community around yourself if you're doing something like that. Yucca: And training. Mark: yes. I mean, I know people when I was traveling, I met people who had been traveling for years, something like that. And they were kind of odd people. Honestly, they, they were. You could tell that they were rootless and disconnected from human society in a lot of ways. And not to my recollection, particularly happy. They were just, their rut was, you know, where am I going next? You know, how am I going to find lodging, all that kind of thing. Right. Yucca: Yeah, well, and what those in-between times are, that's going to be informed by what you planted early. Right. What did you plan for? What did you metaphorically plant or literally that to, right? What, what have you set up? Because you're going to be where whatever you come from before, wherever that has led you. So I think that there's, that's, that's something about this time of year that I think a lot about. Is, and we've already touched on this with the, you know, looking forward into the new year, but also with what's, at least for us in the Northern hemisphere and the agricultural cycle. This is a time where there isn't a lot happening yet. This is the time where people are looking through those seed catalogs or what seeds do you have and thinking about where things are going to go this year. And if I really do want to make the. Garden bed will, you know, how am I going to make the structure and all of that. And you could think about that quite literally, if you literally have a garden, but that can also be a metaphor for what's happening in our practices in our lives. Mark: Right. Right. of course a part of that process is reflecting on what you've learned in past iterations. Right. So do I really want for zucchini plants now that I know how many zucchini squash I will get out of four zucchini plants? Do I really want to do that again? Yucca: Yes, but don't play it too few because what, what are you, because if you plant too few, then you might end up with none. If that one plant doesn't make it. So thinking about that strategy. Okay. Do I want. You know, can I sacrifice the space to grow the zucchini instead of the whatever, but what if I get squash bugs this year? Will I still have enough? Yeah. And Yeah. Mark: Which also requires you to, you know, kind of flesh out your plan a little bit more. All right. I only really want to end up with two zucchini plants, but I'm going to plant six and then come. Say summer solstice, I'm going to pull two of them. If they're all still alive, you know, or four of them or whatever, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: whatever mathematics I just presented. I, I think I said six I wanted to, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: going to take out the four others. So. You know, this whole idea of planning is really deeply associated with the holiday that we have coming up. Bridget or in bulk or yada yada, Yucca: Yeah, we'll talk more about that in a few weeks. Mark: a couple of Yucca: Yeah. Mark: because that'll be coming up for us. The the doldrum months of winter or a good time to be planning, planning, not only planning, but at this stage of the game goal setting, right. You know, I want to have a garden that's going to produce this much in the way of tomatoes and this much in the way of summer squash and this much in the way of and potatoes and. You know, when you, when you have that kind of a sense that helps you to start making decisions about, well, how are things going to be laid out and how many plants in each do I need? And you know, how long does do various things take to grow? And we can do that in our lives too. And I wouldn't necessarily claim that I'm particularly good at it. You know, people plan their careers. I'm going to do this for. Five years. And then I want to move into this kind of position. And you know, do that for another 10 years. if it's written out in really strokes, people can have goals about where they're seeking to go and and pursue those. Maybe there are certifications. But they need to get various educational credentials that they need in order to achieve those goals. So when's that gonna happen? You know, how am I going to pay for it? How am I going to work full time and get that certification on top of it? Yucca: Right. Mark: You know, all of that, thinking things don't just accidentally happen to you. You, you need to make them happen. And in order to do that, you have to have some goals and you have to do some. Yucca: Right. And building on that same idea, not just things like, you know, careers, but also things like what's it feel like to be. Right. How do you feel every day? And do you want to be feeling different? Well, as we've talked about so many times before, it's not just a matter of just deciding to say yes, I'm going to have more energy and generally have a more positive, happy outlook. Right. That that's great. But you actually have to do things to get there. Right. You've got to. You are a garden. How are you going to lay out your, the, your layout? What seeds are you going to plant to help make that happen? How can you plan to set yourself up for that success? Mark: right. Yucca: So is that. Mark: Great. I mean, if you know that you struggle with self-esteem well, what are you, how are you going to deal with that? What are you going to do about it? I mean, it's is, is therapy something that you want to do is you know, cultivating positive relationships around you that. That reflect back your value back to you. Is that part of what you're going to do is maybe pruning some relationships that are not feeding that in your life, something that has to happen. Yucca: Or apps, not just people or apps, not just people, but maybe is that Instagram or tick talk or whatever it is. Like, Mark: Right. Yucca: know? Ha how are those filters making you feel about, you know, Mark: Right. Yucca: yeah. Mark: So All of that stuff, you know, being aware of what it is that impacts your of well-being your of enjoying your life? And, you know, really doing kind of an assessment, right. You know, in inventory here are the inputs that contribute to how I feel about my life and myself. And you know, here are the ones in the positive column here, the ones in the negative column. Now, what am I going to do about that? Yucca: All right. Mark: This is, At least in the temperate Northern hemisphere, it's cold and it's often gray and dark. If it's not wet or snowy and the days are still quite short this is, this is Yucca: Okay. Mark: time to do that kind of inventory and decide here's where I'd like things to go from here. Understanding that the map is not the territory and that life will throw you stuff that you didn't expect. Yucca: Yeah. And that's, that's okay. That's part of it, right? That's what's going to end your response to it. That's, you know, that's another thing that you can practice and, and plan for. Mark: Hm. Yucca: Right. Think about what are the types of things that life might throw my way. How can I be set up to respond to that? Mark: Right. Yucca: Right. Mark: can I be more resilient as a person Right. I mean, You know, I've known some people that were strung so tight and they were, you know, they were on this bullet trajectory, you know, to get to where, know, the achievement that they really wanted to achieve and anything that came at them sideways just completely scrambled them. They. Weren't able to okay, well, that's the new reality and I still have my goal. So how am I going to work with this new reality and stay pointed at my goal? So you know, that the ability to be flexible and resilient in that way is a really powerful set of life skills. And it's the kind of thing that this sort of planning help you. Yucca: right. And it's something that, you know, we, we talk about being often about being nature-based and all of that. And when we look at how nature works, resiliency is key, the systems that are really. Are the ones that are still with us, the ones that weren't aren't here anymore. Mark: Right. Sort of, well, not sort of a tangent, actually a tangent, but it does relate one of the criticisms by many conservation biologists of the entire endangered species model that seeks to save the least flexible, most impacted species. Rather than say the Keystone species that are the, the root supporters of And I mean, I'm not weighing in on either side of that question, but it is a criticism that, you know, we're a lot of resources in saving, you know, a fish that lives in one particular pond. For example, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: in those resources might be better applied to, you know, Broad spectrum range conservation or something like that, which can really support the kinds of creatures that are flexible enough to be able to live even in this catastrophic time. Yucca: Yeah. Yeah. That is that discussion. I mean, that would make a fantastic. Podcast on of its own to get into the different sides to that. Mark: Right, Yucca: Yeah, Mark: Yeah. And, and there are very compelling arguments on both sides. Yucca: truly. Yeah. Mark: so as I'm saying, as I say, you know, I'm not weighing in on either side of that, but it Is a part of the discussion. You know, when we look at the biosphere, there are, there are animals that are extremely flexible. Rock doves, which are pigeons like rats, like raccoons, like coyotes. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: they do, you know, mess up their landscape. They're still there. They're Yucca: Yeah. Mark: They're still finding something to eat. Yucca: On many of their cases you do, and they just do better. Mark: Right, Yucca: Right. You know, how'd that try to eradicate coyotes thing workout. their numbers just exploded and now they've spread across the entire continent where they used to be in just a small part. Mark: Right. Yucca: So, yeah, Mark: And they've taken over the territory of the wolves. Yucca: exactly. Mark: Yeah. So, So, so this is something to consider, Yucca: yeah. Mark: That, you know, being able to with the punches and still keep your eye on where you're trying to go is a really Set of human skills and these transition times and planning times are a great time to kind of assess where you are with that and figure out best to proceed. Yucca: Right. And that that goal setting part is really key. Right? Both on what we're talking about. And, you know, back to the tangent is to, to figure out what is the current. Right. And, and so the, the field that I come from originally as restoration ecology, and so we'd have to always start with, okay, well, what are we restoring it? Mark: Right. Yucca: Right. What's the, what's the start because, okay. We are, we restoring to the state that it was at the arrival of Europeans, are we restoring it to, you know, the state that it was before the decline of the mega fund? Like what, what's the goal here? And so in our own lives, you know, it may not be restoration ecology, but we're talking about planning into the future and what we want. This. A really lovely time, this darkness time of the year for that reflection, because you've got to look in, you've really got to look in and see what you really want. What, what your, your goals really are, your values and where you actually are right now. You know, be very honest with yourself about what, you know, what is the state of your garden, because. You need to know that to be able to plan in an effective way for where you're going. Mark: Right. And it bears saying that if you don't then your garden is just going to grow. It's just going to overgrow. It's Yucca: Yeah. It's going to grow either way, Mark: Yes, Yucca: but what, how is it going to grow Mark: well. What grows Yucca: Yeah. Mark: it's going to grow? is, you know, really up for grabs, then it's subject to all other forces, but not your intention and your life can do that too And I mean, I've experienced that in my own life, quite a lot, kind of from thing to thing with an overall goal, really not very much more defined then I want to do good in the world. And so I work in the nonprofit sector for missions that I believe in. But I certainly could have done a much better job of financial plan. I certainly could have done a much better job of kind of skills building there. I've got a good skill set, but I think there are things that I would have liked to add that I didn't aspire to. So you know, this, this is you know, I, we're not making any claims that we're perfect at this. Yucca: Certainly not worth, you know? Mark: You know, we're human. Like, like everybody Yucca: Yeah. Well, in a lot of times the topics we choose, we think there'll be valuable to the whole community, but we also choose topics that. That we need to hear ourselves, Mark: yes. Very, Yucca: right? Mark: absolutely. Yeah. there, there have been times when in my day-to-day life. I found myself thinking we did a podcast about this. I should listen to that and find out what I had to say. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Cause I'm not, I'm not accessing it right? now. So, Yeah. take a look at that stuff. take, try to take a dispassionate look at your life and where you're, where you're headed and where you want to be headed and would help you and how you can be more flexible as the inevitable curve balls that life throws at you come along. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So the, the other thing we were going to talk about today is also in relation to planning, but specifically it's about planning rituals because this is something we haven't talked about before. We've talked about rituals a lot Especially people that are kind of new to the practice will often find themselves just at a loss about how to get started on all this, you know, because something that's very freeing about a naturalistic DOD free pagan path in that. You know, you don't have any authority figure telling you, you have to do it this way. are the rules of Wicca, you know, this, this is our, you know, this, this is how you must do your rituals. Yucca: Can we certainly don't think there's anyone watching down on us. Who's gonna, you know, say something about it later when we die or Mark: right. Give Yucca: us to the wrong place. Mark: Give us a grade. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So great. But what that leaves you with is the dreaded blank sheet of paper. You know, how do I get started? Where, do I do this? And have, going to talk about that now, but that, I would just like to let people know that if you go to atheopagan ism.org, there is and you look in the right hand at the top of the right hand sidebar. There is that says, are you new click here for information about how to start your practice? And we'll put a link to that in the in the podcast notes, there's a workbook that you can download there that will walk you through a step-by-step process to develop a ritual. Yucca: All right. Mark: So, you know, if you need or want that kind of guidance, it's available to you. Yucca: Yeah. And it's, it's a wonderful resource that, you know, as you're saying. Is available if you want it, if you don't though, we're not gonna, you know, we're not looking over your shoulder telling you you're doing it wrong or right. It's just a here. This is, this can really help. And, and these steps, you know how to, to go about thinking, you know, constructing it. What are the pieces that, that you would need? Mark: Right. I Yucca: Yeah. Mark: and it starts with intentions goals, you know, what are you, are you trying to achieve? And then it goes into what are your feelings around it and what are the symbols and things that you associate with those feelings? terms of the five senses, you know, When, if we're talking about a UL ritual, you know, are we talking about the smell of cinnamon and cloves and pine needles and all that kind of stuff? So, it's a, it's a very. Accessible a step-by-step process for you. So that's, that's an available resource if you want it, but we're going to talk about planning rituals with multiple people that workbook can be done with multiple people, but it's really designed for individuals. And when you have a group of people that are working to put a ritual together As an ensemble, there's a different set of challenges and ideas that, that fold into that. Yucca: Right. And whether it is in a group or solitary, Starts again with what we were talking about before, is that goal, right? You need to know why, what, what is your ritual about, why are you doing the ritual? What is the intention behind it? Yeah. Mark: And that goal can just be to achieve a few. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: The goal can just be, I want to go into that trancey flow state that's super present feels feels really good when I'm there with the candle light and the incense. And it feels like I'm in a. That can be the goal. It can also be the means to the goal. If you're working to kind of reprogram your psychology around a particular issue in your life or a goal that you have or something like that. But sometimes the the end or the means is the end. Sometimes. I mean, a lot of the work that I do at the alter or focus is It's just to feel it it's just to be there and feel my spiritual connection with the universe and the world and how much I appreciate being here. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: so bear that in mind, you don't have to have a capital G goal Yucca: Yeah. Mark: to do. Yucca: Yeah. So with the group I think this is, this is really key with any group, but the communication aspect is. Really really important. How are you communicating? Is everyone, is everyone feel welcome and empowered to be part of that conversation? Is there's all of that social stuff that from anywhere in life that that comes to play, as soon as you have more than one person, then you've got all of these interactions to, just to be. Aware of as they're happening. Right. Is there one person who is just personality wise a little bit more dominating than others, right? If, if you are that person, how can you. How can you make space for other people? Right. If you're not, if you're one of the people who tends to be a little bit more quiet, right. That I'm that way I tend to, to kind of sit back and kind of watch more of what's happening, you know, how do I, in a way that feels safe to me, make sure that I can get my, my voice heard as well, as well as feeling like I'm listening and creating space for other people. Mark: Right. Right. So the first piece as you enter into a group, that's doing some work is some self-awareness, you know, what, what kind of, kind of person are you when interacting in groups? And some people have very large blind spots about how they interact in groups. So, even soliciting some feedback can be helpful just so that people, you know, asked honestly, you know, how do I conduct myself in this group? Do you feel like there's room for you to speak or do you feel like you get your ideas run over or. Yucca: And giving them time to respond. Mark: yes. Yucca: right? Like there's the asking, but there's also just kind of noting, you know, does that person take a pause before they speak or when they don't speak? Does that mean they're just not going to, you know, there's there's that, that just paying attention that needs to happen, Mark: Right. right. And in some cases, when you convene to organize a ritual, there are people who naturally, because of the goal of the ritual have elevated status. If you are doing a wedding, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: it's the couple who. Are the final arbiters of everything that's going to happen. And everybody else who's involved in organizing that ritual is in service to creating the experience that the couple or the or whoever they are want to have know, same with a Memorial it's the family, right? But it, or in a Rite of passage, depending on the Rite of passage, if it's a right of passage for someone who's already in adulthood, then they're kind of, you know, in the driver's seat. If it's somebody who it's moving into adulthood, it may be elders who are designing the experience for the young person to go through in order to move into their teenage years or move into adult. Yucca: Yeah. So again, there's that, that awareness of and that's, that brings on the idea of a. Which can mean different things, right? Sometimes when we talk about authority there's, it's kind of, there's earned a sorority and there's unearned authority, right? The, in that situation, you know, the couple or the, the people at the, the wedding, you know, they have the natural authority there, but it's not, but I would caution to be, be careful about not making it the authority because they are. You know, the wealthy or the whatever, right. That, not the power over kind of structure. Mark: Right. And that can easily happen with in the case of weddings, who have wedding planners, who are employees that that can become then very difficult. And I mean, we all know the stories about the bride Zillow's right. And I don't, I don't see people in our community as having a propensity to be that way so much, but once again, self-awareness and consideration of the humanity of the other people that are bitter there and just respecting roles. let's talk about when that's not the case for four people get together because they want to do a ritual save for a holiday Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Sabbath. Okay. None of them has higher status than any of the others for any particular reason. It has pertinent to the planning of this ritual. Right. So how do they proceed them? How do they. How do they Yucca: Okay. Mark: from the initial goal of, we want to do something for this holiday and then percolate that down into specific assignments of, Okay. we're going to structure it this way. You're going to do this and you're going to do that. And you know, this is how the, the order of service will go. Yucca: Like any situation it's going to depend upon the group and the specific individuals involved, but one approach to take would to begin by creating some space for each person to talk about just the things that. They like the things that they associate with this time of year and just start getting a little bit of that brainstorming and flow of information around, you know, how do we, how do we feel about this? What is this, what do we want, what do we envision, you know, is, was there one that you did in the past? And there was just this part that you'd like to part that you didn't like, um, and just get as, as much of that communication happening as you can. Mark: I find that one of the things that can. be really helpful in planning the ritual is to do a ritual, to do a ritual. Starting your planning meeting with. Lighting a candle, maybe some incense a little invocation perhaps, or singing a song or a chant together, something that kind of opens the heart and gets people into that frame. It tends to put people kind of on the same page more, then it's less like a business meeting and it's more like a, a creative endeavor, which is really what you want it to be. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: we, we working to do that with the atheopagan council meetings that we hold every quarter because they are business meetings, but we, but we're a religion. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: you know, the, the, we, we want to be informed by the values and the feeling of, of doing this and not just to have. PTA meeting. So, so that, that may be that may be a technique that you find useful to do just a little in vocation of sacred space before going into the, the brainstorming and the meeting part of things. Another thing that you can do be aware that sometimes people need time to percolate. So don't feel like you can have a planning meeting and it's all gonna be, you know, dust your hands off. It's Yucca: Okay. Mark: Ready. We're we're going to go off and have a ritual now. I mean that's possible, Yucca: It depends on the scale sometimes too, of what. Mark: sure. Yucca: You know, w what is the scale of the ritual that you're doing? Mark: Right. And when time is short, that's what you have to do. But if time is, if there's more time available, then you can do your brainstorming and your ideas about, you know, what would be fun elements to include meaningful elements to include. You know, kind of get those into a hopper and get them down on paper. And then maybe about it again in a few days, you know, then you can talk about structure and all the rest of that stuff. Cause people will have ideas about what should come first and what should come second sort of narrative threads that connect those different pieces and You know, letting it come organically, I think is something that can really be a value if there's time. Yucca: Yeah. I think that a lot of the, that advice can then apply back. You know, as a group talking about group ritual, but also that does tie back to what we were talking about. With planning for your own practice, right. That some of that could be done in ritual space, giving yourself time to have a second meeting or a third meeting. See how that feels a few days later, and a meeting is a meeting with yourself, or maybe with your partnership per household or whatever scale you're doing that on. But that these ideas that we talk about. You know, on this podcast, we've jumped around in areas that people might not traditionally think is, you know, being religious, right? Like, oh, this is a religious podcast. Why are you talking about, you know, ecology? Or why are you talking about this? It's all of this stuff is, is connected and can apply in different areas of life and reality and all of that. Mark: Right. Right. So, And we've been really gratified to hear from our listeners that that they get value out of talking about the inner critic, talking about talking about The wonders of the natural world, you know, there's, there's such a range of topics. And one of the things about paganism generally and specifically based paganism that really meaningful to me is that it really is all inclusive. It's about all the aspects of your life everything that you do. Has an impact on the world and every, every experience that you have as an impact on yourself and all of that. that we can make choices about and curate and learn from in order to be better people, better pagans. Okay. Better pig and Yucca: That's one to think about, right? What is, what is that? Mark: Yeah. Well, since we don't have a judging God there's nobody to really tell us whether except sometimes other pagans Yucca: Hm, Mark: have attitudes about whether we're being good pagans or Yucca: I think he keepers. Mark: that's really their problem. Not, Yucca: Yeah. Yeah. It's for yourself to decide that, right? Yeah. Mark: you know, we're talking about in between times transitional times and the space between going from an ordinary state of consciousness into a ritual state of consciousness is a transitional time as well. And That planning period becomes something that contain certain elements. One of them is safety. One of the most important pieces is safety. In order to go into a ritual state, people need to feel safe enough in order to be vulnerable and present. And so that is an aspect that I would encourage you to throw into that hopper or get down on that blank sheet of paper with, all the other things that you have there, because you can have wonderful ideas for ritual experiences, but if people won't go there with you because they don't feel. Safe and protected and like the opportunity is there for them, then they don't, they don't go. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And I've, I've been in plenty of group rituals where I didn't Yucca: Um, Mark: because I felt like either the, the leaders were being irresponsible and cavalier or Or there were people in the circle that I didn't feel safer around. You know, and, and, and I'll freely grant. Some of that's on me. Right. You know, maybe, maybe I didn't necessarily need to feel that way. But to my mind, I had reasons. And so maybe that wasn't the right circle for me to be in. Yucca: Yeah, but also the, you know, when, when the ritual is being planned, what are the goals? And, and if people don't feel safe, And enough to be able to do the ritual really, to really, really, really present with it, then the goals aren't being met. Right. So how do we plan to make, to try and create a space in which that can happen? Mark: Right. Yucca: So, Mark: speaking of goals, the goal doesn't have to be a physical, tangible thing. Like. Prosperity or you know, loving relationships that are going to come to us or any of that kind of thing. They can just be feelings. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: be, you know, the feeling of joy in living feeling of having turned to the wheel and really acknowledged the seasons Yucca: just the Mark: go away. Yucca: feeling winter. Right. Just feeling this out. Yep. This is the, this is the season we're in. This is what's happening. Mark: Yes. Yes. So we really encourage an expansive understanding about what, what ritual is and what it's for and what its outcomes can be Well, I'll speak for myself. I mean, I've experienced lots of rituals that have taken me to all those kinds of places. And the rituals that I've experienced that have been ineffectual have generally been because the thinking around them or the planning around them has been to. Somebody's got an idea for a you know, somebody's got a good idea about some sort of myths that they wanted to enact or. Some sort of narrative story and it just wasn't a journey that the people in the group wanted to go on or the, or it wasn't clear exactly what was happening. You know, the people, the, the, the performers in the ritual knew what was going on, but the observers were not there. Wasn't a narration to explain to them what was going on. I went to. I went to a a fool's journey ritual once in which, I mean, I suppose they were enacting the. Steps of the Toronto card, starting with the zero, the fool, and kind of going on from that. they recognize some of them and others, didn't know what was going on. And the whole thing was just kind of be wilderness. You know, why am I here? Why am I doing this? I'm just standing there watching. Yucca: It was kinda more like going to a play then Mark: Yeah. How, Yucca: part of a ritual. Mark: I mean, that is an important question, always to ask yourself when designing a ritual is other than the other than the conveners, how does everybody else get plugged in? You know, is there something for them to sing? Is there a dance for them to do? Is there an offering for them to make, is there a thing for them to throw in the fire? Is there a libation for them to pour? There are so many different ways put people to connect people. Is there, I mean, you know, under COVID we don't do this, but. Many pagan rituals over time, I've had, you know, passing a chalice of wine and taking a sip and, you know, giving a blessing to the person next to you and handing it on kind of thing, or a plate of pieces of bread or other cookies, or, you know, some other, other treat. And. All of those are, are things that help people to feel like I helped to make this. And that's a really important feeling in a ritual. If you feel like, like a ritual was done to you, something's wrong. Yucca: Yeah. So these are, these are all things to be considering when wind planning. Right. And kinda like we were talking about before to think about what life or the ritual might throw at you and how to be able to respond in that moment so that you are more resilient or the ritual you're planning is more resilient. Mark: Part of that resilience. Is to understand when the time is to throw in the towel. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: are times when something that is so disruptive along your life. You know, a cancer diagnosis, something like that. I mean, that, that really is likely to throw you well off your stride now you've got something much more urgent that you need to deal with in your longer term goal. Right. Similarly or an unexpected pregnancy or. You know, any of those kinds of things, the sudden announcement by your partner, that they want to leave you Yucca: Yeah. Mark: unexpected, but, my God. Now what do I do? The same thing can be true in rituals. I attended a Rite of passage once where the young man who was becoming an adult had been charged with keeping a heartbeat drum beat going all night. That was kind of his ordeal for this thing. And the ritual went on around him. Well, we were in this valley and apparently carried very far in this valley. And at three in the morning, truck came tearing up into this property and this guy barged into the middle of the circle and said, people who are trying to sleep and that drum has got to stop That was the time to stop the drum Yucca: Yeah. Mark: and reconceptualize, you know, what we're going to do. It took a long time to kind of calm everything down, get people back in trained. And it was, it was a very, it was weird. It was a very, very weird experience because we tend to think of our circles as being these of impenetrably safe environments. Right. We do need to be aware of when the time comes that it's just, the plan is no longer working. Now we need a new plan. Yucca: Yeah. So this has been quite lovely. We've made quite a journey. And this podcast today, Mark: Yeah. Yucca: the I quite enjoyed having a mirror, the conversation that we got to get to a topic because I mean, being in the third year here where we've got a lot of topics that we've covered. And then we want to talk about we, you know, a lot of things we want to come back and circle back to because that's really appropriate to do. And other times we want to go, okay, well, what else, what else do we have to offer? And so sometimes it's, it's quite a it's quite fun to, to be like, okay, well, what are we talking about? And so I loved that this time we followed the same path of our conversation before in the recorded conversation. Mark: Yeah, Yucca: So Mark: was really great. Yucca: yeah. Mark: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for another lovely conversation and a really enjoyable podcast recording. Yucca: Likewise. Mark: We'll see you all next time.

DIY Religion

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 9, 2022 44:43

SLOGG Holiday Episode: https://thewonderpodcast.podbean.com/e/holidays-1610325700/#more-16200342 Introduction to SLOGG: https://atheopaganism.wordpress.com/2018/01/03/introducing-slogg-the-winter-demi-sabbath/ Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com S3E02 TRANSCRIPT: ----more---- Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm your host Mark. And today we are going to talk about do it yourself, religion, because that's really what our naturalistic science-based pagan paths are about. It's really about tailoring a set of practices and activities and observances to your own personal needs. And we're going to unpack all that in this. Yucca: That's right. And a good place to start. Is talking about, what's the point? Why, why are we doing this? We're white humans, not just us, but why do humans do this religion thing in the first place? And what need is it filling? Because it certainly is. We're all doing it in some form or another. Mark: Right. Or at least certainly many of us in the modern world, many of us are doing it. But when you look all over the world, you see that every culture historically has had religious traditions of one kind or another. And not all of those have been pointed at the same purpose. So we wanted to be really clear about what we see as the appropriate purposes for a naturalistic pagan. This, for example, in Christianity, the goal is to reach salvation, right? Your stained by original sin and whatever sins you've accumulated. You have to get those all washed out of your soul and then you go on and hopefully you go to heaven, right? That's that's the whole end. You do that through the intercession of Jesus and so forth. That is not at all, even remotely related to what our religious practices are about. So, another example is in most kinds of Buddhism the idea is that you want to balance your karma so that eventually you can step off of the wheel of time. Into something else. And I'm sure that there's a definition of what that is, but I don't know what it is, but the idea is to leave material reality, you keep coming back to it in reincarnated forms until you've balanced your karma and then you leave. right. We don't want to do that either. We don't really believe that that's what's going on here on planet earth. Yucca: sure. Yeah. So that's not our goal, right? Our goal isn't enlightenment or. Going to heaven or things like that. And you know, we're saying our, but it is also very personal. So we can talk about in general paganism, we can talk about naturalistic paganism in general, but it really also comes down to the individual. So although mark, you and I have a lot in common what each of our. Practices are going to be like, are going to be slightly different because we have different goals, different values, different experiences in the world. Mark: Sure. Yucca: And that's a starting place. Mark: But I think that the commonality is what I would focus on in terms of the purpose of naturalistic paganism, which is to enhance happiness. Yucca: Agreed. Yeah. Mark: And what makes a given person happy will vary from person to person. But what we want our practices to do is to contribute to the happiness of the practitioner and those around them, and to contribute to making a better world. And I mean, I think that we can say that in, in a general sense, right. Yucca: Think so. Yeah. And those second two are almost requirements for the first time. Mark: It is. I mean, if you make everybody around you miserable, it's very to be happy. Yucca: Yeah. Right. And, and, you know, we do have a choice about how we respond to things, but it also is really hard to be happy if you're starving and everyone around you is starving and everything is, you know, burning and all of that. So, you know, we're, we're part of a larger system. Mark: And part of what we acknowledge as science-based pagans is that we are social creatures. We fit within ecosystems. We have responsibilities beyond to ourselves, to the broader fabric of the context that we live in. And I think that what people find is that. As they move away from that individualistic idea of, you know, I've got this soul and I've got to take care of it. And that's my only duty and job in life as they move away from that kind of idea. And they start to understand themselves in a reciprocal relationship with the world and their fellow humans. I think that enhances happiness a lot. But it also, of course, Provides more of a sense of responsibility to, to act well. And in accordance with a better world, this more sustainable world, a kinder world, a more peaceful world, Yucca: Right. Mark: more just world. So when we talk about the, the goal. Those are, those are the general things that we're talking about in terms of our naturalistic paganism. Now, theoretically, I could imagine that there might be a naturalistic paganism that has some other entirely different goal, but I have a very hard time imagining what it would be because if you're really informed by science, You understand the predicament that humanity is in Right. now in relation to the ecosystem and you understand the majesty of the ecosystem. And given that, I think it would be very hard to have a very selfish kind of naturalistic pagan path. I mean the self is important. This is the only life we get. You know, we want to be happy. We want to thrive. We want to achieve the goals that we have, but at the same time, there's that other sense of of, you know, needing to lift those around us and needing to relate to nature in a way that's, that's appropriate. And. Yucca: Right. so given that, I think though that each individual is going to have a different way of going about meeting and achieving that. Mark: Absolutely. And I think that the primary indicator of that. The atheopagan path and other naturalistic pagan paths is that we encourage people to develop their own rituals because different styles of rituals and different kinds of activities are going to be effective for different people. And so instead of going to mass and having, you know, communion, which is this thing that. You know, it's like a machine, everybody goes through exactly the same process. Right. Instead we really encourage people to cultivate the art of ritual development and the ritual skills to be effective, going into a, a ritual state of mind, like drumming and singing and chanting and dancing and you know, all of those kinds of things. So I just to start with that is the very first thing that, that turns this into a DIY religion because we really do want you to do it yourself or do it with your fellow people in, you know, in a, a planning group rather than just. Taking a, a ritual out of a book or or cribbing it from some other culture, which of course is appropriation. Yucca: Choosing in the first place, what rituals and why you want to be doing, because what, there, there's definitely going to be some themes, right? Thinking about seasonal observances and types of rites of passage, that that is common to many humans. But what your going to feel the need for a ritual in your specific life and your specific practice is going to be different than someone else's and that's not only just okay, but that's good. That makes complete sense because what's the point of going through a ritual that isn't going to serve you. Mark: Right. Yucca: the motion, right? Why go through the motion? If it's not going to do anything for you, if it's not going to bring you closer. To that goal that you have Mark: Right. Right. And what that means though, is that ritual arts become part of your personal toolkit. You know, you don't have to wait around for. A Sabbath On, the wheel of the year or a or a particular cycle of the moon. I mean, you, you can wait for those things if you want to. I mean, you don't have to wait very long for a particular part of the moon. I mean, the longest is 28 days. Right. But don't have to, if you feel really stuck in your life, for example, and it's weighing you down and it's depressing, you, you can pull those ritual skills out at any time to create a ritual, to help yourself get going and feel better. Kind of do some repair on your self esteem and, and set some clear, a clear path for where you're going to go. And honestly, I really wish everybody had that toolkit with them. I feel that, you know, these ritual arts have been developed over tens of thousands of years by humans. And it's only very, very recently historically we've lost them. You know, it's, it's only in the last. Thousand years, 1500 years, something like that. Really? Not very much time at all that maybe 2000 years when the ritual started being taken away by priests and no longer belonging to the people in, in the Yucca: where yeah, we're in the world. Mark: Yeah. Depending on where you are. So that said, one of the things about being a naturalistic pagan is you develop ritual skills, right? You figure out what works for you, and you learn how to do rituals. That fi that feel meaningful and good and pleasurable for you. And that's a great thing because meaning and pleasure are good. We always say that meaning and pleasure are good. We are four. You're having those. Yucca: Yes. So those are some great tools, but there are other tools we're using this framework of your DIY religion that we have. So we can talk about ritual as a tool. But we can also talk about things like daily practice. That's something that we mentioned a lot on this podcast, right? Mark: Yeah. I mean, I have my daily practices. I know you have your daily practices. And those can really vary depending on who you are. If you're a night owl, you know, maybe waking up to watch the sunrise every day is not a part of your daily practice. It's Yucca: Sure. Mark: you're just not going to do that. Right. Yucca: And depending on where you live too, if. Mark: right. Yucca: You're in the middle of Seattle, that might not be the most rewarding thing, right. Might not be possible. Maybe you're going to tune in with something else that fits your, your location in your, your rhythms and cycles better. Mark: right. Rather than waking up to watch the fog slowly start to glow Yucca: He Mark: the morning. And just assuming that there's a sun back there Yucca: Yeah, not to say that that might not. Beautiful in its own. Right. But it might not be the same experience that somebody on the top of a clear mountain top is going to get Mark: exactly. Yucca: yeah. Mark: So once again, as we've said so many times as you start to figure out your daily practices, we come to the fact that ours is a religion of Place. right? Yucca: Place. Yes. Mark: It's a, it's a religion where you relate to the landscape of where you live and to the ecosystem of where you live and to the, the sky phenomena where you live, the clouds, the sunsets, the sunrises, the intermittent, the, the moon cycles, the intermittent things like meteor showers and comments and stuff like that. Some of those will be universal. When there's a comment visible, it's visible for half of the world. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: when some of the, but moon cycles are the same, right. For everybody. Yucca: Yes. Although that does look different depending on which hemisphere you're in, Mark: Yes, it does. Yucca: which is quite well, which is quite fun. Mark: So it, it becomes it becomes a matter of first of all, building that relationship through greater understanding of what your context is, and then choosing those daily practices, both in relation to yourself and maybe in relation to your family. And in relation to the world that are fulfilling and give you a sense of of connection and meaning and contentment. Yucca: Right. Yeah. And, and, and spiraling it and seeing what those different units that you're a part of is part of developing your particular practice. Right. And seeing where. You know, maybe I could, I could think of a situation in which it might be self partnership, family extended family, neighborhood, community, you know, there's different ways or it might, you know, you might jump straight from self to family or not include family or whatever it is. Right. And again, that's just going to be based on what your particular situation is. Mark: Right. If you're a person who feels sort of pressed in on by the demands of your family quite frequently, maybe what you want is a personal practice. Maybe what you want is something where you are able to block out a little chunk of time and space every day and say, this is about. It's about my growth. It's about my development. It's about my happiness. And so I'm going to do this thing, you know, and it can be very brief. My daily practice, I think I probably spend two minutes in the morning and maybe as much as three minutes in the evening, honestly, that little of course the candles are. In the evening. And so they continue to burn and I come back and contemplate them once in awhile. Yucca: But in terms of active time, it's sort of like when you're doing a, a recipe, there's your active cooking and then there's the, oh, it's in the oven or it's cooling. Like those are two different times. Mark: exactly. That's exactly. So, so a personal practice is. It's a really important way. I think, to do a number of things for one thing, a personal practice can just be very influential over your psychology. It can really help you to feel like, you know, I'm living a meaningful life here. I'm living a life where I'm acknowledging the relationships that I have and my responsibilities as well as the benefits that I have out of those relationships. And I am. I am a person who is seeking to grow and become wiser over time. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And that's really important, you know, that's that is. Core to living a fulfilling life. When you, I was referred a, an article recently about the, the five regrets that dying people often express. And typically they are around not having paid enough attention, not having sought to evolve. Having spent too much time on work, not enough time on relationships. And a relationship with yourself and with the world is every bit as much a relationship as your relationship with your partner, your relationship with your ecosystem, any of those, you know, knowing who you are and having that evolve over time is really essential for human happiness. Yucca: And that daily practice is a moment that you can take to check in with yourself and make sure you're not just on autopilot. Right to, to stop for a moment and evaluate what you're doing and if that's what you want to be doing and just do a little bit, of course, correction, because sometimes the things, those, those things that you were just talking about, those regrets, those are, those are big things. Those are big life style. Habits. That's not just something that you decide one day like, oh, I'm, I'm just going to be more present. And then all of a sudden you are like, that's something that you practice and have to make adjustments for over and over again. And that what we've talked about so far ritual and daily practice, those two tools combined is one of the ways to allow that to happen, Mark: Huh, Yucca: whatever it is that you're working towards. Mark: absolutely. Yeah. So that's personal practice. And experimenting with different kinds of things that you might do with that. And that's, this is a really important point to make about experimentation. I think because if the point of this is to be happy and fulfilled and have a healthier relationship with the world around us, then expecting ourselves to do some huge pile of. Observances and rituals and you know, all that kind of stuff. When we really don't want to do them, that's not helping. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And on the other hand, not doing anything isn't really helping either. So there's this point of experimentation in the middle where it's like, okay. Daily practice. Yeah. I'll take that. I'm going to do a little thing to start with in the day and maybe that'll grow from there. Moon observances. Well, that sounds a little frequent to me. Not sure I want to do something every month. Maybe I'll put that aside wheel of the year observances. Well, those are important to me. That's every six weeks, so six and a half, seven weeks. And and I really want to acknowledge the passing of the seasons and all the metaphors that those mean to me. So I am going to do those. So there's this. There's this sort of picking and choosing from a menu of options that I think each of us is empowered to do on our own. And that that's by definition, that's a DIY religion, right? It's do it yourself. Here's a, here's a big menu of options. You, you know, select as many as you like from columns, a, B and C. Yucca: Yes. And something to add onto with that, that I think is, is really important to bring up. But when we talk about choosing the things that worked for you and the things that don't work for you, that sometimes it's going to take, sometimes the things that are going to work for you might take practice to get to there. And they might not be comfortable at first, if you're not used to doing a daily practice, making yourself do that every day. It might suck a little bit, but there's benefit from doing that. It's sometimes you've got to get past the uncomfortable part to get to the benefit. Like if you, for anyone who's learned to draw. Think back to how uncomfortable it was to be behind the wheel the first time, just your heart racing, or if it wasn't driving, riding a bike or doing whatever it was that you did the thing about just how terrifying that was in the beginning. But now you don't even think about it. You just do it, but it's worth it because now you can drive yourself where you need to go or ride wherever you need to go or whatever it was. Right. Mark: And not only that, but once, once you do fall into a groove with a daily practice, you'll find that if you miss it, it bugs you, it, it just, it, something feels a little off and you'll find yourself going back to it because it, it adds something positive in your life and you don't want to be without that positive. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So it's, it's kind of a funny thing. It's like first it may feel a little forced and you have to deal with the critic voice, of course, which we've done an episode about before. And we've talked about many times that critic voice inside you, that's saying, ah, this is stupid. Why are you doing this? You have to contend with that and push past it. But there will come a time when that all calms down and it becomes very normal, very normative to to do these activities. And when you don't do them, you feel like there's kind of something missing from the day. I, I, I wish I had done that. And then you'd go back to it the next day. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And there's no, you know, we don't have like concepts of sin and, you know, Stuff like that. So there's nothing wrong with missing a day. Yucca: We were joking before recording that there aren't any pagan police coming to get you because you forgot your full moon ritual or something like that. Mark: I promise I'm not going to give you a phone call. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So, you know, you select those pieces. Yucca, you mentioned before we were recording meditation is a great example. if you decide that you want to start a meditation practice, even if it's a very brief one, even if it's like five minutes, five minutes of meditation, for someone that hasn't done it, it can be very uncomfortable. Your mind Yucca: haven't done it in a long time, he used to do it. And you dropped the practice for five years coming back. It's rough. Yeah. Mark: is in your mind will spin all over the place and you'll find yourself sitting there thinking I'm not really meditating. This is not meditation. I'm not getting where I'm supposed to go. And the truth is you're going to have to push through that for a while. It's just like any other skill, if it's really rusty or if you never developed it, you're just going to have to do it badly for a while until you start doing it better. Yucca: Yeah. So there's, there's a balance to take a look at between looking at what's what's working for you. What's worth working to make it work for you. And, you know, what is it that you really want to be doing? Mark: right. Yucca: So, yeah. Mark: And that goes along very well with the overall goal, which is happiness. And growth, right? Because we are dynamic systems, we humans. And if we stagnate, we're not happy. If we're, if we're stuck in a, in a particular rut, generally we will not be happy for long. So growth becomes very important and the way that humans grow over time and as they become wiser and that teaches them to be kinder to themselves and to others and to be happy. To find the happiness in life. So it's this, it's this trade-off early on between doing what's comfortable, which is the easy part and doing what forces growth, which is the lessee's T part. But it's worth it. Yucca: yeah. So another thing that many pagans do is a seasonal practice. And of course, this looks different depending on where, where your place is. Mark: Right. If you have seasons, Yucca: If you have season, well, everyone has seasons, but it's what seasons do they have? Right. Mark: And, and the, the transition of seasons care can be very subtle. We have some folks in the community who live in Florida and Louisiana, and yes, they have seasons. They don't have extreme seasons really? They, they kind of go from hot and humid to warm and a little less humid. And then back to hot in here. Yucca: And then in that case, Again, looking at whatever your place is, the, what you focus on for your observations of the year might shift somewhat. You might have a little bit more of a night focus than a day focus, or it might be focused more on the types of creatures who are migrating through at the time and all of that. I mean, there's just so much you certainly don't have to be in. You know, Britain or somewhere that has the sort of stereotypical seasons to people to have a practice of paying attention to the world around you, because that's what it's really about is paying attention to those cycles in the world, around you. Mark: That's right. That's right. And then of course there are also layers of metaphorical meaning which can be placed over those as well. And we have episodes about creating your own wheel of the year and about cellar and episodes about each one of the seasonal. The solstices equinoxes and the points between those. So you can go back into the archive and listened to episodes that did go into more detail about Yucca: this'll be our third year going through the the holidays. Yeah. Mark: that's right. Yucca: So. So you can check us, see if we said the same thing each year or we're totally different. Mark: Well, hopefully we've said somethings that are different. Cause I like to think that my practice is growing and deepening and I'm discovering new things. So, hopefully it's not all exactly the same. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So yes, seasonal observances are things that we can do. And and that is often a big focus of a pagan practice. Speaking of focuses, another thing we can do is we can create altars, which in the atheopagan tradition and we call focuses because we associate the word altar with sacrifice and Yucca: And worship. Yeah. Mark: and we're not really doing those things. Yucca: But a focus. It brings your focus in that's what you're choosing to focus on in your life. Mark: Yes. And we've done episodes about that as well, but it bears saying that's one of the things that's on that big menu. Some people don't want to build a focus. For many of us having one or more focuses in our home. Really helps us to remember, oh Yeah. I'm living a spiritual path here. I'm a, this, and it's this time of year. And these are the meanings that, that means for me. And there's a shell that I picked up on the beach when walking with my lover and I, that was a beautiful day. All the. All these stories that the objects on the focus tell to you because of your memories that are associated with them. So it's, it's a concrete way of having a presence of your practice in your home all the time. whether you're feeling it or not, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: you know, that that's part of what's helpful about it. Yucca: And it can help create that physical structure. Right? That's if you're, if you've got a daily practice and you go to your focus or altar everyday for that. And during, during your seasonal observances, you're changing it out. You know, it creates a little bit of that structure that is just helpful to have something that. That doesn't just have to have you remembering in your brain all the time that there's something built into your environment that just leads you into doing the thing that you want to be doing. Mark: Yes. I mean, for me personally, having a focus is really important. I've had one for 30 years, even during the time when I left paganism, I didn't take my old altered down. I just let it collect dust for about five years, but I couldn't quite bring myself to take it apart. It was just too meaningful to me. So. So that's another piece, another, another option that you have as you develop your DIY religion. Right? And then there are other kinds of observances other than seasonal observances, like moon observances, we just mentioned. Right. And people. Often associate the, the new moon or the first little Crescent of the moon as being a time for new beginnings for for starting new projects for brainstorming and maybe doing divination around new. Directions for themselves. And in many cases they see the fullness of the moon, the full of the moon as the fulfillment of those things. And then as it wanes the departure of those things. So you can pick the time of the moon that you want to celebrate a particular thing going on in your life. According to that map, Yucca: Sure. Yeah. Or. Yeah, meaning you find with it Mark: And the kick, you know, that can be as simple as just going out and watching the moon for a while. Maybe leaving some like a, a pretty bottle of water in the Moonlight to quote, capture the Moonlight unquote so that you can use that water on your altar later on. And it feels like special water. Or I mean, they can be complicated, you know, complex rituals could be as little as just going out for a walk under the moon or singing a song to the moon. Really depends on you. But the good thing about having some kind of a lunar practice is it gets you out under the sky. Yucca: Yes. Mark: It, it connects you into that cycle. You always know what time of. What's part of the cycle the moon is in, right. And it's just healthy. It's healthy to get out under the nighttime sky and observe what's going on. Feel that incredible sense of smallness in relation to all those stars. Yucca: And don't, don't miss out on the new moon period because when the moon isn't. You can see the rest of the cosmos better. Right? So we make a point. We go out every single night for at least a little time. That's part of our daily practice is some Sun-Times and star time. But when there isn't the moon, that's when you can, if you live somewhere away from light pollution, that's when you see the Milky way, right. That's when you see the stars that you don't normally see, that's when you might catch a meteor, that's when. It reveals more, the new moon it's the full moon is beautiful itself and it lets you see the ground better. It lets you see the little creatures moving around and the wind going through the plants and all of that. But it's just both of those times of the month are just so, so different depending on whether the moon is there or not. Mark: Yes. Yeah. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So that's a lunar set of observances, and that can be something that you do every month or even more often than every month, if you want to celebrate different cycles or it can be something that you only do when you have some work that you want to do on a particular issue that's happening in your life or thing that you're struggling with, or it can be something that you just do once in a while, because you feel like celebrating. Yucca: Right. Or because it's warm enough to, Mark: Yeah, Yucca: yes. And if you perhaps live in Ontario, maybe you don't want to go out to look at the moment in January, Mark: but you might, Yucca: perhaps. Yes. Mark: if it's clear and there's Moonlight on snow, that is some beautiful, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: that's really beautiful. Yucca: Well, they do say there's no such thing as bad weather. Just bad clothing. Mark: Yes. I think that's a Swedish thing, which totally makes sense to me. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: I maybe Icelandic? Yucca: I don't know where it's from, but I, I hear I, I appreciate it when I hear it from different folks. That puts me to shame. Sometimes I go, well, I'm pretty good about getting outside, but sometimes, you know, I need to just say. Gets warmer clothes on and get myself out there instead of hiding inside, although hiding with the cat and some cocoa and a book is pretty wonderful too. Just maybe not every single day. Mark: perfect segue. Yucca: That's right. Unintentional. Mark: Yes. but a perfect segue because the next thing for us to talk about is invented holidays. Yucca: Yes. Which is why we chose this topic. But this week you have one coming up, right? Mark: I do next weekend on the 15th, which is the third Saturday in January. I celebrate a holiday called slog all caps, S L O G G. And it is the winter Demi Sabbath of coziness and silly hats. So it's a time when you, you know, you put on your really good woolen socks and a silly hat, and you, you get yourself all nice and cozy indoors and you make mold wine or cocoa or hot cider and and enjoy reading poems and singing songs. And Jeff's. Just have a really nice cozy sort of communal time of defying, the horrible weather that's outside. Yucca: That you've just been tapping to slog through. Mark: exactly. So, and we'll put I, I wrote a blog post about this a couple of years ago, and we'll put a link to that in the episode notes. But there are lots of other invented holidays and you can invent your own. Some of them are based in historical events, like, Einstein's birthday, for example, which is March 14th, which is also PI day, because 3.14, right? And that is often celebrated by atheists as sort of a celebration of science and mathematics and critical thinking and skepticism and all that good kind of stuff. I like it for the PI. Yucca: Yes along those same lines. There's URIs. And a little bit, little bit later on, we have may the fourth. Mark: Yes. which is star wars day, may the fourth be with you? URIs diet is the, the night that the, the anniversary of the night, that URI Geiger, Irene first orbited the earth, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: the entry of humans into space. Yucca: So it's kind of a celebration of just all that cool space science, nerdy, wonderfulness. Mark: Yeah, a lot of planetariums and science museums have celebrations of Yuri's night, Yucca: yeah, Mark: which can be really fun. I mean, they have, they have exhibits and they have dancing and it's just a lot of fun. Yucca: yeah. Oh, what are some other ones? Mark: Wolf Inuit. Yucca: That was, yes. Oh, that one's too cute. That was, that's a pretty new one too. Mark: Yes. It was invented by an eight year old apropos of pretty much nothing, I guess, just decided we should have this holiday and you celebrate it with a cake shaped like a moon, and it's a day to be nice to dogs. You give, you give presents to dogs. So it's a celebration of our relationship with the canine world. Yucca: And they've been with us for a while. Mark: They have Yucca: really have we've, we've changed each other in many ways. Mark: we have there I just read recently about a new burial that had been found. And I think it was, I want to say 15,000 years old and it was a burial of both a person and a dog together. And there were some grave goods. So it was clear that there was really a you know, a recognition there of that relationship. Yucca: Then, of course there's ones that could be from one's cultural heritage. Right. So. You know, St. Patrick's day or St. David's, you know, even though they've got the St in there, but you know, their celebrations of UN's Irishness or one's Welshness or, you Mark: or, or Hogmanay on new year's Eve which is a Scottish celebration burns night. Yucca: And I'm sure that there are many other groups might have similar types of days. Just not being a member of them. I'm not sure what, what they would be, but Mark: know that many atheists also celebrate Darwin's birthday because evolution is so pivotal in our understanding of the nature of life. Yucca: yeah. So there's going to be, there's lots to choose from and with like the eight year olds or like mark, if you see a need. Well, you can create one. Mark: And you'll, you'll be, you probably won't be surprised, but you still may be very pleased by how. Responsive people around you will be to the suggestion of having a holiday for no apparent reason. People, people are always looking for an opportunity to have a good time and, you know, especially at this time of the year, when it can be so bitter I just felt like it was necessary to, you know, waiting around until the, the, the seventh or so of February. Roughly the mid point between the winter solstice and the spring Equinox. It was just too long. I needed a holiday in the middle. Yucca: Yeah. Well, especially coming out of, just back to back holidays Mark: Right, Yucca: end of the previous year. Yeah. Mark: right. So I think maybe what we can do now is just to loop back to. You know your initial question, Yaka. What's the point? We, we do this. Not because we're under some obligation too, which is how it is in many other religions. You know, that we are tasked with this work that we must do in order to fulfill the spiritual requirements of whatever the religion is. That's not us. This is optional. Right. But. It'll make your life better. It will, it will help you to be happier. And in my experience, as a happier person, it helps other people around me to be happier which just makes for a more pleasant life generally. And if I'm looking for reasons to be happy like flowers, blooming, or the pattern of the clouds in the sky or any of those things Yucca: migrating or, Mark: Yeah. All the goldfinches at my bird feeder right now. It's really cool. Then I am, then I'm experiencing more of those happiness neuro-transmitters right. The dopamine and the serotonin that just help us to have a more pleasant experience of our lives. And it, and when we are happier, We're also more empowered. Yucca: We're more effective Mark: We are. Yucca: We do a better job at whatever, whatever it is that we do, whether that's a traditional career or parenting or, you know, being a good partner or a good steward of the land, we're just better at it. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. because we're not burning our bandwidth on stress. Right. I mean, stress is incredibly consumptive of your internal resources. And if you are under stress as all of us are at, you know, at some level all the time and with COVID and so forth, we're all under, pretty severe stress right now. This is a way of counter contravening. Some of that. Of helping us to say yes, there are stressful things in my life. And yet look at that tree blowing in the wind. That's amazing. And getting that little sort of, ah, feeling that comes from those neuro-transmitters. So we invite you, especially if you're new to the practice. To, you know, consider the options in the menu that we described in this podcast episode go and visit other podcast episodes as resources. And there's a lot of stuff on the atheopagan ism blog as well. Atheopagan ism.org. How to create rituals about occasions for creating rituals and daily practices and all that good kind of stuff. There's no better time to start than now. Hey, it's Steven the new year. Yeah, So, you know, might as well, if you've been thinking about this, you might as well put a toe in and see how it feels. And even if it's a little awkward at first, you know, give it a chance, give it a chance Yucca: worrying. And just, just remember those times when you pushed through that Mark: yeah. Yucca: when it has worked out. Mark: Right. Okay. Well, this has been a great conversation as always Yucca. Thank you, so much, Yucca: Thank you, mark. Mark: everybody have a great week.

The Overculture

The Nonlinear Library: LessWrong Top Posts

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 4, 2022 60:03

Welcome to season three of The Wonder! Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com S3E1 TRANSCRIPT:----more---- Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-Based Paganism. I'm one of your hosts Yucca. Mark: And I'm Mark. Yucca: And this week we are talking about the overculture. So this is a huge topic that we've touched on here and there that we thought really deserved an entire episode of its own and maybe a part two, even. Mark: Yeah, we'll see how far we get with this one. This is a really important set of concepts to be able to wrap your head around. And it's squishy. It's tricky because the overculture is all around us all the time. It can be hard to see. What its messages are, what it's telling us to do, how it's influencing our behavior because it's what we're used to. Yucca: Right. And so just a note on the word itself, the overculture is the main culture. It's the dominant culture. So the overculture is opposed to a subculture. So it's something that most of us, unless we came here from somewhere else that most of us grew up with. Mark: Right? Right. And in the way of subcultures, what we talk about on this podcast is a pagan subculture in the United States because that's what we're familiar with. but particularly naturalistic pagan culture, which is the culture of non-theist science consistent. But pagan valued practice, observances rituals, and so forth. Yucca: Right. And so we're going to come back to that worldview to pagan worldviews, and specifically naturalistic pagan world views. But first we want it to start to explore and pull apart this, the overculture. And especially what we're going to be looking at today are some of the aspects that we find very problematic, because certainly as members of the overculture, or at least influenced by it, there are some things that we share. And many of those things, those values we're not even aware of until we start really looking at them. But mark and I both have been doing some brainstorming. And before we started recording, We put together a list and went back and forth about, oh, what is this concept of what's that concept? And so I'm really excited to get into this. Mark: Yeah. me too. Because in many ways in, in the culture building work that we do a lot of what we are seeking to achieve is to transform or transcend many of these more negative aspects of the overculture. And so being able to see them and identify them and understand how our value system is radically different from them in some ways is really important. Yucca: Right. Mark: So to start with, we should sort of define what goes into our current, overculture. And especially in the English speaking world which is all that I can really speak to. But many of these aspects are present in, you know, many other countries with different languages, basically. Yucca: Europe. Mark: Yeah. Much of Western Europe. particularly. The overculture is capitalistic to start with it's white supremacist, it's patriarchal, it's heteronormative and it's cis-gendered. And in one way of understanding all that is that the capitalism is kind of like the white paint in when you're, when you're mixing up a color and you start with white, the capitalism is the white it's everything touches everything. it's base that Yucca: it's the base or the primer. Yeah. Mark: Right. The, the white supremacy, the patriarchy, the heteronormativity, the cis-gender, all that stuff is stirred in, in various amounts. Mostly to reinforce capitalistic agendas. Yucca: Right. And we could start getting into the connection between each of those things. Like I would make the argument that the heteronormative is really a sub category of patriarchy and, and all of that, but we want it to make sure that we were including some of the really big themes. And we're of course going to miss some things, but, but this is, these are some of the big things that are all around us. And as you're saying, it's just mixed into everything. Mark: Right? Yucca: Right. Mark: So the first aspect that we identified is as a clear message that comes from the overculture to each of us is don't think obey. Yucca: Right, Mark: Just perform, do this, you know, perform this list of things that we're telling you is a value that will make you a val- a person of value and the trappings of your having done those things like acquisition of money and possessions will reflect your value. Yucca: right. Being a productive member of society. Mark: That's right. All of that. And what that does is it sets up an outside authority rather than yourself telling you what you're supposed to be doing and how to do it. Yucca: All Mark: And you're not supposed to think about that. Yucca: Well, and there's just these roles that you fit into and those particular roles are assigned to you based on. What sex you are in gender and color and all of those things, age, all of those things class. Yeah. And you just fit into that and roll down this track and don't stop. Just keep going, keep going, keep going. Mark: And Don't ask questions, Yucca: ask questions, right? Mark: Yeah. Why am I doing this is a question that is not encouraged in our society. Yucca: Yes. Mark: And bear in mind that what this does is it moves the center of decision-making about what the right thing to do is away from yourself and out to an external authority. And that external authority can be the state. It can be God, it can be the law. It can be Your parents, any, any, it can be the school. or the teacher, any institution that has been elevated in power over you. You look to them for the signals about how you're supposed to perform and what constitutes good performance. Yucca: Right. And this is something we'll come back to in a little bit. But one of the things that non theist pagans often get asked is, well, how do you know what's right? How do you know what's right and wrong? If you don't have a God, and this is connected in with that, is this assumption from whatever religion someone might be within the overculture, because that does have people of many different religions, even though it is based quite strongly in the Abrahamic religions, is this, this authority right? Mark: Right, right? Yeah. There, it paints this picture of people that are godless as the, sort of like the cartoon Tasmanian devil, you know, just sort of this, this destructive machine whirling through the world And taking big bites out of everything. Yucca: Possibly function that way? Mark: Right. Well, you can't because individuals are able to decide what's right and wrong too. They don't need to be told that. What goes along with externalizing that judging authority. And remember it is a judging authority under the overculture. It is rate, it is ranking you based on your behavior. And in some cases, even based on your thoughts, because you're not supposed to think bad thoughts. Right. And this is very true under conservative Christianity. You can commit a thoughtful thought sin rather than even if you don't behave in any manner, that's consistent with that. Just thinking about it is sinful. Right. Yucca: Or, or dealing with things like depression or anxiety. Right? Those are, those are deviant ways of being deviant thoughts, you know, don't just fall in line. You're not supposed that. Don't do that. Mark: Just give Yucca: Right. things, yeah. Give it to Jesus or, or, you know, something's wrong with you. But again, this is something that we find problematic in overculture and it's, it's fundamental. It's one of the pillars of our overculture. Mark: It is, it is. And the alternative of course, which is what we espouse is that the individual has inherent worth and dignity. It doesn't matter whether they can be productive or not. It doesn't matter whether they can fulfill a preestablished set of roles or not. They're still a person and they still have inherent rights, inherent dignity and inherent worth. Yucca: Yes. And this ties in as well to our view and relationship with the rest of earth as well. Mark: Yes. And we're going to be talking more about that later on in the podcast, but now let's hop down to. A really big, important set of interpenetrated issues around the overculture, which we call dualism, Yucca: Yeah. So dualism duality to there being. Two separate opposite opposing things. And that incorporates that that holds everything that is Mark: right? The, the idea that the universe can be separated into or that humanity can be separated into good and bad, or that that Yucca: male and female. Mark: and female black and white all these, these different polars polar opposites, first of all, without any recognition that there can be any shades of gray along those scales. Which is terribly problematic when you're judging people. Yucca: Right. Mark: But more than that, the dualism that extent is expressed in the mainstream religions, that, that posits that there is a separate soul from the body. And that is extremely problematic. And the reason that it's problematic is that in all those religions, they end up kind of voting for the soul at the expense of the body and the material, the body, and the material is tainted by original sin. It's it's unable to go to heaven. It's unable to achieve Nirvana, all of those kinds of concepts. So the material is viewed as dirty and contaminated while this imaginary. The essence of a person this, this free standing personality without a body or a brain is considered to be the most important aspect of a person. And that is a terrible, terrible idea. Yucca: Yeah, and this is something we were talking about quite recently, this is built into our language and in English, just the way that we have to talk about these things enforces reinforces those ideas. We talk about the body and the mind, or we talk about, you know, getting to a higher vibration and things like that. It's just so built in that. We don't really even have words to talk about these things as not separate. Mark: Right. Consider the word dirty, right? Dirt gives us our food. Dirt is the most sacred stuff on the planet, right. But yes, dirt is earth, right? But the very word dirty is. An insulting denigration of whatever it's applied to Yucca: Yeah. Mark: the, the idea that everyone is tainted with this original sin and need salvation in order to attain some kind of an afterlife is another manifestation of this dualism idea. And what it means is that can trash this planet because that's not really what matters anyway. Yucca: Right. Mark: I mean, we can see the results of that mentality. Can't we, you know, we're in the midst of the sixth mass extinction event and it's the Anthropocene, it's what we, as humans are causing. it is, it is directly bearing on the human relationship with nature and with the earth that we have this idea of this pristine angelical, special non-corporal soul or spirit or whatever you choose to call it. And we focus our attention on it's it's cleansing through salvation it's redemption from whatever terrible things that may have done All of that. All of that wraps together under this heading of dualism. Yucca: All right. Mark: Whereas as an opposing view, the naturalistic pagan view of this is that we are not a machine and then a ghost within a machine. We are a machine, the machine produces consciousness, the brain produces consciousness, and that is us. Yucca: Right. Mark: When the brain stops working, we aren't, we don't exist anymore. Yucca: And that this machine that is us is also made out of pieces of this larger system and that those pieces are continuously coming in and moving out. And the pieces that are us right now eventually will, will disassemble themselves or be disassembled to become part of something else. And that it's part of this larger cycle, but there isn't a self that continues on to the afterlife. Mark: Right. Right. And I would add on top of your very app description of all that Yucca, that, that is a sacred process that it's holy, the fifth, that whole system that we are a part of is not dirty, is not contaminated, is not sinful is not base. I mean, all we have all these words that basically mean of the earth, right. Mundane means of the earth Yucca: So it, it is all those things, but those things we choose to view as wonderful, as amazing, as beautiful as awe inspiring yes. Holy Just to play wiwith words, wholy with a and holy with the H. Mark: yes. Yucca: So now these are, we're talking about our choice to step away from that, but I want to come back and recognize that. Even though this dualism idea is stemming out of the Abrahamic religions. That even those of us who are not directly part of those religions are still influenced by this idea. Like we're talking about our whole culture, even people who like myself grew up pagan or people who grew up atheist or whatever other religion that this is still, this is in our stories. These are in, these are in the nursery stories, entails that we read to our children that they're watching this isn't Sesame street. I mean, this is everywhere. And it's, it's something that we are making a conscious choice to, to not play along with. Mark: Right, right. And as here's an example of how this, this unthinking obedience to the judging authority outside ourselves gets implemented in sexuality, first of all, sexuality is already really denigrated because it's of the body, right? So it's automatically dirty. It's automatically sinful. Yucca: Animalistic, Mark: Yes. All those Yucca: dare we actually be animals spoilers. We are. Mark: Yeah. Well, but you'll get an argument about that from a lot of people that subscribed to conservative versions of the Abrahamic religions. So sexuality is heavily impacted and then there are. all these arbitrary rules that are placed on top of it in order to try to control it. But from the outside, from, from an external authority. So pretty much everything about relationships is decreed about what a normal relationship is, is decreed by the overculture. That includes things like you have one partner at a time, right? You only have one partner at a time. Yucca: oh, and don't have too many, if you're a woman, Mark: Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, ideally you have one and that's it for your life. right? But certainly you don't have more than one at a time. Yucca: Okay. That's considered cheating. Right. And everybody knows what the supposed of rules of relationship is. And if your particular relationship has different rules, people still say you're cheating. Mark: Right because you're breaking the capital T rules, capital R, decreed by the overculture. Another aspect of relationships is that we declare that they're forever. We know for a fact that about half relationships don't last forever. About half of, of married, committed relationships break up after a while. Sometimes it's 20 years. Sometimes it's six months. People can discover that they're incompatible. They, Yucca: change over Mark: They can change over time. and grow apart from one another. There are a lot of different circumstances under which people might decide to disentangle from one another and move on in the paths of their lives. That's not the story that we tell ourselves, every pop music love song. You listened to every romance, novel, every romantic story. It's always, you know, I love you. I'm going to love you forever. There will never be another yadeedadeda it's indoctrination and we get it from the very earliest time in our lives. Yucca: yeah, your one true love. Mark: Yeah. the soulmate. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Really pernicious idea that there's, there's 7 billion people on the planet and you're supposed to find this one person. What happens if you don't? Yucca: Right. Yeah. What if there's somewhere else? What if they're yeah, they just happened to be the person that you had the lived next door or that you happen to meet at the right time, the coffee shop, right? Mark: Yeah. I get, obviously I think it sounds pretty clear. I get a little exercised on this particular aspect of the overculture, because I think it's truly sick the way people. Decreed what their gender roles are, must be how their relationships must be, whether they're allowed to love who they really love or not. All of these are these arbitrary rules set up by external authorities. And even though we've made a lot of advance from a legal standpoint in our culture, there is still a tremendous voice a loud insistent voice built into the overculture that still says, you know, men should be men and women should be women. And there isn't anything in between and relationships should be forever. And all the things that we've been talking about that's not a formula for happiness. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: The overculture wasn't built to make you happy the overculture was built to serve elites. It's no surprise that the major religions of the world are all religions that work very well in heavily authoritarian political structures, because if they hadn't been those authoritarian structures wouldn't have adopted. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: When Constantine made Christianity into the the official religion of the Roman empire, he got tremendous pushback, but he understood what Christianity could do for him as as the authoritarian power of the Roman empire. If everybody was forced to follow it, Yucca: right. so a lot of these things, when we go back and look at them, the gender roles and sexuality relationships, our relationship to our body, all of those things are to keep us in line in that role that we have that function. And our value is in how well we play that. At least that's the perception. Mark: right. And how will we play that role? And therefore, how will we produce? And by obeying, we keep authorities in their position of authorities. And by producing, we keep the wealthy accumulating wealth Yucca: Yeah. Mark: because that's where power is. Right. So, I mean, this is All pretty grim. You know, stuff to talk about and I can understand how it can be very dispiriting for, you know, those of us who are listening to, to hear us talking about this stuff. But it is so important that we be talking about it and thinking about it because I believe we are at a hinge point in human history where those authoritarian voices are breaking down and they're freaking out about it and, you know, really doubling down, but they're still breaking down. And what that means is that people are starting to make choices for themselves about how they want to live. That don't necessarily serve the elites and they don't necessarily conform to these, this idea of dualism. And I want to put my hand up and say, I'm one of those. I am, I am Foursquare for the evolution of our. Humanity into a direction that celebrates and serves human, happiness and ecological sustainability over the accumulation of wealth and capital or the obedience to arbitrary rules that have very little relevance to us today anyway. Yucca: And you know, one of the ironies of this is that it probably be a better life for the elites. Anyways, we didn't have elites, right. That it would just, you know, if we're actually working towards is the point is the joy and happiness and fulfillment for everybody and not just us humans, but everybody. Right. Well then this is this positive feedback loop of it's, you know, it's better for them than it's better for us and on and on. And it could be a much better situation. And that's, that's one of the things that we are actively working towards in the choices that we make and in the, how we choose to view the world and behave in the world as pagans and especially as naturalistic pagans. Mark: Yes. Yes. I wanted to give an example of the, one of the ways that you can tell that the overculture is, does not value your happiness is when it comes to abstract morality. Like so-called victimless crimes like sex work taking drugs things that are, that are associated with. Right. Anything that's associated with somebody getting pleasure in a manner that is not actually serving capital you know, creating productivity, adding to shareholder value. Any of those kinds of things are automatically trashed by the overculture, even if they're not hurting anybody, but we're starting to see some of that change. And that's why once again, I feel like we are at this moment in human history where we can start to have a real conversation about whether this overculture that has dominated us for at least 2000 years is helping Yucca: Right. I think that's one of the things that the antiwork movement is tapping into. Now there's a lot going on there, but, but the starting to question and go, wait a second. Wait, Mark: right. Yucca: Do we, do we really need this? Mark: Yeah. Did we really sign on for this? And you know, am I, am I willing to not actually spend any time with my children until they're in their teens? So that I can Yucca: Yeah. Mark: buy a cookie cutter house And fill it with cookie cutter furniture all bought with debt, of course pay, pay for a college education that puts me $200,000 in debt and leaves me, you know, completely broken financially before I even get started. There, there is so much about this that is about enslaving people. It's it's literal enslavement of people and it does not serve us as a species we can see in what's happening to the biosphere, how badly it does not serve us because we're trashing the biosphere to make meaningless chotskies that nobody needs no. Yes. Yucca: exhausted to be able to stop and take a look Mark: right. Yucca: right. That's that, you know, just keep doing, just keep doing don't think you can't stop you're so you're on that track and you're getting pushed along and the way it works right now is if you do, then you're in. danger in terms of not having a home, not having food, not having your basic needs met. Mark: right. Yucca: And I mean, as you're saying that, that sounds like being enslaved to me. Mark: Sure. Sure. Yeah. Not only is that an extortionary form of, you know, leverage over people to get them to continue following the path that they're, that's laid out before them. But as soon as they're no longer useful, then they're discarded again. When they're old, when they're no longer going to be, you know, producing, then once again, there's this general discarding factor. That goes along with our cult of youth and our, you know, all of our cultural celebration of trying to look young forever and, you know, have six pack abs and all the, all the nonsense. Honestly, just the, the simple nonsense that goes along with With that, that endless, never ending message of you're not good enough. You don't have enough. You have to do this. You have to do more of this. You have to change. You have to be different. There's something wrong with you. There's this constant bombardment of there's something wrong with you. It's so something wrong with you because you don't buy this product. There's something wrong with you because you don't spend enough time with your kids. There's something wrong with you because you do spend too much time with your kids. There's something wrong with you. Because I mean, the list just goes on because you because you don't like being bombarded with advertising that tells you that there's something wrong with you. Yucca: Which literally designed. I mean, the, the, the ads make you feel insecure about something that offer you the solution to it. Mark: Yep. That's what it's for. That's exactly what it's for. And so we are here to say, it's your life, it's your only life, as far as we know, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: to live it for any purpose, other than joy and service missing the boat, it really puts you in danger of a deathbed moment of feeling like, you know, what did I do? Why did I do this? And that doesn't mean that you don't, you know, work to provide for your kids and all that kind of stuff. Everybody, you know, wants to do what's best for their progeny, but. you don't do it on your own terms, the system itself, the overculture is absolutely merciless in how it will exploit you. Yucca: Yeah. So let's come back to that word. You said, because you said joy and service and the overculture That likes that service bit, but we're talking about the sevice that you choose, right? Who your community not, I mean, I guess it's up to you if you want to serve some billionaire somewhere. Right. But, but like who, what culture, what cultural values, what people, what community, what, you know, bioregion, there's choice involved in that? Mark: Right. Right. And what, what we want to underscore is that you have agency, you know, you, you are a living human being with agency and you get to make decisions about that? Now, many people are in positions where it's very hard to make those decisions. I mean, I'm, I am familiar with poverty and poverty is not a situation where you feel like you have many choices. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: That said being aware of yourself as someone who's making the choices, rather than just kind of rolling over and saying, well, this is what they're doing to me. So I'm just going to ride down the path. It's just essential. If you ever hope to have a life that reflects the life that you dream of. Yucca: Yeah. And you deserve it. You deserve that life. You don't, it doesn't even if, and probably you have, because you're a member of this culture too. Even if you've been told your whole life that you don't, that's not true, Mark: No Yucca: you are valuable and wonderful and beautiful. And your very existence is. Simply amazing. Mark: miraculous. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yeah. Truly astronomically improbable that you ever arrived here. And, and it doesn't last that long. We're recording today on my 60th birthday. And so I've been I've been contemplating what happened between 60 years before I was born and my birth. And then since my birth. 60 years before I was born was 1902. People were winding up their Gramaphones, the radio hadn't been invented yet, but before I was born, Sputnik was already in the sky. That's how much things change. We don't have that much time. A lot of stuff happens very quickly and it's important for us to seize the day, you know, carpe diem. Yucca: The night. Mark: and the night and and make, build the life that will feel most worthy to us. And everybody can make their own free choices about what that is. If the most worthy life for you really is, I have this job that I hate, but it pays very well. And I have these kids and I want to give them these opportunities and I'm going to do this. If that really is the life that you choose. Okay. You choose it. That's great. The difference is coasting on through that because you think you don't have any other choices. And the world is full of people who had thriving careers, unquote, and then pulled the plug and said actually I'm going to sail around the world with my family, or we're going to move to a small village and I'm going to open a clinic or whatever it is, whatever it is. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: One of the things that I think about when I think about the overculture is how violent it is. Yucca: Oh, Mark: that makes sense. When you consider that it's essentially an extortion airy system, it's a system that threatens you with punishment. If you don't do what it says you have to do. And those punishments are everything from social exclusion to literally being put to death. It depends on where you are in the world and what your particular transgression is. But particularly more than anything else. When I look at the, the geopolitical jockeying around the world, most of what I see is Strategizing and, and tactical moves to get to resources. And those resources are the earth that capital wants to grind up into money, whether we need those products or not. If we can be made to want them, then there's a product to be sold. And I believe that if we transformed this culture from the overculture paradigm, the violence of the system will fall. Doesn't mean it'll be zero. You know, primates can be violent. They, they can. But generally in more of a self-defense kind of mode than anything else. It's, it's pretty rare. There are examples, but it's pretty rare for a one pack of primates to go on a, an attack raid on another one and kill them. Yucca: And even then it usually has to do with resources. Mark: I'm sure. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: So how is the pagan worldview different? And in some ways, you know, how is it the same? Mark: Right. Well, I think it's, it's probably best if we break that conversation into two pieces, which is paganism characterized generally as sort of an umbrella term for the, the whole constellation of pagan practices happening in, especially the English speaking world. Cause that's what we know about most. And then. More specifically, how is a naturalistic pagan worldview, different? a nonthiest science-based naturalistic pig view. So why don't we take on the first one first? And to be honest, this is, this is a place where I really split with the, I mean, it's, it's sort of an oxymoron to say, but mainstream pagans because of the body and the soul or spirit, they subscribed to that because they believe in an afterlife. Yucca: Dualism in many pagan traditions is a big theme, right? Yeah. The, the dualism and the theism. I see that theism is the, the authority. Mark: Yes. Yucca: But I think Mark: I think to be fair, some pagans view their relationships with gods as less authoritarian and more like these are allied forces that I can work and build relationships with. Yucca: that's true. And some see, I have certainly talked with the people who see, say the goddess as a metaphor for earth itself and life and nature. Yeah. And so there's certainly, there's, I guess there's a, there's a lot of different approaches there. Although there are some who talk about their faith and their gods and their deities and in a very sort of perinatal patriarchal way, even if it happens to have the, the face of the body of a, of a female. Mark: Yes, that's true. I've certainly heard that myself. This, this question of the ghost in the machine is the one that really affects me the most. Because if, I mean you're, how do I say this? You're you're not fully embracing the mechanics of planet earth. If you're not acknowledging the part of the process where life gets dismantled and ended, and then reassembled into new things. If, because you can talk about that. I mean, we hear it in pagan chance all the time. The word rebirth shows up all the time. And I, my personal theory is that that's because it happens to rhyme with earth, but there is this idea that spring, for example, is a rebirth of life. Well, it's not what it is, is dormant things waking up and the next generation being born it's, it's not a rebirth of anything that's dead. Once something dies, it's dead. And I just feel like when people talk about reincarnation or they talk about Vall holla or the summer lands, or the isle of apples, or, you know, whatever, whatever the story is, those can be beautiful stories. But they truly discount the implication that that has theologically the, what, what that kind of dualism means. It moves away from the sacredness of the planet and starts being focused on this kind of ecology of spirits, of, of non-core pauriol beings. And in our opinion, based on available evidence that doesn't exist. It's a nice story and stories are cool, but if it distracts you from the very sacred earth that we put our feet down on every day, then it may not be a helpful story. That duelism piece is one that I really feel strongly about. And there are, there are other examples, like, there are some pagan traditions where exhibit exhibiting particular kinds of characteristics qualifies you for an afterlife, like courage and, you know, prowess in battle or whatever that is. Right. What that means then is that you're living for the afterlife you're not living for now. And That once again, pulls away from, from the reality that's directly in front of us. Yucca: That we're part of, Not just. Mark: Yes. The, we are the reality that we have. And this once again, I mean, that sounds weird, but that's because our language is entirely defined by the assumptions that are made about the nature of our existence in the overculture. Yucca: Right. Mark: So, Yucca do you want to speak to how a naturalistic pagan worldview is different? Yucca: So, I mean, a lot of the things that we identified in the beginning as being problematic, we identified to, because we are naturalistic pagans, and these are, these are places where there are differences between our views and values and the overculture. So I mean, the first we've been talking a lot about the dualism and our part being part of. I think that's really key is the being our relationship to the earth is recognizing that we're part of this system. And that a lot of the systems that we've been talking about, the human systems, they are constructed, they're made up by us. We are cultural animals. And so that's part of what we do instinctually, but that, that isn't necessarily, that's not always truth, right? That there, there are different cultures at different times, and there are different species that have different approaches and that what we sometimes see that is presented to us as the ultimate one truth within the overculture simply is one version of how things can be. And that's not that doesn't serve. What many of us choose and would rather be Mark: Right, right. Where I really see the big difference between the naturalistic pagan worldview and the overculture centers around values. The, I mean, the idea that we are we are subject to this external authority to tell us what's moral is just something that doesn't work for me at all because I don't believe it. I don't believe in those authorities. Even, even democratically elected authorities sometimes they get it right. Sometimes they don't get it right. And I'm, I don't have a great deal of trust in the way that our systems are orient oriented now. So, but when I look at. At that original mix that we talked about, the, the capitalistic paint with the white supremacy and the patriarchy and all that stuff stirred into it. What I most notice is that it is organized around a set of values that are not, they're not sustainable. They're not kind, they're not inclusive. They're not any of the things that I think are really important from a value standpoint. And we've, we've done shows before on the atheopagan four pillars and on the atheopagan principles. And that'll go into details about what I believe is that's really a value, but the, the value of on accumulation of wealth and possessions, the value on Sort of strutting macho domination of women and LGBTQ people by men of value of of domination and humiliation of, of dark skinned people by white people. It's horrific to me. It's not just that I disagree a little bit. It's not just that. I think it's a little dated and maybe we need to update it that entire 10 commandments, all of that stuff. It needs to be tossed and revisited. We, we need a radically different set of values to underpin a successful culture oriented around happiness and kindness And, sustainability. Yucca: Yes. and we need a new way to talk about it too, Mark: Hmm. Yucca: these things, many of the things that we really do value the body and pleasure and the sexuality and the animal side, the, you know, the so-called base side of things. Those are all judged as negative, bad things. And yet these are things that we, we believe are as we were talking about before sacred Mark: Yes. Look at all the psychosis in our, in our media, around food, the, the ridiculous Hawking of terrible food. and then all of these messages about body shape and weight loss, and just, just terrible things to tell people. They're just, they're awful things to tell people you shouldn't be telling people that stuff. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: In a, in a society that had its head on straight. In my opinion, you know, if you ran a couple of those commercials, people would be up in Yucca: Yeah. And I think the food one is a really interesting one because that's one of those places where we're demonizing the ancient foods, we're demonizing the ancient and the traditional foods and, and holding up on these pillars, these new super processed industrialized things that that's really served to separate people more and more from, from their own ability to take care of themselves from their own heritage, from their own, from their relationship, with the rest of nature, it's all this packaged, fake beyond whatever stuff that just is just so far removed. Mark: And a lot of that stuff, especially the snack foods are engineered to be addictive. Yucca: Literally Mark: They are literally engineered. So that every time you take a bite of that potato chip, you get a little burst of dopamine and you can't stop until you've emptied the package. Yucca: Yeah. And the greenwashing it, so think that there, you know, you're somehow saving the environment while you're consuming their products too Mark: Right. Right. The whole Yucca: plastic, but don't worry. You can recycle it. I said, you go down that no, Mark: Yeah. Yucca: it ends up in the ocean, so, Mark: So obviously we have a very dim view of what the overculture provides to us. Maybe there was a time when some of this stuff was useful. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: But it got calcified many, many centuries ago. And even though we have moved out of feudalism and into, well, we have a different kind of feudalism now we've, you know, now we've got corporatism and modern industrial capitalism and you know what they call post-industrial capitalism with the information economy. But the end goal was always let's make as much surplus as possible and then grab as much of it for ourselves as we possibly can. And that's been going on since Sumeria, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: It's time for us to revisit these, these values are not serving us. These Mo these ideas are not serving us. Yucca: Quite the opposite. In fact, they're not, it's just not serving us. They're actively harming us, destroying our planet. Well, the biosphere that, the structure of the rock part's doing just fine, but the living part, you know? Yeah. Mark: And so all of that is very grim, but what I would like to say to our listeners is resist figure you know, think for yourself, what do I want my life to be like, not what do I want my next job to be like, but literally, you know, blank sheet of paper. If I were living the life I really wanted to live, what would it be like? Yucca: Yeah, what would, and that might be a huge question. So you might break it into some smaller chunks to start thinking about what do you want your daily experience to be like Mark: right Yucca: right now, right? Not, and thinking about your 5, 10, 20 year plan, all that. That's great. But right now, what, what do you want every day to be like, Mark: Yeah. Yucca: and then how do you get there? Mark: Yeah. How, how do you get to the life that you deserve? Not to say that, you know, you deserve to be fabulously wealthy and have people wait on you hand and foot. But my guess is that very, very few of us would actually choose that as the life that we want to live. Given the option of that big question, what do you want your life to be like? Yucca: Right. Mark: I think people are much more humble in their aspirations, I think. And I think that what most people want is love and creativity and enough so that they don't feel scared about food shelter, medical care. Yucca: And often a sense of in, in that coming back to that word that we've used a few times in service. I think most people really, really do want to help. Mark: Yes. My, Yucca: deep in us. Mark: my work both in my, in my paying career as a nonprofit professional, working for public interest missions and my work in helping to foster atheopagan ism and support that community and provide resources for it and organize events and all that kind of stuff. I find that tremendously fulfilling it's, you know, it's unthinkable to me that I would. You know, go to work for a financial firm and, and shuffle other people's money around and make a bunch of money myself in the process, because I wouldn't find that meaningful. Now. I'm not saying that others couldn't find that meaningful. And I'm not saying that there's something wrong with that kind of work. just that for me, that doesn't feel like service and being in service to something greater than myself is very meaningful to me. Yucca: Yeah. And so that's, that's something that. Each person needs to do for themselves. Right. And that's, so that's a place where we're challenging the overculture and saying yes. Do think don't, don't just keep going with everything. Stop. Think that's one of the things that we've talked about with a gift of the darkness is that pausing in the dark, in the quiet and really, really reflecting and exploring, exploring the feelings around that. And the, the thoughts that come up and, and just everything that's there for you. Because as we were talking about before, this is, this is it. This is what we get. This is life that we're not as far as we can tell. We're not going off to some eternal land in the clouds or under the ground or wherever. Right now. Mark: Yeah. It's not practice. This is the real, this is the game. This is the real thing. And what I'd like to put in a word for now is that that kind of reflection is perfectly suited for solo. Very well-suited to do your, your contemplation of yourself in a mirror with candles, maybe select some tarot cards that particularly resonate with you that give you a sense about what aspects you'd like to have in your life. All of those kinds of things can be really great ways of getting underneath your conscious, your conscious mind into your subconscious mind, where you have, you may have more of a deep seated sense about what you find satisfying and what you find unsatisfying. Yucca: And it might also take some, some experimentation, right? Because we've, we're surrounded by these values that are telling us, you know, what we should be valuing and thinking and feeling. And, and we might not have ever let ourselves explore in areas that are outside of that before. Mark: Right. Yucca: So I think there's there's room to, for that reflection and for that exploration as well, which is exciting. Mark: It is, it is one of the words that I've liked to associate my life with a lot since I was in my twenties actually is adventure. And I think. Life can feel like an adventure, even, even if you're, you know, getting up and going to work every morning and coming home and, you know, kind of doing the same thing most of the time, you can still have your life feel like an adventure depending on where your growth edges are and what your, what new things you're trying. Right. need to listen to what I just said myself. Now that I'm 60. I need to remind myself that there's still plenty of adventure to be found. So I'll make a note. So I know there is so much more that we could say about this. I think this is a pretty good first bite. I've really enjoyed kicking around these ideas with you Yucca. And I think that it's, I, I, I feel really proud of this episode. I'm glad that we're talking about. Yucca: Yeah, likewise, there's a lot of. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: and, and before we wrap up, I just want to come back and say, you know, we aren't attacking any individuals. Right. And we're not saying judging any of us for being part of this. We're talking about values. We're talking about culture and yes, we're critiquing. We most certainly are critiquing it. But it's not personal. Mark: right, right, exactly. So um, because all of us go along with the overculture to some degree, the it's it's everywhere and you can't fight on every. It's not possible. You have to kind of pick, all right, here are the ways that I'm going to be divergent, because those are the things that are going to bring me satisfaction and a sense of meaning and purpose. And then on the other stuff, I'm okay. I'll, I'll work a job. That's okay. I'm going to do that. And so yeah. what Yucca says is very true. The, this, this critique is of culture and systems and not of individuals. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: I imagine there will be a lot of thoughts in response, thoughts, questions, comments, in response to this podcast, we are available to you at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. That's the wonder podcast, all one word Q s@gmail.com. And we welcome your comments, your topic, suggestions, all that kind of thing, and happy new year. Yucca: Thanks for hanging out with us.

Use the Try Harder, Luke by Eliezer Yudkowsky

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 11, 2021 3:48

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Use the Try Harder, Luke, published by Eliezer Yudkowsky on the LessWrong. "When there's a will to fail, obstacles can be found." —John McCarthy I first watched Star Wars IV-VI when I was very young. Seven, maybe, or nine? So my memory was dim, but I recalled Luke Skywalker as being, you know, this cool Jedi guy. Imagine my horror and disappointment, when I watched the saga again, years later, and discovered that Luke was a whiny teenager. I mention this because yesterday, I looked up, on Youtube, the source of the Yoda quote: "Do, or do not. There is no try." Oh. My. Cthulhu. Along with the Youtube clip in question, I present to you a little-known outtake from the scene, in which the director and writer, George Lucas, argues with Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker: Luke: All right, I'll give it a try. Yoda: No! Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try. Luke raises his hand, and slowly, the X-wing begins to rise out of the water—Yoda's eyes widen—but then the ship sinks again. Mark Hamill: "Um, George..." George Lucas: "What is it now?" Mark: "So... according to the script, next I say, 'I can't. It's too big'." George: "That's right." Mark: "Shouldn't Luke maybe give it another shot?" George: "No. Luke gives up, and sits down next to Yoda—" Mark: "This is the hero who's going to take down the Empire? Look, it was one thing when he was a whiny teenager at the beginning, but he's in Jedi training now. Last movie he blew up the Death Star. Luke should be showing a little backbone." George: "No. You give up. And then Yoda lectures you for a while, and you say, 'You want the impossible'. Can you remember that?" Mark: "Impossible? What did he do, run a formal calculation to arrive at a mathematical proof? The X-wing was already starting to rise out of the swamp! That's the feasibility demonstration right there! Luke loses it for a second and the ship sinks back—and now he says it's impossible? Not to mention that Yoda, who's got literally eight hundred years of seniority in the field, just told him it should be doable—" George: "And then you walk away." Mark: "It's his friggin' spaceship! If he leaves it in the swamp, he's stuck on Dagobah for the rest of his miserable life! He's not just going to walk away! Look, let's just cut to the next scene with the words 'one month later' and Luke is still raggedly standing in front of the swamp, trying to raise his ship for the thousandth time—" George: "No." Mark: "Fine! We'll show a sunset and a sunrise, as he stands there with his arm out, straining, and then Luke says 'It's impossible'. Though really, he ought to try again when he's fully rested—" George: "No." Mark: "Five goddamned minutes! Five goddamned minutes before he gives up!" George: "I am not halting the story for five minutes while the X-wing bobs in the swamp like a bathtub toy." Mark: "For the love of sweet candied yams! If a pathetic loser like this could master the Force, everyone in the galaxy would be using it! People would become Jedi because it was easier than going to high school." George: "Look, you're the actor. Let me be the storyteller. Just say your lines and try to mean them." Mark: "The audience isn't going to buy it." George: "Trust me, they will." Mark: "They're going to get up and walk out of the theater." George: "They're going to sit there and nod along and not notice anything out of the ordinary. Look, you don't understand human nature. People wouldn't try for five minutes before giving up if the fate of humanity were at stake." Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org.

empire force speech jedi ea george lucas yoda luke skywalker cthulhu mark hamill death star try harder dagobah eliezer yudkowsky rationalist markit lesswrong mark so mark they mark fine mark for george they george lucas what

Autumn Crafts and Goodies

Retirement Planning - Redefined

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 27, 2021 34:49

Suntree Retreat: https://atheopaganism.wordpress.com/2021/06/06/announcing-suntree-retreat-2022/ Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com S2E36 TRANSCRIPT: ----more---- Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder: Science-based paganism. I'm Mark, your host. Yucca: And I'm Yucca. Mark: And today we're going to talk about neat stuff about autumn things. You can do things you can add to the. The environment of your home things you can make just generally sort of a grab bag of, of autumn goodies. Yucca: And some of them edible, some of them delicious and just fun and, and general autumn and also maybe some specific, some climate specific autumn things. Mark: Yeah. Yes. So that's what today's episode will be about. But before we jump into that, we want to remind people that next may there is going to be an in-person gathering in Colorado Springs, Colorado called the Sentry retreat. We're inviting non theist, pagans, atheist, pagans, folks that are curious or interested in those paths to come and join us and be with us for three days. Rituals and workshops and socializing and fun and dancing and all that kind of stuff. And we're really hoping that people will get their registrations in as quickly as possible so that we know how many people to prepare for may sounds like a long way away, but Hey, face it. It's almost October. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: It's it's not that far away anymore. So we will put a link in the in the episode notes where you can go and register and get all of the information about this it's from the 13th, Friday, the 13th of May through the 16th. And it's just going to be a really wonderful time. So, we, we hope that you'll come and join us and take part in part of the fun. We'll be providing information to people about Doing carbon credits to offset their travel impact which is not super expensive. It turns out which is great. And overall, we're going to do our best to make this an event that is. As consistent with the atheopagan principles as possible and as responsible to the earth as a part of that as it can possibly be. So please click that link, go take a look. And we really hope that you'll join us. Yucca: Yeah, we are just so excited to be able to invite you. And it's, you know, the, the more, the closer we're getting to it, the more exciting it's becoming as so many different things are starting to shape up. And you know, it's just becoming real and it will be. I think it should be amazing. It's, it's a beautiful, beautiful part of the world. And there's a lot of different options in terms of the, the accommodations, right? You could bring a tent and do that if you'd like, and it's beautiful Ponderosa woods but there's also different cabins setups and you can do more or less private and all of that. So all of those options that will be in the link. Mark: Right. So that is that. And if you're, if you're not there, you're missing out. I, because we, we intend to have too much fun. Yucca: and we, and we tried to make it somewhere that would be central to many folks. We know that there are. Atheopagan is a non theist pagans all over the world. But we were trying to find somewhere that would hopefully be accessible to many different people. So, and maybe one day in the future, it'd be fun to do it. And you know, another hemisphere and other continent. Mark: Yes. And actually there, there has been some talk amongst folks in Europe about doing some kind of a gathering around the same time. I don't know how far that's gone, but I think that would be a really cool thing to do. So there's that. And now let's talk about the autumn season and all of the cool things about it and things that we can do to make our homes ready for it, to exercise our creativity all that good kind of stuff. Yucca: Right. And so we just had the Equinox and. One of the things we talk about a lot is how different different places are right. Just from dear to year, but also from simply where you are, where a few hundred miles or a few hundred kilometers over one way might be completely different. And so. There's some things that we classically think of as being fall or otomy, and then there's things that are really unique to your specific place, your biological community. And I think we'll kind of get into some of, both of those. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. For example although some migratory animals, mostly birds have already. Taken off to head for places that are more comfortable for them for the winter or taken off to head back. Back to where the, they do their nesting during the summer, if, depending on which hemisphere you're in a lot of them are right now gathering up as much in the way of fat and accumulated calories as they possibly can in order to meet those. voyages so that they don't starve on the way. I don't know whether folks are aware of this or not, but migratory birds can lose two thirds of their weight while their migraine. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: That's. Yucca: Think about what they're doing. It's, it's really amazing to think about a little creature and the incredible distances that they're traveling. Mark: Yes. Yes. And they're doing that by flapping their wings over and over and over again, to keep themselves suspended in the air against gravity, which is just awe inspiring. When you think about it, the fact that we have so many thousands of kinds of creatures that have all made this adaptation and are able to make it work, it's just extraordinary. So one thing that you can do at this time of year is you can put out bird feeders and wildlife feeders, and you need to be very careful that the kinds of feed that you use are actually of use. So it's kind of like the old thing that I'm sure that you've heard that you shouldn't throw bread to ducks, right? Because bread actually Gunks up their digestive systems and doesn't provide them with a lot of nourishment. We have a wild birds unlimited store in my town Yucca: too. Yeah, they have Mark: is that they, they really do and everything from, you know, great feeders and, and really high quality feed, but also like spotting scopes and all that kind of stuff. Everything for people that are birders and. So we just put up some bird feeders recently, one with sugar, water for hummingbirds, and one with sunflower pieces bits of sunflower seeds for other kinds of birds. Yucca: And speaking of, oh, I'm sorry. Continue. Mark: oh, go ahead. Yucca: I was going to say, speaking of hummingbirds, there's a myth that you need to take the hummingbird feeders down to encourage the hummingbirds to. Go on their migration and this is not true. They will, they will go when they are ready to go. So you can keep those hummingbird feeders up and let them go ahead and drink and get that, that the nourishment that they need and they'll leave when they need to. So you don't need to stress about feeling guilty that you're preventing them from migrating. So, yeah. Mark: Good. Thank you. So, Since these feeders up, of course, we have had a lot more visits from wildlife. We, we have a kind of really active sort of. Somewhat competitive community outside that are kind of wrestling over who gets access to the food. And so that's a wonderful opportunity for me to learn more about identifying birds and which species we have here locally and at this time of year and all of that works really well. For us as well. But the main thing is that I just get a good feeling about having provided this resource to these animals that we've taken over so much of their habitat. It, it really feels like kind of paying back a little bit Yucca: Yeah. Yeah. Mark: And Yucca, you were saying also that that you do feeding for other wildlife other than birds. Yucca: We do. Yeah. So we are in a rural setting. And so the, the part of the county I'm in you can't have, you know, 40 acre. You can have one, one home per 40 acres, right. So it's pretty spread out and it's, it's a much less dense than that typically. So we have lots of. We have all kinds of animals here. We've got the big ones and we've got the little ones, but now that we're here full time, they've figured that out too. So we feed a lot of different different animals and you know, I've done my research to see what is healthy and what isn't. And so we put things out for our, our little mammal friends. We've got lots of chipmunks and squirrels and rabbits and things like that. And then we have many different kinds of birds who come to the feeders as well. So we'll do ground feeders and tree as well. And the most important one actually is. Right. So even if you're worried about, oh, I don't want to give the animals something that, you know, might be bad for them. Like corn is a really tricky one because there's some animals that it's just fine for. And others it's really, really bad for sunflowers. Typically are pretty safe in general, if you get your, your black oil, sunflower seeds or something, but the water, everybody needs the water. And as long as you're keeping that clean, and that's really important with all your, your feeders, cause you don't want to be spring. Right. The last thing you want to be doing is spreading diseases and hurting them. But if you're keeping that clean and sanitary, that you can bring a lot of, of creatures. And for us, we just get so much joy from it and we've got some windows we can see through and we have the bird book sitting right there so we can go through and I've, and I've lived here in this area, my whole life. Right. And that have been tuned into. What animals, but I'm finding new, new birds that like, oh, I didn't know he had those. And what's that, that kind of looks like a Robin, but it's not, or what's that one with the Mohawk. And so it's just been so much fun. The other consideration though, that one needs to always make is when you are feeding smaller prey animals. That does attract their predators too. So we just want to be mindful about, okay, if will, if you're setting up a theater, are you making it really easy for those animals to get eaten? Or can you put it somewhere that won't make it quite so easier? That sort of thing? Mark: Right, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: That's why bird feeders are usually suspended in hanging because the kinds of animals that are likely to go after them, like cats and coyotes and so forth, they, they can't get up to those Heights foxes the same, Yucca: Although you do have certain species that just won't visit those. So if you want to have those species comes, then you want to put it out in the open and you can make considerations for that. Yeah. And as we move into the colder weather you know, it can be more and more important. For the animals. And again, we're not trying to replace their wild diets, but just kinda give them a little, a little assistance. Right, right. We've built our home where they would have been living and we've put our roads in. And so, you know, we can give a little bit back. Mark: Yeah. exactly. So that's a cool thing that you can do, and it's a way that you can become better acquainted with what's going on in your local environment. And it's it can be a great addition to your non theists pagan practice. Why don't we talk about the human environment now? Because I think it's true. It's it's sort of like children, you, you love all your children, but maybe there's one that just gives you particular delight. The same thing is true of our holidays. We love all our holidays, but there's something very special about autumn and Hallows, so, and Halloween and all of that kind of poopy creepy. Mortality reminding drawing down time feel of, of the season, whether it's, you know, the smell of piled leaves or the the, the smell of smoke, hopefully from, you know, hopefully from somebody's a woodstove rather than from a forest fire, which is what we're afraid of around here. Yucca: No, those are distinctive smells. Mark: They are. Yucca: really is. Right. You know, it's very that we do campfires and we've all, all of them here. You could wildfire woodstove campfire, but even the same wood, it smells different in the different contexts. Mark: Well, I think it's that there's other stuff mixed in with a wildfire. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: You know, It's not just wood, it's also, you know, aromatic or basis bushes and things like that. That, Yucca: the lichens and the mosses and the rocks being heated up to absurd temperatures and all of that. Mark: And if you're in California, the houses and the insulation and the pipes and the electrical wiring and all of people's possessions, which is awful, but that's what we're confronting now. So Yes. they do smell differently and I will be the first to admit that around here, where I live, we're just getting a little gun shy about the smell of smoke generally. It's Yucca: understandable Mark: it? Yucca: last few years. Yeah. Mark: It's, it's been pretty intense. So. But that wonderful kind of faint smell of smoke in the air and the smell of rotting leaves, which are, are falling the, the beautiful foliage in, especially in some parts of the country, but everywhere, I think, you know, okay. I want everyone everywhere Has something, you know, special? and unique that's happening around this time of year. And if. It's just, it's, it's kind of an emotional time of year and I'm not sure entirely why, but there's just this sort of melancholic beauty to the drawing down of the season into, into its dormant phase. And I like to go for walks in cemeteries and collect. Leaves that have turned into gold or, or red or, and stuff like that. It's just, it's all very enjoyable part of the year for me that an eating, everything that has pumpkin spice in it. Yucca: Yes. Well, huge pumpkin fans over here. That's one of those things that I think should be. All the time food, I mean, it's, it's a half a year, right? Because pumpkins, we, we bred them to last really long Mark: Yeah, Yucca: usually by. Okay by about may is about the time that the sun tree retreat should be happening. That's about when the last of our winter squashes are running out. Right. That's how long, the last, but yeah, everything the pumpkin. And then you add in all of those wonderful spices, right? The clove and everything nutmeg related. Mark: and cinnamon Yucca: Yeah. Mark: all those good things. Yeah. Delicious. I went to trader Joe's last week and they had a pumpkin section. It was just everything flavored with pumpkin and, and throughout the store. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: ridiculous quantities of stuff made with pumpkin's flavored with pumpkin's. I'd never seen anything like that in previous years, they really went overboard this year. Yucca: Yeah. There's I think there's a lot of things pumpkin's work with, but maybe not everything. They do that with bacon too. They make bacon flavored everything. I'm like, I'm not sure I want bacon flavored ice cream. Thank you. Mark: Yeah, I don't. I, Yucca: pumpkin spice, ice cream, that Mark: Oh, that's good. I've had that. I've had that. it's good. Especially the super creamy type, like gelato. Really, really nice. So uh, Yucca: all of the, your pumpkin and Gord related kind of crafts. We were joking about how difficult it actually is to carve turnips. If you're going to do that, you might want to put your your Kevlar gloves on to do that. Mark: Yeah, you could really do damage to yourself. Turnips are very hard and you can cut yourself a lot, trying to hollow out a turn I've been and make a traditional Welsh jack-o-lantern out of it. It, and, and at the end, what you have is kind of an ugly look and turn up with a face. Yucca: Yeah, that you just can't cut him to them as nicely as the pumpkin's that we've bred specifically for that purpose, but there are larger turnips or turnip related routes like the rutabaga or rote rutabaga, which are like a better option. If you want something larger to work with. And then after, after a day or two, though, once you've cut into them, you definitely want to throw it into the soup because they're not going to last for very long. They'll kind Mark: Yeah. There's that too. Yucca: yeah, Mark: Yeah, The the other thing about pumpkin's that we've bred them for is not only to be to, to last for a long time, but they've got that tough skin on the outside that keeps them from deep hydrating quickly and turning into mush, which once they start to do they do in a hurry. But you know, you Yucca: start dripping. You got to put a plate underneath them. Yeah, Mark: Yeah, you can, but you can carve a pumpkin and it'll sit for two weeks. And in pretty good shape, depending on the temperature where you are, of course. Yucca: sure. And how much it directs on or not, or all of that. Mark: And whether a raccoon comes by and eats half of it. Yucca: Well, and the other plants, again, depending on your area, the real big sunflowers that folks grow in their gardens. Those are, those heads are drying right now. And those are just amazing to take and hang up. And, and then actually later on, that's a great one to put out for the birds in the winter, right? Hang that dried from the tree, or if you have chickens and loves that, right. And just let them pick it out at it. There's something so satisfying about seeing the bird attached to the head of the giant sunflower, just pulling and picking through what does it want and passing the ones that doesn't want on the ground and then, you know, fighting with the other bird that comes by because they're very they're very drama, filled, little creatures. So. Mark: So. yes, all that wonderful gourd art. And now that's not only with pumpkins. I mean, Bottle gourds are also that the dried bottle gourds, and you can use like a keyhole saw or a little tiny hand jig saw to cut holes in them or you can make them into rattles And shakers, which are great for ceremonies. Great for. Accompanying percussion drumming. You can, you can dance with them. There's a lot of cool stuff that you can do with a gourd rattle. Yucca: And even just leaving them plain. Right? Not cutting into them. They're just amazingly beautiful shapes and colors and sizes. Mark: for sure. If you decide that you want to make a a gourd rattle. The easiest way to do that is just to dry the bottle gourd until you can hear the seeds rattling around inside, and there's your rattle, that's easy, but if you decide you want a sharper or louder sound dried, corn works really well. You know, you cut the top off and put in the dry, take out the seeds, put in the dried corn. And what's good about that is that if there's any extraneous moisture, it'll absorb it and then slowly sublimated and your, your rattle will last and you can seal that hole with wax or you know, put a little plug of. The material that you took out into there and then seal it around with wax. And it works really well. If you want a really soft sort of oceany kind of sound sand works really nicely Yucca: yeah. Mark: makes it really sort of sh sh sh sh kind of sound. That's a very pleasant. Yucca: Mm. Mark: I say this as someone who once planted bottle gourd. And then for a five-year period had more bottle gourds than I could possibly do anything with because they see themselves and then they just come back and they come back and they come back and every year they produce more. Yucca: Pretty good plant to have, frankly, if you're going to have a plant that's taking over your yard, then that's a fun one. Mark: It is. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And the. The seeds are quite tasty. You can do the same things with them that you do with pumpkin seeds. You can roast them. I like to roast them with soy sauce gives it a sort of a umami and salt flavor to go along with the fat and crunch of the seeds. And that's another autumn thing you can do. After, after carving the pumpkins or doing whatever you do with the gourds, you can make those, those delicious seeds. Yucca: Now with the plants, this would be spring or early summer activity, but the flowers depending on the particular variety, you can also stuff and fry those and those are really good. Mark: Oh, squash, blossoms. Yeah. Yeah, they're good. Yucca: So Mark: That's a very Southwestern. Yucca: I suppose it must be. Mark: I think it's a Mexican thing. Actually. I think it started out as a Mexican thing, but it's become characteristic of the Southwest Yucca: well, this is New Mexico, so there's a lot of, you know, the Europeans have been here hundreds of years, so there's a lot of overlap between the areas. So, Mark: for sure. Yucca: So in the home, right. We've been talking about kind of the crafts and the sorts of things, but there's also the, some of the shift and just the types of colors that we can have, or the smells, especially in the kitchen. If you're making some of those, you know, delicious sort of spiced foods. So having the smell of cinnamon and clove and things like that in the house. And if you have like one of those oil diffusers, That you can just put on and kind of have that smell is I think that's a, this is really special because we forget about smell and touch and things like that as senses, because we're so focused on vision, which makes sense. We're, we're very visually dominated, but vision and sound, but also all of the rest of that. Influences the way we feel day-to-day and how to makes it adds to that specialness, that exciting feeling of the autumn. Mark: Yeah. And I think that there are, there are symbolic things that we can put around as well. Even before we get to the real Halloween season, when it's your spiders and spiderwebs and skeletons and skulls and and all the, you know, and gruesome monsters, if that's the direction that you go, I'm not so much in the gruesome monster. Direction as I am just, Yucca: I like skulls though. Mark: oh yeah. I liked the, I liked the momentum Maury stuff. The, the remember you're going to die and we're all mortal stuff for this time of season. It is really important to me, but in my experience, the scariest monsters are humans and. You know, the rest of the stuff out of fiction is not just doesn't really scare me very much. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: not, not very not very interesting, Yucca: But you were saying before we get to that, that stage of the fall, the out of the end of autumn, Mark: right. Yucca: this early autumn. Mark: And there's that color palette, you know, the rust color and the, you know, black and rust and maybe a dark gold, all the sort of autumnal palette that we can use to decorate our house and make it feel as though it's prepped for the season. I, I know that a lot of people use cinnamon brooms at this time of year which are I mean, originally I think the cinnamon brooms were actually made out of cinnamon trees, but now they're just sort of brushed brooms that have been dipped in cinnamon oil. And, you know, you wave one of those through the air and it makes a gorgeous smell. To kind of feel your house for a long time. And they can be quite strong. So you may want to actually store it outside and just wave it around inside once in a while. If like, Yucca: if you have pets in the home that they may be much more sensitive than, than humans are, right? Like your cat or dog. Mark: very true. Very true. The other thing that's coming and we'll talk about this as we as we get closer to, to Hallows, to Solen is that the days are, are shortening now and it's evident Where I am. It was dark at seven 30 last night. And that's a, that's a long swing from the, you know, nine 20 at night that it was back at the summer solstice. So, it, it's a really good time to actually go out and watch the sky. The, for one thing, And I've never entirely understood why this is autumn. Sunsets tend to be really spectacular Yucca: Hm. Mark: and it may, maybe it's just the weather patterns where I happen to live, but they seem to last longer and they're very, very colorful. And so if you don't already have a practice of going out to watch the sunset, you might want to take some time. In the next couple of weeks to do that a few times and really enjoy what the sky has to offer. Yucca: Yeah, well, they, they should actually be longer. It's independent of the weather, just because longer than they would be in summer because of the tilt of the earth. Right? So your sunset is going to be you're, you're getting those beautiful colors because of the angle that the light is traveling through it. Mark: Yeah, but, but I don't, I don't think of winter sunsets as being. So much longer, it seems like a bigger jump for some reason. And I'm sure I'm sure that this is just my perception that it's not really true, but it just seems like there's a big downshift that happens from the summer into the autumn, with the length of the, of the sunset. Yucca: less comfortable standing outside for the winter? Sunsets? Mark: Depends on what the days are. Like. We have 70 degree days here in the wintertime Yucca: Okay. Yeah, but, but many places, those autumn sunsets, and I've heard that, I certainly noticed them here. They're very different here, depending on the time of the year. We, we always have really beautiful sunsets. Although monsoon seemed to be the most. Spectacular ones. And I think that's the way that the light is hitting off of the just huge clouds and all of that. But the, I mean, there's just always a very different quality depending on the time of year. And right now Jupiter and Saturn are both really, really prominent in right after sunset in the Southern sky. Even if you're in a. You're going to be able to see them. Right. They're so bright. Mark: Oh, super bright Yucca: yeah. So you look out after sunset to the south and you're going to see a bright, what looks like star that's Jupiter. Right. Even if you're in say Manhattan, as long as you can actually see over the buildings. So maybe not even from the top of the building, but yeah. So. So there's that outside component. And if you, if you can do, if it's safe to do a little fire where you are, or maybe even just bringing a little candle out, right. Having a little candle and have that on your little table as you watch the sunset and the transition to the evening. And if you can, if you've got the time staying out, we're moving in for the, the. Northern hemisphere. We're going to be moving into a time where we can see the Milky way in the evenings really beautifully. And so you should, depending on where you, where you are in terms of light pollution, you should be able to see it all year, but it just depends on what, how, how late you want to stay up or how early you want to get up. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Yeah. Yeah. Mark: So I guess the kind of. The summary of this is embrace the season. This is this is a particularly witchy time. It's a time that we kind of wait for we in the pagan community. We wait around for it all year. It's a time when the when the, the symbols and the aesthetic that are promoted in the mainstream culture. Come more into alignment with the sorts of aesthetic that which he pagans use with our bones and skulls and spiderwebs. And. Just cool, spooky, a cultish sort of stuff. Plus of course, all of the natural stuff, the beautiful leaves, the beautiful sunsets the kinds of things that we really appreciate. Oh boy, it's a big acorn year here. It ate acorns or not Acorns our, what they call mate producers. Which are, which means that they don't produce a crop of acorns every year. Oaks Oaks will only produce all that fat. if they've got enough starch accumulated in their roots at the time that they need to start producing acorns for them. to make a batch. And this is a huge year, they're everywhere. It's, it's really remarkable. I, I I've been surprised because. The because we're in a drought, but it may be that that stress on the plant is encouraging it to create more reproduction. Yucca: And do you, does it seem like, do you have multiple types or species of acorns and they all will seed at once or does it kind of depend on your, on the species? Mark: Every Oak tree that I've seen of, of, and we have, we probably have eight species here, but. The vast majority are about three species and every Oak tree that I've seen here this year is just heavy with acorns. So it's it seems to be something that they've agreed upon. This is a good year to do that. So, that'll be good for lots of kinds of creatures, mice and rats and squirrels and so forth. Yucca: Yeah. Oh, how fun. So you could collect a few of those and have them inside. Mark: Yeah. I've already done that. I have some on my, on my focus, my altar and starting to think about wrapping up the year. We'll be talking more about that. But I have items from Sabbath rituals that I've done around the course of the year, that I'll be burning at Hallows that are starting to starting to lose their. Their their urgency in my mind, when I look at them, they're starting to fade in their power. As things will, as time goes by in many cases, those sort of temporary items like we did we did a ritual at the spring Equinox in which we made we, we wrote. Plans or wishes for the coming year cycle and then folded them into paper cranes. And so I will be unfolding mine and reading what those were so I can reflect on what those plans were and how they turned out and then refolding it and putting it in the Hallows fire when, when that time comes. Yeah, it's a. It's a good time to be a pagan. Autumn is and whether you're in the north or the Southern hemisphere, we wish you the very best of the season. Yucca: Thank you. Mark: Oh, Thank you. Yucca. Always. Good to talk with you. We've got some cool episodes lined up coming up soon. So, we look forward to seeing you then, and be sure to check out that link about the century retreat, because we'd really like to see you there. Thanks everybody. Thanks for listening.

Ep 37: Things That Don‘t Matter Till They Do

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 9, 2021 20:48

Fire extinguishers, airbags in your car, and smoke alarms in your house are all examples of things in life that don't really seem to matter until they're the only thing that matters. On that rare occasion when you need one of those items, you'll either be very glad that you have one, or really regretting the fact that you don't. Let's talk about some of the things in the financial world that don't matter until they do. Helpful Information: PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/ Contact: 813-286-7776 Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Transcript of Today's Show: For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/ ----more---- Mark: Hey everybody, welcome in to another edition of the podcast. This is Retirement Planning - Redefined, with John and Nick from PFG Private Wealth. And we're going to chat today about some things that don't matter, well, until they do. And I've got some pretty good examples of that, so we're going to get into that in just a second. But I don't know, Nick, I feel like I should pick on you a little bit. Things that don't matter until they do, is that the Buffalo Bills again this year or what? Nick: Those are fighting words. It's a good thing we're in a different state. Now, what's your football team? Mark: I just had to pick on you because of the whole Tom Brady thing. I was going to talk to you about it, so you just couldn't get away from this guy, right? He was kicking your butt in New England, then he comes down in your backyard and still knocks your team out. I actually felt for you this past playoff, so. Nick: Yeah, it's all good. We've got a real quarterback now so I'm okay with it. Mark: Yeah. Nick: I'm not a complete... Mark: My team is total garbage, so you can pick on me all day long, so it's no worries. My team is the laughingstock of the NFL pretty much on a regular basis. John: Are you a Panthers fan? Mark: That's close. You think I would be because, same thing with you guys, I'm next to the Panthers so you think I would be. But no, I'm a Cowboys fan. Yeah. It's the worst. Nick: Nah. Trust me. It's not the worst. Mark: We get a lot of flack for Cowboys fans. That's for sure. Nick: Yeah, but it's not the worst. Mark: Gotcha. John, what about you? Do you pull for anybody? John: The Patriots. Mark: Oh my God. Wait, what? Oh my gosh, you two must have really gone back and forth. John: Yeah, I grew up in right outside of the Boston. Mark: That's right, I remember that now yeah. So you guys have had some fun times over the last few years, haven't you? Nick: John used to ask me to watch games- John: He refuses. Nick: I couldn't be around. I couldn't be around people in public watching the game, but now that they're a little bit better- Mark: They had a great year last year, they really did, so. Nick: They made the playoffs three out of the last four years. Mark: Yeah, they did. They're definitely on the run. So I just had to give you a little bit of a hard time, but it's all good. It's all good. Mark: So listen, things that don't matter until they do. So here's some real examples, like a fire extinguisher, right? Who thinks about a fire extinguisher until you need one? Or the airbags in your car or smoke alarms in your house, all these things we just don't pay any attention to until we actually really need one. And then we're awfully glad that they're there. Mark: So I've got a couple of these financially speaking fellas. So talk to us about the importance of why these things can be kind of out of sight, out of mind. But man, we really need to have those ducks in a row. And let's just start with an easy one, legal documents, right? Won't matter until they do, but when you need it, man you're going to be glad you've got it in place, and right. John: Yeah, this is a great example of that. And where when you're living and this happens is you have some type of health event and I just had a family member who just got an accident and healthcare surrogate had to step up and make some decisions and help them out during that process. So that's something that you really need to consider doing some of these things. Meeting with an attorney that's qualified to do this stuff, to make sure that your ducks are in a row. John: And the unfortunate one where it's too late is if you pass away and then now your beneficiaries are dealing with whatever estate, whether it's trust, wills, documents that you did or didn't do. I'll tell you from Nick and I have helped a lot of clients kind of navigate that, if it's not done correctly it can be a nightmare for your beneficiaries just to figure out where everything is and who is responsible. Mark: Yeah. And it's one of those things that's easily avoidable, right Nick? I mean, this is not that hard to fix. This is, of the low hanging fruit that can be out there, you can do this stuff pretty easy. Especially things like beneficiary designation, updating those, so on and so forth. Wills and trusts, sure, they can be a little more complicated, but even that it's not that complex. You've just got to get with an advisor and an attorney. Nick: Yeah. What we've seen is that often times people don't personally know an attorney or somebody in this space that can help them. Or, if they do, they're private and they don't necessarily want them to know everything about them. Or we'll see people that just... It makes them extremely uncomfortable to talk about death, dying and, or being sick. Nick: And so it's a classic avoidance behavior. And like we had talked about previously, time flies and all of a sudden it's five or 10 years later, and your mom and dad that you've had listed as the beneficiaries are no longer alive and kids are grown up or you had another child that's not listed anywhere. Or maybe you got divorced or remarried. Nick: All these things happen and if the documents aren't in place or they're lagging and inaccurate, it can turn into quite a quagmire if something happens. And I'll say this too, is oftentimes when people think of the legal documents, they think of death and not necessarily what John referred to as far as healthcare proxy and a power of attorney, those sorts of things where there's a health event and you're still alive, but you need help making decisions and that can really get pretty squirrely. Mark: No, I agree with you. And I think the other one we hear sometimes too as well, is, that's for rich people, right? A trust is for rich people or so on and so forth. And it's like, okay, that's not really the case. And it's really not as expensive to get some of this stuff taken care of as we often think it is. I think we build it up in our mind or whatever. We just kind of have this, oh, that's for rich folks or it costs too much money so I'm just going to avoid it. Pretty easy to handle this stuff. Nick: Yeah, I would say that's accurate, as well as, and we've talked about the run-up in the markets over the last five or 10 years. There's a lot of people that, seven, eight years ago they maybe had a third of the money that they have now. And so they still kind of are in the same train of thought or the same thought process. And they don't realize maybe what they perceive... They still think of themselves in that same way as they did eight to 10 years or even 15 years ago. And there's a little bit of disbelief. And so it kind of leads into kind of procrastinating and you almost have to kind of take stock and realize, okay, hey, this is something I really need to get done. Mark: Yeah, exactly. Mark: Well, that's hopefully what we try to provide here on the podcast is there's a little useful nuggets of information that might spark that conversation. And speaking of which, John, life insurance, not something that you're really popping up at the dinner table saying, "Hey, let's have a rousing conversation about life insurance." Right? It doesn't kind of go that way. But, again it's one of those things that don't seem to matter until you need it. And it can be quite important and quite useful tool. John: Yeah, a hundred percent. I'll say this is probably one of the most disliked conversations for people, is talking about life insurance and what happens after if they were to pass away or a spouse or whoever. Mark: Right. John: Especially with children, because when you have kids, and I have two daughters, one of the big things you look at is, I'll use myself as a scenario, I'm gone. So there's my income gone for the next 20, 30 years. So you really want to look at it from that standpoint when you're talking about needs planning for life insurance is... I'm no longer here. My income's no longer providing for my family. How do I replace that? And really life insurance is a great vehicle to go ahead and replace someone's income for a 20, 30 year period. And there's ways to back into what amounts are correct, but definitely something you need to look at when you're doing a plan. John: And going into retirement can be the same way depending, and Nick mentioned it on the last session where everyone's situation is different. Well we've had scenarios where, there may be still is a need for life insurance in retirement because maybe one person has a heavy pension. And if that person passes away, that pension now is gone. And maybe that's a big requirement for the plan to work. John: So everyone's situation is different. It's definitely something that needs to be considered. You just want to take a look at it and see what would happen if someone did pass away and there wasn't any life insurance. I'll say a lot of these things that we're going to go over too, I think it's easy to address, there's definitely people that can help you out. And it's just a matter of getting it done. And once it's done it just kind of provides a nice peace of mind that it's kind of like a bandaid, just do it, rip it off. Mark: There you go. Exactly. I think life insurance too, I will be honest. It's a very important tool even for retirees, there's a lot of ways it can be used. It's not our daddy's Oldsmobile like those old commercials. There's just so many different nuances now to life insurance, where it could be a useful tool for various times of life, but I can't help but thinking of Ned Ryerson and the Groundhog Day movie, when he comes up on Bill Murray, that insurance guy. I think that's what a lot of times people think of when they think life insurance or life insurance agent, and it's just changed so much. But it is a great movie. Mark: Lifetime income streams. We kind of talk about this fairly often, but I mean, look, it's one of those things maybe you don't think about. You think, well, I've got these accounts, right? I got all this stuff, but how do I turn it into money because I do need money all through my retirement? I need a paycheck coming in. Nick: Yeah. So, one of the things that we'll say is that in retirement, income is king. Assets are great and assets are the thing that people love to talk about and kind of chat about, but income is king. And I'll say too that everybody knows about social security. They realize in theory it's important, that sort of thing, but many people, and this is something that we'll kind of review with people often, is that they don't quite realize like, well, hey, if your household is getting $60,000 a year in income from social security, which these days, a lot of people are. That is really equivalent to between one and $2 million of nest egg assets from the standpoint of generating a saving [column 00:09:37] , having it last your lifetime and getting inflationary raises. Nick: So, building a portfolio or an overall strategy where, we've got quite a few clients that they have rental properties, that rental income, they purchased a property a little bit when they're younger. They get the house or the property paid off, and the rental income supplements their income in retirement. Nick: John referred to pensions, that can be a big deal. Annuities can provide a guaranteed income as well. So, trying to balance forms of guaranteed income with assets can be really important. And just a little caveat to throw in there, although income is king, it is important to have assets. So the reason I say that is we have had some clients come to us that have been, whether it's between social security and pension, they've been income rich and asset poor, and that can also lead to other issues as well. So a good balance is really just like so many other things is really the most important part. Mark: Well, balance is key, definitely balance is key to anything. And we all know we got to have these different forms of, or we have to have some income coming in, in retirement. But having the multiple streams and turning things on at different times, and whether you want to call it bucket strategies or laddering or whatever the case is, but just having these different various forms to be able to pull from at different times is going to make obviously all the difference in keeping up with our retirement. Because nobody wants to go backwards in their lifestyle in retirement. They want to kind of continue on the way they have been, or maybe even more so in retirement. So that's some things that- go ahead. Nick: And let me jump in on that too, that point that you made about not going backwards or maintaining is important. Because there are times, and I've had this happen a couple of times, when it comes to retirement and income in retirement and when it comes to life insurance, two of the topics that we talked about, in people's minds they have an enormous amount of confidence that all of a sudden they no longer need any of the things that they've wanted and bought for the last 25 or 30 years. It's like all of a sudden they flip the switch and it's going to be the cheaper food, the cheaper restaurants, the cheaper car- Mark: I've got plenty of clothes. I don't need to buy any new clothes. Nick: Yes. And in reality, people don't live like that. And so that's an important- John: In reality, it's typically the reverse. They have more time on their hands to go buy things. Mark: Right, yeah. My dad always said every day was a Saturday when he got to retirement and he spends the most money on a Saturday, so, that always stuck with me. Nick: Yeah most people live in a state of want versus need and it's often, that's a pretty common thing, so anyhow. Mark: That always stuck with me. That's a great point. Well, I'll tell you what, that's some things that don't matter until they do so, again, whether it's legal documents, pretty easy fix, life insurance, certainly a worthwhile conversation to have no matter what stage of life you're in. And making sure definitely that you've got those income streams set up for life. Some key topics there that we talked about this weekend. Mark: We're going to take some email questions and wrap up because we want to get back to a couple of these here. We haven't done these lately. And of course, anytime you submit a question, you're going to get your question answered, but to just talk about someone here on the show, we kind of do those from time to time. If you'd like to drop a line, go to pfgprivatewealth.com, that's pfgprivatewealth.com or call (813) 286-7776 if you've got some questions for your own situation that you need to get answered, and the guys will certainly tackle those for you. Mark: But for right now, let's see what we got from Linda who had sent an email question. And guys, she says, "Fellas, my daughter just turned 18 and I'd like to help her get off onto the right foot with some retirement savings. What's a good idea for something to get her started with?" John: Yeah, I'll take this one. So, we've had this come up quite a bit with some of our clients and their kids, when they turn 18, they want to just get them used to investing or just understanding it which we think is very important. Some of the things we've done, it just depends. If the child is working, we might do a Roth IRA where we'll go ahead and just open up a Roth retirement account. It's a great vehicle for kids because they can tax free money in retirement. They could use it for a first time home purchase, et cetera, et cetera. So we've done that. We've just got to make sure that they're working because you need earned income to contribute to a Roth. John: If they are not working, there's definitely some kind of joint accounts you can set up, but it's definitely a good thing to do. Because I'll tell you, we've done that for some clients and we've had those kids become clients early, right when they graduate college. And they're pretty aggressive in saving. I have one where, as soon as he graduated he got in touch with me and then just started aggressively saving in his early twenties, which is very uncommon. And now he's early thirties and he has a pretty sizable nest egg. And now he's got kids and all this stuff and he can't save as much because he does not have as much discretionary income. But it really set that foundation for him to really start saving for retirement, understanding how important that is. Mark: No, I think that's awesome that you're having some people do that, especially at a younger age. And so kudos to her for getting her daughter start off on the right foot. And for people that just in general kind of have that interest. I had a young kid that I knew for a couple of years ago that used to work for me. Same thing. Early on he was very into saving money for his future self, which is fantastic. I think because his parents hadn't done a very good job and so sometimes we see that mental shift, right? Where you see your parents do something and you want to do the opposite and so on and so forth. And in this case, that was a good thing. Mark: So very cool question. Thanks so much for submitting that. Hopefully that helps you out a little bit and keep listening to the podcast. We certainly appreciate it. And let's do one more guys before we wrap up here, [just 00:15:13] go around, and we've got one from Patty. You guys got to put on your counselor hats here. Patty says, "My husband and I argue almost every day about money because we haven't done a very good job planning for our retirement and it stresses us both out. Is this a normal thing between spouses or do we need some serious help?" Nick: So I'll jump in on this one. So, there's a couple of things here. So the first thing is that this points out specifically the importance of a plan. And what we mean by that is that when there's not a clear picture of what people actually have, what their life actually looks at, when there's a high amount of uncertainty on the future, that's when there's often anxiety and bickering, arguing those sorts of things when it comes to money. Nick: And so, step number one is take an inventory, build a plan. So once that's done, if it is truly terrible, then you can fight, but at least let's figure out what's there. But all joking aside, so then the next step is to kind of come to grips with the fact that, hey, we are where we are today. There's nothing that we can do about it. If we can focus on the future and start making decisions that are positive and maybe make some changes that'll be helpful, then that's great. Nick: From our perspective as advisors, one of our kind of golden rules, and we oftentimes tell clients this is that, we can't care more about your money and your situation than you do. So ultimately it has to start at home and then they have to be willing to take guidance and advice and make changes. And then really what we found is that in 12 to 24 months, the momentum can be significant in a positive way. And things can really swing strongly. And once that happens, it becomes kind of addicting. It's kind of like when you're in your early twenties, for most people maybe they're just starting out at the first job and the first time you started to hit a few thousand dollars in your account that stays in your account, maybe 5,000 is your threshold and you're like, "wow, this is great." I've never had this amount of money in here before. Nick: And then maybe down the road you hit 10 and as you get older that number changes. And what's interesting is that it also becomes more stressful and you kind of get this hoarding mentality where once you hit these certain thresholds, 50,000, a 100 thousand in your savings account. Once get there and you realize the comfort and the peace of mind that it provides, you never want to go back. And so we like people to kind of get that, to taste that so that they can understand that. And then usually it's full speed ahead. Mark: Yeah, no, that's a great way of looking at it. My daughter, she's still pretty young but is definitely, she kind of got that. She was constantly just spending her check and spending all her money when she wasn't making too much. And then once she got started getting a decent check in from the Navy and she got a couple of bonuses and she put it in there and she watched her account grow, she was like, "wow, this is-" and so now she's gotten bitten by this bug to kind of see what she can get the number to. She'll message me every so often, "The number is this now. And the number's that now." And so I'm like, "Hey, cool. You're 24 years old. You got a long time for that to grow and compound." So yeah, it definitely can be addicting. Mark: And of course, if you're closer to retirement and obviously that sounds like that's the case for this question. I think that's a great piece of advice. Find out what you got, get an assessment, get a plan put together, look at it. And then see, you guys might be fighting over nothing too, so think about that. You guys could possibly be in much better shape than you even realize. And therefore you're fighting for [not. 00:18:55] Mark: So reach out and have a conversation with the guys. Just give him a jingle and call them at (813) 286-7776, or stop by the website, pfgprivatewealth.com. And that's going to do it this week for the podcast. Again, don't forget to subscribe to us on Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart, Stitcher, or whatever platform you like to use. You can find it all at the website, pfgprivatewealth.com. For John and Nick, I'm Mark, we'll see you next time here on Retirement Planning - Redefined. Nick: Go Bills.

god spotify trust google apple nfl fire llc investment navy tom brady new england cowboys stitcher panthers assets won buffalo bills groundhog day bill murray roth wills fellas iheart roth ira annuity oldsmobile ned ryerson john yeah mark no john so mark yeah mark well mark oh mark so mark right mark they nick yeah nick john nick so mark hey nick yes

#27 - Kyle Gleason, Bristol Bay Commercial Fisherman

Save What You Love with Mark Titus

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 7, 2021 68:24

Kyle and SWYL host, Mark Titus met at a screening of The Breach back in 2015 at the San Francisco aquarium. Kyle's a Bristol Bay commercial fisherman who knows tons about catching these creatures he and Mark are both hopelessly in love with. And, when he graciously offered Mark a ride to the airport so he wouldn't miss a flight to his next screening of The Breach. During that ride they discovered they had big-time soul connections as well. Not the least of which was through Kyle's big brother, Steve, who stars in The Wild and in his own incredible documentary, Gleason. Kyle helped produce both of these docs and has become a brother-from-another-mother to Mark They talk about all this and more in this week's episode of SWYL.

love community earth san francisco wild wellness environment goodness inspire virtue philanthropy salmon breach fisherman gleason bristol bay mark titus mark they

Nature Based Paganism?

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 23, 2021 46:13

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com S2E32 TRANSCRIPT: ----more----Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. My name's Mark. Yucca: And I'm Yucca. Mark: And today we're talking about nature based paganism. What is nature-based paganism? What the point of nature-based paganism and how are, how can we, pursue a nature based practice as a part of, practicing our science-based pagan approach? Yucca: That's right. And we'll get in a little bit to what is nature and why is that important as well? Mark: Right. Yeah. always the best first thing to do when you're talking about anything is to define the terms. So, we'll, we'll jump into that right away. when we first. Conceptualized this podcast, the idea was, you know, we are we're Earth oriented pagans. there are some folks who self identify as pagans who are not as focused on the Earth, who are focused on gods Or particular pantheons of bygone cultures that they're working to reconstruct or. Yucca: magical practices or things like that. Mark: kinds of magical practices, certainly, or, Yucca: The occult in general. Mark: yes, or work with, spirits that they. I believe they have influence over and can, you know, make arrangements with there's a lot of different ways of coming at this sort of broad umbrella of, practices that we call paganism. But we're very clear that we, like, I believe most pagans are really oriented towards the Earth, which means nature. Yucca: Okay. Mark: The, the difference in our approach is that we are rooted in science and critical thinking. And therefore, rather than sort of a romantic kind of Bambi, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Disney-fied sort of orientation to nature. We're really about the real nature. That's, that's here and out there and in our own bodies and very excited about all the, the manifestations of life here on Earth. So that's, that's where we start from that. we are products of, and participants in. This tremendous complex, interesting, amazing, beautiful fabric that occupies planet Earth's biosphere sphere that comprises planet earth biosphere, really. and of course, therefore is also supported by the substrate of the rest of the universe. Right? All the, all the amazing physics of the rest of the universe. Yucca: Yeah, we're part of a solar system. That's part of keep going up and up and up, you know, go past Laniakea to Cosmic Web and on. But I think that you said something really, really important that is that we are part of nature. I think that's a really, really important place to start because in our language we often talk about humans and nature. And we talk about things being natural versus human-made. And we create this line in this distinction, in our minds, which doesn't always serve us. And certainly in today's world, where many of us are living in. An urban centric society. Even those of us who aren't in an urban environment who live in a rural environment, our culture in our society is still very urban based in which we have really tried to strengthen and define that line of human versus nature. Now we've built a concrete wall and reinforced it with steel to try and say this were two different things. And yet we really, really aren't. And when we can start recognizing that our lives are very enriched. Mark: Right, right. Yeah. There's a lot to be said about where that line came from and where the romantic ideas of nature stem from. I mean the whole, the romantic movement of the late 18th into the early 19th century. Has a tremendous influence over not only our understanding of our relationship with the natural world, but also particularly the, the, the eventual development of modern paganism. You know, the idea of wild, beautiful nature outside of the city, as you know, something to be exalted. And, in many cases, emulated, if you look at some of the big romantics like Byron, for example, he thought that being kind of a rude, irresponsible, abusive wild man was, a way of reflecting his net, his natural state. Right. The truth is that even the modern environmental movement has been, has been rooted in a lot of that romanticism. And it's only in the past 20 years in my experience. And I've been working in environmental stuff or longer, much longer than that. Has begun to climb out of this kind of romantic idea of, of nature with a capital N equating to this sort of romantic good. And instead understanding it as a set of complex living systems that are interpenetrated with one another and whose. behavior and manifestations may be very beautiful and very interesting. they can also be very terrible and destructive and, still very interesting. Yucca: Yeah. And really all of that at once nature, isn't all. What is it? Red in tooth and claw. Mark: Right, Yucca: And, but it's also not all rainbows and butterflies, right? It's a, there's a combination going on there. so we feel that, I mean, I guess that it would be a little bit more pugnacious to say it this way, but we could have called this podcast. Reality-based paganism. Yeah. Mark: Because that is certainly our intent. Our intent is to root our spiritual understanding and practice in the empirical objective nature of reality of the world that we live in of our nature, the nature of ourselves as homosapiens organisms, as the, observable phenomena that take place around us, that we are a part of the fabric of. And so even though it's really easy to get sucked into the romance of planet earth, because boy, you look at that, that blue marble photograph hanging out there in space. And it's pretty easy to want to cry. You know, it's just so beautiful, but it's important for us to, to, to go beyond that. You know, we can hold that in our hearts, but to go beyond that and really do what we can to encounter nature, to, to understand it as best we can and to find not only the big wonder in, you know, That pale blue dot hanging in a Sunbeam from as viewed from Saturn, but in the, the tiny miracles, the, the, the never ending list of tiny miracles that comprise nature and earth, nature and life here. honor. Yucca: Okay. Mark: So that's what this episode is about. This episode is about, Kind of getting a handle on what do we need? I mean, when we say that we're a nature based religion and then how can we best make that more real, make that more true for ourselves and for the way that we live our lives, because I can say for myself, it's enormously satisfying to do so. it brings, just a deep abiding sense of, of joy. to feel so connected to what we are and where we come from and what makes us. Yucca: Yeah. And in addition to that joy, also some very practical health. Differences when we are connecting in with the, with what our bodies are built for, so that fresh air and that sunlight and all of that stuff that now is getting, we were talking about before we started recording is actually getting prescribed to people, right? You go for your forest bay, they ignore your time on the beach or whatever it is. Mark: right, right. Which to, some people sounds really silly. There's a reason why people go to the beach. There's a reason why people go for wa for hikes in the woods. I mean, when you think about it in, in the true abstract, why would any organism do that? Burn calories for no reason, other than to be in a particular place and then burn more calories packing up and going home. And the answer is. that it does real stuff for us, real beneficial stuff that we can feel in our bodies. And that's why we go hiking. It's why we go to the beach. It's why we go to beautiful places in nature on vacation, because that natural beauty. Means something, it has an impact on us, organically, not just, not just on our minds, but on our actual physical beings, which remember, as we've said over and over again are the same thing. Yucca: Yeah. Okay. Mark: So another thing that I can say about this is that. Getting connected in with nature also kind of helps us with our, our value priority. when we understand ourselves as part of a greater whole and as part of concentric circles of greater wholes, meaning not just families, but societies, not just societies, but entire ecosystems, not just entire ecosystems, but systems stretching out beyond the plant. All the way to those, you know, very, very large structures, beyond the galaxy, beyond the supercluster, part of what that can do for us is it can help us to get our priorities straight around what we think is important and what's worth fighting for. one thing that the atheopagan path that I follow is very explicit about is that we consider activism to be. An integral part of what we do because we have responsibility to one another. And so whether it's as little as simply voting when the time comes to do that, or whether it's a lot more in terms of contacting representatives that are going to make decisions, talking with other people about how we feel about things working to make the world a better, kinder, more sustainable, more, More happy place, becomes something that is not arbitrary, but he's a natural outgrowth of our understanding of where we are And who we are. as humans. Yucca: And that can come from or be supported by the relationship with our environments. Mark: Yes. Yucca: So, and. On the one hand, you know, learning on a very intellectual level about how these things work and what we're finding out. And the latest research that is that's powerful on the one hand, but just having the actual relationship, the experience with, with our environments with nature. So to say, can. Really strengthened that. Mark: Yes, because you look with some with, with markedly different eyes, when you have that, that understanding, and you look at a tree, for example, and I hate even to say a tree because it's so generic, I'd rather, you know, stipulate some particular kind of tree, like a maple tree. Right? Well, here's an organism. Rooted in the ground, where, from which it's drawing water and nutrients, and it's doing kind of a dance with a whole bunch of microorganisms in order to get its needs met and to meet the needs of those microorganisms as well. And then it, it deploys solar panels all over itself. And charges itself up every day. Turn in many cases, turns those panels in order to follow the sun, as it moves across the sky. I mean, this is a remarkable thing. This is something that humans have figured out how to do in a, in a limited capacity only in the past 20 years. Yucca: And in working with its neighbors can actually literally change the weather Mark: Yes. Yucca: it. Mark: Yes. Yucca: So releasing VOC that ended up becoming cloud condensing, nuclei, and increasing the rain and changing the temperature on the ground, which then changes the way that the local wind patterns are working. Like all kinds of just incredible interactions. Mark: Right. Right. And the more we understand about that, the more remarkable it becomes. And so it's not just the, the romantic appreciation of the fact that it also happens to be breathing out pure oxygen, which is something that we find useful. Yucca: Yes. Mark: And, and also, processing carbon dioxide, which is something that we find less useful. but that it's, it's going through all of these extraordinary processes at every level of its existence, underground above ground, and then kind of in the canopy, above the surface of the ground, and its relationship with the atmosphere. And that's just a tree. This is one tree. Yucca: Yeah. Now let's start talking about the lichen growing on that tree. And the mycelium connecting it to another one and on and on and Mark: communities of animals that depend on. its seeds, for nourishment and its branches for various kinds of shelter and nesting opportunities. And, Yeah. the. There's a reason why there are certain kinds of species in different biomes that we refer to as Keystone species, because they are so essential to the living creatures that live in those areas where I am. It is the California live Oak. because if you removed all the California live Oaks from this place, we would have an ecological crash. Unlike any that we've seen so far in this local region, because of the dependency of so many organisms on that particular species of tree. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So all of this is very cool and, we should not undersell the, The overlap between the spiritual impulse and the very cool factor, you know, part, part of the reason why we feel moved spiritually by things is because they're amazing. They're just, they're so extraordinary, that they, they give us a big emotional. Jolt just by realizing them. And that's true of every religion. I mean, if you believe that Jesus died to what, whatever to, you know, mitigate our failings, then that's kind of amazing. I mean, if you believe that you have these inherent sin and that you've been accumulating more of them ever since you arrived on the planet. but that this death 2000 years ago, wipes it all out. As long as you say the right words and believe them in your heart. That's amazing. I mean, I don't believe it at all, but if it were true, it would really be amazing. Yucca: Well, and it still has the same emotional impact if you believe at whether it's true or not in terms of the emotional impact, right? Mark: Yes, exactly. So, but the reason why I said we could have called this podcast, reality-based big aneurysm is that nature is real Yucca: Yeah. Mark: nature exists. We are nature. There isn't anything that isn't nature and, Yucca: So even when we put in the roads, even when we build our foundations and our buildings and all of that, that's not locking the nature out. nature is still, I mean, it, it is what it is, we're changing it, but that's also what we do as animals that are part of this. Mark: Yes, Yucca: And we're not the first ones, Mark: no. Yucca: architecture, farming, warfare, all these things that we like to think of as being only human, we might do it in a very unique human way, but these things have been around for millions of years. Mark: Yes. mostly by ants. Yucca: Yes. And so I've been doing all of those things, some other kinds of creatures too, but answer, just answer amazing. Mark: They are really, They're really amazing. And so one of the. Approaches one of the orientations that can be really useful as we pursue nature-based paganism is to understand ourselves as part of nature. And so if you do live in a big city, look around, look at all the structures that have been constructed by this particular kind of organism and these amazing machines and, and communication devices and all this stuff. It it'll give you a renewed appreciation for just how amazing humans are in the romantic view. It's often nature versus humans, right? And you have to pick a side. You either you're either with nature and therefore kind of anti-human or you're with the humans and nature is always trying to kill you. And so you want to control it and tame it and. reduce its its power, which good luck with that. but a, in a more factually correct approach, Yucca: Integrated. Mark: an Integrated. it's an integrated approach and all of it is nature. And so understanding ourselves as natural creatures can help to fill us with wonder at the Marvel of what we are. Because humans are extraordinary organisms, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: extraordinary organisms. They're they're unlike anything that we are familiar with anywhere in the universe, in terms of what we do, what we're capable of, we are just these really, really remarkable critters. Yucca: Yeah. And there's some pretty incredible creditors and other life forms that we partner with on, without even realizing it. Talking about the urban environment. I don't recall the professor's name at the moment, but put forth the idea where basically he was looking at the urban environment and this species that tend to come along with us in an urban environment. So thinking about your, rats and pigeons and Dan D lions and things like that, and noticing that these are almost all species that come from. Caves or the entrances to caves Mark: Yeah. Yucca: and noticing that there's a, there's a lot of parallels there between our architecture and who comes along with us and what systems we end up building that, that create environments for these other creatures that we actually live symbiotically. Right. Mark: Hm. Yucca: And the symbiosis doesn't just have to be mutualistic symbiosis, right? We've got parasitic and commensal relationships if commensal actually even exists. the idea that one organism isn't effected by the other organism as a, as a hard sell. Mark: Yes. but that, that our urban environments are these really special. Yucca: Environments and some of the functions might be a little bit broken compared to other systems where you might the resource cycling. When I say broken, that's what I'm talking about. Not that any moral judgment on it, but on its functional. what is it actually doing? Some of those systems might be a little bit broken, but they're still, there's still a beauty and wonder in that and we're still. Part of it. All of our biological functions are still going on whether or not we acknowledge them. Mark: Sure. Sure. I mean, the disadvantage that humans have is that because we do things so quickly. We don't have the advantage of thousands or millions of years of slow evolution in order to balance the efficiencies of the system. Right? So we have huge mounds of waste that we. Have any real way of processing, right? We have, pollutants of various kinds that, can cause various impacts that we find, disadvantageous not only to ourselves, but also to the natural world. And we don't, we haven't figured out how to solve them. Yucca: we as individuals live for such a short period of time. From an ecosystem's perspective that we don't clock that, that something's not right. Mark: Right. Yucca: Right. Many of us are living in incredibly degrading ecosystems that are very, very sick, that are missing huge pieces that they evolved with. But to us it's just normal because we don't remember. Right. We don't remember the megafauna or we don't remember whatever it is. Mark: You know, I, Yucca: don't yeah. Mark: you know, I can say though that in my own lifetime, I have seen the crash of the insects and I've seen a dramatic decline in the number of birds. Just just from the time when I was a child to now observationally, I can see it. when I was a kid, when you traveled your windshield got covered with insects and you had to clean it off every couple of hundred miles, and that's just not the case anymore. the sheer density of organisms of that sort is, has crashed. Yucca: Yeah. And we're worth different ages, but even within my lifetime, I've recognized that in my area. Mark: Yeah, so. You know, one of, one of the problems that humanity has is that, in many ways we're not very grown up, but, I have a friend who's,a land conservation professional. Who's worked in various kinds of environmental protection for a long time. And she refers to, to humanity as a toddler with a gun. not really understanding the capacity of the damage that we can do, and just sort of staggering around and shooting, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: but all that uplifting stuff said, are still pretty incredible and we are also many of us. Inclined to try to repair the damage and to reach new balance with the, the, the balance of the natural world that we are a part of. And that is very much to our credit because. It's entirely possible that we could be intelligent creatures that just didn't care and would just drive our way into extinction. And maybe we are that may, maybe, maybe that is going to happen, but I don't believe it. Yucca: I don't either. Mark: I think humans are far too adaptable And nature is tough. Yucca: And I, I understand the impulse to throw up one's hands and say, oh, humans were just to cancer where it's just terrible. And I'm going to, I'm just going to bury my head in my phone and look at my tick talk or whatever, and just ignore it and just hate on humans. But that, to me, that's not. Rewarding. Like, it might be easier in some ways, but, Mark: Okay. Yucca: but it's missing out on a lot. It is missing out on a lot on the one hand, particularly because misanthropy means that you're, you're throwing out all of the amazing stuff that humans do, that, you know, the art and the dance and the music and the architecture and the technology, and just all, all of The extraordinary, extraordinary things that we do that are really worthy of appreciation. The friendship with, with your dog? Mark: yeah, well, there's a 50,000 year relationship. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: that's that one's been going on for a long time. people, well, wonder why there are so many different kinds of dogs? Well, it's because we've been breeding them for various particular purposes for a super long time and continue to do so for various appearance traits. yeah, Yucca: yeah. Corgi just means short dog. They are, Welsh and there's a lot of sheep and whales and they're hurting dogs and they got short so that they wouldn't get kicked in the head. Cause you know, you don't get to breed quite as much and have pups when keep getting kicked in the head. But if you're just underneath the height being kicked by sh by, some sheep, then you survive longer. Mark: That's funny, Yucca: why we have, and now of course, people like the look, so they make them even shorter and longer and all of that. But originally short dogs were just because they were short, they didn't get kicked. Mark: Sure, sure. Yeah. and You know, you look at Huskies and Newfoundlands and stuff like that, or. Dragging dogs and you know, the various kinds of border terriers and border collies that are used for various sorts of. You know, hurting, and then you've got all the terriers and other sort of rat catchers and kind of pest control dogs. you know, none of that happened by accident. All of that happened because there were particular needs that humans had and dogs were able to fulfill that role in humans, worked to make the dogs as adapted to those particular needs as possible. I mean, you think about a doctor. DocSend means Badger hound and they were designed to dig into holes in the ground. Mark: So they're long and skinny and go in and get badgers. Yucca: You know, as we're talking about this, I wonder we were talking about it from this very human perspective of, you know, how did the dogs change to fit us? I wonder if anyone has ever looked into, how did we change to fit our canine companion? Mark: Well, there are certainly several, human traits that. Strongly lean towards attraction to animals that have, you know, big brown eyes and they're sort of, you know, positioned mostly on the front of their heads so that it looks more like a human face. you know, we, we have, we have this whole off factor that we, that we have when it comes to babies, puppies, kittens, baby seals, raccoons, there's all kinds of. All kinds of that. And I'm sure that some of that was strengthened as we built relationships with dogs over time. Yucca: yeah. Which that, that attraction to the, I can tell you as a parent that exists so that we keep taking care of the, of our offspring, because. Sometimes they're really real tough to take Mark: Oh yeah. Yucca: right there. I mean, you're just like, oh my goodness, you will not stop screaming at me. Why am I risking my life? Because you're just so cute. I can't help it. Mark: Right. Yeah. And there's this Yucca: our ancestors who didn't have that, well, their offspring didn't make it. Mark: right, right. Yucca: That's gotta be way prehuman. Mark: Sure. And there's this cascade of, of hormones and neurotransmitters that reinforces that whole. Sense, which is why other people's kids can be infuriating, but your kids are the most wonderful thing in the world. Yeah. Well, you know, this is, this is the way of things and this of course gets us into trouble when you have mixed families, because you have, you know, the so-called evil stepmother phenomenon, right. Because. The one that is not an actual blood parent of this child, doesn't have that cascade of hormones and neurotransmitters, and doesn't feel the same way about the child that, that others do, some do some don't. And So that, you know, can create, a sense of abandoned mentor or a hard relationship. Yucca: So it's going to say that we went a little far afield from our topic, but we actually didn't. This is all talking nature. Yeah. Mark: it's, it's all it. Well that, that's the thing about talking about nature is that there's nothing you can talk about that isn't dead, Yucca: Yeah, except for the fictitious or purely theoretical. that's, what's one of the things just vocabulary. That's always bothered me about the supernatural. What, how could supernatural possibly exist if nature is everything that is Mark: Right, Yucca: right. That just means we don't understand. Or, you know, beyond the laws of physics. Okay. Well that just means that our laws are wrong. Mark: Yeah, or incomplete. Yucca: Yeah. and this is actually an argument that's made by fists and, and so-called supernaturalist pagans within the pagan community is, oh, no, no, it's not supernatural. It's just stuff we don't understand yet. I always come back to Ockham's razor, which is that the simplest explanation is, the most likely one to be true. Mark: And so if you heard a God say something to you, the odds are much better than that generated inside your brain, then that an actual disembodied intelligence with magical powers said it to you. but that's an argument for another day. Yucca: that is, yes. Why don't we circle back and talk about some things that people can do too, to build or strengthen that relationship with Nick. Mark: Okay, that sounds great. I mean, we did an episode back in may called pay attention. And I think that that's really kind of the core principle of all of this. And in order to pay attention, you need to not only paying attention is it's actually a very well-crafted term because there's an expenditure of effort and the bandwidth of your consciousness. That's required in order to successfully pay attention. If you're just cruising along, looking at your phone or listening to the radio and driving, and you're not carving out, at least part of your sensorium to be paying attention to what's happening in nature around you, then. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: I mean, you're always going to miss some of it anyway, because a lot of it's microscopic a lot of it's happening at timescales that you can't really perceive, but Yucca: you're saying one thing, you might not be able to be seeing the other thing. Yeah. Mark: yes. So there are always choices, but the easiest way to be better at paying attention to nature is to make time for it. Don't try to split your time between doing, saying, well, I have a beautiful drive on my commute home, so that's my nature time. Well, that's great. And if you're really appreciating the aesthetics of nature as you drive home, that's a, that's a good thing. That's food for the soul, but that isn't the same thing as actually just sitting for five or 10 minutes and. Watching the sun go down or Yucca: Yeah. Mark: observing one of those trees or an anthill or, raccoons nesting under your house, which happened to me once or, or whatever it happens to be pigeons, pigeons, wandering around on the sidewalk, interacting with one another and, you know, looking for, for food. There's a lot to be seen and you'll be surprised at how there's a, there's, there's a sense of joy that can come from that kind of observation, just, just from taking the time and paying attention for a little while. Yucca: Yeah. And, and really making it about that. Taking out the headphones, leaving your phone either in your pocket or better yet in the house. You know, if you're not needing to be on call for an emergency or something like that. And, and really, really setting that time aside to, to be present. So not as, not as a moment. That's important too, right? Taking that time to close your eyes and go in yourself and really self-reflect. But, but to open your eyes and look around and maybe let that transition between what you're experiencing is self and outside. Let that start to blend in your mind a little bit in your awareness as you take it. What what's around you and reserve the judgment. If you're seeing the, the ants moving around on the driveway or whatever, it is, just, just hang out with that. and, and you were touching on this as well marked, but, but making it, That dedicated time, maybe even literally scheduling it in, makes it more part of the routine. So part of the routine to tune in, to opening our eyes, to pay attention, and this could take different forms we've shared on here before some of our own practices. I do a star time, and. So at least twice a day, going out and being present. and of course, sunset and sunrise, the time is always changing every day, but that's also really amazing if he can build that into your schedule and then you're, and then you're noticing those changes. If, when, you know, where's the sunsetting and rising from and the, how is the moon different each day? And, oh, look, you're seeing it. It's the middle of the day, because remember the moon's out in the daytime half of the time. It's not just at the night. Can you, when, can you see that? Or when did the birds start talking in the morning before the sun comes up for most of them, but not all of Mark: it is. Yucca: Right? Listen, who's talking. Before Dawn and who's talking after it. Mark: If you have. Like a bird feeder sitting and watching the bird feeder And watching the interactions of the birds at the bird feeder, is amazing. It's really cool. And, if you're interested, you can get, a guide and learn what the different species of birds are that are coming to your, to your bird feeder. but that isn't, that isn't obligate Tori. you can just appreciate them as birds. Without knowing the particular details of how they operate, which is a broad range of different sorts of behaviors. that, that bird species have, I mean, think about it. The difference between a hummingbird and an emo, Yucca: yeah. Yeah. Completely. This wildly different. Mark: right? I like emos they're dinosaurs. Yucca: Yeah. They're all dinosaurs. Mark: Yeah. we were looking at pictures of. Hummingbird nests and hummingbird hatchlings. So if you're looking for a little like emotional, pick me up at some time at some point, just look up how adorable this little, absolutely tiny little naked hummingbird chicks are. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: little ITI creatures. huh. Yucca: Anyways, but yeah, and the different species have their different behaviors, but different individuals do too. And even though a lot of them look very similar, if you're coming back to the same spot with the same population of birds, with enough observation, you can start to. You can start to recognize individuals based on their behavior. How are they interacting with each other? Is there that one that is always just a little extra aggressive, you know, it was always pushing them off and the birds do that anyways, but you know, or is there the one that trusts you a little more, that doesn't care that you're nearby or all of those things. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. And, in some really interesting cases, you can, You can develop relationships with some of them. my friend Lexi, has crows. They kind of follow her around and they bring her tiny things. that's pretty cool. I mean, you've, you've, I need them for a while and they decide, well, all right. You're one of us. And a part of what we do amongst ourselves is we bring shiny things. So here have a piece of glass. Yucca: Corvids are amazing. Mark: They are. Yucca: There, can be stinkers too. Mark: Oh Yucca: good memory. And if you piss them off they'll they'll remember. Mark: Yes, they will. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So, I guess, to sort of wrap this episode up, the thing that we're encouraging is first of all, that you build a relationship with nature nature, as it actually is nature, as it encompasses the entirety of what we experience, because we are part of it. And our works are a part of it, as well as, all the extraordinary. Examples of what is not human that move through our lives all the time, even in the city. Yucca: Mm. and in order to do that, you have to make. You have to decide that as a part of your practice, you're going to carve out that five minutes a day or 10 minutes a day or whatever it is. And it is immensely rewarding to do so. Mark: Sometimes at first it seems like, well, nothing happened and I'm not sure why I'm going to keep going with this. some of that is because you haven't really learned to see. And some of it is because, you know, you may just not have had luck that day. There may not have been a lot going on. So if you keep a journal Yucca: Okay. Mark: of what you've observed,what's the word for that? A phonology journal, I think, Yucca: Okay. Just to see what you've observed. Just jot down what you've observed. Okay. Mark: Three candidate geese flew across the sky. there's a trail of ants across the sidewalk. the grass is turning brown. even, even just those simple, simple kinds of things. You'll find that if you continue with this practice, the list will get lost. You'll be noticing a lot more things and over time you'll notice. Well, Okay. The grass, the grass got really, really brown, but then after the first rain, all this new grass started coming in Yucca: Hmm. Mark: and you hear a part of that process. All of a sudden, you, you are an observer of, of this change. That's happening, the changing of the guard among the ground. Individuals, the individual, the individual organisms may have died, but they germinated in their new seeds. And now that there's some water to feed them, uh they're they're now replacing the ones that died. and that's a profound thing. When you think about it, the, the generational change of a whole set of organisms. Yucca: And also how our small little actions that we might not think anything. Might influence that and be a part of that. Right. Did you leave a chair out and did the grass not die under that chair where it was a little bit shaded as to sun was the summer sun was beating down on it or all of these different things that, that are little, little actions to us that just help highlight our connection to the whole community. Mark: Right, right, exactly. Because feeling connected with everything is the root of the spiritual impulse, you know, having an understanding of what our place is in the universe, what we're doing here, what we're a part of. All of that is really all inspiring and it can come through little moments, not, it's not just, you know, the sort of earth shattering coming around the corner and seeing the grand canyon for the first time kind of experience. It's also the little things, the little changes over time. And being aware that we are a part of all of this, and we were evolving eater internally, as well as, you know, in the same way that everything external to us is going through its process and changing and dying and growing and reproducing and doing all that stuff. Yucca: So we hope you have the opportunity to set that time aside. Mark: Yes, I think you'll find it really rewarding if you, if you give it a shot. and I know how it is. We're all very busy, but five minutes is five minutes, you know, it's, if we choose not to take five minutes, it's because we choose not to take five minutes. It's not that we don't actually. Yucca: And if you're too busy for the five minutes, you probably really need those five minutes. Maybe take 10. Mark: Exactly. Exactly. If you don't have time for five minutes, take 10. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Cause you really, you get, you know, get off your feet and, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: look around. Yucca: Once again. Thank you, mark. Mark: Thank you. Yucca wonderful conversation with you. Thank you so much. We'll see you next week on the wonder science-based paganism.

Creating Sacred Space

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 19, 2021 29:42

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com An Atheopagan Ritual Primer: https://atheopaganism.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/an-atheopagan-ritual-primer-v4.pdf S2E27 TRANSCRIPT: ----more---- Mark: Welcome Back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm your host Mark. Yucca: And I'm Yucca. Mark: Today. We're going to talk about sacred space. What it is, how to create it and how to, to build sacred space into your own home. Yucca: Exactly. And we'll also get in to a little bit, building that in, in shared spaces. Because we know that a lot of people are in situations where they share space. First of all, but might be with a roommate, a dorm mate, you know, parents, spouses, anything like that. And they may not be in a situation where they're one, their aesthetics, but also their beliefs are shared. Mark: Right. And so, it becomes sort of a threading, the needle process of you know, how do you get your needs? While also accommodating the needs of the other people in your household. So we'll be talking about that some as well, but let's start with just what sacred space is because that's, it's a little hard to define. In my experience, sacred space is the environmental conditions that facilitate my moving into a ritual state of mind. Yucca: Okay. Mark: And that typically includes things like low lighting levels like candlelight aesthetically pleasing and metaphorically, symbolic objects and decor might include music that is facilitative for that. And personally, I, I like to live in sacred space. I, I decorate my room in a manner that is. It's kind of like a temple in that way. It has, you know, amazing sort of masks from all over the world on the walls and various, you know, pieces of art and symbolic objects and candle sticks and cauldrons and stuff like that. Yucca: Mm. Yeah. So I, I think I share your, your idea of sacred space as a space that can help move you into that ritual space. And that really just influences the way that we feel. It's something that I'm very aware of because one of my parents was an architect. So I grew up on job sites and building and all of those things. And so the shape of the space, the feeling of the space is, is this something always present and. The awareness of just what it feels like to walk into one room versus another room or one building versus another, or to step out, it really, really changes our moods and just our awareness of the world. Mark: Yes. Yes. And I think this is something that we often don't pay much attention to. We just kind of slide on through our passage from space to space without really acknowledging how it's influencing our our psyche and our emotions. But. As we've said over and over again, a big element of being a science-based pagan is learning to pay attention and being aware of our environment. And that includes the built environment. It doesn't just include the natural environment. It includes the built environment. You know, we live in houses and apartments and, and, you know, various places. Yucca: RVs. Yeah. Yeah. Mark: And in some cases, tents. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Still we live in constructed spaces and our ability to make those spaces feel good to us is Yucca: True. Mark: something we have choices about. Most of us have choices about. And so over the years I have collected various pieces of artwork and Furniture items and so forth that speak to me of a particular aesthetic. And I deploy those in my room in a way that kind of augments the alter that's sort of the centerpiece of it, the focus And so at night I can put on some music and light some candles, and I'm really most of the way there into the ritual state before I even do any breathing exercises or visualization or any of that kind of stuff. Yucca: Yeah. So it sounds like you're, you're describing. Space that that you're stepping into. Well, sometimes some people are lucky enough to be in a position where they get to actually design and build the physical space. But most of us step into spaces that were built by somebody else for many different reasons, but we can then. Do things with those spaces, like creating the alter, changing the lighting maybe changing the color in the room may not be a possibility in terms of wall painting, but, Mark: but it might be Yucca: but it might be right. You might be able to paint the wall or put a temporary wallpaper up or. Color of the bedsheets. Right. All of those things have a huge influence on getting you into that space or whatever the space is that you're designing for. Mark: Yes. And you can be playful about it. For example, I like to hang a couple of led crystals in my window because when the afternoon sun comes in, suddenly I have little dancing, rainbows all over my room and it's cool. You know, it's just a little, a little trick of physics that that is pleasing to me and has a magical sort of quality. Yucca: We we actually got those for the kids for solstice, just passed the summer solstice. And the next morning they came out, I have it in the east window and the light and it was just all over the house. And both of them came out with the cute little groggy eyes. Wow. And then went around, try to touch it, the opening, their mouth to eat them. And so every morning it's an excitement of coming out and saying like, oh, you know, where are the rainbows? Are they on mom? And dad's head while they're trying to drink their morning tea. So we've got those same things and that they're just sudden catchers is another word for them. They're just amazing. Mark: Yeah. And I mean, there are so many things that we can do. We, we talk about ritual technologies and, you know, a lot of those ritual technologies are active things that we can do when we're in the process of designing or. Or conducting the ritual things like chanting and singing and drumming and stuff like that. But there are also these sort of passive things we can do. In terms of, you know, lighting candles or putting on some particular kind of music. That's very evocative for us burning incense or herbs that creates a particular scent that takes us into a deeper more present. Kind of space. Yucca: Hm. Mark: And what I find is that because I pay attention to shaping the built environment around me, my, my house home and my room become more of a sanctuary to me. More of a place where I feel held and safe and in my power than I would otherwise. Yucca: so for you, do you bring in plants and living things as well? Is that something that really helps you get in that, into that space? Or is that something at a different part of the house? Mark: Yes, we have a lot of plants. Noumea particularly has a whole lot of plants. I have two here in my room. A spider plant, which has little babies kind of dangling down from it that runs down the side of my focus. And then a , sort of a. Broad leaf looks a little like an Ivy, but it's not Ivy. And yeah, Yucca: To both low light tolerant. Mark: Yes. And very helpful. It's helpful to have living things, you know, as a part of that, that structure. I know that for some people their, their magical aesthetic isn't necessarily as intersected with the natural world as mine is. You know, if you look on my focus, you find pine cones and seashells and sea urchins and lots of natural rocks, of course, bones, feathers lots of natural things because they all remind me of just how incredible it is out there. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: So, how about you? Yucca? What, what are your approaches to creating a sacred space within the home? Yucca: Yeah. So yeah, it depends on. Which space. So this is something that I'm very, very intentional about before moving into a new space. And we've just been moving finally, completely moving into what we plan to be a, you know, our forever home and see the Pope for that. So, No we're not, we have a lot more freedom in terms of changing things than we've ever had as renters before. But I really sit down and plan out the spaces and think about the flow of the spaces and how people would be moving from room to room and what are the feelings that we really want to have in those spaces. And Mark: right. Yucca: for me, Those most kind of sacred moments. There are small daily ones, and so I want to create a space in each of those places that set aside for that, but kind of the big moments, the holidays throughout the year, things like that usually are actually going to be outside. So I don't make a. A major house focus or alter, but I have little ones throughout the house. So the bathroom space is one that's really important. The bathroom is a really big one actually, because that's where I think a lot of the refocusing happens. That's where a lot of that's the, for most people, that's the first place we go in the morning and it's the last place we go in the night before. Right. So th that's the start and the end of our days. So the, the actual shape of the room is very important, but how the lights coming in through the window and. Bringing little items, little rocks, or like you were saying, shells, bones, those sorts of things. And then the kitchen is the other really big one. And that's where our plants are. Our kitchen is just full of plants and greenery. The bedrooms are just for sleeping. That's it? I mean, the bedrooms just basically bed, nothing else. I mean, that's the only room in the house where I don't have plants just to have beds and sleeping people. So. And then, and then also the spot in the morning to drink the coffee or tea. I gave up coffee, but my, my little morning tea drink. So Yeah. Mark: Nice. Nice. Yeah. I've moved recently also. And so I'm in a new place and that was why I was thinking about this subject recently, you know, the, the, the creation of sacred space and why, why I felt so. Sort of disconnected and disoriented while all of my things were in boxes and why it was so important to me to, to create a space in my room as soon as I could after moving. So. I'm still in the midst of making decisions about the rest of the house. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Nehemiah and I are, are kind of working out what the living room is going to be like. And it's mostly there, but we have a sort of blank space that we know is going to be an altar ish space, but we don't really know what that's going to look like. So. And, you know, we have we have a handfasting broom with dozens of ribbons tied around it. That we're going to Mount over the back door. It's a sliding glass door, so we'll Mount it over that and it'll be visible there. But yeah, other than that really haven't thought it out very much yet. And so there's. You know, over the next couple of weeks, I'm sure we'll put that together, but it's not, not quite there yet. Yucca: So are you more of a. Live in this space, kind of feel it out for a while or Mark: Well not. Yucca: ahead of time. I mean, because there's so many different strategies, depending on the person of like, how to deal with that. Mark: Yes. That's true. Well, this is a small space and. So like places like the kitchen, there's not really, I mean, there aren't even windows in the kitchen because it's double pane glass and that just takes up more room in fitness so that the sills are only about two inches wide. So there's very little in the way of locations where we could put things that would create. That would tie in with that theme happening throughout the house. But that said there is this it's, it's generally an open plan townhouse with only the bedrooms and the bathroom being kind of closed off. So. You know, the art on the walls makes a big difference. The the, what we finally decide is going to live on the dining area table in terms of visibility. So there's a lot of, a lot of things to think about little things to think about. And I haven't thought about them all yet. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Our big challenge right now is that we have several large glass fronted cabinets with glass shelves in them that we use for displaying cool stuff. We call it the museum and we have not yet put all the cool stuff into the shelving units yet. So that that's kind of a bit. Task that's ahead of us. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: And that will inevitably involve making decisions about which cool stuff gets in and which cool stuff doesn't make it and all that. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So, but my, my living spaces have always been kind of female as, you know, welcome to the museum of natural history. So, Yucca: Sounds so much fun. Mark: Yeah. Oh God, we have such cool stuff. I have a whale vertebrae whole bunch of different kinds of cool fossils. Just cool stuff. Yucca: Mm, before I forgot to mention the books, we have a lot of books. That's the thing that's always been the hardest when moving is just boxes and boxes of books. And. We can't bear to we've, we've gotten rid of them as we've moved from place to place. And yet there always are more than when we started when we moved. So Yeah. Mark: I think that's particularly hard when you have small children, because if they're, if there's a book that you really value, you want to be able to share it with them as they get older. We have, we had 37 boxes of books, 37 banker's boxes of books Yucca: That's a lot. Mark: in our storage unit. We went through and mercilessly called and now we have 26. Boxes of books, but it's still 26 boxes of books and we just can't bear to give any of it away, but it lives in a storage shelf, storage unit. It's not like we have any access to any of it. There may be three shelves of books here. And you know, they're mostly sort of coffee table style books of physical anthropology and cave paintings. Like that, you know, Yucca: well, we have a wall that I am. And fantasizing about one day building a ceiling to floor bookshelf up against, and actually making the bookshelves the same size as the books themselves. most of the time with the art book shelves, there'll be several inches between the top of the bookshelf and the books, and that's where the cat goes, but that's where absolutely everything else ends up going to, and then it's just completely stuffed with non books in the bookshelf. So I want to make them fit perfectly because trim sizes are pretty standard. You can get, you know, all the books that are textbook size and all the books that are. Mass market paperback and all of those. So that's the dream, but that takes a lot of that's a lot of time. So working on the, all the other things of daily life and work and raising families and all of that. So there's, there's always a prioritization when creating space is. about what. Can I do now? And what's going to make the biggest influence in, in my life and my practice right now. Mark: right. Yucca: Also what's seasonally appropriate both in the life season, but the seasons of the, of the year as well. Mark: Yes. Yes. Yeah. And I think, you know, people generally the earliest decisions that they make when they enter a new space are strictly logistical decisions. You know, how's the kitchen going to work, that kind of stuff. The, Yucca: I don't want to move that couch upstairs. Mark: oh, Yucca: I don't want to try and go up those stairs or, you know, choices like that. Right. Mark: Those, those kinds of decisions where it's like, you know, where is the couch going to live? You know, all, all that kind of stuff. But for us a second layer then is this aesthetic piece in which we, so some sacredness into the, the layout of the house And it adds a lot of richness. It really does. There is something that is deeply what's the word I'm looking for? Comforting or content full? I don't think that's a word about. You know, being in a space that feels as though kind of the essence of my spirituality, suffuses it. The objects that I see are my friends in a way, if they, they it's almost as if they have personalities, because all of them have stories to tell about where I got them and where they come from. And The sorts of rituals that I've done with them and all of that sort of stuff. Yucca: Yeah. Well, we've been doing a lot of examples of, of our own lives which makes sense of where both of us have been for the past few weeks. But why don't we talk about some ideas or examples for situations in which you don't have a partner on board with you for this or you, you don't have a whole house or something like that. Mark: Well, I think if you don't have a, if you have a partner and the partner's not on board with you sacred icing your whole space, I would hope that at the least you could negotiate for a space where you can build a focus or alter to experience your own spirituality. I mean, I think that that's a very problematic issue. If someone refuses to allow you to do something like that, that's denying a very essential part of you. And it doesn't bode well, in my opinion But beyond that beyond, you know, a simple space for for an altar or focus I think, you know, you don't have to completely sort of goth up here your, your space in order for there to be. A sense of meaning folded into the way that it's decorated. I was talking a second ago about how the objects in my room have story fees. Well, everybody has objects that have stories, right? If there are stories that are about your relationship or about your, your ancestry or about your fondness for a particular place in nature. If those objects can have a place out in the living space, then you'll feel more like you have a space in the living space. Those, those kinds of things are very helpful. Yucca: Okay. Yeah. I think as non theist pagans there's a slight advantage that we have sometimes with sharing space. Some of the theist pagans might have, because although there are some non theist pagans who do enjoy the symbology and the metaphor of deities and just don't literally believe in them. Most of the time we aren't putting up statues of pagan gods and things like that, that might stand out immediately to a mother-in-law or a. Very conservative roommate or something like that, where the, the, the symbols that might be important to us might be that dried sunflower, or might be the bone or the seashell or the bottle of pretty river rocks or whatever it is. Mark: Sure feathers, you know, stuff like that. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yeah. I, I really agree with that. I, I think that, and, and to be fair, the, the roommate or housemate doesn't need to know what that object means to you. You don't have to communicate that if you don't want to, you can just say I'd like this to be out in the living space. And you know, presumably they are reasonable and you can negotiate with them around, you know, what is out in the living space and what is not. And and you just go from there and, you know, they may. You know, they, they don't have to know that this beautiful rock was found when you were on a mushroom trip. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: They you know, what it reminds you of isn't important. It's, it's just the fact that it's there in your space. So, yeah, I think that that's real. That really is an advantage because certainly some of the symbology of pagan gods can be Can make people that aren't pagans uncomfortable, especially because they tend to have a lot of nudity and in our culture, you know, which has so much body shaming and so much just stuff around the human body. Nudity is a no-no. You can't do that. So. Yucca: Yeah. And sometimes nudity a long with being part goat or part something else or, yeah. but just statically know. I love it. I love a lot of the aesthetics of, of some of those deities and statutes and hope that right. I have some man with the leaves and the beer and, and all of that. And in my own home, although I don't, again, believe that there's actually a guy walking around who is the embodiment of the forest or any of that. It's beautiful. It reminds me of some of my ancestry. But that certainly was not up in my dorm Mark: Okay. Yucca: in undergrad. Right. That was not a, it in a dorm room situation. That's been years since I've been in one, but I had my little box and I opened up my box and it had everything decorated. So it was like a, it wasn't quite a shoe box. I don't really know where I'd even found it, but it, it, it just like opened up and there was the base and then the lid to it that created this kind of stage. And I had it open when I, when would want to be in my space. And then I closed it and it was private and very safe though. Mark: Hm. Yucca: then for anything that I wanted really overt symbols, and then everything else was like, we've been talking about the, the colors with the dried flowers or things like that, that matched with what was happening with the season or what we found outside or any of that. Mark: Right, right. Yeah. And I, I think that tuning. The degree of overtness of your symbolic placements is really just a matter, you know, of your particular situation. And you know, hopefully, hopefully you don't have deep philosophical divisions with the people that you live with, but some people do and. You know, it's just, it's a matter of asserting your, your own entitlement to commonly shared spaces. Common space is really what we're talking about here. If you have a room of your own, you should be able to do whatever you want with it. But in common spaces, the decoration can be kind of up for grabs and you just assert yourself and say, Hey, you know, I'd like this rock to be there. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So, was going to recommend that along the course of kind of thinking about how to create sacred space. People might want to go to the atheopagan and some.org blog and go to the resources tab and download the ritual. Because the ritual primmer talks about a lot of different ritual technologies, ways to help, to induce that. Very present liminal ritual state everything from stained glass to candle light, to incense, to, you know, just lots of different approaches. And so that might be a useful guide for people helping to. Make decisions about decorating their spaces. Yucca: Yeah, I'll go ahead and put a link in the show notes to that fender. One wants to go ahead and click on that. Yeah. So I hope that your space continues to unfold and that you have wonderful sacred spaces that, that grow out of that. And yeah, Mark: Thank you. And and likewise, as you move into your new, your new home that's very exciting and I know you have a lot of, kind of major logistical things that have to be in place for that all to happen. But of course the, the mytho poetic layer is really important, too. Yucca: we're, we're almost there. We're so close. You know, just a couple of minor things like electricity, but you know, rest of it's there. yeah. Mark: Oh, well, that's good. Yucca: So, but this has been great, mark. Thank you. Mark: Yeah. It's always great to talk with you Yucca. See you next week.

Train Your Mind to Be an Ultimate Warrior with Mark Divine

Pushing The Limits

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 15, 2021 86:04

Imagine yourself standing smack in the middle of a busy city. You'd get dizzy just by looking at how fast people go about their daily lives. Everyone is so hyperactive and absorbed in getting things done. Amid all the chaos, we forget to take a pause, be still and breathe. Remember, we can only evolve into our best selves if we take a moment and be present. And no one knows this more than the ultimate warrior, Mark Divine. He joins us in this episode to share his experiences in the military and how meditation helped him develop inner strength. Mark also teaches us how to use positive internal dialogue in visualising and attracting victory. If you want to know more about the benefits of meditation through the experience of an ultimate warrior, then this episode is for you. Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health program, all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/. You can also join their free live webinar on epigenetics. Customised Online Coaching for Runners CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer Without Burnout & Injuries Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles? Do you want to beat last year's time or finish at the front of the pack? Want to run your first 5-km or run a 100-miler? Do you want a holistic programme that is personalised & customised to your ability, goals, and lifestyle? Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching. Health Optimisation and Life Coaching If you are struggling with a health issue and need people who look outside the square and are connected to some of the greatest science and health minds in the world, then reach out to us at support@lisatamati.com, we can jump on a call to see if we are a good fit for you. If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity, or want to take your performance to the next level and want to learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health, and more, then contact us at support@lisatamati.com. Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within three years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes, chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books. Lisa's Anti-Ageing and Longevity Supplements NMN: Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, an NAD+ precursor Feel Healthier and Younger* Researchers have found that Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD+, a master regulator of metabolism and a molecule essential for the functionality of all human cells, is being dramatically decreased over time. What is NMN? NMN Bio offers a cutting edge Vitamin B3 derivative named NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) that can boost the levels of NAD+ in muscle tissue and liver. Take charge of your energy levels, focus, metabolism and overall health so you can live a happy, fulfilling life. Founded by scientists, NMN Bio offers supplements of the highest purity and rigorously tested by an independent, third party lab. Start your cellular rejuvenation journey today. Support Your Healthy Ageing We offer powerful, third party tested, NAD+ boosting supplements so you can start your healthy ageing journey today. Shop now: https://nmnbio.nz/collections/all NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 capsules NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 Capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 Capsules Quality You Can Trust — NMN Our premium range of anti-ageing nutraceuticals (supplements that combine Mother Nature with cutting edge science) combats the effects of aging while designed to boost NAD+ levels. Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health Metabolic Health My ‘Fierce' Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection, 'Fierce', go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection. Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Find out Mark's experience with meditation and how this made him into an ultimate warrior. Discover how a positive internal dialogue can train your brain to be focused. Know about recapitulation and how it can help in dealing with traumas. Episode Highlights [05:34] Mark's Background Mark's experiences with his father forged his mental toughness and resilience. This laid the foundation for him to be an ultimate warrior. He grew up boating, hiking, and running trails through the mountains. Athletics was his escape, but he wasn't able to think about his future. When Mark left college, he was fortunate enough to get a job in a big accounting firm; this allowed him to go to a top business school. Despite school and work, Mark was determined to continue his athletic career. He then became interested in Seido karate. Meditation made him realise that he wasn't following his true path. [15:13] Becoming an Ultimate Warrior Mark came across a Navy recruitment centre, saw their poster, and applied to be a SEAL. Mark graduated with his entire boat crew. He was number 1 in his class. Mark credits this achievement to meditation training and the team building activities that compelled you to tame your ego. [19:59] The Importance of Meditation and Yoga Mark meditated and trained in yoga every day in the war zone. He felt stronger and more confident. Yoga is the oldest science of mental and personal development. Mark learned that training one's physical, mental, emotional, intuitional, and spiritual aspects mean you can access more of yourself and your potential. Yoga, in a sense, is integration; it is coming back to who we are and being whole. Listen to the full episode to learn how Mark got into yoga and how this contributed to him becoming an ultimate warrior. [26:33] The Importance of Emotional Strength In SEAL training, most of those who quit were physically strong but lacked the emotional strength to handle extreme moments of crisis and doubt. The person subconsciously created the injury to quit. Mark tried to be flexible and didn't let anything bother him during SEAL training. Mark trains SEALs by teaching the Big Four: box breathing, positive internal dialogue, visualisation, and micro-goals. [35:19] Examining Your Internal Dialogue Meditation is a critical part of examining one's internal dialogue. How you talk to yourself has an incredible impact on your energy and motivation. The term 'feeding the fear wolf' means to allow negative dialogue, imagery, and emotions to control and weaken you. Positive thoughts, or ‘feeding the courage wolf', creates a higher vibration, bringing in more energy and access to creativity. Controlling your breathing and adding a positive mantra can be very transformative; it helps you develop concentration and increase productivity. [41:33] Imagining Victory Our belief systems are made out of statements that may or may not be true. Pay attention to your thoughts and make them positive. Know that you are competent. Although you may not feel it yet, continue meditating to get rid of that negative side. When you understand your capabilities, you can project them into the future and have an image of your success. When positive thoughts overcome negative ones, you can see your true self more clearly, and powerful thoughts start to spread. [46:10] The Zen Process Meditation is challenging, especially for active people. We have to disconnect from various distractions and be still. You can't evolve if you are constantly active; the only way to go inward is to slow down and be quiet. The first step in meditation practice is box breathing. It releases stress and brings brain-body balance. In the second step, the box pattern turns into concentration practice. The mantra is also added to train concentration and attention. The third step allows you to put less energy into concentration and observe yourself from a witness perspective. [53:00] The Importance of Doing Emotional Work Doing emotional work is the foundation of meditation. Without this, you don't get the full benefits of meditation. Meditation requires patience. The process is different for everyone. [55:44] Going into the Witness Perspective In this part of the process, you empty your mind and allow any thought streams to come in. You experience a metacognitive split here. You see the thoughts that come up from a perspective that's separate from them. Through this, you realise you're not your thoughts and emotions. And so, you have the power to change your story. When you visualise from the witness perspective, you see what your spirit wants you to see. You realise your true purpose. If you do this every day, you attract the future that's right for you, and you feel connected to the world. Through this, you eventually gain enlightenment. [01:02:43] How Meditation Can Help Athletes Meditation supports total health. Through it, you'll become more healthy, strong, and motivated. Awakened athletes and warriors who serve the world can change it. Athletes can do so because they are emotionally balanced. [01:05:25] What Is Recapitulation? Recapitulation is where we use imagery to go back into our past, relive traumatic events, recontextualise them, and forgive. It is to see yourself forgiving your younger self and changing the image and energy associated with your traumas. Awareness and identification of traumatic events is the first step to the recapitulation. Recapitulation can be used to go back and overcome big traumas and to make sure you are not dragging past regrets. Recapitulation then becomes a daily practice of letting go of regrets and resentments. Listen to the full episode and hear some examples of this! [01:18:28] How to Be a Good Leader Show up as the best version of yourself. Be humble, authentic, trustworthy, courageous, and respectful. It takes time to develop those qualities and work on them with your team. Listen to the full episode to know how Mark does leadership training in his programs! Resources Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron! Harness the power of NAD and NMN for anti-aging and longevity with NMN Bio. Listen to other Pushing the Limits episodes: #183: Sirtuins and NAD Supplements for Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova #189: Understanding Autophagy and Increasing Your Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova #199: Episode with Dr Don Wood Connect with Mark: Website | Instagram The Unbeatable Mind Podcast with Mark Divine Bedros Keulian on Learning How to “Man Up” How to Deal with Trauma with Dr Don Wood Check out these books by Mark Divine! Staring Down the Wolf Unbeatable Mind 8 Weeks to SEALFIT The Way of the SEAL KOKORO Yoga Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda 2021 Unbeatable Challenge 7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode ‘It was about physical, it was about mental, it was about emotional, it was about intuitional and spiritual aspects of our being. In that, I learned that if you train those together, then you will integrate, you'll become whole again.' ‘Human beings have not learned to be whole, and they don't recognise that we're all interconnected. And every one of our thoughts, every one of our emotions, every one of our actions has an implication or impact on the whole.' ‘How you talk to yourself has an incredible impact on your energy and your motivation. Literally, we use the terminology “feeding the courage wolf” versus “feeding the fear wolf.' ‘Understanding your capability as a human being, the potential that you have, the power that we have, you can then project that into the future and say, “What does victory look like for me?”' ‘I think that there's two reasons we're on this planet. One is to evolve to become the best version, highest and best version of yourself in this lifetime. The second is to align with our calling or our purpose.' ‘Ultimately, we create our own reality. It's all basically, it's all experienced with [the] mind. So that's powerful.' ‘You can do anything, one at a time.' About Mark Mark Divine grew up in Upstate New York. He has a degree in economics from Colgate University and an MBA from NYU. He is a New York Times best-selling author, leadership expert, entrepreneur, motivational speaker. Mark is also a retired U.S. Navy SEAL Commander. He spent nine years on active duty and 11 as a Reserve. With 20 years in service, he served in over 45 countries. During his time in the military, Mark created a nationwide mentoring program for SEAL trainees. Because of his success, he decided to start SEALFIT. This fitness company aims to prepare civilians for the physical and emotional demands of a SEAL-like lifestyle. Mark knows the value of emotional strength in transforming lives. With this in mind, he published Unbeatable Mind in 2011, which includes an at-home study program. Mark also has several other entrepreneurial endeavours and books in his name. He's also the host of the Unbeatable Mind podcast. With all these ventures, Mark's ultimate aim is to create more resources to improve the lives of everyone he meets. If you want to know more about Mark and his work, check out his website and Instagram. Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can be motivated to be their real selves through meditation. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa Full Transcript Of The Podcast Welcome to Pushing the Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential. With your host Lisa Tamati, brought to you by lisatamati.com. Lisa Tamati: Well, hey everyone, Lisa Tamati here. Fantastic to have you back at Pushing the Limits this week. Now I have a wonderful man who I've followed for a number of years. He's one of my heroes, I was a little bit of a fangirl in this interview I have to admit. But it was pretty crazy. I have Commander Mark Divine on the show. Mark is an ex-Navy SEAL. He was a Commander in the Navy Seal. He was there for 20 years, and he was a fantastic leader. He was deployed in over 45 countries around the world. He also trains, trains a lot of the SEALs who are going into BUD/S training. He was number one on his course when he went through BUD/S, and that's saying something. That's nine months of hell on earth, so if you get through that, you've got to be pretty cool, and to be number one in the end of the whole 190 that went on, that's pretty amazing. He's the author of a number of books: Staring Down the Wolf, Unbeatable Mind, and SEALFIT, and runs a number of multi-million dollar companies. As a leadership consultant, he trains, not only does he train the military, he helps people prepare for SEAL training. He also now runs through his innovative SEALFIT and Unbeatable Mind training systems. Kokoro crucible is one of his programs. He shares the same secrets with entrepreneurs, executives, and teams through his book and through his book, and through his speaking, and through his award-winning podcast. He has his own, and I have the privilege of being on that one shortly. He runs world-renowned leadership and team events. Wonderful man to talk to, someone that I really, really look up to and respect. His discipline that he brings to everything that he does is quite amazing. So I hope you enjoy the show. Before we go, I just want to remind you to check out our epigenetics program, if you haven't already. Head over to lisatamati.com and hit the work with us button, and find out about our Peak Epigenetics program. This is all about understanding your genetics, and how to optimise them for your best performance. So everything from food, to exercise, what types of exercise to do, what times of the day you should be training, what times of the day you should be eating, and how often. What type of diet is right for you, right down to the nitty gritty. You know, eat almonds, don't eat cashew nuts, right specific to your genetics, so to speak. It also looks at your whole mood and behavior, what makes you tick, why do you think the way you do, what areas you may have problems with, your predispositions. That's not to be all deterministic, and negative, that's all to be like this is what you're dealing with, and this is how we can hit things off at the pass. This is a really life-changing program, and we're really proud to bring it to you. We've been doing it for a number of years now. We've taken hundreds of people through this program, and we work with corporate teams. So if you're out there and you have a corporate team that might be interested in doing either this or our boost camp program, which is all about upgrading and learning all about how to manage stress, how to reduce the effects of stress, and be more resilient and bring a higher performance to your game, then please reach out to us. Go over to lisatamati.com. and check out all the programs that we have here. Just a reminder too, I have a new book out called Relentless: How a Mother and Daughter Defied the Odds. If you've listened to this podcast for a while, you would hear me harp on about my amazing mum and the journey that we've been on back from a massive aneurysm that left her at the age of 74 with hardly any higher function, and a prognosis that said she would never ever do anything again. And they were very, very wrong. So I want to share this book, I want to share the story, because it's a very empowering story. So if you haven't read the book Relentless, I really encourage you to go and do that. I'm really keen to get this out there because this will empower and change lives, and already has, so make sure you read Relentless. Right, over to the show with Commander Mark Divine. Hi everyone, Lisa Tamati here. I'm super, super excited. I'm jumping out of my skin, I can't sit still. I have one of my great heroes that I've followed for such a long time, so I'm a little bit, being a bit of a fangirl right now. But I'm sure I'll calm down in a minute or two. Commander Mark Divine is with us. He has such a huge history. You are known, really, as the warrior man, Unbeatable Mind, SEALFIT. You've done a heck of a lot in your life. Mark, it's just, I can't wait to share some of your insights, because what you do and what you've done is just absolutely amazing. So, welcome to Pushing the Limits. Can you give us a little bit of background, Mark, on where you come from and what you've done and how you've, just to give us a little bit of, because you, obviously you've been in the SEALs, you're a commander in the SEALs, you're a trained SEAL. So let's start there. Let you come to it. Mark Divine: Oh, my God, where to start? Lisa: Maybe childhood. Mark: I was born at a very young age in a very small town in upstate New York, a province of the United States. I'll try to keep this short because sometimes I have a few run-on sentences. Go like 40 minutes, right? We don't want that to happen. That's when we have a good time. So yeah, I was a pretty normal kid growing up, running around the woods of upstate New York, crazy family, lots of alcohol and anger. The belt would come out pretty much every other night. My brother and I would literally just provoke my father just to do it, because we stopped taking him seriously after a while. In that regard, I feel pretty fortunate that my young spirit was like, ‘You can't break me'. I realise now that we all choose our parents, let's just say, from a spiritual perspective, I certainly believe that. For certain experiences, and for a while I played the victim, woe is me. But now I look back and thank God, that really forged my mental toughness and resiliency. I had to unpack some crap from that, obviously, but it made me a Navy SEAL warrior, right? When I went through Navy SEAL training, you could not hurt me, because nothing was compared to my dad. Anyway, so that's a little aside. Upstate New York had a really— it's beautiful. I've been to your country in New Zealand. It's just absolutely gorgeous. I feel the same way about America in certain places, the much bigger. New York is one of those areas that, 6 million acres of unfettered, protected land in northern New York called the Adirondack Mountains, and that was my playground. And our summer home was on the west shore of a lake called Lake Placid where the Olympics were, you're probably familiar with that. Lisa: Yeah. Mark: There was no road access to my house. There was no TV, no internet. Still, there's finally internet after but no TV, and we would have to take a boat to get there. And so I grew up with boats and I grew up hiking in the Adirondacks and a lot of time alone in the wilderness, which is one of the reasons I became kind of an endurance athlete. I know you're an endurance lady. Because I was comfortable, being alone. I was comfortable running the trails in the mountains, and I used to have a friend, we would run up Whiteface Mountain, which is at the base or the foot of Lake Placid. Not a huge mountain, it's 4,000 feet, but you know it took a couple hours. If you're going to hike up there it takes a few hours. For us to run up there, took us 45 minutes. People used to think we were crazy. When we got to the top we would wrap our ankles and our knees and we would play tag on the way down. The trails are steep and just rocks and ruts and roots. It's amazing we didn't kill ourselves. So that was my like early childhood upbringing, nature being in the woods and in the water were my solace away from the family dynamics. That led me to be a competitive athlete in high school, 12 varsity letters and then into college, I was recruited for swimming and I became a competitive rower. And then I started triathlon. So, I was an athlete, but the athletics really was my escape and kind of my grounding rod, like it is for so many athletes, right? When I— then I wasn't sure what was going to happen. I didn't really spend a lot of time in my youth thinking about my future, I kind of accepted a lot of the stories for my family that I was going to go back and be part of the family business. That business was really the place that Divines go, you know, we don't go into the military, we don't go into academia, we don't do those things. So anyways, it's as your listeners are hearing this, they're probably like, ‘Yep, check.' Lisa: They may have done that. Mark: That's the norm, right? That's not, I wasn't off, but it's certainly not what I teach today, right? Because, right, I think if we're— if we don't follow our passion and find our calling in life, then we're going to have discomfort later on, and discomfort is going to lead to existential crisis. So I was very fortunate, incredibly fortunate that when I left college, I got a job with a big accounting firm, consulting accounting firm called Coopers and Lybrand, which became accountant, became— Lisa: You were an accountant. I mean, that makes me laugh, really. Mark: I was an accountant. Lisa: I was on the way to being an accountant too. So because of what my dad wanted, and I'm about as far from an accountant, as you can get, you know. Mark: I was too. Lisa: That's a good story. Mark: But I stuck with it long enough to become a certified public accountant, I had to pass the exam. Lisa: I didn't. Mark: I got my— I tell you what, I would rather go back to BUD/S Navy SEAL training than try that darn exam again. That told me something right there. But you know, it is a great opportunity. Because here I am, you know, I got a degree from a pretty good university called Colgate. But I didn't really have any skills. And so this job opportunity gave me and sent me to a top business school in the United States called NYU, New York University. So I got my MBA in finance, and I became a certified public accountant for four years. I got to work on a lot of different companies as a consultant and auditor. So I saw a lot. But, so that was kind of formative, in a sense, like, I learned a lot. What was probably more formative, or more substantial for me was, once I got into that suit and tie, and I was working eight hours a day, mind you, they allowed me to work only 8 or 10 hours a day. Most people in those scenarios work 15 to 20. But because they were sponsoring this small group of us to go to business school at night, they had to let us off, and then we would go to school full-time during the summer, and just come in on Fridays. It was a really cool program. So I was working 8 to 10 hours a day, going to school at night. And it's— I was an athlete, right? And I was like, ‘How am I going to, how am I going to stay as an athlete?' Right? Most people don't. Because you know, in the corporate world, and I was like, ‘I've got to, I've got to continue my athletic career.' And so I would get up really early in the morning and go for a six mile run. And then at lunchtime when all my peers would go have a beer or martini and lunch, I would go to the gym and do like this, what I now know is a high intensity functional workout, which back then nobody talked about. Because I had to go fast, and I was wanting to do a lot of different variety, and I had to be in and out of there in 45 minutes. And then after, they let me go at five o'clock in the afternoon, and my first class wasn't till 7:30. So I'm looking at that saying, ‘Look, I got two and a half hours. I could do some training here.' So one night, I wasn't sure what I was going to do. But one night, I was walking down 23rd Street, I was living on 22nd in Manhattan, and I heard these screams coming out of this building. And I stopped and I looked up and I was standing under the flag of the World Seido Karate Headquarters. ‘Oh, interesting. Maybe it's a martial art.' And I had been intrigued with the martial arts. But in Upstate New York, that just wasn't much. There's nothing as a matter of fact, in my time, and so I didn't really get a chance to study anything. So I went in there and I was floored. I was stunned by what I saw. It was an incredible art. This was the headquarters of a worldwide art called seido, they had three or 400,000 students. And the Grand Master, the founder was on the center of the floor, this Japanese man, 10th degree black belt, looked like a frickin' tank. And he was, his name was Nakamura, and he became my mentor, my first real mentor. Yeah. Now what's interesting, he says it wasn't really the karate that changed me. It was the zen training. And he is one of the few masters who kept the old ways of training the mind and the body and the spirit, and understood that they all had to be in balance, and they all were part of the package of developing these corrupted, these trainees. I loved the zen part, and there was a zen class we had every Thursday night for an hour, we would sit on that little wooden zazen bench. And honestly, this studio is the headquarter, had well over a thousand students. There were ten of us in this class, most of them black belts, and I was a white belt, and I was like, ‘Where is everyone else?' I didn't get it. And then there wasn't a lot of understanding or talk about meditation back then. But boy, I did this thing to do meditation. I had all the usual kind of resistance to it, and my monkey mind going all over the place and wondering if it really worked. I trusted Nakamura and the way he acted and presented himself as a character, just who he was, was so different than any other human I've ever seen or experienced. And I was like, ‘There's got to be something to this, right?' So I stuck with it. And it literally changed almost every aspect of who I was and how I saw the world and what I perceived to be my calling and my purpose in life. And it was sitting on that bench that I realised that I was going down the wrong path with this MBA, CPA, working in the corporate world. Even if I went back to the family business, it just wasn't what I was meant to do. That was the first time in my life that I allowed myself to examine my core story that said, this is who I am, and to recognise it was built on a lie. Lisa: Yeah. And you weren't following your true path. Mark: I wasn't following my true path. But my true path wasn't exactly laid out for me, in those meditation sessions. It was more like the archetypal energy in the arc of my life was shown to me and that that art was to be a warrior, and then it would lead somewhere else that wasn't quite clear to me, but the warrior part was very strong. And it didn't— I didn't get messages while I was meditating, saying, ‘You're going to be a Navy SEAL.' What I got was ‘warrior' and, ‘You're going down the wrong path with this business stuff.' It was when I finally started to accept that, that I learned about the Navy SEALs, right. Remember, this is 1987, 88, there was no TV shows and movies, no famous names. Lisa: They weren't famous back then. Mark: Nobody knew them. In fact, the few people that did know them were like, crazy guys. So I— one day, I was walking home from work, and I came across a Navy recruiting station. I didn't even know it was that but I saw a poster in the window. I took a double take of this poster. I was like, well, the title of that poster was, ‘Be Someone Special'. And it had Navy SEALs doing really cool shit. Jumping out of airplanes, yeah, blocking out little mini submarines, sneaking through the water. It's just so cool for me. I just sat there kind of transfixed, looking at that, and I didn't say anything about the SEALs. They said, US Navy, and I was, ‘Huh, interesting.' So I went back and I talked to the recruiters so what, ‘Who are those people in that poster?' They said, ‘Oh, they're crazy Navy SEALs. You don't want to do that.' I said, ‘Yeah, I do. Tell me more.' So long story short. I started that whole CPA, MBA bullshit, 1985. In November of 1989, I got my black belt, I got my MBA, I got my CPA and I was on a bus. I was on a bus to Officer Candidate School. Lisa: That was the next mission. Mark: On to the next mission. I wandered away from, I walked away from probably what would today's dollars be $200,000 salary to get paid $500 a month? Lisa: Wow. That takes— Mark: For heading off as a candidate. Lisa: That takes courage. That alone takes courage. Mark: But I didn't question that. You know, I knew it. I knew this is the right path. And when I got to SEAL training, what we called BUD/S, basic underwater demolition SEAL training. Man, I felt like I was home, and there was no way that they were going to get me to quit. I mean, other people said this, but I said this very clearly: ‘You have to kill me to get me out of here.' And I don't think they can legally do that. Although they sure do try. Lisa: It can get pretty close. Mark: It can get pretty close, yeah. I sailed through SEAL training. We had 185 in my class, hardcore, awesome guys. And 19 of us graduated. I graduated number one in my class and my entire team, my boat crew that we trained together from day one, graduated with me. Lisa: Wow. Mark: So there's something about that meditation training, Nakamura and the skills, and the values on team building and taking my eyes off myself and putting them on others, the taming of the ego, it really allowed me to help lead my team to success, right? We made it about the team and not about me, and everyone else was about them. And they— the team's, the instructors are, their job is to select the next crop of teammates that they will go to war with. Lisa: Yeah. Mark: So what they're looking for is not who's the toughest guy, not who's the best athlete— Lisa: Not the coolest, yeah. Mark: Yeah, exactly, not the best looking whatever. It's, ‘Are you a great teammate? Are you gonna have my back?' So that's something that I guess I demonstrated. Lisa: Wow, that's a brilliant intro into your background. What fascinates me with you too is that you like— you know, because the SEALs are known for being hard asses. I mean, you know they are hard people, they have been through tough stuff, they go through tough stuff every single day that you're out there. But you've got this meditation side, you do a heck of a lot of yoga. You do, you talk about authenticity, and I know you don't like the word vulnerability, but you're quite, you're open about the stuff. That's quite the opposite of most, in the training that you get. I suppose this comes from Nakamura being your master, that he taught you that very early on, they're sort of the both sides of the coin. I get that question quite a lot, too. When they— when people read what I've done and achieved and so on, they're like, ‘Wow, you must be a super hard ass.' And then they meet you and realise that you're actually very vulnerable or cry a lot. I'm very full of mistakes and problems and stuff that I'm working on at all times. But the difference is, I think, that you embrace both sides. And that you are always in pursuit of excellence, and you're always improving, and you're always developing. And I found that a really interesting combination in someone who's so physically tough and mentally tough to have had both sides. Was that a hard thing in the beginning with the SEALs? Mark: I think you're right. I did learn that initially from Nakamura and so every day, you know, I was so committed. Every day I would stretch and I would do my breathing practices and my visualisation while I was going through SEAL training. Every day in the SEALs, I do some version of that. It was you know, it's difficult for a military operator to keep a daily dedicated practice going if you're up 24 hours a day, and you're in combat. Honestly, when I went to Iraq and combat, I meditated and trained yoga every single day. And it had a profound effect on me, right? In the war zone, all my teammates are just getting frayed at the edges, and I felt strong and confident, and I knew I was going to survive, because I did, I had that vision. I was going to be home with my child, you know, my wife and son. So it came first from Nakamura, and then I started into yoga. It's not my career, it's important people know, I did plus-20 years in the Navy SEAL, but about nine years active duty and 11 years reserve. So as reserve, so nine years after I joined, even while I was on active duty, I started to get into yoga. But when I got off active duty I had more time. I went full on in, and that was because— actually it is a blessing in disguise. I was living in San Diego and there was no seido karate out here. Otherwise I would have gotten back into seido karate. So first I got into something called goju karate, I got a black belt there. It was very similar to seido but it lacked the spirit and like the mental, the meditation, so I didn't really stick with that. And then I got into ninjutsu, thinking ninjutsu might be a little bit more spiritual. I really liked the teacher but he was a horrible business guy, so right on the cusp of getting my black belt, he shut his school down and ran out of money. And then I found yoga kind of about the same time as ninjitsu. But I didn't really understand it until I read Patanjali's yoga sutras and also Paramahansa Yogananda's autobiography yoga. And those just absolutely shattered my paradigm of what was possible and what yoga was, as the oldest science of mental and personal development. So I fully went into yoga and I ended up getting 700 hours of certifications and started my own yoga program and wrote a book about it eventually, but, and started teaching it to SEALs. And so all this I was still a SEAL officer. Because I didn't retire from the SEALs in 2011, but I was able to do all this and build a business that started to teach Navy SEALs everything I would have been learning. And that's called SEALFIT. That was the business that everything I've been learning and applying in my own life, right? And this was this integrated model of development. It started with Nakamura where it wasn't just about the physical. It was about physical, it was about mental, it was about emotional, it was about intuitional and spiritual aspects of our being. In that, I learned that if you train those together, then you will integrate, you'll become whole again. What that means is you'll become more, you have access to more of yourself. You have to put more potential. You can maintain peak performance, you can serve more profoundly, you can do more, you've got way more energy, way more enthusiasm, way more motivation, way more peace of mind, way more clarity. It's extraordinary. In a sense, it's like coming back to who we are. That's why I call it integration. In fact, the word ‘yoga' means union or integration, and so does is zen, believe it or not. Those practices and traditions are really all about becoming whole as a human again, as opposed to fragments and separate, separate from yourself and separated from others. So I stumbled upon this, and created my own path or my own model. And then when I had started to teach it to SEALs and special operators, and other military operators, a ton of people, even from New Zealand, some of your listeners might have been to my training. Then I started to recognise that, ‘Wow, this is necessary in our culture.' Because most Westerners have no connection to this, this way of living of, taking care of the internal while you are working in the external, the yin and the yang, the balance between being and doing, becoming whole again, so you can do your work from a whole perspective as opposed to a fragmented, separated self. Which leads to suboptimal results, at a minimum, in at least a flat out crisis or destruction at the maximum level. And that's, we're seeing that both in from the investment in violence, military build-up, conflict, as well as environmental degradation is because human beings have not learned to be whole, and they don't recognise that we're all interconnected. And every one of our thoughts, every one of our emotions, every one of our actions has an implication or impact on the whole. Lisa: Yep. This is really good. Because I think, we live our lives very much in the doing. We're busy all day, we're busy with a billion million things, we're running businesses, we're— we've got families and so on. And it's really hard to find that stillness. And I know that even as an athlete who, I think for years, I was just headed through the wall, you know, taking— Mark: Most people are, that's how they learn, until they hit the wall, right? Lisa: Yeah, no, I hit the wall a couple of dozen times before, because I was a bit thick. I didn't wake up, said, ‘Hang on, this stuff isn't working anymore.' And it works when you're 20. And it works when you're 25. And it works when you're 30. And but when you start hitting your 40s, and you're still smashing the crap out of your body, and you're not really not refilling the tank, and you're not re-examining what the hell are you doing, I think that's when the wheel started, when the wheel started to fall off for me. And I'm like, ‘Hang on a minute, this— why isn't my body doing like, it wasn't what it was supposed to do?' And when you've grown up, though, with that expectation of, you have to be tough, you have to be hard. And I grew up different to you. But I had a dad who was very, he was an awesome father, but he was a hard ass. And he expected you to be tough and mentally tough, physically tough. He didn't really tolerate a lot of weakness or sickness or anything like that. And he was an amazing dad, but he pushed really hard. And that sort of makes you think, well, you have to be hard all the time. And then when you break down, then it's you being weak. Instead of looking at the whole picture, and quieting the mind and doing these things like meditation was for me. Yeah, I know, I hear it's really important, but I can't sit still. I need it twice as much. Mark: Yeah, well, there's a reason for that. It'd be fun to talk about. But think about, when I reflect back, and my SEAL training and all these other guys were trying to be hard, and they had the same thinking, because America has a real soft side to it. But there's a lot of freakin' warriors in America. And we have that same kind of what your dad's talking about. Gotta be hard. Like, there's no room for weakness. It's got to be tough. You think about the metaphor, the guys who quit were just bad asses. Yeah, why did they quit? They quit because they didn't— they lacked the emotional strength to understand what was happening to them in their either most extreme moments of crisis or moments of just doubt, right? And then they're like, so they let uncertainty in, let doubt creep in and corrupt their decision making and then, one mistake leads to an injury we call, quinjury. And you've probably seen this in endurance athletes' is when all of a sudden the injury kind of crops up and then the person's out. And then really, reality is they created that injury to quit. Lisa: Yeah, because they wanted a way out. Mark: Because they wanted a way out. It's very subconscious. It's not prepared. It's not preparing properly. It's not recovering properly. It's not understanding that this is a long game and getting your ego out of the way. Lisa: It used to prop up for me every— before any big race, that in the week ahead of that race, I would get sick. And I would, I'm sure that that was my subconscious trying to stop me do it. Mark: Yeah, I've given you an out, right. And so— Lisa: You've got a cold, you've got the flu. Mark: Think about the metaphor between, if you got a tsunami coming, like, consider tsunami a metaphor for a crisis, or a big challenge, like BUD/S or a 50 mile or 100 mile race or something like that. There's a tsunami coming. Would you rather be a mighty oak facing that tsunami, or would you rather be like a reed? Lisa: A reed, definitely. Mark: Yeah, if so, when I went to SEAL training, I tried to be the reed, right? I tried to be really flexible. I didn't let anything bother me. You know, structures would come up and, during Hell Week for us, which week seven back then. But now it's more like week three or four, seven days non-stop training around the clock, no sleep. Everyone's heard about that. Like a day, Thursday, like the day before, we're over it most of it, we're down to 60, 35, maybe 45 or 50, actually, in our class from 185 already. And instructor evil comes over and he's like, ‘Mark, I don't like you, I'm gonna make you quit.' And in my mind, I was like, ‘Good luck.' And I even think I started— Lisa: That confidence! Mark: I don't know, it was just my spiritual strength saying, ‘No, you're not going to get me to quit, you can't.' And so I actually was challenging him in my mind, and it must come through on my face. And he goes, ‘I'm gonna wipe that smirk right out that effing face.' And he just made me start doing 8-count bodybuilders, which are like a burpee, basically. And I remember in my mind thinking, ‘Okay, all right. Let's do this.' Right? All I got to do is one 8-count bodybuilder at a time, until he gets tired. Lisa: Until he gets tired. Mark: Exactly! So that's what I did. I just did one. I just want, did one 8-count bodybuilder. And then I just did one 8-count bodybuilder. And then I just did one 8-count bodybuilder. And when we got up to like— Lisa: You broke him. Mark: 800. Lisa: Holy heck. Mark: Which is nothing, right? I did 24 hours of burpees last, a couple of years ago, as part of our challenge. We did, check this out: we did 22 million burpees as a tribe to raise money for veterans. And part of that was to break a world record where our six-person team, you would love this, three men and three women, we did 36,000 burpees in 24 hours, so I did 7,500 or something like that. So 700 is nothing. Back then I didn't know if it was going to be 700 or 7,000 or 70,000. But he got bored, and he walked away at about 700, and I have to say, that worked. That's a good strategy. Lisa: What about the burning in the muscles and the exhaustion and the running out of glycogen— Mark: You can do anything, one at a time. Lisa: Wow. Mark: It's just like in a race, I'm sure you get to a point where all you have to do all you are saying to yourself is, ‘Just one more step.' Lisa: One more step. Yep, absolutely. Mark: Same thing. We call them micro goals. And so we teach— I started teaching these to SEALs, and the best guys already did this. But now we teach it, the SEALs are teaching what I call the Big Four. And they're teaching box breathing for controlling their stress, they're teaching positive internal dialogue, and mantras. And they're teaching visualisation, visualise every event and visualise what the end state looks like for you and then visualise the mission and whatnot. And then micro goals. Like go to BUD/S thinking about eight months of training, you go to BUD/S thinking about, ‘What do I got to do today to win this?' And then when today gets hard, you just collapse. ‘What do I need to do to win this evolution or event that I'm in?' And then when that gets harder, you know, it's like, ‘What do I got to do to get to the next five minutes?' Anytime you quit, or you have the thought, ‘Well, this sucks. I think I want to quit.' You just say, ‘Well, let me just push through to another— let me just push through another five minutes.' Or, ‘Let me just get to that berm up there,' if it's a run, or Log-Pt could go on forever. ‘Let me just finish this evolution, then I'll make a decision.' And so you just keep kicking the can down the road of the pain and the quit decision and the suffering and eventually the suffering goes away, because that's a temporary state. Lisa: And this is like that you just dropped so much golden inside of two minutes. Take a couple of those because these are things that I've took me 20 years to learn. Mark: Play it back in slow motion. Lisa: You know, like this. That's how that's how I break down. You know, every mess of the like, I remember and my listeners have heard me tell the story. But I ran 2,250 kilometers from New Zealand for charity. Mark: Wow. Good for you. Holy cow. Lisa: Yeah, no, it's like, but I've been so busy in the build-up doing— I've been at other races around the world, done Badwater in the States, just come back from that, just launched a book and then I'm standing at the start line. I've been so busy in the thing that I actually hadn't thought about actually running the— because I was just like, ‘Yeah, I got everything, sweet.' And then I'm starting at the start line and I just had a panic attack, like the first real big panic attack. And I'm not, because you're staring down the barrel of this— Mark: Like, holy shit, this is too high to climb. What the heck have I done? Lisa: What the frick was I thinking? And I went home, we had media, we had all my crew and everybody there and I just went away behind the one of the cars and got my mum, my mummy ‘cuz she's my safe place, went to my mummy and I just bawled my eyes out. And said, ‘Mum I can't do this, I don't know what the frick I was thinking. I can't, and there's no way out.' And mum's just like, ‘Hey,' as she hugged me, as mums do. And she said, ‘You don't need to do 2,250 today. All I want you to focus on is that little box up there,' you know, that was a couple of hundred meters up the road. ‘That's what you got to do right now. And then you're going to, you're going to get through to lunchtime, and then you're gonna have lunch. And then we're going to get through to this and that.' She just broke it down into pieces, and she took all of that load that I was just like, ‘Oh my God, this is huge,' and she broke it into one step at a time, basically. And that was some of the greatest learnings that I've taken away for every event that I've done when— and there have been times when I've broken and I've just crashed on the ground. I don't know how to get up and people have come along and they've got me up and walked me through the next few steps. Or the next— and that has gotten you over that hump, you know? And I just wait, you know, that's so much gold, right there, what you've just said. I think if we can do that in daily life so when we're faced with some big scary thing coming at us, how do I just get through this moment? And we're very— if you can get through these impulses, you know, like there's 30 seconds, through the 30 seconds almost, sometimes you can get to a place where you can cope again. And then you can sort of get back up. Mark: And this goes back to like the internal dialogue. Most people don't examine their internal dialogue. And this is where meditation is so critical. And you can also consider, like running or swimming or biking, endurance sports generally, are also very good for examining internal dialogue, because you're going to meet resistance. How you talk to yourself has an incredible impact on your energy and your motivation. Literally, we use the terminology ‘feeding the courage wolf' versus ‘feeding the fear wolf'. Feeding fear is allowing negative dialogue and negative imagery and negative emotions to kind of run the rule the roost of your psychology, and that weakens you. Negative thoughts demonstrably weaken you as a human being. Lisa: Yeah, because— Mark: They're gonna not just weaken your motivation but literally musculature-wise you get weaker, and that's been proven through kinesiology. So positive thoughts create a higher vibration, which bring more energy, more access to more creativity and motivation. And so you got to train positive thoughts. That's what I mean by feeding the courage wolf. And the more you feed the courage wolf by training positive mantras and positive thoughts, then the more you starve the fear wolf until he goes away, until he just doesn't have the food anymore. And those patterns dry up and blow away. So I created a bunch of positive mantras that I would say in the SEAL training, and they're still with me today. As soon as I start a hard workout, they kick back in. ‘Feeling good, I'm looking good, ought to be in Hollywood. Feeling good, I'm looking good, ought to be in Hollywood. I can get out of me in Hollywood. I've got this easy day, piece of cake. Boo yeah, hey, got this. Easy day, piece of cake. Boo yeah, hey.' And then I'll synchronise that with my breathing. So, hardcore, run three steps and inhale 1, 2, 3, ‘I've got this. Easy day. Piece of cake.' Exhale 1, 2, 3. Right. Lisa: And the rhythm is good too, hey. Mark: Yeah, exactly. So I was synchronising those before, the big four. The first skill I said, box breathing, it's really breath control. Running, anything you're doing, always breathing through your nose as best as possible, and controlling the breathing and creating a nice rhythmic pattern with the breathing. It's going to be different depending upon what you're doing. If you're lifting weights, gonna be one thing, if you're running another, swimming another. Swimming creates its own little breathing patterns, because head in the water versus out of the water. But just starting there, controlling your breathing and adding a positive mantra, or a positive internal statement that's linked to the breath is transformative. Not only does it keep you in the game athletically or whatever, but when you do this during your regular day, day in and day out, you're training your mind to be really positive and to be very concentrated. So you're developing concentration power. So you're turning your mind from like a scattered floodlight, which is flickering on and off, the monkey mind, to a very, very concentrated laser beam that you can point that laser beam on anything, any task, any project, and it deeply improves your productivity, the ability to get things done, you know, significantly. Lisa: Wow. Just interrupting the program briefly to let you know that we have a new Patron program for the podcast. Now, if you enjoy Pushing the Limits, if you get great value out of it, we would love you to come and join our Patron membership program. We've been doing this now for five and a half years and we need your help to keep it on air. It's been a public service free for everybody, and we want to keep it that way. But to do that we need like-minded souls who are on this mission with us to help us out. So if you're interested in becoming a patron for Pushing the Limits podcast, then check out everything on www.patron.lisatamati.com. That's P-A-T-R-O-N dot lisatamati.com. We have two Patron levels to choose from. You can do it for as little as $7 a month, New Zealand, or $15 a month if you really want to support us. So we are grateful if you do. There are so many membership benefits you're going to get if you join us. Everything from workbooks for all the podcasts, the strength guide for runners, the power to vote on future episodes, webinars that we're going to be holding, all of my documentaries and much, much more. So check out all the details: patron.lisatamati.com. And thanks very much for joining us. Mark: And then the imagery, right, the imagery. Well, let me backup. The other thing that that process of paying attention to the quality of your thoughts and changing them to positive thoughts, and increasing your concentration power, as you start to look at the dialogue too, in your head. What is actually going on? And you recognise that typically what's going on in your head is a series of statements that are also based upon belief systems, but it can be framed as questions. When people say, ‘I don't think I can do this,' what they're really saying is, ‘Am I worthy? Am I competent?' We can begin to recognise that our belief systems are based upon questions and statements that may or may not be true. And so you want to take a look at the ones that are questionable, especially if they have a negative quality, and say, ‘Is that true?' And you realise, ‘It's not true. I am worthy. I am competent.' Now, I may not feel that yet. But the more I tell myself that and the more I can see that in myself, and the more that I meditate and actually feel into my worthiness and my confidence, and the more I work to eradicate the emotional side or shadow that may have, be tied to related to that — for me, it was because of the childhood abuse, I kind of felt a little unworthiness and whatnot, even though I was capable as a SEAL, it's still kind of plagued me for a while, until I had to stare down that wolf of fear and be like, ‘Yeah, that's all bullshit. That's just a story that I'm holding on to and I was able to release all that energy and feel that worthiness now.' Then that leads to a whole nother set of questions, which are extraordinarily empowering, right. So when I— understanding your capability as a human being, the potential that you have, the power that we have, you can then project that into the future and say, ‘What does victory look like for me?' Right? ‘If I'm going to run this 2,000 meter, or 2,000 kilometer race, and I'm going to raise money for charity, what is that for? What's my ‘why'? And what does victory look like?' You get a clear sense of what victory looks like. And then you can even do that with the micro parts. So you chunked it down into 100 kilometer segments, let's just say. What does victory look like for that segment for the next five days? What does it look like for today? What does it look like— this is, in a sense, what your mom was doing, but she was doing it from the other way around. What does it look like for the next six hours? What does it look like for the next three hours? You get a clear picture because you're asking the right questions, and you're winning in your mind before you step foot into the battlefield. So asking really powerful questions like, what does victory look like? Who is on my team? Who's got my back? Why am I doing this? How is it related to my purpose in my life? These are the questions that we start asking, because now we've drowned out the negative incessant chatter, which is just holding us back and distracting us. We've created this space, and I use the metaphor still water pond. We've taken our mind and we've created it instead of this choppy, you know, bouncing all over the place, turbulent thought stream, largely negative, we've calmed down. And it's now this still water, and on this still water, you can look at it, you can really see a reflection clearly. So that's kind of a nice thing, you get to see your true self more clearly, but also, what you drop into that water in terms of the thought is going to ripple out and affect everything. So you end up dropping thought seeds that are really powerful, instead of chaotic and negative. Lisa: Because there's this whole, these automatic negative thoughts and if we think about how we evolved that was there for our survival. Because we needed to be aware of dangers and things in our environment, so we were always looking for the bad thing that was going to come at us. But in our world now, where we just, we have this constant chatter in our head. And it's, you know, I've certainly dealt with this for a long time, and I and I fought against the whole sitting still thing, and focusing inwards. Because it's very unpleasant, when you having— when you want to move, you just want to move. Give me a hard ass workout, any day, over meditation, you know, because it's just like this energy, this agitation, but that's why I need to do it. So that I can break through that piece of the puzzle. And then you can tap into strengths that you didn't know you had, and quietness, and then you start to really reflect and like, for me, it has only really been, even in the last few months where I've been— My dad passed away, and it was one hell of a battle for his life. And I, yeah, it was a real— I was fighting against the system. And it was a mess of battle. It's all good when you win, but it's also good when you don't win. And so this one, just been— I was a bit of an existential crisis after that, because I'd lost this battle for my dad, who I loved dearly. And it made me go inward. It made me start to really question some of the biggest things because you start realising that life's short, shorter than I think it's gonna be. You want to understand why, and then going inside and doing some deep work and doing some trauma work and doing all that sort of hard stuff has been great. There's always good that comes out of shit. You never ever want to go through things like that, but when you do, you can always turn them into something, a learning curve of some sort. And having that, I was listening to you with Bedros Keulian, who's also is another one that I— Mark: Yeah, he's an awesome guy. Lisa: Yeah, he's just a rock star. in you, when you were talking about how you went through the zen process where you were, for a start, you started meditating, but you're just learning to quiet the mind. And then after a few months, that became then mindfulness. Where you're starting to observe yourself from outside in splitting the mind or somehow you put this and you're actually observing yourself as this higher self, if you like. Can you explain that a little bit? And how does that— Mark: Yeah, so glad you brought that up. Because I wanted to talk about that. Because you're right. It's— meditation is hard, especially for active people, which everybody, everybody listening, everybody in the Western world is pretty much hyperactive. Yep, that's what we're taught; it's reality. Like, ‘Go, go, go. Do, do, do.' We get over-committed. Now we have, you know, constant distraction with our iPhones and social media, and it's just gonna get worse, worse, worse. Wait until we get plugged in with a neural link, you know, like, wow. So we got to push back against that. The only way to push back against that is to disconnect from all that and to sit still, or stand still, or take a walk. But don't do anything, right. Don't do it for a goal. Don't do it to check it off a box. Don't do it to be the best meditator you know. Lisa: Tick that box. Mark: It doesn't work, right? Lisa: That was what I was going to— Max: There's no goals here. Right? It's about becoming still, getting that clarity and this still water mind back, if you ever had it, but we had it when we were kids, of course, but in a different sense. So that you can evolve. You know, let me start there. I think that there's two reasons we're on this planet. One is to evolve to become the best version, highest and best version of yourself in this lifetime. The second is to align with our calling or our purpose. And those two really kind of go hand-in-hand or hand-in-glove. You can't evolve if you're constantly doing. You actually will stay stuck. You'll keep getting your ass handed to you. You'll keep suffering. You'll keep feeling victimised. And you'll keep looking outward for the solutions. And you'll keep blaming other people, or society, or taxes, or the government, or God. Lisa: A lot of fingers are turned. Mark: The answers lie within, right? And so the only way to go inward is to slow down and just be quiet. Right? So it's imperative. Now, why do most people fail? A) Because everything I've just talked about, they haven't been taught this. And B) because they're body mind, their body brain is very, very agitated. It's amped up because you've been taking all this stress on throughout your life. So what I teach is that the first step in meditation practice isn't mindfulness. It isn't a mantra practice. It's just a box breathe, which is a pattern breathe, five-count in, five-count hold, and five-count out, five-count hold, or four, or three, if you have trouble with that. And just let that nostril breathing in that massaging that the vagus nerve, stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system. And it's bleeding off stress and bringing your body brain back into my balance. Lisa: Yep. Mark: When your body brain is back into balance, your brain is going to experience that as a lower frequency rate. Lower frequency means fewer thoughts, right? If you're in gamma, it's like tick-tick, popcorn brain. But if you're in alpha, like listening to beautiful music, classical music, or you're maybe doing some journaling, your mind stops racing. It starts to get into— Lisa: A lovely alpha state of focus. Mark: Yeah, and so the box breathing practice trains your mind to get back into alpha, trains your body to de-stress, and you do this. It might take you months, usually about three months. I— my clients have this extraordinary calming that comes over them. And they're already changed. But this is, you know, just the preparatory work, right? This also, for those who are working on their physical structure in their health and their weight, this also has enormous benefits because you begin to feel a lot better. And you begin, you know, you're starting to breathe in that life force again. You're getting more oxygen with every breath, and you're retraining the breathing patterns so this becomes your more natural state. If you, let me just pause here, if you train for 20 minutes a day, have a five-count box breath, that's three breaths per minute, over time, and might take a year or more, you're gonna eventually settle into a natural breath pattern of six breaths per minute, which is now proven to the optimal. Lisa: Exactly. Mark: I've been doing this for years, I never knew that, it just settled out there to where six breaths per minute through the nose was standard for me, or a standard, and that's what will happen to you. Lisa: Yep. Mark: Yeah. But those are full breaths, full exhales, getting all the toxins out there. Lisa: Basically the exhale. Mark: It's enormously beneficial for your body, and everything starts to come back into balance: you start losing weight, you start eating better. Because you want to eat better, you start sleeping b

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The Final Four Principles

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 12, 2021 35:03

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com S2E26 TRANSCRIPT: ----more----Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-Based Paganism. I'm one of your hosts Yucca. Mark: And I'm the other one. Mark. Yucca: And today we are coming back to the Atheopagan principles. So we've done a few episodes before, and we're going to tackle the final four today, although it's not like they're the last ones or the end, it's kind of cyclical, like probably all things and cycles. Mark: Yeah, these are principles. Just to remind listeners, or maybe you haven't heard the previous episodes about the atheopagan principles, these are the 13 core kind of operating how to live your life principles in the atheopagan path. And. So they are virtues they're things to be pursued and aspired to; adopting the atheopagan principles doesn't mean that you're perfect at them. It just means that you think that they're important and that you want to live your life in accordance with them to the degree that you're in. So, we've done two previous episodes, one about the first four. What about the middle five? And now we're doing the final four and we just want to talk about what they mean to us and why we think they're important. Yucca: Yeah. And as always, this is not us saying you should believe what we believe, but we're talking about, we're talking about them because they are important to us and we think they're valid. Mark: Yes. I think they provide they and the four pillars, the four sacred things of atheopagan is and provide a sort of roadmap for. How to proceed a good set of tests when you're in a situation and you don't know what to do. Well, here are some, here are some guideposts that can kind of help you to decide what the right thing to do might be. So, we, we present them in that spirit, not in a vowel shelter sort of thing. There are no commandments in a non theist paganism and So I think we'll just get started. Yucca: Yeah. So the first one is one that I think many forms of paganism share, but it's something that definitely sets paganism apart from. Modern religions. And that is that we are pleasure positive. Mark: Yes. There is a great deal of shame and doubt and self self harm associated with simply enjoying pleasurable things in the over culture. You know, and, and it manifests itself in many, many, many ways. In classic horror films, you can tell that the people that are going to get killed next are the ones who just had sex. Because they have to be punished. They did something pleasurable and now something bad has to happen to them. And in, Yucca: deserve bad things happening to them because they were indulging too much in life or any of those things. Mark: right, right. You know, people this, the so-called victimless crimes where You know, we've we put people into prison for doing a mushroom trip, for example, which, you know, is a non-addictive substance that has zero record of people, you know, going crazy and killing people or doing anything harmful people generally just sit in one place and go wow for six hours. And, and yet we put people in prison for it. Simply because it's something that's enjoyable and there's a deep. History of this, going back to Calvinism and the Protestant reformation, and it is certainly heavily sewn into American culture, which of course was brought over by puritanical Protestant, Christians. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So in the pagan world, we think pleasure is good for you. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: Obviously not at someone else's expense, obviously not without consent of any participating party. Yucca: right. That's big. That's huge. If it's, if there isn't consent, then, then that's something completely different. Mark: that's right. It's not okay. That's that's violence in victim ization. That's not that's, that's not enjoying something. The the, the pagan community has generally been very laissez Faire around these so-called. Victimless crimes. Sex work for example, is something that is considered to be work. There are dangers associated with it and especially at lower socioeconomic levels where people are doing it because they need to survive. Not because they choose it. That's its own form of societal, lack of consent. Yucca: Hm. Mark: You know, economic. Leveraging of people to do things that they don't otherwise want to do. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about people, you know, enjoying that ice cream enjoying whatever it is that gets you off sexually, whether or not, you know, you think that there are like bad things about it. If you and whoever you're doing that with are enjoying it, then that's a great thing. Yucca: Yeah, or yourself too, right? Mark: Yes, Yucca: We don't see masturbation as like a Ooh icky, terrible thing. Mark: right. Or a, or a, a poor substitute for partnered sex or any of that kind of stuff. Having a sexual relationship with yourself, normal and great. Yucca: Hm. Mark: So do that, enjoy it. If that's something that you want to do. It's a, it's a simple concept to explain, but it's a life's work really to live in this manner because the over culture really does lean in on us. Hard about apologizing when we had too much fun, you know, about well, I had this, I had this banana split, but well then I, then I went running. Yucca: Okay. Mark: You know, this feeling of like, you have to compensate for something pleasurable with something that is a work and an arduous and, and unpleasant in some way. We don't think so. We, you should just enjoy it. Yucca: And of course not saying that one, shouldn't be taking care of themselves, making choices about, oh, is this banana split going to make me feel good later or not, but letting go of the, the moral judgment around it. Right. And having it be. Purely a choice of, is this going to make me feel good or not? Or, you know, do I want to spend the money on it or not, but not I'm bad because I enjoyed and indulged in this delicious dessert that I really love. Mark: Right. And this principle ties in with all kinds of stuff around food. We talked about food in a previous episode, in our relationship with food and I encourage it. To listen to that episode, but food is very pleasurable and we can get all twisted up with stuff around body shapes and body image and self relationship all around the simple fact that we take pleasure out of our food. And some people suffered a great deal because of that. Yucca: And it creeps into our language and way of thinking about it. You've probably heard people talk about clean food and not clean food or cheating on food or things like that. And that's all tied back to this anti pleasure, anti things connected to the Earth's Antifa, the animal side of it. Mark: Yes. Yes. And this is we, we talked about relationships a couple of episodes ago. This is why in March of the pagan community, you see alternative relationship structure. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Endorsed and supported and in, and and welcomed because we don't see anything wrong with relationships that involve more than two people. We don't see anything wrong with relationships that are open to sexual encounters with people other than the people that are in the relationship. Fortunately, this is now becoming mainstream, but you know, even 30 years ago, we didn't see anything wrong with homosexual relationships. It's all about what works for people and what makes them happy. The BDSM community is welcomed in the pagan community for exactly the reason that if consenting adults want to do something together, that makes them happy. We're all for happiness. So, Yeah, That's really where a lot of that comes down. Yucca: exactly. Mark: So that's pleasure, positivity. And it's the 10th atheopagan principal. And the next is Yucca: Curiosity. Mark: right. Yucca: Yeah. And this one, like all of them really important, but this one is one of those ones that it's harder to talk about. It's more of a, just an experience, right? Being curious for the sake of just the sake of wanting to know. Mark: right, right. I believe that it's an inherent human quality children are extremely curious. They're trying to figure out how the world works constantly. They're co you know, they're little scientists, constantly experimenting with different sorts of behaviors to see What happens. Right. In the, in the case of adults, there is a danger of settling into a doctrinal dogma about the nature of the world. And then you stop asking questions about it and start defending the dogma. And this is the fundamental difference between faith-based religion of any kind, whether it, I mean, whether it's faith-based paganism, faith-based Abrahamic, monotheism Any kind of faith-based approach to the world where you've decided, you know, how it works. And now you're going to cherry pick the evidence in order to support that and ignore all the evidence that doesn't support it. That is. Yucca: ask. And that frame the questions in such a way that it continues to confirm your pre-existing idea or view on the subject. Mark: Right. And that is exactly the opposite of a science-based approach. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Science is always asking new questions and I think it was Einstein who once said that the most exciting words in science are not, I found it or Eureka, but that's funny. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: Because a whole new range of questions have been opened, which if answered will reveal more to us about the nature of the universe. And that's what the goal is. The goal is to be learning about this place that we live for the time that we're given. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So curiosity has a lesson for us and the lesson. You don't know everything. There's always more to be learned. And that ties in with the atheopagan principle of humility, because however much of an authority, you may be on a subject. You don't know everything about it. Yucca: And you're probably wrong on most of what you know, and you don't know which part it is that you're wrong on. Mark: Right. Yucca: right. And that's just everybody, that's just what it is to exist. Mark: Right. So being curious is a very important functional role for us. And yes, well, it's fun. some of the time, but other times, like in conflict, for example, if you conflict with someone and you're sure that you know exactly what their position is and what they're trying to do to you. Then you'll have one set of responses. Right. But if you are curious to try to find out, well, what do they really mean by this? And what's their real goal. Then maybe you can take a different path towards some sort of reconciliation or, or finding of mutual common ground because you're inquiring rather than prosecuting an attack. Oh, the fenced Yucca: Well, I think that leads perfectly into the next one, actually, which is integrity. Mark: also difficult to talk about because. I mean, it's very short, right? You should be true to your word and you should, you know, make agreements in good faith and have your, your discourse with other people be based in good faith approaches and not trying to manipulate or or, you know, maliciously devil's advocate as You know, some on the internet or want to do, Yucca: Yeah, Mark: but it's a really important one. it. The idea that someone is trustworthy is a very, very powerful component of our relationship with them. And if we conclude that they're not trustworthy, We won't get close to them. We just won't. And so the way to be close to people, the way to be able to work effectively with other people is to be seen as trustworthy. Yucca: Right. Mark: And that means behaving with integrity. Yucca: And I think that applies not just with other people, but ourselves, Mark: Yeah. Yucca: right. That integrity that we can trust ourselves is really, really important. Mark: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And some of that has to do with, you know, that, that critical voice that we talked about in an episode long ago that that's, self-destructive kind of voice that can arise in our own minds. We can ask ourselves. Does that voice have integrity? Does it, does it need me well, Yucca: Hmm. Mark: or is it trying to hurt me if it's malicious Yucca: say whatever it needs to, to make its point? Mark: right, right. Yucca: Yeah. So integrity. It there's integrity, but we can apply that in so many different areas. We could talk about intellectual integrity or emotional integrity or on and on. Right. But an in each of those fields, however it is that we're dividing them. It's that are you really. Being honest. Are you saying or believing doing to prove a point or to say what you think is true? Mark: Right. And that doesn't mean you can't be wrong. You can see what you believe to be true? and you can still be wrong about that. And that's, that's not being out of integrity. That's just being wrong. Yucca: Yeah Mark: and we all do that. That's, that's perfectly normal. Yucca: being able to come back afterwards, if you do figure out that you're wrong and say, Hey. I'm changing my position. I was wrong. Mark: yeah. Yucca: This is where do I go from here? Right. So tying back into the humility, curiosity, integrity. I mean, these are all just woven together. Mark: Yes. Yes. And and the, I don't know where I was going with that. I lost it. Yucca: Yeah, sorry, I cut you off on that. Mark: No, that's okay. Oh, yes. The, the fact of coming back to someone with a changed position, I mean, that is an act of integrity. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: I mean, it's one thing, if you sort of guiltily realize that you were wrong, But. you keep it quiet because you don't want to admit that you were wrong. That's not so cool. That's that's really not, that's not clean, but saying, you know, I was wrong. And now, you know, we agree on this point and now where do we go? That's that's a position of integrity. Yucca: And it's rough, right? Sometimes it might be easy depending on what it is. And other times, you know, it can be a bit of an ego blow, Mark: Sure Yucca: but it's one of those things that is practice, right? The more you practice, the, you are setting up a pattern of intention. Mark: right. It's super important to model this for children. I mean, I've, I've mentioned before that I had a pretty awful childhood. And one of the reasons that I had an awful childhood was that I knew that my parents were on drugs. Yucca: Hm. Mark: They, they would lie and they would lie for different reasons. My father would, because being wrong was anathema as a narcissist. He just, he couldn't stand the idea of being wrong. And so he had that sort of Donald Trump quality of refusing to admit that he'd ever been wrong. Even though there were times when I just caught him out. I remember once he had mistakenly, he knew this, but he just said it backwards. He, he told me that the short end of the frequency spectrum of the rainbow was the the red. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And that the violet end was the long end. And I mentioned this later, when I learned that it was the other way around and he said, no, I never said that. I would never say that. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And I couldn't have been more than seven years old when that happened, but it went all the way and, you know, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: here's somebody who will lie to me in order to protect his status. Yucca: Yeah. This same idea is why we don't do Santa Claus or the Easter bunny or any of those things, Mark: Okay. Yucca: That, you know, and different, different people have different approaches to it. But the idea of lying to the kids and saying that there's this magical being who comes and does this and that You know, if you're good and all of that stuff connected in there as well. And then, and it's like this lie that everybody is in on, not just the parents, but all of society. And it's like this big mean taboo. If you're the older kid and you like tell the kids the younger one about the secret that, oh, Santa Claus is not real. And my father has a story about finding out that he'd been like, Mark: Yeah. Yucca: About Santa Claus. And he was pretty young at that moment at being raised in a Catholic family. And that was the moment he also went, oh, they must be doing this with Jesus and God too. Right. When? Okay. But, but that, that law, that loss of trust I think is, is, is heartbreaking. Mark: It is. And As I was saying before, trust is everything right? I mean, trust is the core of relationships. And so, you know, that that integrity becomes very important. I want to acknowledge that lots of parents do have lots of different ways of orienting to the whole Santa Claus phenomenon. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And there are some that I think are pretty charming. It's sort of invite the child at a certain point to kind of take on the role with younger children. And it's sort of an initiatory thing. I think that's a little cleaner than just, well, we were lying, but it was because it was fun. Yucca: Yeah. I think there there's definitely ways to handle it. We pretended. And of course not being a Christian family, but we still had Christmas and Santa Claus, but every for everyone, it was a wink, wink. Isn't this fun, right? Like there was everybody was in on the game of it. And then it was like a fun make believe sort of thing. But there was never, ever a moment when it was where any of us thought that it was a literal person coming down, our chimney that was about. But, you know, 12 inches across. Mark: Okay. Yucca: So, so again, no judgment to other families for making whatever choice they do. Just that for us is why we don't do do it because I don't even want to go anywhere close to where it might, where my kids might feel like I lied to you. Mark: Right. And that brings us to the last of the atheopagan principles, the 13 principles, and by no means the least important, these are not in any kind of priority order. They, they are literally in the order that they occurred to me. Yucca: Okay. Mark: I just, I wrote them down. And then when. After this one, there just didn't seem to be anything more. And maybe I'm wrong about that. And there are more principles that should be added, but so far it just hasn't seemed like that to me. Yucca: Well, and 13 is just such a fun number, Mark: Yes, it is. Yucca: right? It's just, yeah. And then of course it, it worked out very nicely. I don't remember who it was in the Facebook group who suggested applying it to the moon. Mark: Right. I don't remember who that was offhand either, but it's a brilliant idea. So for example, the full moon that we have coming up is the legacy. And so you just apply the principles to each of the full moons. And that gives a theme to each one of the full moons. And because there are 13 of them, they precess around the course of the year. So it's a lot like the theme is the same in June, every year. No, next year it's going to be in July. Yucca: Yup. And then on and on and Mark: Right, right. Yucca: keeps rolling. So, but kindness and compassion. Mark: Right Yucca: Yeah. Mark: because we're all human. We're all gonna make mistakes. We're all gonna have bad days when we're snarling and snapping. Yucca: Hm. Mark: And we have to be understanding towards one another about this. We have to be kind to ourselves when we don't need. The standards of the principles that we embrace, we have to be kind to one another and compassionate for the plight of one another, because people's lives can be very, very different. And we don't really know what all they're going through. One of the, one of the first moments that I realized that I was growing up. Was when I was 12 or so I think, and it's suddenly twigged to me that everybody around me was also having this internal dialogue. They were, you know, they weren't just characters in my, in my little drama that they were people and they had needs and motivations and injuries and all that kind of stuff. And I think it's really incumbent on us to be aware of this and to be kind. Yucca: Yeah. Yes and This is one where, I mean, I think of it as I try and have it be my baseline that I returned. And the idea of, of having kindness and compassion doesn't mean that we can't have other emotions that there isn't a place that's appropriate to be angry towards someone. Or that being kind to somebody somehow means that we automatically agree with them. Right. You can be kind to someone without agreeing with what they're saying. Without accepting their position, but you can still treat them kindly. You can still have treat them with respect, whether or not you think that the way that they're behaving is appropriate or not, but it doesn't mean that I think that the kindness and compassion are so key and critical, whether you believe that the person is acting in a way worthy of, of that, it's not something that they earn. It's just how you behave. This is I'm struggling to find the words here, right? Mark: Well, I think some of it is, it's not so much about them as it is about. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: The, there is a very, in the over culture, there is this very Protestant idea about, well, you know, people have to earn their kindness. They have to earn their compassion. And that's just not the case. Everybody has already earned it by dent of the fact that they're a human. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So it's all enough. To remember that and to act accordingly, even with people that are really difficult and maybe messed up and, you know, maybe striking out all over the place. And that doesn't mean to turn yourself into a punching bag. You have to, they have appropriate boundaries and, you know, be clear about what you're willing to tolerate and what you're not willing to tolerate. But that doesn't mean that you can't be. Kind and respectful and compassionate towards the people that you engage in your life. Yucca: Yeah. And then tying back to what we were talking about with the integrity, when we mess up. Going back and acknowledging that, Mark: right. right. Yucca: Because again, we are going to mess up. Right. We're human. And I don't know of any other living thing that wouldn't mess up. No, we don't believe in angels or, you know, divine beings or anything like that mean even then most of the stories of those have the mess it up quite a bit. Mark: they do actually. They're supposed to be perfect. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yeah. I want to emphasize again, that this principle applies to your relationship with yourself. Yucca: Yes. Mark: So, you know, when you mess up sure. You know, fess up, acknowledge that, having integrity in relationship to it, but also cut yourself a break. You know, we're human and we're there for imperfect and we're there for allowed to make mistakes. If we learn from them it's, this is not a get out of countability free card, Yucca: Yeah. Mark: because it's still on us to learn from our mistakes and to have integrity in how we proceed from here. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: But but to simply to simply have that, that impulse of kindness towards yourself, I think is really important. Yucca: Yeah. Yeah, it's critical. And it's one of those things. I don't know how we could in a true way. Have it towards another without having it towards ourselves. I think Mark: That's true. That's true. I mean, people who have a very strong, critical test master running inside their own heads, they tend to be. pretty strong, critical test masters to other people Yucca: Yeah. Mark: you may ending and punitive and. That sort of thing. And remember the, the atheopagan path specifically and non fee is paganism. Generally. They're about being happy. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: They're about, you know, living a good life and enjoying this ride that we get through this amazing place. I, it, to be organized, self-aware little columns of molecules. So. You know, pursuing ways to, to get the richness out of life and to build strong relationships and to you know, cultivate respect and to find pleasure. All of those are things that are really good for us and they'll help us to make a better world. They'll help us build they'll. Those qualities are contagious. They they spread so an important thing. Yucca: And that's really what these principles going back to circle into. All of them are really about. Mark: Yeah. So we're, you know, very interested to hear your perspectives on on these principles and any of the others that we went into in any of the previous episodes. Before we close for today, I would like to talk a little bit about the century retreat in 2022 which I've mentioned before, but this is really exciting. We are holding an in-person. Gathering of non theist pagans in Colorado Springs, Colorado from May 13th through 16th next year at a retreat center, beautiful place. And what we're doing now is doing all of the organizing around it. But soon there will be, you know, more promotional materials and so forth. You can find out more about the event at the atheopagan blog, which is atheopagan ism.org. There is a post that's pinned to the top of the blog where you can read about what's going to happen there, but it'll be rituals. It'll be fellowship. It'll be workshops. It'll be hopefully some kind of a nature excursion, although the place itself is in a beautiful forest with a view of Pike's peak and all that kind of stuff. Yucca: It's a primarily Ponderosa pine forest, right? Is that that's the right altitude where it's at. Okay. Mark: So, I'm just really excited about this. I'm already about 30 people are signed up to go. We have slots for about 80 and of course it's, you know, almost a year until this is going to happen. But the sooner people sign up the. So the better, it will be. The event itself is going to cost about $300. That's for lodging and food and the event. And the log that lodging is in bunkhouse years. So it's kind of collective sleeping. There are some opportunities for private rooms for families that need them or people who have disabilities, who need an ADA compliant set up, or just people that feel a need to have a door between them and the rest of the world. Some of the time, those will be more expensive. But we want to make sure that people know that they are. So I'm frankly, at a hundred dollars a day for for this gathering it's really going to be a lot. The food is good. I understand. But trying to keep the event itself as inexpensive as possible, because a lot of people are going to fly, And their travel expenses and so forth. We're also going to make information available about how people can buy carbon credits. Yucca: Wonderful. Yep. Mark: The carbon impact of their travel. That's pretty inexpensive. It's about $10 per thousand miles of travel. Yucca: Oh, Mark: So, Yucca: That's that's good. Mark: it is and it's, it's very doable. And we really encourage everyone who comes to do that because of course, you know, airline flight is it's impactful. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And driving is impactful as well. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So if you have any questions about that or about the podcast or any comments for us Yucca: Any topics that you'd like us to dive into? Mark: yes, we certainly welcome those. You can reach us at the wonder podcast queue. The wonder podcast, all one word Q s@gmail.com and we look forward to hearing from you and we are so grateful that you spend your time with us listening to our little podcast here. Yeah. So thanks. Yucca: you. Mark: thank you. Okay. Yucca: Thanks Mark.

Mark Cronin '80

Mission-Driven

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 22, 2021 63:13

Mark Cronin '80 and his son John Cronin join Maura Sweeney '07 to speak about how they came to found John's Crazy Socks. A serial entrepreneur, Mark passed along this passion to John. In the spirit of Holy Cross, theirs is a company created to do good. Through John's Crazy Socks they are living their mission to “spread happiness,” while also serving as advocates for workplace equality and voices for people with differing abilities. Interview originally recorded on March 17, 2021. Due to the ongoing effects of the pandemic, all interviews in season 2 are recorded remotely. --- Mark : It's the nature of the social enterprise, you've got to have a mission. You can't be, we just want to make money. It's got to be something larger than yourself, an impact you want to have on the world. And when you're driven by that, it's so motivating. All the petty stuff falls away. And that's how you can go and connect with people. We get asked, what's the key ingredient? What skill? A lot if it is just belief. If we have a mission to spread happiness, just believe. Maura : Welcome to Mission-Driven where we speak with alumni who are leveraging their Holy Cross education to make a meaningful difference in the world around them. I'm your host, Maura Sweeney from the class of 2007, director of Alumni Career Development at Holy Cross. I'm delighted to welcome you to today's show. Maura : In this episode, I speak with Mark Cronin from the class of 1980 and his son, John Cronin. Mark and John are co-founders of John's Crazy Socks. A company whose mission is to spread happiness, where over half of the employees have a differing ability. An entrepreneur at heart, Mark has been creating opportunities and organizations ever since his days at Holy Cross. From creating The Lunchbox Theater as a student, to running political campaigns, to founding a software company, his career path shows what can be done when you pursue an idea. Maura : Every step of the way he's been driven by mission. And every step of the way has prepared him for his role at John's Crazy Socks. Our conversation focuses a lot on the incredible work that Mark and John are doing through John's Crazy Socks, to raise awareness about people with differing abilities. They live the motto, to whom much has been given, much is expected, and they do it well. We are lucky to have people like Mark and John working hard to improve the lives of millions of others, because it's not just the right thing to do, it's also good for business. Maura : Mark and John, it is really wonderful to be here with you today. How are you today? Mark : Pretty good, right? John : Pretty good dad. Mark : Life remains interesting. Maura, thank you very much for having us on. Maura : It is my pleasure. It is my pleasure. I have been really looking forward to talking to you about Mark, about your career journey and John, about how you came to help co-found John's Crazy Socks, and the incredible work that you're doing together to really make a difference for people with differing abilities out in the world. Before we get to that, and before we get to John's Crazy Socks, because I could go down a rabbit hole there. First, I'd love to know more about you and your family. I know that you're both New Yorkers. Have you always lived in New York? Mark : So, we live in a town called Huntington on Long Island. I tell the story about that with John. He sometimes laughs at me about this. So, I grew up here on Long Island in part of Huntington, Huntington Station, and when I was 19, I set out for the world. I was leaving and I'm never coming back to Long Island. So in 1997, by that point we had three kids. Our eldest was in first grade and we had moved several times. And if you move two blocks with a little kid, their world turns upside. So we said, we'll buy a house and we'll stay in one place until you get out of college. And we wound up buying a house in Huntington Bay in Huntington, not out of college, out of high school. We said, we'll stay here. And there were a few times where boy, all I wanted to do was travel and move. Mark : There was one point I had this interesting opportunity in Hong Kong, and I sat the family down and I gave them a pitch and they all listened and they nodded and they said, "Dad, that sounds great. And why don't you send us a postcard when you get there, because we're not going." But then, so our two elders, they get up and leave and John, he got an extra three years of high school, but now he's in his final year of high school and I'm thinking, and my wife, Carol is also a Holy Cross grad. We're thinking we can move. We can relocate. Mark : Even after starting this business, we thought you could run an online business from the moon. We could go anywhere. Well, the good news is the business took off faster than we expected. So, we started with a three-year lease and now we have a bunch of employees, and I am going to die on Long Island. I'm not getting away. Maura : No. Well, and I can tell too, just from what I've seen in just the different media footage and the stories about the way you run John's Crazy Socks, is it's also a community organization. Mark : We think about community a lot, we think about the community here. I'm always wary of businesses that say, we're like a family. I don't know about that. But we're building a community there. We think about the community that we're building around here, our customers and supporters. But we also think about the local community and you've got to be good citizens. You got to be engaged in their community and giving back and involved. So, there is a lot of things we do, and that's important to us. Maura : Well, thinking about community and thinking about Holy Cross, because you're an alum from the class of 1980, I know community is a huge part of someone's time at Holy Cross. I'd love to hear about your days on the Hill and what brought you to Holy Cross from Long Island. Mark : So, a different day and age. Okay. I'm getting out of high school in 1976 and I really knew nothing. I didn't really know anything about looking at schools. At a college fair, I got a booklet that seemed interesting. I applied to three schools. I really applied to two. I applied to Holy Cross and Boston College. A third school came in and started recruiting me for football but by that point, I wasn't thinking of playing football. I got in both Holy Cross and Boston College, and was going back and forth. I didn't really know how to choose. So, Boston College had me up for a weekend with a group of students and they greeted us saying, we think you want the leaders of the class of 1980. Mark : And as soon as I heard that, I was like, well, I don't want to come here. If you think I'm one of your leaders, you're in trouble. So, I wound up at Holy Cross and there were a few points. Freshman year, where I was like, I don't know if this is really the right place. I thought of leaving, but once I made the commitment to stay, well, then you're all in. And like most things, the more you put in, the more you get out. And I was thinking, I just sent a package of socks to a guy named Father Carlson, who was my freshmen advisor. And I took him for a survey of Greek lit, but I was particularly thinking of one moment, just a small moment that altered the course of my life. Mark : It was sophomore year, second semester, sophomore year. And he called me in his office. I was trying to think, how did he get me? There was no email, there was no text. But he had me come into his office and he sat me down, and he was the head of the honors program. And he gave me a picture he said, "You should really apply for this." I was like, "Me. Nah." That's not how I thought of myself. I could talk. I was a pretty serious student, but I did a lot of other things too. I didn't do a lot of sleeping. Mark : I walked out of there and thought, oh. I still, I'm not very... I'm kind of... Not counting on it... To inviting you to an honors program. I was really not very smart because I'm thinking, well, I still don't have a chance. Not even thinking well, the head of the program asked me to do this. So I apply and got in the program. And now I spent my junior year at Trinity College in Ireland. Mark : But among the other little things, you got to take the seminars and it was so wonderful. So I took a seminar in non-Euclidean geometry with a guy named, I think his first name was Ted. Ted Cecil, math professor. It was just wonderful. Blew my mind of opening up the world and different ways of thinking. And I could tell the story a little bit, but on graduation, I wind up teaching math and religion. And first question was, did you study any math in college? Yes, I studied non-Euclidean geometry. Mark : And I got to spend a year working with Bob Cording, writing a thesis on a book-length poem by Galway Kinnell, called The Book of Nightmares. And I had met Galway because he was a visiting writing instructor, actually for the Worcester Consortium. So, I was able to take a poetry workshop with him when I was a sophomore. But to spend a year engaged in writing, I learned how to read, I learned how to write. It was so wonderful. Mark : So, just that experience and the confidence it gave me and helped me, it challenged me to think, you're really not that much of an idiot. But then jump ahead a couple of years, I'm bouncing around doing different things. I'm working for a Congressman in New York and I want to get into public policy, public affairs. He's advised me to go to law school. So I apply to some law schools, and I get something in the mail from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. And I read it and say, "This is what I should do." Mark : So, I apply there and I get in. Later, I served on the Admissions Committee at the Kennedy School and realize how the heck did I get in? And I know the crucial factor was, I was in the honors program and Holy Cross. So for some reason, Father Carlson took that time to call in this knucklehead and say, "You may want to do this." And in that way, it was just a conversation, but it had this impact on my life. And I'm 62 now and it's still blooming, and those are special moments. Maura : Well, and that's one of the things that I really enjoy is I get to have conversations with alums like you in this podcast, is to hear how many times individual people reaching out and knowing you as a person has a tremendous effect. And the fact that Holy Cross is small and allows people to get to know you and to see something in you that you didn't recognize in yourself at that moment. Mark : There were things you got to do. Some of this was day and age. So late seventies, there was so much freedom. My sophomore year, I realized that we were at this giant buffet table and it was all you could eat. You could get whatever you wanted. And so at the time, you would take four courses each semester, but you weren't limited to that. So I saw it as, well, naturally I'll take a fifth. I don't have to pay more. And then I would find out and sit in on other classes, then I would find out if you didn't see a class that you wanted, you could just make one up. Now I know Independent Studies, but that wasn't structured then, so sophomore year went to John Mayer, who was the chair of the English Department, and he taught myself and my two housemates a course on Bob Dylan, which was awesome. Maura : That's great. Mark : I remember mentioning it to my parents saying, "I'm taking a course on Dylan," and they were like, "What are you doing?" But it was awesome. Or senior year, my girlfriend, now my wife, we were college sweethearts. So she started on a course, which is not unusual at Holy Cross, of a bio pre-med and quickly wound up as an English major. But now, in senior year and she's got to make up some of her English credits. She's not seeing a lot, she can fill it up, but she needs one more course. We'll just find one. Mark : And I'm like, "Who are some of your favorite authors?" And she hits on Joseph Conrad. I said, "Great. We'll get a class on Conrad. You and I, we'll go do this." And she goes, "How are we going to do that?" "Don't worry." And so, Pat Bizzell in the English Department approached her and she said, "Sure, this would be great." So the two of us would read a book a week, and then we would meet with her, and how awesome is that to be able to have and go and do those things. There were a lot of things like that, but it's also, there were other things that were more extracurricular. Mark : So, sophomore year around Christmas, I read Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test about Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. And they would have what you would call today, a rave. And I'm reading this with the house band, The Warlocks, which changed their name to be the Grateful Dead. I'm reading this and I'm like, I would love to go to something like that. But what do I know? So then decided we'll have our own, and went off and did things, which now I look back like, wow, that was pretty good. I got a group of people together, today we could call a board. Everybody put money in, we sold tickets. We bought some things that we resold. I won't go into that even if the, what do they call it? The standards, the laws say that they can't arrest me anymore. And we had this three-day party with bands. It was just wonderful because you could go do that. Like again, different day and age. Mark : That year, I'm sleeping in Beaven, and every Wednesday night we had a cake party where we would charge money, and $1 would go to buy the cake for the next week, and 1$ would go towards this three-day party. So, I was learning to be an entrepreneur and then repeated it at a different level senior year. I came back from Ireland, wanted to do something and we created something called The Lunchbox Theater. During the lunch hour, we would put on plays and poetry readings, and concerts, and just had a blast doing this. And I'd run around and line people up and get people to agree to stage a play. What great fun. And we could go and do it. No one was going to stop you, and that it was encouraged and that was great. Maura : Well, and I can see now why you didn't sleep at all? Mark : No. Between that and work. I had a professor, Brendan Kenelly at Trinity College who would say, you go to university to find out what you don't know. And I didn't know. Eventually Father Carlson before, so I'm taking this Greek lit class freshman year, and now we come on to our first blue books, and I was in Carlin, which then was primarily a freshmen dorm. You could feel the stress level rising. And I'm like, well, I should be worried. I should do something. And that's when I realized I had no idea how to study. I had no idea how to take notes, no idea how to study. I didn't know really what to do. So I stayed up all night, re-read The Odyssey and The Iliad and I showed up with no sleep, but it's all fresh in my mind now. A lot of it, because I was so unsure of myself and insecurity that gets flipped sometimes as bravado. Mark : I remember it was a Bob Cording class sophomore year, and okay, different time and age, and I am ludicrous. It's a 10:30 or an 11 o'clock class and small class. I think everybody was a senior, I'm the only sophomore in the class. And I'm showing up in my bathrobe, sitting in the back of the class. And he turns, he hands out the first paper, and Bob was so diligent and detailed notes, but very demanding. Hands this out and he announces to the class, "I'm really disappointed and they're poor. And I'm telling you now, you're going to have to rewrite these." Because the highest grade, there were like two Cs and everybody else got a D. And I'm thinking, what the hell? People are slumping. He says, "But was one paper that just hit the mark and I'm going to read it to you." And he starts reading it. And all the people, I'm like several rows back from everybody, they're all looking at each other because they all know each other. Is that yours? Is that yours? Slowly they realize it's the freak in the back of the class. Mark : Again, it was somebody, Bob coming to me and saying... It's a lesson I had to keep learning. Don't be a fool. You can do things and now that becomes an obligation. You got to make something of that. Plus, there's friendships. I was texting last night with a buddy of mine from Holy Cross. We're still close. For a long time at that house that I mentioned, we would have like 25 people come down for president's weekend, bringing their families. We had this at a mini reunion. My wife, Carol, during the pandemic at six o'clock every Tuesday night, there's a Zoom call where they call themselves the Carlin Girls. They're in their sixties. They're not girls, but they do a Zoom call and they'll get 20 people in it. And every five years, they take a trip together and they go to Miami, or I guess, The Bahamas they've been to, all because there's this rich connection that was made at Holy Cross. Maura : It is. It's a special, my best friends in the world are from Holy Cross. It is, it's a special time, and it's nice when you can make those connections. It's amazing to see them last. Mark : And there's something about the Jesuit Mission and the liberal arts that always has you asking, inquiring and asking for more. It directly feeds into the business we have, which is a social enterprise. We have a social mission, and where do you get that from? Well, you get it from some of the activism and some of the yearning that was instilled in me in college. Maura : Well, and it seems like, looking at your career, from Holy Cross, you mentioned the Kennedy School, and then fast forward to today with John's Crazy Socks. It seems like, and I'd love to hear from you, but it seems like there's this thread of entrepreneurial-ism and mission and 'striving for the more' that seemed to be woven throughout your path. Mark : I look back and I guess I've always been an entrepreneur. I didn't always have the language to use it, but early on, everything and again, I didn't always necessarily have the language, but everything was mission-driven. So, I got out, I taught school for two years. Pure happenstance that I did that, I went to graduate school for literature. I was in a doctoral program and I'm sitting in there, sitting in a class the day the US invaded Grenada. And I don't know if people remember. It was this tiny island and we had to go rescue medical students. It was crazy. And I'm like, I should be doing something. So that's how I got the job at the Congressman. I showed up at his office and said, "I want to work with you." They said, "Well, we don't have any jobs." "That's all right. I'll volunteer. I just want experience." Mark : We move into a community and you'd connect. I can remember when we moved into Greenpoint, Brooklyn, we were early hipsters. It was before it boomed, and through the church and we set up a food bank, we set up a clothing depository. We work with the local recycling program to set something up, because you go and do that. I spent much of my career in the healthcare field. I wound up running the Medicaid health service program in New York City, and then ran a series of companies that were trying to figure out, how do you better deliver healthcare to the poor? How do we better organize care? Mark : But some of that Holy Cross thing was always there of the liberal arts and how do you pursue that mission and those values and still be carrying things out? But that wide interest, it fueled a lot. I started a software company. I ran political campaigns. I did a fair amount of writing. I published some of my less than really terrible fiction. And even this enterprise, we've now been doing this for four years, but people would say, well, when did you get into it? How long have you worked in retail? How long have you been in the sock game? Got no background in it. But I'm 62 today, everything I have done has prepared me for this moment. Everything I have done in my life has prepared me for this interview. Maura : Well, and that is the perfect segue to pull you into this John too, and to talk about John's Crazy Socks, and talk about the incredible work that you are doing. Because you're making a lot of change and you're doing a lot of good in the world through this company. Mark : We're very fortunate, but what are the two things you always talk about? John : Try to do for others. Mark : Try to do for others. It sounds trite, but the more we can do for others, the better off we are. We're living a dream. We get to do what we want to do. We have no excuses. We can't blame it on the board. We can't blame it on headquarters. And it also speaks to the way we run the business and our appearance. One of the internal ambitions, and I've always wanted this to be a way, I want this to be a great place to work. I want people to love working here. We work at that and you make that happen, and that runs through... What's our overall mission pal? John : Spread happiness. Mark : Spreading happiness. Well, you got to start at home and people got to be happy, and you have to understand it can't be lip service, it's got to drive through everything you do. So, here's an easy way. When it comes to customer service, you heard the old saw, the customer is always right. Nonsense. The customer can be damn wrong. But we're not in the business of being right. We're in the business of making customers happy. So, we don't limit any time that people spend with customers. People that work with our customers know they can spend 200 hours on any customer, at any time, doing anything they want, just go and wow that customer. Mark : We had something last week. Somebody had ordered something they said they were going to pay by check. That's pretty rare, somebody say they pay by check. And what our folks did was they said, "Okay," but they didn't fill the order until the check arrived. And when they did, it was an item we had sold out. So we sat and I said, let's think about this. First, in four years, maybe we've received 15 checks. It doesn't happen. Every time somebody says, they're going to send us a check, they send us a check. So, why not just live in a world where we trust people. And as soon as we get the order, we ship it out and trust that we're going to get the check. And my colleagues are looking and saying, "Can we do that?" "Why not? We can do whatever the hell we want to do." Mark : And they were like, "Well, what if people do this or that?" I said, "Nobody does that. Would you do that? So why don't we just treat people that way?" And it's so easy. And wouldn't you rather live in that world? Maura : Yes. Mark : Now, if we get burned, if all of a sudden people are fake, but it doesn't happen. We doing the same thing with our returns. You don't have to send us anything. Just let us know. If there's any problem we're going to replace it. We're going to give you your money back. We want to make you happy. What results of that? Well, if we treat you that way, you tell other people. Aren't people happy, because we're not going through stuff. We're just trying to make you happy, and our return rate last month, our refund rate was 0.6%. Businesses would kill to do that. We give away anything we can. Maura : Well, and I know that the origin story, if you will, of John's Crazy Socks is out there for people to read and to watch. But I'd love to hear from you about that moment, because I talk to so many people who dream of starting their own business. Who say, someday, I'd love to do this, but there's a very small percentage who actually do it. So what sparked that courage to really go and make this happen? Mark : Well, first of all, it is, again, it's much simpler than you think. Worst thing that happens is, you fail. And you go on. But ours grew out of a specific situation, this particular business, and origin stories matter. Because you take your DNA and they run through everything. So ours, it's the fall of 2016, and where were you buddy? John : I'm in school dad. Mark : Which school? John : Huntington High School. Mark : So, he's in Huntington High School in the states, and this is across the country. You can remain in high school until you either graduate or turn 21. If you have a disability, you can stay until you're 21. So this was going to be John's last year at school. Like everybody else, he's trying to figure out what do I do next? What are you looking at? John : I looked at shop programs in school. Mark : See anything you like? John : No, I never saw anything I liked. Mark : Well, the answer is, there's not a lot of great choices. John grew up in a household where he saw me starting different businesses and running things. And I'd like to say he's a natural entrepreneur, because he did things like that himself in school. I remember showing up at his summer school, we've got a summer program, and came into some and the principal came out and said, "I want to talk to you about John." And that was always good. Particularly my middle guy, Jamie, the principal comes, wants to talk to me, that's not good. That's the same way with me. But with John, okay. Well, it turned out John wanted to run a talent show, and he organized a talent show at the school. Never mentioned to me. He didn't think why I have to ask permission, I just go and do this. Mark : So, he doesn't see anything he like, the natural entrepreneur doesn't see that as a problem, but as an opportunity. So what do you tell me? John : I want to go into business with my dad. This is my idea. Mark : I was starting some online businesses. He comes and tells me that, it's like, okay, let's go do this. And traditionally, what you do in a business, once you get the idea, is you stop everything to prepare a business plan. Work out your competitive analysis, your market research, your operational projections, financial projections. We did none of that. We went what's known as the lean startup route. We were bootstrapping. Let's just get something up and running. I've worked with venture capitalists before and done that. We didn't want to do that. Just get something up and running. And he's the perfect partner because he just believes, of course this is going to work. Maura : Why wouldn't it? Mark : Why wouldn't it? And so much of what we've been able to do is why not? So, I'll let you know on something that's coming up on March 30th. This is top secret information. On March 30th, we're going to introduce our unity socks, which are blue socks with American flags on them. We want them to symbolize inclusivity and unity, and we get this idea. We want to give them to every member of Congress. So on March 30th, we have two local congressmen coming, a Republican and a Democrat, to help us introduce these socks, and we're going to give them to every member of Congress. We've already been invited to come up to Albany and do it in the New York State Legislature. And we see ourselves that we can go across the country, just symbolizing look what's possible. Have John be handing out these unity socks. What a wild, ridiculous idea and yet, okay, who's going to stop us? Maura : And yet it's so perfect. What a perfect idea. Mark : And it just grows. Not every idea is a good idea. We have bad ones. We do a lot of presentations. Right before this, we were speaking virtually to a school in New York City. Last week, we got a question from a high school student, need to ask permission from to do these things. It's like, no, that's part of the power. You don't have to ask anybody for permission. Just go and do and come back to... It's the nature of the social enterprise. You've got to have a mission. Mark : You can't be, we just want to make money. It's got to be something larger than yourself, an impact you want to have on the world. And when you're driven by that, it's so motivating. All the petty stuff falls away, and that's how you can go and connect with people. We get asked, what's the key ingredient? Which skill? A lot of it is just belief. If we have a mission to spread happiness, just believe. So when you ask on the origin story, okay, we'll find a way forward and we'll go test it. And it turned out it went well, right buddy. Maura : Well, I think even more than just believe, you talked about wanting to make a great place for people to work. And I think that the fact that you care about your employees, and you care about the people, both who work with you and who you serve, that is another really big piece. Mark : It's all the whole. So yes, our mission is to spread happiness. You do that by hiring people with differing abilities and showing what they can do, by giving back and by making personal connection with our customers. When it comes to this workplace, one of the things we're trying to share with other employers, hiring people with differing abilities is not altruism. It's good business. And what do we see? Morale is way up. Productivity is high, retention is through the roof and it helps us recruit. And it makes for a better workplace. You think the benefits would mainly accrue to the people with differing abilities, but everybody is better off and everybody is happier. Mark : But I've worked over the years into, in essence, a formula on employee engagement. One, you have to start with a mission in which people can believe. It's got to be something greater than ourselves. It's got to be something that can matter. Two, everybody has to know how they fit into the mission, how their job matters. There's no leg work. There's no, I'm just a cog in a machinery. Yes, our webmaster knows, but our sock wranglers, that's what we call the pickers on our pick and pack warehouse, they know their job matters. Mark : Three, put people in a position to succeed. Don't ask them to do what they can't do. Give them the tools. If they need a special chair, get them a chair. If they need a software tool, a webmaster needs some analytical tool, get that for them. As a manager, you have to be a leader. And in doing that, what you have to make clear to people is, I work for you. My job is to put you in a position to succeed and if you have problem, if you have a limitation, my job is to try to help remove that limitation. Mark : Four, recognize what people do. People care. It's as simple as saying, thank you. I saw you doing this. What you do matters. We value. And then the last, stay the hell out of the way. Let people do their jobs and they will thrive. But some of this comes down to, it's like a Christian thing. Do unto others, treat people the way you would like to be treated. If you treat people poorly, they will respond that way. If you treat people that I don't trust you, so I have to manage and inspect and micromanage, they will respond in kind. Maura : Well, and I know that you've had a lot of opportunities to spread this message. I recently saw that you joined this CEO Commission on Disability Employment. And I know when we've spoken before, you mentioned going before Congress in the past. Mark : We've been very fortunate. We've had a fair amount of media coverage. We've had some viral experiences, and we go out and basically proselytize. John, you love the speaking engagements, right. John : Yeah. I love speaking engagements. Mark : So yes, we've done things. We've testified twice before Congress, we've spoken to United Nations. We're part of the State Department Speakers Bureau. So they had us take a little speaking tour in Canada. We didn't get tour T-shirts made up, next time we will. And yes, we're on the CEO Commission for Disability Employment. And I laugh. This was founded by Voya Financial and the Society of Human Resource Managers. How are we on this? Like, we're on this National Autism @ Work Roundtable with IBM and Microsoft and Ernst & Young and Warner Brothers, and John's Crazy Socks? Mark : We appreciate the opportunities and you could go back to Rome and find this motto, and you can see it with the Kennedy's and with Spider-Man. To those who are given opportunities, come great responsibilities. So I'll give you an anecdote on that. We're down on Capitol Hill, and we get a phone call here in New York in the office, from a customer in Houston who says, "I see that John and Mark are on Capitol Hill. My mother works there. She's a big fan of John's, would it be possible for them to meet my mom?" Person says, "Sure. Here's Mark's cell phone. Just text him your mom's name and contact information and he'll do it." Who's mom? Nancy Pelosi. Mark : So now, we get an audience with Nancy Pelosi and forget about right wing, left wing. We vilify our politicians too often, or deify them. They're just people. She's a grandmother. She comes in, her eyes light up seeing John, and she brings out pictures of socks that she gave former President Bush, because John had become a sock buddy with former President Bush, George H W Bush, where they exchanged letters and socks, and all this is great. We take photos, but now we have this opportunity that creates an obligation. Mark : So it's yes, but Ms. Pelosi, we have to talk about some other matters. One, we have to talk about repealing section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standard Act of 1938, great piece of American legislation. It created the 40 hour workweek, it eliminated child labor, it created overtime. But it allows employers to pay people with a disability less than minimum wage. So, there are 400,000 people being paid as little as five cents an hour. And we are grateful that we have this opportunity, but we are now going to take advantage of this. Mark : I'll give you a recent one where, despite our best efforts, we contracted the COVID virus, John, my wife and myself. And for Christmas, we gave John a hospital stay. He was admitted on Christmas Day, it was dicey for a few days. People say it's nothing, it's just the flu. Now very healthy, got out eight days later. So, we held an event at the hospital because we know we can attract media attention. So we went back to the hospital and you got to thank everybody, right? John : I did. Mark : But we also used it to do two other things. One, to raise awareness about the risk that people with down syndrome face, they're not more likely to get the virus, but if they do, five times more likely to be hospitalized, 10 times more likely to die. So, we want to get that word out. The other thing, the hospital let me stay with John the entire time, even when he was, because things went bad for a day or two. When they moved him to the critical care unit, they let me stay. Now, Federal Regulations require that people with a disability, that they get access to their caregivers. That's not the way it's practiced, particularly during COVID. So, we wanted to highlight look, this is better for everybody. That there's always a little medicine with the sugar. Mark : So, we keep driving that mission and you can't separate the two. We'd like to make money, we'd like to live indoors, like to pay the rent. And if the business doesn't succeed, then we'll go home and all this stops. So you got to make that happen, but like the giving back. So, we baked into it from day one. We donate 5% of our earnings where? John : Special Olympics. Mark : Special Olympics. Why the special Olympics? John : I'm a Special Olympics athlete. Mark : And then we've created a whole series of products that celebrate causes and raise money for charity partners. So the first one was a down syndrome awareness sock, raises money for the National Down Syndrome Society. But more recent ones, an EMT tribute sock raises money for a local EMT squad. Last April, we wanted to thank people. We introduced healthcare, superhero socks, and they've raised over $50,000 for frontline workers. Mark : And there have been different points when very smart people have said to me, you're not making money. What are you doing making these donations. But we wouldn't have the business we have if we weren't doing that. Willingness for the long haul. So, among things that are really cool, our little business we've raised over $400,000 for our charity partners. Maura : That's amazing. Mark : John here is a special Olympic athlete, who's raised over $100,000 for the special Olympics. We make sure everybody who works here knows they're all philanthropists. It's very cool. We're so fortunate. So in the end, we are these knuckleheads running a sock business and this is a small business, and all we want to do is change the world. How much fun? Maura : And you're doing it too. That's the incredible thing. Is even if it's in small ways, as you showed all of these donations, one pair of sock here, the one conversation there, it's changing hearts and minds. Mark : That has been the thing that has surprised us the most, and it's still hard to wrap our minds around and we have to be really careful about. But people take inspiration and there is a deep, emotional connection. I could tell you all sorts of stories of things we get to see, but I'll tell you one that my wife likes me to tell because I tear up sometimes. Mark : The National Down Syndrome Society sponsors Buddy Walks around the country, but the biggest one is in New York City. Before it starts, they rent a billboard in the city in Times Square, and they want like a video with faces on it of people with down syndrome. So, we go there and John's like a rock star in that community. People are swarming him. But a woman comes up to me and just hugs me and says, "Thank you." Mark : Okay, what's going on? And she explains that she is from Curacao, an island just off of Venezuela. And she tells us that her daughter had gotten pregnant and tested that she was going to have a child with down syndrome. She explained that on Curacao, people were ashamed of people with disabilities, that they hide them. It's something they don't want deal with, talk about it. And in fact, everybody knew that her doctor said, "This is what you're going to do. You're going to get an abortion." And to me, this is not really an abortion story. This was just, this was grant. This is what's going to happen. And the family came home and they saw a news story about John and John's Crazy Socks. Mark : And she said, it changed their entire outlook. And she introduced us to her one year old son. How awesome. We get people coming up to us all the time, thanking us and telling us how they want to do this with their child, or it gave them hope. And we have to be careful. We have nothing special. We're just out doing these things and sharing. So when John stands up in front of a crowd, be it 10 people at a SEPTA, be at 22,000 people at Madison Square Garden, and they see what he can do, it changes people's minds. And we are very fortunate to be able to do that. Maura : I think you really are living that mission of spreading happiness and of doing great things with the opportunities that you've been afforded. Mark : We've been given a lot. We had our family and I could go on about my other boys and the love of my life. We'll be married 40 years. John : It's 39 years still. Mark : It's still 39, I know. Mark : There's a reasonable chance that we'll make it to June. Reasonable chance. Maura : Fingers crossed. Mark : Well, you know. I'm still a Dylan fan. There's that line, when I see you, I don't know if I want to kiss you or kill you. A lot a marriage in that. Here's just some of what we get to do, and how fortunate. We get to see minor miracles all the time. So one of our colleagues, Thomas, his mother calls us in October of 2017 and says, "I understand you hire people like my son. I need you to give him a job." We're not hiring, we'll post when we are. She calls every day and the moms are persistent. She's not the only one who's done this. So I got on the phone with her and I said, "Well, tell me about Thomas." Mark : She says, "Well, he's early twenties. He's on the autism spectrum. And he's in a very bad way. He's very depressed. We have trouble getting him to come out of his room. He won't shower or shave. He doesn't want to deal with anybody. We can't get him to join any programs or activities. It's so bad he hasn't spoken to his father in over six months." Sounds like a great employee. Mark : So, we have an opening and bring him out. And the opening is for our sock wrangler position, that's kind of our entry level position. We pay $15 an hour to start because everybody, you got to pay a fair wage. The way you get the job, you meet with John and me. We want to make sure you understand the mission and our values. Then one of our current sock wranglers will train you and they love doing it. You've trained people. John : Yes. Mark : They love doing it. And then when you're ready, you have to pass the sock wrangler test. You got to pick six orders, 30 minutes or less, show us you can do the job. Well, Thomas comes out and after an hour of training, says, "I'm ready." And he passes that test as if he was put on this earth to be a sock wrangler. Today, on the days he works, Thomas is ready, showered and shaved at 6:30 in the morning for his father to drive one hour to work. When he gets in here, the young man who wouldn't look at anybody or talk to anybody, goes around and wishes everybody in the building a good morning. Mark : I want to be really clear here. We did nothing. We did no special training, no government funding, no special programs. All we did was give Thomas the opportunity to earn a job, and how fortunate are we? And so Holy Cross, the imprint that studying and understanding the liberal arts in the way it gets you to think and prepare, the way you imbue. Some of this comes from studying literature. You imbue different levels, different things all in the same action. That runs through what we do. I've spoken to students. Mark : So, I was an English major, I got out in 1980. There was no internet. Fax machines had not come, they've come and gone. There were no cell phones. We run an E-commerce business, I couldn't have studied that if I wanted to. But the liberal arts let you understand how to learn, how to figure things out, and so this runs through what we do today. And a lot of my classmates would be shocked to think that someone would be interviewing me for a Holy Cross alumni network. You've met those friends. John : I do. Mark : Paul, you should be talking to him. Paul Miles running a charter school and John Flynn, who's got this bicycle recycling program in Hartford. Charlie Brown or Chris Potter and Sue Mack and all these good people. Maureen, lots of good stuff. Maura : John, what's the best part for you about working with your dad? John : One thing I love working with my dad, I'm so lucky to be where he is. I'm never without my dad. He always, I've changed I can, if possible. I love my dad. Third and lastly, about my dad going to Holy Cross. I am a proud son because I am so, so happy of him being my father. Mark : What about your mom? You got to speak up for her, right? John : Yeah. I'll never forget mom. I am proud son. I am so proud of my dad, my mom accomplished. They are amazing accomplished. Mark : And you like hearing the stories of how we met, right? John : Oh yeah. Dad is so romantic. Mark : Romantic? Ricky, Kevin and I were looking for beer. And I can tease something for you. I'm not going any further than this. I've read in the alumni magazine and seen references to the fingers on the Jesus statue in the quad. I can tell you I was there and I know what happened. But that's it. No names, no details. Maura : Living mystery. That's what that is. Well, and my last question, this has just been really wonderful. What is your favorite pair of socks? Mark : What's your favorite pair? John : My favorite pair, my down syndrome superhero socks. Mark : Down syndrome superhero socks. Maura : Yes, that sounds like a good pair. Mark : Whose face is on those socks? John : Me. Mark : You. Maura : Good choice. Mark : You're a funny boy. Maura : I think we'll all have to check out that pair of socks. This has been an absolute pleasure. Is there anything else you want to share with listeners before we go? John : I want to say something. It's something that I said before... Mark : Go ahead. John : I am so proud of my dad's career. I am so proud of my dad's career and college. I am a proud son. I love my dad and what he did. It's wonderful. Mark : Well, there's a late poem from Yates where he recounts his achievements and those were notable, part of the revolution, part of the day of the Senate, winning a Nobel prize. But the refrain is what then sang Plato's ghost, what then are you going to do for me next? And we get to keep doing things, right? John : I love you dad. Mark : My boy. Maura : Thank you both so much. This has been just such a pleasure. John : I'm so proud of you Dad. Mark : Well, you let us know if there's ever something we can do. You got to put the pitch in. Where do people get stuff? John : At JohnsCrazySocks.com. Mark : There you go. Maura : Perfect. Yes. And I can say, I treated the alumni relations team to a pair of donut socks last year for Christmas, and they have been a big hit. So, I am a fan of John's Crazy Socks. Thank you for everything that you do. Mark : Well, thank you. John : I'm a big fan of my dad. Mark : You're a fan of your dad. Boy, you are being nice to me today. Maura : That's our show. I hope you enjoyed hearing about just one of the many ways that Holy Cross alumni have been inspired by the Mission to be people for and with others. A special thanks to today's guests and everyone at Holy Cross, who has contributed to making this podcast a reality. If you or someone you know, would like to be featured on this podcast, then please send us an email at alumnicareers@holycross.edu. If you like what you hear, then please leave us a review. This podcast is brought to you by the Office of Alumni Relations at the College of the Holy Cross. You can subscribe for future episodes wherever you find your podcasts. I'm your host, Maura Sweeney, and this is Mission-Driven. In the words of St. Ignatius of Loyola, now go forth and set the world on fire. Theme music composed by Scott Holmes, courtesy of freemusicarchive.org.

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Herbs, Plants, and Paganism

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 21, 2021 48:42

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com S2E23 TRANSCRIPT: ----more---- Yucca: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-Based Paganism. I'm one of your hosts Yucca. Mark: and then the other one, Mark. Yucca: And this week we are talking about herbs, about plants, about Wildcraft all that good stuff. Mark: Yeah, exactly. You know, I was saying before we started to record, if you think about the stereotypical, which is hut, you know, they're out there in the woods, right. You know, all dripping with Moss and everything, and you step inside the threshold and you look up what you see are the rafters hung with bundles of various kinds of plants and herbs that are drying. Right. So pretty much a part of the whole tradition and archetype of the witch or the healer or the, the pagan to be to be working with our local herbs and. and to do that with, for a variety of different reasons. So we're going to address that today with the caveat that neither Yucca nor I is either a botanist or an herbalist. So we're just kind of nibbling around the edges of this, but wanted to make our listeners aware of it and give you our thoughts. Yucca: exactly. I think that that image, that archetype is really interesting in today's conversation because very, very few of us live in that context anymore. That archetype, that image comes from at least as stories about times in which we lived in much smaller communities when we've lived much closer to the rest of nature. And for many of us today, we live inside of, of very large urban areas in which the connection with the rest of nature is not so visible to us. Of course, we're still part of these cycles. We're alive. There's no way of getting out of that, but our society is set up in such a way that many of us are simply consumers. By what has already been produced. And then it just magically goes away, whether that's a flush of the toilet or you put it in the bin and that gets taken away by the garbage truck. And we just, aren't part of the production element, let alone the death part and the decay, which we'll come back to in the fall. When we come back to talking about compost and all of that good stuff, just cause we like to do things seasonally. But I think given that the, the connection with plants and of course not just plants, but fungi and, and all of the other very interesting types of life that there are that I, think that that can be really, even more potent in our lives today because it's missing. Mark: I agree. I, I think so. And one of the things that struck me as you were talking about our urbanized environment is that the other thing that's happened is that we have really farmed. The expertise in various skills like medicine. And that's not to say that Western medicine is somehow wrong because generally speaking, it's not, it's very effective at what it's good at, but Yucca: that's another conversation of, it's very good at it. Certain things not so great at other things. And hopefully we can start to address that. Mark: right. But it used to be that medicinal activity was mostly the purview of yourself, yourself and your family. You kind of had to take care of this yourself. So if you didn't know anything about. The kinds of herbs that might help you, if you have, you know, a really terrible sinus cold or something like that, then you were just going to be miserable and maybe things would deteriorate from there. But if on the other hand you knew that elderflower is a really effective tincture for head colds and congestion and stuff like that. Then you could remedy your situation and improve your symptoms. So, that image of the, the herbs drawing in the rafters yes, it's part of the whole witchy aesthetic which is cool. We're into the witchiest. But it's also a reflection of a time when people just had to be much more self-sufficient because services were not as available. Yucca: and, and today it's, it can be Mark: Cool. Yucca: a reminder and a symbol of, of that self-empowerment of taking back a little bit of that knowledge and that ability to, to take care of yourself and your loved ones and your, your household members. Mark: Right. And, and I should say right now, I alluded to it a minute ago, but we are in no way suggesting that. You know, that you try an herbal approach to your cancer treatment or something like that. Western medicine is powerful. It's science-based it's peer reviewed science-based, which is about as good as it gets when it comes to our research and our understanding of the nature of the human body and its processes. And that is still a wide open field that we're discovering things about every day. So not everything is known by any means, but we are not saying you know, take up, take up this soft path, herbal medicine and give up on your, your family practitioner and know, that Yucca: Yeah. We're definitely not trying to set this up as a, somehow it's a either or kind of situation that like everything in life, but it's nuanced and there are, there are appropriate times for each and seeing it as part of a bigger picture is really important. Mark: Sure. If you're experiencing mild anxiety and you're unable to sleep a cup of camomile tea, maybe all that you need in order to solve your issue that yes, there are pills for that, but you may not need pills for that. You may just need a cup of camomile tea. Yucca: Yeah. And that's one of the things that later on we'll get into is, is bringing some of the ritual aspect into that as well, that, that cup of camomile tea tea, plus that as an, a component of your ritual could be really quite, quite soothing. Right? Yeah. So we've put that out there that we're not saying use, ignore your doctor's advice or anything like that, or, or shun particular kind of medicine or anything like that. But so all of that being said that the herbs and. Other types of life forms, again, getting into the fungi and some of the bacteria and things like that. They, they bring a richness and that there's going to be some which are going to be more widely known. Like we just mentioned Campbell meal. That's something that's can grow in many different environments, many gardens. And it's something that is widely available, but there'll also be things which are very, very specific to your own area where I live. We have OSHA, which is oh, you're nodding. Like you've heard of it before. Yeah. Mark: I've had OSHA. Boy. Is it bad? Yucca: It is, you know, that, that bitter there's something to that. And yeah, w where I grew up, basically you have any trouble in here. They then make it pictures too, but just two on the route. And there's all kinds of really fun folklore around it too. And when I had my first kids, I was given several bundles of them, of people, swearing that you got to put them in the crib and put it in this direction, that, and put it in the car seat and all of the, you know, lots of fun things around that. But certainly you're not going to find that plant in say, you know, more than Canada, it's not going to Mark: no, no, you're not going to find it where I am either. Yucca: Yeah, it's, it's very specific regions and there's going to be a ton of plants where you are, that, that I wouldn't even know what family they were. Mark: sure, sure. Yeah. I can't emphasize enough how dependent we are on on full Gloria and indigenous people in discovering this stuff, because honestly, there are plants that are deadly and there are plants that are delicious and good for us and medicinal. And somebody had to do the trial and error at some point to figure out which was which, and it took generations, many, many generations, and it took tremendous courage to accumulate that base of knowledge and, you know, indigenous peoples all over the world have their own kind of Pharmacopia of things that, that are from their local environment that they know how to use. So, I, I want to be clear, we're not in any way, encouraging a sort of cultural appropriation here, more that as in our previous episode where we talked about paying attention, Part of paying attention as pagans is knowing the plants of our local landscape especially the ones that are useful. So wherever you are, there are plants that are, that can be medicinal. There are plants that can be recreational. There are plants that can be sort of spiritually enhancing. There are plants that can kill you. So being aware of all of those and, you know, knowing their names, knowing their uses, knowing how they're prepared is something else that kind of goes along with the whole being a pagan thing. And that doesn't mean we're saying you have to do it, but the more connected you are into the fabric of the, the landscape where you live, the more deeply your earth based earth based spirituality will. Yucca: Yes. Yep. So what are some things that folks can do to try and deepen that connection? Mark: Well, having a plant identifier, I think is a big deal. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm old and I'm old school, so I have a so I have an actual book, an identifier that will identify plants that I can take with me while I'm hiking, but there are apps that are pretty good. And some of them, you can just take a picture of a leaf and it'll tell you what you're looking at, which is pretty impressive. The but then of course, knowing what to do with that do you rub it on your skin? If it's poison Oak, you do not. If it's nettles, you do not. On the other hand, you can make a very effective dandruff shampoo with nettles. You need to boil them so that the formic acid is toned down quite a bit. But it'll still make your scalp tingle, like mad Yucca: And the right time of year they're delicious. Mark: are they? I was unaware of that. So you cook them like a leafy vegetable. Yucca: Yep. Yeah. You want to get them and there's certain varieties which are better than others, but you get them when they're really young and tender and you boil that down really well. And it's wonderful. It's another one for women's health. And, and I believe that that's supposed to be high in iron and some of those some other minerals as well. So it's an example of, of herbs. Now, the nettles are one that again, are going to be found in many different areas because they've been spread there's different varieties, but for many of us in the north in north America that was brought over by the settlers and then it went wild and you can find it all over. Now there's a lot of other like Mullins and, and some of other ones that are the same where they weren't from here, but now you can find them doing just fine. Mark: Like, in my area, fennel, for example, is a highly invasive universally seen plant and phenols delicious, Yucca: Another delicious. Yeah. Mark: You just, you roast the fennel bulb and it's got that, you know, kind of smokey licoricey flavor. And it's, it's great. It makes a wonderful side dish. Yucca: Tim use it a lot. Like you would celery or like a turnip or something like that in your stews. Yeah. Mark: this, got the same kind of crunch or a leak. It's got the same kind of texture and crunch, but it's got that unique licorice sort of flavor. So that, that's an important point that you make Yucca, which is that the Americas are really heavily impacted by invasive species. Native landscapes are few and far between at this point because European and Asian varieties have invaded and have taken over because they have no natural predators. So they just. In some cases, we find that problematic enough that we actually try to control or eradicate them. But in many cases like fennel they're not really doing any harm other than to the fabric of the ecosystem, which we don't tend to prioritize very much. So we allow them to continue to spread. Yucca: Yeah, well, it, and it really depends on the particular plant because there are some that fit nicely into the community and function well as part of the ecosystem. And there are others, which out-compete because they don't have those predators, they don't have that balance. And that's where we run into some pretty major challenges because they can have their function when managed properly. But when there isn't that management, whether it's us or their natural management, it can be very destructive. Mark: Yes. I think nettles are a good example of that because there really isn't anything in north America that wants to eat a nettle because they have needles that are full of formic acid and it's very uncomfortable. But where they come from, I'm certain, there's something that needs them, whether it's a bacterium that kills them or something Yucca: there simply must be it. Yeah. Mark: be Yucca: That's if it's been around for awhile, Mark: okay. Yucca: that's what nature does that? It's, there's an open niche right there and whoever feels that's going to have their advantage, they're going to grow and, and it works itself out Mark: Right. Yucca: and Mark: Yeah. Nature of horror Yucca: on a luck and it always does on, on the real big, long scale. But, but there can be a lot of loss and destruction in the meantime. And I'm of the opinion that as, as humans who are able to think logically and observe these patterns, that we have an opportunity to help facilitate that happening in a, in a less destructive, less painful way. Mark: I agree because it can take tens of thousands, if not hundreds or millions of years for the, the natural counterweight to some of these organisms to arise. And in the meantime, you can blow a pretty big hole in the fabric of biodiversity. And as humans, we don't really have tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands to millions of years to wait. Yucca: Well, we don't. Yeah. And does the bird outside your window, right. Or. You know, whatever organism it is. Yeah. As individuals, we certainly don't. So it's a tricky one thinking about, about the different kinds of plants. One thing I would encourage people to in their own areas that they, that they steward and tend to, to try and not have black and white thinking about plants that not if there's a certain type of plant, it might not necessarily always be bad or, or you know, that there's really got to think about the whole system. That it's part of an example in the community where I'm from is we have Russian olives and Russian olives in the riparian systems can take over. They spread really, really well because the birds loves the berries. They poop them out and then they grow everywhere. But they're also early succession species. They can really help to build soil. And so if there's one in a garden, it's not necessarily, Oh, it's evil. You've got to cut it down. It's Okay. Let's look at how is it interacting with the rest of the system here? I think autumn, all of in the east is a relative that this happens with too. It's a nitrogen fixer. If managed properly, you can be parting it, you can be growing your soil. You can be setting up the situation for later successional plants to come in. So one of the things that's important is just to think about the whole system that's happening and not just get into the, this plant is bad or this person is bad or that kind of black and white thinking. Mark: Yeah. This, this leads me to a natural tangent, which is unrelated to our topic, but it brings me on to thinking about, Yucca: tangent, Mark: yes, there you go. Well, humans human thinking is associative. So here we go. It reminds me a bit of the so-called cancel culture where, you know, people who have opinions that a person does that someone else doesn't agree with are immediately kind of cast on the Ash heap and nothing they have to say or nothing. They do their, their kind of inherent worth as a person is denigrated. I, I just think that's very extreme. I th I think it may. Much more sense. It's fine. If you disagree with somebody, I've certainly told plenty of people to fuck off who I totally disagreed with. I, you know, I'm not interested in talking to you because you're racist, Trumpist homophobic, whatever it is. But that's not the same thing as just kind of persevering in character assassination and, you know, needing to drive the name of someone into the dirt. Which is something that I see on Twitter Yucca: Twitter. Mark: lot on Twitter. Yucca: Twitter. and, and the like, Yeah. if that's, it's a really interesting area, because there's so much happening with that, I think that the cancel culture often gets shouted by certain corners of the media is a immediate way of trying to dismiss what people they're legitimate concerns. And I personally, I think. There's it's legitimate to say, I'm not going to Sue. I'm not going to give you the voice of the platform to, to, to be spreading really harmful beliefs in and misinformation about trans folks. Right. Right. But there that isn't the same as what you were talking about. Just the, the dragging someone through the dirt and the, and the real immediate reactionary. So there's just so much in there. Mark: Yeah, there really is. One of the people that's been castigated for being transphobic legitimately in my opinion, is JK Rowling. And I will go as far as saying, I completely disagree with her on this issue. And I think that she is bigoted and I, I don't approve of that bigotry. I will not go so far as to say she's a bad person because I don't know her. And I don't know enough about her to be able to say that she's a bad person or not. What I can say is I don't want to engage with her because I choose not to engage with people who hold those kinds of views. Yucca: Yeah. And that's, I was never on anything that followed her, but if I was on Twitter or something like that and followed her, I would have unfollowed and said, Well, I'm not going to, I'm going to put my money somewhere else. Right. That's so that's where I stand with that. But it, you know, it's a big, I'd say I'm really glad that, that this is something that we're even talking about. I say that on so many issues, but then I'm so glad that we can even talk about these things now. And to have these fights, even if I don't like the way that people sometimes buy theirs, Mark: well, yes, Yucca: itself, right? Mark: yeah, 30 years ago, if you suggested anything in support of trans people, you know, the whole world would land on you with both feet. And that would be the end of the conversation. So at least now there are these movements for liberation and and we can advocate on their behalf and be a part of them. Yucca: Yeah. Well, Mark: So that was a tangent on a tangent. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So we were talking about not having black and white thinking about plants Yucca: yes. Mark: and Yucca: Or any, or? Mark: Or Yucca: Yeah, Mark: you know, really, Yucca: your neighbor, JK, Rowling, whoever. Yeah. Mark: yeah. Which doesn't mean that you don't end up having very firm opinions, Yucca: Hmm. Mark: but at least admit some nuance. Right. You Yucca: Yeah. Mark: even Hitler loved his dog that doesn't make him in any way an acceptable human being, but he did love his dog. So, that also applies with plants because, well, not only in, in planting a garden or trying to do a restoration project, but also in their use because plants are toxic to human. Many plants are toxic to humans in varying degrees. And a lot of Yucca: we like. Mark: Yes, especially the ones we like, we call them spices. Those are plants which have evolved to create substances, which will lead them to taste bad or to smell uninviting or to in some way, negatively react with the kinds of organisms that are most likely to eat them so that they can survive. We like, Yucca: those organisms, if they're the right size. Mark: Right. So we like to use many of those in small increments. And in fact, over time, spices have been pretty much the most valuable commodity in the world. In the middle ages, pepper was worth something like 12 times gold on a weight for weight basis Yucca: Wow. Mark: because it had to come from Asia. And this, this is in England. And if it came from Asia to England, you can imagine the the dangers and risks and and expense that was involved in bringing that over. Now we can go to the grocery store and there is a rack of spices from all over the world. There's cinnamon from Indonesia and there's there's cumin and there's Mason, there's coriander and there's cardamom and, and all of those cloves, all of those express chemicals, which were originally intended to make them either dangerous or at least undesirable on the part of, of organisms that otherwise would eat them. And so the same thing is true for humans. There are plants that will kill you, and it's really important in your local landscape to know what they are. of them produce nice looking, little fruits don't want to eat. I'm Yucca: some of them are beautiful flowers. The poison hemlock, which was Eurasian in origin, but you can find throughout many of the woods in north America now as well. And I believe that that's the case in some of the Australian and New Zealand books as well. Basically anywhere that the Europeans went there, their plants went with them. Mark: So this is kind of, where I'm going with, this is kind of a warning to, to know what you're doing. Don't make yourself a nice cup of cherry bark tea because it's full of cyanide and you don't really want that cherry stones and cherry bark actually have quite a lot of cyanide in them. You can eat the fruit. The fruit is delicious. But the same is true of apple seeds. Yucca: Well, you'd have to eat a lot of Mark: you have to eat a lot of apple seeds, Yucca: Don't make a flower out of it, Mark: yeah, there have been cases of people, however, who really loved the taste of apple seeds and saved them until they had a big cup full and then ate them as a treat and died. And it's just something to be aware of that particularly the reproductive parts of these plants are likely to have concentrations of toxins in them so that they don't get consumed. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Nature's clever evolution that Yucca: it, does it in both ways, right? Some of them, they want to be eaten because they got to go through that digestive track before and be fertilized. Mark: right. Yucca: And others. Nope. They don't want to be touched at all. Mark: Right, right. I think it's the, the stone fruits that are particularly toxic in the seed because they only have the one seed. If there's some kind of a critter, that's going to crack that open and eat the kernel out from the inside, then the, the reproduction is over. Whereas if you think of something like a raspberry, which is coated with seeds, that wants to be eaten because most of the seeds are going to survive through the gut and then end up being deposited. Yucca: Hmm. Mark: It's just a different strategy. Yucca: Yeah. It's just amazing how many different ones there are. And then there are ones that don't even worry about being eaten, like the dandy lion that just says I'm going to make a lot and I'm just going to float Mark: yep. Off I go. Yucca: if I go. Yeah. Before we jump on. Just another reminder for folks we've been talking about plants and mushrooms are not plants. They're fungis. So they're much more closely related to us than they are to plants, but that's another one where many, many mushrooms are edible and delicious and some of them are toxic and will kill you. Mark: Yes. Yucca: And it's, some of them look very, very similar to each other. So we're not trying to scare people off from, from mushroom hunting or collecting plants, but just to be really informed about what you're doing. And for today, there really isn't an excuse not to be. We know that if you're listening to this podcast, you have internet access and it's easy to, to look these things up and, and find your local groups. Is going to be excited to, to identify the plant for you or the mushroom for you that you post the picture of or whatever it is. Mark: that's right. There's a, there's a, a group where I live the Sonoma county mycological society and I've gone, mushroom hunting with some of their members and it is, it is amazing how excited they will get at finding a mushroom this long. That's got these little long tendrils on it and they know that they know the Latin name for it. And you'd think that they had grown up with this thing that they'd known it on a first name basis. Yucca: What an incredible kingdom that Mark: oh yes. Yucca: fun are just unbelievable. And we start to get into reproduction how bear reproduction works or how there are many methods. It's just, it's just. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Boggling. And then of course, how important they are to the plants and we start getting into the microrisal associations and it's just, Mark: And the, the lichens and other sort of commensal relationships and everything. Okay. Yucca: That's one of the things in my area it's very, very dry, but we have so many different kinds of like, and it's, it's just, it's staggering and fungi and lichen. And so like in our several, usually several fungi and some sort of photosynthesizer like, Mark: Moss or Yucca: it's, it's, there's a single cell, so, but they could be prokaryotes or eukaryotes often like a cyanobacteria or eukaryotic algae. They're completely left out unless you go to a very, very, unless you go to school for my cology, that's left out of the, the studies, right. You might do bought me one-on-one and have half a chapter talking about funding and they're not even plants, but they're so crucial to the functioning of our ecosystems, whether you're in a dry ecosystem or whether you're in the middle of the tropical rainforest, they're absolutely crucial. And we just don't, we barely know anything about them and what we do know just doesn't get taught. So Mark: Hmm. Yucca: that's a, that is a rabbit hole to go down. If you are interested in, in things to check out. Mark: Okay. Yucca: Okay. Mark: Yeah. It's it strikes me that as we're having this conversation, we are we're veering back towards. Wow. No with which we did an episode on a while ago, but we come back to that again and again, which is that we're just very excited about nature. Very you know, the, the beauty of it, the majesty of it, the remarkably intricate cleverness of it working within the laws of physics to create these organisms that just fit this perfect little crevice in in a completely complicated fabric. So, and that's another reason why getting to know your local plants and having somewhat of a relationship with them is also really a value because then when you are out hiking in the woods and you see aha there's miner's lettuce then you know, well, I, I can eat that. That's, that's actually pretty tasty, especially early in the spring when it first sprouts out. It's a very, very nice vegetable. And it's like meeting an old friend. So it's, it's kind of cool that way. She'll still, we talk about preserving things a little bit. Yucca: Yeah. So there are many different methods, but one of the easiest ways, which we've already mentioned several times and here's that the image of the hanging herbs, but is simply drying. So this is going to work with, with your herbaceous plants very well. So your mints you know, oregano and things like that. Mark: Yeah. So you want to hang them upside down so that the moisture drains to the end of the, the branches and leaves and then slowly evaporates out. Yucca: For quickly, if you're in the Southwest Mark: yes, or quickly what that does, is it concentrates the various useful oils and compounds into the, the lower parts of the plant. And that's the part that you want to use for making your tea or whatever it is. You can learn. Oh, go ahead. Yucca: I wasn't, you don't want to do that in direct sunlight. So you don't do this in your window is pretty, as it might look, you, you want to do a spine for there to be light in the room. Although dark is better, but take it somewhere away from the window. That's still gonna be. Mark: right, right. Okay. Yucca: Continue. I'm sorry. Mark: Well, I'm just thinking, I was thinking of some other examples of the kinds of things he might do that with various kinds of mints. Of course, they're very useful. Mint is very invasive where I am, so we have some in our backyard and we will always, as long as we're here, we will have access to as much mint as we want. But for people that don't have access to it, if you find peppermint or spearmint you can, you can cut it and then hang it upside down. And it makes a very nice tea. Yucca: Okay. Mark: elder flowers are another very common like cold remedy, cold symptom remedy. It doesn't cure the cold of course, but it kind of eases the symptoms and elderberry syrup, elderflower syrup are also used quite a bit for for coughs and throw them. Yucca: And elder is often used as an ornamental. So you'd be surprised where you can find it. Of course, you want to be mindful that it's not getting sprayed with something, but that shrubby that beautiful green shrubby looking thing with the pretty flowers that, that depends on the, the variety, what color, but often like a beautiful white might end up being elder, say they're all over. Mark: the things, that's, that's a, that's a happy accident. The things people will plant are really kind of amazing to me. People plant privet, which is unbelievably invasive and really annoying. That's just, it kind of sticks out all over the place. It's not attractive. It's I Yucca: And when you, in that case, you're, you're meaning aggressive. They may be invasive to the area, but they're an aggressive plant. The way many mints, the meant family in general is just find it. all over the world. But when people talk about being invasive, they mean that it's just a very aggressive, it spreads, but through the roots and can take over and just be delighted to be wherever it is Mark: right. Yucca: at the expense of most other things you want to ground cover though. Mark: Yeah. The meat is a little thirsty though, so it, it, it sits in a little low spot, which is right underneath the shade of a live Oak. So it's a little bit more wet they're over the dry months than it would otherwise be. So, and we haven't seen it expand much beyond that footprint. But there's still a lot of it. Yeah. Yucca: We're planting a lot from that family right along the border of our house now where we live, things do not grow unless you water them or they are from the desert because we just get, we normally get 12 inches of precipitation total. So that's rain and, and and snow, although this past few years, we haven't gotten anywhere near that, but, but we're putting it around because it's one of the very few things that will grow. And they're really, really strong sense. So going back to what we were talking about about those, those tastes and smells that we appreciate as humans that were actually designed to repel, insects, and herbivores from eating them. It's a wonderful barrier for keeping little unwanted guests out of the house. Mark: Yes. Yucca: If you've got a You know, your wood box or something like that, sprinkling it of the mint leaves in the fall often helps to keep little critters out of it. That sort of thing, Mark: You know, I never actually thought about using using herbs in that way. I wonder what would repel rats we've had? Yucca: they're not a herb, but they, Mark: yeah, well, cats, cats, cats that aren't lazy. Our last cat was just like, no, no, I can't be bothered, but this one I think would be enthusiastic. Kiki's the new cat is she's pretty excitable Yucca: Well, those strong smelling or your mints, those are a great one, but they won't do it on their own. That can be. Part of your strategy? Close also, that's something that people will do, especially for ants and other insects that really rely on those pheromone trails. You can break that, that around the border of your house or the threshold to your door, Mark: What I know has, Yucca: a, it's not a silver bullet, right. I'm sorry. Continue. Mark: What I know has worked really well for others that we never quite got around to doing is you can buy coyote, urine coyote, urine will definitely scare away a rodent. The the very impulse, you know, the, the slightest indication that there is a coyote in the area we'll make them stay away. So that's helpful. Yucca: Hm. Yeah. Mark: So we talked about mints, another large family that has many, many useful plants in it are the salvias or the sages. And they're, some of those are considered sacred by various indigenous groups. Some of them are just culinary spices that we use to, you know, flavor our pasta sauce. But if you have access to a variety of kinds of sages, those are really wonderful to hang up and dry because even in the, even in their dry state, they will perfume your air a little bit. You'll, you'll be able to smell the Sage on the air. Yucca: They're, they're pretty dried and they can really beautiful in the garden too. That's another one that is a great, depending on your stage brightening, great for having an, a pot that you can take with you when you moved to your next apartment and are tougher to get. For, you know, there's, there are some plants that are really easy and finicky and others that are much more giving and sages tend to be on the forgiving Mark: They tend to be on the Hardy side, as long as you don't over-water them too much. They will get root rot if you consistently over-water them. But if you just over-water them once in a while, they'll perk up and be very happy and think they've been in a big rainstorm. So other ways of preparing herbs are to make tinctures, which are usually in alcohol, Yucca: yeah. Mark: Not wood, alcohol grain, alcohol ethanol vodka is typically, you know, pretty useful for this purpose. If you want If you want very, very preservative solution, you can get ever clear, which is about 85% ethanol and 15% water. It's the water content that leads to the deterioration. So that's, that's the thing to be, to be concerned about. But people swear by various kinds of tinctures for different kinds of ailments. And you can do your research and find out what those are. Yucca: And it's a use for all of those cool bottles you've been collected. Mark: exactly. Yucca: That's another one. Talk about the the stereotypical witchy. All those cool little shaped bottles and all of Mark: I have. So many of them have so many of them and a bunch of them are empty. So that sort of undermines the whole purpose. I should be filling them with herbs and tinctures. Yucca: When dried a lot of dried things that you can from the garden you can dry and powder them and stick them in and you get, you know, beautiful you know, strawberries, for instance, if you have an overflow of strawberries, they dry and powder beautifully or carrots and things like that, or just, or powder herbs. So if you don't have enough space and you dried all that mint, you can take that down and crush it and stick it near your jar. Now, the challenge though, is that the more light they get, the faster they go bad. Mark: right, right. Yucca: there's a off to how pretty you want your kitchen and environment to be and how long you want your things to last. But you're probably more likely to use them if you can. Mark: That's true too true too. So finally, we were going to talk about the use of herbs and plants in ritual. Yucca: Yeah. uses. There's also your personal relationship and association with plants. For me, it often comes down to smell the really strong aromatic plants are the ones that I have the strongest emotional connection or association with. So the Juniper, pinyons, those are ones in the penny on here are our local pine has just a dope to me, delicious smelling staff. I know for some people they don't like the smell of it, but for me, it's, it's the smell. Childhood freedom than wild, miss them, all of that. And that smell is just instantly, just instantly brings me to that sense of, of freedom. Right. And just a carefreeness. So I might use for my association, I might use that in a ritual. when I'm really trying to bring that out. else might have a very, very different sense though. So we're not the folks who are going to prescribe to you use this or this herb means this and this plant means this, right. It really is going to depend on you and what's happening in your mind. Mark: Right. Right. What are your associations? For example, burning Oak leaves for me is this very autumnal, pastoral. It's kind of hard to describe, but it's, it's kind of nostalgic and it feels. It feels really good. It just, it feels really comforting. And I don't know, like if it's reminding me of a time, that was, that was really comfortable and wonderful, but I, I don't actually have a memory of that association with the two of them, but it's a still, you know, when, when I want to feel kind of comfortable and settled in my home, burning Oak leaves are often a way that I go, Yucca: Do you make up, do you do it in a little bowl or do you take a single leaf and kind of play with the candle? Mark: I have an abalone still that I use for burning herbs. And what I do is I get a small piece of charcoal And then I can put the leaves on top of that so that they kind of smolder and smoke Yucca: Hmm, Mark: because otherwise, if they're dry enough, if you light them on fire, then they just go up and there's, that's the end of it. And you've got a big sort of smoke ball in your room. Yucca: which has its own appeal. What if you're right under the smoke detector or somewhere where it's dangerous. right? So a reminder to people in fire areas, we are in buyer's season. So be cautious about that and responsible. Mark: Yes, please. So I think to kind of wrap all this up the, the plant and fungus kingdoms are wonderful. They're filled with a very interesting and unique and special and cure eccentric and curious kinds of examples. The, and getting to know what your local plants are, is a way that you can become more connected with the planet itself and with the landscape that keeps you alive. Yucca: And starting wherever you are, right. We're not saying to be a good pagan, you've gotta be able to name 250 plants from your area or anything like that, Mark: And you have to have plants hanging in your kitchen Yucca: yes. That you harvested yourself under the full moon Mark: with a silver sickle. Yucca: Yeah, no, if you're into that. Cool. But, but really it, you know, it might just be as simple as finding out, you know, what are the most common trees in your area, that tree that you notice, right? What is that? I might just be starting there. It might be if that's the, that's what you got digging a little deeper, or just being aware and depending on your personality, maybe letting that come naturally, maybe you're a researcher and you want to get that book or join those groups. Many of us are looking for ways to reconnect with other humans right now. That might be a great place to go with it. Mark: Okay. It could very well be. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So once again, this has ranged far and wide Yucca, but thank you for a wonderful conversation. I really, really always enjoy talking with you. Yucca: Thanks Mark.

Reopening

Play Episode Listen Later May 31, 2021 46:07

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com If you enjoy the podcast and would like to help us reach more ears, please consider leaving a rating or review on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-wonder-science-based-paganism/id1501228156 Event links mentioned and transcripts: ----more---- Atheopagan Saturday Mixer - June 5 - 10:15am PDT: https://www.facebook.com/events/748671529133222/?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A[%7B%22surface%22%3A%22group%22%7D]%7D Atheopagan Sex Salon: https://www.facebook.com/events/458783078686816/?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A[%7B%22surface%22%3A%22group%22%7D]%7D Free Spirit Gathering 2021 Online: https://www.fsgonline.org S2E20 TRANSCRIPT: Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder: Science-Based Paganism. I'm one of your hosts, Mark. Yucca: And I'm Yucca.. Mark: Today we're going to talk about the reopening after the waning of the COVID-19 pandemic obviously the pandemic isn't over and there are certainly causes for concern in many places about reopening too soon or places elsewhere in the world where the, the pandemic is still very much raging but in many parts of the United States with the advent of the vaccination and so forth we're talking about reopening and going back to some of the activities that we weren't able to do during the shutdowns. And so today we're going to talk about that and what we think it means for us and what we'd like to retain from what we learned during the pandemic and some hopes for what we'll get to do soon. Yucca: We certainly are not saying that the pandemic is over or that it's gone or anything like that, but we're in such a different place than we were a year ago today. We're just looking at very different futures. And. I would still really encourage people to be very, very thoughtful about their activities. But knowing that, if you've got the vaccine, if you're going to go spend time with people who also have been vaccinated, that the options of how to be safe are much, much greater than they used to be. Yeah. Mark: Yes. I mean, we all know what the safe practices are now, you know, wear a mask, practice, safe social distancing, wash your hands. Particularly if you're not feeling well put a mask on and try to avoid contact with other people. It's not rocket science. And it works. We know that it works not only because we had far fewer fatalities from COVID than we would have if we hadn't shut down by a factor of hundreds of thousands of deaths. But also because we have indicators from other diseases that were stopped in their tracks last year, I was, we were just talking Before we were recording and the United States only had 2,300 cases of flu last year that were reported. Now, ordinarily we have 32,000 deaths from flu and millions of cases, but there were only 2300 cases reported throughout the entire country. So that's social distancing and mask wearing prevented people from transmitting influenza, which is a deadly disease. Yucca: Yeah. And in our household, our immediate household of four, which includes two very young children, we weren't sick at all. And with little people are very good at getting sick and spreading sicknesses, nothing. And. That's because we, they weren't sharing snot with their, with other children. That's a big one. Right. But we also, weren't taking them to stores where they would be touching the shopping carts and then putting their hands in their mouths and then jumping on top of grownups and coughing in their faces, which is just all normal primate behavior. right. Mark: Right, right. Nothing wrong with it. And actually it does help to build a stronger immune systems in children to be exposed to a lot of different contaminants like that when they're very young. But of course, when something, this deadly is going around, you kind of have to make that take a back seat to safety. Yucca: Yeah, so we said eat plenty of dirt. Mark: Okay. Yucca: That is one of the interesting things to think about on a societal level. I think that w we've really needed to make the choice that we made, but be very interesting to see the decrease in exposure to childhood diseases and things like that. How that, what kind of long-term effects that has on the development of our immune systems Mark: Yes. Yucca: in a world where we already are struggling with over sanitized environments and in all kinds of things like that. Mark: Right, right. So that kind of leads into what are the things that we learned? During this pandemic what were practices that we learned and what were adaptations that we developed that we would probably want to keep even as the disease fades we learned some things and we made some good adaptations. So let's talk about those now. Yucca: well, I think what are the first big ones that the topic we were already on was the idea of masks. If you're not feeling well, I really hope that people will continue to use masks. If you wake up in the morning, have a little tickle in the back of your throat, but Hey, you still got to go to work. You still got to pick up food afterwards, all that, you know, throw a mask on and you probably are contagious. So you're being respectful to the world around you to have that mask on. Mark: Right. Yeah. You're probably contagious. So act like it. Be considerate of other people. Because there will always be people in our midst who are immune compromised or for some reason or another can't for example, have a flu shot every year, or are particularly susceptible to some kinds of rhinoviruses and those folks need protection. Yucca: And you can't tell who they are by looking at them. You might be able to tell that 95 year old elder. Sure. But you know, I have a dear friend who can't take the, who's young, she's like 29 or something, but she can't take the COVID vaccine because of some pre-existing health conditions and is therefore susceptible, but you'd absolutely never know looking at this person. They look completely healthy, fit, muscles. Like they work out at the gym, all that stuff, but you just don't know. Mark: Sure. Well, especially I mean, I'm thinking about it, my work we have a program for clients who are HIV positive. As a part of the healthy food delivery that we do through the food bank and with the new triple cocktail of drugs that advantaged in the nineties You know, these folks are fine. As long as they're taking the drugs that suppress the virus in their system. And, but they're still immune compromised and you wouldn't know necessarily whether they were up to 100% immunity, of efficiency of an immune system or not by looking at them, there's no way. So it's incumbent on all of us to be thoughtful. And if we feel like we're going to be contagious with something, put on a mask. Yucca: Yeah, And if we're going to keep doing this civilization thing, Where there's billions of us living closely together. Then that's just what we got to do. And I'm pretty fond of the lot of us. There's some that I could leave, you know, some that I could skip or maybe not spend time with, but as an idea, I think it's pretty good. Mark: Yeah, me too. Me Yucca: Right. I think humans are pretty great in general. Mark: Yeah. They are pretty amazing. Yucca: So there's that element? What for you, Mark? Mark: Well, I mean, we're doing it as we speak. The zoom revolution has been a huge thing. The opportunity to speak with people at a distance cheaply with a visual, as well as the sound component is obviously very compelling for people because they've chosen to do it in many cases a lot more than they ever communicated by phone. You know, we need all those visual cues and as it is, we lose a lot through the lens. We don't get to see a lot of, you know, sort of faint cues that just don't translate through the camera. But I used to see my ritual circle every six weeks or so in person. And since COVID, we've been zooming every Friday. So I actually get to see them a lot more than I used to. Even though we can't be together physically and do physical rituals and enjoy one another's company and a meal and all that kind of stuff, which I'm definitely looking forward to. But we did in the atheopagan community. We do mixers every Saturday morning. Those aren't going to go away when once COVID is gone. And we've done a lot of in-kind online events, like death chats and sex salons and webinars and all that kind of stuff. And the fact that zoom has become this video conferencing tool, very robust video conferencing tool. That's affordable by pretty much. Everyone is just a great thing. It's really a powerful tool. Yucca: yeah. we, my siblings, for the first time in years, we were all together, so to say, on Thanksgiving, and we'll probably do that again. That was fantastic. And getting to see people and it's, again it's not the same as being in person, but it's a lot more than the phone and people can participate on different levels. And zoom has also done something very interesting for education. Now people have very mixed feelings about distance education, depending on what kind of experiences they had. But it's has opened up a lot of opportunities for people to connect, to normalize that so that people in rural settings can have access to teachers all over the world. This is really big, not just within the United States, but for villages that are literally a day away. Where kids can get access through satellite internet, to an instructor. And that's something that has a really exciting it's really exciting for the future of people and education and all of that is that connection that is being built there. Mark: Yeah, Yeah, for sure. And I have to say that just in the particular case of what I'm doing in working to get the word out about non theist paganism around the country and world, the fact that all of the conferences became virtual this year was a very big deal because I can't afford to fly to all these various places and make presentations and pay for hotel rooms. I can't possibly do that. And yet, This year, I was able to present to the Conference on Current Pagan Studies, the Seattle Atheist Church, a UU congregation in North Carolina. I have the Silicon Valley (Sunday Assembly) congregation coming up. And both of us actually will be presenting to the Free Spirit Gathering later on in June. All of them through virtual means, and that is very powerful to be able to serve on a panel or make an individual presentation to people that otherwise you would never be able to reach it. It has tremendously expanded the capacity of what I've been able to accomplish over the last year. Yucca: And people's ability to attend those, right? So you were speaking at them, but people being able to go to them, the society that I'm a member of the Mars Society, our turnout was so huge and the feedback was great about it being virtual, that the decision is that we're just going to keep doing it that way, even if we can do it in person, you know, flying to Pasadena or Boulder or wherever is just, isn't a possibility for most people. Mark: Right, Yucca: right. I did it once. I drove to one of the meetings once and it was like, this was, this is great, but how many hundreds of dollars in gas and hotel and taking time off of work and all of this Mark: carbon emissions. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yeah. That really has been the experience of a number of conferences. I've also been to some conferences for work. That I've been to, the access level is just so much higher. And most of these events are free because they can be, they're not paying a huge amount of money to reserve a hotel and all of it's hotel rooms or a convention center or an assembly hall. They're not paying for a sound technician and a camera technician and all that kind of stuff. The level of investment that's required to be able to do an event like that is markedly lower. So, that's really a good thing. And I think that it's gonna pay dividends for us over the long haul. Because I think that like the Mars Society, many organizations are going to decide, you know, it's fun to go off and play in another city and stuff, but is that really what we're about is that our mission or is our mission to talk about the subject at hand? Yucca: Yeah. And not to say that there aren't in that there isn't value in the in-person interaction. I think that all of this has really highlighted how important in person interaction can be as well. But it's only available to a very select group of people. Where this equals the playing field. A lot for many people Mark: And the technology is improving, zoom now has breakout rooms where you can have smaller groups where you're able to interact with one another in a more informal kind of way. Yucca: And we're talking zoom, but there's plenty of other platforms Mark: there are Yucca: that are very sad that they didn't get to be the one. Mark: right. Yucca: But there's a lot of, but you know, I don't particularly use it, but FaceTime has got, is supposed to have gotten much better and Google Meets better. And what are some other ones, Slack and Mark: Facebook messenger. Yucca: you have. Mark: Yeah. Wow. Damn it. I just did a commercial for Facebook. Yucca: Sorry, we're just listing options. Yeah, so, I mean, that's all that's some real positives that we've seen. Mark: That said. It was tremendously isolating. These were all adaptations that we made so that we didn't feel completely cut off from social interaction because we're social beings, we humans and the business of the world needed to carry on. We have all our various enterprises that we're doing, whether it's teaching or businesses or a religion or whatever it is, we have the things that we're working to. To develop and that couldn't stop entirely. So we just did what humans do, which is adapt. Yucca: People controlled spacecraft from their living rooms in their pajama pants. It's pretty cool. Mark: Yeah. Yucca: Humans are amazing like that in that we push through and it's, and this is what we're living with today, but I think it's important to remember that, that humans have been going through hardship for as long as we've been humans. And we managed to as a whole, not all of the individuals, but we managed to make them make it through that and bring good forward and bad from those things. So, Yeah. Mark: Unfortunately, one of the things in the United States that's really become evidently clear in terms of the response to the COVID virus is that and of course I blame the leadership of the last administration for this a lot, but nothing can't be politicized. I would have hoped that in the face of a deadly pandemic, we could have pulled together. We did it the way we did after Nine 11 and done something collectively that would have benefited all of us. And it would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives if we had. But unfortunately that was not that wasn't the call that was made by those that were in a position to make the call. And so now, We have even more of a rift between those who believe in science and listen to experts and those who don't Yucca: some other things that maybe we can think about carrying on that I hope there's more of are some of the outdoor gathering and that's a lead into. What we're going to talk in a little bit about the looking forward. But I think that the outdoor dining has been great. The, when we have been able to see people, having it be in an outdoor setting there were some schools that very quickly and of course it really depended on the situation, but we're able to develop more outdoor classroom spaces and see the value in that. Mark: And I think it's oh, go ahead. Yucca: Continue. Mark: Well, I think it's good for people to be outside generally. But I mean, I have a prejudice--I am part of a nature based religion. I think being under the sky and exposed to the sun and the wind and to have, you know, visible growing things around you is is inherently beneficial to us at a deep level. And I think a lot of people have been enjoying eating outside, but of course not maybe in January. Yeah. Yucca: Yeah, depends on your particular region. But yeah, there's, I mean, there's so much from that level of appreciation. Yeah. We talked recently about that in an episode. But also just getting more vitamin D just from a medical perspective. In the country that we live in the United States, states the majority of adults, and I don't know the numbers on children, but the majority of adults are vitamin D deficient. And I would imagine that's going to be very similar in much of Europe and Australia and particularly in, in the Northern countries Mark: Yes. Yes. Although my understanding is that being out in the Sun, isn't that beneficial for your vitamin D unless you're wearing very little in the way of clothing, you just need the surface area. In order to manufacture the vitamin D. Yucca: A lot of different factors involved. From what time of day to your skin tone to the rest of your diet, if you don't have enough of the vitamin K, even if you get the D there, your ability to process it as effected. But , we're not medical professionals here. But my understanding is that even with clothing on that, there's still the benefit of just the hands and the face to be getting that. But again, that really depends on skin tone Mark: sure of course. Yucca: And unfortunately, The, well, I'll just put it out there that for folks, if you're interested research sunscreen and the that's a big topic there, but the use of sunscreen can be problematic for actually synthesizing vitamin D because of the balance of what particular wavelengths are being blocked out and which ones aren't. So it gets pretty complex there. And in addition to the vitamin D there's other factors involved with just light levels, even if you're not getting, even if it's not vitamin D the L the light that you have inside versus outside is so different. And our brains adjust for us. We don't visually see it, but if the difference is there, so. Mark: indoors and outdoors. Yeah. I mean, it's a gigantic difference in terms of the sheer intensity of light. Well, that was rather interesting tangent about light levels and vitamin D. So outdoor dining, outdoor learning outdoor activities. Good for you. Yes. Thumbs up. What else? Yucca: Not an issue for me with my particular field, but I hope that working from home is more normalized, Mark: Yes. Yucca: Because there's a lot of reasons why there's some pretty big benefits to that. Again, not saying that we've got it perfect, and that there aren't things to work on, but cutting down on that commuting, giving people, respecting people as you know, people able to make their own decisions about how they manage their time and be in a healthier situation. And all of that kind of stuff is just really big. For the types of jobs that's a possibility for. Obviously if you are a chef or something like that, it's the working from home it's going to be a little more challenging. Mark: right, right. And I mean, this was one thing that we really saw in that we, that should have been evident that we only learned during the COVID crisis is that the most important roles in many cases are low paid service positions. You know, that's really, what's keeping everything running, you know, people who are collecting garbage and recycling people who are interacting with the public in any of a variety of different ways, healthcare workers that, you know, those folks who are at most risk for exposure to COVID, we're also the folks that were least likely to be able to work from home. And. So we really need to be reconsidering the value of that kind of employment. And I would say paying people a lot more. Yucca: Yep. Mark: if you're an essential worker, but you're paid minimum wage. Well, what does that mean? But it just doesn't the formula doesn't work. Yucca: Yep. Mark: So, Yucca: So we've talked about just the idea of reopening some of the things that we hope will continue, that we will have learned and things that we think were positive that came out of this, but what are some of the things that you're really looking forward to as some of the restrictions lighten and it becomes a little bit more safe to have in-person interactions again. Mark: Well, one of them I've already done, which is that for the first time in more than a year, my D&D group got together and played in person last Sunday. And we played for what was it? I think it was only six hours, but still it was a nice long session. We had a really good time. It was great to see one another. It was just really fun. Yucca: Well, there's Mark: that was cool. Yucca: nothing like leaning over to see what the person rolled. Right. He can't quite do that on the computer, but he can lean over and go, ah, oh, you got a one. Mark: I rolled terribly all night. I must've rolled six ones in really critical situations. And particularly because my character has a very low strength, There were these strength challenges that I needed to do. So I mean, I literally just sort of flopped and flailed, my athletics checks across this set of stepping stones across a raging river. And other people kept having to catch me. And the whole thing was just really embarrassing, but. Anyway, it makes for a good story. Yucca: oh, that's awesome. Congratulations. To be able to be back in person and yeah. Mark: Yeah, it was great. So how about you? What did some of the things you're looking forward to. Yucca: Well, Going to the library. That's a big one, especially with the little ones, getting to go to the library. And our libraries were great about very early on getting a setup where you could do a contactless exchange of books, but it's just not the same as being in the library. And. Just looking through the different browsing. and and we have some just very sweet little children's sections and the libraries that we have in our county. And one of them has a rainbow hall that you have to walk through. That was there when I was a child. And it just really look forward to being able to just be there with the kids. Also, and this is a while out because my kids are under 12, so there aren't vaccines for them yet, but them just getting to play with other kids and it not having to be a stressful situation. Cause we've been able to do a little bit with the okay have your mask on and remember but it's really hard to tell a two and a half year old to stop tackling the other kid because that's what they do. Mark: Right, Yucca: They want to tackle each other and they want to try each other's masks on and all, and you just, it's just like, No. So just this, the stuff with the kids, this is what I most really look forward to. I mean, there's the part of me that says social anxiety that would be happy to never have to go into a store or inside of, you know, an office building or anything like that again but they're getting to see people and just not have to be nervous about strangers would be really looking forward to that. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I'm really looking forward to being able to get together with my ritual circle again. We've been together this Hallows, this, Samhain it will be 30 years. So we started in 1991 and until COVID we had just been rolling along. We live at somewhat of a distance from one another, so every six weeks was about what we can manage, but we just kept going year after year after year. And they're really my family. They're the people I'm closest to in the world. And I just so look forward to seeing them and then. Being able to hug them and hang out and have a meal and do our rituals and that stuff. That's really an important one for me. Yucca: Yeah. That's amazing. 30 years. That's great. Mark: And we didn't even, it was formed by myself and my ex wife--who's still in the group--for a one-off Samhain gathering, there was no plan that it would continue thereafter, but everybody was so happy about that one that they said let's do another one and 30 years later. Here we are. Yucca: Still doing another one. Mark: Yeah. All the original members are still members. Plus we've added two more, three more, three more. Yucca: Well, you, as a group were able to do virtual rituals. It's not the same as being in person, but you were able to carry through during the shutdowns. Mark: Yes. We've done a couple of virtual rituals since the, but not every Sabbath, not. I mean, we did Hallows and Yule. Those were the two that we did. Oh, we did something for Bridget too for the February holiday. So I guess we haven't missed very many. But anyway So I'm really looking forward to that. And also to the opportunity that opening presents, because I know that there are people in the Atheopaganism group on Facebook who live really in my local area and I've never met them and it would be nice to convene something. To do a gathering of those folks and, you know, get to meet them and know them. And if they're interested of course. Yucca: Coffee or a hike or something like that. Mark: like that. Yeah. And see where that goes. Yucca: Well, and on that note I think we've teased the idea before, but there's very serious talk and planning beginning for 2022 to have a much larger gathering. Mark: Yes. We still don't have a name for it. We've been calling it AtheopaganCon. I mean Atheopagan is too many syllables to begin with. You add an extra one and it's just outrageous. Yes, we're planning for a gathering sometime in the summer or early fall of 2022 in the Denver area, so that it's central for people in the United States to get to. And it's also a major airline hubs. So the air tickets are cheaper for people who fly. Yucca: That time of year is just fantastic in that area. Mark: it is. It's very beautiful. And there's there are, you know, Rocky Mountain National Park is right adjacent. They're just beautiful places to go. And it would be a great opportunity for us to socialize and share rituals and You know, share fellowship and maybe have some workshops or something, not sure about that yet. But it's basically an opportunity to invite people that have never met one another in person to come and, you know, meet up. And so, there's a lot of excitement about this. And almost nothing at this point is known about it because, you know, we've got to figure all that stuff out, like where people are going to stay and how much does that cost and Yucca: The logistics are pretty immense for that kind of thing. Mark: They are, but. We are fortunate in that this amazing woman who I know in the, who lives in the Denver area, who used to do a big Pagan festival called Beltainia there until a couple of years ago. She knows all the venues. She knows all this stuff and she's super competent and organized and she's on the committee. So I'm very excited that this is going to happen. Yucca: Yeah. Oh, that'd be, yeah, definitely looking forward to that. Mark: It'd be just so great. Build a fire... Yucca: yeah. it's this is just such an interesting time. It feels. It feels like, you know, you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, right. There's still a lot. And we got to keep on top of it and we've got to continue to be safe and responsible and continue for, to get the vaccine out to everybody. And there's still. Depending on where you live, much of the United States is doing pretty well with that, but we need the whole world, right? It's gotta be everybody. It can't just be, it just won't work. If it's just a select small group, it might protect you a little bit. I mean, getting your vaccine. Yes. We'll protect you. But if we don't have everybody, then we still have more strains coming out and all of that. But it was just such a, the feeling in the air is just so different than what it was with this feeling of uncertainty and fear and just heaviness that there was for last year. Mark: Yes. Well, certainly getting the vaccine was a complete mind changer for me. I didn't realize how oppressive the weight of the pandemic had become, because of course I was used to it, it had been going on for months and months. But when I finally got the vaccination, the second vaccination and realized that I can't catch the disease or that it's very vanishingly unlikely that I can catch the disease. I just felt so relieved and so free. Yucca: Wow. Yeah, I, after my 15 minute observation time I went out and had to just sit in my car and cry before I could drive home. Right. it was just, I didn't even know that that much. I'm getting teary, even thinking about now, knowing that there was that much stress and just held up, that was suddenly released. It was this is amazing. Mark: Yeah, it really Yucca: can't, you know, and for me personally, I was. never concerned about my own health. Right. I know that there would always have been the case that chance that I could have gotten very ill from it. But if I had gotten it personally, You know, I'm in very good health. I probably would have been okay. But the fear of my family members or just anyone, I didn't want anyone to get it. You know, I never wanted to be that vector. And having the shot made, it was just such a relief and it was so. It was a release of that is if that fear. Mark: Yes. And science being magical, right? I mean, the scientific application is applied to us and suddenly this tremendous cloud lifts off from us psychologically. So, you know, it's very much in line with our sort of understanding of science being amazing and transformational. We were going to talk some about Paganism in relation to the COVID pandemic and the reopening. And I guess my biggest focus is just on being able to do in-person rituals. I'm really excited about that in person feasts in person, of course, that all depends on my housing situation, which don't get me started. But. What are some other implications you think Yucca: They're variations on the theme, the themes we've already been talking about, but the increased sense of connection. And I don't know how much of this was just me tuning more into the community this year, or how much of it was the community, online, growing, and becoming more engaged and having more conversations. But it just seemed like at least within the non theist Pagan community, there was just such tremendous growth over the past year. Mark: Yes. Yeah. There really has been a big flowering. And I think that a lot of that has been because if the only community you're going to get is online, then you're really going to look for people that are of like-mind and environments, where people are supportive and kind and so forth. Interesting. You know, having conversations that are of interest to you Yucca: I think that a lot of this gave the opportunity for us to really pause and do what actually matters because we were forced to, we were forced out of our regular patterns that, and when you're in your regular pattern, it can be really hard to stop and really evaluate and have the space to do that. And everybody was forced to stop in some way. Mark: Yes. Yes. And I think that's one reason why the whole work world is not going to go back to the way that it was before COVID because there are a lot of employees out there who are going to think, you know, actually I value spending more time with my kids more than I do going into an office every day. And now that it's been established that remote work is possible, productive, profitable. There's just no argument that employers can make for those kinds of jobs that are able to do that against letting somebody come in fewer days or whatever it is. I expect that, especially in some of the big cities where there's a lot of technology industry, the commercial real estate industry is just going to tank. Because all of those businesses are going to downsize their office size. They're not going to need a little office or, you know, a floor full of cubicles or whatever it is for people who can be working remotely just as easily. And I think that's great. I think it, it's better adaptive to what people really want and that contributes to less stress and more happiness. And I'm all for that. Yucca: Yeah. There's so much, it's going to be, there's going to be scholars whose field is 2020 in 2021. What happened? How did this change at all? Mark: you bet the great pandemic of the 21st century. We hope Yucca: yeah. Mark: so. A lot of 21st century left. Yucca: Let's hope it's not like the world war where we get to call it the first pandemic, world pandemic one. Yeah. I mean, but it, my hope also, you know, moving forward is that. I really hope that we learned a lot on a local level and on federal levels and on the teamwork between nations as well on how to handle this on a really big scale. Mark: I sure hope so. I really hope so because it, this pandemic got bobbled in a lot of ways, you know, nations that should have been, that had the technical resources that had the. You know, that had like the CDC and the world health organization, all that kind of stuff. Those institutions should have been in a better position than they were. And that was not an accident. Those were deliberate policy decisions that were made that undermined our capacity to deal with a pandemic like this. And then one came along. And so I certainly hope that in retrospect, we become much more vigilant about this kind of threat because an awful lot of people died and they died alone because they were contagious. And I mean, it's a miserable way to go and it was miserable for their families and it's just tragic. So. What else? Oh, I wanted to announce a couple of events. Yucca: Oh, great. Mark: yeah. The atheopagan Facebook group is sponsoring a Sex Salon next Saturday, June 5th which will be at 3:30 PM on Pacific daylight time. And that is a, it's a place where people come to talk about issues with sex and gender and you know, how they affect us personally, how we see them societally and the primary focus of this episode will this event, this is the second one of these that we've done. And we're looking at doing one every month. This one is a focus on what is a Pagan approach to sexuality. What is, you know, if everybody in the world were Pagan how would that look different and how would our individual lives be different? How would our society look different? So that's where the conversation will start, but the conversation is always very interesting and fluid and it wanders all over the place. So, we had a fascinating very , moving heartwarming and really interesting conversation last time. Yeah. So I invite people to go to w we'll put a link to the Facebook event in the podcast notes. If people want to check that out. We're also going to do another Death Cafe which isn't scheduled yet, but we're looking at doing it in July and Alexandra Palmer is a once again, I'm sorry, Phillips is once again, going to help lead us in that. She's a death doula, who's a member of the community. And so she's going to help with that as well. So keep your eyes out for that to talk about all things, death related. We specialize in shallow and unimportant topics for our... Yucca: I mean, that's what you were covering some some pretty big ones there. Mark: yeah. Yeah. Big stuff. But it's important to talk about in our culture really doesn't want to, not in any Yucca: not directly. Mark: Yeah. It does a lot of innuendo, a lot of talking around lot of Yucca: Advertising Mark: yeah, and a lot of just very unproductive allusion to sex and death, but not really confronting the sort of deep human elements of those things. So wanted to make sure that everybody knew about those. The Atheopagan Facebook group does have a mixer on Saturdays every Saturday at 10:15 (AM) Pacific time. And you're welcome to join us for that as well. We always have new folks poking their head in and checking it out. And we really invite you do that. We can put a link to that in the podcast notes as well. Let me see what else? Oh I was talking about the Free Spirit Gathering. Yucca: That's right. That's coming up. Mark: That is coming up. So that is on the, is it the 20th? I'm going to look it up right Yucca: I believe we are speaking on the 19th. Mark: 19th. Okay. It's on Saturday, the 19th Yucca: 4:00 PM. Pacific 7:00 PM. Eastern. Mark: Yes. And you can go to www.fsgonline.org to register for that event to see the schedule of the presentations that are there. We are on, as we said, at four o'clock Pacific time five o'clock mountain, six o'clock central seven o'clock Eastern, and it will be a panel on Godless Paganism. And it's a really great group of people that'll be on the panel. At least I like to think so. It includes two of us. And also Bonnie who does the Sedna Woo YouTube channel, which is delightful if you haven't ever seen it on atheist witchery. John Cleveland Host who is the editor of the naturalistic paganism blog. And John Halstead, who is the editor of the Godless Paganism anthology, and has written extensively about atheist paganism. So, there it'll be the five of us and people asking questions and us answering questions about what is this whole non theist paganism thing about. Yucca: That's right. So it should be a lot of fun. Mark: It should be a lot of fun and it's virtual, so they can't actually throw anything at it. Yucca: So. That's a lot of announcements and it. has been a good conversation. So thank you, Mark: It has. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Yucca. It's always good to talk with you.

The First Four Principles

Play Episode Listen Later May 17, 2021 42:49

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com S2E18 TRANSCRIPT: ----more---- Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark. Yucca: And I'm Yucca. Mark: And today we are going to talk about the first four of the 13 atheopagan principles, which are embraced by those who follow the non theist pagan path of atheopaganism, which you can find much more. About@atheopaganism.org. These are ethical principles which are designed to help us guide our decision-making and how we live in our lives. They're not commandments they're virtues and there are things that we aspire to. So that's what we'll be talking about today. Yucca: And as always sharing this is not a saying. Like Mark, you were saying, this is not a commandment. This is not a saying you need to see the world in the exact same way that we do, right. This is us talking about it's this is a useful framework for us. Let's dive into what these concepts are, what these principles are and how they enrich our lives and experience as pagans in the modern world. Mark: Yes. For a couple of reasons, one of them kind of additive and one sort of subtractive in the additive sense just as we did. Episode on the four pillars, a couple of episodes ago, the four pillars of atheopagan ism, which are the four sacred things. These principles are sort of derived from the four sacred things that is, if you believe that those four things are sacred, then you will conduct yourself according to these principles. There's a logic there. Yucca: They really feed into each other. Mark: exactly. And so. What this does for us is it gives us an ethical framework that helps us, especially when dealing with thorny situational questions that are complex. We can ask ourselves, how does this square with these principles? I've embraced? How, you know, how do I best make a decision? That is in accordance with these guidelines. So that's sort of the additive sense. The other is the subtractive sense is that paganism has often been accused of being very weak in the world way of ethical development. There's a lot of, I have rights and I'm free and I'm going to do whatever I want because I'm free. And there's very little, well, there, you have to respect other beings and you have to be considerate about causing damage in the world and you have to be, you know, all those sorts of things Yucca: The responsibilities that come hand in hand with those rights. Mark: Precisely. And so, so when I was developing atheopaganism as a pagan path, one of the things that I really wanted to address was that paucity of ethical guidance and the atheopagan principles and the four sacred pillars are the results of that work. So today we're going to dive into the first four of the 13 atheopagan principles and we'll come back to the rest in subsequent episodes. Not all at once. We'll put some interruptions in between the principles episodes so that we have some variety. But I think this'll be a really great conversation about what we see as important in terms of perspective and behave. If you're in the world. Yucca: Just on a structural level. I really appreciate it being 13. That's really fun. There's the 13 moons and the one solar year. And I think it was somebody on the Facebook group who suggested applying the principles to the full moons. Mark: yes. Which was just a wonderful idea. I was so excited about it. We've just had the laughter moon and which is the perspective moon. And we'll be coming up soon on the Praxis moon, which is the regular well, we'll talk about that. When we talk about principle five But having 13, this is kind of a magic number for pagans because of the 13 moon cycles. And it's a prime and it's just got all those Yucca: just a fun number. Mark: it is, Yucca: That's great. Mark: kind of number And so as I worked up these principles and then kind of arrived at the end of the list and realized that I think I've covered everything that I wanted to, it turned out that there were 13. And so that was kind of a happy coincide. Yucca: Yeah, well, let's. Mark: dive right in. CRITICAL THINKING Yucca: Yeah, the first one, this is really appropriate one to be right at the forefront is critical thinking. Mark: Yes. Yes. Skepticism and critical thinking, recognizing that the metaphorical is not the literal and that both have value. It's not that we're saying that the mytho poetic storytelling symbolic realm, isn't a value because of course it is. We wouldn't be pagans if we didn't understand that we wouldn't be humans, honestly, if we didn't understand that. But fact. Yes, but facts are facts. And there is an objective universe outside of our skins, which is behaving according to physical laws. And it would be doing that whether we were observing it or not. And. Our capacity to identify the factual from the unfactual is really important. And especially at this time in American society, particularly, but it's happening all over the world with the rise of conspiracy theories and sort of crazy radical nationalism and various kinds of bigotry rooted in, in, baseless ideas about the superiority of one group of people over another. It's really important for us to learn the tools of critical thinking and be able to look at a claim made by someone and say, is this consistent with the evidence? How good is the evidence? Is this just the say so of some dude on YouTube or is this the consensus of scholars who have studied this for decades, there's a difference there. And we need to understand what the gradations of that difference are. Yucca: Exactly. And then also not just on that level, but within our personal lives. Looking at our own beliefs and going, Oh, wait, let's step back. And look at this. Where is this coming from? This just confirmation bias? Is this just me really wanting it to be true? let's let's look at the logic behind this. Mark: very much. So there are principles in In cognition theory called Apophenia and pareidolia. Apophenia is the recognition of patterns that aren't there. Seeing patterns in actually unrelated events or phenomena and a sub-case of that is pareidolia, which is the visual recognition of patterns where. They aren't really there. So seeing the Virgin Mary in your taco shell, for example, or seeing faces or clouds or bunnies or whatever, Yucca: Yeah, clouds is a great example for that. Mark: We're always looking for shapes, right? We're looking for faces particularly because that's what we can relate to. And that's what we are, we're most attuned to interacting with as human organisms. So we've got this pattern recognition built into us and it works very well in many ways. It helps us to identify what's going on in the world, around us, and then to make strategic decisions about the right thing to do in relation to the world. The problem is it works too well. We see patterns all the time that don't really exist. I was talking before we started recording. I've had some things happen recently that have been real blows. I got a notice that I'm going to have to move. And my, my wonderful beloved pet kitty died. And now today I've discovered that my electric car is not charging, which for an electric car is kind of a problem. Yucca: That's Mark: And I was saying, well, the myth is that these things come in threes, right. So, you know, maybe that's all that it will be for me for awhile. Identifying that pattern is completely fictitious. It's entirely an imagined the Tori in imagination function in my mind. There is no reason why more bad things shouldn't happen in the next 10 minutes or none for the next 10 years. Yucca: What we focus on is we then see the pattern because we're expecting to see that pattern. Mark: Precisely. And then once having seen a pattern like that confirmation bias kicks in, which is our desire to continue gathering evidence, to convince ourselves that what we think is true. So these are all kind of working against us as rational beings. They're useful for us in many ways, but they're also working against us as rational beings. And so having a core value of skepticism and critical thinking is. Is so important if we're truly going to be science-based pagans, if we're truly going to be the followers of the spirituality of the verifiably real, which is another way that I've described atheopagan ism many times, then we have to be willing to winnow the wheel from the real, from the unreal, through the process of critical thinking and skepticism. Yucca: Right. And building on that, one of the things that we've talked about before on this podcast, but it's really important to come back to is. That this is enriching, this isn't Oh, let's be boring. And do all this critical thinking and take all the magic out of everything. No reality is wondrous and incredible and amazing and critical thinking is a tool for us to discover even more that would have been unimaginable, say, 20 years, a hundred years ago. Mark: Yes Yucca: So it's really enriching. it's it's feeding and nourishing, not depriving us of fun. Mark: Right. Right. One thing that is true for many in our culture now, and I venture to say many, if not most in the broader pagan community is a desire to seek exaltation and joy in fantasy. And there is a lot of joy that can be found in fantasy, but there's so much joy to be found. In reality. Reality is obscenely. Cool. Yucca: Yes. Mark: was just kidding for three days last week, up on the North coast of the County that I live in at a state park called salt point state park and the wild flowers were out and there were carpets of wild flowers all over the place. Stunning, just stunning. And then. You know, my partner Nemea is a photographer. So she's getting down to these little macro, you know, photographs of individual blossoms and identifying different plants. And we found the California native orchid. There's only one, but we found one in bloom. There's, it's just so cool. Nature by itself holds so much to be. To be joyous about and excited and curious and stimulated about that. We don't have to limit ourselves to storytelling and poetry and paintings and imagery and music, and those kinds of artificially created human things Yucca: Which are wonderful. Mark: Oh, they're all. Yucca: But they're not the end. They're part of the picture. They have their role, which is amazing and incredible. But also there's this other half, which is the reality component. Mark: absolutely. Yucca: The objective. Yeah. Mark: And you know, one of, one of the questions that religion seeks to answer at its broadest definition is what's real. What is it? What am I what's here? What is this life? And those questions are best answered through the use of science and critical thinking. Really? That's not what does it mean? What does it mean is something that gets decided in a mythic poetic context, Yucca: that's not science. That's not scientific. Mark: That's absolutely right. It is not scientific to ask, you know, what do stars mean? There's there, there is many answers to that as there are possible observers. Yucca: But how did they form what happens when they run out of hydrogen? Those are questions that end up having some really amazing answers Mark: Yes. Yucca: to that. Then open just a floodgate of other questions and discoveries. Mark: right. Right. So the question of what is a star and understanding that as a process that starts long before there's any kind of a point of light and continues long after there is a point of light becomes this adventure that you can go on. And which astrophysicists go on every day of their lives, trying to figure out the answers to those very questions. And it's exciting and it's beautiful. Yucca: Yeah. REVERENCE FOR THE SACRED EARTH Mark: And I think that's actually a great place at which to transfer, to talking about the second atheopagan principle, which is reverence for the sacred earth and cosmos. We are assembled biological machines that have been erected by life on earth, which is a tiny sub-sector of the physical unfolding of the universe that are able to think and are self-aware and are able to look at this incredible magnificence around us and learn stuff. We are uniquely gifted with the ability to just revel in the wow of all this. And it is to my mind our obligation to live in that reverence. It's not just, yeah, nature is cool. It's a deep seated, spiritual reality. In me and in the non-ferrous pagans that I know that nature is magnificent and that we are deeply indebted to nature because we are in nature. We're not separate. And that all of those engagements that we make with the surrounding natural world, like eating are sacred activities. They're not just random, they're sacred activities, eating sex, excretion. All of those. They are Yucca: breathing. Mark: breathing. Yucca: Think about breath for a while. Think about what you are breathing in that oxygen. And when you breathe out the CO2, which comes from the cells of your body, come through the blood, back to your lungs and out, and what's going to happen to that. It's going over to the grass, to the trees, to the potted plant in your window. And they are then taking that in photosynthesizing and breathing out the oxygen for you and on this back and forth, and those same molecules going from your body to another body. And they came from stars to start with. Mark: Yeah. Yes. All of these reciprocal relationships and having reverence for something is part of understanding that you're in a reciprocal relationship with it. It's not something that you're just mining for resources. And it's not something that you are worshiping in the sense of, you know, basing yourself and saying, Oh yes I'm not worthy kind of story. That's not what it's about. Of course you're worthy. You're an organism here on earth. Of course you're worthy. You are worthy of the oxygen. You're worthy of the food. You're worthy of the warmth and the shelter and the many gifts that the Earth and sun provide us. Yucca: You are part of earth. We're not just on earth. We are part of earth. Mark: Yes, we are earth Yucca: Our, yeah our bodies are. This planet, when we talk about the formation of the planet, we're talking about the formation of us. Mark: yes. And it can be hard sometimes because of the nature of the way academic disciplines have been divided up to understand that kind of big picture thinking because we have a little box called geology and we will have a little box called biology. And. Those kinds of, I won another wearily and and the physicist just sort of step back and chuckle about the whole thing. But that's the world isn't in those little boxes. That's those are just categories that humans have used to try to narrow down the enormity of what we're trying to understand into digestible bites. Yucca: a new box. That's a little bit bigger, still a box, but it's a great box, a new field, which is geobiology is trying to look at those merge, those two fields that we've considered to be so separate and look at them together and go, okay. What's how does. How do things flow from the biotic to the Abiotic. And is that even a valid distinction when we're talking about a living planet like Earth and it's really a new field, Robert Hazen, I think has this, his name has a lot of incredible books and some lectures on like the great courses Mark: Hm. Yucca: interested in getting into that, seeing the evolution of mineralogy and biology as not being separate as being completely woven together. Mark: It's really cool and really timely. I mean, we do know from the history of the Earth that, that you know, gigantic algal blooms, for example, that have created huge amounts of oxygen have totally tipped the scales of the biotic activity in the world and change the climate, which has resulted in greenhouse conditions or in snowball earth. So the timeliness of this is very important because we are coming to understand that the primary driver of change in our atmosphere is humanity. It's it is biology. It's not it's not volcanoes it's us. Yucca: Yeah, they have a part, but not in the scale that we're seeing, Mark: Right? Yucca: right. That this is, and that doesn't make humans bad. Mark: No. Yucca: There's a jump that people often go to of, Oh, well, humans are causing this change and therefore humans are bad and everything would be better if we weren't around. That's pretty, in my opinion, pretty far to go. And I think it's lazy, right? To just choose to say, Oh, well, humans are bad. Humans are totally destructive. Instead of going, humans are powerful. We can do these changes. How do we be responsible with the power that we do have? How do we make sure that we aren't harming any even more? How do we make sure that we're restoring what has been harmed and improving the situation for more life and more of quote, unquote nature. Mark: Right. I don't know that I would use the word lazy, but I think we have a propensity to want to divide things in a dualistic sense, into good and bad. And the truth is that in almost all cases, things are complex. They're not good or bad. They're kind of good for some by some measurements and kind of bad by other measurements. And. Humanity is a remarkable species just by any measure, the simple fact that you and I are speaking across thousands of miles to have this conversation, so it can be recorded and downloaded by all these people all over the world is it's just an extraordinary achievement. And to. To denigrate that or to dismiss it, I think is simply to miss out on one of the many wonders of living. Because humans are just remarkable. The art, the music, the dance, the science, all of it is just remarkable, but that said, we are powerful drivers at this point of change. And the question is, which way do we want to drive? Yucca: Yeah. Mark: And given how adaptive we are, even if we've made a big mess, even if the Anthropocene continues, the biodiversity crash continues. The climate change continues. Humans are so adaptable that we are likely to persist even under very extreme conditions. So. My mind has always been to what kinds of values and models can we seek to get out there in the world as much as possible today so that those people then can maybe live a more sustainable life? Yucca: A lot of this is about that we're talking about, right? These principles, what are the things that are going to help us to do that? And the first two that we've talked about, the critical thinking, right? This can be as simple as, huh. If I pollute the water that I'm drinking, what's going to happen. Right. And then also the reference for the Earth and view of it as sacred that it's worth taking care of and protecting. And of course, when We say earth, but earth and cosmos. We're talking about reality. Mark: What is? Yucca: yeah, you don't have to. We're not specific to, although humans we're here on earth. We're part of earth, but we're not excluding everything else by saying earth. Mark: Well, because even at our scale, even at the relativistic scale, everything really is blurred into everything else. The. the Earth is bombarded by solar, radiation and solar wind and meteoroids and all kinds of Yucca: Of space debris. Mark: of space stuff all the time that is coming to add to our world. And to pretend that we are in this little capsule going around a star is. It's not reality. It doesn't hold up to that first principle of skepticism and critical thinking. So if you understand that it's all blurry, then revering, this earth is really not quite enough because there's that star up there, that's driving everything. And that star is a part of the system. And that system is a part of. A galaxy and the galaxy is part of a supercluster and the superclusters, it just goes on Yucca: Laniakea to the cosmic web, to the observable universe and who knows what more Mark: Yes. Yucca: and how little of it we can see. Mark: So we Revere the Earth and the cosmos because man, they're cool. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: They're just so incredibly cool. Yucca: And by day it's also us, GRADITUDE Mark: Yes. And the next principle actually relates closely to this because if you're really aware of just how wow. the Earth and cosmos are the next principle, which is gratitude becomes a lot easier and gratitude is Its gratitude. Actually, it sounds like a noun, but it's not, it's a verb. Gratitude is something that you do. And it's those moments that we take when we go, wow. That was really beautiful. Or look at that flower or God that smells good. Or that's the best tasting chocolate I think I've ever had. Those acknowledging those moments and kind of gathering them to you in a way that informs that your life is joyous because atheopagan ism is a path that's about being as joyous as possible. It's about being happy as well as being effective and being an exponent for a better world. It's about just being happy because pleasure and happiness are good. It's good for you to be happy. So gratitude is something that, I mean, I know I could do a better job at it. I know I could I feel like there's no ceiling to how grateful one could possibly be. Maybe the Dalai Lama has hit the ceiling. I don't know. But I know that I certainly have farther to go. Yucca: You too. Yeah. That's something that ritual and we've done a whole episode on this as well, but ritual can really help facilitate Mark: Yes. Yucca: and grow that sense of gratitude, which grows our own happiness, as you're saying and health as well Mark: Yes. For sure. Happier people are healthier people. They just are. I mean, Yucca: more effective. Mark: yes Yucca: Happier person is better able to take care of other people and to focus more. And all of those things. Mark: Yeah, I absolutely agree. So, yes, gratitude. And there are lots of different kinds of gratitude practices. There are people who just before they go to bed, they recount, you know, three things that I was grateful for today. There are people who have a gratitude jar and they put some, they write something down and stick it in the jar every day. And then at some point in the year, they take them all out and read them and then burn them and start over wonderful ritual practice. Um, Yucca: Is a great place for that too, because it sets the tone for your day. Okay. HUMILITY Mark: It announces I'm already coming into a world that gives me gifts that I feel great about now. Let's see. What's up. Yeah. So, that leads me to the fourth principle that we're going to talk about today, which is humility. And I find that gratitude and humility and reverence for the Earth and cosmos all kind of tied together. Because if I really comprehend the scope and scale of the Earth itself, not. Not to mention the cosmos, just the Earth itself in terms of its age and its size. Then I will understand that I am small and temporary and that whatever my concerns are, whatever my attitudes are or my initiatives that. They need to be understood in the context of a being that is small and temporary. And so I feel humility is a really important quality for us to have as non theists pagans because you know, we're not lording over people and telling them what to do. That's not what we're here about. What we're here about is being the best people we possibly can be and doing that in a way. With with a grasp reality, as much as possible and a solid set of things that we find sacred and of value and and a real sense of joy of gratitude as we go forward. So, and you know, I'll say I, I struggled with this when I was younger, I was taught to be really arrogant. My father was just a narcissistic asshole. And I just sort of followed along, trying to be like dad you know, very much a know it all kind of person. And what I found is that the less of that I exhibit in my life, the better my life gets and the truer, it feels so. Which I'm sure is one of the reasons why humility came up early in the list as I was developing the list. These are not in priority order, by the way, the atheopagan principles are the, are basically just in the order that I thought of them and wrote them down. Yucca: Yeah, Mark: so, Yucca: Touching on humility. This is one of those terms that can have very different emotional connotations for people. And when we say humility, we're not talking about belittling oneself, right. We're small, but that doesn't mean that we suck or that we're not important or that we're not worthy of love and attention and all of those things and respect, but that. It's really tying back into that gratitude where it's with the humility. Part of it is a recognition that the world doesn't owe us something. We are part of the world. And if anything, we owe the world, not that people should just be giving to us and no matter what all of that, um, That arrogance there's it really ties into that, that self-awareness and gratitude that just leads to a contentment and a humble outlook. Mark: Yeah. Yeah, because I mean, it's a little tail chasing in a way, because once again, You know, it's complex. All these things are true at once. Yes, I am small and temporary and trivial. Yes, I am amazing. It is amazing that I am here. I can do amazing things that is really fucking cool. And I'm small and temporary. And. My, whatever things I do in the grand course of the universe's history will inevitably be trivial, but it doesn't matter because I have that core understanding that I'm amazing at the same time. And we can hold all of those. We can be filled with gratitude for the gifts, the various genetic gifts and educational gifts and cultural gifts that we've been given. As well as to understand ourselves as being small and temporary and deserving of humility holding all of that together without flopping over into shame or Poor self-esteem on the one hand or narcissism and arrogance on the other hand is a part of the balance holding that's so necessary for us as non theist pagans. Yucca: With that those two understandings at once I think are epitomized by the sense of looking out at the dark starry sky and getting that incredible sense of, ah, I'm tiny and the universe is so fast and I'm part of it Mark: Yes, I am. Part of all this, all that extending out farther even than light has ever reached this planet. I'm part of all of it. Every molecule that makes me up arose shortly after the big bang and Yucca: and it's both true Mark: wow. Yes. It's all true. It's true. Yup. And you know, it's kind of an amazing thing to be able to get up in the morning and look in the mirror and say, hello, big bang. Good morning. Good morning, Starburst. How are you today? And you know, we've talked a lot in this podcast about how being a science-based pagan, being a. An earth revering pagan. A lot of it is about just learning to pay attention, looking for, you know, the little details of beauty and what nature is doing and how things are changing over the course of the seasons and all that. And I think that this is one of those places where this is true also that Noticing when we're given an opportunity to be kind of arrogant and we choose to be humble instead, noticing when we're provided with something unexpected and joyous. And we can be grateful about that, you know, keeping track of these meaningful events in our lives, because it's so easy for life to just turn into this sort of rush of. Not necessarily meaning associated moments, just kind of running through the routine and we're here to celebrate, you know, that's what our, that's what our religious path is for. We're here to celebrate and to be good people and to help other people celebrate and to make the world as good for other beings as we can. And that requires some cataloging. No you have to keep score at some level. You have to keep track of the good stuff. In order to remind yourself to be grateful Yucca: And learn to focus on that because it's a choice. Mark: Very much as a, as someone who has struggled with depression, when that filter drops down over my eyes, I can't see the good stuff. I just can't. And it's not that it isn't there, even though that voice in my head lies and says, it's not there. And I've been through enough cycles of this now that I know that's not true. But it sure seems true because that voice speaks with a lot of authority. So that's the first four of the 13 atheopagan principles. Love to have your feedback. We take. Email at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com, which is the wonder podcast, all one word Q s@gmail.com. Love to hear from you about this. And as I said, we'll be going over the rest of the principles in subsequent episodes. But not next week, we'll do something else next week. Just to kind of keep things mixed up in lively. UPDATE ON THE ATHEOPAGAN SOCIETY Yucca: Before we finish up for today, we did want to remind folks about the Atheopagan Society. Mark: It's a nonprofit religious organization that we founded to to keep the ideas that the principles and values of atheopaganism moving forward into beyond the life of any one person and to help support atheopaganism around the world. Yucca is the chair of the council of the Atheopagan Society. And I serve on the council. We had a meeting last night and so we can report out some of the stuff that's going on with that. You want to start in on that Yucca Yucca: Sure. We'll, we've been, you know, we have our quarterly meetings and we're still getting our feet underneath ourselves, but we've been working with different committees, especially the educational committee, putting together material that can be used by anyone. So again, this is not a membership organization. You don't have to pay any dues. This is just the service that we're putting out to be available for anyone. But working with that. The clerical committee has worked on putting together material for anyone who wants to be a cleric and material like weddings. What other things are on that Mark? Mark: The introductory guide book for clerics includes a section on pastoral counseling. On conducting weddings on conducting funerals and working with the dying and on conducting other rites of passage, like naming ceremonies and passages into adulthood and all that kind of stuff. And it's downloadable from the Atheopagan Society website, which is theAPsociety.org. You can also see the bios of the members of the council there and download the bylaws if you're curious see what events are coming up all those kinds of things. So it gives you an overview about what the society is up to. We also talked quite a bit about diversity, equity and inclusion, which is something that's very important to us as a value. We're still trying to figure out how best to pursue DEI initiatives within the atheopagan community, but it is important to us and we're still looking for the right ways to. To conduct ourselves that way. Possibly by developing a statement and then an implementation plan for that statement. But it's early days yet. And we need help in order to do that because we don't have a whole lot of diversity on the Atheopagan Society council right now. And we really need more voices to be involved in that. Yucca: Exactly. Yeah. And so that's something that is, that really is taking a lot of our focus. Mark: Yes. Yucca: So, Mark: In the edge. Oh, go ahead. Yucca: Oh, I was going to say, and we were also talking about different media outreach and what ways that the society can really best serve the community and what platforms do we use to reach people and all of that. So that's another thing that we, of course, always really welcome input from folks on. Mark: Yes. And the last thing that I'd want people to be aware of is that we have begun discussions about an in-person atheopagan con. Or something like that. An in-person gathering in 2022. The, this is still a very nebulous concept, but we're looking at doing something somewhere in the middle of North America, probably the Denver area, because there are beautiful national parks nearby and it's air traffic hubs. So it's cheaper to fly into for people. We. We don't know exactly what it would be yet, but we know that there's a lot of interest in doing this and I've interacted with so many people online, especially over the last year that I want to hug. If they want to be hugged, Yucca: It'd be great to give you a hug. Mark: I would. Wouldn't that be great? Yucca: You know, all of this zoom it's would be wonderful to see people in person and know. Mark: it would be really great. So that has begun. And we're starting to gather a committee together that can help to produce that event. And that'll be a production of the Atheopagan Society. And we'll use our corporate nonprofit umbrella as the producer. So exciting things happening. And we just wanted to make sure that you knew about them now, not everybody who is a non theist pagan is an atheopagan. And we want to be clear about that. But if you want to come play with us, you're welcome to. Yucca: Yeah Mark: and I don't know. I think that's about it. Yucca: I think so, but I'm glad we got to touch on that as well. A little bit in this episode. So yeah, as always, this has been wonderful. Thank you, Mark. Mark: I've really enjoyed it. Thank you so much. Yucca. See you next week.

Families - SHEESH!

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 5, 2021 34:04

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving us a rating or review on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-wonder-science-based-paganism/id1501228156 S2E12 TRANSCRIPT: ----more---- Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder: Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark. Yucca: And I'm Yucca. Mark: And today we're going to talk about families, about approaching your family with your non theist. Science-based paganism, about how to negotiate the conflicts or mutual incomprehension that may arise from that about how we integrate our personal spirituality into our families and just other issues that have to do with relating to families as a part of our life and our practice. Yucca: That's right. And this is one of those topics that is huge about a year ago. At this point, we did talk about family and we talked about what is the role of family and blood versus chosen and all of that, but there's no way that we can cover all of it in one go. So we're back again, to look at it from these different angles. Mark: Right. And it bears saying that today when we're recording is the day before Easter. And so there's a lot of kind of confrontation of family that happens at around Easter time because at least in the United States where the Christian holidays have become secularized and made normative for people to practice, even if they're not Christians. Or if they're just very nominally Christian. People get expected to go to Easter dinner or to come over for an egg hunt or to do something with the larger body of their family. And that may be uncomfortable if all of the symbology and the supposed meanings around the Easter holiday are things you don't believe in or support. Yucca: There's going to be a huge range of what of listeners are going through. But I suspect that some of our listeners are in the position of this being something that the being a pagan is something new in their life or something that perhaps their family that they come from doesn't know. And they don't know how they, the family might respond or maybe they do know. And it's it. Isn't what they're looking for. Mark: Right. Yeah. And there's kind of a double whammy in our particular neck of the woods, because it's not only by the way, I'm, you know, a godless heretic. It's also, I'm a, you know, wild heathen I'm doing both of Yucca: Best kind of combination though, in my opinion. Right. I like it. Mark: I'm right there with you, but especially when you consider how propagandized some people in some sects of especially Christianity, but also Islam and even the very conservative Jewish traditions. You know, they can have heard all kinds of horrible things about people that are atheistic about people who are witches or pagans, and it can be a very difficult bridge to cross when trying to get all that stuff out of the way and actually meet your family and say, Hey, look, this is who I am and it's good for me. Yucca: I think that the, that approaching this, I mean, there's again, so many directions to go, but one of the first places is to think about the different roles that families can play in people's personal lives. And this, a lot of this depends on the larger culture that people are from. And then the family culture and personal beliefs in terms of what is the role of the individual and what is the role of family and where does authority lay within that? And how much does everybody's should be or not be in everybody else's business and there's not a right answer. This is a cultural answer. Whether family or larger culture. Mark: Right. Yeah. I mean, there are some, some cultural traditions, like, Greek and Italian traditions, for example, where you have, you know, kind of matriarchs and patriarchs of the family that have tremendous influence and power. And, you know, if you're on the outs with them or they've decided that you're somehow you know, a bad person for choosing the path you choose, it can cause difficult situations for you in your life. So, and I mean, I'm not targeting those particular groups, I'm just pulling those out of the air. There are certainly plenty of families from, you know, the UK that are similar, Yucca: And varying degrees from many different cultures and it's a spectrum. Mark: yes, very much so. So, you know, these are situations that that get asked about in the Facebook group. The atheopagan is some Facebook group that I administer and that we're members of pretty frequently, you know. " I'm I've I found this path. It's really moving to me and it's really, you know, lighting up in ways that I never really expected. It feels so right. It's so good for me that I've found this. I have no idea of how to talk to my husband slash mother's slash father's slash you know, grandmother who has been my closest family person children." And. It is it's difficult to talk about because there really is no one size fits all. Every one of those individuals that people are concerned about is an individual. They have their own personality and their own value structure. And so there's no simple prescription for how to address this. That said, I do think there are some general principles that we can encourage people to follow. And I need to be really clear up front that the circumstances of my life, not having to do with religion at all, have forced me to completely disengage from my. Birth family. I don't have any engagement with them at all. And so, you know, it may be a little glib for me to hear me saying, Oh you should do this. And so I asked people to kind of take the things that I say with a grain of salt that way. I haven't had to, I haven't had to climb this particular Hill because my family was really bad for me. And it was a pretty easy call to get away. But for people, for whom you're getting, you know, mixed measurements of sugar and poison, which happens in families a lot. It can be much more difficult to make decisions about how to draw boundaries, how to communicate clearly and how to assert yourself as an individual within that family system. Yucca: And for my family situation, I'm also coming from a place where that might be a little bit different than some of our listeners in that my family, or at least part of my family is pagan. So I've never had the situation of going back and saying, Hey, I'm different or I'm doing a different path. I'm breaking from the tradition of the family. I have these new beliefs or anything like that. But I do have a couple of family members who, siblings, in fact who are not pagan and who are Christian and pretty uncomfortable with the pagan side of things. So there's, we'll talk about a lot of different strategies, but what we do is we just don't talk about it. That's just one of those things that we just don't touch on. And we know that if we go there, there's going to be conflict and we just don't see each other often enough for that. We don't want to waste our time with the little time we get to be together, having that be conflict. And what we do instead is try and focus on the places where we do have a lot of common values. And there are other things too, that we differ quite strongly on in the realm of politics and things like that. So we just really focus on what is it that we have in common that we all appreciate and can really love and just steer away from those other things. But again, that's not, that works for my family style that I come from, but that may not be a possibility for someone else. Mark: I think it's really different to have a number of people in your family who are pagan. Because then the stakes are much higher. If somebody decides to draw a line in the sand and say, I'm not connecting with any pagans, then they're jettisoning a whole bunch of people in their family. I think it's much harder for someone who's an individual to say "I finally found the path that's working for me and it ain't what you folks are doing." Yucca: Yeah. Especially if what you folks are doing believes in things like damnation and things like that. Yeah. Mark: Yes, ironically, some of the most hellish circumstances, one can find themselves in are in a family that doesn't actually support people in their journey. So, you know, maybe they're right about damnation, but they're creating it in the process. Yucca: So, so given our backgrounds What are some things that we can suggest or speak to for the listenership? Mark: I think to start with, you need to have a clear sense of personal boundaries. One of the things that's very hard about family is that when we start in them, we're very small and we don't have much personal authority. We don't get listened to very much in most cases. And so there are these habits that get formed, especially by our parents and by family members who were older than we are to think that they can just sort of dictate to us and that we have to follow whatever it is that they have prescribed or whatever their impulse is. And this is multi-generational. I mean, there are plenty of people out there who have kids of their own, who still feel dominated by their mother or their father, or both even in how they're raising yes or a sibling. In how they're raising their own kids. So the assertion of personal autonomy becomes very important. And that sounds, I mean, that's a very nice phrase, the assertion of personal autonomy, but it sounds a lot easier than it is having boundaries about how you will allow yourself to be treated and talked to is something that every autonomous self-loving person needs to have. And. The context of the family can be one of the hardest places to do that. But the workplace is the same. I mean, I've had bosses who talked to me in ways that were simply unacceptable and I've told them, you can't talk to me like that. I'm your boss. Yeah, you're my boss. But that just means that I do work for you and you pay me a paycheck. It doesn't mean that you get to treat me like some kind of a whipping post, and this is unacceptable. And I am walking out of this room now until you can talk to me like another human being. And I didn't get fired at that moment, actually. I was kind of amazed. But the behavior didn't improve much and I left shortly thereafter. I think it's necessary for all of us to be able to stand up with our shoulders squared and say I'm deserving of respect. I'm deserving of honoring who I am, even if it's not the same as who you are. And that's, that honestly is the biggest step when it comes to dealing with family who may not understand, we can be very gentle about it. It doesn't have to be in your face, sort of, you know, combative tone but it can be, you know, not aggressive, but assertive. You know, this is what I'm doing. I'm happier now. I'm more effective in my life. Now the world makes sense to me now in ways that it didn't make sense to me before. And I would hope that you would be happy for me about that, even though it isn't the same way that you look at things. And I know that you have beliefs about people doing and believing things differently than you do, but I don't share those beliefs. And I'm asking that in the name of our familial relationship, you will honor me enough to let me be me. And, you know, that's also a very pretty speech and there could be a lot of different responses to that. I mean, you know, there can be people flying off the handle into hysterical, screaming, and there can be people sitting back and thinking, you know, that kind of makes sense, even though I don't like this at all. It's not really my place to tell you how to live your life. Yucca: Now, there are some pieces that depending on the personalities that you might want to warm up to, right? That speech there might not be something that, you know would, they would be able to hear yet. Or that you would Mark: Oh, to lead with? No. Yucca: Right. You know, maybe starting with working in some of the things that are major values to you, that they might not be quite as threatened by and kind of starting to work some of those things up, as long as you weren't feeling torn up and horrible about feeling like you're lying or hiding parts of yourself or something like that. But, you know, work towards Hey, this nature thing, it's really cool. Like this is really helping me feel great. Like let's connect with this, let's go on a walk together or share our appreciation of birdwatching or whatever it is. Know and work towards some of those things so that it makes a little bit more sense when you do have more of the formal coming out, out of the broom closet, or as some say. Mark: Right, right. Yeah. I mean, it's always tricky when. I mean, you, we liked the idea. I think of our family as people that we can just go to and say anything. And certainly with my chosen family, which is my ritual circle, I feel that I can tell them anything. If there's a conflict we're having, I can talk with them about it. If there's a disagreement, we can discuss it. If there's something, you know, really personal happening in my life, I can bring that to them. But it is also true that there are times with family. When you need to be strategic, you need to be aware of what the personality types are that you're dealing with. And have a bit of a plan. You know, I'm going to lead with the fact that I'm much happier now. And that happiness is a value that I really embrace and presuming that my family members love me when they see that I'm happier, they should see that as good. They would presumably see it as good. Right. I'm going to lead with the good stuff that this has done for me. The details don't matter so much. You know, the collage trickle details. We talk about this in science-based paganism all the time. You know, we're always being kind of grilled about what we believe and what we believe is the least important. aspect of what we do, it's our values and our practices that are really the kind of rich, interesting, exciting stuff. What we believe is just a worldview, a framework for understanding the nature of the universe. And it reveals lots of very cool stuff to us, but we wouldn't know it was cool if we didn't embrace happiness in all and reverence and all those things as values. I'm not sure whether that qualifies as a tangent or not. Yucca: I think that's pretty on subject. Mark: Okay. All right. It was an edge call. Yucca: Tangent or not. It's a good reminder. Right? Just bringing it back to what is it that we, what is it that we're really valuing? And what's the goal. Right. And I think maybe that's another thing to keep in mind when communicating with the family is what is your goal? And not in some like manipulative way, but what's the function of a family. What are your emotional needs from these people? What are their emotional needs from you? And the communication, what you are communicating, why are you communicating that? And what are you hoping to be the result? And how can you do that in a way that is going to set up, set that situation for that result being more likely? Mark: Right. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yeah, because. And you need to kind of check yourself as well, because one thing that can happen when people find something new and they get really excited about it is they can kind of cross the line over into everybody should do this. And so it's important to be aware that as much meaning and joy as you're getting out of your rituals, other people. May want to participate and if so, come, but if they don't want to, then they don't have to. So, You know, I would not go so far as having a big sort of pagan spring celebration at your family's Easter gathering that may not go well. But you may be able to incorporate some aspects of your practices into that gathering. And some of that can be as simple as, you know, the symbols that that we share with with Christianity around flowers and eggs and bright spring colors and all those kinds of things that are so associated with the springtime. Yucca: Yeah. And also those activities that people might want to share together. Taking a walk or going to the park with the ducks and or whatever it is for you. We'll be talking about soon, going out for a beautiful stargaze. Okay. Mark: For shadowing. Keep that in mind. There's more on that coming. Yucca: We want to go ahead and start to, to shift gears towards talking about our practices as it relates to maybe not the families that we came from, but the families that we have created in our own households and chosen families as well. Mark: Sure. I think that's great. I mean, we've talked about those things a lot in the course of the podcast over the last year. I guess where I'm interested in going with this right now is more of the, the creative process that leads to those practices and rituals. What's the thinking behind it? You know, how do we conceptualize the things that we'd like to do with our families chosen or other and you know, how do we collaborate with others to make those things happen? Yucca: Sure. Yeah. Some of this is going to really come back to worldview and. What we think of our roles as individuals and community members. The approach that I have is that my first responsibility is me. I can only control my actions. I am responsible for me. And how I behave and how I respond in the world. And as a family member, as a partner, as a parent, my job is to be there and support those people. And not just as a parent and a partner, but as a daughter and a sister and all of that, but that it's not my job to choose for someone or to make someone be a certain way, but to try to support and nourish them as best I can while really respecting their autonomy and their agency and person. And that's the place that I try to. I don't always succeed, but that's the place that I really try to come from when participating as a family member, when making decisions as a family and creating our family habits and culture. Mark: Okay. Yeah. I think that's a really good point and it becomes a little more complex with children because, you know, we're so responsible for creating experiences that they then engage in, you know, they're not. Although it's not the children, aren't perfectly capable of creating their own experiences. I mean, that's what imaginative play is. But if we want to have some kind of a family gathering that involves some sort of ritual behavior or tradition that we want everybody involved with them. We have to think about, okay what are they going to want to do? What will they find interesting and exciting, and that's actually somewhat easier in relation to children early on than it is in relation to say grandparents who are very stuck in their ways, by that point, most of them And want things to be a certain way and may not be very comfortable with the addition of other elements. Yucca: Yeah. So it's. It becomes a very tricky balance, especially with the children, between creating the environment, making choices for the family, but also respecting them as people and as decision makers as well and different families come down in different places with that. Mark: Right. One of the things that I've seen in many pagan circles is that it's generally considered until, until a child is entering their teen years. You know, becoming a young adult, generally kids are allowed to do pretty much whatever they want in relation to a ritual, they can run around and they can, you know, play by themselves. They can do whatever, or they can hold hands with the adults and, you know, conduct the, you know, participate in the circle, activities, whatever they feel like. And there's no judgment around that. That's what I've mostly seen. I have seen some online discussion of people who don't have children kind of complaining about children being a distraction and that sort of thing. And as far as I'm concerned, it's like, you know, welcome to the human family. That's just the nature of kids. And even if you don't want to have any, you can't expect a community, a communal event includes people that have children to somehow exclude them. That's just. Not reasonable. Yucca: And the children themselves, right? Th they're part, they are just as much a part of the community as anyone else. Mark: They are. Of course they are. Yeah. Yucca: I think though it's also very important that children learn about boundaries as much as any other human and understanding that there's developmental differences. But if there's a situation in which they're not developmentally able to respect those boundaries, then sometimes then yeah, they shouldn't be there. Right. If your toddler does not listen and is in the, I'm going to bolt and run away from you, then maybe there, the bonfire situation is not an appropriate place for the toddler to be right. Mark: Maybe not. Yucca: I'm not going to take my kid into the butcher shop in the back either. Right? Like that's just. You know, so understanding the limitations of some people, but also not, you know, but not going too crazy with it. Mark: Yeah, Yucca: on the personality of the individual. And like, no, don't stop that ten-year-old from being at the bonfire and less like they've shown time and time again, that they're going to shove and push people or, you know, not listen or that sort of thing. Mark: Right. Yeah. So I, I think once again, it's all about you know, as we think about how our personal practices, and this is much easier with a partner who shares those practices, because then you can, you know, present a collective front of, you know, here's how we want to do this. And here's here are the boundaries that we're going to set around behavior and here's how we're going to cooperatively work with say kids that can't follow those boundaries, that kind of thing. But once again, it has to do with serving up that, which is palatable to the participants that you hope to be involved in. That principle applies to family members as well to family members who aren't necessarily a part of the tradition that you've chosen. I've heard so many wonderful stories of, you know, we had a May Day celebration and set up a maypole and, you know, and I invited my mom and I was terrified, but she had a wonderful time, you know, that, that sort of thing. And. It's I don't know. It's hard to talk about how you thread the needle that way. This actually brings something to mind that is sometimes very challenging for people, which is weddings, because weddings are so sacred to people that they want, their wedding rituals, their way, not their parents' way you know, or their grandparents way. It's they want the celebration and the ritual that works for them and finding a way that can somehow be palatable or even tolerable to people who have radically different religious traditions is really a challenge. I know some people who are really very good at it and to some degree that depends on how much are you willing to stick your neck out? I know there are some couples or, you know, people who are going to get married and they're just going to do it the way they want to do it. And if somebody goes stomping away in a Huff, they're fine. But that, and I know others who do the sort of secret pagan wedding where it looks like a kind of standard wedding, but it's got all these little symbolic elements in it that turn it into a pagan ritual. And it just depends on what kind of person are you Do you feel offended by having to kind of fold your symbology in underneath more traditional stuff? Or do you or do you not want to be as in your face about your path? Yucca: Yeah, I think that's another place where it comes back to really reflecting upon what is the purpose, of the wedding ceremony, you know, what are you, who is it for? And there's not a right answer to that, right? Is it, are you doing it for your family to represent you? You know, there's a whole lot of ways to approach it, but who's it for? What are your values around it? And really working through that because that's one of those things that there are so many expectations in our culture that you can just go along with it because you've seen it that way a million times and the movies and the shows. And by the time you were two and a half, you already knew how it worked. Right. So, but what do you actually want? And then how do you work towards a way that will make that comfortable for people. And each person's going to, or each couple or group are going to have their own answers to that. One tip that I have is whatever you choose. One thing that can sometimes really help is to give people a heads up ahead of time. If it's going to be different than the step-by-step process that we've all seen in the videos and the movies a million times. That's what we did, actually, we wrote just like a little one page, like here's what's happening. don't be surprised we're doing things a little bit differently than the normal order. Just so you know here's what we expect. And that's that can help some people who might be uncomfortable with a lot of the other stuff that you're doing. Just give them a little bit of sense of reassurance because it's emotional for them too. At least they know what's coming next. What's happening next. I know what's going to happen, even if I don't like it. So. Mark: that's a really great idea. And and it works kind of in both directions, it works to help ease any hesitation or discomfort that someone might have in coming to participate in your ceremony. And also sort of insurance on the back end. If somebody gets all bent out of shape, it's like, look, you didn't read it the label. We, you know, we gave you a very clear disclosure or about what this was going to be. I'm so sorry, but. That's what it was going to be. We're not sure why you were there, if that's the reaction you were going to have. Yucca: Yeah, you came, you agree? It's like you consented to being here, knowing what, what was going to happen? Mark: Right. Right. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: So I would be very interested in hearing from our listeners about. What their engagement with with particularly non-pagan and family has been around their path and their disclosure, if there has been any of their path. I mean, I know that there are people in the atheopagan ism, Facebook community who haven't even disclosed to their spouse that they are, that they're following this path. And I think that's sad. Yucca: It's rough. Yeah. Mark: It is. I th I think that's really a difficult position to be in. But nobody knows the situation better than they do. And I certainly can't judge their decisions from the outside. So anyway You know where to find us listeners we're at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com. The wonder podcast Qs. All one word. @gmail.com and drop us a line. Let us know how it's gone with you in introducing your science-based non theist pagan stuff into family gatherings. And your interactions with members of your family. Yucca: Yep. Both young and old. Mark: Yeah, very interested in all of that. Yucca: So, thank you so much. Mark: Thank you. Yucca. It's always a pleasure to talk with you. Yucca: All right. See you next week.

united states uk science christians christianity italian jewish birth greek families islam may day huff qs sheesh yucca markit mark yeah mark yes mark right mark thank mark they mark for mark okay

Food, Paganism, Science and Recipes

The Marketing Secrets Show

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 4, 2021 39:03

Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com! Mark's Mulled Wine 1 (375-ml) bottle of red or tawny port wine 2 (750-ml) bottle red wine, such as Cabernet Sauvignon (cheap! Don't do this to the good stuff!) 1/2 cup honey 2 cinnamon sticks 2 oranges, zested and juiced 8 whole cloves 6 star anise 4 oranges, peeled, for garnish Combine the red wine (not the port), honey, cinnamon sticks, zest, juice, cloves and star anise in a large saucepan, bring to a boil and simmer over low heat for 10 minutes. Add port wine. Pour into mugs, add an orange peel to each and serve. Serves 8. Yucca's Winter Broth Short version: Simmer bones in a big pot (or slowcooker, instantpot etc) for 12 to 48 hours. Add vegetable scraps for the last hour. Strain into mugs and enjoy. Detailed version: Save the bones from your other meals in the freezer. Once you have several pounds of one kind of bone saved up, add them to a big pot of water or large slow cooker. Add a dash of something acidic like apple cider vinegar or wine. If you have small bones break them open to release more marrow-ey goodness. Bring pot to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for 12+ hours. The longer, the better. Check water level periodically and add extra water if it gets low. About an hour before your broth is done add in vegetable scraps. If you are going to add herbs, wait until the last half hour to add. Strain the broth directly into mugs to enjoy or into glass containers if you plan to save it for later. Do not be surprised to see your broth gel up if it cools. But be aware that if you simmer it for a long time the collagen may break down into its constituent amino acids and not gel, and that's still perfectly fine and delicious! S2E01 TRANSCRIPT: ----more---- Mark: Welcome back to The Wonder: Science-Based Paganism. I'm your host, Mark Yucca: and I'm Yucca. Mark: And today we're going to talk about, about food. Big topic really important for all of us. Nobody gets out of here alive without food. Of course, nobody gets out of here alive at all, but, there are a lot of things to say about our relationship with food and what it is and how it fits into our spiritual practice. And then we'll round out the podcast with a couple of, recipes for you for the winter holiday season. Yep. Yucca: What we're doing right now and moving into 2021. Mark: Oh, Oh Yucca: Haha Mark: Thankfully. Yucca: Okay. Well, the first thing I want to say with food is that we are all part of the food web. That's just the reality of being part of this earth being alive is that we are eating and we are being eaten. And we don't typically think of ourselves as being eaten, but we are, and eventually we'll be completely eaten. But at the moment, the skin that you are shedding the hair, our waste. That's all somebody else's food. And even though we may be currently in the history of humans, we're apex predators, there's still plenty of folks eating us and we're eating plenty of other folks. No matter what your dietary strategy is, we're eating living things to be alive. Mark: Yes. Yes. We talked about this a little bit. In the Solstice Episode and the episode about darkness, we are, we are by our very natures, the takers on of the component parts of what has died to reconstruct ourselves. And we don't necessarily wait around for those things to die. We kill them. We cultivate them to kill them. And we have been doing that as humans for, at least, well, in the case of animal husbandry, at least 9,000 years. And in the case of agriculture, probably seven-ish something like that. So relatively recent in recently in human experience. Yucca: We aren't the first, I'd like to note, that agriculture came about- it has been around for hundreds of millions of years. It just hasn't always been humans. There's a lot of ant species who are farmers, both with crops, if you consider fungi in the realm of crops and with livestock, with their aphids and yeah, amazing examples of that in the arthropods-fungi relationships. There's lots of them, but we've been doing it for a long, long time life. Sometimes we partner in a [mutualistic] symbiotic way and other times we simply are the predator of whatever our food is and predator. Isn't just something that eats meat, but the rabbit is the predator of the grass; the wolf is the predator of the rabbit. So it doesn't matter what type of life we're talking about. If you're eating something else, you're it's predator. Mark: Right. Right. Yucca: And we all eat at somebody else because we are part of a complex ecosystem. Mark: Yes. Yucca: Maybe way back. When life first started on earth, it might've been a simple enough ecosystem that we didn't have those interactions, but that's not the case anymore. Now we're part of world that the entire surface is just covered in life and not just the surface, but all the way up into the atmosphere, deep down into the ground and the caves and the ice. It's, it's how we are. How we relate to each other. Mark: And so that ongoing negotiation between, you know, the, the forces that are eating on us and our desire to stay, to maintain integrity in our current form, is this ongoing push pull that happens throughout our lives. And we, we're familiar with certain conditions, for example, where we're starting to lose the war like gangrene, for example. Well, what that means is that other organisms are eating you a lot faster than you can reproduce cells to reestablish the form that you want to be in. And it's a very serious condition. Various kinds of staph infections and, you know, all those sorts of, opportunistic parasites, right. Ringworm and, various kinds of internal worms Yucca: intestinal Mark: Yeah. So, this is, this is the reality. The reality is that we are food sooner or later. And, and in an ongoing sense with skin mites and eyelash mites and all that kind of stuff, there are literally little tiny microscopic creatures that you can't even see that actually have behavior programmed into them, just like we do. They managed, they managed to eat and excrete and mate and lay eggs and do all that kind of stuff. And they're smaller than you can see with the naked eye. Yucca: Yeah. Yeah, we are ecosystems. Yes. And those mites are, when you look at the pictures of them with the microscope, they're both terrifying, like monster movie terrifying, and also adorably cute. Mark: They're really cute. Yucca: They're just, they're just so cute. And they they're part of us. They are they're commensal with us. They don't make a difference there. They're on us and it doesn't matter. And. And then there's all those folks that are on us, that are helping us that are our defense that are protecting us. And then they're the ones who are on us, that aren't so good. They're the vast, vast minority though. Mark: Right. Yucca: But they're still on us because while we're providing them with food and habitat. Mark: Sure, sure. Yucca: When we get rid of them, we get very, very sick. When we get, Mark: when we get rid of the beneficial ones. Yucca: Yes. That does. Yeah. The, the commensal doesn't make a difference to us and getting rid of the pathogenic ones. But, well, maybe when we get into ‘hygiene hypothesis' with that, but that's a, another question. We're talking about food though. Let's come back to what you're saying. We got onto the microbiome because we are food for others, but we can also address food in terms of our daily relationship with meals. So we were talking about it kind of on this big scale of what is food, but, but what about the food that we purposefully put into our bodies and have such an emotional relationship with? Mark: Well, I think that, that the first thing that I'd like to say goes back to what we were talking about a second ago, which is about the disconnect. Both at both ends, we are completely disconnected from our food illness. Our food seems to arrive from nowhere. And then our waste seems to go away somewhere. And none of that is really informative of the fact that we are creatures in a food web. Right? Yeah. The, those connections are not visible to us. They're blocked off. So one of the things that I try to do, and I've resolved to do a much better job of it this year, and I'm getting better slowly. It's so hard when I'm hungry. I just want to tear in, but I'm getting better at doing, meal acknowledgements. In which I acknowledged the power of the sun on the soil that brings forth the life that I eat. Whether it's in plant form or whether it's in animal form. And all of the various hands that contributed to bringing that to me, whether it's, you know, the person who tended and pick the crops, the person who drove the truck, the person who loaded it in a grocery store, all of those, all of those workers whose efforts need to be honored because that supply line is what keeps me alive. And so I try to do that before every meal. And so far it's more miss than hit, but it's much better than it was a couple of months ago. Hm. Yucca: we, have a freezer, well, two big freezers actually. And so each year we'll get a steer, a hog and a couple of cabritos. And we actually, if the, the rancher we got them from, didn't have a name for them, we actually give them a name and make reference to. So, you know, that's, that's basically more than half of our food. The more look at our caloric intake. That's more than half of our food for the entire year. And we, we make reference to them by. Those names that it makes it a very personal experience for us. And then we do, we do a lot of growing, but not all of our food. There's a lot of things that I like to eat that are not going to grow very well in my climate. I do have a banana tree as a houseplant, but it does not make bananas. And I still like bananas. And coffee and chocolate are also on those lists of things that I like. We buy that we don't grow one day maybe, but even then a greenhouse could never grow enough to have more than a few cups. So maybe something very, very valuable to trade when the, the supposed zombie apocalypse comes or whatever. But that's, that's a big thing for us. The food every day. Trying to be connected with that is, is huge for us, but that trick of giving the name to the animal, because we get, because we're eating the same one, right? It would be a little bit different if we were going and, and buying cuts from the grocery store or something like that. But that's a, if you do do a freezer, that's a really lovely trick. And then knowing the folks who, who raised those animals and going to, I like to go to the ranch that they're from, because my background actually is I am a agro and range ecologist. So if I go to their ranch, then I have a pretty good sense by just walking onto their land, whether they're doing a good job or not. And I really it's important to me that they're doing a good job taking care of their soil and their land. And if they're doing that, then I'm pretty sure that they're taking really good care of their animals, too. Mark: Yeah, we, we buy mostly from a commercial outfit called Harris ranch, which is all grass fed beef. They do grain finish, which is not my favorite, but, they have very good range conservation practices. And that's part of why I'm interested in that. One of the real challenges with food in the modern era is that we are basically strip mining our top soil, the billions of years of accumulated soil. Are being steadily, depleted and rapidly, especially in, in, in heavily agricultural areas. And we, we try to pour fertilizers into them and all this kind of stuff in order to, increase their Yucca: productivity. It's the problem. Mark: Exactly. That's precisely Yucca: it's yeah. It's, it's killing the soil life, which is what allows plants access to the nutrients in the first place. Mark: Yes. Yes. So food choices, become really important. And for some people, this is just not, it's not the battle they're going to fight and I have no business telling somebody else that it has to be. Yucca: Yeah. We're not here to say, eat the way we eat or make the choices we are making, right. Yeah. Mark: Right. For some people it's a very, what they choose to eat is very important and a part of their identity. And they are, you know, very clear about the value set that drives them to choose, to eat certain things or not to eat other things. And that's fine as well. Food is so personal to us, you know, we put it in our bodies. It's very, very personal. And so, and we're all genetically different, which means that things taste differently to us. Different things will appeal to different people based on what their genetics and their microbiome are like Yucca: And our cultural backgrounds too. Yes. Cultural and our regional. That insisting somebody, people in different areas of the world eat the same way as I think is not appropriate to insist that other people eat in a certain way. Mark: It's not only not appropriate, it doesn't work. I work for a food bank that provides healthy food to people who live with serious illnesses like HIV and COVID-19 and things like that. While they're recovering and, we have learned, we, we have, about a third of our clients now are latinx families and we have to provide them with culturally appropriate food or they simply won't eat. Yucca: Sure. Mark: And I mean, it's a very serious problem. It's like, you know, if you give people a bunch of food that is not recognizable as food by the people you give it to, then they're not going to eat and they're not going to get better. So, You know, there, there are some organizations that are really kind of beating the drum. You know, you must eat the kale, you must eat the kale. And, that's, that's just not realistic about the way people behave. Yucca: Yeah. That's very much like the suggestion. If you're first starting to grow a garden, one of the biggest pieces of advice that people give us grow the things you like. Because if you grow a bunch of zucchinis, you'll have a million of them and you don't like them, then you're going to have a million rotting zucchinis. Right. That's just the, if they're not appropriate for you Mark: and you're going to feel really bad that you wasted all that food. Yeah. Which we've touched on this before as well, feeling bad about pretty much anything is not very helpful. It doesn't make those you've harmed feel any better and it doesn't help you any either. You know, if you have something to feel bad about take action in order to try to resolve that issue, don't just go around feeling guilty. Yeah. Yucca: So of course, this is not to say don't try new foods, right? This isn't, we're not trying to say, but, but that, that culturally appropriate personally appropriate that, that food sovereignty is a really, really important issue in terms of culturally appropriate food, but also access to food. As well. Mark: Yes, indeed. And there are, there are certain things, for example, that I won't eat either because the cruelty involved in creating them is just unacceptable to me. Or because the industry that has sprung up in order to sell them has been damaging to others. I think of quinoa particularly, quinoa is now expensive and hard to get. In the areas of Peru that it's native to because it's being exported so much to the US it is a staple food for those Peruvian people living up in those mountains. So to me, I just don't think I personally, I'm not going to eat it out it, and I'm not going to eat it. So Yucca: we, don't eat seed oils. Because I have yet to come across a seed oil that was - industrial seed oils - that was produced in a way that is not incredibly damaging. There are some crops that are done that can be done, very damaged and talk about almonds. But I don't care if my neighbor's got a backyard with an almond tree in it. I'd love to eat their almonds. But we have yet to find any industrial seed oils that have been made in a, in a way that I would feel good about. And I'm not great on the health aspects of those. Mark: pretty much they aren't so good. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I'm kind of an olive oil guy. Anyway. I'm, I'll go with olive oil. The,, where was I last, wherever I was. Yucca: Oh, there you were speaking about quinoa or certain foods that you don't eat because of the, the practices around them. Mark: Yes. But that said, you know, I, I buy fair trade coffee, for example. Right. Because the people who are being. Subjugated in order to create coffee, actually get the fruit of their labors by fair trade. I don't want to buy those big plantations sort of slavery driven, coffee products, but I don't give up coffee entirely either. So, and I I want to take sort of a left turn here and acknowledge that individual behavior is not going to solve the challenges that we have in order to come into sustainability and balance with the natural world, the overwhelming majority of energy consumption, the overwhelming majority of pollution waste creation, all that kind of stuff happened through industrial processes. So yes. Do your bit, if you feel called to do so, but let's not kid ourselves that by eating the right diet, we're, we're going to solve everything. We also have to be activists and really push for the destructive practices to end Yucca: because it's systemic. Yes, right. We're looking at how to whole systems work. But, but certainly the individual behavior, our behavior is what's going to, in many ways, lead to the ability for us to make those changes. Yes. So it's, you know, it's not, it's not a hopeless thing, but it is important to keep it within context and perspective. Mark: Sure. I mean climate free or, you know, climate neutral energy was something that ended up becoming a huge movement because consumers wanted it. Consumers didn't want to be. Depending on coal fired power plants and nuclear plants and so forth, you know, they demanded something better and the industry turned around and realized that it could make more money, by using these renewables rather than, you know, with extractive processes. And that's the transitional moment that we're in right now, but consumer choice had a lot to do with it. Yucca: Yeah. And on our everyday life, I think it's, it's a place where we can really feel empowered and make really important differences in our daily lives. So feeling good about what you're eating, feeling good in terms of the health of what you're eating, that works with your body and your lifestyle, because that's another aspect we didn't really touch on the nutritional needs of people's going to be very different based on what are they doing? Someone who works an office job is a totally requires a totally different type of nutrition than your top athlete or your person who's on their feet all day or whatever these out in the sun, all these different things. Mark: Right, right. Yeah. And. As with all creatures, one size does not fit all. It's true of humans and it's true of every other organism that's out there. We may not be able to detect the subtle differences between two ants, but they're, there, there are very definitely there. And just as that is true, it's true. That has we humans, we all have our own individual dietary needs. And there are no universal prescriptions which will magically solve all problems and, and satisfactorily nourish the whole human population. Yucca: And they change at different times in our life, at different life stages. And I think that they also change seasonally, especially when you're in an area that has extreme seasons that are very different. Mark: for sure Yucca: So that's one of the things that we do that I get a lot of joy from is eating in a seasonal pattern, because that helps me with my sense of the connection with the seasons connection with my land. But it also makes it fun that there are certain foods that I eat certain times of year. And then I don't other times. And I have that to look forward to. It's just, that's when it's available and it's, and it's exciting and it's enriching in that way. Mark: So, what would we like, would we like to talk about a couple of things that people could make for themselves if they choose to? Yucca: Sure. Yeah. So. I guess it's sharing. Well, why don't before we go there, why don't we talk a little bit about food within our own practices? Oh right. Jumped over that a little bit. We've been talking on this really sort of broad area of let's talk about food of what is it and the importance of it within the grand scheme of things. But, but how about, is it something that plays a role in your ritual practice and your daily life? Mark: Particularly in group rituals, food and drink do play a significant role in my ritual life. My, my ritual circle, I mean, we, we laugh about it. We eat so well. You know, everybody kind of goes all out to bring something wonderful when we get together and we haven't been able to do that this year, of course. But, even in our. Even in our Yule ritual, which took place on zoom. We had a segment for when we could drink toasts and eat chocolate or some other kind of, you know, yummy snack, and just, virtually break bread with one another and, you know, visit with one another in that kind of way. And, I think it's a very humanizing thing and it's, it also makes, Biological sense. Being in ritual space can be very energy consuming. Your brains really whizzing and your brain is what sucks up more calories than anything else in your body. And so if you go through an intensive, ritual, transformational experience of some kind and you then come out of it, the last thing you should be doing is then just totalling off to get in your car and drive somewhere. It's not healthy. It's not safe. Yeah. It makes a lot more sense for you to have some grounding. Food that will renew replenish the calories that you've lost and can get you more of a sense of having your feet on the ground, before you operate heavy machinery. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: How about you Yucca? How does food fit in your practice? Yucca: Yeah, so food. Food is a very daily, I mean, hopefully a very daily thing for me, with my, a lot of my practices around the family experience right now. Providing food, growing food- the, the little ones are getting old enough that they can be involved in that process of the growing and harvesting and preparing it to some extent, with lots of supervision because toddlers at knives are not typically a good combination, but it's important that they do learn to use them respectfully and safely. And so, I think that if it's something's taboo, then they're more likely to, when they do experiment with it to experiment in a less safe way than understanding the rules around it. So it's very central to the daily experience that we have. Not as big a role in terms of directly with ritual, but that's, I think a big part is because they really just don't do a lot of group ritual and that's been the different places and phases that I've been in my life. My hope is that when we are on the other side of the virus and the social distancing. Requirements are at a different level and the children are getting a little bit older. My dream is having more of that community around us. We used to do for the, the, for the equinoxes and solstices. We would do feasts with our close family and friends. And that's something I would like to bring back, but on another, a little bit scaled up of a level when that's possible. So that's just one of those dreams for the future then that I would love to do. Mark: Well, yes. I mean, it sounds as though the circumstances of your life enable you to be much more plugged into the food cycle. Than I certainly am, which is why constantly reminding myself at every meal, you know, that. Where this came from, what it's a product of, who, who got it to me, is so important to me. Because living on a suburban cul-de-sac, a block from a grocery store, Yucca: what's, what's this, the population of your County, Mark: about a half a million. It's a million acres, so it's a big County, but I dunno, relative to, New Mexico, I'm not sure whether that's true. Oh, Yucca: we're about 2 million for the state Mark: 2 million acres. Yucca: No, 2 million people Mark: population Yucca: population for this state. I'm not sure what we are in acres were damn pretty big. Yeah. But yeah, Mark: so, That's just something that I've come to grips with. I mean, I've, I, I think as I mentioned before, you have to pick your battles and a lot of where I've really focused my effort to minimize my impact has been around energy consumption and transportation. And that kind of thing. We've talked about this before. So yeah. Why don't you explain one of those seasonal things that you make for your family? Yucca: Sure. Well, we are in winter now. This is for us, this, we've just had the solstice. This is First Winter, it's cold, it's dark. And we've really been into broths right now. Stews and broths and those heavier things. And we will do broths in the evening. A few episodes back we talked about light and darkness and, and all of that. And one of the things I shared was that we have orange colored lights in our home. So when we're getting ready for bed in the evening, we switched the lights over to those red lights instead of our white bright lights. And we'll usually have some broth and it's just this really wonderful- it's warm and a mug, just a very well wonderful little ritual of calming down. And the way that I cook and the way that I bake too is by, I don't really use recipes. I just kind of look at what do I have and because I've experimented enough, I kind of have a sense of how it'll work. If I get a new ingredient for the first time, I'll look up and I'll go to maybe the first. So you pages on the search engine and read each person's recipe and just kind of get a sense of, Oh, how are people using this ingredient and then experiment with that. But with the broths, what we do is we save the bones and I'll keep it easy, keep it separate depending on, you know, the bone versus the beef versus lamb or something like that. And I'll do a long, long boil to get a real good bone broth going and then whatever vegetables that we have that we've got the ends of. So the top of the carrot that we didn't use and, some of the turnip peels and the. Onion peels and garlic peels and all of those, whatever those vegetables are that are more of the wintry style ones at the end. And that last hour will go in. So making the broth at first, and for people who don't eat meat, you can even do a broth just as well by taking all your foods, your vegetable scraps, giving it a nice long simmer and, yeast at the end, right. At the end, you don't want to put it in at the beginning, but like a nutritional yeast, and that can give it that real nice, kind of mouth texture to it and that umami taste. But we'll do that. And then, usually I'll skim out the, spent vegetables and put those in the compost and then salt, a little pepper. And it's the most delicious, wonderful sensation to drink at night in the cold of winter with the little flickering lights, and then with cozy little people and fuzzy blankets with stuffed animals. You got to watch out though, they like to spill it on stuffed animals. So that's what we've been doing a lot of right now. Mark: That's great. Sounds delicious. Yucca: What about you, Mark? Mark: Well, yes. I mean, it is, it is midwinter time and it's, you know, the, the souls to season and so forth. So I thought that I would present my recipe for mulled wine or cider. You can make this with, like sparkling apple cider, or actually still Apple cider is fine. It doesn't need to be sparkling, because you're going to, you're going to heat it so it would lose any carbonation. So, I do work with recipes because otherwise, unfortunate things happen. So, I will just kind of go through this. What you do is you start either with your, like a gallon of Apple cider, which can be, I prefer the unfiltered kind, the kind that's cloudy, because it's much more, it's just much more robust and has a lot more of the quality of the apple in it. Yucca: yAnd when you're saying Apple cider, you're talking about, soft for folks with, okay. So you could do this with wine for your alcoholic option, or you could do non alcoholic, apple cider Mark: Apple juice, Yucca: Apple juice. Mark: Okay. What I mean is unfiltered Apple juice. Okay. So, I'll, I'll go through it once for the, non-alcoholic option and then I'll go back. So in this recipe, you have two cinnamon sticks, two oranges that have been zested and juiced ate whole cloves, six star anise, and then four oranges peeled just for the garnish. You just want the peel. So you combine the, all the ingredients except for the orange peel for the garnish in a large sauce pan, and you bring it to a boil and simmer it low over the heat for 10 minutes. Then you let it cool. Pour it into mugs and add a twist of orange peel to each one. So you twist the orange peel to spray the orange oil over the top of the, the mug or glass. And it's delicious. It is really good. Yucca: Did I miss, did you say the volume? What was the volume of Mark: a gallon? Yucca: A gallon. Okay. Mark: Yeah. Now the alcoholic version is pretty much the same stuff, except that you also add a half a cup of honey. So what you need is a 375 milliliter bottle of red or tawny port wine. And then two bottles to 750 milliliter, regular bottles of red wine. A darker red wine, like Cabernet Sauvignon is really good for this. Don't buy expensive wine to do this. Use the cheap stuff. Trader Joe's two and a half bucks chuck is fine for this. So then you add half a cup of honey to that. What you do is in the process, you combine the red wine, the honey, the cinnamon sticks, zest juice, cloves and star anise, and you bring that to a boil and you simmer it for 10 minutes. And then you add the bottle of port wine afterwards. And then you pour that into mugs and use the orange peel to garnish each one. And it's delicious. It's really very good. Yucca: It makes me cozy just thinking about it. Mark: Yes it's with all those spices, it definitely goes right to, all the parts of you that may make you sort of get sweaty. I'm very fond of mulled wine. I wrote a poem about it. I really, I just like mulled wine a lot and I only of course do it at this time of year. So it's one of those special foods that I think about. Yucca: Yeah. Mark: Leading up to this season. Yucca: Well, thank you for sharing that with us. Sure. Thank you. I have to listen back to this and write it down. Mark: Well, I can email it to you. You, you have an inside track Yucca: to, yes, that's right. Mark: Actually we could put these recipes in the. Yucca: Oh, yeah, let's do that. So you all have probably already seen that it's in the show notes, but just click down below and you will find these recipes right there. Great. Oh, wonderful. Mark: Right. Well, this has been a meandering exploration of food, paganism, science and recipes. Yucca: Yep. Well, thank you. Mark: Thank you. Hope you enjoyed it.

Interview With My Original Mentor - Part 2 of 4

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 24, 2020 25:36

Want to know how ClickFunnels became so popular so fast? Or how we generated over $10,000,000 in revenue our very first year, right out of the gate? I’ll give you a hint: We didn’t sell ClickFunnels as a software. To find out how we were able to grow so fast…and how YOU can grow YOUR company by hacking what we did, listen in to part 2 of my interview with Mark Joyner! ---Transcrtipt--- Russell Brunson: Hey everyone. It's Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Show. I hope that our last episode, you enjoyed episode number one of four with my interview with Mark Joyner. And it's fun having chance to relisten to it and rewatch it, and just I had so much fun that night, it was such a cool experience. And so with that said, I'm not going to do too much more other than set up the second part of this interview with Mark. And I hope you guys enjoy it. If you are enjoying this series, please, please, please take a screenshot of this on your phone, wherever you listen to the podcast and post it on Facebook or Instagram. And tag me in it, do #marketingsecrets, tag me, and please give me your comments or feedback, your ideas, your aha's. I'd love to hear them. And with that said, I'm going to cue up the theme song. When we come back, you'll listen to part two of my interview with Mark Joyner. Mark Joyner: All right, what would be the third, most significant strategic move? Russell: Oh, there's a couple different directions. I could go on this one. Can I give two halves? Mark: Please, I love it. I love it. Russell: So one half is when we launched ClickFunnels, It wasn't just that we were going to build a software company. In fact, it was probably a month or two before we came out with ClickFunnels. I went with... I don't if you know David Frye, but David's one of my mentors. Mark: Yeah, I love David. Russell: His wife's actually my second aunt. So anyway... Mark: Oh wow. Russell: When he was dating his now wife, I was like a little snot nose kid running around at my grandma's house. And anyway. Mark: I love David. He's my buddy. He's a great guy. Russell: Yeah, he's amazing. And we were at this network marketing convention, and I remember we were there and the company was a software company. We're sitting there with like 5,000 people in the room. And all the people are coming on stage and they're crying and all this stuff. And I'm just confused, like this doesn't make any sense. And I remember he leaned over to me after two days of watching this and he said, "You see what they're doing?" I'm like, "No, I have no idea what's happening. I'm so confused." He's like, "They're not selling software, so they built a community." And I was like, "Oh my gosh, that's the thing. They have this community. They have a culture. And so when we started doing ClickFunnels, it was that mindset. How do we build a culture? So it's not just like a software. I want to build something where people feel part of it. Like it's not Russell's company, because Russell's company they'll go to whoever's the cheapest. Whoever's got the new feature. If it's their company , it it's their culture, that shifts everything. And so we started this whole thing from day one, of like, "We're funnel hackers. This is our movement. This what we believe in." And two weeks ago we had our Funnel Hacking Live. We had 4,500 people in a room and people are going crazy. We got people with ClickFunnels tattooed on their arms, people wearing custom funnels. And we had people coming on stage crying. And I'm looking out and I'm like, six years ago David Frye pointed out to me, that became a big piece of it. So I think it was not just having this as a software product, but having this as a movement, where it's bigger than that. So, that was one big strategic thing that I think a lot of people miss. And then the second one is, I think, again, it comes back to us as marketers. We get so excited about the next thing. What's the next offer we're going to create, and everything like that. And I remember after the first year, ClickFunnels grew to a certain point, and then me I'm like, "I want to create something new." Even though the market didn't necessarily needs something new, but I wanted to do something else. And so what I started doing is I realized, this funnel's in the middle of my value add. The webinar funnel and tons of people had seen it. It was starting to fatigue a little bit. And that point, we'd done over $10 million in sales. That's what we launched the second funnel to bring people to ClickFunnels. That's when basically I wrote the DotCom Secrets Book, and that became a book funnel. And people come and they buy the book, they go through the book funnel. And then at the end the book funnel, we just send them up into the webinar. Mark: See that funnel right there, by the way, the links up there for that. Russell: Oh, very cool. Mark: You guys should check that out by the way. That's another very, very interesting thing. You guys need to funnel hack what the guy who teaches funnel hacking does. Because this dude has a mastered this stuff and that funnel is sick. It is sick. Anyway, keep going. Russell: Yeah. Well, so I'll tell you a story that shows why this is so powerful. About a year and a half, two years into ClickFunnels, We started getting all the calls. This is when the VCs and other people start noticing you. And they're like, "Hey, we want to be part of your journey." And I was just like, "I have no desire to do any of that." And then one time, some guy was like, "We're in Boise State, can we meet with you?" I'm like, "Okay, sure, let's go to lunch." And turns out they were in San Francisco, they jumped in a plane, a private plane, flew in and then drove to our office and were like, "Hey." And I'm like, "Where you guys staying?" "Well, we just flew in." I'm like, "When? Just right...?" It was a whole thing that they tricked me into thinking they were right there. So I went to lunch with these guys and they start asking me all the VC questions like, "Well, how much does it cost to acquire a ClickFunnels customer?" And I was like, "Well, if we drive ads to the homepage, it's like", I can't remember at the time, "$150 to acquire customer." And the guy starts getting all excited and he's like, "Okay. So if we were to give you $40 million in funding", and he was doing the math, like how many customers that would equal all sorts of stuff. And he's getting all excited. And I was like, "Wait, wait, wait", I was like, "We actually turn those ads off." He was like, "What? Why would you do that? That's a great cost to acquire customer in the bay", or whatever. And I'm like, "because I'm bootstrapping this thing. I'm paying for these customers out of my pocket. I'm not paying $150 for a trial. I'm going to be broke in a week and a half." And so I said, "But instead, what we did is we created these book funnels, where someone comes in, they buy a book." And I said, "On average, we spend about $20 in Facebook ads to sell a book. But then there's a funnel. So the audio book and there's a course. And there's a couple of different products in the funnel. And so we spend $20 to sell a book, but we make $40 in the book funnel. So I net $20 cash in my pocket.And then I tell these people, "After you read this book, you'll understand the strategy of funnels. Now you need to use ClickFunnels. So technically all of our customers actually pays $20 before we introduce them to ClickFunnels." Mark: And this is the other book funnel, by the way, guys, if you guys want to check that out. Yeah. And both of these are pretty sick, because the first one was Dotcom Secrets and then Expert Secrets. Russell: And then Traffic Secrets is coming out in like a month. So that's the third book. Mark: And I'm going to be at that event. Can I say that. Can I say it? Russell: Yes, please do. Mark: Can I say it? Russell is holding this awesome live event. He invited a small group of speakers. Only 200 people are going to be there in the audience. But he's going to be broadcasting this live all over the world. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be one of the speakers. I was very flattered and grateful that Russell invited me to be part of this. This is going to be sick. Russell is going to spread this thing all over the place. It's going to be madness. Everything that Russell has put on since... Well, over the last few years, everything you've done has just been nuts. But it's been getting better and better and better. I'm so excited to see what you do with this one, because I have a feeling this is going to eclipse any of the past campaigns you've ever done. I got a little feeling in my gut. Russell: I was so excited for it. It's like, as I'm writing the book, all I can think about is how we're going to sell the book, like this is going to be so much fun. Mark: Oh dude. That's awesome. That's awesome. Russell: So fun. But what's crazy was I'm sitting there that lunch with the VC, I'm telling this stuff. And he doesn't understand it the first time, I explaining it three or four times. And finally remember he said something really profound. He said, "If what you're telling me is true, this will change business forever." And I was like, that's the whole thing. A software company that's grown to the size we have, all of them have taken on money. I can't find any that didn't. Mark: That's right. Russell: Maybe a couple. But for the most part, they all took on money to grow. And I was like, instead of bringing on cash to grow, you just use a funnel and it finances itself the whole way. And so I think that's a big strategic thing is like, we drink our own Kool-Aid. I literally today was working with my funnel team on our next funnel for the next campaign, to bring more customers in for free that we can then bring into ClickFunnels. So I think that's another big piece is just understanding you can grow a company without taking on cash, it's just understanding this funnel game where your customers finance the growth. And I think that's the best way to do it. Mark: Well, I got to tell you what. For me personally, my experience in the VC world and in the acquisition world and all of that, back in the early days of online marketing, you were still in college, but before the first dot-com bubble burst, I'll just give you guys one example of one of the ugly things I saw. Every company that I've ever started was bootstrapped, but we had some of the same things. We had people coming in trying to acquire stuff. I started the second pay-per-click search engine. While Google was still in college. I started the second pay-per-click search engine. Well, I want to be very careful about how I phrase this here. Let's just say around that same time, there was a group of people who attempted to acquire one of my companies and through some shady, reverse merger, backend, crazy deal, these guys basically bamboozled us out of everything. And it turned out that a lot of the guys who were involved in that ended up going to jail for stock fraud later. And that kind of thing, by the way, people don't understand, this is common. So not only are the VC guys who were the legit VC guys, those guys are sharks too. But there's a layer underneath those guys who were like straight criminal sharks as well. So you have to be extremely careful when you're swimming in that world. And this is why, for me, I don't want to accept outside funding for anything. I want to bootstrap everything. I want to surround myself around people who are as motivated as I am, so that I can grow it by pulling our own selves up by our own bootstraps. And then we're going to own everything. We're going to get all the profit, and we don't have to worry about some VC jerk off telling us how to run the business when they don't really understand. Russell: You want to know something cool? Mark: Please. Russell: I just bought bootstrap.com. And my next book is going to be called bootsrap.com. Mark: I love it. Russell: You said it five times. I'm like, "I'm so excited right now." Mark: That's awesome. Okay, so after the trilogy, you're starting a whole new thing. Russell: Yeah, because the trilogy has been how-to books. This one's not going to be a how-to book. This is going to be like the story of... And what's crazy, ClickFunnels was built remote, all of our team's remote. So almost every conversation has happened on Boxer. So we've recorded every important conversation in ClickFunnels. So I'm getting them all downloaded and transcribed right now. So it's going to be like, this is actually what Russell said. In fact, you could listen to the conversations. Anyway, I'm excited. That's going to be my next project starting in about a year from now. Mark: Beautiful. So, man, I'm going to have to skip a couple of these. All right, so here's one… Russell: I'm feeling good so we can keep going. Don't worry. Mark: All right. Awesome. Awesome. Well, you're always super energetic, man. Every time I talk to Russell, I get more energized. I'm generally a pretty energetic guy, but I just vibe, because Russell's got this amazing... He effervesces energy. All right, so what would you say are the three biggest barriers, or bottlenecks for growth in businesses right now? Russell: In my specific business, or just business as a whole? Mark: Well, either one. You pick either one. Russell: Interesting. So three biggest bottlenecks for growth. I think this may be a little early, but I think one of the biggest things people are going to see, right now we've been in this amazing season where advertising has been easy. When I first got started online, grateful for you, because I don't know how you guys can figure it out back in the day. We were building lists and there was no Facebook. Google, wasn't really there the way... I was lucky enough to hear your audio is on viral marketing. And we were building these viral sites to acquire customers email addresses. And I remember sitting listing the farewell package, and you talking about with crazy stuff you guys would do to get a list. So you got my mind thinking like that. Mark: Yeah, we had to get super creative. We had to get super creative. Russell: Oh yeah. No one thinks of that anymore. So what's happened is Facebook came out. It's easy. Everyone's in business and it's been like that for the last decade. So business has been so, so simple. And I don't think it's going to last that much longer. I think either some government regulation is going to happen, or they're just going to do a Google, where they start shifting away from smaller brands and just elbow us out and go after bigger companies. And I think in fact, that's a big reason I wrote the Traffic Secrets book. Hopefully you guys all have a chance to read it when it comes out, but it's very much not tactical, like here's how to run a Facebook app. I don't show the Facebook editor once. It's very much a strategic book, like how do you start thinking differently? Because when Zuckerberg comes and we always joke, it was probably because I was writing the book right when Avengers: Endgame came out. And Thanos, who does the Thanos snap and half the world disappears. We always talk about Zuckerberg. We nicknamed it off as Zanos. I'm like, Zanos is going to snap his finger, and half the entrepreneurs and businesses will disappear. And we're seeing it. I've had probably five or six people that are friends, in the last week alone, who's got Facebook ads shut down. And it's going to be coming. And so I think the biggest thing is that people have had it really good and really easy, because they've just been like, "I'd run Facebook ads, or I run a Google ad." they're just doing the basics, that are simple. It's going to get harder. And so I think it's time for all of us to start resharpening our marketing mind. In the Traffic Secrets book, I have a whole chapter on integration marketing. I learned this from my mentor, Mark Joyner, you guys need to start learning this stuff." Just all these different things that, that people haven't had to learn. I'm definitely looking at it and. And I keep giving you so much credit, because so much of my mindset initially was based on your teachings. But we spend so much effort right now focusing on list building, because I know that it's going to get harder to build lists. Like right now, from clickfunnels.com site, we get about 1500 opt-ins a day. And then for my other funnels, we get about three to 4,000 opt-ins a day. So we got almost 5,000 people a day opting in. And that's our focal points. Because I'm like, "I'm going to keep building these lists like crazy, because someday these other things might disappear, or get harder, or more expensive. And I'm going to have these lists, and I'll be able to weather the storm." Where a lot of people are not going to be able to, because they're not focusing on list building and building relationships with those lists. They're just out there buying Facebook ads, because it's easy. And I think that's one of the biggest things that I'm fearful for myself. I'm doubling down on, I think other people need to as well. Mark: I want to interject really quick here about something, because it's funny you bring this up. Because this is something I've been talking about a lot. So I've been doing a lot more public speaking lately. And one of the things that I've been talking about is exactly this. And I want to show everybody a little bit of an interesting phenomenon in it. Russell, I think you'll appreciate this. So if you guys remember Chris Anderson writing the book about the Long Tail, right? And if this is the unit numbers sold of any particular... Let's say you imagine you take Amazon's entire marketplace. This is the number of units sold and this is the rank. So the number one selling book is going to outsell the number two selling book by an order of magnitude, at least. So it's like the inverse of an exponential growth curve. So Chris Anderson's whole theory about the long tail, was that because automation is making everything so easy, was that yeah, traditionally people used to focus all their energy in here, because this is where all the money was. But now, because of the improvements we have in supply chain technology and deliveries, there's so much money in the long tail of the graph. And if you could have an inventory of billions and billions and billions of units that represents enormous economic potential. But here's what happened, the exact opposite of what Chris Anderson predicted is the reality of what happened. See Facebook, YouTube, all of these platforms, they built themselves on our backs. We were the ones that created all of the content so that these guys could be so big. And now we're the eyeballs, but guess who they care about now? If you take this out and you put in, you take this same graph and you speak in terms of ad spending, they only care about this portion of the graph. Why? While this represents a lot of economic potential. It also represents an enormous pain in the ass for the company that has to manage it. Russell: They hate customers. Mark: They hate the customers. And this is why when you're on Facebook and we're on YouTube, now, your ads are getting shut down algorithmically, or they're getting shut down by some low-level employee that doesn't really understand what's going on and they don't give you any explanation. And Russell, you've probably heard so many stories like this. People wake up in the morning and then they have this business, it's going great guns. And they're saying to their wives, "This is it. We've made it." And then the next day they wake up and then because something happened algorithmically in Facebook, they completely get shut down, that their lives are basically shattered as a result of that. So unless you're here, in terms of ad spend, you don't get their attention. They're not going to explain to you why they shut you down. And this is why we started this thing called integration marketing society. So you talked about integration marketing. So we're building integration marketing society, so people can band together and buttress ourselves against the threat of this. That's what that whole thing is all about. So I want to have another conversation with you about that another time, because I think that there's a lot of potential synergy there. I'm glad you're seeing that same thing. So what would you say is the number two and three bottlenecks now, then? Russell: Let's see. So definitely traffic's the biggest one, I think. And I don't know historically how all this all works, but advertising's all about the pattern interrupt. We're still seeing stuff happening. And then like the thing that catches our attention, it interrupts. And it used to be, back when we first got started, you figured out a pattern interrupt and nothing would last for months, or years before people caught on and figured it out. And now it's tough because we come out with the new pattern interrupt, we post it on Instagram, and within like 15 minutes, there's 800 other people doing the exact same posts. They see, "It worked for us it must work for me." And they start doing it. And it's interesting, because it's so easy now to clone and to copy and things like that. And so I think for people who are truly trying to grow companies and serve in a different level and like be creatives, being creative is harder. And I think that it takes... I don't know exactly how to phrase it right. But I think that the me-too stuff's going to get worse and worse, because there's some people copying, right? Mark: Yes. Russell: I'm going to get better at the creation and better at creative and better at figuring out how to break the pattern and break the pattern, and stay in front of that all the time. Because it's crazy how fast things get knocked off now. We have a campaign, or something that's working and it's crazy. In fact, I had this conversation with Dean Graziosi, He's become a dear friend and Dean ran infomercials for a year. And he said that he would record a show, an infomercial, and the lifespan was like 18 months. every 18 months, he had to record a new show. Then he came on the internet and he's like I started doing my ads and I would launch them on Facebook, or Instagram. He's like, "They'd be killing it for a day and a half, two days, and then it's gone." And he's like, "What?" And they couldn't figure it out. And he basically came back, he said I'm testing a bunch of stuff. He said, the biggest thing he figured out, he has to create tons of creative. I said, "Well, how much? One ad a week, two ads a week?" He's like, "No, no, no." He's like, "I carry my phone wherever I go, like two to three ads a day, minimum." And he's walking around with his book, like, "Here's an ad here." He walks to his daughter's soccer game, he's doing an ad there. And then he's in the elevators, doing an ad there. And just tons and tons and tons and tons of creative. And I figured out how to break the pattern, how to like how to grab people's attention. And so it's like, if you don't love your thing enough to like, "I got to create a lot more creative", it's going to be hard, because people are just knocking you off. So I think that's a big part for us. We used to spend so much time being slow on creating ads and stuff. Now it's more like, how do we stay in front of that curve and get excited where the art isn't in creating next product or the next campaign, or the next funnel, the art becomes, "What's a new way I can sell the thing you already have." And it's that big shift. In fact, in our company, I like building funnels. I'm a little obsessed with it. And so for a long time- Mark: Yeah, to say the least. Russell: Yeah. The way we kept growing is I create new funnel and create a new funnel. And the tough things is it's just hard to keep doing that, because then every time you create a new funnel, you got to create the new ads and it's a lot more work and effort. Whereas, now it's like we shifted our focus in less funnels, but more creative for every funnel. And it's just a different mindset shift. And so it's not super clear the way it came out, but it's one of the big problems I've seen that we're having is ad fatigue. It burns out super fast if you're not in front of just creation, always trying to figure out different ways to break the pattern. You're going to get left behind really, really quickly. Because the copycats are so many of now, that even if you are copying the gift pattern, the diminishing return hits so fast. Mark: Well, the problem is, is people also don't know how to copy. For me, there's like three levels of copying, one is straight out plagiarism. And then the next one is, is people take your surface stuff and they change a few words and then they pop that up. Which to me is just as dumb and is just as shady. Because first of all, changing a couple of words doesn't make sense when you're dealing with a completely different product. Russell: All sorts of stuff. Mark: Yeah. So many different things are different. And this is where you really got to get into the real understanding of when you're funnel hacking something, or you're modeling something, what you have to understand is the psychological structure behind it. And this is what Breakthrough Advertising, the classic Eugene Schwartz book that everybody should be reading. I had to read that probably about five times before it finally sunk in. Holy crap. I didn't really understand it at first. I was like, "Oh, okay. It's interesting." But then when it finally clicked. And his whole idea, it's basically based on the notion that you've got to analyze how to connect your product with the market forces that already exist. And every product, in every market is going to have a different way of connecting that. And you can't copy that from someone. The only way to get that correctly, to have a real big legitimate breakthrough in the business is through the process of analysis. And this that's the core idea of... There's so many nuggets of wisdom for breakthrough advertising, but that's the core thing that people had better get good at, because I tell you what, if they don't, here's what's going to happen. It's going to become like the quants in the trading game. The quants are like, "Hey, let's see who can shave a quarter of a millisecond off the trading time on the stock market." Well, if the marketing world becomes like that, good luck to you unless you're the guy with the best quants. The only other way to compete then is to train your creative mind, to come up with creative answers. And as you remember from the farewell package, there are so many ways to do that. There are so many out of the box ways. You don't have to do things the same way everyone else is doing, but everybody's getting lazy now, because they see the quick way to get it done. But I think what's going to happen to those people, it's going to be what happened to the people early on in the early internet era. When the guys got the big, quick SEO money. Because remember I was telling you, "Hey man, don't do the ad set. Don't go too far down that AdSense rabbit hole. Build your list." Well, remember all those guys who are killing it with AdSense. And then were, boom. Thanos snapped his fingers and then all of them money was gone. That's going to happen to everybody who doesn't build their creative muscle. Russell: 100%.

How to Build Out an Accounting System Using Automation with Scott Scharf

#DoorGrowShow - Property Management Growth

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 28, 2020 44:55

On‌ ‌today's‌ ‌episode,‌ ‌we‌ bring back ‌Scott‌ ‌Scharf‌ to talk about‌ ‌how‌ ‌to‌ ‌build‌ ‌out‌ ‌an‌ ‌accounting‌ ‌system‌ ‌using‌ ‌automation.‌ ‌ Scott is the Co-Founder of Catching Clouds, an outsourced cloud accounting service for e-commerce businesses. Topics: Why accounting is a daily, weekly, and monthly endeavor. The best accounting software. Setting clients up for accrual. Understanding the technological ecosystem. Switching from cash-basis accounting. Refining the process of cash flow projections. Why cash is king. One thing to increase optimization. Transcription: Joe: Mark, I said many times that I actually fell asleep in accounting class in college. And unfortunately, it was Northeastern University and there were probably 200 people in the room. I was sitting near the door. So 199 people marched out with me there, my head on my desk, drooling, and then the next class came in yet somehow I'm in the position over the last eight years of really revealing a bare minimum of 5,000 profit and loss statements. And I get on my soapbox and preach about this; how important good clean financials are, not only for an entrepreneur's ability to analyze his own business and make sure they're driving towards their goals properly, but to be able to even just get in the room with highly qualified buyers. Once you get in the room, there's a ton of other things, but the P&Ls will get you in the room. And I understand you just had another conversation with our good friend Scott Scharff from Catching Clouds about building automation into accounting so you don't have to actually do this yourself day in and day out, week in and week out by building some automation into the process, either through QuickBooks or Xero. I understand Scott has preferences for both and good things and bad things to say about both. Mark: Yeah, so you're not the only one that fell asleep in accounting class. I did as well. If you looked at my grades, you'd wonder why I'd talk about accounting so much. But you know this Joe I've been working my way through some biographies of various titans of American business. I went through John D. Rockefeller. I'm now in the middle of a biography on Andrew Carnegie. And you know what one thing they both have in common? They were religious about their books. In fact, that was one of the big advantages that Carnegie brought into his business, was detailed books that they could optimize. I just find it fascinating that we can see that this is the case all the way through history what the people have been super successful. Their books are up to date. They're clean. They use them to optimize their businesses. And Scott and I talked a lot about how to do that with an Amazon business. I'm not going to lie, it was overwhelming, partly because Scott is crazy intelligent when it comes to this stuff and he has his systems all set up and he starts throwing around this system, that system, you just hook this up and you do that and then the other thing happens. And in my head, I'm thinking, how can anyone even start this? And at the end of this episode, you'll hear me kind of say that to him. I'm like Scott, this is overwhelming. How do you even get started? But the idea is simple and it is you just get started. He said something in this episode, which I didn't call out in the middle of the episode, but I think is really, really key. He said that of all the financial records that he sees people put together, he will see sometimes accountants that don't know the Amazon world trying to do books, and then he'll see some owners doing their own books. He said both are typically a mess but the ones done by the owners are less a mess than those being done by the bookkeepers because the bookkeepers don't know anything about Amazon. Joe: That is CPAs you mean, right? Not the bookkeepers. Mark: Yes. Joe: Yeah, I'll agree with them a million percent because CPAs do taxes, bookkeepers manage books, and owners try to manage books as well but never quite as good. So I think he's spot on. Guys, listen, and by guys, that's a unisex term. Pay attention to this. I know I preach on it sometimes and I'm so sorry, but it's because I'm here to help you. I'm here to protect you. We are entrepreneurs, we're advisers, we're brokers, we're mentors, and we're your friends, and we're sharing this information for you to help you build a better business and have a better exit someday. Even if that someday is 20 years from now, if you've got automation in your books like Scott is talking about here with Mark, it's going to make your life easier and help you make more money. So with that, let's move to it. But before we do, I want you all to send an email to Mark to discuss whether Carnegie is pronounced Carnegie or Carnegie. Mark: That's a really good question. I go both ways by the way. The author of this; it's an audiobook, he's saying Carnegie so I'm saying Carnegie now. Joe: Okay, Carnegie Hall is where I've been before, but I don't know either. I actually said we have a client that is a one, two, three, fourth remove descendant of Teddy Roosevelt and I pronounced it Roosevelt because I Googled that. Mark: That's wrong. Joe: I know. It was dead wrong. Mark: Carnegie, Carnegie Accounting, let's do accounting. Joe: There we go. All right. Here we go. Mark: Scott, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast. I know you are on the podcast a while ago. I think we talked about the ultimate seller's checklist about the things that you have to do, both leading up to a sale and then after the sale, closing on the business but I'm excited about today's conversation. We're going to talk a little bit about bookkeeping and the reason I'm excited about this and I know people in the cars or wherever you're listening at would be like I need to stay awake, I want to talk bookkeeping. I hop on this all the time. Bookkeeping is so important and there's so much data in your books if you keep them right. I had a conversation with somebody just the other day who is ready to sell. He's got a great business that's growing like crazy and he's going to have to put things on hold to flip over to accrual because that's what we require now. And so I want to talk to you about this because it's what you guys do over at Catching Clouds. Why don't you just kind of give a quick introduction for those that are listening to you for the first time? Scott: Okay, cool. Thank you. That was a while ago and that was a good conversation. So Catching Clouds, we provide outsourced cloud accounting services to e-commerce businesses. So our whole focus is only working with businesses that are selling a physical widget on Amazon, eBay, Shopify, Bigcommerce, TrueCommerce, House, Wayfair, Wish, Amazon Canada, CO, UK. Really most of our clients are those more complex multi-channel sellers and we're working with the larger established businesses and the one to fifty million dollar range. But the main value we offer is we provide the bookkeeping, accounting, and controller level review of their financials and we do all the work. The clients get read-only access to the financials. They threw everything over the wall to us and we leverage technology to pull everything together and then we turn that into accurate financials. And we just consider ourselves part of our client's businesses. Were just part of their team. Mark: Why? I mean, let me just start off with kind of an obvious question and one that I think if somebody is not at the million-dollar revenue or fifty million dollar revenue level, why are companies at that level hiring and spending money on a company like yours? Why is it that their financials are important enough to have that controller level service like yours? Scott: Yeah, so the main thing is that they feel out of control. And we have talked all about management accounting, not just year-end for taxes; we're like a clock, strike twice a day. And otherwise, you only know; and if anything it is extended, you only know if you're profitable in September for the whole prior year. And our whole focus is accountings at daily, weekly, monthly piece and that the owners at a minimum have to stop, take a step back and look at their financials and adjust their gut feeling so they can make great decisions on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, which are all those decisions you have to make so that your business runs better. It's more efficient, it's more profitable, and better to sell because it's managed well. But if you don't get that feedback where we have people; sellers that will go, wow, that was my best month ever and we're like, yeah, you lost a bunch of money. And they're like, wait, what? Well, you spend all the money on this and you didn't pay attention to your marketing spend and you spent through all your profit on the marketing spend. And if you don't see that, it doesn't do any good to notice that six months from now. So it's those kind of things. Or when they're looking at any of the many real-time tools, there's a big difference between real-time tools to do re-pricing and high-level reporting and you can use to make real-time decisions on re-pricing product or what to buy and all that stuff, and then double-entry accounting that accounts for everything. And then we help them adjust they're gut. Hey, this tool always shows you your sales numbers 10% too high, and then they can adjust to it and make those real-time tweaks. But the real value is they're serious about being entrepreneurs. They understand and they hate doing accounting. Most of these businesses didn't go into business to pay sales tax or do accounting and they want somebody else to do it, but they want somebody else who can talk the talk, who understands where the FBA is and FBA reimbursements and inventory and accrual and landed costs. And they don't want to have to train the accountants on just the terminology, let alone what are all the crazy things Amazon does, what's the settlement statement, and all that crazy. So that somebody that they can trust is taking care of those financials and then it's our goal to educate them on how to read the financials themselves and provide insight. Mark: Yeah, I think you talked a lot about kind of those boots on the ground sort of decisions, those granular decisions. I think financials and getting comfortable with reading your financial statements there's two levels. I'm a big picture type of guy and I actually just recently did this with Quiet Light and with another company I own where I took a look at my financials over the course of the last year and I just simply broke down the expenses as a ratio of revenue in the big categories and where are we? And with Quiet Light one thing I want to do is up our data game. We've got a lot of data that we built on over the years, but it's not organized as well as it could be. It's not point and click we could pull this data up. It requires some work. And you know what? It shows in my P&L because we historically had a large tech department that's changing. With my other company, we should be more marketing focused and it was this kind of bigger directional sort of CEO sort of thing and saying, hey, you know what, we really need to double down on the marketing. So I think the financials have that kind of dual-level play of you get the big picture, but the granular boots on the ground sort of decisions too is important if you know how to read them and understand them. You guys help with that. You help laicized some of it. Scott: We do. And one of the key values we do is each of our controllers who are CPAs we don't do federal and state income taxes, but they understand accrual accounting, gap accounting, and everything else. But each one is supporting at least 10 sellers and we never share confidential information, SKUs, or whatever but we can look across all of our clients and say, hey, wow, you're spending three times as much on your Google ad spend as we've seen with our other clients and we're not seeing that show up in your income. And they're like, oh, I just launched a new product, in four weeks I'm going to cut that back. And then our controller as from an accountability puts it on the calendar, calls the seller and say cut it back so you can start making profit. It's okay to ramp up your marketing spend and burn through your profit for whatever number of weeks to launch a product but sometime you've got to back it down. And if you forget all your profit is flowing out. And so it's that comparison and we can do that common comparison, kind of small data, big data across our client base because they're all consistent because we have no restaurants or which would be bad or nonprofits or other things. So it's that insight of being able to see multiples and your business too, you have the same benefits of the fact that I've looked at over a thousand seller's books. You guys have looked probably at least that many if you get that when you're in this niche and you focus on these areas, you really understand the nuances and you see the different scenarios and then you can provide that feedback. Mark: Absolutely, specialization especially for what you guys do. It makes a huge difference. Let's start with talking about different types of software, because Joe Valley, the co-owner of Quiet Light he often, says Excel is not accounting software. Unfortunately, we see a lot fewer Excel books these days than we used to, although they still come up every once in a while. The two dominant ones seem to be QuickBooks and Xero. I have seen other systems thrown in there from time to time. I know you've dealt with NetSuite to an extent. What's your favorite, why, or are they equally good? Scott: So Pepsi, Coke, they're great. It's so great that they… Mark: I'm a pop guy. Scott: Okay, yeah. Mark: Oh no, I'm joking. I'm not, I don't drink pop or soda. Scott: Yeah, I know. So in general it's great that they're both out there, they're both heavy competitors, Xero does much better internationally. Intuit has a much bigger footprint here; a much, much bigger footprint here in the US. But because Xero came along and has been in the cloud and about six years ago, got 200 million in VC funds Intuit went uh-oh we better fix our cloud solution. So that helped anybody that was on QuickBooks. So today they're both feature consistent. Okay, so if you pick either platform one or the other, you're going to be okay. We prefer Xero. We think Xero is a better cloud platform. It's better with multi-currency. If you're doing multi-currency, it is by far significantly better. And then our view is that Xero is a better company. Intuit is a shareholder driven marketing company and that's all they care about. They don't care about accountants. They don't care about small business. I mean their marketing says they do. They are a big, big business. And Xero even though it's much bigger, is still only a few thousand people. It started in New Zealand and is very much about supporting businesses and being engaged in everything else. And they're just really upping the feedback always. Mark: Yeah, I've got a soft spot in my heart for Xero. I put my other company on it for a while. I actually had to take it off because I didn't like their PayPal integration at the time and that other company had a good amount of PayPal sales, but I just like how they set up the system philosophically. It just felt tighter. It felt like QuickBooks you could have all these loose ends kind of floating out there and Xero, like their name kind of alludes to, wants everything zeroed out and they wanted all the balance out. And philosophically, it felt better. What about NetSuite or other third-party systems? Are there other systems that you think are good to work with? Scott: Not really. Really it's in that small; even if you're a startup, you should start on Xero and QuickBooks and you should be doing accounting from day one even if you have no idea what you're doing. And every business owner, entrepreneur, you have to wear every hat in the business so you understand it enough so when you delegate it, you can oversee it. So you can start at that level and the only reason we would expect anybody that would outgrow Xero or QuickBooks online or us at that 50 million or whatever stage is when their supply chain gets more complicated. So we can talk about cloud inventory tools but the idea is need and I'm a big believer in best of breed; so Xero for cloud accounting, Gusto for payroll, A2X for Amazon and Shopify income, Hubdoc for document management, Bill.com and others and Veem for international wire. So we've got these set of tools but then the cloud inventory tool really has to be specific to the client. Almost all of them suck in different ways but there are some that are getting to be pretty good that you can use. But if you outgrow those or you can't find a tool that you need that will meet your supply chain and the number of 3PLs you have and your manufacturing process, then you might have to grow up to NetSuite. And if you're a larger business and you want to be able to; you're buying a lot of international stuff and you have customs invoices that show up six months after you've done a sale and you want to back-calculate all of your COGS into the past, the only way to do that is on NetSuite. Because we do monthly snapshot accounting so if there's an adjustment six months later we posted in that month, we don't go unravel everything and put it all back. So if you need that sophistication or you need a more advanced one but you're going to pay for it price wise and you're actually going to pay a penalty that in my opinion, not great integrations to pull data from these sites and it makes it difficult to impossible to at least reconcile Amazon working with the different NetSuite integrations. Mark: Well, let's talk a little bit about that because I want to talk about some of the automation of this because I think the biggest challenge with a lot of the software is figuring out how to pull in the data in an efficient manner and we especially run into this problem with accrual accounting. This is why so many bookkeepers mistakenly or misguidedly tell their clients you should just do cash basis, because for them it's a lot easier, right? You see the purchase order, you enter it in, and going through to an accrual, you need to check your beginning inventory levels at the beginning of the month and ending inventory levels to figure that out. And it's just more work than they want to do, frankly. How do you set your clients up? I want to talk two questions, one would be how do you set your clients up for forward-looking moving forward we're going to be on accrual and keeping that automation in place. And then secondly, what are easy ways if there is an easy way to go back and get those historical COGS on a monthly basis for an Amazon business? Scott: Yeah, the two sides income. I mean, the first piece would be the automation we look at is first making sure you're posting your income properly. If you sell a hundred widgets that you get paid for 100 widgets and so we use a tool called A2X accounting to post the Amazon income. We've been using it for six-plus years. If posted a penny, it breaks up a hundred plus Amazon fees and follows the accrual method by posting a summary invoice. Because the main thing we recommend for everybody, unless you're doing B2B or direct manual sales on turns, every other sale can be summarized on a daily or weekly or monthly invoice and A2X will post Amazon and Shopify income. For Shopify, it will post Shopify payments every day that matches the payout every day. So the first thing you want to do is be able to get all the income into the system properly and then A2X breaks out based on our design. We're their close partners. We're using it for a year and a half but we were in Alpha for about six months, but they'll post and our standard is to post all the income by payment processor. So on Shopify, if you're using Shopify Payments and Amazon Pay and PayPal and Globally and Sasol and Afterpay or whoever else. It'll break out each of those posted invoice for each of those merchant providers and then you can reconcile it. So that's how you get your income and it's going to post it in the right period as to when the sale happened, not when you got paid. The difference between accrual, you track everything. And in our opinion and accrual, not only do you need it for valuation, not only do you need accrual to make sure you have a balance sheet so you can see your inventory and your assets versus liabilities but it's also easier to look at that if you have these huge expenses that you pay for or you're buying a ton of inventory and you pay $100,000 this month in shipping charges you want to spread that out and as you sell the product, pull that out not pull it together. Now for COGS and inventory, if you're looking for your values, the best tool is just you can't do it on spreadsheets. Just like you can't run accounting on spreadsheets, you really need a cloud inventory tool. You need the automation so you have a structured process to purchase products through a purchase order so you know what you're paying for. I mean you're constantly updating your costs, you're receiving that inventory. So whether it's fraud or they forgot to put a case; you bought 20 cases and they only put 19 in and they were just going super fast, which is usually the problem not so much someone's trying to rip you off. And if you can't catch that in controller control, you just have money that's just leaking because inventory is just cash in a different form that you're trying to turn into more cash. And so you really need those tools that are pulling in every order because all of that detailed data doesn't have to live in the accounting and it shouldn't. Xero and Quickbooks online are not set up to pull in every Shopify transaction, every Amazon transaction. They're not. The idea is you want that summary information and then you want to make sure that your cost of goods sold aligns with the income. So you have to have a consistent process. For Amazon, we upload costs into A2X and it'll post cost of goods sold so the same orders that were in your income even if the settlement statement splits over the end of the month all get posted in the appropriate month, and then you can do the same thing for Shopify. And then for our clients that are on cloud inventory, you can run as long as the tools provide in our focus, which would be cost of goods sold per channel so you can see your profitability per channel on the financials is really the piece you want to make sure that you can get that number, be able to validate it, and everyone's like, oh, that's this big accounting thing. I'm like no your whole world is operations; its purchasing product and shipping product out. Everybody will know we did 422 orders last month and they'll go, okay, and there's all the data for it and that needs to get applied to the accounting and then you need somebody who can do that properly. Mark: You said something just a little bit ago here which I find; it tends to be a mindset shift among a lot of sellers and that is your inventory is just cash in a different form that you hope to turn into more cash. And this is where the switch from cash to accrual changes and people that are on cash basis tend not to see this, right? They see their business bleeding cash and they see a cash in, cash out and when they spend all the money on inventory, they see that as losing value but it's not. You're just transitioning one asset cash into another asset inventory. And I think this is, again, why this topic of discussing books excites me because it causes you to think of your business in a different way; in completely different ways, as a blend of assets. Most of what you said, I already know our listeners are going to listen to this and be like that is way too complex for me to go through and do. Can I connect these things directly? Can I just plug and go or do I need to hire somebody to do this? Can I train somebody to do this? I mean, how do you actually go about implementing this? Scott: So there isn't one tool that will connect all the different pieces. Now Xero and QuickBooks online and A2X for an Amazon-only business gets you a long way along the method because if you're all FBA A2X will get you most of the way there. But for anything else, there's no secret process. So someone's like, oh, I'll just use what Logility and use their reports, they connect everything. I just did a deep dive review of them again and we couldn't figure out how they were posting the data and then we couldn't rec because we were evaluating we were trying to implement it. So you have to have a consistent set of processes to know you're doing your accounting on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. We do cost of goods sold monthly. So it's an hour or two per client per month because we have a standardized process that we follow through that shakes out vendor deposits and the other details. So the first process is what are you doing, what are you trying to accomplish, and just break that down, whether you're doing it yourself. Look at resources. We have some online courses. We have a bunch of YouTube videos to make sure we educate people. But then we still have a manual process for Walmart and eBay and Etsy and House and Wayfair and all these other channels where we download the data monthly, pivot it to post the income, and reconcile it. But we use the exact same data to apply a cost to post COGS. So it's a matter of that. Now, there are consultants out there that will help you set up the cloud inventory tool which we don't do, or you can work with the vendors to implement it and then you either have to manage it yourself or hire someone like Catching Clouds or another e-commerce accountant that understands the technology, the e-commerce space, and accounting. Mark: I think this is why it's so tough for so many people. Because as an entrepreneur, I have an idea, I've invented a product or I've identified a niche I want to go after and I'm good at that but now you're asking me to understand my financial reports. And then on top of that, you're asking me not to just understand my financial reports, but to understand the technological ecosystem around these financial reports to make them all work without hiring somebody who's going to cost me $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 a month just to be able to do this and suck up any profits that I do if I do have. That's why it is so difficult for people. The whole ecosystem is complex and difficult to understand. But I do know once you do get it set up, it is just a few hours a month. So you put in the effort of what am I selling, what are my processes, and then how can I get this into the system the right way? Once you get that setup, then maintaining it isn't as difficult as the initial setup. Is that fair? Scott: That is correct. Once you get those processes in place and you've got a defined process, you're just not assuming you can set automation and set and forget it, you're there. And then I would put the same due diligence that everybody puts into outsourcing; I mean, e-commerce sellers, the big things they outsource, except for the few that decide to buy a warehouse and want to invest in property and that's important to them being an entrepreneur and that's part of the journey. But that's, in my opinion, a very small percentage of the sellers, everybody else is working with 3PL warehouses or FDA or Walmart fulfillment service, Shopify fulfillment network. The same due diligence that anybody puts into that and understanding their supply chain or their vendors or who they're purchasing from, you just need to decide the financials are a priority for that order and then go through the same due diligence where you know nothing as an entrepreneur about whatever and then you start. But it is absolutely possible to put these systems in place or outsource the work like most sellers outsource and one thing I recommend every seller do is outsource sales tax. Don't try to use a tool like TaxJar or Taxify or Avalara. Just hire assault consultant or have someone like Catching Clouds, which we do it only with our accounting services because it's so complex. We're filing over 5,000 returns a year and even if you do everything right, the states generate notices and you have to deal with all of that. And the same thing applies to outsourcing your 3PL and your fulfillment. And then I would recommend outsourcing your accounting and finance because unless you're 30, 40, 50 million, it's really expensive to hire a bunch of accountants and manage them and train them and make sure they stay on top of the technology and all that other stuff. Mark: You know this is the sort of field that if you fall behind, is that much more work to get caught up. And I know we've referred some business over to you in the past that need some cleanup. We refer them to other partners as well that need clean up. What does that process look like? I'm saying, okay, I've fallen behind, I've been doing cash basis accounting for the past forever and now I want to go back three years to do this right and get moving forward. What sort of workload are you typically looking at to be able to get that caught up? Scott: Yeah. So in general, unless they were using A2X and it's very, very rare or they were doing things right or in a lot of cases it's interesting if the owners are involved, they don't know all the things in accounting and what they do they're very particular about so they do less wrong. Invariably when we see other accountants that don't work with any other e-commerce businesses, they're just making it up as they go and they make it worse and worse. 80%, 90% of the time we have to start over with a brand new Xero file even if somebody is on Xero because there's just tens of thousands of bad records in there and you can't get to it. So we set up a new Xero file. You import all the bank and credit card transactions for that time period. You categorize them and you reconcile all those accounts. Then you post all the income and then you go through accounts payable through all that time. And of course, once you just identify the data and even if they have another system, we can rip all that out, put it back in, but then make sure that no, no, this invoice was paid this month, but it was from the prior month to make sure that the bills are in the right period to get all that going. And you just do those accrual things and then we can post the income per month historically and then do the cost of goods sold per month. And so if it's 12 months or; and so we have to go back to either 1120 or 1119 to the prior tax return or back to the beginning of the business and run that and that's what it's going to take. We have looked at; we are Xero expert experts. My co-founder, partner, and wife Patti teach Xero experts how to do cool expert things in Xero and we have all these tricks to clean up the accounting. And I've got a whole list of things that I want Xero to do to allow us to make it so we can just take what's already in Xero and clean it up because the bank feeds and the fundamentals for Xero are great it's just when you connect all these apps and push in data, you end up with whatever. So it's really a process for us. It's about four to six weeks for one to maybe a little bit longer but it takes time. It takes time to set up the systems. It takes time to pull in the data. It takes time to get through it all and redo it and then validate things with the client go away. Hey, I bought a forklift. That was in inventory. I don't sell forklifts. You go, oh okay that doesn't go in inventory. We'll move it over to a fixed asset and off you go to the races. But it just takes a fair amount of work to understand to pull in all the data and do it. But for the most part, you just start with a new accounting file, get all your data; bank, credit card, bills, income, and COGS, and repost it following the accrual method. Mark: Yeah, I get that. I've been there. I've had to do that before. And you're right, going back when you have thousands of transactions can be a nightmare. I want to know where's the balance between good enough and probably not good enough and too much. And here's what I want to bring up to you, there's a well-known accounting company, which I will not name names, that has a cloud-based service that I know does cash basis and then at the end of the year does an inventory adjustment so basically giving you a full yearly accrual basis. And I've seen these financials before where all of a sudden December looks like the worst month ever because they're doing this massive adjustment at the end of the year. So that's one extreme and for a lot of owners, they'll say, well, it's good enough, I'm getting some high-level understanding of my sales and maybe my some cost, but not COGS. That's one and I would say that's not good enough but that is the attitude. On the other end, you and I have talked before about entering sales down to the individual sale, and being that's ridiculous you don't need to go to that level of detail. What is the balancing point from a controller standpoint being able to look at financials and be able to understand these books and be able to get both those kind of big picture decisions made, but also those granular decisions of look you're over overspending here. This is not a profitable product line or you need to stop ramping up your expenses in this area. What's that balancing point for you guys? Scott: So, yeah, there are a lot of people that really look at their financials and that other method is good enough for a tax return. It's not good enough to make those decisions to understand what's in your business. And it's just making sure that you're doing all of the accounting, not everything, right which means every bank. And the most common things we see when we review books is that they're not reconciling every bank account and credit card every month. Because if you think your system; you downloaded whatever data and you think you have $50,000 in the bank and the bank thinks you have 10, they win unless you've caught the error and fixed it. And it's typically just a data error so if you're not looking at the end of the month settlement for every bank account, credit card, and merchant account to say, hey, this is where we have clients were like, you had $30,000 disappear. Oh, it's a reserve. PayPal's got a reserve or Strike has a reserve which has been happening a lot recently. So we want to have those triggers but you want to make sure you're doing those reconciliations so that you know about all of those expenses and all the things flowing through your credit cards. The other thing is make sure every account's on there. If you're using a personal credit card from the owner because you don't have an Amex, Plum, or whatever in your business, and as long as it's dedicated to that business, it should be on the books. You should be tracking those expenses and then it's just do; and then you pay it off and it's just payments to the owner and it all works out from an accounting perspective. And then, like we said, you just want to make sure you're posting the income in a summary fashion and you could just decide to do it all monthly and know that I'm going to take four hours a month, I'm going to post the income and figure out COGS and get that done and it's good enough and if there's any adjustments. And then the last thing is you have to make sure that the balance sheet balances, which means all the numbers and the liabilities and assets. If the balance sheet doesn't balance you can't trust the P&L. You can't trust your statement of cash flows. And so it's kind of a do those core things and then go make sure you have somebody; an external party that's reviewing what you're doing at least monthly or quarterly to say, yeah, this is right or no, you have this write off or hey, you have this big hundred thousand dollar adjustment leach let's go see if we can figure out what's going on in there. Mark: It sounds like there's two steps here, right? There's the validation of your financials, but there's also an understanding or review of those financials. And maybe they're kind of linked together in the same thing where when things don't add up right that's a sign that you need to be digging deeper into something. Maybe you have an inventory leakage or you're leaking money because not all the inventory has been shipped or accounted for. And you would recommend that on a monthly basis then? Scott: Yeah, at a minimum, it's hard to do. We try to do as much of the accounting daily as possible. We believe that to stay on top of a dynamic e-commerce business, you have to be pulling in the bank feeds from yesterday today. You need to be looking at accounts payable and bills you know oh, I did a $30,000 prepayment on a $100,000 purchase order and I owe $70,000 in six weeks when it ships. Like if you're not paying attention to those things on a daily basis, then the owners are constantly pulling money out when they have to pay bills out of the business; their personal bills, and then the next week loaning the same amount of money or more back into the business and you just go do this swing if you're not staying on top of it. But if you're smaller and you're ramping up and everything else, at least do it monthly and then start doing a little bit more weekly. There is more automation that's coming over time around bank feeds and AI and other stuff, but it's going to take a while to get here. Mark: You know, one of the things that I think can really help once they start getting the stuff together is the ability to forecast. And I'm not talking about even on the sales side, that's kind of the second level of forecasting. But on the expense side, because you just brought it up right now, right? You have a bill of $70,000 that's going to come due. Have you planned for that or is that something that's gotten lost with all the craziness of the rest of your business? Or you want to launch a new product line what do your expenses look like over the next three, four, or five months? You can't do that if you aren't living to some extent in your financials on a fairly regular basis where you understand what's coming up. Do you guys get into much of forecasting even on the expense side? Scott: Not long term forecasting, but cash is king and cash flow projections. So we're just refining our process. So we have some clients that we'll do it for a daily for a short time when they've got lots going on at a specific time frame. And then we'll just provide kind of a weekly cash flow that's always that four to six-week view; here's where payroll comes out, here's your expected income, here's what the Amazon payments come in if you're not using Payability or something that lets you cash out every day so you can manage cash flow but it's really all about that. And we just haven't chosen to extend it for a longer period of time because our focus is daily, weekly, monthly but the idea is that the owner should take a step back and look and say, oh, because what we're trying to always get to is to say, here's how much free cash flow you have to buy inventory, pay for marketing, invest in the business, new products, new design, new people, whatever and then hopefully there's something left over for the owner as well. Unless you're in that I'm continually investing that's great but you need to know how much that is so you're not constantly doing. And that cash flow and that availability can include you have a $100,000 Amex plan card. That's just capital to you because most e-commerce sellers love racking up points and that's not debt. That's not a long term loan. They're going to pay that Amex bill probably every two or three times a week to keep the balance down so they can keep buying product to keep up with demand. But you need to know where those numbers are, where are those thresholds? When you're starting to push out against them if you're growing and your sales are growing, which is what's been happening for a ton of sellers in this big new world that we're in where everyone's home and everyone's buying online and that's all ramped up you need to know when you're hitting those limits and that you either need to invest more money as the owner because you're going to turn that cash into more profit; into more cash. Or you're looking at different lines of credit whether it's with a bank, which is usually the most painful way. But there are other alternative ways that aren't quite online loan shark and you find the balance between those to post that in. But it's really cash is king. If you're not looking at it; there's so many businesses that are profitable on paper, profitable on their P&L that go out of business because they didn't manage their cash. Mark: They didn't manage their cash or the cost. And you said costs are king what do you mean by that? Scott: Cash is king. Mark: Cash is king. Scott: Well, actually, costs are pretty important. If you don't have a good handle on your costs, you're going to run into the situation where you don't know what the value of your inventory is. And the most important thing is you don't know how to price your product. So if you have a product that you buy in the US and you buy in huge volumes and that your suppliers don't charge you shipping, you can use your buy cost. It's pretty straightforward. But if you're buying a product, either whether it's being manufactured or shipped internationally and it costs you a dollar per unit, but it costs you nine dollars to get it live in Amazon FDA or your warehouse, you need to know your cost is $10 is your landed cost after shipping and customs and insurance and even inbound into Amazon. So you know your all up cost to know what that is. And if you don't have a good handle on one of the first things we do with just about every client is revalidate their costs, identify the ones that are wrong, and then look at what they're selling it for. And they think they're averaging some margin and it's usually a lot less because they're not aware of their full cost for their product. And that's understanding that landed cost and landed cost is a key accrual process where you pay for everything and then you take that shipping and it gets added to inventory and then as you sell, it comes out and it's value. And that can make a huge difference on client's business. We have clients that are close and they're using landed cost, but they're not doing that last accounting bit monthly to do a journal entry to take hey, I spent as much on cost, customs, tariffs, whatever, and moving that all into the inventory account. And then you go, oh, I really have spent two million dollars on inventory and shipping and everything else, and I'm pulling out 200,000 a month in cost of goods sold. I have not just the number of quantity of units, but you can see the money flowing in and out of your business. Mark: Why don't we have you on monthly to the podcast? I don't know I feel like we just scratched like the first quarter of what you put together as far as the list of things we can talk about. But we are up against the half an hour, so I am going to cut it here and ask the best way to reach you; obviously CatchingClouds.net. You guys have courses available. Is that on Catching Clouds? Scott: Yeah. So if you go to our site, we have a contact form if you want to talk to me, especially if you're a larger business, I'm happy to talk or email and interact with anybody. I just enjoy interacting with sellers. Then we have our YouTube channel, which we have over a hundred YouTube videos, and we'll start adding more next month on basic topics. Now it's all my wife mostly who can explain things better and doesn't talk as fast as I do, but we're really there. And we have so much more that we want to push out onto those YouTube videos because we're happy to share the basics; how to read financials, and all these different things. We just want to help those sellers that are smaller than a million and or do it yourself. And then we also have a Facebook group that supports that for sellers and accountants for providing answers and questions for people that take our courses and just have general questions and then we have our outsourced service. So if you go to our contact form, reach out and I'm happy to interact and have a conversation. And most of my focus is really where your biggest challenge is and if I can help them figure out the top two or three cloud inventory tools that would be there or a developer that would do automation and build zappy integration to improve their efficiency or point them in the right direction, I'm happy to do that. And then our big services, we'll just take it all over, clean it all up, and then run it. Mark: Yeah, I think for those that are listening here, especially those that may not be in that one to fifty million dollar revenue range, the one thing I can say just from my experience is the companies that get there have books in order for the most part, much more so than smaller companies. And part of the reason that they've gotten there is because they have taken the time to put together good books. And it does give you insights into the business that you can't get otherwise. That doesn't mean that we haven't seen companies in the one to 50 million dollar range that don't have their books together. But all the more reason for those companies to make sure you're are doing this because if you aren't, I can almost guarantee you're bleeding cash somewhere and you're lacking optimization somewhere. I think the biggest thing; let's end with this cut, people are overwhelmed by this, they may be not sure how to start. What's one thing that they can do today? If they think that they're under optimized with their books right now, what's one thing that you would suggest that they do today? Scott: I mean, it really usually just comes down to education. So whether it's our YouTube videos or books like Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs is a good book. It's looking at that and then our big thing is process. So if you're not documenting your process for receiving inventory and dealing with returns, just take a whiteboard and put it on your wall and start building those things. So it's called the combination of education and then it's just organization so you can keep track of your to-do list and you know, oh, I've got to block out this much time every day or week or month for accounting. It's more about that discipline and then just get an accountability coach. There are other things you can do, like profit first for a different way to look at profit. Or you can hire someone for EOS entrepreneurial operating system and the traction books. So there are actual structured processes that you can join in where it's not just you have to determine it ahead of time, but it's kind of education. Have coach as partners, whether that's Quiet Light who gives out I know great advice. Even when they're talking to people two or three years from when they're selling and they may never sell to say, no, these are the smart things to do because everything they're telling you to do smart to sell your business is the same guidance to run your business profitably. And then get those external resources, find your peers out there and talk to them and share best practices, and just continue to evolve as an entrepreneur. Mark: Scott, it's really good to see you again. Thanks so much for coming on. Scott: You're welcome. Thank you. Resources: Catching Clouds Catching Clouds Contact Form Catching Clouds YouTube Channel Catching Clouds Facebook Page Quiet Light Podcast@quietlightbrokerage.com

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DGS 131: Property Management Growth Strategies After COVID-19 with Mark and Anne Lackey

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 7, 2020 56:43

As some freedom returns to society following COVID-19, don’t miss out on potential opportunities to implement property management growth strategies. Today’s guests are Mark and Anne Lackey from HireSmart Virtual Assistants (VAs). Mark and Anne are broker-owners that manage almost 200 doors in Atlanta. You’ll Learn... [03:47] Trends: Property management pivots and changes during economic downturns. [07:10] Hire Virtually: Save money, get better employees, and increase productivity. [08:22] Wake Up: Don’t resist remote work; realize office space may be unnecessary. [11:14] DIY vs. Professionally Managed: Ramp up sales/funnels to serve customers. [15:26] Problems are always opportunities to grow business by offering solutions. [21:11] Customer Service: Don’t disconnect. Focus/follow up for retention/satisfaction. [27:02] Professionalism: Set expectations. Don’t badmouth landlords via vendors. [28:29] BDM: Do you need a business development manager? [31:33] Time, Energy, and Effort: Resources required to rent properties to tenants. {32:28] Referrals grow businesses. No referrals represents customer care problem. [35:29] Gamechanger: Save time and money to get things done or do more yourself?. [38:30] Wrong Person, Role, Tool, Time, and Money: Hire based on owner’s needs. [40:57] Off-the-Shelf vs. Customization: How to hire and build teams takes time. [46:50] Remote Challenges: Communication, operations, and management problems. [48:22] Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Get work done based on expectations. [50:15] Think, Invest, HireSmart: Know avatar to grow property management business. Tweetables Opportunities are available to make sales and buy, manage, and invest in more properties. You don’t have to have your employees in an office. You don’t even have to have an office anymore. Property managers are immune to guilt and the heroes of the rental industry. Referrals grow businesses. No referrals represent customer care problems. Resources HireSmart Virtual Assistants (VAs) DGS 69: HireSmart Virtual Assistants with Anne Lackey NARPM Lehman Brothers Airbnb DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive Transcript Jason: Welcome, DoorGrow Hackers, to the DoorGrow Show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing your business and life, and you are open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you’re crazy for doing it, you think they’re crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate high-trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management businesses and their owners. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change the perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I’m your host, property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let’s get into the show. My guests today are Mark and Anne Lackey from HireSmart. Welcome you two. Anne: Hey, good to see you. It's been a while. Mark: Hey, it's good to see you. Jason: It's good to have you back. I noticed you're displaying that beautiful logo in the background. Mark: Isn't that wonderful? Anne: Yes, that is of course a DoorGrow special. They helped us with that on our website. Mark: The logo, the renaming, all of that was a DoorGrow impression that was right for us and is great for our clients. Jason: Yeah, I like it. Cool. We're going to be talking about property management growth strategies after COVID-19. This Coronavirus is just starting to clean itself up. I just rode a road trip from Pennsylvania to Austin over the course of multiple days. People were not wearing masks anymore. We were eating at restaurants. It was awesome. It was like we are back to having freedom again. Most places are open here in Austin. I went to the hardware store yesterday, though. Everyone was wearing masks and I felt like I was in trouble. I thought we were over this already, but apparently not at Home Depot. Anne: Some places are, some places aren’t. Jason: I think the national chains and the national stores have to accommodate the lowest common denominator nationally. They got rules in place for everything. What are we chatting about today? Anne: First of all, I want to make sure everybody understands we are broker-owners ourselves. We manage doors in Atlanta. Mike: Nearly 200 doors in Atlanta since 2005 for other people and for ourselves, since 2001. Anne: We've been talking a lot to our friends who are in the property management business. We are, of course, NARPM members, affiliates, and affinity partners with them. We hear a lot around the nation of different things. Just like your trip from Pennsylvania. You saw different parts of the country where things were more open than others, so we want to talk about a couple of different things as we see them. For property managers that are thinking what's the next thing. I want to back up just a little bit and talk a little bit about historical trends and changes. Mark, why don't you get us started on that? Mark: This will show my age. That's one thing if I've mentioned this. In the 70s, we had lines to get gas. Not everybody out there remembers that, but there was an oil shortage. There was a gas shortage and at that point, everybody said we're going to run out of oil in a couple of years. It was a crisis, so out of that came what? We got into solar energy, more on to hydroelectric. Things pivoted, things changed. In the 80s, the savings and loans went down. Things pivoted on how we got mortgages. The dot-com buzz, the 90s, the tech blow up. All those things and what most everybody remembers is the meltdown that we had in the economy and mortgage market that occurred just 10–12 years ago. At that point, it required pivoting and Anne and I are really good at our business about looking to see what the trends are going to be. What's going to change and how to pivot. That's what we want to talk about today. It's not the end of the world like everybody said, March 15th or whatever date it was when everybody went to hibernation. It's like, it's the end of the world. Anne: Nobody's going to pay their rent. Mark: We thought that 12 years ago when Lehman Brothers shut their doors. It all seems like it's the end of the world, but it's not. It's an opportunity. It's learning to pivot. Look at where the puck is going. Anne: We wanted to talk about some of the trends that we see and the opportunities that property managers should be looking at in their business. You obviously don't hop on every trend and everything that comes along, but it is always good to put it in perspective. Mark, let's talk about some of the trends that we've seen in real estate in general. We're going to talk about how you can take advantage of that. Mark: In the last few months, we had property managers and friends that were investors that had Airbnb. They were making 5–10 times the amount of rent I was off of a property. Suddenly, they made nothing because all the bookings shut down. They’re looking. A lot of them said hey, let's sell. Let's go long term. A lot of things changed there. Through them and through those changes of people not having as much disposable income at this point because there's a slow down in jobs, second homes aren’t popular right now. Two, with all the laws that are coming about with the changes to protect the renters that are coming out of state legislators and the national, there's a lot of change and as property managers, we keep apprise to that. But these DIY (do-it-yourself) landlords don't. So, we're going to talk about some opportunities to make sales, to get some additional properties, to manage some opportunities for investing, too, if you're into that area. Jason: When COVID hit and it was March, March was brutal for us at DoorGrow. Sales stopped. Every property manager just tightens their purse strings, freaking out, there's this cash crunch. We experienced a serious cash crunch so we had to get lean. I think a lot of businesses had to get lean and in the long run, that is a really healthy thing for business. Everyone was trimming the fat and [...] was effective. Anne: We saw that in HireSmart because now everybody is a virtual employee. This is a perfect time to write stuff. People that have been hesitant to hire virtually have been in our doors now because they are like, wow, we can save some money. We can have better employees. We can have different strategies and approaches. Now, it was no longer important because it wasn't allowed to have people come into the office. Actually for us on HireSmart, it actually expanded our business. Mark: There was resistance before from property managers that wanted to walk down the hall and lean over Joe or Joan's shoulder and see what they’re doing, see what they're working on—literally, not figuratively—to be there, to have that conversation face-to-face. They were very hesitant about working and they didn't have the resources to figure out how to work remotely. With what’s come out of COVID-19 has become the realization that you don't have to have your employees at an office. You don't even have an office anymore. Jason: I've known this for well over a decade. Interesting to see that mass transition of people realizing they can use tools like Zoom and move away from having somebody right there in their office. I did some polls online asking people during this. I asked how many people would renew their business lease at the end of the term and a lot of them said they're going to, at the very least, downsize, maybe to a smaller office base, or they may even not renew. I also did some polling on what people have noticed as a result of people working from home. Some of my clients were saying that they've noticed that they were surprised that their team members became more productive. They're getting more done. I guess because there are fewer interruptions they were saying. There are fewer distractions. Maybe they're more comfortable. But some of my team members are doing better. I have heard some people say I hate it. My kids are there all the time. I'm going crazy. But in general, I think the world has to wake up and realize when you have to get work done, you can try this. Then they tried this and they're like, hey, this works. Why are we spending so much money on this brick and mortar location that is outrageously expensive to have all these people in it when we can eliminate that crazy expense and it's unnecessary. Mike: Yeah. It was shocking, like you, we immediately drew into our shell in March, and let's save. We don't know what's going to happen. People are going to let people go. But in April and May, we had the most requests for information about our services. The most orders we've had in five years. Jason: I'll bet. Anne: Without any [...]. That's the funny part for us [...] Mike: We’re not traveling. Anne: It's been interesting and we do a lot of community teaching and speaking even online. We always have to help people understand what opportunities are there. A lot of things that we're promoting or that we're seeing right now, specifically in property management, is now’s a great time to ramp up your sales and funnels. Again, because the DIY's are so lost. We already know that there are so many DIY landlords compared to professionally managed. Mike: Eighty percent of the US are do-it-yourself landlords. That's a lot of opportunity. Anne: That's a lot of opportunity. I know you talk a lot about that, but how do you reach them? How do you engage with them? How do you attract them? Of course, they outgrow a platform, obviously, as a key component to that, which is wonderful, but you have to have the human-to-human or human automation to back it up. I think where we're coming to as a society is if you don't have a physical office where people can walk in anymore because you're closing your doors. We've had a closed-door policy for 19 years. I think people are very surprised that we've never let anybody in our office ever. Mike: We have a small office of three. Anne: We've never let anybody in our office even when we had seven people in our office, we didn't have people in our office because it's a distraction, that interruption. What happens is you need to serve your customers. You need to be talking to them. You need to be serving them. Now, the residents and owners don't just want to be served 9–5. We're seeing that they want answers seven o'clock at night, eight o'clock at night when they're online. When they have questions they would like to have some interactions with someone from your office. How do you do that cost-effectively? Of course, we have the solution. A full-time dedicated virtual employee that works as the second shift or the split shift is there to take care of chat. They're there to answer the questions and help people guide them on applications. Mike: Then guide the people that are coming in to bring you properties to manage. Anne: Right, and to talk to owners about how I work with you. Because here's what's going on in the marketplace. Again, in a lot of places, you do have people that aren't able to pay their rent right now because they have lost their jobs. Do you have owners that are concerned about what I do? How do I do this? We've had an increase in our inquiries for property management recently as well because they just don't know the rules. They don't know the laws. Mike: It's not the time to withdraw. We're all sheltered in our business in place, too, and when we withdrew that opportunity to find new business went away. The companies, the far-sighted future thunking property managers, business owners, and the brokers that are now looking at making some investments. Not just sitting on their dollars, but actually making some investments in the right people, the right tools, business development people to help grow the business, doing outreaches. One thing we were talking about just the other day was—we haven't done this yet—we should have a seminar that we invite all the DIY landlords to share with them all the fears of all the new laws that have come out. [...]. We have that seminar and some of them are going to come out and say, okay, now I can do things differently because I have information on what I can and can't do. A lot of them are going to come out and say I just can't do this anymore. I'm tired of doing it. I'm going to hire—in case—us because we've been in that seminar. Making those types of investments, and granted that those seminars aren't always live, they're maybe at this point virtual but reaching out to those. Those are the ways now to grow your business for tomorrow because over the next six months until we get to the end of this year, there's opportunity abound for forward-thinking. Jason: That's what problems do. Problems are always opportunities. Let's talk about the problem. Here are some of the things I noticed. I won't say who it is, but I got a call from one of my business coaches and he has rental properties. He was like, what do you see in the market place right now because I got a small portfolio of properties and only 50% of them are paying rent. I said at least 98% of most of the rent is being collected by my clients. That's what I'm hearing. Also, what I noticed happening is my clients are saying that their owners were calling them and saying if tenants don't want to pay rent this month, we'll let them not pay rent. They're like no, they're going to pay rent. The thing is people felt guilty. They're almost ashamed but feel guilty, but property managers, you guys are over that [...]. You guys are completely over. You've heard all the excuses. You've heard all the stories. Some residents right now, due to the unemployment benefits and stuff that are going around, are making more money, especially the low rent markets. They're making more money than when they were working. But some of them are still trying to use the excuse that they need to not pay rent or whatever. The news kind of made it look like that. It made it look like people trying to collect rent are evil, bad, sick, or wrong. A lot of homeowners are just feeling guilty. Property managers are immune to guilt. Anne: That's because we've heard it all. Jason: We've heard it all. We heard all the stories, the excuses. You know how to help people. You know what programs are available because you guys are on top of this stuff. You guys aren't having trouble collecting the rent. In general, I haven't heard anyone in the single-family residential space or even multi-family having real trouble collecting rent. Rents have gone down just a little bit. You got people that most would have heard it's the same people that we're always troubled paying rent. We just couldn't evict them, but that's coming. Mike: Your coach needs to reach out to a professional manager. You see that, but he doesn't. Seminars, webinars, something. Jason: They don’t see the problem. That's the challenge I've always experienced in DoorGrow. I'm selling a solution to a problem that most people can't see. They can't see the leaks on their website. They can't see the challenges that their branding is hurting word of mouth. I have to educate people to see the problem. The same thing is what you're talking about. If you can create the gap and show the contrast between what challenges and problems they're dealing with and what they could be experiencing, what successes your clients are having, they're going to see this gap and that gap is what creates pain. People want to solve pain. People want a pain killer, not a vitamin. People will pay even more money to get out of pain. They want a solution, but they don't know a lot of them that there's a solution out there. I do think there is a massive opportunity. There's no scarcity in property management. There's no shortage of people that are in pain or have problems or challenges they are dealing with. Not only that, but I think property managers can hold their heads up high because good property managers, I really do believe as I said before, can change the world. There are millions of renters. Even here on my own property, I'm renting (I just moved to Austin), my kids were without a water heater for two weeks. The landlord sent out two different plumbers because he didn't like the feedback that the 13-year-old water heater should be replaced even though the pilot kept going out. I didn't even know my kids were taking cold showers because they got it before me and they can't get on Xbox until they take their showers, so they 're just doing it. All they're thinking about is can I get on the Xbox now? I'm like, yes, go ahead. But then my daughter's like, I haven't taken a shower in four days because the shower's freezing. I didn't know this and the younger ones, I went to them. That doesn't make sense because they've been taking their baths and their showers. I went to my son, Hudson, and I'm like, how's the shower been lately? He's like, cold. I'm like, what? Why didn't you tell me? Mike: It’s virtually a summer, right? Jason: Then I said to my daughter, she likes taking baths, you've been taking baths? She's like, Yeah. How are your baths been? She's like, they're really cold. I'm like, what? But you guys protect families. You guys also protect owners. You guys are like the middle person that makes everything okay and you take care of people. It lowers the pressure and noise. Property managers even do things like increasing the number of pets that families are able to have because you guys recognize that usually, it’s the kids that are causing more damage than the animals. [...] to get more rent because of pets. There are so many benefits to property management that positively impact families, homes, and lives. You guys are really the heroes of the rental industry. Property managers are the heroes of the rental industry. Mike: And unlike your property manager there that evidently has trouble with customer service. Jason: He's not the property manager, technically. He's just a landlord who doesn't want to do anything. Anne: You got a DIYer. Mike: Yeah, a DIYer. Anne: Sounds like a great lead. Mike: But that gets into the consideration of customer service. As property managers, we worried over the years about customer service to our owners but we haven't worried as much about customer service to our tenants. For retention and to continue to have tenants that want to refer people in, raising your level of customer service at this time specifically because I know I ordered something that didn't come and it was then delivered to Valentine, Nebraska instead of here where I am in Georgia, so I sent a response online and I got an auto-reply that says call this number. I call the number and it says we're too busy. We're not answering phones now. Just send an email. Customer service has failed specifically right now. Anne: I'll actually tell you something that we did on our property manager which I think has really impacted our renewals and we are getting increases in rent even now. Mike: On everyone. Anne: Let's just talk about it. Again, people pay for when they feel taken care of. One of the biggest gaps that we saw, this is probably two years ago, in our business was exactly what you're talking about. Tenant isn't taken care of, it's taking too long, the contractor is giving all kinds of excuses as to why they can't get there, tenant's going here, contractors going here. There's this big disconnect. Our virtual employee, Bonnie, is charged literally with every day every work order that comes in, she's calling the vendor and saying vendor, did you get it? Because we want to make sure it didn't get— Mike: Lost. You know how emails are. Anne: That's the first thing. Then the next day, she's calling the resident and saying resident, we assigned your work order to contractor B. Have you heard from him? Well, no. What happened? Jason: That's better than being ghosted and then eventually not having your calls answered, then eventually maybe getting a text or response half a week later. Anne: She says okay, you haven't heard from contractor B. Here's contractor B's information. We have already approved them to go out. Then she calls contractor B and she says contractor B, I heard that you haven't connected. Why haven't you connected? Oh, they haven't returned my call. Okay, I just got off the phone with them. They are available. Call them and they are expecting your call. She closes that loop, that hand-off because we assume contractor B is doing his job and we assume tenants are never wrong, they never change their phone numbers or anything else. Mike: Then the contractor goes out like he did to you and assesses the work. Many times there's not a follow-up, so what does Bonnie do then? Anne: Bonnie, as soon as she gets the date it was supposed to be scheduled from either the tenant or the contractor B, she follows up the next day and says my understanding is that contractor B was supposed to be there yesterday. Did they show up? Mike: Jason, did they take care of the water heater for you. Anne: Are you satisfied with the repair. Mike: And Jason says no. Anne: No, I still have… Now, we have another feedback loop. This is a maintenance process that we never could have done without having a virtual employee do this. It's too time-intensive and we have other work to be done. Mike: Then the flag goes up to tell the owner, owner, you got to provide hot water. You want an ACH or do you want us to loan you the money at an 18% rate? Anne: Yeah, put it on a credit card, however you want to do it. The reality for us is our tenant satisfaction has gone through the roof because we showed that we care, we're not letting it go, and literally, I as the broker get the list of not only what the outstanding work orders but where they are in the process and what she's done to move it forward. If we have a resident that we haven't been able to get in touch with, the contractor hasn't been able to, we have an escalation process. I don't manage, Bonnie manages. Again, total game-changer. Mike: The benefit out of all of that, we don't get pushed back when we're raising the rent. We started with our process in the middle of March. We do it in the middle of every month with notification of our rent increases and property. Most property managers that we know said you're crazy. We're either going to hold it. We'll tell them they don't have to pay an increase. We went out there and we got resistance from one tenant over the last, March, April, May, June. We got four months into our belt of increases and we have one pushback. Anne: Of course when you have rent increases, that increases our profitability, too. The owner makes a little bit more money, we make a little bit more money. It's still very reasonable. One of the things I'll say about rental rates is we don't do it arbitrarily. We do a full competitive market analysis. We make sure it's on the market. We don't raise all the way up to market if it's a significant jump, we'll do it at the average appreciation rate. Mike: We want to stay just below the top of the market. Anne: Correct because we don't want to give them a reason to leave. Mike: But we got happy tenants that don't want to leave. They go oh, I can't rent down the street for what I'm paying here because we always stay right below that. Jason: There's another hidden killer, too, I noticed in the scenario because when these vendors came to my property here and talked to me, they were basically bad-mouthing the landlord. They were like this guy is cheap. I've told them he needs to do this. In your scenario, the vendor is going to feel like they are getting taken care of. They are going to feel like they are on your team and on your side, and they are working with you, whereas these vendors feel more loyalty to me because they know the landlord isn't' doing the right thing. Anne: That goes back to having a contract with our contractor of standards of professionalism. Our vendors actually sign a document that says these are our expectations to be a vendor for us, and one of them is to not bad mouth as part of that. Mike: All these things combined, give us opportunities to shine. We get referrals every week. People come to us and say we hear great things about you as a property manager, and we're forward-thinking. We have opportunities there where we reach out to try to bring in business. Like what we're talking about earlier, a lot of the property managers are just sitting back. They are scared. They are afraid to do anything. That's the wrong thing to do. Anne: A lot of them are looking to bring on a BDM. Remember last year was the year of the BDM. Do you need a business development manager? Okay, maybe you do, maybe you don't. We tend to be our own. Mike: We are our BDMs. Anne: But again, we are high salary people like if you are paying somebody. Our time is very valuable, but we are seeing the smart property managers are supporting that sales effort through follow-up with the virtual employee, a virtual assistant that is literally a full-time doing this grinder follow-ups because we all know in sales—I don't care what industry you're in—you have to reach out seven, eight, ten times. Sometimes, property management specifically, it's pain point-related and some of the pain points only come up once a month. Some of the pain points come up once a year. Some of the pain points only come up periodically, so if you don't have a system to reach out to them, again it can't just be an email anymore. I think people are tired of tech, tech, tech. You need to have tech. You need to have a chatbox on your thing that's manned by a live person, in my opinion, but you also need that human-to-human automation. You need somebody that actually shows that they care a little bit about not only your company but the people involved. Having that sales support, a virtual employee to do that, really allows your BDM to be their most successful self and to do the things that they like to do. People don't realize that. BDMs don't want to do a whole lot of phone calling. They want to be in relationship management. If you can get them in front of the customer more times, if you can keep prospects warm and in the hopper so that when the prospect is ripe and ready, and your BDM can come and close, you are maximizing your ROI for that person. Mark: Yeah. They actually go to our website and ask for some of our tools or some of our information. It auto delivers but then they get a phone call, I want to make sure you got 21 questions or our technical information, and when they get that phone call, they're shocked. Anne: I'll tell you one other thing where people are going to have some issues. We all know about the Zillow. Zillow and they're charging for leads. That’s always been a hot topic. Zillow is rerouting leads. They're rerouting them to their call center in some areas, not to all areas, but into some. You don't have somebody actually calling those leads proactively when you get the email because even if you syndicate them, specifically if you syndicate them, you still get the email that says so and so is interested and they give you the phone number. But if the person proactively calls, Zillow is going to try to give them to people that are paying them, not necessarily to those of us who are syndications. If we're not actually outbound calling those leads as they come in, we are missing opportunities for tenants. This has been a big change probably in the last three weeks. This is fresh information that again if you don't have somebody in your office that has the time, energy, and effort to be calling in addition to responding back via email, you are missing an opportunity to get your properties rented. Again, we have literally five properties come on the market on June 5th, all but one are occupied now. That's how quick we are to get these things done because we have a dedicated resource and our virtual assistant. Literally, that is her only job to focus on. Jason: I want to touch on a couple of things you mentioned that you threw out that I think are important. One, you were talking about referrals. This is one of the number one ways to grow any business generally. I talked to a client I think yesterday, I was coaching a client and they were like our business is so great. We’re great. We got all this process dialed in and they said, but we're not getting any referrals. If a business is not getting any referrals, it's probably not as great as you think it is. Property managers have blind spots. We all do. For those listening, if you're not getting referrals, you got some customer care problems that are likely going on. You should be getting referrals. You should be getting referrals from your vendors. You should be getting referrals from your real estate friends. You should be getting referrals from your property management clients. You should be getting, maybe referrals from some of the vendors, but people should be talking about you. If they're not, there's some sort of blind spot that needs to be shored up. The other thing you mentioned (I think) is really smart. A lot of people, yes, they're like, I need a BDM. I need somebody to do sales, but they can't afford it. A lot of people can't just go out and afford to get some high-grade wonderful salesperson. But most business owners are not willing to also acknowledge that they are a part-time shitty salesperson. The time they're willing to dedicate or have sometimes is maybe an hour or two a day. That’s part-time. it's 10, maybe 15 hours a week, maybe they can dedicate up to 20 hours, but if you really want to grow and scale your business, there probably needs to be a little bit more time or you need just business being referred to you all the time, so it's super easy. One of the easiest hacks I implemented when I was a solopreneur and was doing all the sales, the web design, branding stuff, and everything myself, I got an assistant. I had that person operate as a sales assistant and an appointment setter. It immediately multiplied, not just doubled probably, but it multiplied my capacity to close deals. All I did was show up for appointments. I just met with people and sold. I wasn't doing any of the follow-ups. I was a solopreneur and my assistant was calling—she had a British accent—and saying hello, this is Helen, the assistant to the CEO Jason Hull of DoorGrow. He was wanting to get back together with you. It also set me in the mind of the prospect as something higher than maybe I actually looked like at the time being a solopreneur, sitting at home, trying to work in my living room. There's power in having a team. A lot of people say I can't afford to hire anybody. Maybe you just need somebody to start, just somebody that you can start with and they could be full-time or part-time, but they can start doing a piece of that thing that you need help with. They don't have to be able to do everything. Maybe it's the piece that you least enjoy. Maybe doing the follow-up, the cold calls, and whatnot. Anne: That's the great thing about virtual assistants and personal employees. You're looking at less than $20,000 a year for full-time dedicated help. That's a game-changer. You can't afford not to do that. I think that that's where people get sideways. Where we really help our clients in helping them define their staffing needs, and what's the best ROI for them to bring on board first. We’re talking about trends and the things that we see, but that's one of the services that we provide, helping them figure that out because sometimes it's like you said, sometimes this is a generalist. Somebody that can do a little bit of everything. Sometimes it's a sales support person. I know I need leads. Sometimes it’s accounting, sometimes it's leasing line, sometimes it's in marketing. A virtual assistant through HireSmart, because we're full-time, dedicated, and we specifically recruit for our clients. We don't have a room full of VAs that we go, here you go. I actually go and curate the contacts for you, and then I personally work with them for 40 hours afterward like that one-week job interview to make sure that they're amazing. Anybody that has hired and day two you're like, ugh, they just aren’t amazing. I take care of that for the clients. Mark: It frees up so much time. If it frees up 10 hours a week, how many deals can you close, how many new properties can you bring on in 10 hours? You invest maybe two hours where somebody else is making all the calls, set the appointments, you got that two hours invested. Your return on that is tremendous because you're going to make an offer that’s equivalent to $100, $200, $300 an hour for your investment of time. It goes back to, you've got to make those investments. You can't not hire now, you can't put your head in the sand or pull back in your shell and say, I'm going to do it myself. Especially if you're not happy doing it because if you're not happy, you're not going to get it done. Jason: Therefore, a lot of people that have been shifting to doing more themselves. I have to lay off team members now, I'm doing everything myself. Now I'm doing stuff that I don't even want to do. Let's touch on one thing that you just mentioned. I think this is really important for everybody listening to understand. I've seen this in hundreds of property management businesses and businesses in general, but one of the most painful or dangerous things I think a business owner can do is hiring the wrong person, the wrong role, spending the wrong money at the wrong time. A lot of people hire based on what they think the business needs instead of what they need in order to create more space and eliminate the number one bottleneck in the company, which is you the business owner, it's the entrepreneur. You taking the time to figure out what they actually need to get the best ROI is huge for them because they've seen lots of people, they hire the wrong person they didn't need. Now they're spending this money, or they just hired a bad person in general which not just cost them the money they spent on that person and the time they spent to get that person, but they're now losing money in secret places. I've had team members that stole from me. I've had team members that stole time. I've had team members delete and stuff after I fired them. These are problems that entrepreneurs learn painfully over time trying to build a team. A lot of property managers are in that first trap. They're the 50–60 door mark, they don't know how they can afford to hire that first person, and this is a solution for that. This is a very obvious solution for that. You can help them figure out who they really need right now and to take the next step forward, because if they spend the money on the right person, they make more money. It makes it easier. They then can reinvest. If they spend it on the wrong person, or the wrong tool, at the wrong time, it could be the right tool but it's at the right time, or they're getting software prematurely that they didn't really have to have at that point, or whatever it might be. If you spend money at the wrong time even though it might be the right tool for the future, you're hurting your ability to get to that future. Anne: I totally agree with that. Jason: Cash flow. If you run out of cash flow, the business dies. It’s like the Indiana Jones boulder rolling after you is the cash monster trying to get to you. If the boulder catches you, the business is game over. You’ve run out of money, run out of cash, you're dead. People started to feel that in March. You have to always be outpacing that boulder. If you spend, the boulder gets bigger and faster, but you can get faster if you spend it on the right people. Anne: One of the things I tell a lot of prospects that I'm talking to is most property managers (specifically) were never trained on how to hire or how to build teams. That’s not something we learn at school, it's only by trial and fire. A lot of property managers have fallen into it. Mark: There's not a hiring 301 class in college. Anne: One of the things that I tell them is, just like you're the expert in finding the right tenant for an owner because you've seen enough applications, you've gone through the process, you've done all that, you are the expert there, we’re the experts in hiring. I know I have a profile for hiring, I know what's successful, I know what's not successful. I save my clients from hundreds of hiring mistakes because it's not that they can't do it, a DIY landlord can do it, but they can't do it as well as a property manager. I say the same thing. You can hire. It’s going to take you more time, you don't have a process, you don't do it enough, I have done thousands. Just in the last six months alone, I have evaluated over 9000 applications. You say that gave me some data points. Jason: You know the BS, you know how to spot the scammers, you know which people are gaming the system, you know which people are feeding you a story, you know what questions need to be asked. In the Philippines, you got to ask about their internet connection. You got to, you can't just trust that they have one. You got to ask about where they're working. Where are you working at? Where are you working from? That was part of the thing that I really enjoyed working with you guys. I always look at everything through a certain filter, and I'm skeptical, and I want to see how I can help people. As I went through your process, I'm like, they do this. They already do this. This is stuff I've learned over a decade in my own painful experiences hiring in India, Bangladesh, Russia, the Philippines, Bolivia, and of course the US, which ultimately most of my team are in the US now. But I have Filipino team members. I can personally vouch for your hiring process making a lot of sense. It’s solid and it works really because it's very similar to my own. There are so many similarities. Okay, they've got this down, but you have some advantages. We talked about this in the previous episode. You guys should go listen to that where we talked about their processes and some stuff they do, but you have vetting, background checks, and stuff that people don't just have access to if they're just trying to DIY this. Mark: It’s like the difference, if you're getting married, you got the bride and the groom, and the bride wants a custom-made dress, not one off the rack. The groom really wants a tux that fits them. We are the custom dress, we are the custom tux for that couple versus walking into Neiman and pulling one off the shelves, this looks good, or getting a dress off the hanger and putting it on like, this almost fits, let's go get married. Jason: It looks like your dad handed you down a suit or something. Mark: Right. That’s the difference in what we do. We are custom for our client. We are not off the rack. Anne: Right, and outside of that is it takes time. It takes us 3–4 weeks to literally curate the right people. I always say if you need to hire somebody just the first person off the street, good luck. Jason: You guys are bespoke. It’s bespoke hiring. Anne: We have a guarantee and all of those things, and we can back up what we're saying. But again, if you're trying to grow your property management business right now, you need to look at your staff. Here’s the other thing. Not all staff members are coming back. You may think they're coming back. They're not coming back. You’ve got to look at who are your top liners? Who are the ones that you’ve got to keep? You need to be investing in a relationship with those people first of all. If you're not talking to them on a regular basis, if you're not feeding them, if you're not taking care of them, you need to take care of them now. Who’s part of your med tier? The kind of people that are like, if they come back, great. If they don’t, what's the impact that’s going to happen? What are the people that you really know you just need to not have come back, and you need to deal with that pretty quickly. Mark: For our best person, we got a VA to assist that person so that they can do even better at the best that they were. That’s the important thing that people need to take away from changes that are coming out of COVID. It’s supporting your staff and letting them work at the highest and best use. Maybe that's taking away some of those phone calls and emails by hiring an assistant for them and to give you the opportunity to grow. It’s an assistant to you for the business development to make those calls and to set up those appointments, so that you can just close. Doing those things is the job that Anne enjoys so much is finding the individual to match. What does Jason need exactly? Even though Jason doesn't know exactly, she'll draw that out of you, and I'm just picking on you on that. Anne: That’s a puzzle for me. There's nothing better than when I see my clients six months in, years in, we have our clients for five years now and seeing them and they’d say, Mitch has been the best thing ever in my company. She's really allowed me to be amazing and do what I want to do. Literally, these are comments that we get when we survey our clients. It has been a game-changer. If you're open and able to change. I don't know how much time we have, but there are a couple of things that you need to look at, regardless of whether you use virtual assistants, employees, or whether you are looking at that which are some of the challenges that come from working with a remote team, because remember, even if you're planning to go back to an office, your staff is going to want to have more flexibility. Let’s just call it what it is. Not everybody wants to commute anymore. There are some that miss being in that environment, there's a lot of guys that are like… Mark: We’re happier. Jason: Yeah, why should I spend time commuting? Why should I spend time driving to this? I think there are a lot fewer people doing face-to-face appointments, and they'll just do it through Zoom or they'll do it through Google Hangouts, Meet, or whatever. Anne: Whatever works. What we're finding is it is truly illuminating management problems. It’s illuminating communication problems. If you had a communication problem in the office, now you have a tremendous communication breakdown outside of the office. Mark: If you have an operations failure in the office, boy, the failures are even bigger. Anne: As managers, we need to look at what tools do we have on our tool belt. We help our clients with some of that because we understand years ago that we needed to equip our people to be good at this so that they would keep our people. Mark: It is in software, it’s tools, it’s technology. There's a lot of different pieces that go into that. Anne: Looking at your management style and we like to manage personally using key performance indicators (KPIs) because that takes [...] work out of it. I don’t have to worry if they're working eight hours as long as the KPIs are done and they can get their job done in six, I'm happy to pay them for eight and let them do what they want to do, as long as my stuff’s getting done to a level that I expected. That's the easy button for management, if you don't know about key performance indicators, I certainly encourage you to learn what that is, and how to do that, but it’s one of the things that we teach our clients to do very easily. There are some easy methodologies to do that, but we are seeing some communication breakdowns from people that don't use us. We’re seeing some issues with management. The manager that was the nice guy, that was able to get people rah-rah-rah in the office because she was able to see them, that’s now changed. Now, work is starting to do great. Mark: They can't hide behind the curtain. Anne: They can't hide behind that personality anymore because work’s not getting done. That’s one cautionary tale that I will throw out to your listeners. Jason: Results don’t lie. Anne: They don’t, but it’s difficult to have conversations if you don't have data, and a lot of times, people don't want to track data because they think it's too difficult. We teach our clients how to do it very simply, very easily, and very quickly. That's the other thing. You’ve got to be able to get feedback daily to keep on top of it. If you wait for weeks or months, you are now in this huge hole of garbage that is very difficult to get out of. Make sense? Jason: Makes sense. It's been awesome having you here on the show. Maybe we can take just a few minutes, let's talk about some opportunities right now and ways you think property managers have an opportunity to grow after COVID. We’ve touched on maybe doing webinars, I think you threw out there, the Airbnb. I think I have one client that added 24 doors in a month just from former Airbnbs by cold calling them and reaching out. Obviously, you got to convince them probably to get the furniture out of the place, and make sure that these are good opportunities to manage, and that it’s going to rent effectively compared to what they're paying because some of them were making a lot of money. Mark: They were. You can offer a turnkey for that. I know you've got furniture and all, I'll take care of making the donation, or I'll get the local company that buys furniture and resells it. I don't know if there's a market for that right now, but I'll get it picked up by Salvation Army or the kidney people, and you'll get the receipt. I'll take care of all of that and make it easy for you to let me manage your property long-term. The property managers that think that way are the ones that will be successful. We’ve been seeing that happen in Airbnb and a lot of them are coming back out of service. Anne: One of the things we always recommend when we're consulting with clients just in general is know your avatar. If you're a short-term rental person and that’s your avatar, then you need to create a different marketing strategy around that, like how are you going to deal with that. If your avatar is long-term rentals and you want to gain business by going after short-term to convert them to long-term like Mark said, have a package, have a system, get your relationships put together. Right now interestingly enough, we have investors that are scared to death and are selling, and we have investors that are super excited and are buying. Mark: [...] sales transaction. Though the property manager doesn't have a sales component in their business, they need to have an alignment with the referral program to somebody that does sales. I mean I'm selling two houses a month this year. Anne: Without trying, without marketing. Mark: Yeah, these are my investors. They just say I want to sell, and I’ll say I want to make the commission. No problem. Anne: It's about having a strategy, being able to implement that strategy. and figuring out what are the resources that you need to create that strategy. We think using virtual employees and virtual assistants is a great way to maximize all of that because right now, it is kind of intense. If you're going to do research for short-term rentals, there's not a database you can necessarily easily pull from. You’ve got to go search for them, talk to them. Having that marketing strategy based on what it is that you want to do, having a value proposition that speaks to the pain that the person is dealing with, all are very important. Having a website that actually can capture those leads and make you look professional which is what you guys do is also part of that. You have this well-rounded marketing plan. Mark: We have our VA do all the research. Maybe it’s calling everybody that's on Craigslist or ads out there and saying, you may be tired of being a manager, you should go to this webinar we have coming up. It’s how to be a better manager and how to deal with the current [...]. We can do all those invitations to get people into our webinars that are going to show them they don't need to be doing this anymore. There's a lot of different ways that property managers can grow their business right now, but they need to think smart and make those investments. Anne: And HireSmart. Jason: And they need to HireSmart. Awesome. It's great to see you guys again. I'm glad you guys are doing well there over near Atlanta. Keep me apprised as to your next idea. Anne: We always have them. Jason: You always have them. That’s as crazy entrepreneurs. We always are coming up with new stuff. I'll let you guys go and I appreciate you guys coming on. Your website is? Anne: www.hiresmartvas.com Jason: All right. Thanks, Mark, thanks, Anne. Mark: Thank you very much. Anne: Welcome. Thank you, Jason. We appreciate you. Jason: Awesome to have them on. If you are a property management entrepreneur, and you're wanting to add doors, and you're wanting to build a business that you actually enjoy, that you love, that is built around you, this is what we do at DoorGrow. Reach out, I guarantee that we’re going to make your business better in some way, shape, or form, and you're going to love it. Even if you feel like you hate it now, maybe you're thinking you want out of it, you're feeling like it’s uncomfortable, you're probably just doing the wrong things in that business, and you may need some VAs that might be a solution for sure. We can help clean up the frontend of your business and help you get the business in alignment with you. Reach out, check us out at doorgrow.com, and make sure you join our Facebook group. We've got an awesome community there, and people that are helpers, that are givers, and you can get to that by going to doorgrowclub.com. Mark and Anne are in that group. We've got lots of other really cool property management entrepreneurs that are willing to contribute and help you out. Until next time everyone. To our mutual growth. Bye, everybody. You just listened to the DoorGrow Show. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet, in the DoorGrow Club. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead, content, social, direct mail, and they still struggle to grow. At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today’s episode on our blog at doorgrow.com. To get notified of future events and news, subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you’ve learned and start DoorGrow hacking your business and your life. April Fools Day is coming. Prank your friends opening a never ending fake update screen on their computer. Sit back and watch their reaction.

covid-19 ceo time energy british zoom russia sales reach focus pennsylvania va invest bs tool diy airbnb seo philippines nebraska roi xbox indiana jones property bangladesh pranks bolivia kpis filipino home depot ach craigslist virtual assistants referrals shelf vas zillow salvation army ppc tenant april fools day growth strategies rents property management seminars lehman brothers google hangouts wrong person lackey diyer neiman bdm markit mike it bdms mike yeah jason it jason yeah mark yeah jason you jason hull narpm mike jason mark right mark thank mark they mike all mark for mark hey mike on doorgrow jason they anne you anne it

Stages Of Retirement Planning

Plan With The Tax Man

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 19, 2020 21:41

It is no secret that our financial plan will shift and change throughout our lives. However, this is even more prevalent the closer we get to retirement. Tony will discuss the different retirement planning stages and what the focus should be when you hit these checkpoints. Important Links Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381 ----more---- Transcript Of Today's Show: Mark: Hey everybody, welcome into this edition of Plan With The Tax Man, with [Tony Mauro 00:00:00:04]. Mark and I... I am Mark. Mark and Tony here talking about investing, finance and retirement. How are you doing bud? Tony Mauro: I'm doing well. Thank you. Mark: Better than me apparently. I'm all messed up today. Everything had been going okay so far? Tony Mauro: It's been going good. You know we're in the throws of tax seasons, so it's a very busy time. But we know that every year, so it's not like it's a surprise. Mark: Right. It's certainly been an interesting few weeks with everything going on between campaign stuff and financial stuff with a Coronavirus stuff. There's been lots of things going on over the last couple of weeks. But I'm going to focus right now here on a news article I saw when I ask you about this. That Bloomberg, obviously one of the gents running, has stated that unlike... I guess the point is he's kind of poking fun at the current president maybe. That he'll sell off all his financial data and media company if he was to win and become elected. It's worth estimated, I guess around 60 billion. My big question is not from a political standpoint, but how many buyers could there be for such a thing? Maybe Disney, they buy everything. Tony Mauro: That's right. It would have to be somebody, a big company to buy something like that from him, because his wealth... If you ever looked at him like maybe some people were looking at our current president, he's into a lot of things and it would have to be a large company. Somebody like, say, an At&T, General Electric, somebody like that, somebody huge. Maybe it'll be one of these tech companies who knows, Google and Amazon, some of these companies are sitting on large piles of cash. Not probably that much, but it would have to be somebody like that. But it is interesting that they're kind of going back and forth to so-called billionaires on... Obviously he's making fun of the president a little bit, but he'd be willing to give up all his [crosstalk 00:01:56] what's happening now. Mark: Now you kind of can't help but see the jab in there, but at the same time, I mean 60 billion. That's a pretty hefty price tag. So it would have to be definitely the right suitor, I'm sure. Tony Mauro: [crosstalk 00:02:10]. Mark: We'll see how that all plays out as the year goes along. Obviously we're just in March right now, so plenty of time to go. But we'll see how things rock and roll. But for our conversation today, Tony, our main portion of our podcast, I want to talk about the stages of retirement planning. What I've done is, I've kind of broken them down into a couple of categories. Basically let's just assume for the sake of the argument and for the podcast today, that people are retiring at the age of 65. That's the number we all kind of associate anyway. So let's use that as our median number and say, let's talk through some stages. Stage one being those folks who, like myself, are about 15 years away or so from retirement. Maybe you're right around 50, maybe you're 49, 50, 51. What are some main financial things, some things we should start to focus on if we're this I guess preliminary stage, stage one if you will, of thinking about retirement planning? 15 years out. Tony Mauro: 15 years out, and I'm right there with you. I think about it myself, my brother who just turned 50. It's like a switch went off with him, all of a sudden he's thinking about this more as well. So that seems to be kind of the age, 15 years or so out. But I think there's a number of things we could talk about here, but a few of them basically... I mean for me, one of the most important things is getting out and staying out of debt, trying to eliminate as much of that as you can in these next 15 years. So that you can not have those pressures you have when you're younger of, I've got to pay all these bills. It makes it a lot easier to live on less if you don't have all that debt. That'd be the number one I would say. Number two is, you've got to start thinking about what you want at the end in forms of different income streams and what you are going to have. Tony Mauro: This is where the planning starts to come in, you can't wait until the last day to do this. You've got to kind of start planning on, here's where I'm at now, here's where I want to be and am I going to have enough? If not, how am I going to fix that? Then that opens up a whole new conversation. But that would be something else. Then the last thing would be, this is probably the last time, especially in today's market, that you want to be increasing your risk in your portfolio. If anything you want to start, if you're haven't already, getting your diversification intact and starting to take a little bit less risk for these next 15 years. Not I'm saying you have to go all the way, all the cash or anything like that, but certainly need to take a look at that and your appetite for that as you get a little closer. Mark: Right. Now, I think that's a good idea. So 15 years out, you're really kind of in that beginning stage, you're starting to think about it. I think those are some good bullet points you gave us there, Tony, to start kind of considering. So let's move it into stage two and say okay, well maybe we find ourselves now at the 10 year window. Okay, so maybe we're 55, 56, somewhere in that neighborhood. We're starting to amp this up. Give us some bullet points, some ideas to start ticking this thing closer. Tony Mauro: So a couple things we can do right off the bat and this is easily obtainable, is to get a statement not only from social security as to what your potential benefit will be at 65, maybe 67, 70. Finding out what your full retirement age will be for them, because they have increased it for us a little bit. Doing the same thing with any pensions that you might have. Not as many people have the old fashioned pensions, but if you do, you want to get a rough estimate of what your monthly benefit will be there. Tony Mauro: I think another thing too is you got to start thinking about, because I know I will be. Okay, when do I really want to call it quit? Is it going to be 65, is it going to be 70, maybe I continue to work. Again, big picture stuff, but you need this start narrowing it down a little bit. That would be something to think about. Then last is, because it's all based on, I think for me again it's close to home. Because I want to know what people want to do in retirement. Because for me, it's not going to be the same as you or somebody else, but that's what it's all about for me, is what I actually want to do. And am I going to have enough money to do that or not? Mark: Right. Of course everybody is different, but you are starting to pull these things together. You starting to determine or maybe getting closer and have an idea of where you want to retire, how you want to retire, what do you want it to look like? What are you wanting to do? Settle a lot of those things. I mean hopefully you've been thinking about that all along, but I think it starts to... naturally it starts to ramp up in our mind as we get closer, we start to have more conversations over dinner with our spouse and daydream maybe if you will, of things you want to do, so on and so forth. Mark: All this kind of takes up and takes forward, but then we start to get to the five year window. Now hopefully by now we have actually started taking action on many of these items, hopefully anyway. But either way, let's talk about five years out. Now, let's just say, for the sake of the argument, we're 60 and it's right around the corner. Maybe 62 is looking better, maybe it's 65, maybe it's 67, whatever the case is. But what are some of the more serious things to consider here? Tony Mauro: So now we're starting to get into a little more of a tighter funnel here. Because we're starting to come closer to the end. I think for a lot of people it's important, just like you said, is to think about, okay, what are we going to do for that date? What are we going to kind of pencil in, if you will, as to at least when we're going to start? The other thing I think, if you haven't already, you really need to take a serious look and not have a lot of your retirement assets tied up, maybe in equities. Now I'm not saying again move everything. Tony Mauro: But you should be working with someone to assure that your portfolio or nest egg is well diversified and not taking the risks like a 25 year old would be, looking for growth. Because you don't have the time to make up those potential losses if they should occur. Then I think last probably is again, trying to get a tighter number on what streams of income are going to come in and how much, because you're getting close now and you want to firm up some of these numbers that you've been talking about over the last five years or so. Mark: Right. When you're in that five year window, Tony, it's often referred to as the retirement red zone or the financial red zone or whatever. Hopefully you're working with an advisor at this point. Now, it's never too late, it's one of those things where you don't want to give somebody the impression they'd say, well, you've waited till five years out. Oh well, tough noogies. You can still come in- Tony Mauro: There's always some things. Mark: Always some things you can be doing, but hopefully you've been addressing some of these ahead of time. Working with an advisor is going to help you go through these different stages. I think the stages will obviously, if you even started with an advisor 15 years out, the level of working with him, it's going to slowly kind of amp up as well. As you're moving through this and getting closer, the activity between you two should be increasing as well. Or am I off there? Tony Mauro: No, I think you're exactly right. We work mostly and have the most contact with our pre-retirees and retirees, because of the stage that they're at. In the growth stage, yes, you're monitoring the plan and making some small changes, but that's pretty much it. As goals change, adjusting, but retirees, it becomes a whole different thing, because you've got to make sure that you've got enough income coming. Make sure your taxes are paid and all this other stuff. So, yeah. Mark: Okay. We've hit all these, we've hit these windows, the 15, the 10, the five, excuse me. So now Tony, well, it's the big day. We're on the day of retirement, what are the absolute essential things that we should have and need to have figured out at this point? Tony Mauro: Well at this point, hopefully you've covered everything that we just talked about and you have your income sources in place, you know what they are. Then I think an important add on is, if they have never been taxed, make sure that your taxes are being withheld or your taxes are being paid. So you don't have a surprise come tax time that you owe a large tax bill. Then you need to have a really good grasp, and a lot of people don't. Because they've never done it, is to what our monthly expenses are going to be, our monthly budget? What do we spend in that we have to spend money on? Then what's the fun stuff? Another thing is, even though you are in retirement, I still think there's a need for some sort of emergency fund. Tony Mauro: It doesn't need to be maybe to the extent of when during your earning years, but just something in case something happens. You've got some reserves, you're not wondering and maybe getting into debt to replace something or something like that. Then on the investment side, and I see it all the time on the tax side of our business. Retirees come in, they have a handful of CDs, they're getting 0.1% and they're wondering why they don't have enough income. You got to have something that's going to, at least with part of your money, to outpace inflation. Mark: Right. No, definitely. I'll go back to the market drop a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, a couple of weeks ago, I guess at this point. The big first big day, I'm thinking about it from a standpoint of I was having a conversation with someone and we were talking about the diversification. So in 2019, it was a good year. I mean you had people overall 2019 ended up well. There are a lot of people saying that the average was somewhere between 25, 30%, right? Tony Mauro: Yeah. Mark: You have different people, I've heard from folks saying, well I didn't make 30% and I was upset with my advisor for it. It's like, well, a lot of that had to do with probably how you're allocated based on your risk tolerance, where you're at in life. Like the people that were making 30% that was mostly, if I'm not mistaken, all large cap, which is going to put you in a different risk category. Again, correct me if I'm wrong, because this is what you do every day. But that's the whole purpose of an advisor is to mitigate some of that. So if you were making 10, 12, 15, 17 you still were having a good year. That was based on the fact of your risk tolerance. Now in a case where the market's been dropping due to the Coronavirus, you're probably not losing as much as the 3% or the 4%. because again, you're diversified. Am I right in that? Tony Mauro: No, you're too right on it. Yes, because as the markets have chugged up over the last four or five years, everybody's now thinking that no matter what their risk tolerance is, they should be getting anywhere 15, 20%. I mean something higher. What I'm telling them, because I have had a couple of clients, they're the pre-retirement, but they said the same thing. Hey, the market's up X, but we only got X. I'm quick to remind them that, hey, it's because here's the way we're invested based on your risk tolerance and your nearest to retirement. Tony Mauro: We can't afford to take those risks. If you want to take those risks, I can make it very easy for you. We'll go out, we'll just basically drop everything and we'll buy an ETF in the S&P fund. You'll get the returns of the market, but you're also going to get the losses when they happen as well. So sometimes I have to try to correct what I call... I tell them what I feel like it's irrational thinking, that if you're basically using advisor to outperform the market, I think you're going to be disappointed in all cases. That doesn't mean we're bad. It just means that, we're out there trying to devise a portfolio that is going to work for you and your risk tolerance. Mark: Right. Kind of weathering multiple storms. Yeah. I think that's where, of course, we've talked many times on the podcast, the greed factor that we all possess. And there's nothing wrong. It doesn't make you a bad person. You go, man, I want to make 30% too. But if you're 60 chasing 30%, it's probably not the best idea in last year's market in case of something like this. If you want to kind of use the conversation about the market downturn so far, early this year. We had multiple 10% drops in 19, yet it's still finished up almost 30%. Tony Mauro: It still finished up. Mark: Right. So you just don't know until as the year plays out. That's why investing is a longterm proposition, right? Tony Mauro: Long-term proposition. In fact, I just had a funny story. I had a client who just emailed me two days ago. He's a client that isn't involved too much in this portfolio, but he started listing off all these points that have been happening the last few weeks. Tony Mauro: He gets it from the news- Mark: Of course, right. Tony Mauro: ... of course, the internet. He pointed to China and the Coronavirus, maybe we should get out of any investments that hold anything over there, the economy. All the way down to if the democratic president becomes president, there's going to be a market correction. And I said, well, you're watching way too much [crosstalk 00:00:14:26]. We're longterm here. I said this is always happens. It may not be these points, but there's always something going on and the markets could be turbulent over the next six, eight months. But in the end, over time you have to view it as longterm, number one. But as you get closer to retirement, to our point, you can't be in that whirlwind of trying to chase those types of returns. Mark: Now I think that's a great point. Well, I want to wrap this up here with our stages of retirement. So we went through 15, 10 and five. We also hit the big day of actual retirement. Of course the great thing about a podcast folks is, if you're listening to us and we tend to sometimes veer off target, kind of like we did just a second ago. But I think there were some good points in there. You can always go back and re-listen to it. You can pause, rewind, all those kinds of things and of course subscribe to the podcast so that you always get new episodes when they come out. You can listen to past episodes by going to yourplanningpros.com, that's yourplanningpros.com. But we've hit retirement. We went, I guess, like I said, 15, 10, five, the big day, we retire. That's it. Tony, we're done. There's nothing else to think about after you retire with a retirement plan on the day you retire. No. Tony Mauro: I would say no [crosstalk 00:15:30] You could live anywhere from zero to 30 years from retirement, depending when you go and your longevity. So [crosstalk 00:15:38]. Mark: It should be a living document, it should flow and change with you through retirement. Now you need to think about post-retirement. Tony Mauro: Yes. This is an important area, because again, a lot of retirees could spend 10 to 15, 20 years in this stage. Which is a long time and things change. I think a couple things they need to think about is a rising health costs and medical expenses and how that's going to affect their monthly cashflow, number one. But number two is, it's that real grim reaper that everybody thinks about and it isn't death. It's the dreaded nursing home. [crosstalk 00:16:14] about the possibility of ending up there, losing all your money. Everybody says that, nobody comes and says, well, maybe I should take this out of my name now and do this with it. I always ask them why? It's always because they are afraid that they're going to lose it if they go in a nursing home. Tony Mauro: So I think there needs to be some planning around that really, that probably should have been done about 10, 15 years earlier. Not at this point, because generally there's not a ton of options there. But I think there's that. I think there's the fact of facing that there's going to be an end for all of us, making sure that your end and your legacy is carried out like you want it. I think the other thing is, trying to get your assets depending on where they're at, so they're transitioned to the next generation as smoothly as possible, and definitely the most efficient tax way possible. The optimized way, because there are some mistakes that people make, then their heirs end up paying more taxes than they should. Mark: Yeah, definitely. Of course, you could see our episode, our podcast on... We just had not too long ago on some of that. We covered that topic. Of course the new elimination of the stretch IRA within the secure act also changes how you're going to try to leave money to your heirs in a tax efficient way and all that kind of stuff. So there's definitely a lot more planning that has to go involved. The idea of, again, stages of retirement planning. There's multiple stages you may find yourself in, whether you're in stage one and you're 15 years away like I am. Mark: Or you're in stage two, you're 10 years away, or you're five years away, or you're getting close. Or even after retirement there's still planning that needs to be done to make sure that we're being as efficient and hopefully smooth as we can try to keep it. Anyway, that's the idea. There's always going to be something going on. But you want to try to keep it as smooth as we can through retirement, because God willing, you're not going to be retired for just a couple of years. You're going to be retired for many years, nowadays possibly 40. Tony Mauro: Yeah, possibly. Mark: It's pretty crazy when you think about that, versus our parents or our grandparents. So that's going to do it for our main show here on Plan With The Tax Man, with Tony Mauro. But before we go, I want to ask Tony something a little fun getting to know you. Since it is tax season and I know this gets to be your hectic time. What do you do to kind of chill out, remove some stress and work your way through this hectic busy month or two? Tony Mauro: Sure. It is stressful, but I think everybody deals with stress and it is a more serious thing than I used to give it credit for. But now that I get a little older, I see people having some health problems and different things. So very mindful of it, not only during the day. But I'll tell you what I like to do, I do something at the start of the day and believe it or not, I actually pay for a journal that I actually kind of journal my day, what I'm going to try to accomplish? Mark: Really? Okay. Tony Mauro: What's going to make it a good day? Then of course try to get some exercise. For me that works, I have to actually pay for that. You think I could just write that down on my own, but I have that, I like it. So that's what I aspire to do. But to relieve my stress really, I like to get away and tune out. I'm not a big TV watcher, but I do like to read and I do like to do some yoga, because for me that's... I struggled so much with it just to maintain those little poses. [crosstalk 00:00:19:21]. Mark: It's tough, isn't it? Some of those are pretty complicated. I started doing that as well myself.,I had some back injuries. It's actually really helpful. Tony Mauro: It is, but I'd say to people, you've got to find something that works for you. Don't think that stress isn't real, because I think it is definitely real. Mark: No, it's absolutely, and it causes so many hidden things. I think we've gotten much better as a society and as a people understanding how stress affects us through the years versus, again, like even our parents or our grandparents. So certainly beneficial there. Good to hear that everybody takes a time or we should be taking the time to distress once in a while. Well folks, there you go. That's going to do it for this week, this episode on Plan With The Tax Man. If you have questions about what stage of retirement planning you might be in or you need some help getting through those stages, whether you've gotten this through an email blast from Tony or you've gone to the website, or you subscribe to it on whatever platform. We have Apple or Google or Spotify or Stitcher, definitely reach out and have a conversation with them. Mark: They are Des Moines professional alternative at Tax Doctor Inc. You want to always talk with a professional about your specific situation before you take action. Because again, we're talking in generalities here on the podcast for a wide audience. So if you want to talk about the stage you might find yourself in, whether you're 15 years away or 10 years away or five years away, give them a call, get on the counter, have a chat at (844) 707-7381, that's (844) 707-7381 or go to yourplanningpros.com, that's your planning pros.com. Tony's been helping families in the area for more than 23 years. He's an EA and a CFP and my friend. Thanks for your time, buddy. I hope you have a great week. Tony Mauro: All right, you take care. We'll talk to you next time. Mark: We'll see you next time in a couple of weeks on more with Plan With The Tax Man, with Tony Mauro.

god tv amazon spotify google china apple coronavirus stage stitcher rock and roll stages settle ea cds att cfp etf des moines general electric retirement planning s p retirees markit mark you mark no mark yeah no tim mark right mark they mark all mark okay mark now tony mauro

Five Successful Entrepreneurs Share Their Tips for Making a Profitable Exit

Retirement Planning - Redefined

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 10, 2019 48:52

One of the privileges we have as the owners of QLB is that we have a panel of experienced entrepreneurs that act as advisers and also happen to be our brokers. On today's episode, we are hosting our first Podcast Panel, these in-house experts are here to answer key questions regarding buying and selling. Jason, Bryan, Amanda, and David have a combined 40 years of experience in brokering e-commerce businesses and are here to share some great insights into their first-hand transaction experience. The discussion today focuses on the sell side and how human behavior can influence a transaction, balancing being a good seller without being a pushover, and finally on valuation and managing expectations from the seller side. Episode Highlights: Can a seller increase their sales amount just by being a good seller? How to handle challenging sellers and tips for approaching the negotiations with them. Thoughts on where seller behavior fits into the entire valuation process. Some of the principals of a good seller and behaviors they should avoid. Where the line is between two being too private and being proactive as a seller. Ways certain SaaS elements can be revealed in due diligence without giving away too much before the handover. Specific contingencies that sellers can hold onto until the signing. The importance of the buyer/seller face to face meeting. Things sellers tend to put too much emphasis on during a transaction. Staying on for extra consult periods as a way to earn buyer trust and confidence. How to temper unreasonable valuations or unreasonable expectations for what market can bear on the part of the seller. Transcription: Joe: So Mark one of the privileges that you and I have as owners of Quiet Light Brokerage is that we have an unofficial board of directors and highly successful entrepreneurs that are our advisors slash brokers. And we joke often that most of them are more experienced and smarter and more successful than we are. And I think with the panel that you put together in this upcoming episode it's absolutely true. We've got Jason, Brad, Amanda, and David all sharing their experience as advisors, brokers about how to be a good seller and beyond that with the entire transaction. How did the overall panel go? Did everybody behave and give nuggets of wisdom throughout the whole podcast? Mark: Well, naturally I started this all first well it was a pretty interesting idea. I was talking to Amanda about going to a conference down in Austin where she lives and she was invited onto a panel and she said that she'd be really interested in doing stuff like that. So I thought well why don't we do a panel here at Quiet Light and bring forward some of the advisors that have been working on deals. I mean I think the combined number of years on that panel alone was something like 40 some odd years of experience combined. Joe: As buyers or entrepreneurs? Mark: I didn't even get into the; I have no idea how to calculate that. That'd be a much bigger number. My math abilities stop after about 40, 45. Joe: So everything is 40 years of experience for you. Mark: Well I become 42 so yeah everything is; that's going to be the limit. Every year I add one number to my math abilities. The panel was pretty fun. I didn't know how it was going to go. I didn't know if it was going to be too many people on the panel. I was hoping for some discussion between them and we did get into that. We got some great discussion between people who have been doing this for a really, really long time. I wanted to keep the topic pretty simple and just kind of dig into their actual experience in doing deals. I wanted to find out what are they seeing on the sell-side specifically and working with people; humans that can really influence a transaction by their behavior. How much are they seeing that actually come into influencing the price? Jason right out the gate is like look we can sometimes influence the price but the bigger worry here is having a primary effect. If you're a crappy seller you might make this an unsellable business. And that kind of launched off this conversation of what is it; how can you be a good seller? How do you balance this idea of being a good seller who is open and proactive? David talked about being proactive as a seller. How do you balance this proactivity and openness versus being a pushover? What elements should sellers also not necessarily open up on their business right away? And where should they stick their foot down and say we shouldn't be sharing this? A pretty interesting conversation on that front to see what other people's experience was in these different questions that came up. I didn't lay it out right away. Joe just to let you know I asked them to pick out a URI moving forward for the company and I won't tell you what the result was of that. Joe: So I have to listen to this to get the answer. What was the question again specifically and what wiseass comment did Jason make because I'm sure that's exactly where it came from? Mark: You're going to have to listen. Joe: Alright. What was the question though? Mark: The question was choose Joe or Mark. Joe: To do what? And you're like hosting the podcast so you could totally edit it out and tell them no, no, no, no, choose me so it's…for the audience, I want to know Mark has full editing control of the podcast so whatever negative things said about him were completely edited out. Mark: Well, that's actually not true. I don't touch it, in fact, there's a point in there and I'm hoping the editors… Joe: See he's fabricating he's making this up. It's totally true. Chris and Podcast Motor; they do what he tells them to do. Mark: They're the only people in my life that do what I tell them to do. Joe: You man have seven children, that's the way it is. Mark: Yeah, I guarantee nobody in my household does what I tell them to do. Joe: There is teenagers. Mark: There is a point in there; I hope the editors catch this where Amanda cuts out and I awkwardly interject so we'll see if the editors catch that part. If they don't just bear with it because she's actually giving some really good advice during that point in the podcast. Joe: So you and I always joke about or I always joke about the fifth pillar. You always correct me and tell me it doesn't exist. And for those that don't know the pillars, it's growth, risk, gross transferability, and documentation and I always say there's a fifth. It's an invisible fifth and it's the person behind the business. Who you are and how you behave and what you post on Facebook and what's your LinkedIn profile says and it's silly pictures and things of that nature. It has an impact on the overall value of your business. People are going to stroke a check for enough money that is going to make a difference in their life savings and the risk they're going to invest in their future. They need to like you number one, they need to trust you number one; both a number one. That is so so valuable so I love this topic. I absolutely have to listen to see how quickly they all said your name instead of mine. And then I'm going to have to have another panel on with the other four advisors and see what they say. Mark: Sounds great. Mark: Okay, welcome everybody. We're having our very first podcast panel or panel podcast. I don't know what we want to call this but basically, we have a bunch of people on this podcast here. We have Amanda, Jason, David, and Bryan all joined me for a conversation. We've never done this before so we're going to see how this actually works out. The format is going to be pretty simple, I'm just going to ask questions and pick out different people and see what sort of conversation comes from those questions. So, guys, I'm just going to start off with a very simple question. You've got to pick one personally Joe or me; me or Joe? No, don't answer that. I'm just joking. Don't answer that because I already know what the answer would be. You guys would want Joe. Alright so let's; I want to focus this panel on more seller questions because we obviously work with buyers. I know a lot of buyers listen to the podcast but we work with a lot of sellers as well. And so I want to focus a lot on that. What is it like to sell a business? What are some of your experiences? You guys have a ton of experience working with sellers, preparing their businesses for sale, helping them go through that really difficult emotional complex process of exiting their companies so I wanted to try and tap into your collective wisdom here, get some good information and insights into sellers and that process of actually selling a business. And I want to start out by looking at how much influence a seller can have on the value of their business just by how they act with their business. Let's start with you Jason because you are the longest-tenured member of QLB here so I'm going to start with you. I'm going to ask you just a pretty basic question here and that is do you think that you can increase the amount of money; can the seller increase the amount of money they get out of the exit of their business by being a quote-unquote good seller? Jason: Absolutely 100% but it may not be in the way that you're thinking about it. I don't know that your value goes from a million dollars to a million one because you're a good seller. I think it's more binary. I think it's either a million dollars or zero. Meaning if you're not a good seller I think it's likely to spook a buyer to the point where they simply don't want to complete a deal. So I think it's incumbent to be a good seller, to be ethical, to be honest, and very very important to be transparent. So like any little thing about the business that in the back of your mind you think gee I really don't want to talk about that, that's exactly the thing that the seller should talk about with the buyer. Get it out there. Mark: Yeah. Amanda, I know over the years you've also been with QLB for a really long time, we've worked with all sorts of different people. Some people are really easy and a joy to work with and while not dumping on any previous clients, some people are a little bit more challenging. And I want to take a step back and just say something real quick. When we talk about challenging clients, difficult people to work with, the one thing that's always important for us to keep in mind is I get why some people are somewhat challenging. They've built a business, they have a valuable asset, they want to make sure the deal goes through well. So they have a right to a certain extent to be a little bit more challenging. But what has been your experience, Amanda, when you've dealt with a client that might be a little bit more difficult to work with and maybe a little more abrasive in the negotiations? Have you seen that impact the deal that they're able to get? Amanda: Absolutely. I think it's important to actually take those clients and take them aside and say it's really important to look at the feedback that we're getting from buyers and to be reasonable with their expectations. Otherwise, we're not going to deliver for with the deal successfully because the buyer's feedback is super valuable. If you get a lot of feedback that's consistent and a seller is not willing to hear it, it makes it very difficult to take those items there that could be actionable, make them happen, and then get a deal done. I think that also working with abrasive sellers can rub buyers the wrong way because obviously after a deal is done they have to work with the buyers. The buyers work with the seller for extended period time for training and support and it certainly is concerning if a seller is not easy to work with and has a difficult time getting along with the buyer for that matter. So yes it definitely can impact the deal. Mark: Yeah. And I think Jason your point about it being somewhat binary I think is interesting. At the end of the day obviously, we're valuing the business not necessarily the business owner and so Bryan what are your thoughts on what Jason is saying as far as it being somewhat binary? Do you agree with that or do you think that the seller is just one other element of the entire business mix? Obviously, we're valuing the business on its own to a certain extent where does the buyer fit in; I'm sorry, where does the seller fit into that entire valuation process? Bryan: Yes. So I think Jason makes a really, really good point and I'd like to touch on his point about honesty first [inaudible 00:11:30.1]. I think that's probably the most important quality that a good seller can have. But in terms of sort of being a good seller, being more binary than affecting the valuation I think it can be like this and if the seller is really difficult to deal with then disconcerting there is something that's not happening. But I think that being a really good seller can actually also increase the ultimate value that the seller gets out of the transaction simply because being likable and getting along well with buyers is in my opinion likely to induce better offers, induce better conversations that lead to better offers, and thereby can lead to a better and more profitable deals for the seller itself. Mark: Yeah, I think the only issue that I would just if I'm going to comment on this here would be that the buyer is going to look at a business and look at the element of risk. There's always a perceived unknown of what am I actually getting into here. And if you have a seller who is shifty, if you have a seller who is maybe withholding information or is being just kind of; I think Jason to what you're saying, if they're being really abrasive or just mean or whatever yeah that becomes a very binary sort of situation where if I'm a buyer I don't want to get into that because who knows what's going to happen after the sale. Jason: I find in the real world though it's not necessarily that that a seller is abrasive it's more the word you used is good shifty. A buyer just gets the sense there's something that the seller is not telling me. Are they planning to start a competing business the day after they sell? Do they know that this industry is about to hit a brick wall? Are there issues with the supplier? It's that shifty element more than the abrasive element is what I find in the real world. Mark: I would agree with that. I mean the thing that I think people on the sell-side need to understand is that from a buyer's standpoint risk plays into a valuation perceived or real. It doesn't matter if the risk is real or if it's perceived it's still there. And so if you are giving off a sense of risk to a buyer that's going to play in the valuation that you get. So I guess we can put this out there as a plea to be a good seller; to behave correctly. But what does that actually mean to be a good seller? David I'm going to throw it over to you because I haven't got you in on this yet. And sorry, I didn't get to turn in you in the first question here but I want to ask you what are some ways that you've seen from sellers that make them good to work with and things that maybe sellers can do to maybe reduce that element of risk; that perceived risk that they might give out otherwise? David: Yeah, it's a great question. For me, it comes down to three core principles and the guys have touched upon perhaps the most important one right away which is honesty. And then after that, I think it's diligence and knowledge of your own business to the extent that they understand their own numbers in great depth. They understand the reasons, the trends, the way things happen, the problems that they've had; like fully understanding then business. When you have that and have someone with that level of knowledge come on the call with the buyers it's incredibly reassuring that they have this gross knowledge about their own business. And then to a company both that depth of honesty with expertise in their own business. And you know that's not taken for granted because sometimes many entrepreneurs are running multiple businesses and they haven't had the time to focus a lot on one specific thing. So when you have that knowledge it's really helpful. And then the third piece, of course, is productivity. I think that it's easy to come into a selling process perhaps when you are quite emotionally spent even being in the business for a while and to underestimate that a lot of clients will ask some questions and they will want to go back into past historic information and having like a positive mindset about putting that information and realizing that it's also the benefit of the ultimate end goal of the transaction which is to get the best deal terms. Going at that formula very proactive and positive perspective really just creates that like perfect cluster I think of the best seller like proactivity, positivity, honesty, and diligence. Mark: Yeah, that can be a really difficult line to draw because from a seller's standpoint you hear some of these questions and you think I don't want to share this. But at the same time, you don't want to appear shifty. I mean where do you guys think that line is for a seller when they're going through; especially like initially, right? We put up the listing out to the market. I think Brad who is not on this call recently put a listing on the market and had like 300 inquiries on it. We had to shut things down and that client is going through multiple calls one after another after another. And some of these buyers get on and they start asking some pretty pointed questions pretty quickly. What do you think the line is? Amanda I'm going to throw it to you, what do you think that line is where between being a shifty yet still open and honest and proactive as David says? Because I agree with you 100% David that being proactive makes a big difference. So where would you put that line, Amanda? Amanda: I think it has to do with creating expectations for when you're going to open up certain information and letting them know upfront what you're comfortable with. So there are certain things obviously that you want to keep pretty close to you like your suppliers or certain proprietary information that you just don't want to open up to everybody. And so possibly you say okay I'm going to give you all this information; my financials, this is how I do this, this, and this but creating a timeline of when they'll have access to that information based on certain steps being in place and finalizing the deal. And keeping some of that information towards the end I believe has worked really well for most sellers and buyers because if you have that trust level that you built between the two along the way and then you're just basically following the course of actions that have been set out ahead of time then I think that creates a nice flow. And obviously, that's what we want. We want sellers and buyers to both be comfortable through the entire process so that we can get to that finish line. And so I think it is obviously definitely a fine line. But also when a seller and a buyer are working together and they're meeting in person I think that makes a huge impact in what information is shared because you can just feel whether a person is trustworthy or not and what they're going to do with that information. It often comes across just in energy and so oftentimes the seller will let their guard down just when they get to know the buyer a little bit more. But upfront I think obviously you don't want to give 300 people everything you have for obvious reasons. Mark: Yeah and I think for… Amanda: It's about creating expectations. Mark: I would agree 100%. For the buyers that are listening to this, I think the insights that you can take away from this as well is understanding that. Amanda your suggestion is something that we use quite a bit here at Quiet Light during the due diligence process of ordering your requests and understanding some items are going to be more sensitive than others is a really good tip there. It does a great job of helping that seller get put at ease and from the sell-side is a great way for you to protect your more sensitive data by promising this saying I'm more than happy to share this with you but let's first go through these other items first just in case that torpedoes the deal. Bryan, I'm interested to know what your thoughts are where you think the most sensitive sort of data is that sellers might want to consider maybe safeguarding a little bit more than others. Obviously, different sellers are at different levels of comfort. Some don't want to share a single thing about their business and other people are like I don't care. You can't replicate what I did because I got the magic sauce. What sort of information do you think sellers is kind of the main stuff you would probably want to hang onto until the end? Bryan: Yeah, that's a great question. I think it depends a lot on like I said an individual seller. It also depends a lot on the type of the business and the business model, to begin with. So I think with that with an e-commerce business the most closely guarded secrets so to speak might be like Amanda mentioned the vendors with any any business that depends entirely or for the most part on a single or a couple of traffic sources the seller might hold the details of those traffic sources confidential such as for instance in indication of PPC traffic they might not feel comfortable disclosing their full keyword lists and that copies and so forth in the early stages. So it really depends on the business model. It also depends on the business itself and how defensible the business is. Like you said there are some business sellers who are happy to open up absolutely everything because they are fully sourcing that nobody can replicate the business no matter what they sold on but businesses are different and so does comfort level is different. Mark: David and Jason I'd be interested to know from you are there any elements that you have ever run across that have been off-limits in a due diligence process and if so how have you handled getting around that? For example vendor names, customer names, talking to employees; if you're able to share any details on that please do. And I didn't prep before this so if you're not we'll just move on to the next question. Jason: No, that's fine. Well, one thing if I may I just want to add onto what Bryan said. He mentioned about whether a business is replicable. One thing sellers hopefully are aware of, any buyer that's going to see the information has signed I think it's about a five-page non-disclosure agreement which specifically says they're not allowed to scan for ideas to steal. So if a buyer did that they would be blatantly violating their NDA. And a seller would potentially have legal recourse. So hopefully that will give sellers a little more comfort. In regards to what information is truly off-limits, the thing I found is by the time of closing it all has to come out. But some of it does come out essentially at the closing table. So one of the big areas of sensitivity I found is if a business has employees a lot of times the seller doesn't want to mention the sale to the employees literally till the last minute. The reasoning is it could really make them panic and look for other jobs if the deal doesn't go through. The buyer who might be inheriting these employees will have some obvious consternation. They're going to want to know who's about to work for them; are those people planning on sticking around? That can be a really sensitive area. And I've had situations where it feels like we're a lock on that or some other small issue and it always seems to get resolved at the closing table at the 11th hour when finally everyone feels confident that the deal is actually going to happen. David: Yeah and I think to add to Jason's point it's something that comes to mind a lot. Me over the years that's owing a lot of SaaS deals you can imagine the code base is just a really cool secret sauce component of SaaS business and the buyer very naturally wants to see that annotate to see what kind of code quality is annotations and see what kind of architecture is and that creates a lot of shrikes naturally in the owner right away. And it was an interesting bridge trying to think about how we could do that in a very safe way to get to that point that Jason is talking about which is the eventual reveal at closing. And what we did that's worked very effectively over the years and what we do at Quiet Light is show a snapshot of that code base and just provide enough insight and then a high-level like architectural look so that they can see how this sort of modules are put together. And then just a small snapshot so they can analyze the code based on a very discrete basis. Or also consider using a third party due diligence advisor to come in and review the code base and that way the owner is never really hands-on with it. It's being reviewed by a third-party specialist and there's a non-disclosure agreement in place and so you really can actually go into something that looks like quite a difficult issue and something to verify with a lot of credibility and integrity. So that's one of the ways that we've done most to do that with SaaS. Mark: Yeah I think one of the things I've learned over now 13 years of helping people through this is that during the due diligence process oftentimes a buyer comes in and says I need to understand X. And rather than saying in the due diligence process that I need to understand X they say okay I need to understand X and the way to do that is Y. And so what they say is let's do Y. And the seller says I can't do Y. And then the buyer says well what are you trying to hide, right? And so one of the tricks for you guys that I know you guys have done so well over the years is figuring out what is that X; what is the person actually trying to achieve through this request? What are they trying to learn through this request? And David to your point I'm glad you brought up [inaudible 00:25:11.7] because I was going to bring that up. That's one thing that I would consider to be kind of a non-negotiable. If I had a SaaS business and a buyer came in and said I need to get the codebase I would say no. I don't think that that's reasonable mainly because we can satisfy the same information that you're seeking in a way that does not involve handing over the entire code base through a third party due diligence requests or otherwise. I think there are other elements that could be non-negotiable such as if you have a business that has only five clients. And if the buyer wants to speak to those clients there might be a reasonable request there. But it can also be pretty dicing so how do you overcome that sort of friction in a due diligence process. Jason, it looks like you have something that you want to add onto that. Jason: Yeah I mean just touching on that. One thing we were talking about earlier was being a good seller and the corollary is being a good buyer. But one thing I've encountered on occasion is somebody will have experience with having done other deals in the past; either business acquisitions or dispositions or real estate or something. And a person might have an attitude of I've done a lot of deals; this is the way it's always done. And one message I would try to get out to people is just because you've done a deal in a certain way that's not the way it's always done. This panel has done literally hundreds of deals and probably in dozens and dozens of different ways. So I think Mark what you're saying is try to figure out the core of wants and then get creative about how to supply it is probably the most appropriate answer rather than being rigid and saying this is how it has to be. Amanda: I also think to David's point about bringing a third party to do due diligence and possibly a financial audit or an audit of some technology or code it brings a lot of value because it gives the buyer some time to focus on actually what they wanted to do at a business point or it takes the nuances of the financial load because it's so tedious when you're going through financial due diligence or looking at code. And to have somebody else do that who's professional and experienced with that while the buyer can focus on future opportunities and getting prepped and ready for your transitioning into the business then I think there's a ton of value in doing that. And oftentimes it helps the seller feel more comfortable sharing that information with a third party as well. Mark: I'd be curious to see what experience each of you has had with conditional purchase agreements. I've used them sparingly and just I'm going to take a step back, whenever we do the podcast I introduce something that is a little bit outside the normal. Oftentimes I hear from you guys they're saying why are you saying that now everyone is going to want a conditional purchase agreement. So I'm not necessarily encouraging this but I've used it on occasion when somebody really doesn't want to disclose vendor names or really doesn't want to disclose something else. So we say alright let's put together a conditional purchase agreement where basically this thing is binding conditioned on a very specific term. Have any of you others worked with those? Jason: I mean I think like I said I've had some deals where it really seems like it's either going to close or fall apart at the closing table and they've always closed. It's always whatever is that one condition has been revealed right at the very end. Mark: Yeah, and I think I'm going to wrap this up. Amanda, I think one point that you made that I kind of went right on over is meet in person. If I could give one bit of advice to anyone doing an acquisition on the buy-side or sell-side, get together and meet in person. It solves so many problems. If you can spend a couple of days with that person in the same room going over some of the due diligence materials I think it solves a ton of problems or it creates a massive problem that deals shouldn't happen anyways. And that's an outcome that might be okay if the deal is going to be bad anyway. And so a meeting in person is a great suggestion. It's something that I would definitely recommend. Alright, I'm going to ask and move on to another topic here. Bryan I'm going to move this over to you here and that is talking about what's important in the negotiation. When somebody is looking to sell their business oftentimes what we do is we think well I want to get money out of this. I want to get X out of it. I want to get as much as I can possibly get out of it and forget that there's a lot of elements that you have to negotiate. You have a non compete agreement, you have an employment or consulting agreement on top of that. And there's literally probably about a half dozen different things that get negotiated through the process of selling an online business. What are some areas that you've seen maybe a wrong emphasis from sellers in the past where they might put too much weight on one element of a transaction? Bryan: Yeah there is definitely a lot going on in terms of what makes an offer than just total price of the offer. There are things you mentioned and there are seller notes, equity rules, you mentioned an offer can be structured in so many ways. In terms of wrong emphasis, I think sellers are often a little bit perhaps too much against carrying a seller note especially if it's a small seller note. I've seen this sentiment changing over the recent years though and it used to be the case years ago that most sellers would basically only want to want to deal with good cash offers. It's now getting more and more common for sellers to be okay with a 5, 10, or 20% seller note. And the reason why I believe a seller should be more okay with carrying small notes is because that's what I often explain to sellers themselves is that oftentimes those offers that they get that are structured this way are actually going to have bought them more money at the end than a full cash offer route to the extent that they can even easy to consider the seller note to be sort of a bonus on top of what they get anyway. So they can keep pushing for an all-cash offer but it's likely that this all-cash offer would actually go to turn out to be lower than the cash part of the offer that might go to small notes. Mark: Yeah to that we have a podcast I think it probably would have aired a couple of weeks before this episode here with Shannon Stewart who's a tax advisor on the sell-side. And she has an example of a business that sold for 11 million dollars and that she was able to; the net proceeds increased by 43% largely through deferring some of the payments that came in. And when you're talking about an 11 million dollar deal a 43% increase in net proceeds is not a small amount of money. So I would agree, seller notes and knowing how to structure those the right way is is something. Jason what would you say; is there any element that you think sellers tend to overemphasize when they're negotiating? Jason: Yeah I mean I think like Bryan said headline price gets a lot of focus when in reality it's more about how much are you going to get overtime after-tax that you get to keep. And then I think another thing that gets way too much emphasis is multiple. I think a lot of people get hung up on multiple both buyers and sellers and it kind of boils down more to bragging rights than to a discernible business reasoning meaning ohI sold my business for 4X or whatever so I can tell my friends. The reality is okay let's say you pushed the multiple for your particular industry; let's say you're selling an e-commerce business and they normally sell around three times earnings and you managed to push it to four times like you're taking a lot more risk to get to four times you had to accept an earn-out and it's depending on performance and this and that and the other. Even if you collect it all you're earning what you would make in four years anyway. You wouldn't be selling the business if the sole reason was the money that you're getting paid. There are clearly other reasons otherwise you're better to keep the business. So the big advice I give to sellers is the market will determine the value of your business better than anyone on this panel, better than you the seller, better than any individual buyer. We have thousands and thousands of buyers and for most businesses, we get multiple offers. That's the market. If you're not willing to accept what the market will bear you're better to keep the business than to sell it or to try to push the market beyond what it will bear because it very likely could backfire. Mark: Well Jason you're begging me to go into a question that is also on the list. I'm not going to go there yet because I want to stay on this one here and then we're going to get over to that question to wrap things up here. David, I'll be interested in your thoughts on this as well here. Are there elements; I mean you've got a ton of experience in working with sellers just like everybody here, what are some things that you see people often negotiate maybe more heavily than they should and what advice would you give to them on that? David: Well I think certainly on the emphasis question I would say to sellers when they're reviewing any offer that 50% of the decision; only 50% of the decision should come down to purchase price and terms and the other 50% should be based on the execution certainty of the buyer that's actually presenting the offset. Because there's an ocean of difference between coming out with an LOI for your business and actually closing it. And I think it's part of the; well a huge component of hiring a broker and an advisor to help you take that bridge from there to there and I think it's for me sellers that have been really receptive to guidance and advice at that point whether they should take the focus off the headline price off the headline multiple that Jason is talking about and consider the wider context that is this still going to close because the buyer has experience, for example, they have a readily available source of funding their due diligence requests are miles and miles long they're not reliant on any kind of outside financing [inaudible 00:35:22.8] all of these things introduce risk into the deal and ultimately that's risk needs to be looked at properly in the context of the whole deal so I think that's really important. Negotiating terms, one thing that I always recommend for sellers to be open to is the prospect of keeping the window open for like the minority kind of consulting arrangements after the sale. Honestly, we had enough every business through a standard transition period and depending on the size and complexity that can vary. But I think one thing that's actually really good for sellers to think about is maybe staying on to do like an hour or two a month to just say six months longer with the sale and that goes a huge way with buyers knowing that they just have a slightly longer line which the owner has to ask a half an hour-long question in four months time. And to that point about getting the trust and getting the deal over the way, that's a huge point that I think sellers are sometimes like they're spent and they never really want to spend more time on the business. But just that tiny little time investment for just a few moments goes a huge way towards getting a deal on the way and a great value. Mark: Yeah I would agree to that 100%. I remember when I sold my business now a long time ago they asked me to stay on for six months afterwards and they paid me for it; so a regular monthly consulting fee and at first I was like man this is going to be a pain but what I found pretty quickly is it wasn't. It was really easy. It was very easy money that I was bringing in as a result of that. And it really helped with their transition as well. Alright, we're at 35 or about 30 minutes here on this so we're going to round it out with one last question and this is one that is pretty important to me because I think it's what we all do here. We all earn a living in some capacity through helping people exit their businesses and from our standpoint it can be really easy to treat people's businesses as inventory that we're simply moving. And obviously, we don't ever want to go there because we're all business owners ourselves. We've all been through that. We know what work it takes to build these and then how difficult it can be and how stressful it can be to sell them. So one of my pet peeves that have grown over the years is just hearing people say oh man is this seller I was approaching them I wanted to buy their business they weren't selling it but I was doing outreach and I asked them how much they'd sell it for and man his expectations were crazy. It's a pet peeve of mine so I'm kind of implanting here the answer that I want to hear. Amanda; we're going to go left and right on my screen, Amanda, you're first here. Do you think that there is such thing as an unreasonable valuation or is it only really unreasonable expectations of what the market can bear? Amanda: Well I think both actually I think unreasonable expectations for where the market can bear; I mean when we're seeing that right now. Certainly, we're seeing a lot of growth in multiples over the last two years and there's been a push to constantly drive that multiple. And I think we've done a really good job of doing that. But sellers, of course, have their own expectations on what they think that multiple should be because they hear things from other sellers or they possibly got an offer four years ago from a strategic and they decide to pass that. And that has dried up and gone away and is no longer a viable option. And so I think the market evolves really quickly. And I'm actually one of those people who may have unreasonable expectation professional with expertise and proper data to bring somewhere like that back to reality. And I think that that's; actually, the core of it is having realistic expectations with what the market is; the ability of the market at this time because obviously, that may change in six months for better or for worse. I think that whether the expectations are reasonable is less important than the seller being able to be open to the feedback and coming back down to reality. And I think that makes a lot of difference because we see that quite often where sellers will come in and they think their business is for X multiple but then they're open to hearing what we're experiencing, what we're seeing because we do a lot of volumes and then having those realistic expectations is super important. Mark: Yeah and I think one thing I've been trying to remind people as well especially in the sell-side when we get up into the high seven and eight-figure territory; you brought up Amanda that the seller might have gotten an offer from a strategic years ago but obviously never went through or they heard about so-and-so who got a 6X on their business what they never really hear when they hear these big prices is what was the composition of that offer. How much was there actually cash? How much was equity that can be the phantom value? Jason, I know you have a lot of stories about phantom values in equity, right? And so that's something that we don't hear about. It's like the sports contract of oh my gosh they got o120 dollars but it's only 10 million dollars guaranteed and like it's so much in incentives. Jason, what are your thoughts on this aspect of unreasonable expectations on the part of sellers? Jason: I think part of it depends on how you define unreasonable because I look at myself as an example. Most people say I've got very unreasonable expectations of the value of an hour of my time and I will concede absolutely positively. What I expect to earn is way more than what my job will provide and all that means is I need to adjust how I use my time in order to achieve it. So if you're a person who believes your business is worth a lot more than the market will bear, that's perfectly fine. I just think don't be a seller because the market won't provide it. It's important to understand the people on the other end of the transaction are buyers. They're seeking a certain rate of return. You're comparing your business not only to save alternatives like or I mean to a spectrum of alternatives and various safety like bonds, stocks, municipals, real estate. They're also comparing it to other businesses for sale that earn roughly the same amount. You might have roughly the same growth plans. And it can be really frustrating if anyone is banging their head saying no, no, no, no, my business is special and deserves more when the market simply won't bear it out. I think most of us on the panel have kind of learned that there's a range. There's a spectrum where a valuation could be within a certain range depending on certain factors. Sometimes it's worth it to test the market to put out something at a bit higher valuation just that so you see the seller understands that the odds are going to go down the harder you push. And then one other kind of important point I want to bring up, we talked about this on an internal email the other day. A lot of times a seller will call multiple brokerages; they'll call Quiet Light and then two or three of our competitors and that's perfectly fine. We want you to talk to whoever you want to talk to. But one common thing I'll hear is a seller will say to me how much is the business worth and I'll quote a price. I'll say I think it's worth about a million dollars for the sake of argument and they'll say well wait I just talked to Brokerage X and they quoted me a million two, can you get me a million two? My answer is I don't know and neither do they. It's not the broker that's buying your business. It's a buyer that we've not yet identified and all that all of us are doing is giving an opinion. And in some cases, it can be really detrimental to the seller to try to play brokers off each other because the broker's tendency might be well gee if these three other people told you it's worth more maybe I'm wrong and the price gets bid up in the sellers head. And then when you get to market the buyers; the people that are actually writing the check for the business are like what are you talking about you're way out of bounds? So it's really important to remember who's the decision-maker. In my mind the decision-maker is always the person that's writing the check for your business; sometimes that's the buyer, sometimes that's the banker who's funding the buyer, but you always have to cater to that ultimate decision-maker to figure out what's the true value. Mark: Absolutely. So in regards to the value of your time Jason I appreciate you putting it on a payment plan for this little podcast panel because it is pretty crazy. Alright, David, over to you I want to get your opinions on this. David: I think Jason said absolutely the best. I think the market ultimately informs everyone to pick up on what Amanda said it's all about receptivity to that. I mean you can continue on as a business owner with a maybe like a grand ass perspective of the value of your business for a long enough period of time and as Jason said potentially go with the broker that's gone for a particularly inflated valuation. The problem is as Jason and we all know here is that if you come out way too high you will flop in the market and it will be a long long period of time before you then eventually have to come off the exclusivity pulling down the listing and then return back to market at a later point in time often with another advisor and how many times do we see that at Quiet Light with people coming to us from a very correct or whatever having spent an awful lot of wasted time and to cut in to Jason's point all of our time is valuable and we love the perception of it. If you're a business owner with a great business that you want to exit your time is especially valuable. So that decision right out the gate in terms of your receptivity and so what the market will bear is arguably the most important decision when it comes to respecting your own time and getting a process done and completed and money in the bag. Mark: Yeah, I remember probably about a year ago I was recording a potential client and then he came back and said another broker quoted me and said that they could get me this much and it was substantially higher than what I was going to; what I was quoting him at. He said and he's going to reduce his commission to this. I looked at it and I called him and said yeah you should sign with them. How do you counteract that, right? You couldn't really counteract that too much other than say if you really think they can get that and are being less commissioned then you should sign with them. He ended up signing with me later and we ended up getting a really good deal for him. But I think you guys point about valuations being a predictive exercise is on point. Alright, Bryan, I saved the best for last. What are your thoughts as far as these unreasonable expectations or is it just unreasonable expectations for the market? Bryan: I think Chris and David both absolutely nailed it. And I'm glad that they took the conversation the way they did. I think the market is always going to be brutally honest and any valuation mistakes that are being made, any unreasonable expectations are going to be corrected by the market. But I think the one most important thing on this is it is going to be the market who will buy the business it's not going to be the broker. There's no point negotiating the valuation of your business with the broker because it's not in the broker's power to value your business it's the market that values your business ultimately. Mark: Absolutely I'm going around this out and close it up by saying one thing and that is Jason, you said this in what you brought up, if the value of your business in your head is 10 million dollars but the valuation of the market is 1 million dollars just don't become a seller. That's kind of the result. As far as Quiet Light Brokerage, look I know where the value of Quiet Light is. If somebody came up the street and offered me the value; the market value of Quiet Light I would say no. If they are offering me two times the market value of Quiet Light I would say no. If they offered me three times I would still say no because the value of my head for what this business is worth to me right now is way more than what the market value is. I'm not a seller; not going to be a seller for a long long time. And that's totally fine because I love this business. I love working with you guys. Thank you so much for coming on this podcast panel. Guys give us feedback on this. Let us know what you think. If there's something that you want us to do a panel on as far as topics let me know. If you want it to be specific in industries such as e-commerce or SaaS or content sites we can do that as well. We've got a wealth of experience here with the advisors and we're about to be able to tap into them more with these podcasts. So again, thanks everyone for joining this. Let's do it again hopefully sometime soon. Bryan: Thanks, everyone. Amanda: Thank you. David: Thanks, Mark.

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Ep 10: Social Security, Part 4

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 5, 2019 17:05

Today's show is part 4 of our social security discussion. Our topic today is spousal benefit options. John and Nick will walk us through the ins and outs of this facet of social security and offer their advice.Helpful Information:PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/Contact: 813-286-7776Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.comTranscript of Today's Show:----more----Mark: Hey everybody, welcome into another edition of Retirement Planning Redefined. Thanks as always for checking out and tuning into the podcast with John and Nick, financial advisors at PFG Private wealth. Gents, what's going on? John, I'll start with you. How are you buddy?John: I'm doing good. I'm doing good. How are you doing Mark?Mark: I'm hanging in there. How's the little one's doing? I know they, you had some cold running through the house. Everybody getting better?John: They're getting much better, which is good. No more getting coughed in my face a lot less this week, so yeah, that's a good thing.Mark: And Nick, how are you my friend?Nick: Good, good. Looking forward to the holidays coming up here and all kinds of good food.Mark: Oh yeah, yeah. Are you a Thanksgiving kind of guy?Nick: I have become more so after my brother started deep frying turkeys a couple of years ago.Mark: Okay, good. So no YouTube videos of that now, so just be careful. We don't want to see any flying turkeys.Nick: He's got it all under control.Mark: Fantastic. Awesome. Yeah. At the time of this podcast taping it is just about Thanksgiving. It's just about here on us. And so we're going to continue on with our a multi-part series we've been doing about Social Security. So hopefully you've been checking these out and if you have, great, if you have not, make sure you go to the podcast page, you can find it on their website at pfgprivatewealth.com that's P F G private wealth.com and you'll find the podcast page. You can subscribe to it on Apple or Google or Spotify. I think there's other couple of choices there as well.Mark: So make sure you do, a lot of good content that we're discussing. This is a multi-part series all around Social Security and part four here is going to be on Social Security, spousal benefits, not deep frying turkeys that'll come another day, but a Social Security spousal benefits. So guys, let's get into this and just kind of break down some information for us on, I guess, what we're entitled to or how this whole thing kind of works.Nick: Sure. So just kind of a recap on, you know, how eligibility wears for Social Security. Essentially somebody needs to work, you know, for 40 quarters, pay payroll taxes for those 40 quarters and they become eligible for their own benefit. However, you know, one of the common questions that we may get is one spouse stayed at home, one spouse worked. The spouse that stayed at home didn't get their 40 quarters. And they want to know are they eligible for any sort of benefit.Nick: So it's important to understand that, you know, as long as the couple is married, the person that has not qualified for the benefit is eligible for a spousal benefit. And that spousal benefit is essentially calculated by looking at the full retirement amount benefit for the spouse that was working and multiplying by 50%. So, that's the starting line. That's kind of how you understand how they calculate that. And the reason that they did create that was understanding that households, you know, it's not always cut and dry from the standpoint of one spouse is working. There's obviously value to the other spouse staying home, helping to raise a family and they want to protect that spouse in situations like divorce or other sorts of scenarios by providing them with this kind of caveat for how the benefits work.Mark: Okay. And yeah, so the simple way to break it down. So give us some more, John, give us some more things to think about here when we're talking about the eligibility of spouses, maybe some rules, things of that nature.John: Yeah. So basically, some of the rules before you can collect a spousal benefit, the primary worker must have filed. So wait until the spouse actually draws and then you can go ahead and take your spousal benefit. Spouses can actually start taking it at age 62, that's the soonest that you can start taking.Nick: So a kind of a good example of that is, so let's say, Mr. Smith has been the worker and Mrs. Smith stayed at home with the family and raised a family. And a couple of years ago, two years ago, she started working, you know, so she's not eligible for her own benefit. So Mr. Smith is going to continue to work and Mrs. Smith is trying to figure out, "Hey, I'm also 62, can I file for benefits?" So the answer is not until Mr. Smith essentially retires and fights for his benefit. So that's where the restrictions on the ages kind of come to play.Nick: And when John referred to that primary worker must filed for their benefits, there used to be some other rules in play where you can kind of navigate around, but they really cut down and things are a lot more restricted than they used to be.John: Yeah. And just to kind of give some numbers to that, let's say Mr Smith's full retirement benefit was 2,400, Mrs Smith's spousal benefit would be, as Nick mentioned, 50% of that sort of 1200. And again, so her spousal benefit is based off of his full retirement amount benefit and not what he actually gets. So example of that would be, you know, when she goes to draw, let's say if he'd started taking early and he get his full 2,400, she's not penalize by that. Her 50% is still the 1200, assuming she draws at her full retirement age.John: If she decides to take early at 62 she will actually have a reduction of her spousal benefit.Nick: It is important for people to understand that, you know, there's the dates on when people start to receive the benefits are calculated, or factored in I should say, for each person. Though it factored in potentially when Mr. Smith files and starts collecting and it's also factored in when Mrs. Smith files and starts collecting. And so there's a lot of different variations on how that works. And because there are some different variations, we typically recommend to people that, you know, I was helping you kind of walk through the different, let's test out different scenarios and figure which one makes the most sense because there are so many factors that go into the decision.Nick: We understand a lot of people like to just, you know, they want a cut and dry answer and unfortunately or fortunately, the positive to there not being a cut and dry answer is that, you know, oftentimes they can be strategic and find something that works better for them and if it were cut and dry. But it does take a factoring in a lot of other things to make the right decision.John: Yeah. At first the answers to certain questions are, it depends.Mark: Yeah, that's the case a lot of times I think.John: One question we actually get a lot and we talked about in the last sessions was, you know, if you draw Social Security after full retirement age, you actually get a percent increase in your benefit. That does not work for spousal benefits. So if the spouse didn't want to take or they want to defer their spousal benefit, they do not get the 8% increase on it.Nick: Yeah. So, we have seen that mistake happen, you know, the primary person has decided, "Hey, let's wait to collect the benefit" because they are under the assumption that not only will their benefit grow by 8%, but the spousal benefit that their spouse will take will grow, but that's not the case. Only their benefit grows, the spousal benefit does not. So when we run kind of break even calculations, it can often makes sense to just have them start collecting so that they can get both of them.John: Yeah. And then, you know, it's important understand also for to be eligible for spousal benefits, you have to be married at least one year. So can't be a just getting married and after six months started drawing on Social Security for a spouse.Mark: They're not going to just make it too easy for you anyway. All right, so that's some good rules. That's some good basic information there. What are some strategies? Give us a few things to think about when it comes to the spousal benefit options.John: Yeah. And like we said, everyone's situation is different. It really depends and it's important to customize what works for you. And I think we offered in the last session, but if anyone wants it, we actually are working on a Social Security machination strategy, which we're happy to do so. But one thing that we'll do with some spousal strategies, depending on the situation, we might have one spouse claim early and the other spouse, depending on the situation, you know example of that would be, let's say we have a high earner and they want to protect the spouse in case of a premature death. So we might go ahead and have the high earner, who's Social Security benefit is higher, actually delay theirs. So, if they were to pass away prematurely, that spouse can actually jump onto a higher amount, high Social Security benefit, which is nice strategy to protect the surviving spouse.John: I've used that a couple of times when there's an age gap on the spouses or if I'm there, you know, sometimes clients will come in and they're just concerned saying, "Hey, I'm really concerned something could happen to me. Is my spouse going to be okay?" We'll go ahead and implement some strategies like that.Nick: Another time where that can be used is if the primary earner has worked at in an occupation where they're eligible for a pension and they're going to receive a pension and they, you know, kind of through planning or whatever it may be. Or like the example of John mentioned where on of the spouses is maybe quite a bit younger, so when the other spouse is quite a bit younger, it pulls down the pension amount that the primary person would receive. So to offset that a little bit, we might recommend, "Well, hey, instead of doing a hundred percent survivor benefit on the pension, let's do a 50% so that you can have a higher pay out. But to offset that, what we'll do is we'll have you wait to take Social Security until 70." So the pension amount that the spouse would receive would be less, but we can offset that waiting on Social Security a little bit and still have more income coming in the household.Mark: Gotcha. Okay. All right. So a couple of different strategies there to consider and I think a lot of times people sometimes don't plan ahead for that part. It's like we're sitting there talking about different, when you're getting your retirement plan done, I think sometimes we look at it overall and say, "Well, we want to turn Social Security on as soon as we can and yada, yada yada." Instead of saying, "Okay, how can we most maximize our Social Security for both of us in an overall inclusive retirement plan?"Mark: So it's certainly important to do. And as John mentioned, you know, they can run that Social Security maximization if you have some questions on that. If you want to get that done or have a chat with them, give them a call at (813) 286-7776 that's (813) 286-7776 and you can also check them out online at pfgprivatewealth.com.Mark: As I mentioned before, there are financial advisors here in the Tampa Bay area, so if you have some questions about that, again, as always when you're listening to this show or any other show before you take any action, always check with a qualified professional about your specific situation because everybody's, it can be so different, so make sure you have that chat.Mark: All right guys, I think in the interest of time we can probably squeeze in a couple more things. Can you give us a few things to think about on divorced spousal situations?John: Yeah, so it is important for people to understand that they are still eligible for a spousal benefit if they were married for 10 years and they are not remarried. So a scenario that we may see with that is they were previously married to a high earner, maybe they worked a lower paying job, they were married for 25 years, became divorced, they went back to work to cover expenses, et cetera. They may be in a relationship currently, but they're not officially married and we kind of go through calculations and we determined that, "Hey, the spousal benefit that you could receive from you former spouse would be higher than the benefit that you would receive on your own and or higher than the benefit that you would receive if you were to marry your current partner." And obviously a lot of other factors go into that.John: But, from a purely financial decision, that could work out really well because again, you cannot collect that spousal benefit from a former spouse if you are remarried. We have had questions along the lines of, you know, "Hey, I was married twice. Both were over 10 years. Am I restricted to choose just the most recent one?" And the answer is no, you can pick the higher. We had a nice young lady one time that had four different ten year marriages and she asked if she could add them all up together and unfortunately you can't, it's just the higher.Nick: But she had a lot of options.John: Yeah. It's good to have options.Mark: Like window shopping apparently.John: So, yeah. So those are a couple of things to keep in mind.Nick: Yeah. And one question we get a lot with divorced clients, they say, "How soon can I draw on the ex-spouse's Social Security?" And really you can draw on an ex-spouse once that ex-spouse hits age 62. Unlike a kind of a normal situation, when we wait until the spouse draws Social Security. They put this rule in really to protect the ex spouse because we've seen scenarios where certain people might delay drawing to intentionally hurt the other spouse and so they can't draw on them. So basically the rule is once the ex-spouse hits over 62, you can actually start drawing on the spousal benefits for divorcees.John: Yeah. It does not matter whether or not they're collecting. And also some people are happy about this, some people are not. But when you do get that benefit from a former spouse, again it does not affect their own benefit. There is no negative impact to doing that to them.Mark: They don't even know about it.Nick: They would have no idea. And it actually wouldn't affect any new spouse for somebody. So we get that question quite a bit where it says, "Hey, an ex-spouse draws on my Social Security. Does that affect my new wife or husband?" The answer is no.Mark: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And there's interesting on the time period on that, it's funny that you kind of brought that up. My mother, who's 78, actually was given that information and did a refile with the Social Security for her first husband. She was married twice as well. And so yes, she was able to do that and they hadn't been married in like 40 years, but they were married over 10 years. So they were like, "Yep, that's something you can do." So I was like, "Okay, well knock yourself out."Mark: So yeah, it's interesting. There's definitely some few things to consider in there. Different kinds of a spousal benefit options, divorce spousal benefit options. So again, a lot of it comes down to having a conversation about your specific situation with your advisor when it comes to Social Security, because there are a lot of things in Social Security obviously, which is why we're on a four part series, going to be a five part series actually around this.Mark: So with that said, I think we're going to depart this week on the program. I'll say John and Nick, thanks for your time. As always, we appreciate it. Folks, make sure you reach out to them, give them a call if you've got some questions at (813) 286-7776. (813) 286-7776, again, that number to call. And as always, make sure you subscribe to the podcast. Retirement Planning Redefined. You can find it on Apple, Google or Spotify.Mark: You can also just find it on their website at pfgprivatewealth.com and as I said at the beginning of this, that it was prior to Thanksgiving when we were taping this. Now we'll actually air it after Thanksgiving. So we certainly hope that everybody had a great holiday season. And we'll see you for more of our conversation around Social Security through the month of December, right here on Retirement Planning Redefined. For John, for Nick, we'll see you next time.

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What's a Legitimate Add Back

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 20, 2019 44:31

This week we are talking about add backs, what is a legitimate add back, and how they affect your business valuation. The value of a business is dependent on earnings but it is also dependent on the company's discretionary earnings such as the add backs of owner salary and benefits. Then there are those one-offs – those non-recurring expenses which are also known as add backs. Those are the add backs what we are dissecting on today's episode. A seller's due diligence when it comes to discretionary earnings can help buyers see their potential ROI without any grey area. Episode Highlights: Why we work off the seller's discretionary earnings and what that is. How discretionary earnings are a case by case calculation for each business. The three levels of add backs. Why it's important to take a scalpel to those third level add backs. Questionable add backs – what can fly what cannot. How math and logic are the key tools to determine legitimate add backs. Transcription: Mark: Alright, welcome back Joe. I know you just came back from Blue Ribbon Mastermind; Ezra's event. It was up in Seattle, is that right? Joe: Yeah, a beautiful city and a great event. On a personal level, I had a great time. I took my 17-year-old with me and just explored the city in off-hours. Business-wise I'm telling you Ezra Firestone is sort of the Tony Robbins of the e-commerce world in my view. He gets up there, he's real, he says it like it is, he shares his own information to the Blue Ribbon Mastermind members and it's such actionable, transferable information. And the level of entrepreneurs and intelligence at the Blue Ribbon Mastermind I think is nearly unmatched; it goes very politically correct I think, right, nearly unmatched? Mark: Yes. I think every conference that we come back from is our latest favorite conference. But Blue Ribbon and Ezra's events have been fantastic since we started going to them. And you're right he's just a fantastic guy. He gives a ton of information and has a ton of insight to share. So one of these days I'm going to get to go to the event instead of you because I want to get in on some of these. Awesome, glad to have you back, we do have a couple of conferences coming up. We will be sending these out in our email; our newsletters that go out every Thursday or Friday depending on when we get our stuff together so pay attention to those. Alright, this week Joe you and I are going to do the podcast. Joe: That's right we have two very special guests. Mark: Two very special guests; that's right. We're not bringing anybody else in on this one because we want to talk about add backs; what is a valid add back or what is a legitimate add back? And I know for a buying perspective this can be a little jarring the first time. If you're just coming into the acquisitions industry; if you're looking for your first acquisition and you look at a profit and loss statement that we provide you might be wondering well why are these guys throwing all these expenses back at me, these were on the tax returns shouldn't they be included? So Joe why don't we start with that? Why do we work off to this number of seller's discretionary earnings and what is seller's discretionary earnings? Joe: That's a good question and a great place to start. Just defining it simply is the best way to go. So when you're running a profit loss statement as a business owner; hopefully in Quick Books or Xero or something like that, you're going to get a net income line at the bottom. So let's say you do it for the trailing 12 months you get a net income. But there are certain owner benefits that you get as the owner of the business. You have an Internet-based business; you may write your car off in that business. You may pay yourself $200,000 salary in the business. All sorts of things like that they're generally owner benefits and then there are some one-time non-recurring expenses; these are things that do not carry forward to the new owner so they're classified as add backs. So net income plus add backs equals seller's discretionary earnings or SDE. It is what business is in this general category are multiplied by; they're valued at a multiple of the trailing 12 months seller's discretionary earnings. So that's the critical nature of an add back; it can make a tremendous difference in the value of the business when using a proper formula. If you don't do that the add backs properly you're either going to under inflate or in some cases, unfortunately, some inexperienced brokers might over-inflate the value of your business. So it's critical for both buyers and sellers to know how to calculate seller's discretionary earnings and what is a valid or legitimate add back. Mark: Yeah and I think on that the thing I would like to just add here and emphasize is that there are rules to seller's discretionary earnings. I know I've talked to some sellers, I've talked to some other brokers frankly outside of Quiet Light Brokerage and they feel as if well if you can make an argument for it then we can add it back and they approach this almost as if it's just a free for all as to who can make the best argument. The fact of the matter is there is an actual definition for seller's discretionary earnings and there are rules to follow. Now that doesn't mean that there aren't some situations that require interpretation. And we're going to go into some of those scenarios in this podcast today where you have to try and figure out is this a legitimate add back or not? But at the heart of seller's discretionary earnings when we are showing seller's discretionary earnings what we want to do is we want to show a baseline number for buyers to understand what is my potential return on investment? When you think about all the different buyers that are going to look at a potential opportunity, every buyer comes with their own set of assumptions, right? Some buyers might already have infrastructures set up to run a business; maybe they already have a marketing team in place or maybe they' already have a warehouse if it's an e-commerce business or if it's a SaaS business maybe they already have a development team in place. Those assumptions need to be worked into their own evaluation of the business. What we want to show is a baseline number so that you as a buyer can figure out what your potential return on investment is for you. And that's going to vary from one buyer to the next. So seller's discretionary earnings that's all it is; it's a baseline number, we want to be consistent from one business to the next that's why there are rules as to how we calculate this number. Joe: Right and even though combined we've got 20 years of experience doing this and have sold well over a hundred million in transactions just the 2 of us combined it's still a case by case basis and you got to dig into each particular business and get an understanding of the nuances of it to determine whether or not it's worth doing an add back based upon the size of the business and the total number of add backs and if it should be done. Generally speaking, there are 3 different levels of add backs; the first 2 are pretty standard, it's the third one that we want to spend the most time on today because of the nuances of them. But let's run through that first and second level. Mark, if you want to start off with that first level why don't you address the owner's salaries in add back. Mark: Yeah, absolutely. Joe, I like the format you put together here. You created these 3 levels of add backs; the obvious, the one time expenses, and then the ones that require a bit more interpretation. So the very top of the list here are these a level one obvious add backs. We have things like charitable donations; obviously, that's purely discretionary nature. We have accounting expenses such as amortization and depreciation. And then we have one owner salary. And I know there are buyers out there that look at this and say well why are you adding back somebody's salary; like you need to pay yourself some money? But this is a standard add back that we always include and it's part of the standard definition for seller's discretionary earnings. The reason for this is how you pay yourself as an owner, how much you pay yourself, and the format you pay yourself is completely discretionary. You could in theory not pay yourself any salary and just take distributions from the company from the profits. Or you can pay yourself a very large salary and run all your payroll tax through that which will show up on the profit and loss statement. What we do for the owner's discretionary earnings we do add back one owner salary. But there is an exception to this and that's if there's multiple owners that are working full time on the business. Because we know that if there's multiple owners working on a business you can't add back all of their salary. You can only add back one. Did I explain that well Joe or does that need more? Joe: Let's go a little bit more. What happens; what do you do Mark if you have 2 owners that are working a combined 25 hours a week, one is doing customer service and logistics, and the other is doing sales and marketing. Do you add them both back? Mark: I would add both those back. Joe: Okay. Let's flip it up; let's say that one is doing sales, marketing, logistics, and the other is a developer. And the level of work that that developer does still only takes 15, 20 hours a week but it takes a different skill set than the average person has. Do you add them both back? Mark: No, I would not add both those back. Although we will discuss this in Level 3 add back. I might adjust that second owner salary depending on what they're getting. But the reason I wouldn't do it is because of the specialized nature of it. So what we're assuming here is that the buyer is a single person who is coming in and needs to run this business. I wouldn't expect most buyers to have developer skills to run a business. So maybe you do; if you do, that's great you're going to do really, really well. But most people can't be that sales and marketing plus developer role. I've done this for over a dozen years now. I've run across that skill set a handful of times. It's not very, very common. Joe: That's right. So those are the; even though these are just Level 1 add backs there are some complexities to it that require some attention to detail on the nuances of one business to the next. The only other things that are pretty obvious in there are personal meals and entertainment, travel, mobile home…mobile phones; everybody's got their own mobile phone that expense doesn't charge for. You've already got that expense. Things of that nature are pretty much Level 1 add backs. Jumping on the Level 2 add backs it's really focused on those one-time expenses; things like a trademark or a copyright, patents, things of that nature. And then there are some that are a little bit deeper like legal expenses and lawsuits and enforcement letters and things of that nature even the thing that we have to do often Mark which is referring potential clients; people that we do valuations for that are not using a kind of software. We'll refer them out to a bookkeeper. So in this situation Mark, tell me if we're on the same page. We will get a call somebody has got a great business but they've got 3 years of data in an Excel spreadsheet that is not using any accounting software. Or they might be using Fetcher and piecing different pieces together. I would refer them out to a bookkeeper like CapForge, MuseMinded, Stellar Accounting, Catching Clouds; one of those and get them on Quick Books or Xero. And generally, that's a one time expense for them to build that, put that data in the software in arrears maybe $1,500, $2,000. To me, that is without a doubt a one-time expense and an add back; would you agree with that? Mark: Yeah I would and I'm glad that we agreed because if we don't it's just going to be an absolute brawl on the podcast, right? Inaudible[00:11:27.2] here is fighting with the microphones. No, absolutely that would be a one time expense. It's something that does not carry forward. But we have a great example of that with somebody who's been a friend of Quiet Light Brokerage for a while; Scott Deetz from Northbound Group. He's a strategic advisor who helps clients in a lot of ways. He does a fantastic job with his clients. Specifically a lot of Amazon stores but he also works with other companies as well. He does forecasting and a lot of preparation for an exit. And his fees are all one time expenses. Even though that you can see a monthly fee during that preparation, the goal is to prepare for an exit. So those are fees that get added back in the bottom line. So recasting books going back and trying to recast those books either in accrual format or just cleaning them up I would totally consider that to be a one time expense. As with the other things that you mentioned; the trademarks and the logo design, you shouldn't be punished for the expenses that are really necessary to be able to run the business or only occur once or will occur in the future. Joe: Yeah. And there is again always nuances; sometimes an owner is going to buy a new computer. But it's their new laptop that they use and they're going to keep that and it's not going to carry for you then that's a one time expense; things of that nature, a case by case basis from business. So again nuances, deep-diving into the business, no 2 are alike. Mark: I have been hearing you say this for a long time our own kind of sliding into this Level 3. But in Level 3 you always say math and logic Mark; it's for math and logic. What makes sense? How does the math work out? And look this actually works out for Level1 and Level 2 as well. You have to use math and logic. But Level 3 is where we start getting into the interpretation of different expenses, right? Because these are the grey area ones where maybe it's not as straightforward as saying amortization and depreciation; that's a pretty obvious add back. Charitable donations; pretty obvious add back. So let's go into this Level 3 and get some examples on a case by case basis. Here are things that we've seen in the past which; look at Quiet Light we've actually had some pretty big discussions with all of the advisors of Quiet Light that we have this large group chats and sometimes we've disagreed in trying to work out how we should actually treat these expenses. And I want to start out with one that Joe you and I have talked about a lot and that would be events, trade shows, and Mastermind fees; how do you handle those? Joe: I almost moved this to the bottom of the list so we didn't start off with one that is pretty tough and it was talked about a lot. This is a case by case basis. If somebody joins a Mastermind group in the trailing 12 months prior to selling their business and they pay $20,000 to join that group, it's a one time expense; absolutely an add back, it kind of moves up to Level 2. But let's say they also choose to go to an annual event that that Mastermind group has. And they do that at their own expense; let's say they go to Seattle, I was just at Blue Ribbon, those people that were in Blue Ribbon; I'm sorry at the Seattle event not all of them were at the Miami event just 6 months prior and so it's definitely a choice to go to the event or not. Some people never go. There are lots of people that are in eCommerceFuel that we've never met because they never go to any of the events. So the choice to go to an event, it's an expense that doesn't carry forward. It's one that I see as an add back. Our team has talked about it quite a bit; that's an add back. But there are other types of Masterminds and events; we'll call them events in this situation that are not add backs that you and I have talked about. So if you are an advertising agency or any kind of company that's going to these events to build your company brand and reputation even amongst the people that are part of the Mastermind it's integral to your business. Like us, we go and we sponsor. That's integral to our business; our business models. We are sponsoring, we're getting our own brand and our own name out there; that's not an add back. An ad agency does the same but might just be a member of the Mastermind or events and is doing training courses in free valuations or free testing things of that nature we would have to really dig down into that one and determine if it's an add back or not. And it's probably not an add back. But for the rest of the folks most likely an add back; the only adjustment you and I have talked about that is we'd have to look at and say logically does it make sense to add this back? Do we have 2 lines of add backs? Is it a business that's valued at 250,000 or 2.5 million? Sometimes you say you know what at this level it's not worth adding it back; let's just leave it alone it's only going to add you another $300 per month back to it and you can play with a multiple in that situation. Would you agree? Mark: Yeah I absolutely agree. You have to pick your battles on this and if you have to really fight to be able to justify an add back you should look at it and say is it really worth it? Like is it is a big enough expense where I'm going to gain enough potential value out of adding it back and making that argument. I want to throw a little wrinkle at you, Joe. We have not discussed this before and it's a question that I'd like to get your opinion on. The difference I see between these Mastermind fees, events, travel-related expenses would fall under this idea of is it a personal development or business development, right? I don't add back the business books I buy. The business books I buy are personal development and I consider that to be just for myself. Obviously, there's a business application for that. I want to become better at what I'm doing but I think that's more personal related. So the line I see is again this idea between is it development for business or is it personal development? So if I go to Pubcon without really putting Quiet Light name on it I'm just an attendee I would consider that to be a valid add back. Let's go into a scenario where you have an employee; let's say that you have somebody who works specifically as a content writer for you and is possibly doing SEO and you send them to MASCON because you want them to become better at SEO for the purpose of your business. How would you handle something like that? Joe: It's off the top my head not an add back. But then you've got to look at the history of the business because that's business development, right? You got to look at the history of it; is that something that they're going to do every year, are they're going to get new information every year and develop their skills, are they going to send different employees, have they done it for the last 2 or 3 years? You got to look at all those nuances again and determine whether or not it's an add back. But because it falls in that business development versus personal development I think you and I know everybody on the team would lean towards no that's not an add back. Mark: I would agree. So again this is where you have to kind of take a fine scalpel here and kind of slice this up and really understand what's going on behind this add back. And again as you went out with this Joe math and logic and I think reason as well. You have to be sort of reasonable with some of these so that it's not just you're going through; sometimes I see sellers come back with their own add back schedules and they're super aggressive and every last dime is trying to be added back. And it's a question at some point where you have to ask them what can we really say is a reasonable add back versus just being as aggressive as possible? Joe: Right. So let's take that scalpel and dig down into a P & L for instance; of course we're not doing it live here, but one of the things that that when you peel back the different layers that we always ask the question okay you're spending a lot of money on advertising here; what type of credit card are you using for that advertising? And then are you getting points back on that, what are you doing with those points? 9 times out of 10 people are doing cashback credit cards or converting them over to travel but they're pushing all that over on the personal side of that's an owner benefit. It's income, right? You're getting cash back, you spend $10,000 you get $400 back. If you spend $10,000 a month on advertising and you get that $400 back and you slide it over to your personal side and it never shows up on your profit and loss statement we need to look at it closely. It's an add back. You can multiply that times whatever number you want and then make the decision, right Mark whether it's worth it to add that back or not. Jason and I had a listing that we worked on last fall where there were about $24,000 in cashback points added up over the course of 12 months and it was very, very measurable; clear and distinct because that person spent a lot of money on advertising plus he bought used inventory that was going to be refurbished. And he bought them from different places on the web. And all of that was done with a credit card. All of that was converted to cashback points that moved over to his personal side; amounted to about $25,000 on an annual basis. It's a significant number. The business was listed at a 4 time multiple. It was cash in his pocket so we did add that back and it bumped the valuation by $100,000. If we're talking about a business that's $4M but that amounts to $3,000 then maybe you don't add it back. You just got to play around with those numbers a little bit and again use more math and logic there. Mark: Yeah and I think here that the key that I would look at would be the consistency of it. If you're advertising budget is over $100,000 a month for example and you're putting that on your Amex gold card and part of your strategy is look I'm getting some margin from the points I'm getting back; that's pretty obvious in that category of its part of your existing business model. But like you said if you have just kind of a small amount of points, it's probably not worth the effort to put that in there and try and justify that. So I think that's pretty reasonable. Joe one question that we hear a decent amount would be website redesigns and we can also throw in here product development or even in the SaaS world development on a SaaS product. Why don't we start to unpack some of these and we'll start with the website redesigns. Obviously, most people who have a web-based business unless you're purely Amazon have a website and part of that is you're going to have to redesign the website every now and then. I mean there are some sites out there that have look exactly the same since 2000 but most businesses do update that and those can be expensive. You can easily drop 10, 20, 30, $40,000 on that if not more. So how would you approach website redesigns or website redevelopments? Joe: I would look at the history in the P & L to get a clue of the way the business has been run because that's the way it's going to be operated in the future. And if there's never been a website redesign and it's on a good current up to date platform like Shopify and the business is trending in all the right directions then; obviously there's been a website redesign because that's the point of this add back so let's say that it's been done in the last 12 months but had never been done before and the business is 7 or 8 years old and it's just been put on a new platform and they spent $20,000 on it I would say that; and I have in the past done 100% add-back on that website redesign. But again it varies from business to business. If I'm looking at a business that's operated like Quiet Light Brokerage just by example you have a tendency to redesign the website often. I think there's been 3 or 4 versions of it in the last 7 years that I've been with Quiet Light. So, in that case, it's either simply not an add back or you do some math and let's say you're going to redesign a website every 3 years you might take that cost; $10,000 website redesign and add back 50% of it or a third of it and things of that nature. Because if it happened in the last 12 months it's not an expense that's going to happen in the next 12 months so there has to be some mathematical adjustment there. And again math and logic; look how often it's been redesigned, do the math on when in the future would you redesign again, and just do partial adjustment more often than not. Mark: Yeah, I would agree 100%. And the thing to look for here obviously if it's on the last 12 months it probably isn't going to get looked at too closely. But I think you have to look at why. Like the Quiet Light website gets redesigned a decent amount and that's simply because I get anxious about stuff like that. That's just kind of what I do. I'm always tweaking; always thinking that I should dust scraps and start it over again. And so I actually do think with Quiet Light it's mostly discretionary in nature but again this reasonableness needs to come in. Joe: Not always discretionary but it takes 12 months every time that you start. Mark: It's absolutely ridiculous. Joe: Why don't you touch on product development? It's interesting you bring that up. I've got a physical products e-commerce business and I'm developing new products; do I get to add that cost back? Mark: Yeah I think again we need to use math and logic here, a little bit of reasonableness, take a look at what type of business you are in. Here's the thing about e-commerce; Chad Reuben when he was on the podcast about a year ago mentioned this, product development is the lifeblood of most e-commerce businesses; you rarely, rarely run across a business that is truly evergreen with its product or you never have to iterate. Apple comes out with an iPhone every year. Android products are constantly coming out with a new phone every year. Car companies constantly come out with a new car every single year. Product development is the lifeblood of businesses. So on that note no I don't think that you can add back product development costs. I do think maybe if you're coming out with like a large truly one time sort of burst maybe I would look at it. Joe: Maybe if there's a mold, right? If you paid $5,000 for a mold of that product that mold is going to last 10, 20 years perhaps. That mold maybe partial add back but yeah I'm 100% on the same page; product development is the lifeblood of a business. The molds thing is so rare; 105 businesses I think I've sold in the last 7 years and I think maybe only Sean van der Wilt's business has actual molds that are part of it and that he owned. In other cases, it's generally the manufacturer that has the mold anyway. So yeah adding back product development expenses can't really do it. What about the SaaS development? We're not all e-commerce here; we're selling content and SaaS and things of that nature as well. You've got a developer that's been doing some certain projects within the last 12 months; are you adding that back? Is that black and white? Mark: It is not black and white but I do think that if you are looking at for example your initial build of the software that's going to be very intense, very cost-intensive. That I think could be added back. Regular maintenance, regular feature updates; absolutely not because a SaaS business needs to have updates, needs to have new features added. If you're going to redevelop the entire SaaS product from the ground up; maybe you're switching technology stacks, that's something where I would take a look at that and again reason and logic need to really…math and logic really need to reign with this. But generally speaking no; just as product development is the lifeblood of an e-commerce business, software development is the lifeblood of a SaaS business. Joe: We are 100% on the same page. There is no question about it. Mark: No fights here, thank goodness. Joe: Yeah. We've got 3 points left and really the last 2 points I think are ones that get missed most often and can add a tremendous amount of value to the business. But the first one of the 3 here is pretty obvious and maybe we could have we actually talked about moving this up into Level 1 but it's a repaid relative. I sold a business a couple of years ago where the owner of the business paid his brother to do customer service. They paid him $20 an hour for 20 hours a week worth of work. I talked to the brother. I talked about his job and what he did. He said yeah I really only put in about 5 hours a week. Most of what I do is automated; it's canned responses with customer service. And so we talked about the work and the level of detail there and just added some logic there and some math and said look you are grossly overpaid. Your brother loves you. I'm going to suggest that he fires you; and again this is just before Christmas, of course, he didn't. Mark: Oh my you told him to fire his brother. We've talked about this before. Joe: I know. It was a $10,000 add back or whatever the number was. So we just did some math, right? We said alright how much does it cost to get a really good high-quality virtual assistant; $4 or $5 an hour. Okay, let's double that. We know you're only working 5 hours a week but we're going to go with you 20 hours a week times whatever the number is and we're going to add it back. So instead of the $20 an hour times 20 hours we took $10 an hour on those 20 hours a week and we added back the adjustment there. It's in black in white in the add back section with an explanation of why. So math and logic applied to a situation like that; that overpaid relative and it absolutely works and is am add back. And it has to be a big enough number to be an add back. In this case, the total add back was a pretty sizable number. So pretty clear there in my view would you agree with that on Mark? Mark: Yeah I had a guy who had a really cool business. His mom was doing his bookkeeping and he was paying her $250,000 a year for her bookkeeping services. Joe: What? Mark: That's a pretty expensive bookkeeper. That's a pretty obvious case of look it's a relative; he's paying his mom good for him, what a great son; better son than I am to my mom, and pretty obvious add back. And look I'm going to tie in something that we had from Level 1 here and that is where you have 2 owners and you brought up the example one owner is business development and marketing, sales and marketing and the other one is a developer. And I said well we should take a look at that developer side probably and probably not add back his salary but you've got to take a look at how much is he getting paid. I'm dealing with a client who has that sort of set up and the developer side; they're both getting paid the same amount of money and it's basically the profits of the business. We're going to add back in a reasonable and a pretty generous salary for a replacement development. And that's kind of the way that we would look at that is what is a replacement cost? You don't want to be super aggressive on that. It's got to be reasonable. It might be a little bit generous to say here's what the replacement of this person would cost. So you can do that with relatives. It can get a little bit tricky. I had one company that I dealt with where literally the company was basically run by this guy's family which brought up some issues with the transferability of the business. Because there were so many people involved that were family related but they were all getting these big fat paychecks. And so if we had gone to market; we didn't go to market with that one but we would have had to go in and try to find reasonable replacement costs for most of these people which will be then a little tricky. Joe: Yeah. Look, I can assure all sellers out there; all business owners that are smart enough to do some thinking and planning in advance of a sale, your buyers are going to be intelligent people that are going to be thorough and diligent. And doing that logical adjustment that Mark just talked about for that developer who's your business partner that is a non-transferable skill you've got to hire that out. You're just going to have to do that and it's going to help build trust and help you achieve your goals in getting your business sold. If we have to push the multiple if it makes sense because there's other amazing trends in the business then we can push the multiple a little higher as long as it's still within a reasonable area. The next add back is one that I just did this year as an example with Mike Jackness when we sold Color It. And I'm going to go ahead and mention the podcast series that Mike and I did because I think it's invaluable for both buyers and sellers to listen to and Mark I'm going to just tell you right now I think that you and I did a decent job in doing the intro for the podcast and then me doing an interview with Mike on our podcast. Mike did a much better job on his podcast. So I'm going to point people… Mark: They're actually pros at this. They're very good at it. We're just kind of fly by the seat of their pants. Joe: Yeah. He did an amazing job. And he actually did a series of 4 in total; 2 of them were with me and the one at the beginning one at the end was with his staff, his staff down in the Philippines before and after the sale. So he went through the whole arc. But it's episode 247 of the EcomCrew Podcast and the first one was Preparing Your Business For Sale and the second one was What It Was Like Going Through Due Diligence And Actually Getting It Sold. Now one of the things that we focused on in Mike's add back schedule was cost of goods sold. Let me give some just general numbers here; broad examples, these aren't actually from his business but let's say that what he did do was he renegotiated the cost of goods sold on one particular ASIN. He could have done it on more if he had planned in advance of selling his business instead of deciding to sell his business because he was emotionally ready to move on. We could have waited another year and he would have had a much more valuable business. But we didn't do that because he was ready. So in this situation again it's magic and loss; math and logic; oh my goodness, see this is why Mike's podcast is better…math and logic. Mark: Well I'm sure a lot of buyers out there look at sleaze and say this doesn't look like magic; it doesn't make sense. Joe: I said magic and loss; oh man, oh man. We're not editing that out. Chris, don't touch that. Alright, so Mike renegotiated the cost of goods sold on 1 ASIN. The reduction in cost was it came down $1.60. It was already on the books. He already had product in Amazon FBA and it was shipping and it's been in FBA already for 2 months. What we did; it was a $1.60, so what we did was we looked at the sales per month of that ASIN for the other 10 months going back in the P & L took that dollar amount and multiplied it times $1.60. Let's just say for simple math it was 1,000 units a month, right? I say simple math but here I am looking to the other calculator. If you got 1,000 units a month times $1.60 we're looking at 1,600 dollars a month times 10 months it's a $16,000 mathematical and absolutely legitimate add back; math and logic there. That times the multiple applied to the business; let's just say if it's 3 times that's a sizable add back, it's $54,000, no, $48,000. How's my math? Mark: We'll 48,000. On this I want to go back to where we started this conversation; why do we do these add backs at all? Again it's the idea that we want to show a buyer they're expected return on investment and we want to show a set number standardized approach so that you can interject your own assumptions. And the reason that this is completely valid to do even though you can take a look and say well the actual expenses were not this is because this is the forward-looking numbers that we know are going; the way that the business is going to be run in the future. Joe: That 10 months of expenses there will not carry forward so we needed to make an adjustment for that. Mark: Exactly the only thing we would need to verify would be in due diligence the supplier is going to give the same or similar terms to the new buyer. That would be the only thing that we really need to confirm there. So I think this makes complete sense. Joe: 100%. Mark: Did you get any pushback from buyers on that? Joe: Not an ounce and the buyer that bought the business is; I mean he went to Harvard, he's a very smart guy, he's bought 4 other businesses from Quiet Light Brokerage, and he understands all of this. And he's got investors that review everything so no pushback at all. Mark: Yeah. Alright, next one on your list you have here reduced fees times units sold. Joe: Look, everyone listening that's considering a sale of their business this last one is why you cannot have one conversation with a business broker for 30 minutes and decide that that's the one you've got to go with because if they're incredibly good at sales they're going to talk you into something in 30 minutes. Now I shouldn't say that because; well, look you've done research on Quiet Light, you've listened to the podcast, you've listened to different examples so maybe you can but you got to dig deep. This happened to me recently in like the third conversation on having in a review of the profit and loss statement. This is why we review profit and loss statements. We learned that the owner of this particular business that I'm talking about repackaged; worked on repackaging all of his product SKUs and in doing so it changed the level of pick pack and ship at Amazon. So he was at let's say Level 5 and he came down at Level 4; now these are costs. They're not called that but his fees at Amazon went down. Let's call it a dollar. So instead of $5 pick pack and ship fee, it was $4 because it was a smaller package, lighter package, things of that nature. So he did that. Again let's go to the same thing we did here with Jackness's business. He did it in the last 2 months, it's on the books for the last 2 months, so we're going to the prior 12 months and went okay how many units did you sell during those prior 12 months or 10 months times a dollar per unit and we're doing an add back for that because that adjusted expense in the past went away and it does not carry forward; same thing, different scenario. Mark: Yup, absolutely. So I think there's 2 ways when we're looking at some of these kind of I don't want to creative add backs but the ones that require a little bit more explanation. The one thing that I would just encourage people to keep in mind is that when we see some of these add backs which go back and recast numbers there are some situations where it makes sense to rather than going back and doing that add back bake in some of the value into the multiple as opposed to the trailing 12 months. If we keep in mind that the basic approach to estimate in value in a basic valuation approach would be your trailing 12 months discretionary earnings times some multiple, it doesn't matter if you increase your discretionary earnings by 10% or increase your multiple by 10%; the result on your valuation is going to be the same. And so I think there is a little bit of discretion and strategy that needs be taken into account by both the broker and the seller when it comes to determining where do we want to get this value in. The thing you need to always keep in mind is are you actually offering real value to a potential buyer? Is this really going to be valuable for the forward-looking future for that; I don't know if there's a backward-looking future, for the future of the new owner of the business and where are they going to get that value? So you might be hearing this and thinking this is pretty complex I don't know if these things would be really a legitimate add back or not. Look if you find this difficult that's because some of it is and some of it does require discussion. And as I said at the beginning we have these discussions at Quiet Light all the time. We will share something with the entire team and say what do you guys think this? Here's what I'm thinking, I should have it added back. And sometimes we disagree but we always are able to figure out where that line should be. So I'm going to just throw this invite out; if you have a question on whether or not something would be an add back ask us. Hound us and say what do you think of this; do you think this would be a legitimate add back or not? And that would be on the buy-side or on the sell-side. If you're look at an opportunity and maybe with another broker or directly with the seller and they're adding something back and want to know what our thoughts are let us know. We'd love to weigh in on it. Joe: Let's route another invite there and let's find a way to do an actual valuation; we'll do video as well as audio. We'll remove the client's names. We'll just use first name and we won't use the business name. And we'll do it sort of Mike Jackness, Ecom Crew Under The Hood Valuation and record it so everybody can hear the process we go through. Man that being in a 2 or 3 part series because it's such a long in-depth, detailed process. The only thing I want to throw is that we are developing webinars here at Quiet Light that will be up on the new 48-month long redesign that Mark's been working on. Yes that's a little wise-ass comment there but the webinars will be up, they will be available in detail for you folks to dig deeper and see us go through some of this add back schedule in the process of doing one that is titled “What's a Legitimate Add Back?” and all of this will be in webinar format where you can see actual profit and loss statements and whatnot. Mark: Sounds great. I look forward to doing those. I don't have anything else on add backs. I think we've just covered the entire topic as deeply as you possibly could actually no we could probably talk for another couple of episodes in some of these things but I don't have anything else to add for this one. Do you have anything Joe? Joe: No, we're good. It was great having 2 very special guests on the podcast; one much more special. According to Andrew Youderian, you're special. Mark: I like that guy. He's such a good guy, isn't he? Joe: Andy Youderian. Has anybody reached out to him with my little Easter egg stuff that I did on the video? But we're not showing the video yet, right? Mark: I had and actually we are showing the video and that's something for you guys to know. Subscribe to us on YouTube at Quiet Light Academy. These podcasts are now up in video form so you can look at our pretty faces while you listen to us argue about add backs. I don't think anyone has reached out to him about the little Easter egg we had in that podcast episode. Because I talked to him recently and he didn't bring it up. Joe: So for those that have no idea what we're talking about and have stuck with us at the end of this podcast here's the deal. I was driving down the road listening to the Quiet Light Podcast where Mark had Andrew on with state of the e-commerce. Mark: One of the best episodes I think we ever did. Joe: Whatever you say Mark. I think this is the best episode we've ever done. Alright, so Andrew says yeah you guys have been doing a really good job. I got to tell you Mark I think you have a bit of an edge over Joe. Because Mark and I always competing with who's got the best episodes and the most downloads. And I swear I almost; I had to pull over I was laughing so out. It was so, so funny. He's a bit of a prankster. So I figured I'd get him back. And so I had an Incredible Exit Series on, we had somebody; actually it was an Incredible Acquisition, right? Karl Selle bought Smart And Fresh and so we had Karl on a podcast about that and during the podcast I pretended that our producer Chris interrupted us and handed me a sheet that it was kind of an emergency, he was looking to get in touch with somebody named Andy Youderian. I could not pronounce Andrew's name properly. But for those that go to the YouTube channel you'll see that I have an EcommerceFuel t- shirt on and that the EcommerceFuel podcast is in the background; a mouse pad is in the background. So clearly I know Andrew Youderian. I want to call him Youderainan from now on. Clearly I know Andrew. My kind would call those Easter eggs. I think that's what they're officially called in Marvel movies. So I just threw in a few Easter eggs there. It was kind of fun. We did get one person that sent an e-mail to me and he goes I think the person that your producer is looking for is Andrew Youderian for EcommerceFuel. And I said well that was kind of a joke. I had to send a note back. But it was kind of fun. Mark: Well he was right though. It is the person we're looking for. We have an Easter egg coming up in one of the movie quotes so you guys have to dig deep on these movie quotes. And I don't know which episode it's going to be live on. Listen to the different intros. There's going to be one that you're going to have a really hard time finding but I'll tell you what I want you to find this one whenever it airs. That's really, really difficult and I will get with our producer next week's podcast and make sure that we give you a little hint as to which podcast to listen to for this movie quote because it's just an absolute gem. Joe: Awesome. Let's wrap it up with that. Links and Resources: ECom Crew Episode Quiet Light Academy YouTube

第563期:Good Ole' England

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 31, 2019 2:24

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Todd: OK, Mark, we've been talking about places that you've traveled, things that you have done. What about people that go to your country, England? Can you recommend three or four good places to go to in England?Mark: Right. Well, obviously, most people should visit London. Personally, I don't like London. It's too busy and too expensive.Todd: But, wait a minute, you're saying that people should visit it but you don't like it. Why?Mark: They should visit it because you have to go once to see all the famous places such a Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, just to say you've been, but if you arrive in London, I'd say spend maybe one or two days there and then move and you can move to cheaper places. My favorite place in England is in the North of England. It's called the Lake District.Todd: The Lake District.Mark: Yeah, it is very, very beautiful.Todd: So, I take it there's many lakes.Mark: That's right. There's got to be about twenty or thirty lakes up there and the scenery's beautiful. Famous for Peter Rabbit. Do you know Peter Rabbit?Todd: Yeah, the fairy tale.Mark: That's right. The children's character. Yeah. The writer, Beatrice Potter, she was born in the Lake District, so that's how she got her inspiration.Todd: So if you go the Lake District, now are you talking about camping or do you stay in a like a bed-and-breakfast, or?Mark: Yeah, you can stay in a bed-and-breakfast. You can camp. You can stay in pubs or inns, or there are many hotels. It's very organized for the tourists in the Lake District. Yeah, and it's not such a big area, so you can travel around there by bus, or by car pretty easy. Yeah.Todd: OK, so that's two. Anymore?Mark: Actually, I've never been but I'd probably recommend Scotland, but I've never been. But Edinburgh Castle is very famous. Also, York. The city of York, in Yorkshire, is very beautiful as well. That was famous for the Vikings in the olden days, so it has a beautiful big cathedral and all the old Viking walls, so if you like history then England is a beautiful place to visit. There are many places. You have Stratford-upon-Avon for Shakespeare, Oxford which is a famous university city, so if you like history then England is great.Todd: OK, well, sounds good. Thanks, Mark.

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第563期:Good Ole' England

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 31, 2019 2:24

第561期: Prison Visit

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 29, 2019 2:52

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Todd: OK, Mark, you've traveled quite a bit.Mark: I have, yeah.Todd: And you've actually done a lot of unique things that people don't do when they travel. You were saying that when you travel you like to look at prisons.Mark: That's right. I have a strange fascination with prisons when I go traveling.Todd: Is it your conscience? Do you feel guilty that you should be in prison?Mark: Not really, no but I don't know why but the history of prisons is fantastic. For example, obviously the most famous one's Alcatraz.Todd: Right.Mark: You go there. Now you can take an audio tour. Have you ever taken that?Todd: You know, I'm from San Francisco and I've never been to Alcatraz.Mark: Ah, it's fantastic. It was one of the best places I visited in America. It was Alcatraz prison. And you can take the audio tour and listen about all the ex-convicts. What they did and what daily life was like in Alcatraz. Really, good.Todd: Wow, well, I'm going home in a few days and I'm gonna go to Alcatraz.Mark: You should do. You should do it. And another prison that I visited that's very famous was Robben Island just off the coast of Cape Town in South Africa, and that's where Nelson Mandela spent most of his days.Todd: No kidding. Robben Island.Mark: Robben Island. Yeah.Todd: Do they still have his room made up?Mark: They do. They have his room all still made up, and you can read lots of leaflets about Nelson Mandela and hen they take you, show you the work yard, and basically he was spending, I think was twelve hours per day working outside in the South African heat.Todd: That's insane.Mark: You can see all around the prison yard. That's really interesting.Todd: So you've seen the prisons in South Africa and in America.Mark: Also I went to a crazy prison in Kuala Lumpur in the center of Malaysia.Todd: Oh, yeah.Mark: Yeah. As you arrive at the airport, if you take the monorail from the station into central Kuala Lumpur, then you see the old prison. It's now closed, but outside the prison, on the walls, it's got lots of graffiti and basically the government has written the graffiti and it basically tells you do not smuggle drugs into Malaysia or you will be staying here for a long time, and the prison looks like the worst building you've ever seen in your life.Todd: Wow!Mark: Yeah, and also it warns you about the death penalty, if you smuggle drugs into Malaysia, you'll receive the death penalty.Todd: Man, that's... well, that's tough.Mark: Yeah. I think I got this fascination for prisons because near my house in England there used to be a big prison that looked like an old castle, old scary castle and I used to pass that sometimes when I was going to work when I was younger, so that's why I have this strange interest in prisons.

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第561期: Prison Visit

united states marketing leads sony nebraska invisible typical bp american express kawasaki queensland australia mark hunter full price sales hunter tom poland high profit prospecting mark they

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 29, 2019 2:52

america england san francisco south africa prison south africans malaysia cape town nelson mandela alcatraz kuala lumpur robben island mark you mark yeah mark they todd you todd so todd right

How to Find Better Leads That You Can Close at Full Price – in Just 7 Minutes with Mark Hunter

Marketing The Invisible

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 4, 2019 8:17

Find out how being client-centric and customization will dramatically make a difference in the outcomes you desire in there of your client acquisition and prospecting Learn why you need to identify qualified leads, get in front of prospects with relevant messages, gain permission to ask challenging questions and provide high value Learn new ideas to help you identify sales opportunities make an incredible impression so you can close clients at full-price Resources/Links: https://thesaleshunter.com/weekly-tips Summary Mark Hunter is known as "The Sales Hunter". He travels 200+ days per year speaking and consulting with companies. He is a LinkedIn Top Voice and a Top 30 Global Sales Guru. His book, High-Profit Prospecting has been ranked as one of the top 100 sales books written. In this episode, Mark shares his expertise in helping clients find and retain better prospects they can close at full price. Check out these episode highlights: 02:29 - Mark talks about his ideal clients: Any salesperson or sales team that is struggling to find great prospects 03:18 - Problem he helps solve: They wind up closing too many sales having to discount and not closing deals in its full-price 03:32 - Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Mark: They spend too much time negotiating 05:09 - Mark's Valuable Free Action (VFA): "You’re not selling anything. What you’re doing is you’re helping customers see and achieve something that they didn’t think was possible. Now how do you go about doing that? That’s by focusing on the outcome." 09:00 - Mark's Valuable Free Resource(VFR): https://thesaleshunter.com/weekly-tips 09:00 - Q: Why does salespeople have this high-profit prospecting problem, to begin with? Don't they want to close at a full price? A: People get excited because they feel every lead is a good lead. Every lead is a great prospect. What you really want to be doing if you want to be able to qualify and eliminate. You want your prospects to earn the time, to spend time with you. What does that mean? That means you have fewer prospects but you’re spending more time with them. Spend more time with them, you create more value. Create more value, you close at full price. Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode: “Sell first, negotiate second.” -@thesaleshunterClick To Tweet “If you understand better what the customer is looking for it’s amazing how little you have to negotiate.” -@thesaleshunterClick To Tweet Spend more time with them, you create more value. Create more value, you close at full price.” -@thesaleshunterClick To Tweet Transcript (Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast) Tom Poland: Hello everyone. A very warm welcome to another edition of Marketing the Invisible. My name is Tom Poland beaming out to as ever from, on the sand next to the waves a Little Castaways beach in Queensland Australia, joined today by Mark Hunter. Mark a very, very warm welcome. Where are you calling in from? Mark Hunter: Well I'm calling in from Nebraska which is right in the middle of the United States. Tom Poland: Yeah. So very close to me. So, for those of you don't know Mark. He's known as The Sales Hunter. He travels more than 200 days a year. Right now, we are keeping him from dinner with his wife which doesn't happen that often I imagine. We'll get straight to it. He's speaking and consulting for those 200 plus days a year with some pretty big names, Kawasaki, Sony, BP, American Express, just to name a few. He's a LinkedIn top voice. He's a top 30 global sales guru. Top 30 in the world on his book high-profit prospecting is being ranked as one of the top 100 sales books ever written. So, it's a real privilege and a pleasure to have you here. Mark, our title today is "How to Find Better Leads That Yo...

How Happy Feet Became a Shark Tank Success

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 23, 2019 35:48

Can a plush slipper put you in a happier mood? Today's guest and Shark Tank dealmaker have been banking on that since buying the existing Happy Feet business in 2002. He is with us today talking about the wild ride that his kiosk, retail, and e-commerce business has been on with a single brand that now has licensing agreements with the likes of Disney, Marvel, and the NFL. Pat Yates is another serial entrepreneur and e-commerce success story. Pat has the broadest experience in physical product of almost anyone we've talked with here at Quiet Light. From his early start in a retail golf shop, to selling coffee out of a truck in a one-man distribution venture, on to kiosk retail with Happy Feet which now has a booming e-commerce presence, Pat has done it all. He walks us through the Shark Tank process, the deal he struck, the risks he took in his first licensing deal with a celebrity face, and how he managed the rapid growth and cash flow challenges his business faced. Episode Highlights: When the website for Happy Feet went live and Pat's vision to merge kiosk to e-commerce. The Snooki Story and how he took a chance on licensing for the first time when no one around him thought it was a good idea. His decision to apply to be on Shark Tank, the process he went through, and what his appearance did for the growth of his business. Rapid growth cash-flow challenges and how Pat overcame them. The importance of having good people around when growing. Ways to scale and grow creatively for success. Mistakes Pat made or was perceived as making in scaling the business. How kiosk business works and Pat's thoughts on the current kiosk climate. Pat's advice for those beginning as entrepreneurs and his key tips to being prepared to succeed. Transcription Mark: Joe, Pat Yates is somebody that has been a friend of Quiet Light Brokerage for a long time and might have one of the broadest experiences in the world of physical products of people that I know. He sold everything from licensing products on retail, a whole kiosk business, e-commerce, and he was also on Shark Tank and you finally had him on the podcast where he can talk about some of the experiences that he's had and what it's like to grow a business that's as popular as Happy Feet. Joe: Yeah I know. Over the last six or seven years I've probably talked to maybe a dozen people that have been on Shark Tank and Pat I think has had probably the most success. He got a deal with Robert. He talks about the process, the presentation, preparing for it, a little bit … he goes back into how he started in Happy Feet in malls, in kiosks; really his father bought the business and he tells some great stories about Jersey Shore and meeting Snooki and how he took a risk and did a licensing deal with her. And then really talks about the success after Shark Tank and how to manage cash flows. And then we dipped a little bit into the back side of it because I was at a Blue Ribbon Mastermind last summer and somebody that has e-commerce product talked to somebody that does retail up on stage and whether they should try mall kiosks and things of that nature. And because Pat has a great deal of experience there we talked about that a little bit at the end in terms of how to go from e-commerce to retail and whether he thought the kiosk business was a good option. Mark: I know every time I walked through a mall … a few years ago when I was walking through a mall I'd always come across one of his kiosks and his giant stuffed slippers which is what Happy Feet is right? Joe: Yeah. Mark: They're these ridiculously oversized slippers and they're super fun and I know people bought them for Christmas presents and everything else. So I've always been fascinated with what he's doing. I do have to ask you real quick just changing topics, do you have any idea what the movie quote was on today's intro? Joe: Not at all. No idea whatsoever so if anybody knows what it is rewind, listen to it again, put it down in the show notes, we'll give you a shout out and a thanks in the next episode. Mark: All right why don't we get to Pat and listen to what he has to say about growing an e-commerce business and also the chaos side of things too. Joe: Hey folks it's Joe from Quiet Light Brokerage and today I've got a Shark Tank alumni and we've had some on the past before but this one actually got a deal and has a great deal of entrepreneurial experience; Pat Yates from Happy Feet. Pat welcome to the podcast. Pat: I appreciate you having me on and I'm looking forward to it. Joe: Good man, all right so we don't do big introductions here. We want to hear a little bit of background on your story. Tell us about your entrepreneurial life, how you got started, and where you are today. Pat: Well it's kind of funny. I started my first business pretty much directly out of college. I was actually working for a gentleman in a … when I got to college I started working in a retail golf shop. It's where I've worked in summers and they put me on as the manager in that location which sounded like a really important job at the time. When I got at a college I thought I was going to change the retail golf industry. But in an event when I was working there I had an opportunity through one of the customers I had to get involved in a business in Columbus, Ohio and I lived in Louisville, Kentucky at the time and he basically told me about it and I decided right on the spot to buy into this franchise deal that he had for a coffee company in Columbus. I went home and my wife of three or four months I told her we were moving to Columbus and she'd never been there. So it was kind of an interesting conversation. My first ever business was basically a one man, one truck. I would get up in the morning and I would sell coffee accounts to restaurants and offices and put in vending and just go out and hump it and it was me and that was it. I did everything. Joe: Let me interrupt for just a sec for just a sec for those husbands out there that are newlyweds and still within that first year of that honeymoon, are you still married to the same woman and do you have children now? She actually wanted to go on it? Pat: Amazingly it'd be 29 years this June and yeah [inaudible 00:04:57.3]. So yeah I was pretty lucky and she just had an interesting ride. You should have her on the podcast to talk about me. That would be probably better. But yeah we started … I started that business and 2 ½ years later I sold it back to the company that was a long … it was a long story about a father and son in federal court over their ownership and it was out in the press and we sold ours back. We had a contract. It was exciting. I moved out to Tennessee and started my own company. I basically have a 200 mile non-compete and I looked at the map 200 miles away and my mom lived in Nashville; I've lived in Nashville. We moved over there and started the same kind of company right after I sold it. So at that point, I started working a little bit also in the winner's pawn specialty retail so I would use carts and kiosks for a couple of months and make extra income whilst I was building that company and that's what led me to e-commerce which led me to Happy Feet. So the short synopsis is my father and his wife are trying to work and sell on kiosk too and they were trying to find products. So when they went to a trade show in Atlanta, the Atlanta Gift Mart one time and ran across a guy who had these slippers and he had a patent on them and designed them and he really wasn't selling any so they agreed to buy a container of them. A small container of 4,000 units and put them in a mall here in Louisville. They sold out that season really quickly. It was a great beginning and then we went out and started sending … giving off 24 people to get kiosks across the country. And in 2002 I bought it out from my family and started going in a little different direction, a trajectory on retail that aren't kiosks that turned out to be really big but then really catastrophic with relation to the growth pattern and then started to concentrate more on e-commerce. And that's obviously led me to a Snooki deal which I'm sure you're probably going to end up asking about which is the funny part of the conversation typically. And then it led me to Shark Tank and it has led us to every late night show, morning show, TV show you can imagine. So the press around the company was incredible and obviously, I'm still here doing it basically 20 years later. Joe: That's an incredible story. So if you're focusing specifically on the e-commerce side of it when did you first open up the first web site for Happy Feet? Pat: Well the first one was actually opened up by my dad when they had the business in 1988. They were … they started in doing very little stuff. I mean I'm talking like we packed two orders in the basement one day. Joe: How much [crosstalk 00:07:08.6] 1998 is a lot of having, I think my first site was 50 bucks probably 1998. Pat: I could guarantee that my dad would not have spent $50 on a website. So I don't know how much he spent but it probably was somewhere south of $50. They really weren't doing anything. I think when I bought the company they were doing $22,000 in web sales. They just … it hadn't translated but what happened was I had a little different vision. And my vision was that if I can get it out to people in kiosks and grow that funnel sale it would get the brand recognized by people and then they would continue to buy it online. And since our business was seasonal, two months a year they were coming to me. Two months a year they were going to the kiosks. So if the kiosks can say osh kosh wherever or from like Milwaukee, Wisconsin closed down and someone went back to buy and they didn't have them they see the name on the back of the slipper and all it did was that distribution funnel continued to grow. So my thing was to try to get it to a lot of places for me to market very quickly and try to build the e-com via that. And we went from 22,000 to about 100,000 to about 400 and we capped a million and now we're well over three million and it just shows no signs of slowing down. It's a fun product. Joe: You know the way that you went about it is actually hard work and hustle. And that hard work and hustle got you in the right place at the right time which is not necessarily luck. It's because of the hard work and hustle but being at that trade show in Georgia where your dad was and meeting these folks and taking the risk in buying that half container load so good for you. But then there's a lot of work to do since then. And as we've talked and I've had a lot of people on the podcast and what I've experienced over the last seven years in the brokering side of it is that everybody has problems with cash flows. So I want to talk about that with you. I want to … first I want to hear the Snooki story and I want to hear a little bit of the Shark Tank experience but then I want to talk about how you've solved the problem of cash flow with a company that is growing so rapidly because everybody that's in the first 12 to 36 months of a business that's growing rapidly faces that challenge especially with the Amazon growth these days. But talk to us about the Snooki story did she just happened to have— Pat: Well it's kind of interesting. It's actually my most fun story of all these and actually from many standpoints; number one from a standpoint of growth, second of all from a standpoint of trusting my judgment. I've had done many podcasts before and I've talked to a lot of people about the biggest thing with me is if I always trusted my judgment on what I first had an inclination on I typically had success. Now it's not always that way. Not everybody gets it right the first time but the 80-20 every time I trusted myself it was good. Every time I didn't trust myself it was the same 80-20 but the 80-20 was the other direction. Well, I'm sitting in my house one night and this is 2009 maybe. I'm guessing. I have to go back and look. But my son comes into my bedroom and I've said this many times so I'm sure people have heard it and he said dad your slippers are on Jersey Shore. Snooki is wearing your slippers on Jersey Shore. I said I only have two questions: who's Snooki and what the hell is Jersey Shore? I really had no idea. I had no idea what it was. I've heard of the show but I didn't pay any attention to it and this was the second season on Miami so [inaudible 00:10:13.8] rewind it and I look and she's bent down cleaning something up with our pink slippers on. It turns out she was just a fan of the product. She bought them and took them down there and thought it'd be cool to wear in the house. So we get all these emails and orders immediately as soon as it starts hitting the air. And we sold out of those pink slippers in like three days. So at that point, I knew I had something. So I being a ford motion guy; that's one of the words I use a lot being a ford motion guy, I picked up the phone and I called her agent and it turns out one of the guys is selling license agreements for her because they figured they could capitalize on her fame at the time. It was in Chicago so I got my car and I drove to Chicago four hours the very next day and I sat down and had dinner with her agent and we offered her a license agreement to design her own slippers. I can tell you that there was not one person including my current partner at that time that wanted me to do it. Every person said this will be a complete travesty. Why in the world would you put her in front of your product? I said well there are several reasons: number one, I saw what it did when we got the press and second of all you can always deal with those things. I mean there's no bad press. What you want to do is get it out there. So to make the long story short we sound this license agreement, we launched our product. Her leopard slippers is still probably all-time the greatest selling product we've ever had. The first time she tweeted out about it with only a million followers she crashed our site. So we got to learn really quickly how we needed to scale. Joe: Wow. Pat: Then she took us to trade shows. We went … she was on Jimmy Fallon playing slipper golf which is one of the coolest. If you ever get the chance you can Google it. It was really fun. I was there for it in New York. We were on Good Morning America, on the Today show, so all that stuff came from it and it turned out it was one of the best decisions I've ever made because of the way that it helped to get the notoriety around the product. And I just trusted my judgment because not one person really believed it was ever going to be something good for us. And it was exciting and since then I'm still in touch with her regularly and her management. We still do a lot of things together. So it's been a great relationship for eight or nine years now. Joe: Wow that's fantastic. A fun story too. Is there any chance of Jersey Shore coming back on the air? Have you got any inside information? Pat: They did a rewind this year but I don't know how it did. I know that she has got some other things she's working on so she's always … I mean the thing is people just … really it's amazing in our society how people sort of make quick determinations on small snippets of someone. She's actually a really sweet girl. Some people look at her and think she's this hard core partier; she really isn't. When we were in Vegas is a great example, we went out … everything she gets she gets for free. We went to a restaurant, she took a picture for Instagram, probably a $7,000 bill and with all these people. We went up to this nightclub and it was roped off area, bottles, service, everything she wanted for free. Her life at that time was just immeasurable with relation to the benefits and things she got. But what we ended up finding out was is that she was just this really calm, young girl. We went out to dinner and out to a club and she never had a drink. It wasn't the Snooki they sell on Jersey Shore; it was Nicole Polizzi which is her name. She's an adopted girl from Colombia and she has a great family and she does … she has great young kids now. She's actually a tremendous person. That's the one thing people would really be surprised at next door. Joe: I believe it. Well, I know that you got connected with Quiet Light back in 2010, 2011 or '12. I know you had some conversations with Mark about doing a valuation for Happy Feet. And as Mark often did he probably gave you some good information and suggested you go and fix that or if you want X amount of money you got to build the business more. Not high pressure at all he did the same for me in 2000. I forgot, no it was 2010, maybe we called him about the same time. But at some point, you said okay this Shark Tank thing looks interesting I'm going to give it a go. Can you talk about your decision to apply to Shark Tank, what it was like being on the show, and what it's done for Happy Feet since? Pat: Well I applied on season two originally and it was … I mean if people hadn't done the Shark Tank applications, it's like 50 or 60 pages of disclosures. It's all handwritten. You can't type it. It's so non-technical, you can imagine. And I got turned down that first year. I went to the interview process. We submitted videos and got turned down and I hadn't really thought much of it after that. I watched the show and I was a fan but I remember it they were getting ready to finish casting for season five and I get a phone call. And believe it or not I was actually on a golf course and I picked up the phone and they said look we'd like to revisit your application. We're scaling so fast. We're doing so many new things. We'd like to revisit it would you want to resubmit this application? I said well it took me days to be able to do the application and videos and stuff and I said like okay if you feel like there might be some fruit from it let me know. So I resubmitted the application, did the videos, it comes right down to the end. This is like in September of 2013 they called and said Pat look we have four or five slots left and about 18 or 20 companies where we got it narrowed down to. We want to tape so what we're going to do is we're going to bring you out to LA and we're going to let you tape in front of the producers. If they like you they'll keep you if they don't they'll send you home. And I'm like alright. So I flew out to LA and actually it's interesting because Snooki was sort of involved in this in a pseudo way. I went out and I taped my test and I went that night to Dancing with the Stars and I sat with her family and her agent at Dancing with the Stars live which was really cool by the way and [inaudible 00:15:25.0] I was done I got a call and they said look we're going to tape you tomorrow so be ready. We're keeping you, we are going to go ahead and tape it. So we taped in September of 2013. It aired in April of 2014. And I was also told that probably 30% of people they tape don't get on air. I've heard the number is less than that but there was no guarantee I was even going to get on TV. And then in April of 2014 obviously it aired and it was an exciting episode. It did not go well for a long time in there. And the way that the production was set up and the way they showed it, it turned out to be what I think is one of the better endings and exciting. So it was a lot of fun and obviously, it was a real whirlwind and since then there's just been nothing but great things that have come from it. Joe: Well you got a deal from it. You're one of the first guys I've ever talked to that's gotten a deal from it. I've probably had conversations with five or six people over the last three years that had been on Shark Tank but you got a deal. Actually, I've got somebody else that got an offer but he didn't accept it which in hindsight he should have. But what was the whirlwind part? You were there for a long time it didn't go the way that you wanted it to but you did end up with a deal, how did it go? Pat: Well you're in there … I'm just going to estimate, I'm going to say I was in there probably an hour and ten to an hour and 20 roughly. You get no break rights. There is no break. If you have to go to the bathroom or you have to get a drink forget about it. You're standing on your spot and you're answering questions and they're grilling you. And probably for the first 15 minutes to an hour, it just wasn't going well. Barbara didn't like me which most women don't like me when they meet me the first time. Then I don't know how it went, then Robert— Joe: We'll do another podcast on that and again we'll have your wife on in that podcast. Pat: Anyway it just … everything seemed to be going negatively and then I got an offer from Kevin which was one of his royalty deals which wasn't going to help me. And then Lori I really thought was going to do something then she hitched her wagon to Kevin which was really tough for me because I did not want to deal with that royalty agreement and that was really all I had on the table. And then about an hour and five minutes in I decided because Mark had made comments I asked him if I could tell him a story versus you know asking him. And I talk about my mom who had passed away and I talked about my passion as an entrepreneur and how this is a single product and some people don't do that as a company but I was going to get up every day to make sure it grew. And he made a quick comment which I'm glad they didn't cut out and he said you're the real deal and you have a great business but it isn't a fit for me. At the time I wasn't sure why I mean obviously he has an NBA franchise, we had NBA licensing, I don't know if that got anything to do with it or he just didn't want that kind of product. But either way what happened was it changed more of them because at the end of the day Mark controls more money than most of those people put together. And you're in a situation where if he is saying something like that it makes people view it different. And I think my plea is exactly who I was as an entrepreneur; passion, excitement, and getting people engaged where they feel excited about what they're going to do. Then all of a sudden Robert came back in and made an offer and then Lori and those guys wanted to counter. I gave him a maximum we wanted and understand we only took at our web addition we weren't a consolidated company with relation to wholesale and then all of a sudden Robert said I'll take that deal and I wasn't going to hesitate. I didn't even allow Lori and Kevin to react to it. I just said done and it was over. And the deal changed after the fact. It wasn't exactly the same on the show. It really wasn't anything near that. Joe: There's lots of due diligence after you shake the hand I assume. A lot of verification and it takes process. Pat: For us, it wasn't even that. Robert and I talked and he said you told me you didn't necessarily need the money and he says why do you want to do this? Well I said, first of all, I could use some money but it isn't that important now but I really need the connections and I'd like you to help me grow this company. That's really what I wanted. He said look let's just do a small deal without the money. If you need something in the future I'll try to help you but I want you to work with my Shark Tank group. We signed a deal and we've been working with him ever since. And they're fantastic. They have a Shark Tank division that's run by a really dynamic young lady and she's really good and anytime I need him I can get him. I talk to Robert occasionally. I was in his office four to six months ago before the launch of the Disney line and we went over some stuff but he's just a great guy and it's a great group of people. And honestly, I'm happy it didn't close at what it was before because it would have changed for both of us. There had been a lot more expectations on both sides and other than that Robert has helped me with anything I need from soup to nuts with business including we have so much press. Obviously, it led us to DreamWorks it led us to basically every license we want in the United States and the world for that matter. So it's really a blessing for me and it was exciting, it was stressful, it was fun, it was really scary to watch because I couldn't see the episode. I wasn't allowed to see it. I had to watch it like everyone else. And I swear to goodness I had no idea how it was going to look. And I honestly [inaudible 00:20:12.4] and I don't really get nervous. I've played basketball in a small college, in high school and I've been an athlete. I'm a very competent high playing individual but that one I was sitting there to win. I just don't know how this is going to look. But it was great. And then the one interesting thing that most people don't realize they will usher you off to an airport immediately. As soon as you get off sound stage they take you out of the sound stage into another stage. You do your post interview. They have to sit with a counselor which is required for an hour because they're afraid that some people would be suicidal. So you'll sit with a counsel when they feel like you're in good shape to leave they walk you out the door. This is not a joke. They put you in a van. They drive you to a hotel. You should have your bags packed and they will not put anyone that takes in the same hotel. They don't want you talking. We were originally in the same hotel before we pitched and afterwards they spread you out and then you fly back the very next day. So it was a real whirlwind and it was exciting but it was stressful. But everything that's come out of it has just been fantastic and it made for good television. Joe: Okay I just have to comment on the counselor part and then we'll move on to your growth and then the cash flow challenges that everybody in the audience that's an entrepreneur faces, but does Mr. Wonderful have to pay for the majority of the counselor because he says you're dead to me more than anyone else? Pat: Probably Barbara would be. She has I don't know … it was … again that part was a little odd for me. I didn't know they were going to do that but then they just bring it on me. So I'm like no, I'm in a great mood what do we need to do to get out of here now? They make you stay for an hour. Joe: That's fascinating. Alright so how did it turn out and what kind of growth have you seen since 2014? And then we'll talk about how you dealt with that in terms of financial cash flow challenges. Pat: Yeah I mean we jumped up 40 to 50% over the period of time from where we were in the baseline during at the time. It led us to get passed by DreamWorks to do a license which at the time was a very good thing but it was my first foray into a big license and it was a little challenging. You couple the fact that they were sold in the middle of it in DC universal which became very difficult because they were moving those assets in and they get people assigned, people to work with me. So the DreamWorks thing was an interesting lesson in licensing and how implemented and I didn't do a great job at it but it was a good license and now obviously we're working with Disney and Marvel and all those things came from Shark Tank so it's a great thing for us. Joe: So when it comes to a business that's growing rapidly as many of the folks that I talked to on a regular basis are dealing with a lot of the physical product e-commerce businesses that we're selling, actually I'd say the majority of them are probably less than three years old. And the reason that I see that people exit, you know buyers always say well it's so great why are you selling? It's because for that three year period they're hardly taking any money out of the business. They bootstrapped it, they put it together, and then every penny that comes from the revenue of the business goes back into buying more inventory and trying to stay ahead of it and not have stock outs. What have you done in your business to overcome some of those challenges and what advice can you give to entrepreneurs that are eventually going to be in your position? Pat: Some of it is … there's an easy answer and there's difficult answers. So the easy answer is I think anytime that you're facing cash challenges you should address that either one of two ways. Obviously, they jump off the paper to anyone. Obviously, there's banking that you get involved in but I believe that is really important to find someone who can add value to your company if you decide to do a strategic partner. Some people believe don't believe in partners but if you can find the right strategic partner that not only gives you a leg up in some of the systems and other things that you're going to encounter as you grow but also can help in the financial thing that's premium. What I did as we started to try to grow it is I partnered with someone that could afford to help scale that growth and make sure that we had a position to where we would have the product. But I also started to get creative with vendor relationships. For instance, there's a manufacturer that I work with on licenses that is one of the biggest manufacturers of plush in the country if not the biggest. And I went to them because their margins were really low when we talked about and I said what if we could raise your margins by you going ahead and using your scale and your manufacturing abilities. You send the product in, we have the ability to pay for it as we sell it almost like a consignment deal but we can help you develop a division where your margins grow if it's not capitally intense then it would make sense for both parties. So what I tried to do is be very passionate with people I could put around me in vendor partnerships to try to get them to help me with the initial product I needed to do anything. We developed a brand new credit slipper called zlipperz; Z-L-I-P-P-E-R-Z. That was a collaboration with a company on being able to develop the actual design and to make the product and then we didn't have to put a lot of money on the pocket because we're putting a lot into the system side. I think you just have to talk to everyone you can possibly think of. It doesn't have to be an investor, it doesn't have to be a bank, it could sometimes be your vendors, it could sometimes be family, it could sometimes be a warehousing and distribution company. I mean I almost … I talked to a warehouse and distribution company one time and said look if you could bring your distribution to us we'll help invest in some of the product and we'll mark that back up to be able to help get the distribution business. So there's a lot of ways that people can scale businesses if you put the right people around you. And I think you just have to be willing to have those conversations and think creatively on how to grow your business. Joe: I think you're absolutely right. The more I've talked to different entrepreneurs in this situation it's being likable and it's working hard and it's getting lucky back to the reason you are in the business here and now. And again I don't mean to make light of being lucky because it only came from your hard work and dedication and being willing to take some risks by hopping in a car and drive four hours to Chicago just to meet with the agent of Snooki when you didn't really know. You didn't know what she was all about. So you got to do those things. Well, we had people on the podcast that sort of break the mold in terms of being able to buy internet based businesses because they use local banks because they've built relationships with them. They go and they talk to them, they shake their hands, they see them face to face, and they instill confidence in the bankers, other types of lenders, investors, family funds, family members, warehouse owners, shippers, whatever it might be their goal is to stay in business and to grow. And if you can do what you're talking about and make it mutually beneficial then they're going to help your business grow as well. We do that every day. It's not just brokering and trying to sell a business for the absolute maximum price, it's trying to achieve the goal of the seller. Sometimes they're trying to get it sold very quickly with a better set up and transaction. Maybe all cash close in 30 days other times they want to max it out. They're willing to take a small note on something and hold the business and deal with that emotional stuff you go through for a little longer in order to reach the goal. So I like the fact that you're talking about bringing in other people and talking to as many people as possible to make something mutually beneficial. Well, what would you say has been the biggest challenge and maybe the biggest mistake you've had to have made in terms of finances in cash flow and things of that nature? Just pull on out of your hat to— Pat: Well it's interesting because I can tell you I've made hundreds of mistakes but as I've talked about before there's … let's just say there's a hundred there's less than three that I would regret because the other 97 led me to something that is always better for business. So I'll give you a great example when I was growing the kiosk business my father and his wife Sharon who started it basically had … I don't think they had more than 25 kiosks at one point in any seasons which is still a lot if you're talking season November, December. When I bought it and started doing distribution I changed it up. I brought them into the warehouse because they use to sell only containers. They bring them in to container loads, they bring them in to Seattle or LA Portland and they'd send it to customers. They never touched a product. They didn't have a warehouse; didn't touch it. It was basically just an order company. It's like an FOB order. What I decided to do was get a warehouse and bring the product in, get the warehouse to scale, put people in there, break the containers and ship whatever they needed. So if they didn't get in the 4,000 or 8,000 pair of containers I could still sell. So we went from 30 to about 300 kiosks in about four or five years. So we were one of the bigger kiosk programs seasonally in the United States. We had them from every state. You know I had one guy that ran 20 of them. So what I couldn't see at that time were two things: one, how good that would be and two, how catastrophic it would be. And it's interesting that they're both. And the reason they were both is I started to get so much product and we were so seasonal that I was taking chances on buying product in case we added a few kiosks late or someone needed more or whatever and that was just that all that was doing was rolling the dice and eventually figuring out what year it was going to come up craps. That you ended up a year where you had a million dollars in products sitting on the floor for nine months to a year that you didn't have money to pay for. So I was sort of in a position to where I was betting on to come a little bit more than I needed to be with the kiosk business so it became catastrophic with relation to cash flow. And I ended up having to partner with someone to be able to make sure that I could hedge it and grow. But at the same time, it was the biggest blessing I did because as we put the slippers out there and our name and buy HappyFeet.com was on the back people learned about our brand and we started to build that same funnel I talked about. It's funny how my hands are always down here than they appear but— Joe: And if you had the video I can see that funnel, that visual that you're doing. Pat: I just let everybody know I move my hands we're not even on video. Anyway, my point in this is that it helped grow what we … the scope of the business. It looked bigger. It looked like a company. It looked like something you'd want to be involved with. So all these people started taking notice and we did NBA license, we did NCAA, we did NFL, we did all these different things and we really expanded the base of the product. And it's something that … you know the first container they bought was four styles in three sizes or four sizes, there were 16 SKUs and now we have over 5,000. Joe: Wow, incredible. Pat: So it was catastrophic to our cash flow because it nearly broke me and it should have and still trail the business for years after that because I made the decision. But it's hard to be upset about it because we were in a position to where we decided that we couldn't continue on that trajectory. So we cut the kiosk business back, we concentrated on the .com and what we found out was people were conditioned to buying a product and if the kiosk wasn't there that year they bought it from us for Christmas. So those leap years and those difficult things it's almost hard to be upset about it because it was almost like the lost that you would have taken or the aggravation tax. It was something that you really needed to be able to grow the company overall. So it's really hard to regret that. Every decision that I made that's been bad I always look at something and that thing could be better. The DreamWorks thing, I was terrible at it. I didn't understand any licenses but now I have learned some things about it that going into the Disney/Marvel deal that helps me really understand it better. So I don't regret a lot of those things. I just try to learn from them to get better and back to the point you talked about with relationship on scaling the cash, be passionate like I was. When I talked to people they get excited about building products, they're excited about doing businesses and doing all these things. If you go in and find people that have capital that don't operate businesses and you're passionate they'll put you in place to make you successful because at the end of the day that's what you're going to do for them. It's all going to come around and that's why I have to maneuver so I have to jump up every day and say I want to be passionate. Sometimes it's been hard for me to do that because it's tough but that's what I'm always trying to do. Joe: Yeah it can be exhausting for sure. Let me just pivot here, you've talked about kiosks a lot, it's what you know. You know very well. You're in the ecommerce world now and licensing and so on and so forth. I've been in a few events, Mastermind events where people have stood up and said hey what are your thoughts about me taking my brand and starting in the kiosk business and expanding in retail that way instead of a retail store? What are your quick thoughts on that for folks that are out there thinking of that now? Is it a pain in the ass? Is it worth it? Is it challenging? Is it too much, too late? What are your thoughts? Pat: Let's say … let me answer two ways: number one, for our product as big as it is and needing storage for a couple of months a year it's a very difficult sale. Because I think it's challenging, it's tough, it's a big investment, they want too much per square foot. I personally think that the kiosk and especially retail business is terrible. That's just my opinion. I just think retail, in general, is bad so when it falls down to that and what you see malls do is go away from branded products and good looking kiosks in the past to getting anything they can get in there. It's now like a flea market. So I really don't think it's a very good business unless malls turn around and change it. As far as retail goes you're making a huge commitment to what you're getting in front of customers. Right now I think it's very difficult to get in to retail and be able to scale. But if your product is small enough and you have the ability that you can get people to run them independently then yes I would not sign a lease all over the country as an independent company and then try to make it work for one hug and then have 25 or 30 locations. It's not a good business plan. I think some people have to go to retail. Luckily I'm right now knock on wood I'm not in that position to have to do that. It's not a tremendous business but it's not a bad place to start if you have to. Joe: Okay I got you. Alright Pat you've been an entrepreneur for 30 years, there a lot of folks out there that are just starting off on their entrepreneurial journey some of them are 20 years old, some of them are 50 years old and are quitting the corporate world any last minute advice for those that are just beginning that you can share? Pat: Yeah don't quit your job until you have a built business. I mean I talk to my sons, my sons don't work in my business because we know that I can … first of all, I need them to go and find their own way. And I want them to be able to go out and understand what it takes day to day to be able to work at this job and bride. If they were working for me then I know that they would get a little bit of a sense of complacency. But I tell them if you want to start a business start it while you have a job. Something that is not taking you away from a job, not like you're living and working for someone all day and then taking some of those money. See if you can make a run in whatever product or business you want to do, keep your income so you don't add that stress. There's a stress to starting a business you need to make sure you have an income. If you can figure out how to make that and navigate that as a new entrepreneur, then I think that you have an ability to have a good balance. Either way, you have to be ultra-excited about it and willing to do anything. I'll give you a great story and I know that some people may have heard some of the podcasts, I had a guy that was an entrepreneur here in Louisville that I work for at that golf shop and I told him I said I'm going to go start a business I think I'm going to leave this job is there any advice you can give me? And he said well you're moving from a meal ticket to a suit lot and understand that's not going to be easy. There're going to be days when you're going to worry if you can even have food on the table or whatever it's going to be and you're not going to have a fall back. You're not going to have that check coming on Friday and you better hope it shows up in the mail paying some of your receivables so you're not going to have anything. And it's stressful and some people look at the excitement of taking a product and taking it to market and say hey I can do this so I could really make this work but they don't understand the other intricacies to running a business and stress that comes with that. It's not easy so the biggest thing is just to make sure you're prepared for that. Number two, I'd like you to keep the job and then I would find some mentors to put around you. A board that is a pseudo-board; it may not have to be a board of directors, it's not that sophisticated but people that can help you understand and navigate the problems that you're going to go through. You're going to find them. Joe: Awesome, that's great advice. Pat Yates, HappyFeet.com thanks for coming on the show we'll talk to you soon. Pat: BuyHappyFeet, B-U-Y HappyFeet. Joe: There you go BuyHappyFeet.com I'm going to go buy some. Thanks, man. Pat: Thank you Joe. Links and Resources: Happy Feet Pat's LinkedIn Profile

The Private Equity Process

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 12, 2019 45:55

Since 2013 Quiet Light's average transaction size has grown up to ten times. Back in those days, there were no private equity firms poking around the e-commerce space for these listings. Today it is a completely different story and more often than not we're seeing private equity firms come into the buyer spectrum. In fact, once a business reaches a certain size, it is more likely than not that a seller's potential buyer is going to be in the private equity space of the buyer pool. Today we are going to dissect the PE process a bit further. We'll delve into the process, the advantages and disadvantages, and give a general education on the subject for those who are curious about it how it works. Today's guest, Brian Rassel, is Vice President of Private Equity with Huron Capital. He's responsible for sourcing, evaluating, and analyzing investments made by his firm. Brian delves into ways he finds that e-commerce has entered into almost sector of investment that his group is involved in these days. Prior to joining Huron Capital, Brian was an Associate at Prophet, a global growth strategy consulting firm. Prior to Prophet, Brian was a consultant with New England Consulting Group where he led project management in their private equity practice for buy-side clients. Brian is sharing his wealth of private equity experience and how PE is entering more and more into the e-commerce space. Episode Highlights: How Brian defines private equity. How PE funds traditionally start up and get solidified. The difference between small, medium and large equity funds. The holding periods that private equity funds usually need to secure capital. Is PE all about acquiring to grow and sell or is there a category for buy and hold? Do evergreen funds exist? The difference between platform and bolt-on investments. Three things funds do to generate deal flow and types of business spaces they favor. The behind-the-scenes processes of putting a deal together. How many people are involved in the deal on the PE side. The backend investors committee and if that hinders the deal for the seller. Why time commitment is actually a good thing. How many deals Brian's PE firm evaluates per year. The defined process that gets them through the numbers. The growth potential for e-commerce – multiple appreciations and the role of private equity. Brian frames an ideal acquisition structure based on the general private equity model. Why the buyer/seller fit really matters. How private equity can work for sellers who want to get their business to the next stage. Transcription: Joe: Back in 2013 Mark I closed 23 transactions. It was a busy year for me. Do you have any idea what the average transaction size was? Mark: I … what do I guess? Well, it's you so I'm going to say like seven million dollars. Joe: I love putting you on the spot because you do it to me all the time. The average transaction size— Mark: You got to be like 250. Joe: It was 125. Mark: Holy cow. Joe: 125; very small. Mark: Okay. Joe: And at that time there were no Private Equity Firms poking around the e-commerce space for these smaller listings. Today it's a completely different story and my average transaction size was 10 times that last year. And a lot of buyers or a lot of sellers, the question I get asked all the time are who are your buyers? And it's a mix of everyone but more often than not now we're seeing Private Equity Firms come into this space. And I understand you had an expert in that area on the podcast. Mark: Yeah private equity is a topic that's coming up more and more frequently with sellers especially on the higher end of that revenue spectrum that we really work with. And it makes sense because once you get to a certain size of business your buyer is more likely than not going to be at least somewhat in the private equity place … area of the buyer pool. In addition, we've talked before … I had Ryan Tansom on and we talked about selling to a strategic buyer versus a marketplace buyer. And obviously, people always look at this especially at the higher ends and say I kind of want to have a strategic buyer. Well, one thing to keep in mind here is that this is kind of a spectrum right? It's not binary; you're either strategic or marketplace. But when you get into that private equity world, private equity is almost always going to be something of a strategic play. So I thought … look this private equity world is something that people keep asking about let's actually start to dissect it a little bit. So Brian and I talked and we spent probably about half of this interview just kind of going over what is private equity. How does that work? What is the definition of this? What are the sizes of it? And really just trying to ask some of those silly questions that maybe you kind of wonder about but don't want to ask because you don't want to sound like you don't know what you're talking about. And so we went over a bunch of those questions but then we also went over what does the process looked like. What does it look like to sell to a private equity firm? What are the drawbacks to it and what are the benefits of it as well? And really it's kind of a general education podcast but I think also … and maybe more importantly for those of you out there who are thinking about selling down the road and you're looking and trying to peg the different values that you want to get from an exit and maybe you think well I want a 10 million dollar exit or a 15 million dollar exit, if you get to that point what's it going to look like to sell to a private equity and what do you need to do to really make yourself appealing for a Private Equity Firm? And how does the deal change when you're signed to private equity as well. So we really covered a lot of ground in about 30 minutes. Brian is super knowledgeable obviously. He works in this space. And I really appreciated him coming on the podcast because … again I just downloaded a ton of information. Joe: Well let's get right to it. Mark: All right Brian thanks for joining me on the podcast. I really appreciate you coming on. Brian: Yeah I know. It's great to be here. Thanks for hosting. Mark: All right so I don't expect people to listen … my guests to have listened to the podcast in advance and I know … I don't know if Joe's been doing this, he records like 9 out of 10 episodes and I don't know if he's continued on the tradition but we like to have our guests introduce themselves mainly because you know your story better than I know your story and I figure it's a little bit easier. So why don't you give just kind of a quick 30 second to one minute rundown on who you are? Brian: Yeah I'm Brian Rassel. I'm a vice president with Huron Capital Partners which is a middle market private equity firm based at Detroit Michigan. The firm is 20 years old and has invested in … we're typically enthralled buyout investors where we'll buy a majority of a business and have done that through five successive fawns starting back in 1999. And the industries that we play in are business services, consumer, and specialty manufacturing. You know it'd kind of be interesting how I got to know you Mark for those listening is that believe it or not all of those basins are being affected by e-commerce or different kind of SaaS business models that are internet based. And I'm taking it upon myself to maybe be the person of the firm who is trying to understand those influences on all of our companies and make sure that we're in a position to incorporate those changes that are going on out and new coming at large number and being done by a lot of people who probably listen to your podcast and make sure that we're bringing more of the [inaudible 00:05:51.4] in the businesses we own so that they can be successful today and be well into the 21st century. Mark: All right, well I got a lot of questions for you because this world of private equity is encroaching or coming into the internet business acquisition world more and more. And whether it's because at Quiet Light our deal value is moving up or private equity is starting to look at different price ranges and maybe this convergence of these worlds and also private equity looking more in the online space is just becoming an increasing topic that we're seeing more and more of. We're also seeing individuals that have started up on their own raising funds to do large acquisitions or to string acquisitions together. Brian: Yeah. Mark: So what I'd like to do and I already kind of told you this in our conversation before I hit record, I'd like to go over some of the basics here of the private equity world and how it looks in the Internet space as well. And then know a little bit more about your fund and some of the things that you guys are doing over there and all that. So a quick shout out to Chris from Centurica and Rhodium I know that we've talked about him so much that it's almost as if he's a sponsor. He's not. But this is again how we got introduced. You spoke at the Rhodium and then you and I had a chance to speak after that and a good conversation. So thanks Chris for the introduction again. So let's start out really really basic here. How do you define private equity? Brian: Private equity is capital … private capital being put to work in private businesses. And so I like to name [inaudible 00:07:22.6] for folks who really don't know much about it a little quick stat just kind of on the US economy. There are half as many publicly listed companies as there were in 1996 or 1994 something like that. So even if the value of the public markets is larger the amount of places you can park that capital in the public markets is small in the total number of listed names. Private equity is a big part of either big institutionally managed money. Whether that's from insurance companies, [inaudible 00:07:52.4], pension funds, universities, those kinds of things. This is their way to go participate in the forces of economy that are still private companies that they can't get access to otherwise unless folks like me help them get access to it. It also includes folks that can kind of go into different flavors of private equity but depending on the size from the bing capitals of the world down to very very small funds that are more entrepreneurial. There's sort of every flavor under design in certain family offices and other things like that. That would be private equity, pooled private capital going into private businesses. Mark: Well how did these funds start-up traditionally? And I imagine that there's a lot of ways that they can start up. You've listed a number of sources of money and I think sometimes we forget just how much money there is in some of these places. So yeah [crosstalk 00:08:46.6]. Brian: For sure I mean there's just [crosstalk 00:08:49.4] I'm going to get this off, I'll be wrong by a hundred billion dollars. But I think something like 600 billion dollars flowed into private equity firms last year. So these … and the source of a fund or the way a fund works is that a fund manager like the folks I work for here where I'm a part of, they go out and they make their pitch about how talented their professionals are and what their track record is and the fact that they can get access to great deal flow and great opportunities, places to put private capital where it will go earn a reasonable return. And they raise this money from these other institutional or independent investors. It could be high in net worth individuals or anybody like that but … so they get started that way. They'll hold this farm estate back to the 1960s and there are new ones being created all the time. And frankly, as hedge funds have declined I believe in a large way in popularity just because of the efficiency of public markets there's been more and more money directed towards these private pools of capital and the private equity market. And when I say private equity I mean both kind of traditional buy-out funds for more mature businesses that have healthy positive cash flows on the one hand and on the other hand I mean venture capital is the son segment of private equity. And that might be for really really high growth businesses like the next dewberry of the world or whatever it might be. Mark: Right, absolutely. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. And as far as the breakdown as to sizes what would you consider to be a small private equity firm and what are we talking about in terms of their capitalization rates when they start up? What would be the difference between the small, medium, large type of firms? We can get an idea for how much money we're actually dealing with? Brian: So I would say just kind of from my understanding again all this caviada being dead this is sort of Brian Rassell's take on private equity and my interpretation and may not really be the opinions of United Capital, I can only speak for myself as an individual but they have a dedicated fund. And when I say dedicated fund these are groups of people that other folks, other investors have made a promise and a pledge that is legally binding and written their name at the bottom that that dedicated fund, the small one might be 50 million dollars. That'd be very small. Folks who are trying to invest less than that, generally speaking, have something more akin to a pledge fund. They have a number of people that they can pass the hat with to raise money in a deal by deal basis versus having committed capital to go invest in five, six, 10, 12 companies in that particular fawn. So just kind of … back at the envelope type map that you can think of is every firm should have plus or minus roughly 10 investments that have enough diversification in it. So a 50 million dollar fund is looking to put five million dollars to work in the 10 different companies. And that would be the equity capital going to those companies. There's oftentimes a mix of equity and debt coming into those companies and we could talk about that later. And then a midsize fund might be three or four hundred million up and pawn up to the 2KR's of the world or Apollo or the very big managers who are doing 15 billion dollar funds and so all different world. Mark: Very. Brian: They're taking hotels private or something like that. Mark: I was going to say they're buying something completely different than your Amazon business. Brian: Yeah that's right. It's a whole different world. Mark: All right you talked about you have successive funds. In my understanding again is that we go through these rounds of investment that coming up. We had Andy Jones from PrivateEquityInfo.com on and he talked a lot about the holding periods that private equity looks for. Can you just again quickly touch on that? We're kind of doing private equity 101 here. Brian: Yeah. I didn't hear Andy's remarks but just as it relates to a whole period I would think of it just to be linear about it that a private equity firm once our capital is raised [inaudible 00:13:01.9] the time that it takes to raise that money they committed capital or even the past they had capital they're going to take that money and let's just use this fictional 50 million dollar fund. And they'll take something like four years to deploy the first 80% of it. And the goal would be you take 20% of that money and get it into a new platform company. Companies they had no money in before. In the first year or the next year next 20%, next year next 20%, next year next 20% thus 80%. The point at that point you can't do necessarily new investments you're reserving that last 20% for either a company that's struggling that you need to give more money to to keep it going or to do an add on investment to buy something else and add it on to something that's in the portfolio. That might take four or five years to really deploy the majority of it and then another four to five … you know an investment from year one that you only … you're exiting that investment three to seven years later and let's just use five as kind of a round middle of the road number there. So an investment from year one is maybe gone in year six so it's being harvested. It could be sooner, it could be later. And the investment that was your last platform investment from year four might be heading out the door in year eight or nine. So fund life is something like eight to ten years. It can be longer. And a traditional as you kind of draw it up on the whiteboard like I have behind me here is sort of a five year hold. Now there's … I've seen many that are much much shorter and many that are much much longer but those are the fat parts of the [inaudible 00:14:36.2] if you want. Mark: Sure. So is private equity … is the goal of all private equity companies to grow and sell? So acquire, grow, sell, or are there other strategies? Buy it and hold for long periods of time? Brian: There are certainly evergreen funds out there. They're much more … when I say evergreen they have the ability to hold and recycle the capital. They may be designed to have heard of a number that has committed capital from particularly family offices that never want to do the tax consequences of becoming liquid in an investment and actually realizing the gains so they're structured to reinvest the money that they make. Or if they sell something to quickly find someone else new for it to go into. Now that would be a more unique situation. And then certainly family offices there's a number out there that looks for longer hold periods and there are certain funds that are designed for a longer hold period. Mark: All right so this is going to be again another basic question but I want to make sure our terms are all well-defined here. We hear these terms of platform versus bolt on or add on investments. Just real quick the difference between a platform investment versus a bolt on. Brian: Yeah I'll just keep it simple. I'll say anything that is a brand new business, new industry for that firm to go into. They don't currently own something in that space. Whether that's a tiny initial acquisition or a big one that would be the platform investment. So let's just say with a … I don't know Internet broker pencils, I'm just making this up, all right? And they don't have any other investments in the internet broker pencils space and they invest in a company in that space that would be the platform [inaudible 00:16:17.1] that. And maybe there are 10 companies that make … that do internet broker pencils and they buy two other ones of their competitors and they make it bigger or somebody [inaudible 00:16:25.3] and now they're putting it all together those might be add-ons to that original entity that they purchased or recapitalized. That's what we mean. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with size which can be confusing. Sometimes you start with something small and you get the opportunity and do an add-on that's much bigger than the original investment. So it's more just where is the starting point in you can do a space or an industry. Mark: And if we think about the terms it makes sense right? Brian: Yeah. Mark: You build on top of the platform and you add-on top of the platform. So it makes … that makes complete sense. Brian: Or bolt-on, yup that's where the nomenclature comes from. Mark: Or bolt-on, absolutely. It's amazing when you dig in to definitions it's like the terms actually have a meaning and it makes sense. Brian: They do. Generally, they come from somewhere. Mark: They come from somewhere. There's logic to this stuff. I love it. All right so now I'll get into questions that I'm starting to be genuinely interested in and that is how does a fund develop a thesis or an entire direction to go after a particular platform investment? I mean if you're selling blue widgets and also if somebody comes and says no you don't need widgets what you really need are sprockets, if you don't do anything with sprockets at all how does that enter into a fund's psyche at all? Brian: There's really three things that we're doing here to generate the sort of deal flow and the ideas and spaces we want to go into. So here I'll speak more from Huron Capital. There are other firms who follow a similar philosophy potentially. So the first is businesses we didn't know about but are being represented by a broker or an investment banker like yourself Mark who … those are opportunities that are coming to us. They are being listed. They're being actively shopped around. We may have never thought of the sprocket industry before or we didn't know too much about it or we read materials on it and we say it has a lot of characteristics and things we like; great cash flow, seems very resilient, seems countercyclical, if the economy goes down it'll still do well, it's a leader on its space, any of those kinds of things. Those are opportunities that come to us and that is more of a passive thing. And then we get active once we realize that it fits a lot of criteria and we believe we could be successful with it. And that sets into motion a whole chain of things where we kind of prove out of the pieces that we might like this business and we try to get educated. The second that we spend a lot of time on is networking with executives from a broad, broad variety of industries. Those people know where there are spaces that are changing. And generally speaking, change creates opportunities. Change creates winners on one side and losers on the other side. And less be to the losers but you need that kind of disruption to create any sort of sort interesting investment outcome. The study ID is probably the market's sufficient enough that the study ID is not going to return the greatest returns. So we've spent a lot of time with executives unless I knew them about spaces that could be interesting and trying to listen to areas they know about and start to build some [inaudible 00:19:37.4]. And then even more proactively than that there's a lot of opportunities where we meet the executive who has a view of one particular thing they want to do here at Huron it's got a registered trademark or the like of the firm. We call that an exact factor investment where we will actually flip the process and say we really believe in the sprocket industry. We met Phil who is going to be our perspective CEO in the space and he has this vision that is going to totally turn the industry [inaudible 00:20:11.5]. To do that we need to go find the platform, we call that like getting fuel behind the wheel. We need to find a car to fulfill the drive. We believe he's the best driver in that industry. And we will do all the work, we'll go write a hundred page white paper on it to prove to our investment committee why it's such a fabulous opportunity and Phil is the greatest operator in this space. And then we will commit dollars into going and finding businesses in that space and find Phil the car he can drive and we'll get off to the races that way. So it starts with a commitment from our farms for a certain amount of money behind Phil to go do an acquisition more and more in this space. So it … I guess ranges from that passive we find things and then we get educated too. We educate ourselves as much as possible and align ourselves with an executive who can execute and work the process the other way. Mark: Cool. All right that [inaudible 00:21:04.07]. So let's talk a little bit about the process that goes on behind the scenes when you are evaluating an opportunity. And I think for a lot of potential sellers this sort of conversation is going to be really insightful. So let's say we have somebody that they have an e-com business, 30 million in revenue, eight, nine million in earnings on an annual basis and they've got a couple of private equity firms looking at their business. Where does that start and what is the process going through? And you can talk about maybe Huron's process and then if there are variations that you know as well. The number of people that are going to look and touch that deal as it goes through the steps. Brian: Yeah. Mark: What are some of those behind the scenes looks? Brian: Yeah so once you've got that moment where there's a couple of firms interested there's going to be an incredible amount of information about the business across insurance, benefits, compliance with laws and regulatory statutes, information about the market; anything the business can possibly produce about itself, fairly every file that's off the shelf that they have, every non-disclosure agreement they have with somebody that they on boarded or employment agreement, every contract they have with a customer, or maybe it's an industry where you don't have a lot of contracts with customers but you have a lot of contracts with suppliers. All that information needs to be made available for these perspective buyers to digest. And the more they can be made available, the more that that's organized into different pockets of legal, employee, insurance, benefits, all of that, the better. It's going to save the company a lot of time from serving requests versus being proactive by getting that stuff out there. And you know well everything here all the buyers be under a non-disclosure agreement and that's just a very kind of well-oiled machine around making that information available to give your last few buyers down to the one you would like to choose and have them under a Letter of Intent. And that starts to be an exclusive relationship where the buyer is going to spend a lot of money in due diligence and in exchange for spending that money, they would like the exclusive right to [inaudible 00:23:19.3] business for a period of time. 60 days … 90 days where they engage and here is where it starts to get to be a lot more kind of in your trousers and really analyzing your business but they're going to engage in quality of earnings earned to go and understand did you actually produce the amount of revenue, if you put it in the right time periods, if you really counted for every cost etcetera. They're going to engage legal professionals who are going first to sort of just again a full work up of registration, compliance, [inaudible 00:23:51.9] and then those folks are going to work on the actual transaction documents as well as a host of other advisors. And that would be like again a 60 to 90 day process. It could be 30 days on the short end. There are firms who can do it in that time particularly if you're a smaller business and an add-on to a much larger or a very simple business. Mark: So how many people are we talking about there that are going to be involved in the process? Outside of the consultants like a Q of E … a quality of earnings report that's going to be an outside accounting firm right? Brian: Yeah. Mark: So we're not going to— Brian: Okay so from the acquiring firm? Mark: Mm-hmm. And we can start at the beginning. We can start at your interns that are digesting deals. That's going to be part one. Brian: Sure call it four and they're going to be answering to the remainder of their firm particularly their investment committee. Ideally, it's a tighter team and there's four and if it's an add-on expect more. So you'll have the management team of that kind of platform investment as well. So four to eight and then when you get to the advisor well now you're talking 20 something more. Mark: Right, getting all those outside advisers. Now one of the things I know people get worried about during this process is you start out again with that guy who's that in deals up front and he sees some he passes it on to the team and they end up liking it so now you're dealing with a handful of people that are asking the questions digging deep in that due diligence right? Pages and pages of collecting information possibly even submitting an offer because on the surface things look okay. Brian: Yup. Mark: There seems to be these back end investors committee as well which can also kind of wash the deal far in the process. What would you say to people that get kind of frustrated when they hear that and they think do I really want to work with private equity because there are so many people that could potentially disrupt this deal? Brian: So I would think about the time investment to it. So the private equity firm is in no way interested in wasting any of their time. Huron looks at something like little over a thousand deals a year. That takes a lot of time and we're very thoughtful about moving things to the funnel and connecting our firm's resources to evaluating an opportunity. So if somebody is spending the time I would tell the listeners that they are encouraged. If everything checks out the way I told to them so far or they've written so far about that business then there are absolutely no issues. The firm, an organized and real firm is going to be thoughtful and time is kind of their most valuable resource and they're set up to be able to make a number of staged gates kind of we're interested and we're not interested. We're interested subject to confirm affirmation I want two and three. And you can have a very quick conversation like you and I are having now to say is this the case is this not the case? Here's a big concern we have, should we be worried? And they will both take your answer and that gives them that kind of gumption to proceed. And they'll probably have to go validate that as well later. And that validation just has to support what's been told to them. But they are also making a big commitment with their time in the same way that the seller is and I would take it as genuine on their part that they're not looking for it to fall apart. It's just things do. Certain deals fall apart because new information becomes available. I've seen that happen a number of times where the seller learns things about their business or thinks about their business in a way they hadn't before and can agree that that's a genuine risk and may be something they want to work out within a course of another year and then they might be back to market. Mark: Yeah, that happens often. We see that all the time even in the amount of work that we put a seller through upfront it pales in comparison to what you guys are going to be doing in your actual dig deep due diligence. And the number of times that we have people come back and tell us that was a lot of work but that was really useful. Brian: Yeah. Mark: I have learned a lot about my own business, right? Brian: Yeah a great advisor like somebody like you and using a broker who's been through and understands the questions that are going to be asked is going to save a tremendous amount of time. And we call folks like you Mark a river guide we're using on our side and we love them. Sellers use them too because they're that much more prepared for the process. Mark: Yeah. And I can tell you like the one thing that … I'm going to play both sides here, I would say the one thing that can be difficult with working with private equity is because there are so many people that can come in with a dissenting viewpoint. You're not trying to … convince is a bad word but show the opportunity to one person and have them agree to it; you're having to show a number of people. But the great thing and I love working with private equity on is that it's completely unemotional throughout the process. Brian: Yeah. Mark: I mean it really is does this check the boxes we needed to check and if it doesn't we're going to find out as quick as we can. You said something, I was going to ask this question, you guys evaluate you said about a thousand deals per year? Brian: Yeah the pipeline you think about now it's working its way down at the top of the funnel and so we're a thousand and then that's working its way down to 250 that real solid time is being spent on and then 75 that we're spending real tons of resources and traveling around to visit them … maybe 80. Now I'll get these numbers wrong this is kind of directional and then down to the 30 or so that are getting a Letter Of Intention and we'll close 22 transactions a year. Mark: Yeah so that's an amazing amount of data to be pulling in. And you guys have criteria at every stage I assume that you're looking for up front? Brian: That's right. Mark: Okay. All right that makes sense. Do you publish those criteria? I know we get a lot of just the very broad stuff sent to us. Brian: We don't only because it's just so bespoke for every company. There are so many things that really are as you just said that are check the box and we're highly confident that we will go confirm later. We're highly confident that's not an issue and we are trying to get to it very, very quickly. The three or four things we want to make sure are the reasons we're most excited and confirm that that is factual and that was going to continue. Whatever that might be; on the customer relationship or the recurring purchasing or … whatever it might be. And then at the same time the three or four things that are kind of we're concerned that could be deal killers. We believe we're spending the time because we think that's going to turn out to be true or we need to get to a yes no about is this a real problem very, very quickly. And so you know it's just they're different for every business. Mark: Yeah I know a lot of people listening right now you guys are buyers that are out there looking to acquire. So technically Brian you guys are somewhat of competitors although I think that you operate at a range that a lot of our buyers wouldn't. But I think one thing interesting that they should hear is this idea of having this defined process number one and then number two the amount of deal flow that you have to look at. I've talked to buyers that been out there looking for a year, year and a half but then you find out the number of deals that they're actually looking at doesn't really … this is a numbers game. I mean it's purely a numbers game. Brian: It is and one thing I want to say on that numbers game for us and it may be different for some of your buyers or not is that we're looking for situations that are great for us and we're also looking for situations where the seller in some ways choosing us. Now I don't want to overstate that but I do want to say that there has to be a great fit in every piece and why we're a better owner than someone else for that business. Some angle that we have, some affinity we have for what they do, or some prior experience or something. Otherwise and it could be a little different for particularly small businesses. Maybe it's a little bit less like that and it doesn't need as much of the chemistry but that's a big part of what we're looking for, for sure. Mark: And we talk about that a lot on these pockets. I know you guys are probably tired of hearing Joe and I talk about the need for a buyer being a good fit. And we talked a lot about this general concept of being likable because sellers do eventually choose and for most of these sellers they do have a choice. I mean right now it's a seller's market. They do have a choice of who they're going to work with. I want to talk about the exciting stuff. Let's talk about the actual deals; the money. Brian: Sure. Mark: Why is selling to a private equity something that people should be excited about? Brian: I think I spoke a little bit about this at Rhodium but I just … I see then the difference in multiples that are paid for businesses that are exclusively e-commerce or SaaS based businesses. Those multiples are so much lower than what private equity firms are paying for more traditional businesses out in the economy. And I believe that those worlds will come together. And I believe that businesses that are a hybrid of both or have excellence in both and are flipping both worlds are going to be extremely, extremely valuable. Because on the one hand, they have the relevance for the future, it's coming from kind of the types of businesses that you represent. And also they have that anchor of the traditional business that makes them more under writable and it makes them more predictable because it's a less dynamic place that they're out in. And so that's where I think private equity firms in the coming two, three, four, five years are number one going to become much more comfortable with standalone e-commerce business models that are exclusive that and there are going to be people participating from the much more kind of like formal private equity world participating in your markets. And then I think there's going to be a convergence where a lot of more traditional business models are going to look for the influence and the DNA as well as the revenue and the profits but the influence and the DNA and the growth that comes from the types of businesses you work with Joe. And I think that means that the market that you're playing in, the multiples will rise there. For every dollar of earnings they'll be more valuable in the future and I believe that's for now in a very significant way in 2018. Mark: Yeah and we talked about this this idea of multiple appreciation that we see. And a lot of it reaches over to the fact that this is where private equity starts to play right? So we often talk if your EBIDTA is less than a million dollars per year the … just again for the sake of a multiple, it's going to vary for each business but maybe 3 … maybe 3.5 would be the multiple on that EBIDTA depending on the type of business that you have. But once you start getting up into two, three, four million dollars of EBIDTA now we start seeing the multiples jump up in the different ranges. And the reason for this again is that we're no longer playing as much with an individual investor who really has a much higher risk profile because they don't necessarily have the entire team behind them or a portfolio behind them to be able to take some of that risk but also get the staff in the background and all the resources in private equity. Brian: Yeah. Mark: So let's talk … I am not going to pin you down because it would be a really bad idea for you to say hey we generally paid 25x on earnings which I know you don't. What does a deal structure often look like? Because I know these deals structures do change as well when we're talking about a private equity acquiring a small company. What does an ideal acquisition look like for you in terms of its structure of cash that the owner is going to be getting, maybe equity or debt that you would hope that they stay around and I'd also like to address the idea that a lot of private equity likes to have or prefers to have an owner stay on board with the new company and why that's a good thing also for that owner to think about that. So that's a lot; the general structure, the ideals for a structure. Brian: Okay so let's keep this out of your space and let's just talk about the general PE model. When deals were cheaper a couple of years ago you might get a higher ratio of debt than equity in a deal but for this sake, I'm just going to make it 50-50. I think that more reflects the market today in terms of underwriting. But let's take a deal where a private equity firm is paying at least eight times. That's still a relatively rich multiple. I could have said six but let's use eight times. So we're paying four times the earnings in their own cash that they're talking and they are going and putting the company on the hook or raising four times and they do it. Private equity firm does it but on behalf of the company of debt for the business to take on. So let's say it's a business with 10 million dollars of EBIDTA. So it's an 80 million dollar transaction and a firm like Huron is putting 40 million of equity and raising 40 million of debt in that transaction. And that 40 million of equity can come either from Huron or some portion of it could be rolled over from the seller. If that seller has no debt on the business today, no capital leases or anything else that could be thought of as indebtedness over the normal trade payables. And in your day to day you've got cash coming in and cash going out; that thing that keeps the shop running. And they have no debt on the business theoretically on the day of closing they're getting a check for 80 million dollars. If they choose to roll over some of that … let's just say 10% of the purchase price, eight million of it I would argue that a private equity firm or somebody like me would take that as them stating a high degree of confidence in the future of the business that they want to continue participating and have a relatively [inaudible 00:37:34.7] portion of their net worth tied up in that outcome. Or that they see the opportunity to turn that eight million into 16 or whatever it might be that there is a great opportunity to continue driving growth and equity value in that business. They'll … I start there that the rollover investments are very useful because if you're saying you want to do no roll over whatsoever and you just want to walk away from the business it's not conveying a lot of confidence in the future of the business. There are certainly reasons to do that but it's not conveying a lot of confidence in the future of the business. And where somebody might have been agreeing to pay you eight if you were rolling over and giving that kind of tacit support for the business going over, they might kind of say this is we're not so sure. It makes them a little more nervous and it might be a seven times deal. So you may actually be shooting yourself in the foot in terms of the total proceeds you perceive. Again so it's an 80 million dollar deal, 40 million of debt, the seller is choosing to roll over. They got their 80 million dollar check, it doesn't work like this you're actually [inaudible 00:28:28.9] but they got their 80 million dollar check and maybe we wrote one back for eight and so Huron holds 32 million of the equity and that seller holds eight million of it. So Huron owns 80% of the business and they own 20% and we've got some obligations to pay. That would be kind of the middle of the road structure. There's certainly a lot more that happens as it relates to creating incentives for management teams and that's a very, very big part of what we do to make sure that if we do well they do well and vice versa so that we're all talking in terms of growing the underlying equity value of the business. And that can often be very different for a business that didn't have that before. And it was just solely kind of the founder driving it or minding the growth of equity value. We believe in creating a broad base of ownership so that we're all on the same page. Mark: Yeah. Brian: Our management team is on incentives exclusively through their salary or bonus or both. Mark: Right so one of the things that I've talked a lot in the past especially on like the main street sort of deals is this almost dichotomy and it really shouldn't be set up as a dichotomy of a marketplace based sale where you only have an investor looking to acquire business in a strategic sale where you have a company that it would effectively be like an add-on acquisition in your world right? They already have the sort of strategic advantage to acquiring that company. Within your world, it seems like so much of what you do is going to be the strategy based type of acquisition anyways. Brian: Right. Mark: So it's like you're not going to do an acquisition unless you think that you have a strategic advantage. And when we … you and I talked out in Las Vegas back last October one thing that you talked about quite a bit was we want to pour gasoline on the fire that's already existing. So whatever that might be and so as a seller who's out there thinking about this and saying man I've been growing my business like crazy but I'm investing all this cash back into acquiring more inventory and expanding the product line and I'd like to take money off the table and then keep growing it. This is that perfect sort of handoff to a private equity because you can say you know what you [inaudible 00:40:54.0] your income statement rich in cash flow pour. Brian: Yup. Mark: We got cash. We'll help you out there. You're going to get some cash on the table and then let's grow this from a 30 million dollar business to a hundred million dollar business. Brian: Right. Mark: And so there's an incentive there for that owner to double dip that [inaudible 00:41:11.7]. Brian: Absolutely. Particularly in situations … we see this all the time where additional capital is going to be an accelerant to growth. So capital is what we have and we're trying to find a smart place to put it work and if that means we can buy a business and continue and support that business with more dollars and we believe in the strategy and what's going on in the way it's being operated there's nothing … that's the easiest dollar for us to put out versus the whole re-under writing process of a new investment. And then for that seller to have all their eggs in one basket … I don't care what their life situation is they could be in their 30's and just want to diversify or they could be somebody who's looking at kids who are about to go to college and it just doesn't make sense to have 100% of their net worth or close to it tied up in their business. And if they could diversify a little bit or generate a little bit of cash but their vision hasn't changed at all that's a great situation to bring on a strategic partner like a private equity firm. And that's where that [inaudible 00:42:11.9] fit it really matters and the chemistry between the seller. For the most part, you're not going to sell it to a private equity firm, they don't want to be in the business or definitely not in the business of operating these companies. So round the business and investing in them helping to bring the right resources to it and bring the right capital solutions or capital availability all that. Helping them set strategy and all the other things but the actual day to day operations. So it's not going to be for your sellers or for buyers [inaudible 00:42:45.1] sellers who are looking to exit the business and hand it off somebody else private equity is not going to be the right solution. But for those companies that they either want to go to be a division of something larger and they think they can be a great cross selling opportunity or the way they've built their mousetrap if just they had more to sell in the same way, and I'll say like let's say you're the number one muffler seller online and you also want to do transmissions and drive cams and stuff but you don't have the capital and you don't have the ability to go source and expand that way, going and selling to a larger entity and being that e-commerce division is a very powerful idea. Or just continue and do your own business and double down … accelerate the organic growth, private equity firm could be a great partner. Mark: Yeah, we're just about out of time in fact we've gone a bit long but one thing I wanted to emphasize here, you said that capital obviously is the resource you guys have and are able to invest and I know a lot of people that I talk to say look I don't really need money from this, the business is making money and I feel good about this. But what I find when I actually start to dig in with these guys is I say well what would it take to move to that next level. Oh well, I would have to hire out this other division or create this other division and you know okay but what's the obstacle to that? I don't want to invest in it. It often comes up. Okay, that's the area where a firm like yours can also come in and say well look we have the capital to be able to invest in this. You know what you need; do you want to invest in it to get to that next stage? And even if that means bringing in someone and you can help with that let's do it. Exactly we can do that and we could— Brian: Not to mention that I think we find that often business owners are willing to do one out of their five ideas that are like that and were willing to do all five knowing that three won't work but two should work out beautifully and we're willing to go [inaudible 00:44:39.4] the bodies of the business and the capital and have the appetite to take two steps backward to take four forward and understand that they're not going to all work. And where maybe an independent owner would do those sequentially, try idea one it wasn't really working, didn't feel pleased with making that investment and losing that cash flow, fired that new sales person who was supposed to do something else. We're willing to go do things faster and make sure that that doesn't hover around in the business and the core of what we're interested in the first place. And so we'll work through that with the business owner by giving them that support and the dollars needed to make that happen. Mark: Brian, I really appreciate you taking the time here [inaudible 00:45:19.8] some of the small questions I had but really good to get those things— Brian: No it's my pleasure. It's fine. Mark: So thanks again and maybe we'll have you back again in the future at some point. Brian: That sounds great. Yeah, I enjoyed it. Thanks, Mark. Links and Resources: https://www.huroncapital.com/member/brian-rassel/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianrassel

ceo amazon internet las vegas change vice president dna letter companies private id prophet apollo pe saas folks sellers pages intent generally private equity detroit michigan huron andy jones rhodium private equity firms quiet light mark you united capital brian it ebidta joe it mark yeah brian yeah mark well mark so mark right joe well brian there centurica brian no mark they mark all brian right mark okay mark brian brian not

Benefits of building a business without working yourself to death

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 12, 2019 31:35

Here at Quiet Light we often like to hire people who are just a bit smarter than us. Amanda Raab is one of those people. She has been helping our clients through her own expert entrepreneurial experience since 2012. Having started the famous Pure Pearls online retail company at just 25 years old, Amanda has gone on to buy and sell multiple businesses. She's with us today talking about the benefits of building a business without working herself to death. Amanda shares tips on how she's acquired multiple businesses, outsourced their growth, and sold them successfully. The buy versus build topic truly never gets old and every time we talk to a guest about it there is something new to be learned. Amanda makes a good case for both. Episode Highlights: Amanda takes us back to how she got started in the online world. Her pearl company story and the press surrounding her success. What it took for Amanda to realize she could hire people to run her businesses. The absentee owner business model that she's been able to replicate several times over. Reasons to hire someone who is good at every component of your business. What Amanda looks for when she's hiring and what building a solid team requires. How much she manages her creatives and monitors their input. Where Amanda lands on the buy vs build spectrum and why. The first areas Amanda outsources when starting a business? The last thing she would outsource. Amanda's number one piece of advice for buyers looking to invest in an internet business. Transcription: Joe: So one of the things that you and I have talked about over the last few years is that we keep hiring people that are smarter than us, maybe smarter than both of us combined which may not be saying much. Mark: Yeah you set the bar pretty high there Joe. Joe: For you anyway but Amanda is talking about a number of different things in this podcast coming up. Amanda and I started at the same time back in 2012 and I'm really looking forward to listening to it because honestly, I don't know that much about her history. But every time a new broker connects with her, talks with her, they get kind of blown away with her experience. Walker, as we all know, wrote a bestselling book and we like to make fun of him and prod him on and we're proud of him for it as well called Buy than Build and in this episode, Amanda's doing the opposite. She's talking about the benefits of building a business, outsourcing some of the things that people don't like to do themselves, and then actually selling them off. Kind of the opposite of what Walker talked about. Mark: I mean you're right she's kind of a more private person and I think I was working with her for three or four years before I realized that she was … or I even learned that she was featured in Time Magazine when she was in her young twenty's for some of the entrepreneurial work that she was doing. And she actually had a documentary filmed on her about sourcing pearls from China of all things. Joe: Oh. Mark: Yeah I know right? Joe: I didn't even know that. Mark: Yeah to think we've been working with her for seven years and you didn't know that there was a full documentary on this person that we've been working with. And also that she was invited and actually spoke at a conference. Did you know this Joe? She actually spoke at a conference in the past. Joe: She did? Mark: I know right. Joe: I have absolutely no idea. We're underutilizing her talents. There's no question about it. Mark: That's what I'm saying. And she is actually crazy smart, one of the most talented entrepreneurs that I know and have known. So in this conversation we ended up just talking a lot about her background because I wanted to find out just in this conversation what wisdom would come out and what revelation would come out of this and getting in a couple of things right away, finding out how did she start multiple businesses, grow them but not work herself to death because she's always building a new house or a new rental property. She's always got some other project with a business on the side. And then she's been working with us for as long as she has. So her time management skills are great. So we talked about this idea of how do you outsource your business people. And I know we've covered this before on past podcasts but I don't know if this topic really gets old because people are doing this in different ways and every time I talk to somebody about this I learn something new about how they're doing it. And so I asked her what is the first thing that you outsource when you start a business? And I'm not going to share the answer now because it actually surprised me a little bit as to what the first thing was and what the last thing was that she does. And then we talked about this idea of is it better to actually build a business or is it better to acquire a business and when should you look at both options? And I thought it was a pretty good conversation, a very honest conversation as well that hey there's room to actually start a business in this entrepreneurial world of ours where people might think we only want to talk about buying a business. She made a pretty good case for when it makes sense to actually start something from scratch. So a fun conversation honestly and really just lots of interesting tidbits of information throughout the entire podcast. Joe: Well I think it goes to the depth and breadth of the quality of people that you've hired at Quiet Light over the years so I'm looking forward to listening to it. Let's go on and so people can stop hearing us chatter. Mark: Well I'm going to say one more thing. Joe, did you know that she decided to start an affiliate business and within four months became the number one super affiliate for that product? Joe: You know I had no idea because the only one who I thought was ever a super affiliate was Jason because he wrote the Bathrobe Millionaire. Mark: He's our other author. Joe: He's our other author, our super affiliate. Wow, no I didn't know that. She's never said a word. I wasn't— Mark: Exactly, I love it. So anyway let's get to know Amanda a little bit and hear some of her past and some of the things that she has to say about online business. Joe: Let's go to it. Mark: All right Amanda thank you so much for finally agreeing to come in the podcast. I've been trying to get you on the podcast for a while but I know you've been building houses, building rental properties, doing business … starting businesses, and of course helping Quiet Light Brokerage clients as well. Amanda: Yes, I've been busy that's for sure. Mark: That's for sure. Amanda: So now I have some down time and I decided to take on the challenge of doing one of these podcasts. Mark: Yeah well, of course, doing the podcast is always a little bit interesting but I think again we're just going to have a conversation here about your background and everything else. So I tell … I don't want to embarrass you right off the bat here but when I talk about the Quiet Light Brokerage team to people I often say well Joe is a client, Jason is the one that kind of forced his way in the door of Quiet Light and I tried to scare him away by giving him all these awful leads and the next thing I know Jason is breaking every record in the book. Joe came on and has been doing the same. But when I talk about you I said … I always say one of the smartest buyers I've ever worked with. And that's how you and I initially met; you were looking at one of my transactions … a deal I had. Do you remember that deal? Amanda: Yes I do. Mark: Yeah. Okay so … and a real lot of competition for that deal but of all the buyers you're able to kind of hone in on some of the key metrics right away. [inaudible 00:06:06.8] was super impressed. I deal with a lot of buyers so super, super impressive. So let's do this. Let's go back a little bit to how you got started in the online world because you actually started with a website called PurePearls.com. You were featured in Time magazine at a super young age. And then you filmed a pearl documentary in China as well right? Amanda: Yes it's kind of crazy to think about it because that part of my life was much of a whirlwind. But I was actually in grad school when I started my pearl company and thought it would make a great hobby. Something as a creative outlet outside of the day to day just what I was doing already in grad school. And so it kind of just snowballed and I just loved it. I was super passionate about learning the business not just the pearl business but just e-commerce, internet marketing, what it would take to get in front of customers. And that opened up so many other opportunities from public relations to search engine optimization. At the time those were big channels for marketing and it just kind of went from there. At the time I was focused on the pearl company I realized there's much broader market and I started getting interested in other opportunities as well. I was invited to a conference in DC to do a speaking engagement for Yanik Silver's Mastermind Group. And as much as I do not like public speaking I decided to face my fears and do it. And I met so many awesome people there. And I just kind of basically looked at what everybody was doing and thought wow there's just so many things that we can be doing with this internet space. And that was kind of a long time ago so I'm thinking that was probably around 15 years ago. So at that point, I just started another company and built that company, sold the pearl company because it was exploding at the time and I just … I couldn't manage it all. So I kind of started small with my new company in the printing industry. So its check printing and I started five new websites. So I just kept building, building, building and developed relationship with manufacturers and started printing basically our own custom products. I scaled that up and realized that I could develop a team to make sure that was a lifestyle company and I didn't have to be in the business. And that's kind of where I got the idea of starting my self-company. Businesses that I did have to work in that I could work on building teams to run them and basically allowing me to do a lot of different things. And so I didn't have to focus on just one niche. Mark: I've just run being been in the business. I've met a guy over the weekend. I was at a conference in Los Angeles … not it the Internet marketing world it was just kind of a more generic business conference. And he used to be a professional fighter and then we were talking about his business career. He said well I have 13 companies so I founded 12 and acquired one. I'm like oh my goodness and he said well I don't really do that much I've put teams in place. And we've talked about this on the podcast as well. We had Shakil Prasla on twice talking about this and how he hires CEO's and puts people in place. And this seems to be kind of this recurring theme with a lot of what we're doing here talking about that. At what point did you learn to put people in place with your companies? What did it take for you to be like you know what I'm going to hire people? Was it … well did you have kind of like a moment where it kind of struck you or was it more organic over time that you realized this is a good way to go? Amanda: I'd say both; a combination. With my pearl company, I realized I needed to put systems in place because I wanted to do a lot of different things. And so I went to an event and I heard somebody speaking about outsourcing things that you don't like to do. And I was like wow that's really smart because when you run a business there are going to be things you don't like to do. There are those dreaded tasks that you put off and put off and put off right? But you need to do them to run a functional business. And so at that point, I started outsourcing things for the pearl company. When I first started obviously I was wearing all the hats in the company but then I started hiring a customer service person. I was lucky enough to have somebody to handle all of the manufacturing and the shipping for me, the packaging so I don't have to actually even touch the product. And from there I hired a marketing team, content writing and things like that. So basically all I did was make sure that the marketing was on point, develop new ideas for marketing channels, and keeping the books in line. And then when I brought on my new company Check Printing, a financial printing company, I kind of used the same system and developed it for that business and it worked really well. I started that from the very beginning and so it was very much an absentee owner business outside of me looking at new marketing channels and keeping the books and whatnot. And so I was able to replicate that with each of my other businesses as well. I think it comes out of a necessity because when you want to do a lot of things you realize you have to create these systems right? But also I don't think you can be really good at everything and I'm not. And so you hire people that are really good at each individual component. So somebody who's customer service is likely not to be the greatest at book keeping, right? And somebody who's great at Search Engine Optimization may not be that great at Facebook Marketing. So I think it's really important to hire somebody that is really in tune with each different component of the business. It just makes more sense. Mark: Okay so we're going completely off script here because we're going to talk about the buying versus building and kind of building off of Walker's episode that we filmed. You know Walker who is a … we always have to say now best-selling author Walker Diebel because he's done such a great job with his book Buy than Build. People are like … we're at CapCon this past weekend and we gave away his book and when people realize he was there like oh the author is here, oh that's super cool and like he's kind of a big deal. So we'll get to this I do want to talk about building versus buying and making sort of the argument of why would you want to build a business someday. But I want to go back something you're talking about here, hiring out different pieces. Okay, it sounds so easy to do to say hire a marketer and hire somebody who's really good at what they're doing. Okay, great. Look I've hired people before, I've fired people before, these are all … it's usually in the agency sort of roles. When you're looking for somebody to hire specifically for marketing let's delve into that, how do you A. qualify them or what do you look for? Are you looking for an agency? Are you looking for an individual that works for you directly? Or does it really matter to you? And then also how do you … you said keep the marketing message on point? How? What are you doing to keep that marketing message on point and to check that? Amanda: That's a great question. I was actually reading something last night that said there's no such thing as a getting rich quick scheme. They often take a lot of work to get there. Even though it sounds simple it's actually really difficult. And it kind of goes with the same thing that success is like an iceberg, you only see the top part but there's a huge component at the bottom to making that work. And so there's a lot of trial and error with that to find the right person. Obviously, there's going to be a lot of hiring and letting go and finding somebody else because you learn what you don't want, you learn what you actually need. And sometimes that can be an agency if they have all those components built in. So if they have everybody you're looking for and they're doing exactly what they say they're going to do and holding themselves accountable then great since that makes sense. And to me, that's ideal because there's less hand-holding and less training involved. A lot of times though, it does involve finding one contractor to do something very specific. And it does require constant monitoring to make sure that they're staying on task and basically meeting those milestones that you've put in place for them. So I think that building that team does come with trial and error. It does come with some unfortunate firing of team members because they're not performing. But at the end of the day finding those quality team members are what kind of drive your business. So it's really important to stay on top of it. Mark: Yeah and I think it's important as well when talking about letting people go. Like this is the unfortunate part of being an entrepreneur, sometimes you have to let people go. But I do think it's important to look at the options available to you as well. Maybe like you said somebody is really better suited for customer service and you can really apply that. I often think about like sports teams and what do they do right? Sports teams are often handicapped by who they actually have on their teams and so a lot of times they play to the strengths of the team members that they currently have. And so this is something that for those of you that are currently like me that kind of cringe at the idea of letting people go this is something that you can do; it's invest in the people that you do have to find out where they do thrive. That doesn't mean that you should just need and see hold on to somebody. Everybody is an adult and should understand that obviously, it has to be a good fit. But you can definitely invest in people as well. How involved do you get with that marketing message when you are taking a look? Let's say that you hire somebody to do some Facebook Marketing for you and they're going to set up the creatives and everything else. How closely are you monitoring their ad work and how much are you kind of saying okay I'm going to let you run and possibly fall and this is your gig … I guess my question is how do you avoid micromanaging versus letting them run wild with a completely wrong message? Amanda: Well that's a good question because I think that first of all I am a natural manager and anybody in my family will tell you that … so especially when it has to do with your marketing dollars and getting a return on investment. However, there are things that I just don't know how to do really well and … for example Facebook Marketing or an email, like Amazon PPC or something of that nature. And a lot of times you will be told that they need a ramp up period so they can kind of test campaign. See what's working and then dial in on a more targeted marketing after they do broader match term. And so they do require a period of time to really get those conversions up or an Amazon to take the a-cost down and so with that I really only check in every three months to see if they are meeting our goal. And if they're not then you have to decide okay am I going to give them another three months period or do I need to move on? And so … I mean it really depends on what it is, what channel. Obviously, with SEO, there is a really long period of time that you kind of have to wait to see if its working and that can be really hard for people who are not patient enough. Because with Google with all of the algorithms that have come through in the last couple of years it can take a lot longer than it did previously before that in the old school days to get results. So it just really depends whether it'd be Instagram, Facebook, where I think you can see a lot quicker results versus Amazon or Google PPC and SEO. It's just a completely different ballgame. Mark: Are you an old enough internet marketer … and I don't want to call you old but are you old school enough to remember the Google Dance? Amanda: Yes. Am I showing my age now? Absolutely. Mark: I'm so glad that we got that recorded that I'm here calling you old publicly to everybody. No, I just … you know I often … I love talking to entrepreneurs. I have been doing this for a while because we remember the Google Dance. Every 30 days or 45 days and then the forms will light up like all right the Google Dance is happening and you'd want to see where you … everything is shook out and did you gain, did you lose? How— Amanda: Worse than the stock market. I tell you … unbelievable, yes. I don't miss that. There's a lot more opportunities for diversification now it seems so— Mark: Yeah. I think Google has done a good job of … because if you got edged out by like a spammy site or somebody that was just been [inaudible 00:19:19.4] the search results you're done. Amanda: Right. Mark: You had to wait 30 days minimum to be able to correct it and it was just torture but exciting at the same time. All right let's get to the topic that we were going to talk about. I want to talk a little bit about building versus buying. And I know I brought this up with Chuck at CapCon and he's like why would you guys talk about this? You're going to shoot yourself in the foot because we obviously make our money when people buy businesses from us. But there's an argument to be made as well especially for creatives for building something. So let's start right there and just ask you've done both, you've bought businesses and you've built businesses. Amanda: Mm-hmm. Mark: Where do you fall kind of on that spectrum and why? Amanda: Well I'm more on the builder side. I'm just a natural builder, a natural creator. I love the challenge of it. I love actually creating something from nothing. That is very much who I am. And you can't buy something without having somebody to build it right? So there is the other side of that coin and so somebody has to build a business, hopefully, a great business for a buyer to want to invest in. And so I love talking about building businesses because that's really where I'm passionate. I'm also very analytical as you know with data and statistics and marketing. And so I just … I think that when you're looking at buying a business versus building I think there's great opportunity for both right? If you're … if you have a portfolio of businesses for example like Shakil does and obviously he's willing to buy businesses because he doesn't want to invest the time to just necessarily or take the time to grow because they have a team ready to jump into something and run with it. Whereas I like to take some time to build it and see kind of where it's going to go and then run with it that way more organically. And that's kind of where my passion lies. And I like to kind of have that control of what I'm … the product how it's being made, packaged, the overall message around it. And that goes with pretty much everything whether I'm building a home or a business kind of my thoughts on it. Mark: Yeah and I met him. You've built multiple properties physical like … since you've been with Quiet Light one rental property, two homes at least that I know of. Amanda: Yes, three. Mark: Three? Wow. Amanda: Uh-huh. Mark: Holy cow. And I know you're really involved in the design process as well. When we met down in Austin you've had floor samples and everything like that in the car because you were going through all this. You do like to get in to that. Do you think it makes more sense? Let's just talk purely investment strategy here from just an investment standpoint. So I'm looking to place money into something and really kind of grow from a financial standpoint, do you think that there's a benefit in buying versus building in that scenario? Amanda: Today it is harder. It's more competitive to build. There's no doubt about it. It's much harder than when I started out. When I built my pearl company it was in 2003. We launched in 2004. Obviously, that was a total different time, kind of similar with my check manufacturing company. And then with Amazon, I still think that there's easy room for building obviously and even with Facebook Marketing you can see some pretty quick growth there. But there is something to be said for businesses that have really paved the way and are established and the foundation is there. And so I think it just depends on how you want to invest and so if you want to invest in something that's established and that has a history, a foundation that's already been done, they've already built a team for you and you're just walking right into it. That makes for a very sound and smart decision versus taking a risk and just seeing where it takes you in building a business. Because I mean I've experienced this, I've built a lot of businesses that haven't been successful either because I either burnt out or the marketing just didn't pan out. But I've learned from those and so I think one of my greatest successes is built off of just learning from the failure and then building off of that platform. So I think there's something to be said for both. From an investment standpoint though I'd say if you're looking to invest in something investing in a business that's established makes more sense. So I guess it's just different. I am a creator and a builder but at the same time, I do like to invest in sound vehicles so I've done both. Mark: I've asked this question to a few people before. If you were to guess how many domains you own right now how many would it be? Amanda: Oh gosh I don't know. And I'd hate to look because I'm sure I'm spending a lot of money just wasting away. Mark: Yeah. Amanda: Yes I actually purchased domains for my daughters as well because I don't know where this internet space is going and so I just want them to have the opportunity when the time is right. So yes I have a lot of wasted domain right now. Mark: Yeah I've logged in to my domain account and it's kind of like going down memory lane of bad business ideas or maybe— Amanda: Yes isn't it? Mark: They're not always bad but some of them are bad. Some of them are like oh my gosh what was … was my diet bad when I did that … decided to because this is— Amanda: The someday businesses; yes, what I might do someday. Mark: Exactly, there's a couple in there like you know what I actually still want to do that. It's just a matter of A. it doesn't pay anybody if I do it and B. the prime. Amanda: Right. Mark: But I think before that you were actually getting on to a point that I thought was really interesting and I found this with buyers. You've been with Quiet Light now seven years I think? Amanda: Yes, seven going on I think eight; crazy. Mark: I know right? So you've dealt with a lot of buyers over the years as well and I find that buyers tend to be … tinkers a lot right? The people that love to buy and do really well they're great at taking something existing, tinkering, modifying it, improving it. But a lot of buyers … and this is speaking generally; this is the rule for everybody. The creative process of starting up something from scratch and having to create and have that runway isn't really of interest to them. You know those are things that kind of bore them. And I know in Walker's book he talks about this. He starts out saying that he had start-up companies and they … it failed, including companies that received quite a bit of funding. And that process, that ramp up period was really painful. But once he started buying he really enjoyed that part of it. That was super exciting to him. So I think some of it does come to just personality. Amanda: Yes. Mark: What do you get excited about? You are a creator. You're a creative person. You love design. You love creating systems and you are data driven and data oriented. So that makes sense that you are going to really go towards that starting side to help exercise some of those creative muscles. So what are some of the first areas that when you're starting a business you like to outsource? Amanda: Obviously, the website design that would be the first step and it really depends on what the business is. But the first step would be product manufacturing, a website design, and how to start your first layer of marketing. And I would outsource all of that. And basically, I would just be managing that process to make it look and feel like I want it to so the business imparts the message that I want to integrate into the business. But that part is the hardest part I think of running a business. It does require a lot of thought, creativity, and management. At the same time for me, that's really what drives me when I'm creating something. That push and that challenge is what I look forward to everyday or stay up super late at night thinking about. And so I think it really is important to start outsourcing from the beginning. Because I'm obviously not a manufacturer, not a web designer, and I don't do the day to day marketing per se. I hire all of that out. Mark: Yeah and I've heard it a lot. Start at the beginning don't try and run a bootstrap with and then think that it's going to be easy. It's going to be easy just to hand that off because it's really hard as an entrepreneur to do that. What's the last thing that you would outsource? Amanda: Probably bookkeeping, to be honest, because … yeah, it pains me to say because I want everybody to have clean books right? But the last thing for me is bookkeeping because I know how to get a bank account and a credit card. That's easy; those are things that most people can do if we're generic. But running your books, you actually need to have a history of at least a couple of months and so it's pretty easy to integrate that into Quick Books or whatnot from your bank statement. So typically that's the last thing I would hire out because it seems to me that it doesn't take them very long to catch up. Mark: That's interesting. So I'm actually reversed on that. I like to outsource books first because I just don't enjoy it at all. Amanda: Right. Mark: And like you said outsource the stuff that you don't enjoy and keep things that you do so cool. Well, this has been interesting, it's been useful, it's not everything that we planned to talk about but I actually liked what we talked about and that there was something interesting. So I'm going to end with this, you've been advising buyers and sellers for a long time now and most of the people that listen to the podcast are looking to buy, there are some people selling. If you were to give one piece of advice for people buying an online business whether it'd be through Quiet Light Brokerage or through any other place; you find it online or another brokerage firm, what would be just kind of the one thing that you would advise people on? Amanda: I think the best thing that you can do is take some time to research just overall broad marketplace. Don't just look at a few packages. Really allow yourself several months at least to get a good feel of what's a good fit for you. There are so many different models of businesses, SaaS businesses, Amazon, to e-commerce and so forth and so one may seem more attractive to you. It may not necessarily need to be a certain niche but it may just be a certain type of model that is attractive. And I just want to add to that that the other thing that I recommend is don't basically pigeonhole yourself into a certain niche because you might find a business that doesn't have an attractive product but everything else could be right; the lifestyle component, the workload, the margin, the net profitability. And so I think that's really important to keep an open mind. Mark: Awesome. Well, hey, thanks, Amanda for coming on the podcast. I really do appreciate you coming on and I'm sure everybody else will as well. Everybody knows where to reach you, amanda@quietlightbrokerage. If you have questions about buying, about starting, about … you know or just have really general questions about this I will stand by the fact that your entrepreneurial background speaks for itself. And I think the success that you've had repeatedly speaks for itself. So we appreciate you sharing some of the wisdom you've gained over the years of doing this entrepreneurial thing that we do and everything else. Amanda: Yeah. Mark: So hopefully we can have you on again sometime in the future but we'll wait a year or so before we do. Amanda: Yes please do. Mark: All right. Amanda: Well thank you, Mark. I appreciate it. Have a great day. Links and Resources: Contact Amanda About Amanda

How to Use Podcasting as a Tool to Build Your Business

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 29, 2019 45:46

Hosts can talk faster than they can type. Followers can listen while doing any number of other tasks. A business that comes with a podcast following of 15,000 is more valuable than one that comes with a 35,000-person email list. Podcasts are pretty hard to get wrong. They can diminish the laborious reading and writing aspects of emails and blogs by automatically offering content within the conversations with guests. Today we are talking with podcasting expert Craig Hewitt about ways that adding a podcast to your business can be beneficial both for a recent acquisition and a potential sale. Craig is the owner of Podcast Motor, a company that handles the end to end podcast production process for businesses. He's an entrepreneur in the podcast space, running two service companies and producing 35 podcasts. He believes, and we here at Quiet Light agree, that a good podcast is a great tool for building your business. Episode Highlights: How podcasts differ from blogs. Where podcasters should get started. Whether they need all the “stuff” to get up and running. Why podcasters use external services to create their episodes. Craig's solution for launching a podcast quickly and easily. Challenges hosts face in getting started and putting themselves out there. Why it's important to find the right guests and create relevant conversations for your business. How podcasting can be a fit for different types of businesses. Ways starting a podcast with a newly acquired business can help promote ownership. Why businesses need fewer followers for a podcast than for a blog. How a podcast can create repurposable content. Ways a podcast can benefit a business you are getting ready to sell. Whether podcasts are transferable. The basic technical tools you need to get started. How long you should test for success. Transcription: Joe: So Mark today's episode we're going to talk about why someone should start a podcast. Stutter, stutter, stutter, Chris edit that. Mark: Chris don't edit that just keep that in there. Joe: Yes let's keep it in because folks this is about podcasting and I was going to ask Mark a question … oh, man, did somebody put something in my coffee this morning [inaudible 00:01:34.2] in my coffee … it's a Northern thing. Do you have to be well spoken, intelligent, and an expert on the subject matter to start a podcast? Of course, the key is to have a successful podcast to build an audience and a brand and a reputation but what do you think? Do you have to have all of that to really begin? Mark: No absolutely not. And look at the risk of narrowcasting and just talking about what we're doing here which is running a podcast, I thought it would be interesting to have Craig Hewitt on the podcast here. Craig owns PodcastMotor. They do the editing for all of the Quiet Light Podcast episodes. He also has a podcast hosting service Castos.com which he's recently started. He's an entrepreneur cut of the same cloth that all of us are made of. He likes to start, he likes to buy, he likes to grow businesses and living in France actually. He's an expat living in France so a pretty cool backstory there which unfortunately we didn't have time to get into. But I wanted to talk to him about why anyone who's out there looking to buy or even grow your business and create something really unique and special might want to consider adding podcasting to the mix. And look I get it we're looking a little bit at our own experience here and how beneficial a podcast … the Quiet Light podcast has been at Quiet Light brokerage, but I asked Craig this question. Joe, I'm going to ask you and put you on the spot here again like I do on a third of these intros I try and ask you a question that we didn't prep for. If you're looking at a business for sale and it's got 30,000 e-mail subscribers, okay and that's one option and then there's another business in exact same niche but they have 15,000 podcast downloads per month, where do you put more value in your opinion? Joe: Oh without a doubt on the 15,000 because those people are listening. They're hearing your voice and they feel like they know you already. We've gone to events where people have come up and said hello and they joke and they say I feel like I know yo. I've heard Mike Jackness talk about that as well. But I think the number one thing that this podcast has done for us … and John Corcoran was a guest on the podcast as well where we talked about networking and how important it is to a business. And I think if you're a business owner, if you're launching your own products, if you're a SaaS product owner, you just look to prior examples of huge podcast success like Michael Jackness or Scott Voelker for instance. Scott has got a quarter of a million people that listen to him every month. You network and learn things from the people that you network with to grow your business and grow your brand and I think it's invaluable and it blows away the e-mail. Although the e-mail is something specific and different because you're probably trying to sell a product right then and there, I think on a podcast you're talking about the bigger picture and your brand. If you're a SaaS business owner I think it's a great idea because you can talk about what updates you've got to your product and the market in general. But I love the podcasting and obviously, I'm not very well spoken or eloquent so if we can do it anybody can. Mark: That's right. So this is a bit of an advertisement for starting a podcast and I feel confident in doing this because I know a lot of people out there probably will listen to this and won't start a podcast. You'll think about the technical challenges, you'll think about the fact that your voice has to be out there and Craig and I go over this. There is an element of fear because you're a little bit more intimate with your audience when you have a podcast. There's a third dimension that gets added, right? When you are just writing a blog post it's very two dimensional, you're words are out there, you can go back and edit it whenever you want, people don't hear your tone … your voice, they don't hear you screw up because you get to go and edit it. And of course you can edit a podcast but there's still … it's still you, a little bit more real and raw. So I know a lot of people are going to listen to this and not start podcast but I'm going to make a pitch to just say look if you're trying to build something unique, if you're trying to build something valuable, if you're trying to grow your existing business with the [inaudible 00:05:24.7] towards selling it down the road, there is some value to starting up a podcast which is going to make it different if you are able to grow a good sizable audience. And I think in the 11 years we've done Quiet Light Brokerage I can't think of a single business that we have sold that actually came with a podcast attached to it. Joe: I don't think I've ever had one. And as far as return on investment I would think that the podcast and the cost associated with it, the ROI would be huge and probably not measurable; an invaluable. But one other thing look this is we've got Craig from the podcast company that manages ours but we've talked to lots of people like Taz from the Amazon Entrepreneur. He launched his podcast, does two a week and he does it all himself. So it's possible to do it for very little or nothing at all if that's … if it's a budgetary problem and you still want to get started. Mark: All right let's hear it directly from somebody who's been in the podcasting niche for a long time. He knows all … a ton of what he's talking about, Craig Hewitt. Let's get to it and cover this topic and I'll hopefully inspire maybe one or two of you guys out there to go ahead and start a podcast with your business. Mark: Hello Craig welcome to the Quiet Light podcast. Thank you so much for agreeing to come on. Craig: Hey Mark thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Mark: All right you and I know each other from a ways back at Rhodium; do you remember the … I don't remember when we met each other at Rhodium, do you? Craig: Gosh yeah. Like I'm optimistic with my time projections these days I want to say it's three years but it might be four years ago. It will be four years in April probably yeah. Mark: All right my wife does this thing I call it Megan math where she'll … something would be 2 months away and she'll somehow compress that down to like just two weeks away. Craig: Yeah [inaudible 00:07:06.4] great exactly. Mark: Again full disclosure and I'm sure I probably said this in the intro. We always do the intros after … we record the intros after we record the interviews themselves but I'm sure I will say this just out of full disclosure I do pay you professionally. You have been doing the editing … probably it's your group that has been doing the editing for the Quiet Light podcast so thank you for that. Craig: No it's my pleasure. It's my pleasure, yup. Mark: Awesome, all right so we're going to talk about podcasting today and whether or not somebody should consider adding it to a business. And I obviously with Quiet Light I want to focus a little bit on does it make sense to add on to an acquisition like if you buy a business, does it make sense to add that on? What's involved in starting up a podcast? What are the impacts that you might see? And I also want to … if there's time allowing probably talk about the personalized aspect of podcasts and how that's going to affect the buying and selling of businesses as well. We can all just talk a little bit about SaaS. I know you have some SaaS work as well which could be an interesting thing to get into as well. But let's start off real quick with your background and your history and kind of how you came into doing what you're doing. Craig: Yeah so we know each other through kind of why my first successful online business and really the way I escaped the rat race of the professional kind of corporate world which is called PodcastMotor. So PodcastMotor is a product tied service that does podcast editing and production, really kind of like end to end everything from Mark records an episode, sticks it in Dropbox and an episode shows up in iTunes a week later. We really try to take care of every aspect of that whole process for our customers. And that business has been going since … it just turned four this year so a couple of months ago. So we've been doing it a long time in the podcasting world. And we have about 35 customers that we service on a regular basis. So weekly or every other week that they have a podcast come out. About two years ago I acquired a WordPress plugin also in the podcasting space called seriously simple podcasting. And on top of that, we built a podcast hosting platform that we now call Castos. So I run two different businesses in the podcasting space and it all happened just by chance. To be honest I started a podcast … jeez, four and a half years ago I guess and saw it really quickly like a lot of people that podcasting is really difficult. There's a lot of nuts and bolts and technical stuff and gear and all this junk that you need to start a podcast as opposed to like a blog where you just get a WordPress site and a keyboard or your iPhone and you could start blogging as good as anybody else. Podcasting there's a technique and gear and equipment and all this stuff that you have to have to be decent. And then to be really good is a whole other level. So we started offering the PodcastMotor service based on me seeing that pain I guess. Mark: Yeah and I don't want to scare people right at the gate but let's get into that kind of a scary different world of podcasting because it is a little bit different. Let's start with just the hosting side and you talk about Castos your podcast hosting service. Isn't it enough to just have a regular website? I mean I think one of the things that was confusing to me with podcasting when we got into it before we started the Quiet Light podcast was well why do I need all this stuff? Why do I need Libsyn? Why do I need all these other things? Why are we … why do podcasters use these extra services? And what are some of things that if somebody is thinking about podcasting what do they need to consider from a technological standpoint outside of the equipment just from the webhosting setup, the technical setup? Craig: Yeah so the logic around having a dedicated media hosting platform with you know hear, Libsyn, and SoundCloud, and Castos or whatever, the idea there is so you have a hopefully a very popular podcast and you have thousands of people downloading your podcast every Tuesday morning when it comes out right? Mark: Just like the Quiet Light podcast, thousands and— Craig: Yeah okay so thousands of people listening to your podcast and downloading this 60, 80 megabyte file every Tuesday morning. If you're a business like all of your customers are and a lot of ours the last thing you want is this enormous strain on your web server on Tuesday morning when customers are coming to your site and trying to buy your stuff or schedule a meeting or something like that because both the streaming and download of the podcast will be bad. And your website will at least be very slow if not crash. So you separate the resource strain from podcasting and serving up your website and have a dedicated hosting platform just for those audio files and let your website run on you know WP engine or flywheel or wherever it's running so that the two aren't using the same resource. That's kind of the logic around why you needed a dedicated media hosting platform. It's just like you don't put your video files under use Wistia or something like that. It's the same kind of idea. Mark: All right exactly. Okay so there's this whole other technological world with podcasting and then there's also the equipment side of it. And then there's the editing side of podcasting as well. Craig: Yeah. Mark: And then there's the distribution to the different podcast networks. And we're kind of jumping on the deep end or I guess we'll swim to the shallow end because I'm going to talk about listing the praises of podcasting here in a little bit. And specifically as kind of a leading tease here for anyone listening why I think it's a really, really good idea for any acquisition that you do, any business that you're looking at to potentially acquire to consider adding a podcast and potentially even on the sell side as well. But let's talk about the setup here a little bit as well and the equipment. Now I've got as you can probably see from the video that you can see and we do these podcast over video is just a little more personal. Craig: Yeah. Mark: I got the road podcaster and I got like three other mics back there as well. [inaudible 00:12:52.1] and everything else. And you, you got I see a pop screen of yours, there's pop screens, there's mics, there's the Vulcan power stuff, it's a whole different world, isn't it? Craig: Yeah I mean so it is totally a different world and this is the bad scary thing about podcasting is that there's more opinions and resources out there than are necessary honestly. And there's so much information that so many people get scared and they go and read five or six different articles just about the best podcasting mic and what web … what podcast hosting platform to use and there's everyone has an opinion about that and you know how long should you're episodes be and blah, blah, blah. Do you need a pop filter? Do you need a boom mount? Do you need all this stuff and so actually we created a resource to kind of counteract this and we call it launch in a week. And the idea is we're going to give you like one or two options not like all these million things out there that all these other resources give you is like they create the analysis or paralysis by analysis. So we … so castos.com/launch takes you to launch in a week and we give you like in a week seven day, seven e-mails and videos exactly what you need to launch a podcast to dispel a lot of that over information and misinformation that's out there a little bit. Like microphones I only recommend two microphones you know it's like this one that I'm using Audio Technica ATR2100 and another one is called the Shure SM7B. That's a really really really good mic. This one is $65 that one is about $500. And so it's like kind of whatever you feel like you want or need. We try to do a lot of that like you can do this or this and don't overthink any of it because you can get in way over your head. And the unfortunate thing is a lot of people never get started because they just think so much about all this stuff. Mark: All right let's talk about that point because I think this is the biggest obstacle to podcasting right? With writing a blog you can put it out there and you can get it up and going. Everybody knows how to write something even if it's not very good but there doesn't seem to be as much of a barrier to getting started. Maybe it's because of the technical challenge but I think there's also a mental challenge of getting out there. And I know for a podcast standpoint we toss around the idea forever. I actually had a false start at starting the Quiet Light podcast and I think I recorded three episodes, launched two, and then stopped because I didn't record enough episodes. I think one of the challenges people have is the idea of being out there and trying to get this audio presentation perfect from the get go. But like you said just get out there and start. You have to actually start doing it. Craig: Yeah I mean I think part of it is with writing you can write a blog post and save it come back two days later and edit it and tweak it and you haven't even be published by someone else on your team if you want maybe it's your name it's not associated with it. But like right now you and I are seeing and talking to each other and like covering a lot of the senses all at one time. And when you're podcasting your literally in someone's ear for 45 minutes every week or whatever it is. So I think it's just the senses that you're covering and the emotional connection you crave with somebody which is why it's so great if you can do it and get it right. But it's also why it's so scary to just get started and overcome some of this fear of putting yourself out there. You know I think about … I've done a little bit of video work and it's a lot harder because then you have to get the voice and the physical kind of presentation right the first time and there's no editing. You can't just edit out a flub in a video it looks horrible. And so I think in a way if you're already doing video podcasting is so easy because you can just cut it up a million ways from Sunday and it's no big deal. But it is so much harder than writing. Mark: Yeah and I think one of the other obstacles that we run into is written content can be repurposed in so many ways right? Craig: Yeah. Mark: And there's different focuses that we can really measure written content from an SEO standpoint. So you can definitely say hey I'm going to optimize for this keyword. And I know I'm going to get this keyword density out there and then I can actually turn this into a downloadable white paper. And I can go out and I can maybe use the same sort of topic and write you know 10 different guest posts and get involvings. So there's that other benefit as well but you actually lead into one of the benefits and maybe this way you could [inaudible 00:17:18.0] to segue into that. And probably the number one reason that we started the Quiet Light podcast and the number one benefit that we've received from it is that personal touch that having a podcast creates. I'll tell you a funny story. You'll actually like this because you listen to our podcast by default from doing some editing. Craig: Of course. Mark: And I know you're not doing all the editing yourself but- Craig: No I do listen to the show though, yeah. Mark: Okay well here we go … thank you for that. That makes me feel better. So obviously Joe and I host the podcast and we were at Brand Builder's Summit. And somebody came up to our table at Brand Builder's Summit and said “hey it's Joe here” I'm like “ah no Joe is [inaudible 00:17:54.7] right now” and they go “oh man I really wanted to meet Joe, I absolutely love his podcast” I'm thinking “wow that's great you love Joe's podcast, I'm so glad that you love Joe's podcast” and he goes “yeah I know I was really hoping to meet Joe”. And Walker was staying right next to me and goes “no this is Mark over here he also does the podcast” he goes “ah is Joe going to be back soon?” I'm like “yeah Joe will be back soon”. Craig: That's wonderful, that's wonderful. Mark: But you know one of the things that this podcast has been able to do is it gets us in people's cars. It gets us in people's ears for a certain amount of time and it really breaks down some of that barrier that I think can happen when you're writing. Like you said it's very two dimensional. Craig: Oh yeah. Mark: It's the words on a page, you don't have the voice of the person in your head. This is … it's not as full-on as video but it's a little more personal. And I'm sure you've seen that a ton with what you're doing because I know you work mainly with businesses right? Craig: Oh yeah I mean for PodcastMotor all of our customers are businesses like yourselves. You know like small, medium size business and entrepreneurs, startups. And I think that the medium of podcasting is unique in two ways. One like we're having right now it's a conversation. It's not you on a video and your YouTube channel talking and everyone else is listening. That's not so helpful. And it's not so helpful in a very particular way when it comes to businesses and that is rapport building and networking. And this is like the secret sauce I think when it comes to like B2B podcasting is you have this podcast to reach a broader audience of buyers and sellers … of buyers maybe but really probably to get sellers in the door right? And so like for PodcastMotor we have a podcast. If we're going to go kind of strategically and think about who we're having on the podcast it's thought leaders in the podcasting like B2B podcasting space. So they can say wow you know I had this podcast with Craig last week, we talked for like an hour and he really knows his stuff. Dean my friend over here who runs a coaching business who wants to start a podcast should really talk to Craig because he really knows what he's doing. He can help him be successful. Like that really like micro networking opportunity that you have in interviewing a thought leader in your space on a podcast is not something you can measure by like download statistics or something like that. But for a lot of people should be the reason they do a podcast. It's not your listeners that you do the show for it selfishly a little bit is yourself and the networking ability that the podcasting medium allows for. Mark: Yeah I would agree 100%. And this is one of the main ancillary benefits that we received from the Quiet Light podcast. One of the biggest benefits is that it just keeps us in touch with people in a very personal way. And in some ways it's a little bit weird when people do come up to you and [inaudible 00:20:44.9]. Craig: Yeah. Mark: But I shouldn't listen to my voice that's weird but kind of cool at the same time. But that secondary benefit of that micro networking that you talk about I know we've had this happen actually recently we had Ezra Firestone on the podcast. And sure enough I had opened up my e-mail the other day and there's an e-mail from Ezra promoting his podcast episode with Joe, Joe's podcast. And I mean just think about that, I mean he's just one of the biggest Internet marketers out there right now promoting this one episode. And how many extra people are going to be exposed to the business, to us in general just because of that one episode. So this is definitely a benefit and might not be my number one goal but it's definitely one of those goals of the podcast is to be out there spreading our network for referrals. I think any referral based business that's out there this is a fantastic medium and probably a must that you should do is having some sort of a podcast if for nothing else to be able to bring in that network and grow that small network. Craig: So just to pile on there a little bit for folks who might be a little bit outside of the agency or consulting world so like starting from really high dollar and down to more transactional type businesses the other thing I think that podcasting does is it allows you to showcase publicly your knowledge and expertise. So if somebody sees you on another person's podcast they're going to say “wow Mark really knows what he's talking about when it comes to buying and selling businesses”. It automatically boosts your credibility with that person if they're looking to do this thing down the road. Yeah, I think that's massive. It's kind of like your little online CV that you build along with your social media and YouTube and all this kind of stuff but podcasting should be a part of that for a lot of people. Mark: Well and that actually leads to my next question really well and that is what do you think about podcasting on the more just B2C side as somebody selling baby shoes online. Craig: Yeah. Mark: I mean how can podcasting fit into that fold … with that type of business? Craig: Yeah I mean there's really two … in my mind there's two ways to go and admittedly this is a bit outside of the wheel house of what we do at PodcastMotor but there's really two kind of schools of thought or areas that you would run into there. One is just hobbyists, right? And so like you're a hobbyist you like the Pittsburgh Penguins, you want to have a podcast about that. That's just a hobby and that's great but it also does the thing about like building your social proof in the world. And so you want to go do something with that later on. You have this bank of 200 episodes that you want to do something with. If you're thinking about like a B2C area I think that you can either provide useful content to … you have a show about being a parent, provide useful content to other parents about how to be a good parent, organic parenting and all this kind of stuff. Or you have what's called like sponsored content and this is where a company would pay a creative agency like I believe it's Pacific Media is the real big one in this to create a show like Serial. So Serial is the Gimlet Media podcast from a few years ago. They would create a podcast like that and it would just be you know this podcast is brought to you by Huggies Diapers or something like that. And it's this totally awesome show about parenting and motherhood or whatever but it's just sponsored by this B2C company. And you see more and more sponsored content out there these days where a business is saying look this is a massive branding opportunity for us. We're going to create this piece of content that we know our audience will love. It probably doesn't have a lot of like direct business impact, people are not going to go buy our diapers because of this podcast but they're going to know our name really well because every week the show they love the most has our name all over it. Mark: Yeah that makes complete sense. I also think of the episode we did with Mike Jackness from colorit.com and the show is on email marketing. So it had nothing to do with podcasting but we were talking about how often he was sending emails. They were sending emails to their subscribers every single day but the vast majority of what they're sending is ridiculously useful content that is not selling their clients in any way, their customers in any way. And the result of this is that people end up looking forward to communications from them. So I can imagine that impact as well if you have a B2C company and you're in this hobby, this niche, or you really have a very unified sort of product that you're selling. Or it can even be a type of service as well. You're growing an audience that is kind of a group of raving fans for what you're doing. And you're offering so much value that when you do offer that sale when you do go out there and promote something you have this group out there that's just super excited to hear from you. And that's a nice problem to have, right? Craig: Yup. Mark: Yeah all right let's talk a little bit about this from an acquisition standpoint. Obviously, we should bring this back into this and I want to talk about from an acquisition standpoint and also selling and we'll end with the selling question because I think there is a pretty significant question there. But on the acquisition side the one struggle I can see … I did an acquisition recently my guess and that's almost two years ago now and – Craig: It's not funny, math coming back in there. Mark: Yeah [inaudible 00:25:57.8] absolutely, time flies too. And you and I have actually talked about the starting up a podcast on this acquisition. It's a little bit weird though you know like Quiet Light Brokerage has started … I own, I've kind of grown with it so I feel like I own it. It is a little bit weird to start a podcast with something that you don't own. But I wonder if there is almost a sense of growing ownership if you start building something on top of that like a podcast with an acquisition. Craig: Hmm. Mark: Kind of an open ended thought but I don't know if you've had any experience with that or any thoughts on that. Craig: Yeah I mean I think that … so I had not run into this personally like with some of our customers having acquired businesses that they didn't want to start a podcast around. But having acquired several businesses the one thing that I think is really important and often times really difficult is for an acquirer to really know the business model and the types of people that kind of live and breathe this product or space that you're in. And there is nothing better than to say I want to go interview the 50 best people in Instagram for kids whatever … whatever niche it is you know than a podcast. Mark: Instagram for kids sounds like it should have some predatory laws about it I'm just saying. Craig: Yeah sure whatever it is right … it's underwater basket weaving. I mean you interview the 50 best people on underwater basket weaving. You're going to know basically everything there is to know about the influencers and the things that really matter to people in that business. So for me it's like someone who is always looking to acquire businesses and kind of dabbling as like a serial entrepreneur if I was going to get into a business I didn't know a lot about lot about starting a blog or really continuing a blog would be really daunting because I … there's a lot of opportunity to waste a bunch of time and money there. You can write a bunch of articles about things people don't care about but it's really hard to have a podcast that's bad if you will in a space you don't know a lot about because you just go interview people and ask them interesting questions. And what they have to say is the content it's not what you have to say, it's what the people you have coming on the show. So I'd say for people looking to … who have acquired a business that might be a little out of their wheel house just start a podcast, interview the thought leaders in that space and you have like the nexus of all the really interesting content for your audience. And you as the new owner know exactly what's so important to everybody in that space. Mark: Yeah and I'm going to compare this actually to the blogging world because I went from the blogging world pretty heavily into the podcasting world almost exclusively now. Libby has been writing blog posts on every one of our podcast episodes so we can keep up with some blog content. But in the blogging world, you would have to sit down. You would have to come up with your own idea for a blog topic. You would have to research that topic. And then you would have to write on that topic. And the way blogs are going you have to write more and more and more. I was writing 1,500 to 2,500 word blog posts. I was doing four of those per month plus four outside of Quiet Light blog posts per month. So I was doing eight blog posts on average 2,000 words a piece. And then best practices after you publish that blog post you should go out and you should do outreach. So you should reach out to the influencers and say hey take a look at this and how easy is it for an influencer to ignore your e-mail or give it a cursory look. I'd flip this around for this I'm doing my research right now on this interview with you I'm reaching out to you and you're an influencer on the podcasting world so I already got my influencer locked in as well. We're getting great content at the same time. It kind of brings all of this into one hopefully easily digestible format. So that's a huge benefit I think as well. And when you're looking at getting into a space like you said trying to network and get to know the influencers in a space that you don't know is one of the biggest challenges. And having a podcast I'll tell you what when I ask people to be on the podcast I'd get one of two reactions. One is no I'm super shy I don't want to do it. And two is yeah that sounds great because who doesn't want to be in front of a big audience and get heard. People like to be on podcasts. They'd like to think that they're important enough to be interviewed. Craig: They want to take their Joe Rogan. Mark: Exactly even though … you know I'm not going to tell them that there's like three people that listen to the Quiet Light podcast but they're still excited. Craig: So you brought up two things I really want to touch on quickly. One is three people listening to the Quiet Light podcast, one is not true right? But in a B2B sense and even a B2C sense in your niche, the number of people listening to your show doesn't matter at all. So if you have a hundred people listening to your podcast that is great. Those are a hundred really passionate people about what you have to say. As opposed to a hundred people reading a blog post that has almost no impact whatever. You need tens of thousands of people reading a blog post for it to really be impactful in the in the greater sense. But 100 people in your niche listening about your podcast is fantastic. So they're really high intent people for whatever your business purpose is. The other thing is talking about repurposing content. I think podcasting has the ability to repurpose content really easily right? We're doing audio, we're doing video, it will be created in to show notes for a blog post, you have it transcribed, you can syndicate the video to YouTube. Like you can do all of these things with one … what we're going to talk for 45 minutes today piece of investment and your time and you have a team or someone do all of the extra work to produce all that for you and you have two or three or four pieces of content you can syndicate to everywhere that people consume this media. As opposed to writing a blog post it can ever only ever be in your blog. You can't go create a podcast out of a blog [inaudible 00:31:29.4] could but that's just kind of silly. Mark: Right and you're absolutely right as far as the repurposing content. Again if people haven't checked out in a quick plug in the Quiet Light brokerage blog, I think it was last fall we brought on [inaudible 00:31:41.3] and she listens to every one of these podcasts. Hi, Libby thanks for all the work you're doing. And she's putting together awesome blog posts like I've been reading these myself and she's taking the information that we're picking up in the podcasts and then she's going out and supplementing it with outside research as well by putting together a full on blog post with quotes from the blog post as well but bringing out a slightly different narrative than what we cover in this this conversation. It's a great way to be able to repurpose this content and give it just a little extra layer and a little extra dimension. And so that is one way to repurpose the content. And again I can't emphasize this enough the amount of time it takes to do a podcast significantly less time than it takes to do the blogging side. Let's address the question of a podcast in a business that you hope to sell someday. And I think this is a question that is a little bit more difficult to answer here because we talk a lot … let me ask you this have you seen the Princess Bride? Craig: Yeah of course. I have an eight year old daughter, yup. Mark: Well I always like to say that getting a business prepared to sell is you have to follow the Dread Pirate Roberts rule right? You don't want to be actual Dread Pirate Roberts. It's the name that counts right? That's the quote from the movie; it's the name that counts. The actual Dread Pirate Roberts has been retired and living like a king in Patagonia. That's what we want to be able to do. We want to pass on the name of our business. We don't want to actually have to be tied to the business. Well, we just talked about podcasting, it's being in somebodies ear and being that personality in somebodies ear. And so from a standpoint of selling maybe, it's a little bit of a disadvantage on that when you go to sell. But I don't think it has to be a disadvantage but I'm going to put you in the uncomfortable spot here and see first have you thought about this much and what are your thoughts on it? Craig: Yeah so I guess two things; one, I know that podcast themselves have definitely been bought and sold more and more right? We're recording this in beginning of 2019, you hear more and more about people selling and buying podcast especially in a space. It's like buying and selling a blog in a space. If you're a business and you acquired this blog redirect it and then pour your content into your domain and you already have this audience that's seeing your brand. The same can be said for podcasting so people want to come in and buy a podcast in a space because it has a built in audience. I think it's a really good kind of audience and customer acquisition strategy for a business that already kind of exists and has their own podcast to look at selling the business and transferring the podcast to the new owner. I think that a lot of the standard knowledge and business process transfer things apply there. Like if you have a process around Mark how you identify the guests that you want to have and how you invite them and you send them a [inaudible 00:34:23.3] like an as a zoom thing in it and you have an outline you send them three days before and all this kind of stuff and you have a team behind it to edit and produce the podcast. Then someone buying your business that has a podcast in it is not nearly as daunting as just saying like I wing it every week. And the new owner is saying holy crap I can't imagine doing that. So I think that … I mean the truth is a podcast is not really hard. Like once you do a couple of them it's not really that hard. So giving the buyer of the business that would acquire this asset but kind of responsibility of a podcast, give them the tools to be successful and I think it's definitely a net win. The worst thing I can see though is you have a podcast and you have an audience and people that really enjoy and want to connect with you through the podcast and the acquirer comes in and drops the ball, obviously, a big negative. So if people have podcasts and they're going to be selling their business or business with podcasts I would definitely make sure like the rest of the business like you said with the Dread Pirate Roberts thing it's like make sure that it's totally transferable and that the person's going to be successful. That intimate nature of the podcast I think can transfer from one person to another pretty easily. You know the new person is going to have some level of domain expertise and you'll love a different spin on the podcast and that's cool. Yeah, I think it's definitely a net win as long as the person is set up to be successful. Mark: Yeah and I would agree. And the other thing I would point to is that when talking about an exit strategy when looking at what you need to do to prepare a business for sale there's going to be this push and this pull on various factors of the business. And when you're looking at this, when you're looking at the business holistically it's always going to be better for you to build a strong, loyal, happy, faithful audience right? Craig: Yeah. Mark: That's way, way more valuable than anything else. And is there maybe a little bit of a demerit when it comes to having something like a podcast which may be tied to your voice. Yeah, okay there's … I think just being honest yeah I think there's going to be a little bit of concern about the transferability. But that can be addressed right? That can be addressed pretty easily. You can agree to do the podcast and co-host with the new owner for six months and have a very warm hand off that way. That would be a very natural way to do it. I think the benefits that a podcast adds in building an audience, let's think about this real quick here what is the value of an online business when we actually look at it and when we do all the tax returns and everything else on it we allocate most of the purchase price towards goodwill. The sort of nebulous who knows what it is that makes this business successful. Successful and having a podcast is really a big part of building that good will. So if you take the time and build a lot of good will through a podcast and that's a good source and driving avenue for customer acquisition within your business that's going to be a net plus in the grand scheme of the things. So I think people that are out there thinking about podcasting thinking well I don't want to start that because it's going to hurt the transferability of the business. I wouldn't necessarily say that. I wouldn't necessarily say don't do in fact I'll probably say the opposite especially if you have enough time. If you're looking at a year, two or three years before selling and you're able to build that audience I think it actually makes more sense because it's really hard to replicate that. Craig: Yeah the value you can get in those two years is so much more than the potential drawback of the new owner flubbing it and your audience being upset which is basically the worst thing that could happen right? Mark: You're totally biased in this but I'm going to ask you this question right now. If I could give you a business with 30,000 e-mail subscribers or a business with 15,000 podcast listeners what would you take? Craig: Yeah I mean the podcast listeners are going to engage with your message a lot more. You probably also would get all of them on an email list so you're already halfway there to having both. I mean you're literally … and we say it all the time, you're literally in someone's ear creating like some kind of like different neural connection with those people. I get your e-mail; I read your e-mails fine. I hear you on the podcast; I hear you talking about your kids and the Dread Pirate Roberts and all these kind of stuff that like has a different level of meaning. And it is that personal stuff that in a situation where you're going to be transferring it to a new owner is a little different. But for the time that you have the business or you're looking in acquiring a business that has a podcast it is a huge benefit. Because a lot of people are scared, right? You didn't start the podcast for some period of time probably because you're like … I don't know this is an onerous task I don't know if I'm up for it right? I mean maybe I did sure like I didn't start a podcast because I was like I'm not going to talk into a microphone and then put it out on the Internet for anyone who wants to hear it to hear because I sound like an idiot right? Like a lot of people don't like the sound of their voice and you just have to get over that stuff because the net is such a huge win. Mark: Yeah. Craig: Think about like you're at a conference now and like you know Mark I heard you on the podcast right? Mark: Right well it was that conference question that actually led us to do the podcast because we've been going to so many conferences and conferences are expensive. You have to fly out there for sponsoring and now that the sponsorship fees are ridiculously high and … but the benefit of being there in front of somebody and having those little jokes here and there or just playing… we'll play it a game. Well, we've done golf, we've done jenga, we've done darts … or something like darts it was actually sharp objects that we're throwing out our booth but that'd be dangerous they wouldn't let us do that. But that actual physical presence being there it really relaxed people so much more and allowed us to connect on more of a one on one basis. And that's why we started the podcast and sure enough, I think that happened. Given that choice between e-mail list and podcast, I would take the podcast audience as well. I think you can mobilize a podcast audience much faster. I think they're more engaged. I think they're more likely to quite literally listen to you but be more attentive to what you're saying. I think there's … that's just different [inaudible 00:40:07.3]. Craig: Yeah I would say like that one look at guys like you know Gary Vaynerchuk right or Pat Flynn or whoever that you look up to in the business and marketing world they all have podcasts right? So like that says something I think. The other thing is the volume of information that we are relaying in this episode is massive. Like … you know we transcribe episodes for customers a podcast and a typical you know 45 minute conversation is about 15 pages in a Google doc. Mark: Wow. Craig: So you're like how are you going to relay 15 pages of content to anybody ever? That's impossible, right? No one is ever going to read that blog post or email but they'll listen to that podcast every week. Mark: Yeah absolutely, in fact, I have our director of content marketing now Chris Moore who also listens to the podcast, hey Chris how are you doing? He's been going back through every one of our podcasts and pulling up quotes. And he was telling me just earlier this week about how much volume is there that we put together in what feels like a very short amount of time of doing this podcast. It is a ton of information. Craig: Something … a bit of a carrot I think for both the buy and sell side you know of your audience is you can bet your bottom that Google will be indexing audio very soon. Mark: That's a really nice tease. Craig: Oh you know the SEO impact of podcasting ya-da-da-da-da, you're going to create like show notes that are like 700 words or whatever for an hour long conversation. 100% guarantee that there will be an audio tab in Google whatever soon in the next couple of years. Mark: Yeah all right so let's go to this. We're almost up with our time I want to end up with what does somebody need at a bare minimum if they want to test a podcast for their business? How long … we don't have to get in the details of the equipment like we don't … I mean you want to give a couple of recommendations there and what are the basic things they should think about if they want to get and test it out for say two or three months and how long should they test it? Craig: Yeah so I think that the basics you need a microphone. I mentioned the two microphones before. If you really just want to test use the Apple ear buds they're actually quite good. Mark: They are actually. Yes, I'll second that actually, yeah. Craig: Get in a quiet place; don't have your kids running around or the train going by with the window open or something like that. Do some kind of environmental safety measures for the sound quality. You need something to record and edit the audio with. A tool that does both of those is called Audacity. It's open sourced and free in cross-platform so Windows or Mac. So you can record and edit with Audacity. Something to record with select a microphone or the Apple ear buds perfectly good and then you probably want something to store the files on so like a podcast hosting platform like a Castos or Libsyn, or SoundCloud and then you need to create what's called an RSS feed. And that is the thing that places like iTunes and Stitcher and Spotify read. And then share information about your podcast like as a whole like the title and description and image and all likely stuff and about each episode. That's kind of how podcasting works is you submit this RSS feed to these directories and the directories read the meta information about your show as well as information about each episode as it's published. So that's kind of a 20,000 foot view of podcasting. How many episodes? I think if you can't come up with 20 good guest interview or topics to cover or something like that then you have a couple of problems. But you probably shouldn't get into content generally but you really, really, really need to think about at least having a couple of episodes to launch with. Two, three, four something like that and but you really should have a general idea of what the first 20 episodes is going to look like. Mark: Yeah and I recommend actually recording probably about two months' worth just to start. If you're running a business as well I know like the recent first … my first go with Quiet Light podcast didn't really happen as I recorded three episodes and then I got busy and three weeks goes by really, really fast. And we do this here at Quiet Light we will get like a nice buffer of about two months but next you know we're staring down an empty set again of episodes. So get a nice buffer set up for that first trial and see what happens. It's a great medium and I'm going to do a plug for you just like you don't have to come across self-promotion. Honestly, your service makes this whole thing dead simple. Like I don't think about it at all, I don't think about what I'm doing. The only thing I thought about was what sort of graphic are we going to use for the podcast. Outside of that everything was set up, everything was done, the introduction was done. It makes it really, really simple. And so if you are looking to go this direction don't add a bunch more to your plate. Go out talk to PodcastMotor I recommend your guys service highly enough. Craig: Cool. Thanks so much that's great to hear. Mark: Hey thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it. If you guys have questions feel free to reach out to Craig@podcastmotor. We'll put contact information in the show notes and yeah if you have any other questions or suggestions for podcast episodes send me an email mark@quietlightbrokerage.com. Thanks, Craig. Craig: Thanks, Mark. Links and Resources: Podcast Motor Castos Contact Podcast Motor

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The Roots of No Barriers: A Conversation with Co-founder Mark Wellman

No Barriers

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 1, 2018 50:35

Mark Wellman is a nationally acclaimed author, filmmaker and motivational speaker. Despite being paralyzed in a mountain climbing accident, Mark has inspired millions to meet their problems head-on and reach for their full potential. A two-time Paralympian and former Yosemite Park Ranger, Mark's NO LIMITS philosophy encourages individuals to adventure into new horizons; to go beyond the seeming unreachable. Mark is used to being on the road since he travels throughout the year, bringing his adaptive climbing wall to companies, organizations, and schools. We caught him during one of his road trips and he agreed to swing by Golden, Colorado to the No Barriers podcast studio and catch up with his old friends, Jeff, Dave, and Erik. Mark is unbelievably accomplished but also reserved and humble. He talks about his legendary, groundbreaking athletic achievements with the same tone most use to describe what they had for lunch. But there was a time in Mark's life where he was unsure, depressed, and hopeless with no clear path ahead. Mark discusses his near-death injury that he sustained on a climb that left his paralyzed from the waist down. He spent months in the hospital unsure of how to go forward and lost. That was, until he received some wisdom. I had this one physical trainer, she was from Germany, and she said: “You need to train like your training for the Olympics!” And I just really took that to heart.” Mark first was determined to find employment where he could stay connected to the outdoors. So, he went back to school and got his degree in Park Management. He worked as a Park Ranger in various capacities, already shattering people's ideas of what he was capable of, but that was just the beginning. He soon discovered the world of adaptive sports and threw himself into learning more and designing his own adaptive equipment to get back out into the field. It was then he came up with the crazy idea of climbing the sheer granite face of El Capitan. He found a partner, built an ascending rope pulley system, and started to train. Now, folks of many different abilities have climbed El Cap, but until Mark, this was unthinkable. He pulled it off and became the first paraplegic to make the ascent. “Are you crazy to take this paraplegic guy up El Cap? Seems like a really stupid idea. Something could go wrong,’ but fortunately we didn’t really listen to that.” Mark went on to gain tons of media attention, made national and international news, met the President, lit the flaming torch up a 120-foot rope at the Paralympic games in Atlanta; a fun story he shared with us, and continued on to break even more records of athletic achievement, like being the first paraplegic to sit-ski unassisted across the Sierra Nevadas. Listening to Mark describe his epic achievements it's easy to forget he has a disability or about all the struggle that led him to this point in his life. But for Mark, it's about mindset. “I learned my disability wasn’t a death sentence - let’s get on with life, dude!” But Mark wanted to share what he learned with others. He details the spark of an idea he had with a friend that led to the formation of the nonprofit, No Barriers, and the humble beginnings of an organization that is now becoming a movement. He uses his time to speak to groups and offer inspiration, as well as lead hands-on adaptive activities that get people out of their comfort zones. “Let’s get out and enjoy life.” Read Mark's Autobiography Here Visit Mark's website: No Limits Learn more about No Barriers autobiography Climbing Back. The first paraplegic to sit-ski unassisted across the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, --------------- EPISODE TRANSCRIPT ------------------------- Dave: Well welcome to our No Barriers podcast. We are thrilled today to have Mark Wellman with us, who's one of the founders of No Barriers. Can't wait to hear some of his stories about what this organization was founded upon. He's really the heart and soul behind why many of us are here at the organization. Before we get into that conversation, Erik, you just came back from a really interesting experience, why don't share with our listeners a little bit about it? Erik: [00:00:30] Yeah, I was at a conference with all these authors. There were four of us, and the first was a lady, she was the author of Hidden Figures, this great book that was made into a movie, these African American women who were behind getting us to the moon, didn't get any credit at first, but then their stories were really illuminated by her book. And this guy who is falsely sent to death row for 30 years. He was incarcerated- Dave: Wow. Erik: In a five by [00:01:00] seven room, had to kind of go into his mind and think about how to expand his mind. He said in his mind he married Halle Berry. They were married for 25 happy years. Dave: When was this set? Erik: Recently. Literally just got out of ... he got out of jail, no apology from Alabama. But he wrote this amazing book, so ... And then a lady who wrote a book called Beauty Sick, mostly [00:01:30] about girls who struggle with body image, and how much productivity is lost in the world because girls are having to pay attention to makeup, and weight, and all the things that they worry about. Guys too, but mostly the focus was on girls, and I have a daughter, so I was sitting there just hanging on every word, thinking about my daughter and her struggle, so it was really book because it was four very No Barriers... Dave: That's a lot of No Barriers. Erik: ...authors right there. [00:02:00] Maybe we'll get them on the podcast at some point. Dave: That sounds like perfect fit for the kinds of topics we explore. Erik: Yeah. And I am totally thrilled... this is great. I'm so psyched to have my friend, all our friends, Mark Wellman on the podcast today. Dave: The legend. Erik: The legend, the dirt bag... is that okay to say? Mark: Yeah, yeah. Dave: You embrace it, right? Mark: It's great to be here. I embrace everything. Erik: Mark almost doesn't need an introduction, but Mark is [00:02:30] a world class adventurer, and an innovator, and is the key founder of No Barriers. Has done amazing things that blow your mind as an adventurer. Has skied across the Ruth Gorge. Has traversed the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Has mountain biked the White Rim Trail. Has climbed El Capitan, Half Dome. We were just talking this morning, your Half [00:03:00] Dome ascent was 13 days? Mark: Yeah, it was. Erik: On the wall. Just, Mark, a hero of mine for sure. You're a few years older than me. When I was a teenager and you were just a little bit older climbing El Capitan and doing all these amazing adventures, you were a huge part of my motivation, so I'm psyched right now. Mark: It's great to be here, thanks a lot Erik. Yeah I guess I could [00:03:30] start off with... 35 years ago I was an able bodied climber and we were climbing a peak called Seven Gables, which is pretty close to the Mount Whitney area. We had a 20 mile backpack to get into the base, and this is back in 1982, I was 22 years old. My good friend Peter Enzinger and I were back there to do this climb. [00:04:00] We set up a base camp about 10,000 feet, and the next morning we got up pretty early, grabbed our technical rock climbing equipment and left most of our provisions at the base camp, our sleeping bags. Sure would have been nice to have that sleeping bag with us but didn't have it. And we climbed Seven Gables. It was sort of technical, kind of a mixed route. There was a little bit of ice, a little bit of rock, and made [00:04:30] the ascent. By the time we topped of it was a little bit late in the afternoon, about five o'clock. We just embraced this beautiful view from the summit. American Alpine Club places sometimes these cairns, or climbing registers, at the top of the mountain. It was kind of cool to see this. In this case it was just a pile of rocks with a Folgers coffee can. And I opened up the Folgers coffee can and dumped out the little pieces of paper, and there's my [00:05:00] hero Royal Robbins had climbed it. "Cool man, I'm gonna put my name next to Royal." Did that, and then we decided we're gonna go down a class four descent on the backside, just scrambling, not roped. We were just kind of walking down a tail of slope. I'll be the first to kind of admit my guard was down. My partner said, "Hey, maybe we should put a rope on [00:05:30] this one section here." I go, "No, no. I wanna get down to base camp, I'm really hungry. There's some really good freeze-dried food I wanna eat." You know that wonderful Mountain House stuff. Erik: And 35 years ago. Dave: Delicious. [crosstalk 00:05:44] Mark: So next thing I knew, I slipped on some scree, and I pitched forward and I started rolling. I made a couple of somersaults and I rolled off about a 100 foot cliff. When I landed I broke my lower back at T 11, T 12. Of course at the time I didn't know it. [00:06:00] I was 22, I didn't even know what a wheelchair was. That happened, and my partner thought I possibly could have been killed. But he heard me yell back at him. He got down to where I was... he said he spent a couple hours with me stopping some bleeding on my legs, and some other stuff. Jeff: What's your recollection of that period of time... Mark: He said he was with me for two hours, it felt like ten minutes. Erik: Right. Mark: And then he left. [00:06:30] He left an orange, an extra jacket, and some trail mix and said "Man, I gotta get out and get some help." So after 30 hours, the best sound I've ever heard in my whole life was the sound of this... [helicopter sounds] ...coming up the canyon. Erik: You almost froze to death. Mark: It was cold that night. Yeah it was real cold. I was laying on some ice. That probably helped because it kept the swelling down in my back. So I'm an incomplete [00:07:00] para. I have a little bit of movement in my legs. They said that might have helped me, the swelling. But the helicopter got up there, it was actually a ship from the Forest Service. They were gonna just go up and see if it was more of a body recovery, but fortunately I waved to them and the helicopter disappeared. About an hour later, a second helicopter came up and this time was from Lemoore Navy Base, and they did [00:07:30] a technical rescue. Flew in, brought the rotors within several feet of the cliff surface, lowered a navy medic, got me in a stokes litter, got me back up into the ship. I was down at a trauma center, they were cutting my clothes off, and a nurse said, "Who's your insurance company?" And fortunately I did have insurance, I had Kaiser. I went through stabilization of my back with Harrington rods. I was in the hospital in 1982 for seven months. Dave: [00:08:00] Wow. Erik: Including rehab? Mark: Including rehab and the whole nine yards. And nowadays, a paraplegic if you go to Craig Hospital, it's kind of the factory up here in the west. A paraplegic will be in the hospital for about six weeks. It's pretty dramatic... in those days, it was a much longer hospitalization. Learning how to take care of yourself. And then... Erik: More time is better, right? I mean, [00:08:30] would make sense right? You can develop more time? Mark: Yeah, a little bit. I think seven months was a little excessive. Erik: Right. Mark: But you know, there's a lot to learn. Your life has really changed. Your spinal cord runs your body, and you're paralyzed from your waist down. You have bowel and bladder issues. You have skin issues you have to be careful about. So all those things were really important, and I had this one [00:09:00] physical therapist who was from Germany and she goes, "You need to train like you're training for the Olympics." I just really took that to heart and started lifting weights. Was ambulating with long leg braces. This was sort of the beginning of the wheelchair revolution where wheelchairs weren't a stale piece of medical equipment, they were a lightweight piece of aluminum that was more of an extension of your body. And the wheelchair [00:09:30] could take you from point A to point B. Fortunately, in 1982 was really when these wheelchairs... they started making lightweight chairs. And I was a part of that. Erik: Not the clunky Vietnam-era things, right? Mark: Exactly. The old Everest and Jennings chairs were more obsolete, and they were using... well there was a woman who started Quickie wheelchairs, Marilyn Hamilton, she got hurt in a hang gliding accident. They took hang gliding technology, clevis pins, aluminum, powder coat. [00:10:00] And they kind of messier of manufacturing these wheelchairs sort of like... taking the technology from hang gliders and applying it to wheelchairs. Erik: We're still less than ten podcasts in here, but we've already heard a lot of stories of people... these No Barrier stories of people who go down deep into these dark places. I don't want to bring you down, but you have a lot of experience right now and so you can look back. You went to a dark [00:10:30] place, obviously. Mark: Yeah. It was close to saying goodbye to this Earth. Fortunately I made it through. I remember getting back into rehab, then I met a state rehab counselor who said, "You know Mark, you have this great love, this great passion for the outdoors, why don't you become a park ranger?" And I'm thinking, "How's somebody in a wheelchair gonna be a park ranger?" I'm thinking [00:11:00] law enforcement, search and rescue, and she goes "No, there's many hats in the National Park Service, or many different jobs." She took me down to Fort Funston where I met a ranger who kind of showed me the ropes and said "Hey, you could maybe do a job, this would be an entry level position, but you could help us plant dune grass and work in the nursery, or you could go to the entrance gate and help out there." [00:11:30] So I did that for a summer and then I went back to school and went to West Valley College and studied park management. Erik: Cool. Mark: And became a ranger at Yosemite. I remember my first job wasn't exactly my idea being a ranger. There I was sitting in this little kiosk, this little booth, at Big Oak Flat, the entrance to Yosemite. In those days it was a three dollar entrance fee and I'd collect the money and be breathing in auto fumes all day long. That really wasn't [00:12:00] my idea of being a ranger. But it was entry level. The next summer I went down to Yosemite Valley and started working at the visitor's center doing interpretation. Interpreting the natural processes of the park, the public. Bear management, geology, climbing was a big subject too. I'd give programs on climbing, talk about A climbing versus free climbing. Jeff: Were you transparent with people that would come through the park, with how your injury took place? [00:12:30] When you'd talk about the [crosstalk 00:12:31] Mark: I was, I was. I would start my climbing program off with my accident, actually. And bring that in, because I think that was a big part of it. They might say, "Well who's this guy in a wheelchair, what does he know about climbing?" I'd kind of bring that in. That was before I climbed El Cap, I was doing those things. Jeff: Were you percolating on doing something like that when you were there? Mark: I was. It's kind of an interesting story. There was a magazine called Sports And Spokes, it was a wheelchair [00:13:00] athletic magazine. On the front cover on that magazine was a DSUSA chapter, a woman who was being lowered down a cliff in a wheelchair on a river rafting trip. The river went over a waterfall, and then you did portage all the equipment around the waterfall. They had a swami belt and a climbing rope and they had a helmet, I guess they wanted to put a helmet on her for safety, sounded like a good idea. And they lowered her down this cliff in this wheelchair, [00:13:30] and it was on the front cover of this magazine, Sports And Spokes. I got the magazine at my little cabin in Yosemite and I had it on my lap. I was wheeling over to the visitor center to open it up in the morning, and I bumped into my future climbing partner Mike Corbet. And Mike's nickname was Mr. El Cap back in the 80s, he had climbed El Cap more than anybody else in the world, over 50 times. And Mike had never really talked about climbing to me because he knew that's how I got hurt. But when [00:14:00] I showed him this picture, Mike's eyes got really big, and he got really excited. He goes, "You know what Mark, I wanna start climbing with you, but what I really wanna do is climb El Cap." And we had no idea how we were gonna do it. Dave: That's great. Mark: That evening, we were sitting at the mountain room bar, we might have had a beer or two. Dave: Or three. Jeff: That's where all good decisions are made. Mark: Where all good decisions are made. So we had a little beer napkin and we started writing down notes. We said, "Okay, [00:14:30] we're gonna take a jumar..." A jumar is a rope ascender, this was back in the day, kind of like what Kleenex is to tissue. So we took a jumar, and we mounted a pull up bar and a jumar, and then we had a second ascender on a chest harness. And we put a rope up right by the Ahwahnee Hotel. Church ball tree. It was an oak tree. We had this rope and we started ascending up into the tree and then he'd lower me back down. So we go, "Okay, [00:15:00] so a paraplegic can ascend a rope using their upper body strength. Now to get on El Capitan, we got to actually protect your lower extremities from the granitic rock." We knew we were gonna be up there at least a week. I don't have feeling in my legs, so I really needed to protect my legs from any kind of abrasion or any kind of sore that could have occurred up there. We went down to this hardware store in Fresno, California outside [00:15:30] of the park. We bought some leather, a speedy stitcher, some closed cell insulation foam, and we just started making these rock chaps and they sort of evolved over a course of six months. We were climbing Jam Crack, Warner's... Erik: Weren't they... what was the material of those? I've felt your chaps before. That sound's weird... Dave: The truth comes out. Jeff: Hey, we're all friends here. Mark: The original [00:16:00] rock chaps were made out of leather and canvas. But the pair of rock chaps you felt were actually made out of some kind of silky material. No, no... Dave: Oh that was lingerie? Not chaps. Jeff: This was the first No Barriers improv meeting, what you're talking about, with your buddy Mike. Mark: Absolutely. Jeff: That was it, that was the genesis of what... fast forward to today, that was the beginning. What [00:16:30] year was that? 1980... Mark: That was 1988. Jeff: 88. There you go. Mark: Yeah 88. I was 28 years old. Erik: So if you think about it that way, No Barriers began in the Ahwahnee bar. Jeff: Yeah, on a bar stool. On a bar napkin. Dave: I know you guys are all dirt bag climbers. I'm not a dirt bag climber. For our listeners who are not dirt bag climbers, someone paint a picture, because we're getting to the El Cap story. Which is a phenomenal story. Paint a picture of El Cap for us, because not everyone knows what that is. Jeff: Yeah, well. El Cap [00:17:00] is probably the most revered, iconic, monolith in North America if not the world. Uninterrupted, over 3000 feet of granite. It is... when you're in Yosemite, you look up at it and it's got this perfectly symmetrical flank apron on both sides that comes out into this promontory called the nose. And [00:17:30] you can't take your eyes off it. If you look away for a minute, you have to look back at it just cause it's so magnificent and powerful. And it represents so much too. If you want to call yourself a climber, you kind of have to climb El Cap at some point. Erik: When you stand in the meadows below, which is just clogged with tourists just all driving by gawking. What I've heard, is you have to look up and up and up, way higher than [00:18:00] you think you have to. Dave: And if you see a person climbing, as a person who's not a technical climber speaking, you think "Those people are crazy. They're insane. What are they doing up there?" Jeff: Erik and I climbed El Cap. And his dad, Erik's dad, and future wife were down there in the meadow with telescopes watching us. We had one of those little lighty things, little sticks, and we were shining our headlamps down at everybody. It's [00:18:30] a magnificent thing, but it's also very intimidating. It can be very cool when you stand up and look at it, but then the idea of going and climbing it I think is a whole different story. Erik: And as a quote on quote gimp, and that's a word by the way that Mark taught me. I never even heard that word before. It's one of those words I guess you somehow have the license to use if you are... Mark: If you are. Erik: If you are in a chair or you are blind. So what did, when you talked about this out loud, what did people [00:19:00] think? Are people like, "You're nuts." Mark: Yeah, we had kind of a mixture of both. People that knew us, were "Oh yeah you guys should go do this." Mark's been training, he's always skiing, always riding his bike, hand bike around... well in those days it was more of a row cycle. And then we had people say, mainly not to me so much but more to Mike, "Are you crazy? Take this paraplegic guy up El Cap? Seems like a really stupid [00:19:30] idea. Something could go wrong." But fortunately, we didn't really listen to that. We just started training, we made these rock chaps. Like I said, they kind of just evolved over about a six month period. We kind of have a little circuit in Yosemite Valley that we climbed together. We did Jam Crack, the Prude, Warner's Crack, The Rostrum, we went over there. Erik: Oh, wow. Mark: So we did some stuff in the Valley [00:20:00] just to really warm up. And then I actually went up and spent a night on El Cap. Because we wanted to feel what that was like. Jeff: Up at sickle? Mark: We actually went to Heart Ledge. Erik: Wow. Jeff: Over on the south. Mark: Yeah, over on the south. The route we were gonna climb was a shield. So... Jeff: Cause it's overhanging. Mark: It was overhanging... once you get over the shield roof it's overhanging. The beginning of it's not. It's pretty low angle. Jeff: Were you scared at all before you did this or [00:20:30] were you just super fired up and kind of naïve? Mark: I was scared the night before. Jeff: You were. Mark: Yeah. Jeff: Like really scared? Mark: Yeah I was... couldn't sleep. This kind of what happened was... really Mike, about two weeks before we're gonna blast off, Mike goes, "Man we've trained so hard for this, I'm gonna write a letter to Tom Brokaw..." who is the national NBC News guy, who is a climber too, a little bit. And, I'm going, "Okay... " so basically [00:21:00] Corbet just wrote out a note with a pencil. He was a janitor at the Yosemite Medical Clinic to support his addiction to climbing. He just wrote a little note to Tom Brokaw, and I think three or four days later he's talking to... Tom Brokaw called the medical clinic and talked to Mike, and said "We want to come out and do this story." Erik: Gosh. Mark: And all of a sudden the pressure was on. That's when I really was thinking, "Wow you're telling national news, this is gonna add [00:21:30] a lot more pressure for myself." But as soon as we got to the base of El Cap and I touched that granite, all that training and preparation really got into par, and I got relaxed. I started doing pull up after pull up, dragging myself up the largest unbroken granite cliff in North America, El Capitan, and the first night... we do something called, we fix pitches. So we were fixed [00:22:00] up about 800 feet. So we had... Mike used to say, "It's always nice to kind of have a jumpstart." Erik: Right. Mark: You know, fix those lines, get all your water, we had 250 pounds... Erik: It's like a trail of ropes that go up 800 feet so you can just... Mark: The next morning... Erik: Start on the ground and zip up 800 feet and have like a jumpstart on this gigantic monolith. Mark: Exactly. And have all your water, all your gear up there. So he had to work three or four days to make that happen prior to us [00:22:30] leaving. Once we left Mammoth Terrace, we were on our own. We went through the Gray Ledges, and we went over... the roof was really tremendous. Because Mike is basically climbing upside down, and then gets up onto the pitch above it and fixes a rope. Then I kind of untied myself and I swing underneath that roof, and you can hear the cheers of the people down below. It's like [00:23:00] what Jeff was saying, It's quite a scene at the El Cap meadow. You really have to have binoculars. It's hard to see climbers up there, because they're so tiny, they're like little ants up there. If you don't know what to look for, it's hard to see these people. The crowd was yelling, and the green dragon would come by. It's a tour vehicle that has it's open air shuttle. Erik: "If you look upright you will see a nutcase [00:23:30] climbing El Capitan." Mark: We could actually hear them talking about "Mike Corbet, Mark Wellman, first paraplegic..." So that was kind of interesting. Finally when we topped out, it was seven nights, eight days of climbing. This was before digital technology on El Cap, when national news came out. They had a mule train, they brought out a satellite dish that was like five feet wide, and we were live on top of El [00:24:00] Cap talking to Tom Brokaw. Jeff: Sick. Mark: And we've got... between the Today Show and NBC News, and in a week we were on TV for like several hours if you took all the time that they played this. There wasn't really much going on in the news, so they really kind of played this story up in a big way. As soon as we got off that climb, about a week later, we're sitting in the Oval [00:24:30] Office talking to President Bush. It was myself, Mike Corbet, "Writtenaur" who was Secretary of the Interior, and Jack Morehead, superintendent of Yosemite. The four of us are in the White House, in the Oval Office, talking about bone fishing because President Bush loved to bone fish and we presented him with a flag that we took with us on the climb, and it changed my life. Erik: Mark, so you're not that old, but I see [00:25:00] you sort of as the father of adventur e sports for people with disabilities. I want people to understand that the idea to climb El Cap back in the 80s... nowadays, I think... how many people have climbed El Cap in chairs, paras? Mark: Oh the chairs? Erik: Dozens, right? Mark: Yeah, dozens. Erik: But you sort of unleashed that. You opened up this door. And now, quote on quote gimps are doing everything, right? Mark: Every summer there's [00:25:30] a paraplegic. Erik: But you opened that door for all of us. So, it's sort of a crazy thought to me. Mark: It is. You can't take the first ascent of El Cap, you can't take that away from me. That's something I'll always remember. It was a huge accomplishment for both Mike and I, and there's been different paraplegics who have gone up it. A gentleman with cerebral palsy, Steve Wampler, was probably the most [00:26:00] disabled person that's been up there. Lots of amputees. I call them amputees, hardly disabled. Paraplegics wanna be amputees. Erik: Those will be our first complaint letters. Dave: Exactly. [crosstalk 00:26:15] Mark: Quadriplegics wanna be paraplegics. Everybody has their differences. There's been a quadriplegic, incomplete quadriplegic, climbed El Cap with Tommy Thompson, good climber. [00:26:30] Steve Muse. Erik: There's that kid who climbed The Chief, he was inspired by you. Mark: Yep. Erik: He was a quad, and he climbed The Chief. He invented kind of this, almost like a contraption with wheels if I remember right, that kind of rolled up the face. Mark: Yeah it was... the premise was taking the Dolt cart. A climber by name of Dolt had this cart and he used to use it for a hauling system on El Cap. Brad "Szinski", the Canadian guy you're talking about, he came up with this [00:27:00] cart. His hands didn't really work as well as a paraplegic, he lost some muscle mass in his hands and fingers. So he had a different type of system where he could ascend a rope using a crank, and developed that. So there's been all kinds of different adaptations that allow people that are wheelchair users to go rock climbing. Jeff: This sort of set you [00:27:30] on this course to being an improvisational pioneer, those are my words. Were you like that always or do you feel like your accident cued you up for this opportunity to then over the past thirty years... Mark: Thirty five. Jeff: Yeah thirty five years. Now you've continued this trajectory of being this pioneer when it comes to just making it work. You make it work, right? Mark: I was so young. When I got hurt [00:28:00] I was 22. I wasn't climbing big walls, I hadn't got to that point yet of climbing El Cap. Finally, when I did have my accident it kind of made sense. The steeper the climb for somebody in a chair the better. Mountaineering is gonna be really tough. There are ways of doing mountaineering. We got four paraplegics on top of Mount Shasta. Erik: Yep. Mark: And there was a guy named Pete "Rikee". It's funny... people [00:28:30] come to me if they've got an idea, a lot of times they'll want me to be a part of the project. Least... Erik: That was a pod that they were in, that had almost like tractor wheels, right? Mark: Exactly. What we did is we took a snowmobile and cut the snowmobile track in half and made a tractor stance. So you have two tracks and a seat with a bicycle crank, and we actually crank our way up Mount Shasta. We had to get special permit from the Forest [00:29:00] Service. You can only be on Shasta for three days, and we knew we were gonna be up there for a week. So I had to drive up... I was trying to explain to this district ranger on the telephone, he really wasn't getting it. Erik: Sometimes they don't get it. Mark: And he wasn't getting it at all. He was thinking mechanical device... Jeff: Motorized... Mark: Right. He knew who I was, so he said "Come up and bring the machine with you so I can take a look at it." So I brought one of the snow pods up there and I met with the district ranger [00:29:30] and a couple of his back country rangers, and they got it. They said, "This is cool man, we'd like to let you guys do this." They gave us a special use permit. The big thing about the Forest Service and wilderness, or National Park Service wilderness, you cannot take... supposedly mechanized devices cannot go into the wilderness. But if you have a disability, your bicycle could almost be considered a wheelchair, or your snow pod can be considered [00:30:00] a wheelchair. Long as it doesn't have a Briggs and Stratton engine on it. That was the big thing, it has to be a manual piece of a gear that's human powered. So we got that, and we got four paraplegics on top of Mount Shasta. Erik: And El Cap really launched you into being able to do all these amazing things, right? You pretty much became a professional climber, adventurer, doing these things around the world. I know you lit the torch for the Paralympics, right? Mark: I did, I lit the Paralympic torch in Atlanta in 1996. [00:30:30] Muhammad Ali lit it for the able bodied Olympics. They had this torch, and the night before we're training for it... it's a big surprise, they don't want to see the person light the torch the night before, no media, so we're out there. I was gonna climb an 80 foot rope doing rope ascension, doing pull up after pull up. And North Face made me a little, kind of a... we envisioned this Robin Hood thing with... behind [00:31:00] my shoulders, this arrow quiver where I put the actual torch in. I didn't wanna burn my hair, what's left of it, so... Erik: You had a lot more hair... Mark: So I said, "Let's make this torch holder so it comes off your legs." So they made that for me. That night we're training, I get up the 80 foot rope, and I lit the fuse and the fuse blew out. Erik: Oh no. Mark: And the pyrotechnics guy goes, it was windy, and the [00:31:30] next day it was gonna be windy too. So the pyrotechnics guy guys... "Okay Mark, I'll make sure this fuse doesn't go out the night you do it." And I go, "Great." So I get up there in front of 80,000 people, I'm climbing up this rope. Liza Minnelli is singing this song and she's going "Go Mark, Go Mark." The whole stadium of 80,000 people is going nuts. So I lit this fuse, and literally the thing blew up. There was fire all over me. And I'm leaning back, hoping I'm not gonna catch [00:32:00] on fire. Then the fuse went up and lit the actual cauldron, and that was the start of the 1996 Summer Olympics. Jeff: You did not combust. Mark: I did not combust. I had the best seat in the house. Erik: You'd be like a Motley Crue drummer. Mark: Exactly. So that was fun. Erik: Takes us on a little tour of what you did. All those amazing adventures that you did after that. Takes us on a little tour around the world. Mark: What a lot of people don't realize, which I think is harder than climbing [00:32:30] El Cap, or spending 13 days on Half Dome was another big ascent we did years ago... but was doing the Trans Sierra ski crossing. I've done it twice now. I did it in 1993, it was a big winner, and I did it in 2011. So we took a cross country Nordic sit ski. You sit low to the ground, you have two skis mounted underneath a frame with a seat, and you're sitting maybe a foot off the snow. And you have two [00:33:00] poles, and you actually double pole. So you're double poling to make this device go down the trail. I was on the US Disabled Nordic Ski Team. Competed in two Paralympics, in France and in Norway. Got beat up by the Finns, the Norwegians, they're so passionate about that sport. Jeff: And they're vikings. Mark: And they're vikings, man. They're so tough. My best finish out of 30 guys was of fifth place, that was in France. [00:33:30] In Norway, I got even more beat up. I wanted to actually get into Nordic ski racing because I had other things I wanted to do. I wanted to try to get into the back country in a Nordic ski. Back in 93 a guy named Jeff Pegles and myself was also on the US disabled Nordic team. We took sleds, little polks, behind our rigs. We had our bivy gear. And we skied 55 miles from Snowline [00:34:00] on the east side of the Sierra on Tioga road, we got someone to open up the gate. Guy that worked for the power company opened up the gate. We got up to Snowline and we skied from Snowline to Crane Flat, which is 55 miles. Jeff: Wow. Mark: Following the Tioga road. Jeff: Just the two of you? Mark: Well we also had Pearlman with us too. Erik: Filming. Mark: He was filming, yeah. Erik: And, you gotta tell the story about the White Rim. So you biked the White Rim, I think you were on one off mountain bikes? Mark: [00:34:30] Yep. Erik: Or some kind of devices, hand crank mountain bikes. And it was so sandy, the story I heard, you had to get out and you had to pretty much pull yourself on your arms and pull your chair, did you pull the other guys chairs too? Or were the other guys' bikes... Mark: It was an epic, groveling adventure. Seems like everything I do turns into that. Jeff: Yeah. [crosstalk 00:34:50] Mark: If you're not suffering, you're not having a good time. That's kind of how it is out there. We had these one off mountain bikes and [00:35:00] we actually did a Jeep tour to kind of check it out a couple years prior. We did have it a little easier, we didn't carry all our water and food with us, we had a swag wagon out there. Suburban, follow the four paraplegics. Myself, Bob Vogel, and Steve Ackerman. We rode this, 52 miles is the full circumnav of the White Rim. There was times, [00:35:30] yeah, it was an interesting experience out there because some of these washes were like moon dust. We couldn't get our bikes through it. So I had a pair of rock chaps with me and I threw the rock chaps on and did some crawling. Had an 11 mil static rope and dragged the guys behind me. Did a few epic things like that. Jeff: I mean, If I'm riding my mountain bike and I come up on that scene in the middle of the White Rim, who knows what to make of that? Mark: [00:36:00] You can walk man, so best thing to do is just walk your bike. Jeff: Like, "You guys are good right?" and they'll be like "Yep, we're good man." Erik: Leave us alone. Jeff: Leave us alone. Mark: Don't touch me. Jeff: There's nothing to see here. Yeah. Erik: Yeah. Jeff: Wow, that's rad. Mark: And then recently, just a couple of years ago... in the winter we had a drought in California and Tahoe, so I circumnaved Lake Tahoe in a kayak in winter. And that was a really amazing adventure. It was 72 [00:36:30] miles, two nights of camping. But the cool thing was, and it was cool at night, it was really cold at night. There was no power boats. In the winter you don't have any power boats on Lake Tahoe, it was kind of like being out there in the 1800s. Seeing bald eagles, none of the tourists were on the water, it was really a fantastic trip. Dave: So Mark, you are someone who really embodies the spirit of No Barriers and you helped [00:37:00] start the organization. So tell us, all these adventures, all these things you've done to challenge what's possible, what people think is possible. Why No Barriers? Tell us that story. Mark: You know, No Barriers... I did a movie called No Barriers, and I got a poster out called No Barriers. It was a word that really meant a lot to me. My wife and I, we were down in San Francisco at a fundraiser... in those days it was called Yosemite Fund, now it's called Yosemite [00:37:30] Conservancy. We were at this dinner, and I met this kind of wild old character named Jim Goldsmith. And Jim came up to me, knew who I was... we started talking. He had a cabin in the subdivision I live in called Tahoe Dawner. So Jim and I, and Carol, and his wife Connie would get together, we had a couple of dinners together. And then Jim started talking about the Dolomites, and his [00:38:00] son-in-law and daughter. And he said, "Man, it would be really neat to kind of do something for disabled people and able bodied people if we did something in the Dolomites." And I go, "Man, I know a couple of guys who I've done some stuff with, a guy named Hugh Herr, double amputee who's done some rock climbing with him, and Erik Weihenmayer." This was probably after your Everest... Erik: Yeah, after. Mark: This was after your Everest climb. And I said "Hey, these [00:38:30] guys..." we did a climb out in Moab Utah, the three of us, it was kind of gimp helping gimp, it was this real magical event out there. Which was really cool... Erik: Climbing the Fisher Tower. Mark: Yeah. The Fisher Tower. Ancient Ark. Erik: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mark: And it was this really fantastic climb. I'd like to get these two guys involved with what we're talking about. SO I called Erik, I called Hugh, and we ended up putting our first [00:39:00] little... in those days, it was more of a festival, we called it, instead of a summit. We did it in the Dolomites. It was a very obscure little place up in the mountains, this real beautiful location, but nothing was really accessible. The hotels weren't that accessible, everything was kind of difficult to put this together. But it was this real magical place in the mountains... Erik: I remember the chair operators didn't even know how to get people with disabilities on the chairs. Mark: They didn't have [00:39:30] an idea. They didn't... yeah. Erik: On the ski lifts. Thank you. Yeah. Mark: They weren't doing adaptive skiing in those days in that little village. It was actually the home of the 1956 Olympics. SO that was kind of my envision was to start this, and who knew it was gonna get into what it is today. It's just amazing what you guys have done, and all the different things No Barriers has to offer people. Erik: What do you think about when you think about the evolution? You had this little germ [00:40:00] of an idea to go to this town and start talking about accessibility and innovation, and some of your lessons about how you've broken through barriers, or how the three of us had broken through barriers. And now, when you look at it today... Mark: [sighs] It's kind of mind boggling how it's grown so big and how many different people it affects, it's not just the disabled community, it's able bodied community bringing everyone together. Trying new experiences. The youth programs [00:40:30] that you guys have been doing is tremendous over the years. Soldiers to the summit. We're having all these guys coming back doing ten tours, they're not adjusting back into society very well, and taking them out into the outdoors with Jeff and different mountain guides, it just changes their lives. Brings them more back into a reality where they can really kind of adjust back into society. And then the summit is just... I love [00:41:00] coming to the summits. I've been to every one now, I haven't missed one since the beginning. It's gonna be fantastic in New York, I'm really looking forward to that. Erik: And you bring your climbing wall, your portable climbing wall. Mark: I'll have... Erik: Almost to every summit. So that's your mission now, right? To go around and use your climbing wall as a No Barriers tool to help people break through barriers. Tell us about that. Mark: Absolutely. Climbing has been such a big part of my life, that I just like to introduce different [00:41:30] people to the sport. A lot of times, somebody that's... we don't say electric chair, electric chair is something you die in. Power chair. A power chair takes you from point A to point B. A power chair user, a lot of times doesn't have all the... there's not as many things out there for a power chair user to participate in. Climbing on my wall, they can. We have these harnessing systems [00:42:00] that support your core. It's almost like a Bosen's chair, pulley system. If you have the desire to get on the climbing wall, we can facilitate that. We don't turn anybody away. We've had people that weigh 500 pounds on my wall before. Very obese wheelchair users... it doesn't matter. I had a gentleman that had spina bifida and he was unfortunately caught up in the American society of drinking a lot of soda, [00:42:30] and became really big. We got him on the wall, it was really difficult for him. We would talk to him and he wouldn't really look at you eye to eye as we were talking. I saw him a year later, he dropped 150 pounds, quit the soda, got into a training, cut his hair in a mohawk, and it just changed his life. Got out of the power chair and was in a manual chair. So climbing was kind of the responsibility of really changing this guys life, and now I see [00:43:00] him down in Los Angeles. I probably take the wall to Southern California maybe seven or eight times a year, San Francisco, Bay Area. I sort of have different groups hire me year after year, once they experience the wall they really want to have it be part of their event. We bring in, mini El Cap I call it, and we get people on it and we have a great time. Erik: And you're traveling around with your wall, full time. People bring you in to create this experience for their [00:43:30] rehab hospital or organization or team, right? Mark: Exactly. All those venues... I do adaptive climbing seminars. So a gym might call me and wanna know, "how do we get an adaptive climbing program going?" So I do that. And a lot of times I'll do not only a seminar on adaptive climbing, but then maybe that evening do a show and tell about adventure sports and where adventure sports have taken the disabled in the last 35 [00:44:00] years. Erik: And you are like Kleenex now, because... you talk about the pulley system, it's not a pulley system, pull up system, a lot of people say, "Oh yeah, Mark Wellman system." Mark: Yeah, it's... yeah it's kind of getting that way. Jeff: You're like Beyonce now. Mark: I'm like Beyonce. It's just kind of neat that my passions over the years... everybody should have a passion. And my passion has always been [00:44:30] to be out camping, doing something in the outdoors, coming up with new ideas, new technologies... and some of these technologies are more like a backyard technology. It's not that fancy. Sometimes some of the most simplest things can change something. Like mountain bike tires on a wheelchair can change a chairs getting into the back country tremendously. Mounting a pull up bar in a sender can allow a paraplegic [00:45:00] to do 7000 pull ups in eight days to go up El Cap. Just simple little technologies can really change peoples' lives, and you can take that backyard technology, garage technology, put something together that works for you that can help a whole bunch of people. Dave: I'd like to go back to that... You've told us a story, sort of the arc of your life, and when I look at you Mark and think about what you've accomplished I think "God, this is incredible. [00:45:30] This is an incredible human being that very few people who had what happened to you would ever have chosen the path that you have chosen." And I think, when I think about our No Barriers community, every so often you get folks who will say "Yeah, that's Mark Wellman but that couldn't have been me. You're putting someone in front of me that's so incredible, how could I possibly do this?" Erik: Yeah, you're de motivational. Mark: Right, right. I know, I get it. Dave: I'd love to hear, what do you think we can... 'cause this is what we do at No Barriers. We... If you're [00:46:00] listening to this, it's not like we take everyone up mountains, but we try to remind them about something in their spiri t... Mark: Yeah. Dave: ...that teaches them anything is possible. So talk to us a little bit about, Mark, how did you get to that point? Is it just sort of who you were from the beginning, was it an evolution? It just seems like everything you encountered, you are like, "I can do more." Mark: I think it's really important for people to get out of their comfort zone. Nowadays, it's so easy for young people to get... they get into gaming. And they [00:46:30] just, you know... it's stagnant. You're not getting out of your comfort zone. And the outdoors has a way of getting you out of your comfort zone. And you can make it safe... you don't need to think about what I do, it's more about finding, maybe getting some different experiences. And that's what's so cool about the summit. You have all these different activities going on where you just get a little taste of it. And hopefully [00:47:00] that little taste will inspire your imagination to want to try it again. And that's where I think it's really important if you're facilitating skiing or climbing, or whatever you're facilitating, you have to make sure that these people, their first experience is a good one. If they don't have a good experience, most likely they're not gonna go back to it. And, it's really important that the very first time... One of our board members, Sasha. [00:47:30] He was an academia guy, a professor. He came to the No Barriers event in Squaw Valley, the first one. Never had tried climbing before, and we took him to Donner Summit and got him up on this road cut climb that's 80 feet with big exposure, and it changed the guys life. It was something he was real nervous about, but it was getting him out of his comfort zone, and him [00:48:00] really having, you know... it was exciting for him, it was thrilling, it was challenging not only physically but mentally challenging at the same time. All those things combined. Kind of changed his life. And he became a board member of No Barriers because of that. Dave: Yeah. Mark: And there's stories like that all the time. Or Mandy, I remember her... wonderful singer. She got on my wall, it was 25 feet, and she [00:48:30] was really scared. It was a really scary moment for her where she had this big fear of heights. It wasn't like she was on a 1000 foot rope, she was on a 24 foot wall. But she might have well have been. Jeff: Relative for her. Mark: Could have been a 1000 foot climb. But she made it through. And came down... I got a guy that helps me, Wes, he's a search and rescue guy, kind of a big guy. He's just magical with [00:49:00] people, and really helped her a lot. So, you have all these different experiences... Erik: And I think that experience, by the way, gave her the courage to go out and do something completely non-climbing related, which was to write music and to go on to America's Got Talent, and... Mark: Exactly. Erik: Get into the finals, and now skyrocket into stardom. Mark: To fame. Absolutely. Making a better quality life for herself. [00:49:30] A lot of times when you say, somebody that's a wheelchair user... what is it, like 90 percent of the people in wheelchairs don't have jobs. And it's always kind of bummed me out, I'm thinking, "Wow." Why would you wanna be caught in a system like with Social Security and be basically poor your whole life, because "Oh I have Medicare, I have my Social Security disability," So you're trying to live on six to eight hundred dollars a month. And you're caught [00:50:00] in this kind of vicious circle. You've got to get away from that somehow, and get into the workforce, be productive. You're gonna feel better, you're gonna be a more productive citizen in this country, and you're not gonna be wrapped up in this vicious circle of never getting ahead and always having the government thumb you down, so to speak. Erik: Last question for [00:50:30] you from my end, this is Erik, and I wanna know, I've made it kind of clear that I look up to you. Tell me, who are the people that you look up to? Tell us about that guy Larry, tell us about some people who influenced your life. Mark: Oh man. There's been a lot for sure. There was a guy named... actually I think you're thinking of a guy named Mark Sutherland. When I first got hurt, Mark was a quadriplegic ten [00:51:00] years post to my injury. And he was back in the hospital. He had a bone spur, the spur was touching his spinal cord, and he was losing some of his action. Some quadriplegic can move their arms and they can push manual chairs, and he was one of those. But he was losing some of his arm strength, so he was in the hospital, and my room was next to his. We would talk at night. 'Cause I was really bummed out when I was first injured. To me, being a paraplegic was a fate [00:51:30] worse than death. I was on the sixth floor, if I could have crawled over to the window and jumped out I would have cause that's how bad I felt. I was just thinking, "Not having the use of my legs, I'm not gonna ski again, I'm not gonna climb." I was 22, I was just like, "Why didn't the mountain just take me." Those were the kind of thoughts I was having. But then I would go into this guys room, Mark Sutherland, and he would talk about, "Oh I had this milk truck that I converted, and I had a stool. One time I was driving it with my hand controls [00:52:00] and I fell off the stool, and I was on the ground and I had to throw my hand on the brake to stop it so I didn't kill anybody." Jeff: And you were like, "That's the greatest story ever." Mark: Yeah. I wanna do that. So I was just hearing this stuff from this guy, and he was talking about girlfriends, and how he was running around doing this and doing that, and I'm going, "Man, this guy has a life." And it was really inspiring to be... so where I was really depressed and laying in the hospital bed, and couldn't feel [00:52:30] my lower extremities, and "What's a catheter?" And I'm just like, "Man, this is horrible, what did I get myself into." And this guy was really upbeat and uplifting... Jeff: Showed you it wasn't a death sentence. Mark: Yeah. Showed me it wasn't a death sentence, and let's get on with life, dude. And it was like, boom. That just changed me. Then we went into rehab together, we were more in a hospital setting and then we both went into our physical rehab. That's [00:53:00] when it just started clicking for me, and that was it. Dave: Well, just to wrap up this excellent conversation that we're having about the history of No Barriers and all that you've done as well just individually, you've seen No Barriers be this thing that started in the Dolomites in 2003, we're 15 years into this. What's your dream for what it becomes? Mark: Wow. I would just consider it to be... I'd like to see maybe a couple summits a year, possible. [00:53:30] More, smaller clinics would be really cool too. I think you guys are really on a good, good path. But maybe some smaller events too. Just keep growing it. Keep doing more of these kinds of things. More technology. Bringing in more people, better speakers. Better people that are... or people that are doing more things that inspire others that give the ideas [00:54:00] to do more things. I'm amazed in 15 years where it's come to. Who knows where it's gonna go. Another 15 years from now, man this could be a huge, huge organization that could affect a lot of people and bring a lot of people together. This whole family, bringing the tribe together. It's always fun at the summits, and seeing people I haven't seen for a year, [00:54:30] spending time with them. I love getting people out climbing, so that's my passion. Erik: What if people want to learn how to get in touch with you, how to work with you, how to bring your wall to their organization? Mark: Yeah. Google Mark Wellman or just go to my website, No Limits Tahoe dot com. Give me a call. Erik: Although they won't talk to you, 'cause you're never home. You're always out [crosstalk 00:54:55] or something. Dave: Always on the road, right. Mark: Well, no, yeah I'm easy to get a hold of. Talk to my wife, Carol, [00:55:00] and I can get back to you. Erik: Right. Mark: Send me an email. I'm better on the phone, I don't like to email tons. Love to talk to you, if you have ideas lets talk about, lets see you at the summit. Lets get out and enjoy life. Erik: Cool. Well thank you so much Mark. Jeff: Listen Mark, I know you well enough to know you don't need to hear what I'm about to tell you, but, I think it's important for you and the listeners to know [00:55:30] in conversations like this, it becomes so clear how you are sort of the upside down pyramid. And you're the point on the upside down pyramid. And it all sort of funnels up from you, really. And I know there's others, but you're the man. And I know it's important for you, it is important for me to know that you know how many thousands of lives you've impacted. Erik: Tens of thousands. Jeff: Thousands of lives dude. You have been the kick starter [00:56:00] and the imputes. And you're just one of the most wonderful pioneers. I know you know it, but you need to hear it more, because you're the man. Mark: I appreciate it man, it's humbling. And, to take a passion that I had and a dream... and like I said, just simple adaptations, a pull up bar on a jumar. Man, how that changed other people to go climb up El Cap, or do Castleton, or whatever [00:56:30] mountain you want to get up, it's been a pretty cool experience. It's been fun to work with other companies. We're making more adaptive climbing equipment now. It's really kind of evolved from just handmade rock chaps to a real sophisticated pair of rock chaps that allows people to get out there and do a lot of cool stuff. Dave: Well it's been an honor to have you here Mark, I know many of our listeners are part of that No Barriers tribe. Many of them will know you, but a [00:57:00] lot of them won't. The movement has grown so big that it's well beyond you. But per what Jeff was saying, it's so important I think for the people of our community to know where this began. Mark: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Dave: And you are the point that Jeff mentioned where it began, and so, thank you so much for joining us, we appreciate having you. Mark: My pleasure. Erik: What did you guys take away from that? Might take us a while. Dave: Yeah. Exactly. Jeff: Might be a lengthy debrief on that one. Dave: I guess for me, as someone who's helping to build [00:57:30] this movement, like I was ending with there, just to remember the roots of where No Barriers began which is individuals coming together in small communities around creative ideas to do stuff that people didn't think was possible. And as we start to move to tens of thousands, maybe millions over the next ten years of people that we impact, that there's something in that special sauce that's still about the [00:58:00] individuals getting together having a fun, creative idea and going out and pushing their comfort zone. Erik: Yeah. I think that, No Barriers recipe is sort of hidden right in the story of El Capitan, which is... Mark's a smart guy, but he's not a scientist or anything, he's not Hugh Herr, who's inventing stuff where you go, "I could never do that." What he said is a pull up bar and a jumar. These are commercially available things. I think he had to adapt a few things, but [00:58:30] not all that crazy technology. Pretty simple. You combine that series, that innovation with the human spirit and a great friend or great support system, a great rope team, you do this amazing thing that opens up the door for a lot of people. It's a pretty simple recipe. Dave: It is. Jeff: All the big things that have happened with regards to our species all started with this small [00:59:00] germination of somebody sitting in their theoretical garage just being like, "How do I do this? Hmm?" And head scratch, and start piecing these things together, and then, boom, the movement begins. I think Mark embodies that, and what a great cornerstone for this organization. Dave: Well, and the movement continues. So if you're sitting there listening saying, "I wanna be a part of this organization, I wanna be a [00:59:30] part of No Barriers," please go to our website, No Barriers USA dot org. You can join us at the summit that Mark mentioned that's coming up in October in New York. There are many more ways you can join us but please, No Barriers USA dot org is our website. You can also share our podcast with your friends and colleagues and families, and follow us on our Facebook page. Thank you so much for listening. Erik: Live No Barriers. Dave: Thanks.

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