Ep. 61 - Art, Life and Beyond with Simon Haiduk

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Done with the ad? Bimbaboom here is the episode. (upbeat music) Because yeah, you can get as many perspectives as you want, but it always is gonna come back to you and how you're dealing with things. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)

Welcome to episode 61 of Synchronicity. I guess this week, I almost said this day. I guess it is kind of like this day, but my guess this week is Simon Heiduk. Simon is an incredible visionary artist, musician, thinker, awesome person. I'm getting happy thinking about our conversation just now because it was a couple of weeks ago. Simon, you'll hear an incredibly pleasant, wonderful person to talk to, his perspectives, his intuition, his outlook is fantastic. This is an incredibly uplifting episode, not specifically because we're even talking about uplifting stuff per se, I'm sure we delve into that, but because it's always inspiring to meet someone who is doing really cool stuff, has seemed to align with what their vision and purposes in their life, but also is able to maintain kind of a global perspective on some of the issues that we face individually and collectively.

So we touched on all those things, and I'll get to a little bit more to Simon in a second, but I just wanted to point out that this is a really good episode. So what's going on this week? Facebook, Synchronicity Group on Facebook. There's some stuff going there. I think I'll codify these little jingles I do, and I'll just use them over and over again. How does that sound? I don't know. Facebook Group, though, is really going well. I just, there's a question I'm asking every single week, and I'm pinning the post, and the question this week is, I'm developing a course on creativity. It's gonna be cool, I promise you.

It's not gonna be lame and all the other ads you see on Facebook, where it's like, I have a creative course to sell marketing strategies to you, 'cause that's what people care, no, not that. I think this is gonna be practical stuff. I'm gonna be folding in a lot of really talented creators, artists, people who do this for a living and have valuable insights and wisdom on the creative process. I've been trying to figure out for a really long time what I wanted to do as kind of my first project for this, and I think the topic of creativity is so rich, and so many people have questions about it, and wanna figure out a lot of things related to it.

So that's what I'm gonna do. So if you're interested, there's a survey that I'm sending out. There's gonna be a more comprehensive one. I'd love your feedback. This is ultimately something I'm creating for you specifically. So this is your opportunity to have me cover, bring in people, talk about things, hopefully provide some template and blueprint for engaging with your own creative nature and trying to figure out if it has any influence on your happiness, your real happiness in life. So that's what's going on. I'm gonna keep this episode in this intro very short. I think we've had a string of like 10, 15 minute episodes.

If you wanna hear more of me talking, I went on Doug Noble's shotgun apple pie podcast recently. You can find that, it's up on syncpodcast.com. Had a great conversation. I talk a ton about mine pod network, what it's like starting a podcast network. One would wanna do such a thing. I ramble on kinda how I do in the minute. So I'm replacing this week's intro with that podcast. If you wanna hear more of me, go check out shotgun apple pie with Doug Noble. He also runs a wonderful Facebook group called Ascending Apes Book Club. And there's a great book. We're reading a book by Daniele Bolelli, who may or may not be, I guess, coming up soon.

I don't know. And it's just a really great place. Many thanks to Doug, go check out his podcast. It's fantastic. Let's get to Simon very quickly. You're gonna like this episode, I guarantee it. When I say I guarantee it like that, I don't think most people know what I'm talking about. It's actually from a teenage mutant ninja turtle, cartoon character, a side villain called Leatherhead. And he's an alligator that was transformed from the ooze that went into the sewers. And he had like a Cajun accent for some reason. And he would always say, "I dare hold tea." And so that's why I say it. (laughs)

There's your explanation. Simon, visionary artist, extraordinaire. One of the coolest things that Simon does, besides his beautiful nature landscapes with this kind of like, orick, psychedelic. Let me, can I, I'm gonna be honest about something here, guys. Don't tell anyone. I'm not the biggest visionary art fan. I like some artists and some pieces, but some of it just is not my cup of tea. No worries about that with Simon. His stuff is amazing, especially his nature and animals. But like he has this famous wolf print and there's a bear. He does a great, and we talk about this in the episode. These kind of visual representations of these things you can actually see if you're on a psychedelic, if you look at an animal.

It's like, it's nuts. And we go into that a little bit. He's incredibly talented. More importantly than him being incredibly talented, he's like one of the nicest people I've ever spoken to. And just like a genuinely, we, after the podcast, we were exchanging music. He's got a wonderful album called Quartz Lake. He's got a lot of stuff under his belt, but that one in particular is very ambient, nice, there's vocals. And like we were talking about soft sense, like, you know, what did you use to make that? Oh, I used Omnisphere. Oh, I like Deva. Like he's just a cool fucking dude who's easy to talk to, has no pretenses about him.

And just a wonderful guy. I don't have anything else to say. Thank you to everyone who rates, reviews, subscribes to synchronicity. If you donate, you're totally awesome. Extra big shout outs to Patrick, the coolest synchronicity fan of all time. He knows why. You know, leave a review if you like. Send me an email. Tell me how great I am or how terrible I am. I would love to hear both sides of that coin. Noah@syncpodcast.com. And this is officially me slowing down and not saying anything anymore. Without further ado, here is Simon Haidou. (upbeat music) I'm ready to get started. I mean, if there's anything specifically you want to talk about, we can start there.

But I got a couple of directions to go in. Yeah, I've, man, I'm stoked too. Like I've been listening to some of your podcasts recently and I thought of a bunch of different things. But if you want to start it out, the ball's in your court, so just go wherever. I'll serve, I'll serve, and you, we can volley for a while. So, where I actually really wanted to start with this is, there's a lot of places I wanted to start. But I want to start with music because you're now, I think, commonly known for your artwork, your paintings, your digital paintings and some of the nature ones and a lot of other stuff.

But as I was doing my sleuthing, my digital sleuthing, I came across like a fair amount of music that you've done too, ranging in a lot of different styles. And then I was, you know, obviously reading your biography and the podcast you did with Michael on Third Eye Drops. So I know it's a part of your life and I would like to kind of, and I think if I'm not mistaken, that's kind of where you started before all of the art painting and stuff. So I'd like to hear kind of the genesis of how music kind of weaved its way into your life.

Okay, awesome, yeah. Sure, I love music. And I know that you're a musician also. So I look forward to hearing more of your music.

Oh yeah, totally man, cool.

When you put it out.

Yeah. (laughs)

So I started playing guitar. I think I was around the age 11, taking lessons. Wasn't like super on top of it. Quit lessons for a while. And then started just teaching myself, found that a lot more enjoyable. And I've often been more interested in just making up my own music, rather than doing cover songs and whatnot. That's been pretty consistent throughout my musical passions. And in my early, like late teens, early 20s, I was, started playing bass guitar also. And then also got like a really cheap drum kit and was recording layers of those together. And that was super fun. And playing different projects with people.

And yeah, music has always been a strong passion, but I've also always been doing artwork my whole life.

Yeah.

And I've probably really been doing art longer, but there was a time in my early 20s where I felt a bit more like serious and passionate about music. And I recorded a couple solo albums, which aren't up because there's a lot of shit about them. (laughs) I don't wanna share, maybe I'll find the gold out of them and rehash those songs one day. But yeah, so, and then getting into the artwork, the interesting blend to me was that when I first started getting into visionary art, what I was painting was actually like a visual representation of sound.

Mm-hmm.

And that was awesome to me. Like I had these intense experiences, psychedelic experiences of seeing like beings of sound, like floating on the sound waves and coming up and talking to me and bouncing along these strings and sound waves. And they were like, yeah, so it was really intense. And then that got channeled to visual representation. And that's just continued in various ways with art and music. And they sort of just go back and forth now. And I'd love to have infinite time to do both. I'm moving, feel like I'm moving back into more music

Cool.

These days and my last two albums were all computer-based. So I did them all through logic with a midi keyboard.

Awesome. Yeah, it was great. And then well, what happened when I first started painting too, was I quit playing music for like four years. I just got so full on in the painting, just yeah, I might've picked up my guitar a few times.

Totally.

And then I had four years and then I had this insight. I was out of a Posner retreat. And my first one, and it was on the last day of meta and this sort of like insight came, you need to play cello. And I've always been attracted to it. And then a couple days later, I met a cello teacher on the ferry. I was like, hey, is that a cello you got there? And she's like, yeah, I teach lessons over here. So speaking of this, - Oh yeah, yeah, exactly.

And she's like, yeah, I teach lessons. And it turned out she teaches lessons like two blocks away from my house and so that was an awesome adventure. And so I started playing cello, getting lessons, doing art trades and that was awesome. And then, yeah, and then doing digital music and whatnot. So the blend of art and music is just epic.

Yeah, and there's a couple of reasons I wanted to start there. And it's awesome kind of how you relay the actual like trying to visually represent music. I mean, music is a really interesting sound is a really interesting thing. Cause when you go in a lot of the texts, especially the Eastern philosophies, a lot of people, not even the Eastern, the Western too. The word is God. A lot of this stuff and the actual genesis of it, they say sound is the original thing of the universe. That is what creates all of our manifestations. So that's interesting. Another reason I want to start there is you shared something on your Facebook, your art page, up this 60 minutes documentary, which honestly like truthfully had me in tears.

And I think I've seen it before, because it's just like so incredible. It's a Savant who is severely disabled, blind, can't see, really has limited social skills, but is literally like one of the most ingenious, accomplished musicians you'll ever see. It's nuts. And especially anyone who's ever attempted to play music. And I am someone who believes that everyone has musical ability. It's one of these things, these barriers we put in front of ourselves. And you may have to work a little bit harder to get your talent out there, but like anyone can pick up like a mallet and hit a xylophone and be like, oh, I made some stuff there.

But this dude is a genius. And so it got me thinking, and I think you actually pointed this out in the post. It's like, what is this number one? And is this a local thing? Is this something we're tapping into? Is it created? And because when you're watching this guy play, there's not a thinking going on. It's more of a channeling. It's more of like being in tune and flow state. And because of where his maybe mental or intellectual faculties are, it seems like that barrier is kind of gone and he can just kind of flow through it. So it gets me thinking like, where is this stuff coming from? And then I look at someone like you who can so accurately visually represent, especially with the nature stuff.

And I heard you and Michael talking about this too. And I was laughing because a couple of years ago, I day tripped on a Friday afternoon. This is actually kind of funny. Like, 20 minutes after I took, and it wasn't that much. It was like two and a half grams of mushrooms. 20 minutes after I took them, my website crashed, like my hosting, there was a virus or something. And I had to deal with like the existential crisis of the mushrooms kicking in my website crash and I'm like, what the fuck? Luckily my step, I called my stepdad and I was like--

Step away, step away.

I was like, I called my stepdad and I was like, listen, I just took two and a half grams of mushrooms. They're just kicking in. Can you please help me? And he's like, yeah, I got it. But I was day tripping and I got into a really, I had just gotten a harmonium and I was doing kirton on it. I was singing the Honda Munchalisa and I was playing. It was an amazing experience, but then I looked over at my dog, my mini golden doodle. And I was looking at him and I hadn't ever seen him on Hulu synergies before. He was only three years old, two years old at that time. And I saw exactly what you depict in a lot of your images, which is these ethereal, like kind of tendril light things coming off of him.

And like I spent some time with him and it's pretty amazing. And I remember going back and remembering cats I had had and other animals I had seen, even if they're on the TV, like watching a nature show or something, and you see what you are representing there. And that to me is astounding because it's something we don't, is outside of our normal filters of appearing and things. So like I said, I like to start with the music and kind of ask what is going on because you are somehow alchemically transferring a visionary state in the mind's eye or psychically into physical reality. So I would super interested in the process and kind of how that emerged for you doing that.

Yeah.

Cool. Yeah. That's really awesome. I actually did see that you reposted that. And so I thought you might bring that to Brad because it's such a beautiful thing actually, like just to sort of backtrack for a minute to this event, my friend, my friend Chris, who I play music with all the time. He four days a week looks after an autistic fellow named Chris also, who is an incredible drum player. And we jam with him. Like we really wanna get him lessons because often what happens is he'll just get into one groove and just stay there and it just increasingly gets louder or chaotic, but he can keep a really great beat and he loves the tablet and he loves listening to Ravi Shankar and he can sit there and he can do the like super rapid hand drumming thing.

And it's a really amazing experience to be able to play with him and get into it. He's more like high functioning than that other dude.

Yeah.

And I guess regular life things you could say, but nonetheless, it's a really beautiful experience to watch. People tap into that and so the idea of like, where is this information and this sort of, I think I mentioned it as like the source field energy. And I, yeah, I think it's there because I think that there's enough evidence, especially through artwork and music, that there's this unseen, it's like wifi data, yeah. It's this cosmic wifi data that's floating everywhere and maybe what we're seeing on animals or other people when we're on psychedelics or just in a like deep state of awareness that we're seeing, we're seeing that data, I suppose, whether it's their own energy or maybe when it's those tendrils they're like specifically tapped into something, some specific set of knowledge at that time.

Right, like a frequency, right.

I don't know, it's such a fascinating thing because people, yeah, people say that about my artwork a lot. So you heard Michael say that that he recognized that specifically and so many people come up to me and they're like, that's like, that's exactly, like a lot of people don't even say almost, they're like, that's exactly what it looks like. And for me, it's still just a representation. It's pretty much like way more complex than I can paint yet but it's there and what is that? Like, why can I paint it, but I can't see it regularly, and then people recognize it, like there's obviously then something going on with our perception filters.

It's like the clairvoyant being able to tap into things. So yeah, I just feel like there's enough evidence that that exists and for me it has, as far as where it's come from, for sure, like through, through psychedelics over the years and meditation and being able to hone in those skills through continued practice of artwork, it's this combination of being aware of it and then representing, like I don't do psychedelics when I paint, I did in the early stages, did some experiments and it sort of just catalyzed what I was able to do otherwise, but sometimes even just, you know, if I'm in a stage of a painting, maybe just smoking a bit of herb or something, well, sort of click in that sense of perception, which is so fascinating.

It's such a trippy thing, like, I love that shit. That's one of the most fascinating things to me. That's why I got all stoked that I saw that clairvoyant podcast 'cause that, it's such a interesting phenomenon that most people, most, like, I guess, normal people, what do you want to call them, normies? I don't know, a lot of people won't, they won't even, like, go near the subject of talking about it 'cause it's too woo-woo or whatever, but there's so much evidence that this source field of information exists.

Right, and so that's what fascinates me. Why people, I mean, I know, we have to also give, you know, credit and, you know, admit and acknowledge here that a lot of this is not necessarily something that I think people would naturally avoid if they were just, like, born into this existing and people acknowledging and aware of it. Like, culture, Terence McKenna famously, right? Culture is the cudgel. It beats people down into not being aware of things that are going on. I mean, I constantly, you know, this is now, this will probably be, like, the fourth or fifth podcast since Donald Trump was elected president.

And I had an awesome conversation with this dude, Bard, one of my friends' cousins, just, like, an amazing writer. And he really quickly identified what is going on, in my opinion, he's 100% right, is Donald Trump, Brexit, all of this populism stuff is a manifestation of our shadow side that we just did not want to acknowledge collectively, individually, all nationally. And this is what we get, and this is our opportunity to be like, this is what is actually going on, what do we want to do? And you have two ways to approach that, just like anything in life. One is to be like, I'm not going to deal with that right now.

Let's just, you know, I'm going to not agree with what's going on, or is to acknowledge what the fuck is going on here. And so that's what I think when we're talking about this source stuff, these dimensions that we can't act, you know, perceive in regular, waking consciousness, that's our invitation to be like, what the fuck is going on here? How, what are we doing? Why is this happening? Like I and you and me, and I'm sure many listeners of this podcast probably take it for granted that this exists. We know it exists. We've already accepted that, we've integrated in, regardless of the shocks to our psyche, you know, when we first realized it and had to deal with the cataclysmic thoughts of like, holy shit, I'm creating my reality.

Like what the fuck, like, I didn't know it. We've accepted that. But now what I'm noticing is, I think like 10, 15 years ago, I saw kind of this schizophrenic reality manifesting on a larger scale throughout popular culture. And this is way before lots of this, this is before, this is right around 9/11 before that. There hadn't been any major, like the Iraq war was probably the last big cultural, like big to do that they put on TV and mass media. Over that period of time, I've seen the emergence of this chaotic, there's a sound healer I really love called Tom Kenyon. His name is called Holy Shit.

So when you were talking about the beings of light and sound, I immediately looked at the Hathor's of course, right? And he talks about these chaotic nodes, right? These amplifications of these uncertain periods of time that are kind of these like nexus points of one direction or the other. And that just fit perfectly in line with what I always thought. But now I'm seeing people who don't have a tremendous amount of experience with psychedelics or altered states of minds or meditation or some daily practice that gives them some reference point for dealing with reality as it is now, really start to fucking freak out.

Because like, what are you gonna do if you don't have a list of tools or a thing, a skill set around you that you can go say, okay, well, how the fuck do I deal with Donald Trump being president? Okay, well, how do I deal with this? How do I deal with that? So when I'm most interested in trying to figure out now, and this is why I think I do this podcast, I didn't know I started it, is getting as many perspectives from people on, A, what the fuck is going on? Then B, once we identify what the fuck is going on, saying, what are we gonna do about it collectively? And this is why I loved your story on Michael's podcast.

And I'm gonna reference this all the time, guys, if you who are listening, check it out, third eye drops with Simon, so good. You know, you were talking about what that secret society would be the underground temples in Italy. And you were touching on very important stuff, which I think is the realness and essence and the real stuff that can happen, even in a cult that may not be totally tapped into the truth per se. It might just be some their variation on it, but that there is still something real taking place there. And the intention to make the world a better place is still the impetus and what we should be focusing on.

So I guess this long rambling rant I'm doing here, the question is, it's like-

It's awesome. (laughs)

What is, like, what, you're doing it through creativity and art, and this is also what I've been honing in on. I think creativity and art is really the most important thing for a lot of us to be focusing on right now. If you feel that calling to do it in an authentic way and to align your intention through creativity is one of the most beautiful things you can be doing now, because it's an expression of what you're trying to bring into the world. You're pulling these nebulous, ethereal concepts out from the ether into the world. Like, this is why the grays, what they're doing with Cosm, is so fucking cool.

And I'm moving up there, like, you know, like 45 minutes away. Big part because of that, 'cause what they're doing there. So what, I'm gonna ask you to point, like, what do we do? What the fuck is going on, and what do we do? Simon, help us. (laughs)

Oh shit, yeah.

Asking me, that's so funny, 'cause another artist posted this funny little salvia droid, awesome, he does these awesome representations of literally salvia realms that are super crazy.

It's awesome.

Check him out. He posted this little Instagram video talking about what the fuck is going on. And he's like, maybe, you know, maybe the scariest thing isn't reptilians or Satanism or whatever else he mentioned. And maybe it's just that no one knows what the fuck is going on. And I think that that's so hilarious, 'cause it's kind of really true in a lot of ways. And it's sort of both scary and exciting, because it's scary in the sense that, if you hold on to that frightening aspect that no one knows, you can't look to anyone for answers. You really have to go within and be like, okay, well, how am I gonna deal with this?

Because yeah, you can get as many perspectives as you want, but it always is gonna come back to you and how you're dealing with things. And that's where I think meditation is totally amazing. Like Viposna, I've gone three times. My practice is varying, but it's sort of integrated into daily things about like just being aware of the breath and the body and sensations and the body and reactions, how we react to the outside world. Because those chaotic nodes are those chaos that's happening in the world, we just have to decide how to respond to because it's always there. It seems like there's always gonna be some kind of chaos, even when we think things are totally set up and safe and we're living in some kind of paradise, maybe you're living in an area where there just happens to be a landslide that takes out your house.

I know some people that happened to a couple of years ago, they were living on a lake in this little utopia with their garden and everything fucking tons of rain, landslide, a bunch of their family got buried. It's so like, I think we're just continually being asked how to respond and I mean, if we can hone in the ability to remain calm and kind of from my perspective of through meditation and theogens is really seeing that, I guess that this is an illusion. I know that sounds sort of cliche, but there's something really strange going on in that we have all these signals that, whether it's synchronicity of life events or you sort of, maybe you're like sort of manifesting things coming into your life or creativity that things can come to us but they can also be taken away really easily in this other sense.

So I don't know if that quite answers it, but as far as, and you know what too, I think one of the best things I find is tuning into nature because nature is like this beautiful form of chaos on the continual. It's so continual, like I actually just watched this video on Facebook of this two-headed lizard eating these like cockroaches off of plants and the cockroaches or bugs were just hanging out there. Like they watched their buddies get eaten but they didn't really, they couldn't really tell what was going on in lizards are just like, just like they eat one, chew it, the bugs, the other bugs do.

Yeah, whatever, no big deal.

And then they just get eaten and when I'm growing food or when I'm just out in nature and in my garden or just out for a walk and just tuning into like, oh man, I love going for a walk and hearing a bunch of birds singing and tapping into that like the source field like we were talking about and I feel like sometimes my whole, all my cells come alive with this understanding that I know what they're talking about and I can hear their language and when it's a group of them and then all of a sudden you start picking out all the little, like their causation. And like that's, it's such a beautiful thing but it's also chaotic to me in this way that I also maybe don't understand it and some crazy storm could come along and kill us all and I don't know, I feel like I'm starting just going off all over the place.

But I think what you tapped in and you're not, you're doing what I was kind of doing which is tapping into these questions that I think a lot of people have and why I like to ask that kind of vague, nebulous question, like what the fuck is going on and what are we doing here is ultimately what happens is you circle around it and pull out the essence of what really you're doing to deal with it in your own right and there's a lot of different things and you're touched on a lot of different stuff and I think the meditation stuff is incredibly important and I am a notoriously terrible meditator, not in the sense that I don't know how to do it in the sense that I don't do it.

I know how important and great it is and I know and I've experienced many of the benefits especially with insight meditation what you're talking about because the mere noting of things gives you that reference point when something, this is my, the biggest mindfulness meditation that I do is chant this 40 stands a 40 line verse the Hanuman Chilisa. It's 40 lines, it's in, I think it's in Hindi, I'm chanting it, I don't even know, it's not Sanskrit. I think it's Hindi and it's 40 lines and I memorize it to memory like three or four years ago and I chant it every single day in my head or out loud and what's really interesting about it and I've spoken about this plenty of times on this podcast is as you're chanting something in a different language 40 lines of it, you won't notice your mind wandering and thinking about something else as you're chanting this complicated stuff that you don't even really know how you learned as you're noticing that you're doing that you begin to notice that you're noticing that you're doing something else.

So it becomes this total mindfulness meditation of picking out, now I have three streams of consciousness that I can identify, that's four and so you see how it just kind of cascades. That's happened to me on psychedelics and that goes on for God knows how long in actual time but I'm having these cascading awarenesses of awarenesses of awarenesses and you realize it's kind of a fractal and a prism. So that's why I think mindfulness is a really important one. Nature is also something that as I've spent more time and I'm moving to a place that is much more, it's basically agricultural territory up in upstate New York and I'm planning a garden there.

You know, as you connect to the natural world which hasn't been constructed from the mental realm as much, right? Who knows where, really where it comes from but you begin to see these natural cycles that you're talking about, whether it's the lion killing the gazelle on a nature show whether it's a plant going through the cracks and I think one of the reasons we love nature so much is it's a constant metaphor and allegory for all of these things we experience in life. Like this is what our myths are built on. They're built on the physical elements of the earth, fire, wind, air, ether if you believe in the magical aspects of it and that's what pulls it together.

So connecting with that natural cyclical existence I think puts us in tune that we're not separate right? This is the whole Alan Watts thing. We're not separate from the world. We're peopling in the same way that trees are treeing. We are come out of the same existence so when we can tap into that I think it's a reminder 'cause here's my conception, my limited conception. This is where I'm at right now, age 33, my conception of what happens and why we're here. I think what happens is, and this is pulled, not from me being smart, this is pulled from so many other things Tibetan Buddhism, lots of Buddhism.

I think when we're born, let's say we believe in reincarnation, we'll go with that. When we're born, we have this filter put up of all of our past lives and all of these other things and a skeptic could say, well, you know, why wouldn't you remember them? Well, try to imagine if you could remember, let's say you had 50 past lives. Let's say you got brutally killed in three of those. Would you wanna remember that? Like, would you wanna, we're watching this. I don't know if you watch Westworld, but we're seeing what happens when that's such a great show. God damn, they're so fucking good. It's so goddamn good, oh my God.

But this awareness of having to experience your own deaths in past karma wouldn't necessarily be a productive thing. So again, let's just say that we don't remember our past lives, but reincarnation is a possible thing. So we're here on Earth. Why are we here? If we wanna take the nihilistic viewpoint that everything is random, there's no meaning to anything, it's just a constant struggle, that's one way to look at it. Personally, I don't know for whatever reason, that just makes no fucking sense to me. And maybe it's because I need to have meaning and that's a product of my consciousness. Still, whatever doesn't make sense to me.

And a lot of other people I think are a lot smarter and wiser than me also doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to them. So then why are we here? I think we're here 'cause this is, and again, this is pulled from Rambas and a lot of other people. I think it's a spiritual training school and not spiritual in a woo-woo sense, but there are key skills and states of mind that we're here to try to learn and master. Among the chief, of those, the two that I think are most chief are wisdom and compassion. And I think if those go hand in hand, you pretty much can deal with any situation, not only in this life, but any other imaginable circumstance because those are the two prerequisites for being able to see things clearly and respond in kind.

So when you look at like the classic, someone say someone doesn't believe in a higher power or God or anything to say, oh yeah, the reason for not believing it is, hey, why would God torture this kid? Why would God make this, all these people go starving? Why would God put people on the planet to go put a pipeline through ancient survival, burial grounds in the United States? Why would God's and asshole is a Yahweh from the Old Testament, just a dick? No, I don't think we're here to use these situation and tools to work through past and collective karma and to realize how to respond to difficult situations because to think that we won't face them in this life is insane, right?

We know that we will no matter what, even if your life is so fucking perfect, none of this makes any sense in your listening, some shit's gonna go wrong in your life. Someone you know and care about is gonna die. You're gonna die. There's all these things that are gonna have to happen. So we get all of these kind of mini scenarios that I ultimately think. Let's be clear about this. I don't think anyone is doing this to us. We're doing it to ourselves. This is a conscious, below our threshold of awareness, but a conscious decision that we're creating for ourselves so we can get through whatever ascension, evolution you wanna talk about when we don't have material bodies, whatever it is.

So I don't know how I got exactly on this rant, but I think the reason it is. The reason I bring it up is basically because everyone has to grapple with what the world is and what we're gonna do in and what our place is. And now that we're getting these cultural examples of fucked upness, that's just the term I'm gonna use. There's shit that the shadow, right, the shadow, we have a critical decision to make individually, collectively, globally, how we wanna respond to that. I'm not discouraged, I'm slightly surprised that people who I consider to be very compassionate and wise, not all of them, but many of them are responding to anger and hatred and vitriol and rhetoric in kind.

That has freaked me out a little bit because I think as much as you disagree with someone, as much as you don't share the viewpoints of how someone's approaching their life or how life should be run, you have to be respectful. To a point, I don't think you should enable people to do whatever the fuck they want, that's not advocating a passiveness about this, but you have to be able to listen and engage with people who don't think like you do. And if we don't cultivate that skill, we're pretty much fucked, I think, because there's a lot of people who don't think like we do.

Yeah, truthfully, and so, yeah, again, I don't know how they got on the subject, but there's obviously some situation.

I love it, man, it's so important. This is really, you just totally nailed it. I mean, I think the shadow work that's going on right now is super, that's a huge thing in my life right now. I'm dealing with a lot of things in my own relationship with my lady and seeing friends that are going through super intense things, and it all happened right at the fucking same time as the election man. I shit you not with that super moon, and there was all this shit started unfolding, and everyone has their own layers of what's going on in their life. And it's intense, but it's a beautiful thing when you can acknowledge it, and as such, as shadow work, because if you've done it before, you're like, "Oh, okay, I kind of know this story.

"This is something I have to confront this. "I actually have to face what this is, "and see what it's about." And I think that thing you said about actually talking to other people is so key, and finding out really what's going on for other people that may be voted for this person, because you're like, "Well, what do you actually want "out of life?" And when it comes down to it, a lot of us want the same thing. We've just have all these different set of experiences that have led us to understand what reality is for us in a different way. So, I mean, oh man, there were just so many things that I wanted to go into there that you were saying, but I'm gonna try and come to this thing that I thought of as far as meditation and how to deal with reactions, because you had a guest on recently that was talking about a different way of meditation with automatic drawing, and I totally love that, because as an artist, I get into those modes, and any musician artist gets into that place often where they're just freestyling, and you're just doing whatever's coming through, and it's like that savant we saw, the autistic guy who couldn't function in a lot of other ways, and then we're tapping into the nature and the bird singing, and so it's about that flow state, and what is it about that flow state that makes us feel really good and connected?

And that feeling where it's almost like all the cells in your body are alive, and you feel totally connected, and there's this deep inner feeling, to me anyway, of peace, and like happiness and love, and it's this totally cosmic, it's not like loving your partner, but it's like, it's this oneness, you know, it's a total oneness sense of love, and me and my lady, Jane, we developed this interesting meditation this year where we were talking about the feeling of flying in dreams, do you fly in your dreams?

I do, and I have something else that happens, and there's two episodes I did with Robert Wagner, who's a lucid dreaming expert that are fucking amazing, and I'm not too hard to do, just he's such an interesting guy, but yeah, I not only fly in my dreams, I also have a thing where I can't fly, like I can float and jump and kind of suspend, it's kind of like a gravity-less type thing, yeah, yeah.

So that's great, I mean, that's a perfect thing to jump off from, because I was thinking about like, okay, so what do I do in my life when I'm feeling like shitty and doubtful about something? I actually am someone that I do believe in the concept of sort of looking at the silver lining of things, because I kind of feel like I have to, all these things we're talking about are sort of like dealing with, it's like we're coping with the chaos of the world constantly, so it's like I have to look at the silver lining of things and attach better thoughts to like what might be better outcomes of things, 'cause it's so easy to spiral out into the shittiest outcomes of everything, so when I do that, often I go into my body, and I'm like, well, what feels good in my whole body, not just my head, not my thoughts, but actually like feeling in the cells of my body and my heart energy, and I realized that, 'cause oh yeah, so the thought came from, why can't I fly in real life?

I can do it so amazingly in my dreams, and sure, there's some dreams that it's like, oh, you're just, you can't quite get off the ground, what is that, why is that happening? And then there's somewhere I'm like, out in fucking space, and I'm like, flying up to planets and shit, and I'm like hyper dimensionally traveling like Superman, and it's so amazing, and I can go anywhere, and do anything, and then I realize like, there's a definite bodily sensation that happens, where it feels like, and this is when I become aware of it in my dreams, and I can do anything, is it's actually coming from my heart, and it's like a vibratory frequency, that when I tune into it in my dreams, and I'm having a lucid dream, it's actually this expansive vibration that fills all the cells of my being, and I can kind of just describe it as universal cosmic love.

Sure, of course.

In the most woo sense.

Yeah, man.

And so I started, Jayne and I started doing that as like a part of our daily meditation practice, which isn't something you do, for example, with a Vaposina, they would be against like, tapping into a thing like that, because you shouldn't be--

It's more tantric to approach it like that. You're dealing with, you know, imaginal realms and things that you're not, you're creating stuff. There are-- - You're creating, yeah.

Exactly, it's a visualization type, experiential thing, which is found in other meditations with Vaposina, no, that's not what you're--

No, but why the fuck not? Because I think it's a super healthy thing to make yourself feel good, and to think good thoughts, and to help yourself feel good, because if you can like activate all the cells in your being, like we know that our bodies can self heal, and so when you're activating that, and you'd like, whether it's lying in bed, and I do this before going to bed when I wake up, and sometimes when I'm just sitting there just think of that feeling of flying, and I feel fucking amazing, and it's that sense of calm and peace and connectedness, and so that's sort of one aspect of coping, and that's another type of meditation, I guess, that I can think of that is sort of like automatic drawing, and you're tapping into that flow state, and you're just sort of coping with the chaos, and finding ways to feel the most ultimate connection, and then you come around to the whole side of dealing with shadow work, and that comes into play with like, okay, well, when you're confront with someone that has completely different opposing views, and you just wanna like fucking shake them, and like, what the fuck is wrong with you?

This is so psycho, I guess you have to use that feeling as a sense of compassion like you said, and wisdom, and be like, okay, well, how can I embody this in my interaction with them, so that I'm not just tuning into that frequency of hate, and confusion, and it's, you know, it's interesting when we look at entertainment, and what is kind of a merge, and Donald Trump is a great example of this, because he was an entertainer, and that's really what he's been his whole life, regardless of his business endeavors, and he is, you know, a master manipulator of the media, and I bring him up because for the past two weeks, and I was upset and freaked out, as much as anyone, the first couple of days there, but in the past two weeks, I've been noticing in myself an enormous amount of compassion for him, like an enormous amount, like more than probably like, someone who maybe actually is in more deserving spot, but I do it because, A, I think I realize what happens to people in that position, and how you get there, and start doing some of those things, and there's no other way to become a person who can callously inflict pain, and rile people up, unless that exists within them already.

I know this from myself, I know this from myself, because when I get in a fight with my wife or, you know, anyone I'm in a close relationship, my mom, my sister, whatever it is, I'm a nasty motherfucker, and that means that shit's in me, and I may like to think of myself as not like that, but that shit's in me too, so when we see it in Donald Trump, rather than seeing it as, oh, this guy's a piece of shit, this fucking asshole, racist, you know, phobic it, you know, horrible person, recognize I bet there's something in you that does the same shit, and then if you recognize that and turn it on yourself and say, well, what can I do to actually heal this, you'll notice is you acknowledge it, you say this isn't okay to be like this, but then you offer kindness, like, there's a great, okay, so a podcast called The One You Feed, this is the same, we're going the same place, we're saying in the same, I'm not gonna go out.

A podcast, I love that you love it, man. So in this podcast called The One You Feed, there's a parable he gives about the two wolves, and one's a good wolf, and one's a bad wolf, and blah, blah, blah, so he asks this question to Sharon Salzberg, you know, he asks the parable, and he goes, what does this mean to you? And she goes, I don't necessarily think you have to choose one, like you should offer love and kindness to the quote unquote bad wolf, that's how you alleviate and cut through, because being, I don't believe in evil per se, I believe in it as an opposite polarity to a goodness, you know, if we wanted to find it as such, I don't think that someone is born evil in Karna in just those horrible things, and there's no other explanation for it.

I think there's a whole set of karmic implications that gets someone to leave like that, and not to mention epigenetics, cultural things, like lineages, there's so many things that add to this, so this question of being able to extend compassion to someone who is clearly, and then I had another conversation with this guy Bard, and I was talking about, I'm Jewish, like I can genuinely feel compassion for Hitler, and if you say that to the wrong type of Jewish person or anyone, they're gonna fucking punch you in the face. That's unbelievable that you could do it, but it's not that I think he's a good guy, or, you know, some of what he did is okay, it's not so bad, it's that to tap into the level of fear, hatred, and just awfulness that would lead someone to make these decisions, like you wouldn't wish that, you shouldn't wish that on anyone.

So, I mean, we know that these are kind of antidotes, but then we look at our culture too, and there's this huge kind of stoicism. Stoicism is very popular for a lot of modern, like Tim Ferriss is a great example of this, and I really enjoy Tim Ferriss, I think he's a really smart guy, I think he has some valuable things to communicate in terms of, you know, trying to get in what makes people tick, but there's this stoicism, and I love so, I love Marcus Aurelius, I think he's, some of the stuff he's written is incredible, but the problem with the stoicism in some aspects to me is it kind of shuts off this feeling intuitive heart center, which you're talking about literally as the support when you're flying in dreams, and that's what's needed, I think, this rebalancing of those, let's just call them feminine energies, the heart center, the reception ability.

Exactly, that's what we need individually, collectively, society, you know, culturally, all these things, that's what we need, not necessarily this, well, this is what needs to be done, this is the situation, this is how we're gonna deal with it, it's that simple, and I'm seeing this emerge, not from a top down paradigm, like from the presidency, we don't have a female president in the United States right now, right? But I do see it proliferating and growing from the grassroots, and not even just the grassroots, but like the middle, middle out too, of people really tapping into this and understanding what it's about, I have my own personal theories about what is driving aspects of this, I think cannabis is this cultural force that people have not begun to understand, because now it's just beginning to be accepted, I mean, you're in BC, right, so it's a little different, but in this country, it's slowly beginning to be accepted, you know, on state levels, and I think, and this has always been my theory on cannabis, what we smoke is the female part of the plant, it's the buds, I think it infuses with our consciousness, I think it enter twines, and depending on the strain, it brings in a whole other dimension of perception and sensitivity that really, besides being a physical antidote for a lot of people, can really start to shift the consciousness in a place it needs to go.

So yeah, I mean, that's what I look at the world, like this is where I think we have the clues to where we had, and I also wanna bring this back to what you're specifically doing with your artwork and your creativity, because I think that is also right at the intersection of what's important. It's great to talk about these things, it's great to have logical blueprints of how these things work, but there's something to be said, and I think it's incredibly important, when you can transmit the essence of what you're experiencing through your art, that is impactful as anything else that can possibly be done.

So I'm wondering, like, my question to you is, I guess, how have you gotten in tune with that essence or what you're kind of transmitting throughout your life? Is it primarily through meditation? Did it happen to you? Did you start reading? Did dots just happen? Was it a various sequence of synchronicities? Like, how did this kind of coalesce into what you're doing creatively?

Well, it's everything, I mean, it's my whole life, man. It's like, oh, and shit. I mean, it depends which specific part. I mean, synchronicity has a huge part to play in where I am today. I love the idea of synchronicity and following those clues as things that have brought me to some of the most magical, fulfilling moments of my life and meeting amazing people and doing, even like I was doing a painting, I'll have like a series of events where that might have happened five years ago, and all of a sudden they line up five years later, and then it's just like, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Oh my God, I get that all makes sense now.

And you're like so intense how that happens. And you just see these dominoes fall and then it aligns to this specific moment. And it's so weird that you can like key into those and that really happened to me a lot when I was first starting to get into visionary painting actually. I had all these like, I saw literally like the past, I remember it was like 2004 and I just saw like the past five years of like full events that happened on full and new moons, specifically, and they just all of a sudden became crystal clear and they were all like guiding me to this specific occasion. And then when I got into painting, I had all these super intense synchronicities of meeting these people that brought me into the visionary art world and just right away like in my second year doing it, I was showing art in San Francisco with like Vanosa and Alex Gray and a whole bunch of other awesome budding visionary artists at the time, Roman Viagrana, David Haskin.

And so synchronicity, I love that your podcast. It's such a beautiful thing. And to me, it connects to that heart centered energy and that feeling of that sort of vibration of optimism where you're like, you're allowing things to unfold and just paying attention to the clues. And you know, sometimes those clues also again have to do with shadow work and that's why that just doesn't disappear. And so, but yeah, with artwork, I mean, sure, it's a great art and meditation, art and music, I think are awesome expressions of whether, you know, whether you're expressing the sort of more angsty dark feelings, I have no problem with that.

Like it's all part of the process of just like getting, trying to help you understand it and then also connecting with other people that are feeling that.

Right.

Because everyone's feeling a range of emotions, like my paintings are often, they're sort of like very light, like fairy world type things going on. But a lot of my, like some of my music can have a bit of a darker tone to it. And I love listening to metal. I listened to all kinds of music, but it's a great expression for me in being able to channel that anger, that will exist from time to time. 'Cause sometimes I am like, what? The absolute fuck is going on. Oh my God, ah, like I can't believe it. And you know what? There's something I wanted to go into that you said.

Yes, yes, yes.

About Donald Trump and your compassion for him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Can I go in for that?

Of course.

Okay, do whatever you want, man.

That's a really cool thing. And my, I gotta give huge credit to Jane for this. My lady, she's super smart when it comes to human emotions and she's studying to be a counselor. And she's just, she's brilliant. And she shed light on a lot of things about me about how sort of cultural and societal dynamics work. And so, as far as elite elites go, we're seeing a lot of more corruption surface. And it's becoming more and more obvious that there's so much, so much corruption, whether it's with like the money system, the political system, all the news, there's five corporations, news corporations that own all the other main ones.

And they're disseminating fake news and they have been for decades. And that's the new term for conspiracy theory or whatever is fake news. And they're trying to make, this is gonna be a bit of a loop here, but they're trying to make the idea of conspiracies look like fake news. And so, there's the elites exist often in like a lineage of families. And what Jane has observed, and what she's informed me about, is that often, lineages of families have abuse and decades of abuse. And Dr. Gabor Matty, who works on the downtown east side, you know about him.

Uh-huh. - Okay, yeah. So he says that too, is that all of his patients were abused as children in some kind of way. And so, everyone, whether it's like us or the elites, have this hungry ghost that we're trying to fill a wound, and the elites just have it almost more intense, because if you're born into an elite family, you have a lot of pressure on you, and you might have been raped as a child, or abused in whatever way, but apparently it's pretty common for them to be like, sexually abused and being brought into it, and that's all they know. And so they have these confused wounds, and they're constantly trying to fill it.

And so, but the weird thing about elitism and pop culture is that we're sort of, we're meant to think we want that.

Right.

Like, oh, I want to be an elite person, but their lives actually might be really fucked up, man. Like, they might have so much pain inside, and that's why they're doing all the crazy shit they're doing. So, having compassion for the fact that they might have gone through a lot of fucked up shit, and that's why the way they are, is a good place to come from, I think.

So, the reason I'm smiling and laughing as you're saying this is, I've mentioned him twice, this will be the third time. Bard Azima, who I just had on, that episode will be out before this one, so people will know what I'm talking about. He brings up this whole concept of boarding school culture, and he traces it back to the Anglo-Saxons in the original colonial imperial power, the UK. And he says, if you look at all the countries for that spread out to, you will see this pattern of traumatic, regardless of whether it's physical, or verbal, or whatever type of abuse. When you get dropped off as a seven-year-old to a military or boarding school, that's a traumatic thing for a kid to have to go through.

And then when you combine it with that stoic stiff upper lip mentality, and then you realize that those people are sent to the elite boarding schools, elite military schools, elite colleges, and then those are our leaders! That's literally in charge of us, and so then we now-- - Oh my God.

Right, so it's hilarious, I mean, it's very poignant that you mentioned this, when I just had a conversation about this yesterday with someone who studied this in-depth, I mean, he has statistics, reports, everything. He went to a boarding school in England, my dad went to a boarding school and was lucky enough, I was mentioning, he did LSD in military school, so he had a little bit of a different experience from a lot of people, but what you're saying is exactly right. We look up to these people who are in quote unquote, power positions, and we say, well, God, you know, they're living the dream, that must be great.

You know, they can have everything they want.

Whatever they do, they got their Porsche, they got their Lambo, they can jet set to the Bahamas. Honestly, the truth is, I've met people who are really poor, have nothing, come from communities with no opportunity except selling drugs or like nothing, or going in the military. I've known really, really eccentrically rich people who are fucking miserable, right? There's no correlation between what you have, what you achieve outwardly in society on any level and how happy you are. There's some other mechanism at play that determines what you makes you happy. So I think it's great that you point out that that's something that is kind of actually happening with a lot of our elites.

I mean, you know, I am very early on in school before I even did psychedelics, before I smoked weed, I always kind of identified the hustle of school and education. I was like, listen, I'm supposed to get good grades in middle school, so I can get good classes in high school, so I can get in a good college, so I can get a job? That sounds fucking horrible, like, I don't wanna do this, like I wanna pursue other things. And then when I started doing psychedelics, it's like, this world isn't the only thing that exists. Why the fuck would I only focus on these things that people are putting value on?

I think now, because so many people have access to so many different types of ways of thinking, whatever it is, we have kind of, I don't know, but I look at it kind of like a responsibility, not that this podcast is all that important, but the more we talk about these things, the more we can kind of express them through our art, through our communities, through our, you know, whatever our relationships, the better chance we have as a society and just individually, collectively, familiarly, all of these things, to actually like progress to a point where we can look back and say, hey, remember when it was like super fucked up in the world?

Remember, now it's just a little less fucked up now, like that would be something that I think is really attainable and I know it can be scary, especially when like you're looking at, you know, potentially the devastation of the actual planet, right? We're talking about global warming, we're talking about things that are really looking pretty shitty, but I think just like anything, consciousness, mass consciousness can shift material, physical things in any direction, but it requires intention and awareness. So cultivating those skills, I think like that's, that's where we're at and cultivating is probably the wrong word and I think I use it far too much because I don't think you cultivate it.

I think you just tune into the latent ability of those qualities. I think it's already there, you polish things away, it's not like you have to go get something from out there, bring it into yourself, it's already there, it's just getting in tune with it, so.

Right, yeah. - Yeah.

Well, that makes sense and I guess the art, like you were talking about Tom Kenyon and the chaotic notes, art and music, any representation, it could be spoken word, it could be poetry, reading a book, listening to a podcast, hearing people talk about it. Those are the notes of beauty, I guess, that connect us and remind us of like, oh yeah, it is the silver line, I guess. If we are feeling a lot of chaos, it's like, hey, people are having other beautiful experiences, people are feeling really interconnected, people are planting gardens and becoming more self sustainable and connecting with their community and growing gardens and finding a really enjoyable process in that and it doesn't have to always be about what you've been told because that whole idea about boarding schools, that is a real thing, that's happening up in Canada with the reconciliation, with the indigenous.

That's right.

That in the '80s especially went to residential schools and now they're speaking out about all the abuse and it's so intense that people in positions of power, it's just this weird loop that once you've been abused, you become an abuser and so we have to become really aware of that and our own power structures and ourselves. So when we're attaining power and you start to see your own ability to influence people around you, how do you use that and if you're wounded, are you gonna use that as leverage against other people that you see that wound in? And I think that that's what's happening on a mass scale.

It's like they've understood the psychology of how people are wounded and they really fucking use that to sort of get people to go along with the program and fuck dude, my friend, he showed me this book from the '20s that was by the military and it was to give to military families about how to mind control your kid. And it was like, don't hug them, only handshakes. Shit like that where it's basically like you are purposefully wounding them.

So they told them, yeah.

Yeah, so that you can control them and that's been a continuing cycle throughout, oh my God, like I guess centuries and worshiping elitism is all part of it. And so we're like really starting to figure that out and the veil is really being lifted with all the corruption being exposed. And like you said, Donald Trump and the shadow, 'cause to me, like Donald Trump and Hillary, they're both super fucked up people and everyone knew that and it was like, that's what part the insanity was. Like what are we, how are we dealing with this man? And so when we're connecting with each other, unlike you said the grassroots level, I think that's some of the most beautiful thing because we're just realizing we can't rely on those systems because they're so, are they gonna face their shadow work?

I don't know, man. That's my point.

That's ultimately why I talk about this stuff is my prognostication on that, no fucking way. I look at it the same way that you would look at the cyclical realms of like some sort of existence, right? They're in the jealous God realm, right? They just have no fucking awareness that anything they're doing has any other influences outside of what they are trying to do. And I also think there's such a lack of living in the present for a lot of those people because you're just thrust into this like super go, go, go, like especially in the political world, like you don't, we like to think that the way we think individually is how other people think.

We don't, right? Even if we're very similar, there's little quirks of how we process information and take in data. Like it's not the same for everyone. So, you know, you don't look at everyone and say, well, everyone's thinking, I mean, think that's where a lot of problem and conflict comes from is you assume that someone should see the same set of circumstances the way you do and they don't. You're like, what the fuck, right? I mean, that from everything from personal relationships to political events. So yeah, I don't think that that is gonna be done from the political, corporate, economic. Now, what I do think is possible is, and this is what I'm trying to do with MindPod Network and this podcast in part, is start creating our own systems that support and create what we think should be done.

So that means if artists are doing things, support the fucking artists. That means if there's a way to create conscious media that also gives people value from listening to it, supporting it, like we're trying to flesh these things out and what's really encouraging, especially in the past few years. I'm meeting so much, I'm meeting like five, 10 people a week, truthfully, who feel exactly like I do in various degrees of success in their careers who are pre-launch for what they're doing, but clearly get it already and are farther along than people who've already launched. So it's just, I am very encouraged by seeing that people are getting, okay, I'll also point this one thing out.

This is just to go to the Donald Trump thing. The day after the election, I went to Whole Foods, right? And my cashier was a black, foreign, Muslim woman. And she was having a conversation clearly about the election with one of the other cashiers. And I said, "Hey, what are you guys talking about?" And she got a little weirded out, you know what I thought. And she's like, "Oh, we're talking about Donald Trump." And I was like, "Yeah." Like, you know, it's, I don't know what's gonna happen but what? And she's like, "You know what? I'm not worried at all." And I'm like, and I'm looking at her. I'm like, "You have like more reason to be worried than literally anyone."

Like you have checked off every box of people who you've spoken ill about. And she's like, "The reason I'm not worried is because when shit like this happens, it puts the emphasis back on community and community relationships. And that is ultimately where like stuff happens. It doesn't happen because some guy is president there, even if he passes draconian law after draconian law. But it doesn't matter because what we do on a day-to-day basis when we wake up, how we treat people, how we treat ourselves, what we wanna focus on, that ultimately is what creates the world. It's not some fiscal policy or some environment.

I mean, don't get me wrong. Like if someone's saying global warming doesn't exist and all the policies stem from there, that's bad. But if you really think that's a problem, start fucking figuring this out with your local people. Start figuring out ways how to make an impact on your local community. So I mean, I just think there's always, the silver lining isn't this half glass full because we don't know what the fuck is going on or delusional. It's because there is always a way. There's always something that can be done. And maybe it doesn't happen in our lifetimes. Maybe it doesn't happen before we die.

Maybe this happens many lives down the path, but there is always a way. This isn't like a meaningless, pointless experiment. I just, I can't ever tune into a reality. Maybe when you're depressed. I think that's what people get depressed is when you start thinking that's an actual reality, that there is no other way, whatever situation in life. And I've been lucky enough to only be depressed really one time in my life after a very intense three month LSD experience where I took acid and didn't come down for three months. Yeah, that was fucking nuts. But I'm lucky enough to not have to go through it very often, but I remember what it was like.

And it's just this sinking, muddy, hopeless feeling that I feel so much for anyone who goes through that, especially on a regular basis, but it's not, it's an illusion, like you're saying. That's a story you're telling yourself more than the actual way the world seems to work. So I think that's important, yeah.

Yeah, man, I love that story of the cashier because there is your celebrity, man.

Right. - There is your celebrity. And I think about that a lot. Like who are the local celebrities in your life? Because again, like going back to elitism, like we're looking at whatever idol you have in your life, it could be anyone. And for a lot of people, it's like the pop culture stars.

Sure, of course.

What, you know, Bieber, Britney Spears or whatever that people wanna be. And those might be some of the most like actually mind-controlled kind of fucked people. And then you talk to the cashier and she just totally breaks right back to her for you. And you're like, who are you guys doing every day? You're amazing. I love you. Thanks for saying that. Like that's so beautiful because that is your community. And she's just like, it's all good, man. Like I know who my people are.

Right. - And it's just my community. And I think that that's something to note because yeah, it's just like we got to connect with people. And I guess as far as Dom and her, that was one of the beautiful things about it was actually seeing, okay, well, at least these people are trying, man. Like they're trying to have this tight community and think outside the box a bit and be connected for like a collective mission in their own little way. And that was a cool thing. Yeah, so it's, yeah, man, it's great. It's connecting with the community, I thought.

It's a big part of it.

It's a huge thing. I mean, it's what is going on. I think people are feeling the pull of it. And the more sensitive you are to the non-physical. So that can be because you're a clear point or it can be because you're an artist or it can be because whatever it is, if you're tapped into it, there's something happening. I think that's real, very real. And it's tangible, not tangible in a physical sense, but tangible in we can perceive that it's happening. And it does feel like things are coalescing. And these groups are somewhat being pulled together. I've noticed this not only in my personal professional life, but just like the music I really love and have loved for the majority of my life is like underground electronic house music.

And I'm seeing that now every year I wait, I've never been to Burning Man, but every year like 10 to 15 amazing mixes come out of Burning Man because they've coalesced around this like universal love robot heart group that it gets this kind of alchemical spiritual stuff is fusing with like the music that had nothing to do with that 15 years ago. I mean, it did in some sense, but we were being served up, you know, it was club party time. It wasn't like, you know, some spiritual dimension to that, even though I kind of always felt that. So I see this stuff happening. I'm super optimistic that we're going to, you know, a very good place eventually.

I don't want to give a timeline. I don't know, but I know that these communities and people are coming together in a way that is really unprecedented. I think in human history because of the barriers that have been broken down through technology and it's just fucking awesome. Like we couldn't have this conversation like this, you know, 15 years ago, it would have been impossible. And now it's just literally, it's just something we can set up in the course of a week. So I just, I think this like, okay, here's what I want to do. I want to, I want to ask you my ending questions here because I have a feeling we could probably talk for like six hours straight.

My wife would kill me, especially because I have to put my son to bed relatively soon. I definitely feel like it's, I feel like it's a night here looking at you. I'm like, wait a second. I'm just slowly gotten darker and darker. I'm just like a shadow now, I know. So I want to ask you these end questions, but I also want to have you back on like pretty fucking soon because this is super fun.

There's a lot of layers to unpacks.

Exactly, exactly, we could do this. And I'm sincere about that. Maybe in the next, within the next month, we're moving in a little bit, but maybe soon after that. Okay, so let me get to the ending questions 'cause I'm having a great time, man. All right, what is your favorite color?

Well, you know, when you, you know what happens when you eat beets?

Yes, I do. (laughing)

Andy Poo.

Yeah, yeah, I got that part of it. So Poo, Poo beat Red is, I'm just kidding.

I was gonna say, by far, the weirdest thing you could do.

Here you go.

Just kidding, I don't know, man. Favorite color, I wish I could come up with some exotic artistic statement there, but I think I've always been attracted to a lot of shades of blue. They seem to repeat in my life.

It's my favorite too, same deal, same deal.

You know, yes.

I hear you, man, I know, well Picasso had his blue period too, you can't be mad. So what's your favorite number?

Well, I was gonna go with 69, but Kelly stole it from me. (laughing) No, I really, I love the number eight. I have a lot of references to the number eight in my life. You know, it symbolizes the infinity to me, and I've always been drawn to that concept of infinity and we're there, infinite realms, infinite fractals. So that's what it seems like. So it's a, it's definitely a repeated one.

Oh, I love it. What is your favorite animal?

I don't have a favorite animal.

No favorite animal.

I don't, yeah, I really, you know, I go through different phases in my life where they come and go--

I know exactly what you're talking about.

And different things. I did just get a tattoo of a snake on my arm, so I guess it must be a pretty present thing. And for me, that was, again, represented to the idea of infinity, a snake represents. To me, I had my one ayah wasca experience where these light beings of snakes while we're going into my cells and filling them up with light and this giant snake was talking to me.

I wonder if it was--

It was a good evening.

So it's really representative of like, the more infinite cosmic aspects of our being, our DNA, sort of the primordial aspect of Earth and those beings that came before us as well. It came to me when I was, I'm in a permaculture course here and it's like every month we have classes and we were talking about friendly symbiotic beings in your garden, yeah, yeah, yeah. And probably another word for it. Anyway, I wanted more snakes in my garden 'cause snakes, we have a lot of slugs for snakes. And so the snake, a reminder of being grounded and connected to the Earth and that idea, like a lot of people represent the snake with ayah wasca, sort of representing the sort of mama, nature, spirit, energy and so I felt really connected to it enough this year, now I have it to add to.

But honestly, before that, I hadn't even really thought that much about snakes in, I mean, I had, but as far as like a favorite quote unquote animal, you know, I don't know.

Let me reveal something. - It's a funny thing.

All of those questions. - So long answer.

No, it's not really. All of those questions are bullshit because myself, I very, you know, a better question would be, it's like, what's your favorite animal right now? So we're gonna go snake. - Yeah, there you go.

I also think snake is just like one of the most awesome symbolic animals you can possibly choose. And I think the weirdest thing that I didn't notice it until someone pointed it out, you know, like the medical insignia that you see everywhere.

Right, they do see it.

Yes, exactly, the snakes, you know, the channels, the knotties, whatever you want to come. Okay. - Dude.

I know. - Can I give you one quick story? - Yes, yes, yes, please.

Okay, so I did a painting in 2006 that was of a tree trunk, surprise, surprise. It was one of my early street trunk paintings and it was green and I was like focusing on the energy of green. My girlfriend was sick and her dad was sick and they were away from me and I was like, okay, I'm gonna bring in the healing energy of green into this painting. And then I did it, big oil painting. And then two years later, I was feeling a connection towards the spirit of ayahuasca and I hadn't done it yet. And then I did a digital version of it that I called Caduceus. And it had like these intertwining, ethereal looking snake, this DNA snake energy, not specifically snakes, but--

Serpent time, yeah.

Like intertwining DNA, serpentine looking thing, energy, this aura around the tree. And I, right after I did it, anyone that like, well, not anyone, but a lot of people were just like, oh my God, that reminds me exactly of ayahuasca. No one had said that about any of my other paintings but for specifically ayahuasca. And it led me to my first ayahuasca experience where a dude came up to me at a festival and was like, if he looked at it and he's like, if you've never done ayahuasca, I'm gonna eat my hat. Better start, you better start eatin' buddy. And yeah, so that was the painting and then it led me to my first journey.

So that's one of those beautiful threads of reality that, you know, and then here you are mentioning the Caduceus and we're talking about all these beautiful things. So that's a good place to like wrap it up.

Well, it's awesome because I, there you go, I'll tell you because this podcast has, I've spoken more about ayahuasca on this podcast and I think is possible for someone who's never done it. So it's funny that with this content. So okay, last question, what's a practical tip that has helped you in your life that you could share with other people?

Practical, oh man, I kinda just wanna say synchronous. (laughing) You know what, okay, like travel, okay, travel. This comes to mind with the play of synchronicity because to me, traveling when you don't have a really intense agenda opens up, opens up these experiences and these connections that you wouldn't normally have in your day to day life when you're like trying to get shit done and you've got a mission. When I go traveling and I don't really have a super strong mission and I'm just like, "Oh, leave the door and I'm just gonna go explore." And like, maybe I have a certain destination but if you become aware of just allowing yourself to open up to people and experiences, I find that to be one of the most beautiful things.

Yeah, and I don't know if that's super like--

No, that's incredibly practical. Are you kidding me? That's like, couldn't be more practical. (laughing)

And so, yeah, you take that experience of travel and then you can bring that into your day to day life and like, what did that cashier, you know, what kind of eye contact did you get from that person or what little phrase did they say? And did you open yourself up to being able to check in with her like you did? You allowed it, you're like, you opened your heart and you became vulnerable to that experience of just saying, "Hey, I can do this." Like, people aren't inherently evil. They want to connect and so you just try it out and sometimes it works better than others but I think that that's one of the greatest things for having more connection with people.

And that also is the whole thing about connecting with people with opposing points of view. 'Cause often if you're just totally vulnerable and you're not looking at them with judgment, you'll find these keys about each other of like, "Wow, we're going through that same thing in life." We might have completely different political views but we're actually facing this other exact same scenario and then you bond through that. And that's really great. (laughs)

You're the best, man. Like, Jared.

Yeah, actually the best.

Oh, I do.

Dude, thank you. - Thank you for talking to you.

Yeah, thank you so much for coming on. We're gonna do it again soon. Dude, thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, well, thanks for doing the show. I look forward to exploring more and I'm gonna have to start back login on those ones you were talking about.

Oh, the dream one too, love. - We're discovering you through Michael, so thanks.

Yeah, man. Totally. Cool, man. All right, I'm gonna clip it there. Dude, can you do me a favor and send me your local recording at some point? No rush, probably next week or two weeks, this one will probably be out. But dude, dude, you're the best. Honestly, we'll talk soon and do this again soon too. Oh, it's awesome. Nice to meet you, man.

Good night, Noah, you too.

Yes. (upbeat music) (birds chirping) (upbeat music) (birds chirping) (upbeat music) (birds chirping) (upbeat music) (birds chirping) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) ♪ Who likes dream boss, we like dream boss ♪ ♪ Who likes dream boss, we like dream boss ♪ That's my acapella dream bar ad. Guys, eatdreamb.com/sync. Go get some delicious dream bars. There's three flavors. There's not just the apple chamomile that I like. There's the tart cherry lemon bomb. There's the banana lavender. Check it out, like I said. ♪ Get your dream boss today at eatdreamb.com ♪ This is why I get paid the big bucks, guys.

Ah, Simon, Simon, Simon. You better believe I'm having Simon back on sometime soon. This could have went on for hours. It was literally going into the night. I had to put my little Eli to bed, but we could have kept talking for three to four hours, I mean, easily. One of the most interesting people I've spoken to, it's just so talented in so many areas. He's someone to tune in to check out his website. Listen, all links, as always, are gonna be very easy to find. You can find them at syncpodcast.com/Simon or you can find it at minepodnetwork.com/Simon. That's pretty easy to do, I think. I have some incredible guests coming up, truly, truly spectacular.

I'm not trying to oversell anything. In fact, I'm probably still underselling some of the people I have coming up in the coming weeks. Stay tuned. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate it so much. You know what, and I want to put this one on there. Pick up some dream bars from my friends at eatdreamb.com. Use the code sync, use go to eatdreamb.com/sync, get some dream bars, improve your life, relaxing, delicious, healthy snacks. Okay, I will see you next week. The grill is shot. The chairs are held together by optimism. And what happened to the rug? Sounds like your outdoor setup is not ready for patio season.

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