Ep. 87 - Money, Power, Ayahuasca and Miracles with Gerard Powell

The plant medicine was a great in your face. Boom. Here's your chance to remember, but we can get there from all different kinds of ways and get there through meditation to this. We're all given the opportunity to remember, and most of us are too busy trying to fill it up. We don't have the chance to sit down and see what this is about. This is synchronous. This is synchronous. This is synchronous. This is synchronous. This is synchronous. This is synchronous. Welcome to episode 87 of Synchronicity. My guest this week is Gerard Powell, founder of Rythmia, which is a medically licensed plant medicine place in Costa Rica, and you will hear all about Rythmia in this episode.

Gerard is a fascinating dude. I usually wait till a little bit later to introduce the guest, but I'm just going to go right into it. Not too long ago, Gerard sold his last company for $94 million in cash. You will hear this story was incredibly wealthy, incredibly powerful, incredibly successful in the world of business, but was miserably unhappy, suicidal. You'll hear all of this in the episode, but really was in a very shitty position. What's interesting about his position is, as insane as it sounds to those of us who have not accrued massive amounts of material wealth, this is a fairly common story.

People who reach the upper echelons of their career, of the financial world, of the power world, they find that the equation doesn't necessarily add up that they're happy all of a sudden, and that everything is great because they achieve what they want wanted. This is a story that I think is applicable not only for someone who has made a crap load of money, or achieved a lot in their life, but rather anyone who's dealing with the grass is always greener, or I'll have enough when, or if only. Gerard has a very dramatic story of how this impacted his life, and some of us need that. Some of us need these very dramatic happenings to kind of wake us up to what's going on, and some of us don't.

The other thing this episode is clearly about is plant medicine, kind of the more symbolic and esoteric aspects of reality, and how we all essentially possess and innate wisdom within us that can guide us and help us in a lot of ways. Something that's been emerging throughout this podcast, but especially recently, is the idea of synchronicity being something that confirms what's going on in your life, rather than just some weird thing that's what is going on. Why are these things happening, what is good, I don't understand, but the practical benefits of synchronicity, and Gerard has a very interesting story relating to him being on cocaine, Deepak Chopra, and ayahuasca, so stay tuned for that story.

Okay, that's it about Gerard. I'm going to get right to the episode in just a second. Also, you know, before I'm actually done speaking about Gerard, I want to say this. I've spoken now to almost 100 people. You haven't heard every episode that's come out on synchronicity. Gerard really does stand out as one of the most authentic, kind, open-hearted, open-minded people that I've spoken to in all of these episodes. You know, we had a Zoom call, which is why the quality is a little bit different on this one. It's all in a single track. Most of you probably won't even notice that, but if you do, that's what's going on.

But I was looking at him. We were vibing. He's just a really cool dude. So I think this is certainly a top five episode for me. I really hope you guys enjoy it. I want to say a quick thank you to the people who've contributed on Patreon. I've got a frog in my throat this intro. Sorry. I like it. I'm keeping it. You're going to have to deal with the coughing. But thank you to the people who have donated. There's been a few people donating or contributing on Patreon, which is patreon.com/synchronicity. They've contributed at the get this music level. So any music you hear in this podcast is mine.

It's like very few exceptions. One is on the Dunkin' Trust episode where I play a Prince song and they muted that on YouTube. Thanks, YouTube. Thank you. But everything else you hear is my music. So if you want to hear or download or stream anything that you have heard in its entirety without me talking over it or someone else talking over it, you can contribute on Patreon and I will give you access to that music. I also have an EP coming out later this year, and I'm not going to talk about it on the intro. I will talk about it on the outro. But creative evolution, the course I designed to help you start, maintain, and sustain a creative practice.

I will have details on that. Later in this episode at the end, it's launching in June. Michael Donovan is helping me with the landing page. Michael Donovan is fucking awesome. Check out his podcast on MinePod Network, Walking Home, Original MinePod Network, dude. Super cool. He's helping me design the landing page for creative evolution. It's going to look really cool. I'm really happy with what's emerged. All of the beta course people were instrumental in helping me do it. I got some great feedback. I tweaked it to the point where I'm really happy with it. So with that now, let's take a deep breath in.

Out. I'm going to start doing that more and more. Without further ado, here is the wonderfully lovely, compassionate, open-minded, open-hearted, drawn out. Thank you so much for doing this. I'm super excited. I figured a good place to get started. There's a lot of different angles for what you're doing down in Rythmia, but I thought it might be nice if you could give kind of a loose origin story of yourself and kind of how you came to be where you are now. I thought that would be a cool place to start. Perfect. So, yeah. Feel free to take it. I didn't even know. My story of her, the story of how Rythmia came into being was that I had been a very troubled guy. I was really super successful, I guess, in certain ways of business, and I was leading a life that was super false and super fake.

And, you know, I just sold a company, my last company sold for about $94 million in cash, and I was at the low of my happiness. I've never been more than happy in my life. I had tried to get suicide a couple of times. I was an alcoholic. I was addicted to injectable Demerol, which is like a heroin, and I was just completely out of control. And yet, functioning in business, I was highly functioning in business. But in life, I was just destroyed. It was touch and go every day as to whether or not I thought I was going to live. And, you know, the thing was I was just out of places to turn. I had been to a very expensive rehab in Malibu, California.

I had been a copy spiritual center made friends with Michael Beckwith and heard metaphysical things for the first time in my life and that was making sense to me, but I wasn't feeling it. I mean, I understood the concept of love, but I had no feeling for what love meant in a way. And so, one thing led to another and it's through a series of calamities, I guess I wound up in Costa Rica and out of place that did this plant medicine and I did this medicine. And, you know, I got shot into into way out into the universe and, and taken on a tour and saw where I was sexually molested them. I was three years old by my grandfather. And that kind of explained everything to me.

And, and, and in these journeys, the, the first journey, it, it showed me who I had become the, the, because I knew that I was an asshole. I just didn't know. You know, I was like in the top five ass halls of all time. And it, it bounced me out and it showed me who I was really. And, and that was super sad. It showed me why I was that way and that made me feel a little bit better. But, but my soul actually made me make an agreement with that, that, that I couldn't continue like I was continuing. And that made me promise that I would bring it with me for the rest of my life, and that if I was in conflict with it, I would listen to it not me.

And, and it really made me say that before it would help me in the, in the journey, it wouldn't even help me until I agreed to those, to those, to those rules. And so I did agree to it. And at the end of the, at the end of this journey, I merged back with my soul. And, and, and the universe gave me a brand new heart. And so that next day, honestly, was the first day of my whole life. And within two months, I had bought this place here in, in Costa Rica to do this for other people. And this is just the truth. It sounds like some kind of story, but it's just the friggin truth. It is what it is. And I, I bought the place and I did most, I did another, another couple hundred of these journeys. And I recorded everything that was said in every single journey. And, and we're actually doing the same thing now that was done for me for people.

And this is what's crazy that, that we're the only place I believe in the world that electronically some reports won't happen. So when people leave, they get this survey. And, and 89 or 88.56% as of today, of the people who walk through the door report that they have that same soul merge. While they were here, they posted, it's a life changing miracle while they were here that they merged with their soul again. And so we're like, we created a place for that. Yeah, I know it's so weird to even say, you're probably thinking, Oh God, I got a doozy here. I'm not. So, to give you some idea of why I'm not thinking that is, I'm really at the nexus point of making what you're talking about not seem weird.

And normalizing this type of stuff. So whether we're talking about miracles or imprinting reality with kind of these metaphysical concepts and really the interplay between our internal worlds and external reality, that's what I'm fascinated with. And a lot of these experiences that you're describing. While I haven't taken. Are you talking about ayahuasca? Was this ayahuasca? Okay. One of them. Yeah, so I've never done DMT. I've never done ayahuasca, but I have had experiences where I've received incredible downloads that I didn't ask for. I didn't know that they were happening. Some prompted by psychedelic experiences with LSD and mushrooms, but sometimes not sometimes meditative experiences.

And I'm talking about really weird shit too. So like, I remember getting a big download waking up the next day and knowing all the Sanskrit names for the chakra system. Waking up, Mulanhara, Swatasana, Manipura, like literally, well, like how do you explain that? So at a certain point, you have to say like, what the fuck is going on? Maybe reality isn't what I thought it was. Maybe there's some other game going on here. So to backtrack a little bit, because I think this is a very, there's a similar thread that I've noticed from a lot of people who have hit either career, the upper echelons of career or money or success or fame.

Whatever it is, sometimes people just hit it without trying or striving or thinking that it's going to make them happy and they find themselves and they're not happy, but sometimes people really think that this is what's going to make me happy. I'll get this next thing. I'll get this next benchmark. And then finally, I will have arrived and been happy. What ultimately happens, whether that's a relationship, money, job, power, fame, it's not. It's not the thing that is really going to make you fulfilled. Now, we can get into what does actually makes us feel a little bit later in this episode. But this is something I think is a great place to start with because you made a shitload of money. You had more money than most people will ever see in their entire lifetimes.

If they combined many of their lives together, they probably wouldn't have that much money. So I think it is a very important thing to talk about how happiness isn't something that you can buy. And we know this. We've heard the platitudes about it, but from an experiential level, you've gone through this. Could you walk me through that when you're basically swimming in the land of pleasure and whatever you want, what did it feel like though? I mean, what you were describing, you were suicidal, you had attempted suicide. What was leading you to this point? You had a family? I mean, I would love to get some insight into this, especially for people listening who are maybe on this path and maybe think that this next thing is going to make them happy.

So, yeah, I thought it was funny that I have a friend that sold his company as well. And he had a bunch of money too, and we always used to say that anybody who thinks money is going to make them happy hasn't made any people. So it's such a downer. It is, if you're, and I really believe this, I believe that something happens to us between when we're conceived and about five years old, and it makes us split from our soul. And this is all stuff that the moon told me, right? This sounds crazy, but this is the truth. This is who talks to me when I bought this, so I love it. I fucking love it, man. There's the moon story, not mine if you're mad.

Oh, yeah, I know, but, but, but she said that that we all split between when we're conceived in five years old and we're designed to split. But all of this pain, suffering, disease, addictions, depression, all as a result of the split with our soul, and that until that, but we're designed to because if we ever remember this, then the lessons of this life couldn't, couldn't work to expand us right. So, so after we did like that crazy work, and now we want to put ourselves back with our soul, there's no amount of money that can fill the hole that when you're separate from your soul. There's no amount of booze. There's no amount of sex. There's no amount of drugs. There's no amount of, of like extreme sports. There's nothing that's going to fill that hole, the hole that's felt from the loss of one's self.

There's nothing. So, so it doesn't matter if you're filling it up with trying to fill it up. That's one thing people like doesn't matter if you actually get it, it has the same, you know, if we're just some people fill that void with trying to fill it up. Right. That's a great point. That's a great point. I just work hard and work hard and I never seem to get what I, you know, I never, the 10 million check always eludes me, but I'm still in the struggle. Well, the guy that's, that's getting it is trying to fill it up with just another thing that doesn't work. It doesn't, it doesn't matter. Everybody's in the, not everybody's in that same place. And then we are all given the opportunity to remember. Like, for me, it had to get super extreme. And then I came down here and did the plant medicine was a great in your face.

Boom. Here's your chance to remember, but we can get there from all different kinds of ways and get there through meditation to this. We're all given the opportunity to remember. And most of us are too busy trying to fill it up with trying to fill it up that we don't have the chance to sit down and see what this is about. That I mean, that's so wonderfully put that the striving in and of itself can be the thing that we're holding us from this thing. So I love this idea of our soul. I love that you also point out this isn't like a malfunction. It's not like we split off. And this is what I often tell people about reincarnation. And I don't remember past lives. I believe in reincarnation for various reasons.

But I tell them like, if you could remember every single passing carnation you had, first of all, let's start at point A, it would be overwhelming and terrifying and awful. Imagine if you had to remember each death you've had vividly. Oh my God, it'd be a nightmare. Like maybe a little bit when you're on plant medicine and you're having a trip or something, you can get a little glimpse of it. That's okay. But if just like consciously had to hold that. So there there is a reason that, you know, for the skeptic who says, Oh, well, this is all well and good that these stories are emerging, but there is a function here.

And the function as you're describing of these soul disin, it kind of engaging is that we get, I personally believe no one told me this. Maybe I got to download somewhere. I personally believe we choose to incarnate on this planet in this time. I think that that is not something that is thrust upon us. I don't think that it's some evil retribution for us being karmically evil, whatever it is. I think that we're here to learn things. And I think this is relatively plain to see because if you look at the problems that we share individually, collectively and globally, they're all kind of the same.

It's not like someone has some radically different. Oh, I got 10 arms going out of my head. That's my biggest concern. It's like, no, we all kind of struggle with the same levels of suffering. So we're put in this world that we choose to be here and suffering and difficulties and trauma. We use these things as opposing forces to kind of get to the real essence of truth of what is going on. And what's amazing to me is that now, in this point in time, we don't have to talk about how time is an illusion, but we can talk about at this point in historical time, what seems to be happening is so many people are waking up to this with the aid of plant medicine, with the aid of meditation, with the aid of just people being born who seem to intuitively grok this stuff and get it without the trials and tribulations. It's incredible. So, I mean, let's, let's talk a little bit about some of maybe the information and downloads that you've gotten through your many voyages because like I can tell right off the bat from talking, you're just like looking into your eyes and communicating with you. I, you know, have some level of clear sentience and I can actually feel this stuff. Like you get it. You're doing what you're here to do.

It is shines through in your entire being. It's the same type of brightness I've worked with rhombos for a long time. It's the same type of thing that manifests and emanates from someone who really is aligned with what they're doing. So, what, what were some of the early kind of experiences you had and what was it like experiencing probably this otherworldly stuff like you're saying, and then to me, this is the most important thing. What was it like integrating it and putting it into practice in your day to day life, not just having these experiences being like, oh, that was crazy back to whatever, but really being like, I just got shown some stuff. I just got some stuff. How do I integrate that back into my life.

Interesting point. The, you know, the experiences themselves all revolved around this unification with the soul. And then, and then, you know, I honestly thought, you know, I was so super fucked up that I thought I'm a guy and the only guy in the world feels this way. Yeah, sure. Sure. Only one, you know that. And then, and then this, the moon showed me that that almost everybody that hasn't specifically done the practice to to to emerge with their soul feels a variant of the same thing or a grade, a gradient of the same thing. Some, you know, whether it's a, whether you're a Wall Street guy and you're, you know, stuck in, in, in your job and unhappy and, you know, think it's the job, but it's really this thing that there's no job, you know, the job of being superman wouldn't do when do it. But you don't know it because we're experiential people. So the things we very rarely have the ability to learn from our neighbor. It's a rare thing. So we have to keep getting, you know, like when I was a kid and I was making money, like 1 million didn't do it. Let's try to do that.

And it still doesn't work and it takes a long time for you to catch on that this is not working, that this is a working right. So, so most of my journeys, initially my, my, the craziest thing is that when I was when I was an addict, and I was a asshole, but I wasn't like a normal, I'm telling you that my energy was so bad I could walk into a CVS and piss people off people would be like, I don't like this guy. That's the kind of energy I had. I was in a fist fight every time I went out for a drink. I was just a really bad, really bad guy with bad energy. And yet I consider myself a good Catholic, not mutually exclusive apparently.

So this one time I went to the moon and I'm like, I gotta talk to Jesus. And I just, I said, awesome, you know, I was like Jesus, you know, and the, and Michelle and say it said, just say his name and I says name and Jesus appeared. He was on the moon and, and, and he said some crazy shit to me and said, he said that I said is this, because I thought that the plant medicine was kind of like Voodoo and, you know, I was really a great Catholic in spite of all this shit. And I said, hey, is this okay and he said, you know, he basically said that the more people do the medicine, the more that they see themselves, the more they see themselves, the more honest they become the more they become the more they become like him, and with the ability to live like he lived and it was just this beautiful shit.

And then we got done and I was like, Hey, how am I doing? And I said to me, you know, like that's pretty fucking talky and you know, I was so bad. And now I said that's I'm like, not like in my mind. Yeah, no, I get terrible. Now I went to just bad. So it's by contrast. So I'm like, how am I doing? And he goes, he goes, Jerry, you're smart and met. You know that I'm not watching you. You're watching you. Right. Holy fuck. This whole thing. All of this shit is between me and me, and all of it is between you and you, and all of it is between her and her, and all of it is between him and him, and it's really a strange feeling when when the clarity of that hits home, you know, and that that hits home that it's, it's about you and you.

And, and, and how you are with that relationship allows all of these other relationships to flourish. It's crazy shit. It's crazy shit. Right. It was for me. It was crazy. And so I was like, I was like, that was one of my nuttiest, one of my nuttiest ones. And then, and then when what was what was really interesting about this is that when I got back the first time I did this plant medicine, I got back from Costa Rica. And then, and I thought, you know, I lived for the first day of my life was the next day after I saw this stuff and was really the first day of my life. I was, I was like, I was like a kid.

I was jumping and light is a feather and like I really came home. A different dude in about three days into it. I started getting scared shit because it looked like it was sticking. It is in the past as a Catholic. I remember being a kid and I was in a pretty violent household. So I was, I was always in trouble and all that kind of stuff. And I remember being, you know, beat up on my father and stuff like that. And I would go to these charismatic conferences and have these like spiritual experiences. And then it's 72 hours, 72 hours later. It's like it never happened. It never even occurred. Right. So I do this plan. I get home and I'm thinking I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm waiting for the thing to come down.

To wear off or like maybe it will just come out of my body. Maybe it's the plant and the plant is going to dissipate, you know, has a shelf life. It's going to go there. And it didn't. And that really freaked me out because here I was and this is the truth. I was I was back home. The things that I used to like. I no longer liked. I didn't want to drink. And not that I couldn't drink. I just didn't want to be drinking. The desire was gone. Yeah. I was smoking two packs of cigarettes today since I was 13. And I quit. No cigarettes and no cigarettes. And didn't want to smoke. Didn't want to smoke weed. Didn't want to do cocaine. Didn't want to chase strippers. Didn't want to.

And so I'm sitting in my house. Well, what do I do? I don't know. Everything that I know away from me. So now what what do I do? And it was this really strange feeling of, of I actually called my shaman. And I said, again, what the fuck did you do to me? Because he ruined me. And he kind of walked me through that it would be okay. And it really took me some time. It took me about two weeks just even to get to the point where I wanted to go see friends or be in the world. And I had my ads were scrambled. I didn't. I couldn't put it together. And turns out that it was the best thing that's ever happened to me and that that so now at the place that we built I don't know if you if you have met brandy my girlfriend if you know about brandy or anything but I've just spoken to her via email. Okay, she's a sweetheart book. What we like the place that we created here.

It's, it's, of course, as far as the table again and food yoga by Shiva Ray. The answer is you by Michael Beck with our classes this class about your miracle this workshop. All these plant you get four or five plant integrations you get four or five journeys you get transformational breath work and then you get all these intricate integration classes and programs. So when you come home. It's, it's an easier transition. You're not just like your ego and everything is totally destroyed and you're like what the fuck right. What do I do. Well, I ever make rent again. Right, right, right. And so we, we, we, we actually was, it was the moves doing right that when we, when we decided to do this thing this is like journey to I decided this is what to do actually the medicine told us what to do what we're building to buy what to pay for it. This whole thing what to charge what people to get involved in like we just did it. And while I was doing it, I was thinking, you know, this is either crazy.

This is like this is, you know, in the book someday they'll say and on day 48 he went crazy. And either we're going crazy or this is supposed to be and we never lost faith because, because, because the every other thing the medicine was telling us would be happening. That's right. They would happen. It would just happen and I mean strange stuff would out of the blue. You know what I'm talking about. Just impossible that this could occur. And boom, like tomorrow blue duck is going to show up in your living room. You're like, oh my God, right, like that kind of crazy. Yes. Against a lot of stuff so it kept us honest and, and, and, and, and we just stay there and she's been amazing for, for me and this is what's so crazy before I did the medicine.

I would sometimes there'd be days where I would have like sex with five girls. I was crazy. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, big problem. And I couldn't even be with one with one who couldn't do it. You know, the day for the medicine is like, okay, now I can be with one and I fell in love. I'm engaged. I'm monogamous and not like golf course monogamous. I'm like, not like monogamous until you're past the main cause you can't see it like. You know, I'm in a monogamous thing. Happy relationship. Yeah. Real real real thing, you know. So something is emerging in this conversation, which I've, I've, it's been at the forefront of my consciousness, especially in the past couple of months or so, but really for the past 15 16 17 years, which is to me this idea of this reharmonization of the feminine divine and the principles that are emerging throughout the world. And we're seeing this explicitly with something like ayahuasca or these plant medicines, which come from mother earth. You keep referring to conversations with the moon.

And I don't like to get too gender specific when we're talking about divine nature because I think it can conflate certain ideas, but there are principles associated with the lunar and there are principles associated with the solar. There's a lot of these things. It's interesting. Like when you're talking about having conversations with the moon and with Jesus, I've had this happen to me too. It's very rare that I can actually speak to someone else where they either think they know what I'm talking about and maybe have some other world, but they actually know kind of what I'm talking about, which I can get the sense that you definitely do. So I, I love this because this is something that when I meet people who are really involved with deep inner work of any kind, whether that is through plant medicines, whether it's through a particular lineage, like Tibetan Buddhism or bhakti yoga, whatever it is, there's a few qualities that tend to emerge. One is everyone starts to recognize the unity of all of these paths and that while there are many paths of the mountain, the view is exactly the same.

That's one thing. The other thing I've noticed is that there is this ineffable joy and optimism, the deeper someone has gone in terms of understanding either the cosmology of the universe or why we're here, the meaning of life. Whatever it is. And it's the opposite of this nihilistic cynicism, which can often kind of culturally take hold of what's going on. So I have a couple of questions here. When you describe talking to the moon, what exactly is that like for you. What have you conceptually pulled away from it and also experientially, because this is a fascinating thing that every time you say it, it piques my interest. It was crazy is that I actually physically flew left my body and crashed into the moon.

And got then a screen like this screen that we're looking at it with the picture of the moon and my feet sticking out of it. Why, where I could wiggle my feet and it would wiggle on the screen. And, and a cursor and she said, she would type, hi, I'm Mrs. Moon. It's a feminine entity. Good, I'm glad I got that. I want to make sure I wasn't making that up. Okay. So it's a he the same as she and it really is a she and this totally this, this, we, what, and this is again my, my fiance brandy she always, you know, everything that you can, you can say, hey, that's a snickers orange to go shoot somehow trace it back to the balancing of the divine feminine love it. I love it. Everything goes back there. Me I'm more selective than that, but, but it does appear to be that the cynicism is a masculine thing and this love the acknowledgement that everything is together.

And when you're on that medicine and you're in divinity and you see that that the mother's the mother and that all of this is held together by love this whole thing and not just the words but to, to see that this is it. It just a change thing and I mean you can never look at a woman the same again. You could never be so hard for someone to have this on an experiential level and then the next day, be a misogynist or a chauvinist or whatever and it'd be so incredibly hard because the truth is something completely opposite that you know so it's this is this is all part of the, the return of the divine feminine I think this is what what's going on and I see it in guys like I see you and I am at, you know, a bunch of the people that come to this place, like they're super aware of the this rebalancing that's that's taking hold and, and like all rebalances it'll probably swing to one side too far before it comes back to center. I don't know where it is in its shift I don't know where the pendulum is I don't know.

But that's likely how this would would occur right. I think so and I mean I've been thinking about this term balance because it's something is to use tons whether it's equanimity balance. And I think a lot of us get this idea of kind of the Libra scales where things are evenly in proportion to each other and so I've been trying to use this term harmony a little bit more so if you take like a truck. Yeah, if you take a triad of a scale right three notes like a CE you have a minor there. Sometimes you got to play the E a little bit louder. Sometimes you have to play the C a little bit louder because you want a different effect so I think we have this flexibility and freedom to play certain notes and I do think this is the time where if we're just tracing back through the Abrahamic religions 2500 3000 years.

I mean the patriarchy just it fucked up right we just locked it's just decapitated every possible thing to do with the feminine and it was probably a fear based thing. Logic analytics said that no this can't really be what's going on so we locked it off and that was a terrible tragedy and I think we're still experiencing not think I know we're still experiencing kind of the aftershocks even so many thousands of years after. Yeah, and it's definitely happening like we can sense it. I also have a cockamamie theory that I do believe that cannabis is a big part of this re integration of the feminine divine I think for a lot of people myself included.

It makes you if you allow it and this is again any substance whether we're talking about plant medicines whether we're talking about anything this all has to do with a mindful awareness of what we are using these things for so I smoke marijuana daily. But every time I smoke it I say I'm smoking it for this reason I am mindfully doing it if I notice I'm getting a little out of whack with it, I will reassess my relationship and I think that's important for whatever we do. Back to the feminine divine thing I do think the cannabis is tuning or allowing people to tune into these frequencies a little bit easier compassion unconditional love not just the words like you're saying but the actual experience quality of it.

And I think that's helpful like you're pointing out this is a very, very important thing the pendulum does have a tendency to swing a little bit too far back to one side so being mindful of that and trying to feel how do we have these things work in concert with each other how do we use the the the analyzation and the logic of our left brain to use the creative intuitive aspects that that's really what's going to create this paradigm of what I'm thinking and hoping will emerge over the next 50 to 100 years, however long and I love seeing this reflected back in 3D reality with someone like you who you really do seem to be embodying and integrating these two kind of wonderful hemispheres we have.

I'm trying very hard I'm successful at I'm sure that my my fiance would say no but I'm really trying so the, but I do see I see like that that you know both of us really have given up everything I've sold all my cars all my this all my that to be in a place where, where people are coming together to do this thing. And when they do this the the what results from this emerging is someone who is balanced that's the that's the whole thing it, it, it harmonizes a human it's amazing amazing amazing thing that occurs. And when the people come through and you see you know that they're going home and you know like that they're going to have you know hundreds of people are by being who they are, you know this is nothing.

There's nothing here that's created this is all stuff that's discovered right. Yes, thank you. No it's already here we're not doing anything that that's new or different as matter of fact we're doing something that's probably a 10,000 year old tradition, you know that are more of reuniting someone's soul this is something that's that's ancient that were that we've probably lost the handle on around the time of Jesus around this this thing when other traditions went away that but this reuniting of the soul and the symbol beyond and all of that stuff of being in oneself is is old stuff that looks new because you know people are saying all that crazy plant medicine and that is that you know that crazy 20,000 year old plant medicine. Yeah, that old thing that that crazy thing that's been around forever that people have been using to actually better themselves that thing. Yeah, I mean I love so much of what you just said there the remembering aspect or the uncovering I think is key because I think a lot of times what can happen is when we get kind of these downloads or these metaphysical imprints into us we can externalize these experiences and say oh well this is something that gave me that that's not really who I am this is something that did that for me but as you go along you do discover that this stuff is innate.

This is what every mystic tradition has ever referred to this is what Socrates proved through the Socratic method when he was saying you don't learn anything you don't gain knowledge you remember you remember I can prove that this is happening and he did and I think that's a very important thing because that allows us to develop the faculty of inner knowing so when we're having those questions like hey did I really just sell all of my assets and put all of my money into this thing because of plant medicine told me it was going to happen well yeah I mean you did but you did it with this knowing that is and this is the and this is another thing you touched on a little bit this idea of faith. Faith is a dirty word for a lot of people in the western world for a variety of reasons some people are brought up in religious faiths that really just don't serve them and don't have any interest some people feel that it's a weak thing to do I'm going to surrender my ability to think and judge things to something that I don't really can't even prove that's stupid that's not that's going against the scientific method surrendering is probably one of the hardest things you can ever do the amount of courage that you have to summon up to let go of your idea of what the world is or who you are that's a tremendously tough thing to do so when you kind of can let go and get that to happen though it's also an amazing thing and just to give a little yeah just to give an allegory of this whole money happiness thing the past year has been a financially difficult period for me and I always imagined years ago when you know my business change or money wasn't coming in the same way how miserable I'd be a hell oh god it would just be awful the world would be collapsing around me that's not what's happening and you know it's it's no different it's not that it's no different it's that I actually because of the other things that are going on my life I have a kid we just moved into a new house I love where I'm living I'm meeting so many awesome people I'm happier than I was and I was making a shitload of money three years ago so it just proves the point that as you can as you continue to get in touch with the things that are going on in really with you and your relationship to the world at large that dictates your real state in the world more than anything else and they're not mutually exclusive and that's another thing I would love to point out you can make money and you can be spiritually fulfilled absolutely money is a neutral tool you can give money to someone to make their life better you can give money to something to make your life better it's a totally independent neutral thing unfortunately we live in a paradigm where most people are not in the giving generous variety of what's going to be going on but that doesn't mean that they're not so we don't have to hold on to this mythology of the struggling mystic artist creative who is just beaten down by the world because it doesn't support them absolutely right?

that's yeah yeah yeah did you get a chance not to look at the the movie the reality of truth I haven't looked at it yet I've seen it ever across my screen I'm going to YouTube to watch it I got a crazy shit yeah this is yeah the guys that added in the movie made it a little bit different in the movie yeah this is the truth I had a I had an ocean front place in Santa Monica and I was renting and it was a real nice house small right knows it was right by the pier and a friend of mine who's a hair cutter a stylist yeah stars and everything he's like hey dude do you want to this is the height of my fucked upness yeah do you want to do you want to meet the pop trope and I'm like sure he said okay listen can we use your living room and a couple days and you can meet him and I'm like sure sure sure sure and lo and behold the day came and I had forgotten that they were coming I was on cocaine I was I was stirring spaghetti sauce all night I was making as doing cocaine burnt spaghetti sauce I had two girls over so it was everywhere all of a sudden the the the bigger rang and I'm like oh fuck and I remember what was going on I pushed these girls down the back stairs and like they went down the stairs and place up and I put on a shirt and everything but I was like hooked up and shit and I meet the pop trope and they go into my living room and they film something and I don't know what it is this is the truth I never I never listened to it I was just all I got to meet him and I was done and then I turned the sauce off and then then when they left I put the sauce back on now listen it's four years later I've done plant medicine had this experience actually three years later done plant medicine had this experience I fell out of touch with a guy who was the hair stylist all of a sudden I'm reading ahead I hope I bought this place I'm reading a headline about Lindsay Lowen in the New York Post and it says that she did I wasque and then down the bottom I see a video and it's it's a kickstarter campaign and it has Deepak Chopra in my living room the fuck is this thing about and I hit the I hit the video and it starts and it's about plant medicine and I didn't know that and they were so I contacted the guy I said hey is this movie still being filmed he said yeah I said let me talk to them because everything has changed and that's how I got in that movie was and how the hell could that even happen it's it's crazy right well I mean it goes back into what I alluded to before the time isn't really what we like to think of it is certainly we experience it linearly no one's going to argue that we don't get older and there's there's a progression to it however that plays with the concept of what's going on right there's a broader theme there's a symbol there that is penetrating through time and space and kind of connecting dots and I think for those of us I don't know if we're just like stupid or like we just know but like some of us need those really big like let me connect the dots for you guys because this is really what's going on some people just get it some of us don't and we need to be slightly you know there's a there's a there's a famous I think it was Marpa and in Tibetan Buddhism he was a like a yogic mystic in Tibetan Buddhism and he had a student I think it was Tilopa and the way he got him to realize enlightenment is he slapped him with his sandal you know it's a great story because like you think a compassionate you know no violence but that's the way he did it and it proves that sometimes some of us need these very drastic things to solidify concepts or ideas and I love that man that's such it's an amazing story crazy and then in that movie like it goes through the things that were happening to me it's like it's a documentary but it's pretty good there's 30 some thought leaders in there there's Deepak Chopra is saying to telling people go to go down to Peru or to Costa Rica and drink from medicine like what the hell what is this coming to right? Deepak Chopra is telling people you know yeah I mean but I think it speaks to we live in a time where we can conceptually understand quite a bit it's one thing to kind of get a concept but this is another Buddhist thing this is what Buddha said don't take my word for it directly experience what I'm talking about and then you can let me know if you believe it don't just take it and that really is what it's about so let's talk a little bit about more about plant medicine and so like I said I've never done it there's a calling that is clearly people get I know when I get a calling I know when I don't I imagine at some point in my future I will be getting the calling to do it that's what's done that's what people tell me and that's what everyone who tells me I was there like you're either gonna love it and like transcend to some crazy dimension but like you seem like you got a lot of these lessons I was I did have an experience I've spoken about it briefly on this podcast never in depth there's a later episode coming but I didn't experience on LSD when I was about 22 where I didn't come down for three months and I you know the LSD had clearly left my system but I was still tripping and I mean I was full on tripping I don't mean that like oh yeah it was kind of crazy like my reality I was in some other dimensional place but still within the world and that I got a lot of it took me years after the fact to reintegrate it wasn't a couple weeks you know what I mean like I had to kind of basically separate from the experience to process it after the fact but once I did it really helped me and it made a lot of sense but with plant medicine what would you say to someone and I'm not using this as myself but someone who's interested who's maybe hearing this conversation who's heard other episodes of this podcast and I'll tuned into a lot of other things who maybe is getting the calling what would you say to someone who's potentially interested in either going to rid me or somewhere else to experience what you're talking about I would tell them that no matter what to do it to do it you know because the as long as the medicine is really the medicine that it's it's really I was it's it's really the medicine and then just to be careful the energy around the people who they're doing it yes yes yes super careful like about about you know the provider or the shaman or whoever is distributing the medicine super important to that everything is clean and right you know that's so that's a little bit dicey if you're not doing it on someone's life someone's living room in Hollywood you know that's thank you for talking about this and that's a little nuts and for a lot of us to I want to tell you I've done it in the jungle and I spent most of the night like being afraid because of creepy crawlies thank you and I didn't have the best the best time of it you know so so I just like try to pick someplace where I knew that the people were honest had integrity that the medicine was right that that is safe you know like us we we're lucky because we're the we're the world's first and only medically licensed government sanctioned I lost the place in the world that's amazing you know the customer we actually have a license for different things but medicine drugs and alcohol addiction all kinds of licenses and in one of those licenses and one of those licenses if delineates the the plans that we can use in the iOS and vine is is one of the plants that were allowed so I mean this this doing it in a place where you're comfortable where you have a safe safe container where you have support because because in this process you see your soul does not want to make up with you until it's sure that you have seen yourself and that's right and so in this first step of seeing yourself that's where if you're not there's not a lot of love surrounding you it can be a really hard night and and so you want to be in a place where where everybody is is where you're the focus of everybody where everybody's supporting you know like you need this support because because sometimes if you're seeing yourself as you for the first time you know it can be an interesting evening you know it's an interesting evening so so having that support super super important I'm going to tell you that then anybody who has the opportunity to do this medicine especially if they're in a fast paced life or they're in a place where they don't have a lot of time for meditation or a lot of time to do a lot of self work that could possibly lift the veil just so you can see if you're at all time restricted by all means I'm going to tell you it's an amazing way to get that first look and to get to a place of peace real quick no I mean I can see I mean I can hear as you say that the effect that it had on you and so many other people and I love that the real intention and aspiration I can tell this without you explicitly saying it is that if you can make an impact in one person's life and they go back and are a better partner to their partner a better parent to their kids or better kids to their parents better in their community and their workspace this is there's this idea of these donkas where we see these Buddhas and there's these other Buddhas flowing out of them and these other Buddhas flowing out this is how we do it if we want to talk about the best political social any action we can take it's working on ourselves first that is how it happens that's how we change reality truthfully and it's not just as simple as like oh I'm picking this up and I've changed reality this has a resonant effect that we can't perceptually pick up on you know unless we're on plant medicine sometimes meditate really is yeah this interconnectedness of us is such a paramount and important thing and when you do tune into that it does like you said like the analogy you gave of a you know if you really tune into what how you're impacting someone by being a misogynist it's like very hard to maintain that cognitive dissonance it's like you're gonna and if you do you're gonna be miserable and this is this violating this core sense and what you're talking about the soul you have to get to a point where you actually cannot you have to sign that contract with a full awareness of what you're signed there's no like devil's trick here there's no like I'm gonna get you to sign and then I pulled a nuke to you Bonnie whoops I'm a demon that's not actually I would work this is for everyone including our own best interest so just to delve in a little bit more about some of these conversations like what was it like when you started you came from a place where you probably weren't thinking about the soul very much to actually seeing and experiencing this kind of separation this merging and then this overall path like what what were some of these initial kind of like conceptual things like for you after you got past like the initial hurdle of like okay this is mind-blowing what the fuck after that being like okay I'm really I'm tuning into something here something is happening what am I tuning into what was that like for you when like the the physical experience itself that night the physical but then also the just like the experiences of having this and learning it and like trying to like you know grock it like integrate it was so it was so amazing to me that that I was so excited after you've to see that for for you know forty six or forty seven years I lived the same life every day there was groundhog day because there was this there was this separation that I was resisting and the thing is the moon showed me that if you resist the separation if you say that it's not so if you deny it and resist it your life will stay exactly the same the faces will change but it will stay exactly the same so so here I put this back together the next day ships different and I'm like holy shit the chocolate tastes different the coffee tastes different this tastes different the moon is different the moon is never even saying this is like different and and I was in my first day of of like a child where I have like I don't know what's going to happen next and I didn't know like what was going to happen next it was a it was exciting and like because I was a child again I was really a child again where I did not know what was going to happen next I know how I was going to like I didn't understand life I everything that I knew of life was blown away in one night and now I have this which is something I don't know it's like a dog who chases cars I caught the car now on my own deal with it I can't drive it I can't you know I'm trying to get away yeah and I can't do it with it right so so it was super exciting because the earmark of that time for me was that I just remember like the few weeks it took to get my feet on the ground was super exciting because because it was you know the first time I was ever questioning anything I knew for that I knew I knew Chinese people drove like this and girls acted this way and this is how people from Texas see and this is what people from here think and this is that I just knew everything right now you know if you're short a market on a Friday with that it's going to do this I knew I knew what was going to happen and all of a sudden I knew nothing and it was super exciting people it sounds scary but oh my god it's like just like a child again where you can actually have fun and actually have fun because you didn't know all the answers it was fun like oh shit the door's locked like oh there you go well here's the thing if it's locked though this way or this way or you know yes yes fun I love that you're talking about this too because you know when we get put in the educational system or a cultural system we learn the value of knowing things right if we know the answer we raise our hand the teacher says you did a good job we feel good so this puts a premium on knowing and I'm not shitting on knowing I love knowing plenty of things it's great I love knowing how to play music I know there's so many great things however not getting I attached to the idea of you knowing is a really important thing because then it does open up this flexibility it's like if you do the same thing every day like you're talking about but then one day you do everything the opposite like a George Costanza your entire everything changes your whole world has changed because you've just broken out of your own kind of neural pathways that have shaped and dictated your perceptions and your reality and that's a wonderful place of yes it can be scary yes it can be terrifying that you don't know what's going to happen but it's also like one of the most liberating feelings you can possibly have and then the probably the second best thing or the another great thing that happens is when everything doesn't immediately go to shit because you don't know everything and everything doesn't immediately collapse oh my god wow what's going on here maybe this isn't the way we thought it was I mean there's so much that we could talk about man I would first of all I'd love to have another conversation down the line and yeah and it goes without saying like anything I can do to support I press me we're gonna be talking my friend but anything I can do to support help outside this we'll talk after this episode you know about some specific tangible things I can do but I would love to because man like I meet a lot of people a lot of people have different perspectives and ways they're doing things but it is very clear to me that you are tuned in to something very real and very special and I love supporting that so before we end I have three quick questions and then one larger question so here we go what is your favorite color my favorite color is not a color white cool love it love it what is your favorite number three cool I love that too what is your favorite animal a dog cool also also wonderful answer okay last question what is a practical tip that you've learned in your life that's helped you that you could share with people with people with people like them I think you know it was so I guess the biggest thing that guides me now was was you know I was Catholic and I'm going to tell you something I didn't even really believe in God I didn't really believe that there was anything else it was just ads insurance I was Catholic as insurance in case in case something was but I want to tell you when you when you get to speak to source and you know that there's a source the thing that I can tell other people is that if you haven't gotten to a position where you've spoken to source and it's answered back whatever that means please borrow my faith because because just knowing that there is more just that one thing changes everything and if you can if you if you haven't had it yet listen to my voice it's really there I get to visit it all the time it's there it's there and it's all around us so so if you can just carry that with you that that there is something there is something maybe maybe we don't know how to define it because it's just so much but there is this thing in it and you're not alone and even the more alone you think you are the more alone you're not alone you know just if people can just get up and just go you know what alone there's something with me then it changes everything yes it's the best tip you could ever give any anybody it's so true and and I will say you have to allow it to happen if you're pushing away and actively not believing then it's never gonna approach it's like a it's like an animal out in the forest if you're like get away from me get away from me I don't want you to come here that it's never gonna come up to you it had to be like a really really intoxicated animal so maybe they'll agree I love that man and I another thing just to put it to a button in this one there there are many people who have very transcendental and ecstatic and mystical experiences not everyone is able to communicate those experiences and remain grounded and that's been me at various times in my life so the more people like you who are able to speak about and show that yes this stuff science sounds kind of crazy yes you're talking to the moon and Jesus and psychedelics and all these other things however to not dismiss it out of hand because those things are happening and to recognize there may be is a thread here that if we keep pulling on we're gonna get a little more insight into what's actually going on the better off we're gonna be collectively so I love man I love the gen connected us I love what you're doing and consider me a friend and an ally and anything I can do to kind of make your vision a reality I'm happy to do man this has been I really appreciate it no thank you so much it was so nice my pleasure yes absolutely we'll stay in contact all I'll let Brandy know this went great but this has been tremendous and have an excellent day man thank you so much man cool have a good one thank you all right bye bye [Music]

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Thank you for listening to this episode Gerard as I said what an interesting awesome guy if you want to find more out about Gerard or Rythmia go to Rythmia.com you will find links to everything that was discussed on this episode at syncpodcast.com also mine pod network.com there'll be episode pages for all this stuff really big thank you to Jennifer Soudini who hooked me up with Gerard she went down to Rythmia and participated in some of these ceremonies you will be hearing about those think I'm going to release the episode I did with her next week so stay tuned for that you'll find a little bit more out about Rythmia and kind of what goes on there as I mentioned in the intro if you're interested in creative evolution stay tuned I will be giving out the URL for the landing page which should be out in a few days within the week when this is coming out so I think this is going to come out on May 31st so the first week of June there'll be news about this really very happy and excited about it just stay tuned just planning the seeds thank you to everyone who's donated contributed rated reviewed all the ways you can support the show we're growing May has been the biggest month for downloads for synchronicity we're closing in on some great milestones we just clip 300,000 downloads and downloads for all time of synchronicity that's really cool I think in the not too distant future we'll be crossing that half million downloads mark I don't know what any of these numbers mean except that it shows that people do enjoy this which makes me very happy because I enjoy doing it so that's all I will see you next week Lincoln Tech provides career training that keeps America working at Lincoln's Marwai campus you don't just sit in the classroom you train in fully equipped labs work with industry leading technology and learn the skills that hiring are looking for with personalized support and connections to top employers your future in fields like advanced manufacturing with robotics automotive electrical HVAC and welding starts the day you enrolled visit LincolnTech.edu for details