Nigel (00:14)
Welcome to One Degree Shifts. I'm Nigel Pedlingham and I'm the guest on this week's podcast. And before we start, I wanted to invite us all to take a short contemplative breath. So I'd invite you just if it feels safe and well for you to close your eyes or have a lowered gaze.
and just fill the lung. Deep breath in.
Slow and gentle breath out.
Maybe let's just do that a couple of times together.
and then coming back into the room. And I hand the reins back to our friend Pascal.
Pascal Tremblay (01:19)
Thank you for that. ⁓ Always appreciate a pause in the day, a micro ceremony, as some people call them. So thank you, Nigel. I'm Pascal. I'm your host of Phone Degree Shifts, and I'm the co-founder of Nectar. And Nigel is a friend and the Nectar guides, a facilitator, and generally a medicine guide living in the Netherlands. And he's also the part of the board of the Guild of Guides. I first met Nigel.
Was it a year and a half ago or two years, maybe even I flew to the Netherlands to meet some folks and he was on my list and I met him at a art gallery or museum and had a really beautiful conversation. And ever since then, I've really grown to appreciate him as a person and as a guide and now really happy to have him on the podcast and welcome. And today we're talking about nesting and ironically, there's birds singing in the background here in Bali and it's really beautiful to hear them.
And when he talked about the word nesting, it's not a word I had really heard of many times before. So was really curious to get your thoughts on what this means to you. And for me, when I heard the word nesting, immediately my nervous system kind of went into a calm, safe feeling, like being wrapped around in a warm blanket kind of ⁓ emotion. And so I'm really glad that we're talking about this today. to me, the word
nesting within the world that we live in these days. know, there's the US is falling into fascism. There's climate change. We all live busy lives. There's inflation and money. And at the same time, for some of us, we're on a healing path and we're trying to transform and become better people. But all these externalities create this intensity sometimes that can be challenging and it can mask oftentimes ⁓
the truth about our nature, which is in silence, which is in care, which is in love and compassion. And these sort of things like nurturing ourselves or creating a cocoon for ourselves are really acts of radical rejection of the system as usual, which is asking us to do more. It's asking us to grow more. It's asking us to achieve more, et cetera. And so in my personal experience, that chase to externalities often leads to an appreciation
of nesting later on in life. I'm 44 now and even just two, three, four years ago, I was definitely in that doing mode. And as I've gotten a bit older and hopefully a little bit wiser, I've really grown to like my version of nesting, which is about comfort and relaxation, self-care, nurturing, slowness, and all those things like that. But Nigel, I'd be curious to hear from you as we explore what you call the nest.
as a way of being in this busy world, this complex world, not just as a physical or metaphorical space, but as a way of being. So what do you mean by the nest as a way of being?
Nigel (04:27)
Mmm.
first thing that comes to mind when you ask me that is something that you touched on there, which was how you were starting to feel when you brought up that concept of the nest. And that was really coming through to me as you were talking there. And for me, when I start to talk about the nest or feel into the nest, I automatically feel my hands doing this.
And if you just spend a moment, if people are listening, if they wanna do the same thing, when you just cup your hands like this and make that form of the nest, the answer sometimes just comes through that, through that action. We don't even need to put words to it. It just does something somatically to us when you create that kind of holding vessel. For me,
when it comes, there's multiple levels to this nest concept.
Yeah, so we have this form and this was something that came through very strongly when I was sitting with medicine some time ago. My hands kind of wove together to form this nest and something really a penny dropped and it really helped to conceptualise all the work.
that I do and if we zoom out a little bit, the foundation of my work is the healing potential of developing deeper and authentic connections with itself and surrounding and spirit and how I like to imagine those essentially is like the three branches of a tree, the three strong branches of a tree. And within that, within those branches, you start to weave the nest and that nest is woven with different
ancestral medicines, let's say ancestral ancient practices. And the five that I generally tend to work with are the practices of contemplation, the value of ritual and ceremony, something I know that's very dear to yours and Nectara's heart, nature's knowledge, her healing plants and fungi, and also the value of the circle and the eternal campfire.
community, hospitality, storytelling. And those get woven together to form these nests, which are essentially receptacles. They are places to come land, they're places to come rest and healing. And each nest is different for each person because each person brings a different need. But they become these nests essentially like an alchemical vessel.
place where that transformation can take place, where the different stages of transformation can take place, and they create that holding vessel, let's say. But I think if we then take it then to the other side, when we step out of the nest as a physical space, the nest is something that we each carry within us as well. So it's not to just to...
to create the space, it's also to create the connection with that place that we carry within us, wherever we are, whoever we are at all times.
Pascal Tremblay (08:02)
That's beautiful. How did you come across this sort of framework? I guess it's a framework for life and I guess to your plant medicine work and your other life and work itself, all the experience you've had in your own life has led to these pillars. how large of a role does it play in your overall life?
Nigel (08:25)
Yeah, I would say these five pillars are both pillars of professional practice, but absolutely personal practice as well. All five of those are an essential part of my daily living, my thriving, my showing up. ⁓ And as you said, where did they come from? This has been something that's been developing for years and something that I've been ⁓ wrestling with and contemplating with.
That's why it was such a joy that evening when sitting, you know, when you have those moments when you're sitting in, whether it's with medicine or whether it's in meditation or we'll go for a walk under a tree and suddenly that penny drops. And it was like, yeah, this is it. These were pillars before, but now they're more branches that get woven. you'll see me doing a lot of movement when I talk about this, because I feel that that's such an integral part of this, that this isn't
static and it isn't hard, you know, it's this malleable, soft, weavable ⁓ entity, let's say, that we're invited to play with and lean onto and ⁓ explore. Curiosity is an enormous value that sits at the bottom of this curiosity and exploration and through that we weave.
Pascal Tremblay (09:53)
Yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah, I can see the playfulness in your face as you talk about it. It's really, playfulness and curiosity is such a big part of the transformation process. And in your view, and you alluded to this as well, ⁓ everyone has their own nest. Like my nest might look different than yours, but what are the inner conditions that create a true nest within someone? What are things that you would kind of feel into as the right path to determine what's my nest?
Nigel (10:00)
Hmm.
Yeah, well for that I think the value of slowness comes in and I think that's something we're going to talk about a lot today. Creating those conditions to even be able to feel into what is my nest. That takes time. It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen overnight, but it comes from that invitation of slowness to feel into what is that? What is my nest now?
because the nest now is not necessarily the nest that it's gonna be ⁓ in the future or what it was in the past. It's an ever evolving thing of which sometimes we're in, sometimes we're out, sometimes we need to leave, sometimes we feel the call to come back. So there's this constant interplay with the nest. But as you say, everyone's personal nest will...
will look a little bit different. And that's the invitation here, isn't it? Is to make it what you need it to be for that moment. So you might need it to be soft and holding and gentle. Just like any ceremony, if we're talking about ceremony, sometimes at some points in the ceremony, you need it to be terribly soft, terribly calm, and to be held. And then...
suddenly it needs to be a bit rougher and a bit spikier because if it's spiky and uncomfortable, you maybe need to jump out because you've become too dependent on laying in that softness. So it's an ever evolving system, let's say.
Pascal Tremblay (12:04)
Mm.
Right. So you don't have like a five minute hack to designing your nest available anywhere. Cause I want shortcuts Nigel. I don't want to put in too much work.
Nigel (12:14)
Yeah, you
know the answer to that. There are no shortcuts here. ⁓ Yeah, there are no shortcuts and it's a constant practice. It's a constant practice. It's an ever evolving thing. And sometimes, yeah, you're gonna be adding to the nest. And then what you added, now you're gonna also take, you're gonna take away. But yeah, again, this,
Pascal Tremblay (12:17)
Yeah, exactly.
Mm-hmm.
Nigel (12:40)
this embodied action of feeling what's into it is such an important component. yeah, that's just, we need to keep referring back to the knowledge and wisdom that's around us at all times. Look at the nests that birds build. They're never built from one material. They're never built overnight. You know, don't wait until the eggs about to hatch before you build a nest, do you? They're busy building their nests for a lot of time.
before they need them. ⁓ They're helping each other build them. They're bringing different elements to it. They're weaving all of those different parts into it. So here we're really called to learn from what's around us in this whole process of nest building.
Pascal Tremblay (13:13)
Mm-hmm.
Right. And there's also a process of memory building as well from birds, right? Over, know, lineages of birds and intuition, of course, through millennials. And for people, I think it's been the same process for me is having the memory of like what felt good to add to the nest, like in remembering and also paying attention to that. you talked about curiosity as well. Can you talk a little bit more about the feelings or memories you've collected over time of building your nest that made you feel good? Like what qualities did that...
arise in you.
Nigel (14:01)
Yeah, I like that word, just to go back a minute though, but you mentioned that word remembering and I get the feeling that that's really at the core of all of this work that we're doing is we're being invited to tap into that great remembering which sits in us all. that, you know, things have become too noisy for us to remember. So again, we're invited into this nesting space to, or we remember to nest, but we also nest
to remember.
Pascal Tremblay (14:35)
Mm-hmm.
you? And what can people pay attention to to understand sort of the harmonic resonance of what they're doing is actually part of the nest or not?
Nigel (14:44)
Yeah. Well, again, if we're embodying that principle of slowness, we then have the opportunity to constantly listen to what our building is creating in us. So sometimes, if you pick something hastily and, you know, insert it into the nest or you insert it into our process. Yeah.
You're not listening, are you hearing, are you feeling? So again, if we're going at that pace, you're able to take the time in the things that you're selecting. And just that with anything, is there consciousness behind that selection? Why am I picking this particular branch as opposed to that particular branch? Maybe you don't, and you don't necessarily, you're not gonna get a rational answer. This isn't often about getting...
word-based rational answers. There's a lot of ambiguity with this. There's a lot of unknowing and irrational sense. We're being asked to sit and to contemplate and to feel and to start to embody those kind of contemplative principles of let's look through our ears, let's hear through our hearts, let's mix it up a little bit and communicate in a different way. And then
Pascal Tremblay (15:49)
Mm.
Nigel (16:10)
invite that felt sense. So when that goes there, does that feel like it's the right place to be? And if it's not, then change it. And this becomes, it's a, when we talk about weaving, if you think of anything that's weaved, it doesn't happen quickly or overnight. It's a slow and learned and ⁓ instinctual process, let's say.
Pascal Tremblay (16:20)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Right. It was my first Dieta with Douglas Fir, which is a tree in Western Canada and United States, where I learned to listen with my heart. And at first I was like, what is this woo woo stuff? And like, no, my brain's fine. And I learned through the process of over six to eight weeks of ⁓ tuning into the heart to listen to and commune to with the planet.
Nigel (16:56)
Mm-hmm.
Pascal Tremblay (17:05)
⁓ that I, learned that it's real and it's true. And there's a lot of richness there that comes from listening from the heart. And, it's slow, you're right. It's iterative, it's organic. It's not always clear. so discernment is really important, I think, ⁓ to understand. You know, what is the message true for me at this time or not? And it takes time to unfold that as well. I think slowness is a great medicine for building a nest.
Nigel (17:10)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Absolutely. And I like that use of word discernment there. Discernment is an absolutely integral component of this. it's again, when we fall into that pattern of slowness, what starts to happen is we start to notice that we are being drawn rather than how often that we are working and operating in this world is that we're driven. So it kind of comes to that shift that often happens at a certain point in life where
know, when we're younger and we're more enthusiastic and we're more, you know, needing to get there, we're coming from that place of drive. I must get there, I need that, I'm going to do that. There's this kind of engine behind us pushing. And what this is often about is through creating that sense of presence and that sense of slowness, we are open to the invitation of being drawn into that place.
Pascal Tremblay (18:17)
Mm-hmm.
Right. And you support people in all sorts of different life scenarios with different medicines and different contexts. Are there things you look out for to understand if someone has found or maybe is seeking their own sense of internet?
Nigel (18:48)
Yeah, I would say what really comes through there is that there is this shift that starts to happen where you notice a kind of a tending to process rather than a fixing. Often when we're not there and we're not looking after the nest, are, there's...
There's break after break after break, and it's fix after fix after fix. But what happens when we're moving into that shift is that when you're tending to the nest, I'm having a, ⁓ I'm thinking of a Dutch analogy here of the dyke. You tend to the dyke, you fix the dyke, you don't wait until it bursts and the water comes out. So I think there's that. And there's that whole listening element. Am I listening?
Am I, can I listen to what's coming from within? Can I hear what's coming from within rather than waiting to hear it from without? And that's kind of very subtle. And again, that's not a this or a that. We all do both of those. But when you can start to notice that shift is when someone is at that point when they...
are able to listen to that kind of stream of awareness which is constantly flowing past us, but often we aren't tapped into it to listen to, whether it's coming from in here or whether it's that stream of higher consciousness, let's say. That's when the shifts are starting to happen.
Pascal Tremblay (20:34)
Right. And have you noticed any patterns or signs that reveal when a person's in their nest needs a bit more tending and how do you guide that process with them to come back to remembrance?
Nigel (20:47)
Yeah. You know, rather than always speaking about others, because it often makes us feel that we've got all the answers and we are perfectly, you know, in our nest, I maybe will just bring that back to myself because there are often signs that my own nest needs tending. And I, one of the things I've noticed is I know the nest needs tendering when this tending, when this kind of jitteriness starts, you know, when you feel that jitter.
Pascal Tremblay (21:00)
Yeah.
Nigel (21:16)
which comes from all sorts of stimuli. are bombarded by stimuli in this modern world and it's a real task to...
Yeah, to not be overwhelmed or to be able to slow down. So I think that jitteriness is for me when I start to become a bit erratic, where I start to notice it in my own movements. You my movements become more kind of, you know, jittery. And that for me is a sign of, yeah, deregulation, of my nervous system being not in the place it could be.
Pascal Tremblay (21:50)
Mm-hmm.
Nigel (22:01)
And that is when that invitation to slow comes down. So coming into, coming back just to the breath to help it slow in the immediate sense. And then bringing that through that slowness, being able to evaluate, where's the source of this? What's happening? What's happened? Is something, something happened externally that's changed or is there something that I'm...
Pascal Tremblay (22:25)
Hmm.
Nigel (22:30)
doing that I am no longer doing? What is it that's happening? But often we can't see that if we're moving too fast. So we're back to, we're back to slowness again.
Pascal Tremblay (22:40)
Hmm.
Yeah, absolutely. And I can relate a lot to what you shared to me. It's this connection from earth and sky, basically. That's when I know that I'm off the path and my heart's not open. I'm not breathing properly. I think that's a big sign as well. Yeah, falling into old patterns. That's another one where I know my nest needs tending. And sleep and physical things, I think for me has been very
Nigel (22:58)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Pascal Tremblay (23:11)
teaching is like learning to listen to the body first. That's been a huge one for me. And I'll feel it in my hips and I'll feel my lower back and I'll feel it in my muscles. And so yeah, the body tells us a lot about where we're at. And I think that's something I've learned being a very brainy person, ⁓ recovering brain addict, that would call myself. ⁓ Now I'm really trying and working really hard to be in tune with my body first. And so I think these are really good signs for us.
How do you pay attention to that yourself in your own personal life and then bring yourself back into alignment? What are things that you do to do that?
Nigel (23:51)
Anyway, as I was listening to you say that I was thinking of...
the places that we live and the environments that we spend a lot of time. And I heard someone not so long ago talking about this series of boxes that we, so many of us live in. We move from box to box to box, whether they're from our apartment into a car or onto the digital box, which is often in front of us and we're trapped in these square man-made boxes.
And if you just think what that does to you, when you think of being trapped in a box, it makes you shrink, it makes your shoulders hunch. So there's that invitation to try and recognize the impact of these boxes on our lives, and now and again, to see if we can step out of them. So I'm sitting in an apartment and I'm three floors up, and sometimes I notice, yeah, I've been inside too much. This is really simple.
Pascal Tremblay (24:36)
Mm-hmm.
Nigel (24:55)
But I can't walk, I can walk out onto a balcony, but I can't walk out onto earth. And there's some, and I know this happens so many times. I've got up, you I've just started work, I'm in doing, and then I get to the afternoon and there's this, there's this chitteriness again, there's this tension. like, what is it? It's like, yeah, your feet haven't been on the ground. Come on, just go outside. It's a simple thing, but it's so easy not to do.
Pascal Tremblay (25:23)
Mm-hmm.
Nigel (25:23)
So
having your feet, yeah, getting your feet back on the ground, ⁓ getting out in nature, looking at the sky, knowing what direction is what wherever you are. You know, that's something that, especially in city life, it's quite hard to tell even what direction we're facing. Do you know how to, where the north and the south and the east and the west are around you?
Pascal Tremblay (25:33)
Yeah.
Nigel (25:52)
How can you find out? How can you have these cardinals just help keep us in flow with what we were talking about earlier with this remembering with the ways our ancestors walked?
Yeah, and then yeah coming back home and yeah and our breath is our constant companion in that. That's why we started this with just a couple of breaths but our breath is always there you know you can maybe not find north if you haven't got a compass and the sun's not out but you can breathe and a few of those.
Pascal Tremblay (26:12)
Coming back home.
Nigel (26:37)
A few of those breaths will always help sink you back and you might not be right back in the nest, but you're going to be at least walking towards it.
Pascal Tremblay (26:45)
Yeah. Yeah, I'd the breath is such a huge nesting product. My son has a little bit of anxiety sometimes. And my first advice to him, first I hug him, and then I always tell him, just come back to your breath. That's ground zero for your relationship to life and yourself. And oftentimes, once we have anxiety, I used to suffer from a lot of anxiety. Underneath that, it's a bit of a ghost, because it's not real. It's just...
Nigel (26:57)
Mm-hmm.
Pascal Tremblay (27:11)
kind of made up and it gets stored in the nervous system. And so the breath kind of resets all of that because now all of a sudden you diffuse the overthinking and the anxious mind. And so I think the breath is really, really important. ⁓
Nigel (27:14)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm feeling
like I need to do a bit of a shake. Just shake it out, exactly. Yeah, just shake it out. Yeah. So when you notice it, and this is the thing, isn't it, as well, you know this. Everybody knows this in a way. Like you can tell, just, my body just started doing something. They just needed a shake. let's not, yeah, let's hopefully give ourselves the space and the permission to.
Pascal Tremblay (27:28)
Yeah, just shake it off. Like shaking is great too as a nesting practice. Like remember your body. Yeah. Remember your body.
Nigel (27:54)
listen and then to actually react. No, no, can't, can't, you're not always in a place where you can suddenly start shaking uncontrollably. But if you can start to notice it build up, you know, you're in the middle of a meeting, maybe you can't do that. But when you leave the meeting, you can for 30 seconds.
Pascal Tremblay (28:12)
Mm.
That's what I call divine self care. It's like the, you know, the Panther, you know, spends 95 % of its time in the tree and licking itself and purring and resting and things, but then 5 % of the time it's pouncing and being, you know, super precise and strong, right? And I've really modeled my life around the Jaguar Panther energy because of that balance, not 50-50, but really much more self care and nurturing than actually dispensing active energy.
Nigel (28:36)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Pascal Tremblay (28:45)
And it's been a huge change for me to do that. And I feel way better and yeah, listening, discernment and rituals and practices. I'd be curious to hear over time, like you've been working on this for many years, like what has amounted to your most?
recurring practices and rituals or relationships, even you mentioned nature a lot, or even just ways of listening. You mentioned slowness, you mentioned discernment as well earlier. What are things that have been really powerful for you in your nesting practices?
Nigel (29:11)
Hmm.
Yeah.
I'm going to go back many, many years before I even recognized that this was a practice of mine, but it seemed to be an inherent component of how I was and who I was and got identified with some therapy I was doing a few years ago and we started to touch into archetypes and this archetype of the wanderer ⁓ was a very important one for me to wander.
to me to hit the open road has always been an enormous ⁓ healer for me to, and this is the every go and be, talking back to nest analogies, it's been the, it's the leaving, it's the, was the having to jump out of the safety of the nest that I was in to wander and to discover and to grow through that process. they were, they were very often very,
yet contemplative wanderings, and at the time that I was doing them, I wouldn't have been able to have used that sort of vocabulary. It was coming from in here, yeah, I need to wander, and I need to discover, and I need to explore. But that explorer in me, that person, that person who needed freedom, who needed to...
to see what was always around the next bend and to discover these things. It was also very much countered by the nest builder, let's say, if we're gonna talk about archetypes, I was finding it fitted well within the sage or the caregiver, but finding spaces wherever you are that you can then also come to rest in. So sometimes these are physical.
So there's been something in me that's always been this builder of spaces. And that's why in those branches that I talked about, there is that branch of the circle or of the campfire, because that conjures up that space where we are as individuals and collectively invited to come and sit. So creating spaces or finding spaces where you just feel safe and at home.
So that could be a home, it could be a room somewhere, but it can also very much be a sit spot that you find out and about, out in nature. So I've got, I feel like I've now got this kind of network of spots which I can take myself to and come home, let's say.
And some of them really are in the middle of nowhere. They are in forests, they're under trees, and those spots have guided me to them. There's Noah. Hey. Exactly, it's kind of the right timing for him to arrive.
Pascal Tremblay (32:11)
Mm-hmm.
Hi, Hi. He's part of my nest.
Okay, keep going.
Nigel (32:50)
Yeah,
yeah. Yeah, so some of those spots are in nature and there have been times where I have listened to the call of where they are. So one practice that I has become a regular practice for me is doing a nature solo, is going out into the woods to sit, to sit on the land and to just be for a period of time.
Pascal Tremblay (33:19)
Mm-hmm.
Nigel (33:19)
And one of the spots that I go to, have an enormously deep connection with. When I last went there, I wrote about this a while ago, I couldn't find this spot. I got lost in the woods. And why had I got lost? Because I was using a square to try and help me get there and I wasn't using this. I got hopelessly lost and terribly frustrated.
Pascal Tremblay (33:44)
Mm-hmm.
Nigel (33:48)
And then this moment of clarity came. It's like, come on, you know where this, you know, well, one is that you know where this space is and the other voice was, you know where we are, come on. So put the square away and stopped for a while and took some breaths and then followed the calling to come back to that spot. And honestly, I was so elated when I got there. It really was like coming home to a room full of friends, just seeing this.
this, doing this again, but it was, it was a bowl in the, in the forest with the trees that I knew. ⁓ And I was home and it was absolutely beautiful. But you can get too then drawn, I find, into constantly then searching for that spot. And I had that a few months ago when I was,
Pascal Tremblay (34:28)
Mm-hmm.
Nigel (34:40)
in New Mexico actually, and I had this idea of I needed to go and sit in the desert. And I had this idea, I need to sit there and I need to do that. And this place wasn't arriving and I was getting really frustrated with it. And then all of a sudden this voice kind of was like, yeah, what are you doing? You're not gonna find it like this. And that spot was, I don't know if this sounds a bit corny, but this spot was here. It's like once you accept that the spot's here as well.
Pascal Tremblay (35:09)
Hmm.
Nigel (35:10)
You don't
need to keep looking. So it's that balance between explorer and nester. But I would say all of those, you know, those five branches that I talked about earlier on, they all are important. They're not just branches of practice that I offer as a practitioner. They are all branches that serve me. So having ritual in my life, having...
Pascal Tremblay (35:20)
Mm-hmm.
Nigel (35:39)
Daily ceremony in my life is important. Spending time in stillness and contemplative silence is important. Finding ways to connect with nature daily. And even as I use that word nature, that word starts to sound increasingly, I don't know, non-serving because it kind of creates that.
Pascal Tremblay (35:51)
Mm-hmm.
Nigel (36:07)
barrier, doesn't it, between us and that. But I think you know what I mean. finding just, even if it's just a moment to look out the window ⁓ at a tree, to look at the bug that's now crawling across the window up there. ⁓
Pascal Tremblay (36:11)
Mm.
Yeah. Yeah. And these
things can be so small, right? And then I relate a lot to your resources because they're very similar to mine. in the morning, I love to just plant my feet in the grass and do my stretches. I used to do it on the patio here and I used to do it on a yoga mat. And I was like, I don't need surfaces. I can just go on Mother Earth and feel that. And I wake up first thing in the morning doing that now and it's huge. I just put my feet on the ground. Or there's flowers that fall down.
Nigel (36:41)
Mm-hmm
Yeah.
Pascal Tremblay (36:53)
here in Bali and I picked them up and I put them on the Buddha and I put my hands in prayer. my practice in the last months has been just to connect with everything all at once. And just for like a micro moment, like maybe 30 seconds, connecting that I'm part of everything and everything is connected. And that's a huge resource for me because then I get out of the mind, I get out of the me thinking, I get out of the tunnel vision and I start my day like with those two things. And those are huge.
Nigel (37:21)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Pascal Tremblay (37:23)
Finding
the nest and reconnecting to that can be as simple as those things. And you touched on that a little bit. I'd love to talk a little bit about that too, is this idea of clarity and also landing in truth. And for me as a seeker, and I think I've in the past maybe been on more on the seeking imbalance. And the older I've been getting, the more I've been landing on certain things and being like, okay, this is actually the thing that works for me.
Nigel (37:44)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm?
Mm.
Mm. Mm.
Pascal Tremblay (37:51)
And I'm owning it and this is it. Like,
I don't want to seek anything else. Can you talk a little bit about that process of landing into clarity? Because I think a lot of people and myself included have been trapped or getting caught into the paradigm of more is better and seeking constantly, but to build a nest, you need to kind of come home and honor and embody the nest as well.
Nigel (38:05)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, well, let's just acknowledge as well the pressures that we're that we live under to consume and to keep moving from one thing to the next. It's really a challenge for all of us. We are bombarded by information and opportunity and we are sold a story, aren't we? That, you know, more is better and there's always another thing around the corner. we do have to be a little bit
Yeah, gentle with ourselves there to recognise that that's the vortex in which we sit. But yeah, but you're right. There comes a time when more isn't better and we have enough. And again, that's maybe where it's good to use nature as our reference.
Pascal Tremblay (38:49)
Yes, thank you.
Nigel (39:11)
And again, if we're talking about this analogy of the nest, if you look at birds building a nest, they know when they're done. They know when it's secure, they know when it's tight, they know when it's gonna hold their offspring. They've collected the softness for the inside for the eggs to lay on and then they stop and then they concentrate.
Pascal Tremblay (39:35)
Exactly. You never see a mega complex NASA. They just got carried away.
Nigel (39:39)
I really
need to put an extension on my nest for the things I, know, for the extra, I don't know what, the extra nuts, whatever, the extra worms. ⁓ So let's use those, let's use that teaching that's around us to stop.
Pascal Tremblay (39:43)
Yeah.
Nigel (40:04)
And again, this journey is always one of ⁓ failure, isn't it? We are always gonna fail and we're often gonna slip back into past patterns. And that's okay, it's just recognizing that that's happened again and bringing that kind of higher awareness back to just taking a rest, I think rest.
Pascal Tremblay (40:22)
Mm-hmm.
Nigel (40:34)
is an enormous point. You've alluded to that just from that physical perspective, but I think especially on this healing path as well, we can get really drawn into more and more and more and more. And how much are we integrating? How much are we allowing to settle and to rest? Because there is this, if you're coming from that seeker's perspective, it's always like, yeah, oof, oof, oof.
Pascal Tremblay (40:57)
Mm-hmm.
Nigel (41:04)
⁓ And there is that, yeah, that invitation to just stop for a while. And I'm getting kind of the image of, you know, of water with sediment in it and then allowing that sediment to come down to the bottom of the glass of water. So it actually embeds and then it embeds in our awareness. If you don't allow the time for it to embed in our awareness, it's still just, you know.
Pascal Tremblay (41:19)
Mm-hmm.
Nigel (41:34)
it's floating around and the water's getting muddier because there's so much sediment in it but we need to create the space and the time and the way of all to allow that to settle.
Pascal Tremblay (41:48)
Right. That's very true. Yeah. It's like those crystal balls, you shake them and it's all over the place. And as a kid, I used to love to shake them and see them kind of settle. And there's a sense of calmness with that process. And you've touched on the word a little bit. I'd love to dive into more of the practicality around a journey and experience, a retreat, a medicine session. How can nesting be helpful for
Nigel (41:58)
Mmm.
Pascal Tremblay (42:18)
preparation before the experience and then integration. What are ways that nesting can be powerful or helpful in those two distinct but connected processes?
Nigel (42:28)
Yeah.
Well, I think that concept of nesting lends itself extraordinarily well to both of those. If we take preparation first and, you know, our go-to kind of mantra, certainly if we're talking in the psychedelic space of set and setting, that the nest is a perfect analogy to work with that, to be getting that nest in order before we set foot into the medicine experience.
And again, in that sense, we're talking about the nest at varying, varying different levels. What are my surroundings? ⁓ How am I being held by those surroundings both now, both during a medicine experience and afterwards? How are they gonna receive me? How can they nurture me? Are they ready? Do they provide everything that I need?
Pascal Tremblay (43:24)
Mm-hmm.
Nigel (43:32)
⁓ And then you've got the internal nest and what do I need to do to be ready? What is my nest ready to be stepping over that threshold into this thing I'm about to do? And that goes back, doesn't it, to that point we talked about earlier on about not just fixing.
but we're actually maintaining. So have I maintained everything so things can be as robust as possible before I step over that threshold? I think from a preparation perspective, you've got that.
Pascal Tremblay (44:11)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Nigel (44:21)
And then
from an integration perspective, I think that's where the weaving comes in. know, when we've sat with medicine, or you've had some other, you know, experience, maybe of altered states or meaningful transformation, let's say there are going to be all sorts of different branches of that. Some very loud, some a bit quieter, some...
very dominant and some less so that are waiting quietly behind. But they were all very, very valuable. And then through our integration process, we're invited to bring all of those different elements of what we experienced together and weave them together into the next steps. So that's actually one of the processes that came. ⁓
For me, when that medicine experience I was having when I was sitting with the nest in my hand, there really was this drive, I have to now go out and actually physically build a nest. So that's exactly what I did. I went out into the woods and I spent some time selecting different items and then on some random Saturday night, whilst most people were out, know, whatever they're doing on Saturday night, I was at home with a table full of...
with a table full of green matter, weaving a nest. And it was a beautiful, for me, was a very beautiful integration practice to spend time in, yeah, was in real contemplative action, you know, the mind goes still, like anything when you're doing something with your hands, something creative.
Pascal Tremblay (45:57)
Hmm
Yeah.
Nigel (46:14)
It was just me and those items and then the nest that came up is actually sitting right next to me on this bench behind me.
Pascal Tremblay (46:24)
Mm-hmm, yeah, it's beautiful.
Nigel (46:26)
So
yeah, so that was my example of a very practical way of doing things. But again, you're being invited in that integration phase to weave. ⁓
And if you just if you picture like a tapestry, a tapestry is made up of all sorts of different threads. And all those threads would have come from your your experience.
Pascal Tremblay (46:48)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I like the word weaving a lot. It's one of my favorite words, actually, because it includes many different things. It's a creative process. It's an organic process. It's an intuitive process. It's an iterative process. It's not done in just one day. It's taking in of all the channels, basically, and connecting it from a space of the heart and spirit,
Nigel (46:55)
Hmm.
Yeah.
it's never over, is it? So you're kind of constantly, you're constantly creating there, you're constantly weaving.
Pascal Tremblay (47:20)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and you're adding things that stay there for years and eventually, you said earlier, sometimes you edit and you're like, yeah, that's not for me. So the seasons change also, the birds nest. I don't know if they have like winter insulation or they probably do. Sorry, I'm not bird expert, but their nest designs probably change based on the season as well.
Nigel (47:35)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Pascal Tremblay (47:49)
Yeah. And briefly on the, the experience, think nesting is also a powerful concept. remember my first Aya ceremony. I brought a blanket because I thought I was going to a yoga retreat and here I am sitting in my tiny little blanket and I'm like sitting uncomfortably when my legs cross. And this older woman comes along with this giant camping mattress that was about
Nigel (48:02)
Go.
Hmm?
Pascal Tremblay (48:12)
this stick like eight, nine inches. And she had these like sheep skins and like, know, pillows and she looked like she was floating in Nirvana somewhere. And I was like, I should be doing this better. So in terms of the actual comfort, I mean, part of the journey itself.
Nigel (48:20)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Practitioner's perspective always, yeah, talk about setting, but the setting has so many layers to it. And certainly for me as a practitioner when I'm offering ceremony, the offerings that are in there to create that space are
So vital. But you're right, I have also found myself in settings which are far from ideal and it really is a challenge. often, sometimes the challenge can be useful, but most often than not, I don't think it is and it's distracting from what could be going on
So, yeah, that comfort in creating that space for the enablement of surrender is extremely important.
Pascal Tremblay (49:25)
Absolutely. I've had many experiences where I wish I had known these things, but yes, ⁓ all wisdom learned. And as we enter the last part of this conversation, I'd love to talk about reclaiming the art of nesting. So on the broader level, in a time when people are often seeking healing and belonging and deeper connection, how can we start to reclaim the art of nesting? We've talked about
Nigel (49:33)
Hmm?
Mm.
Pascal Tremblay (49:54)
sort of the system and sort of the old ways of doing and our habits and habituations, how do we reclaim nesting as individuals and as a community?
Nigel (50:04)
Mmm.
⁓
Well, we're gonna come back to that word that we've both used quite a lot during the course of this podcast today, which is the slowing down.
It's absolutely imperative to slow, to take time, to make space. So that returning to the slowness, returning to that element of the old ways, which always used to be there, which respects seasonality, which respects the movement of a day, the arc of a day, ⁓ which happens both.
Pascal Tremblay (50:49)
Mm.
Nigel (50:53)
outside and very much inside. Reverence is a word that comes up as well. How do we rebuild that relationship with reverence? And from the smallest, from the smallest thing to the biggest. And through all of those, yeah, we come to presence. And then through that presence is when the
Pascal Tremblay (51:05)
Hmm.
Nigel (51:23)
weaving starts, know, don't have to, it just will be doing it as we're present with all of that. From a collective perspective, I'm going to, you know, that fifth branch of what I work with, I talk about, you know, the reverence of the circle and the eternal campfire. We talk about this a lot in Nektaro and we're talking about the community gatherings, for example, but that
Pascal Tremblay (51:32)
Mm-hmm.
Nigel (51:52)
that invitation to community again. How do we fall back into the embrace of community? Is that through finding spaces that are offered? Is that through creating them ourselves? And within that, word hospitality comes up, radical hospitality. How do we start to re-embrace that?
essential value of hospitality.
Pascal Tremblay (52:28)
I love that you're saying that. I really liked that because it's so much of what my next thing has been about is about people and finding spaces where that's present and the resonance is there and I can be in a rest and in authenticity. I had a friend who just visited us a few days ago and I haven't seen her in like four or five years. And it was like, we never had that time period apart. was like, again, being in family and that's nesting for me, a big part of it.
Nigel (52:55)
Yeah, yes, it
is. Think of the resonance that happens when that happens. And you know, when this sort of question come up, it can feel quite overwhelming. And I get the feeling what's happening with a lot of us is that some of the issues that we're facing are so huge that we get paralysed by that kind of inability to have any effect. And I think an important component of this is bringing that
back to home and bringing it back to the scale that ⁓ we can effectively have influence on. So what is it that you wanna do? What is it that you would like? What is it that you can have an effect on, even if it's just the old street, the few people that live around you? That creates resonant change.
Bring it back, bring it smaller. And listen to what turns you on. What do I want to do? Where would I like to be? What's gonna nourish me? If it's gonna nourish me, it's more than likely gonna nourish others.
Pascal Tremblay (53:54)
Hmm.
Yes.
Yeah, but I love that that you said that because to me that's yeah, every day is a ceremony. That's what we said, Nick Carr and it's that concept of ⁓ bringing it smaller and smaller and smaller. And I used to be quite involved in activism and it was about saving the world and changing capitalism, et cetera. And those are such big ideas where it's very easy to get stuck in being frozen and being ashamed and depressed and sad or attached to certain outcomes that are really not that
Nigel (54:31)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Pascal Tremblay (54:41)
reachable by yourself, but if you keep it small, that it's doable, it's practical, you can start today. And you can take these micro ideas you share today, for example, and try to apply them and play with them and not be so attached to the bigness of things. And you'll see how things change very quickly. I used to wake up in the morning and that was one of the first nesting practices that really changed how my, all my days would go. Like I would just wake up and do a prayer saying, thank you for all the things I have around me.
Nigel (54:48)
Mm-hmm.
Pascal Tremblay (55:11)
that often I forget because I'm seeking something else. And so that really changed me and that really started to make me aware of what I'm really grateful for. And it's like, you know, two minutes every day. It's so simple. So the invitation from me and I'm sure Nigel would agree is to practice small and start tomorrow if you want, or even right now, like try to figure out what is a nest for you and just practice it, make it simple and fun.
Nigel (55:30)
Mm-hmm.
Pascal Tremblay (55:39)
And it will influence people around you, like even people that are not doing medicine or in this healing path. Like I'm a big fan of applying these medicine concepts into all the relationships. And you'll see how you can create ceremony and, and, ⁓ healing spaces with anyone really just by virtue of how you're showing up to those spaces.
Nigel (55:50)
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely,
you know, it's a of a testament to that in these online spaces, aren't we? You know, we often think that this has to be physical and it's nice when it is, but you can still create the energetic presence of the ceremonial space in this online square that we're in. It's about coming with presence, coming with open heart, coming with grounded feet.
Pascal Tremblay (56:30)
Mm-hmm.
Nigel (56:31)
and
that willingness to connect.
Pascal Tremblay (56:34)
creating circles within squares.
Nigel (56:36)
Exactly, there you go with Pascal, we've got something there.
Pascal Tremblay (56:41)
So the last question I have is, you know, sort of idealistic question, which is if you can envision a world where nesting is a central value, what would that world feel like as we live that together?
Nigel (56:55)
⁓
And that sense of wovenness and where all those touching points happen, if you imagine, you know, all the elements of a nest woven together, there's all those moments of, of touching or of go, of moving through that bonding and binding.
And I think that's what this is about. This is about bonding and binding and interconnectedness of everything that forms within that sacred circle, let's say. it's essentially that coming together back into bonded units. could call that the village in another way.
Pascal Tremblay (57:46)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Nigel (57:51)
the effort that goes into that and the care that comes out of it.
Pascal Tremblay (57:57)
Yeah, lovely. It's coming back to the truth of our nature. There's no separation. ⁓ Beautiful. Thank you so much. And I would love to hear you share about where can people find you online or in person? How can people connect with you and work with you?
Nigel (58:13)
Yeah, you can obviously find me through the Nectara site as I am one of the Nectara guides, but you can find me online on Instagram at magway, M-A-G-U-E-Y underscore healing. My psychedelic work you can find at psychedelicselfdiscovery.nl and soon there's going to be a new place to come to, a new nest.
a new meeting place that's just going to be magway.nl.
Pascal Tremblay (58:44)
Beautiful. And you also host monthly community gatherings on Nectar, which are rich sort of campfire conversations mixed with practical insights around living life in a good way ⁓ and integrating and preparing for psychedelic experiences.
Nigel (58:48)
Indeed. Yes.
Yeah.
Yes, thank you Pascal. Thank you for reminding me of those. But yeah, they are a beautiful space. We come together, as Pascal said, once a month. There's always an element of communal sharing, of ritual and ceremony, of activities, things to take away and also to bring in. So we really are trying there to bring the...
the spirit of the campfire into a community of people who may be spread across many different continents. So they are a rich crucible for community. So I would love to see some of you there. Our next one is in May 11th.
Pascal Tremblay (59:54)
Beautiful. So those are available for Nectar members. If you're interested, we'll put the links in the notes. ⁓ Thank you so much, Nigel. Have a beautiful day. Thanks for your work. Thanks for being who you are. And thanks for being on the show. Really appreciate that. And really had a good time. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Nigel (1:00:08)
Yeah, my pleasure Pascal. Thank you so much.
