Shadows, Light, and Responsibility

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Hi, welcome to One Degree Shifts. I'm your host Pascal, and I'm the co-founder of Nectar. And today I'm really honored and humbled, uh, to have mi OK with us. And hi Miyo. Hello. Uh, thanks for thanks for being here. Uh, MEO I'll, I'll give people the brief introduction so they know a little bit more about your context and your lived experience, which would never fit in a minute or two, but I'll do my best.

And I'm just gonna read off my screen for a little bit. So Muk is a nectar guide, freshly joined Nectar, and as a integration support, uh, guide. And she's a, a writer, a beautiful writer at that. Uh, if you wanna have a look at her writing, check out her website, we'll put the links in the profile. She's a book doula, which I'd love to hear a little bit more about that.

A Sacred Medicine advisor and integration Specialist and Life Purpose coach. So what's a book [00:01:00] doula? I'm very fascinated by that term. I help people birth books. I tend to see the writing process as a metaphor for both medicine work and also for life in a way. Books. Mm-hmm. And any art, anything that we create, it's all through the sort of same creative channel.

And I do think of it like, like a child in the sense that at first it's sort of a baby, you're not quite sure what it is. It's kind of a cluster of cells. And, and then as you engage in the process, it's like, well, that, that kind of looks like a kidney, that looks like a hand, that's looks like a heart.

Mm-hmm. And you start to kind of figure out the structure, but then there's sort of a, a mystical or a magical moment. It's almost like it's rite of passage where it's a part of you, but it's almost like it becomes imbued with its own spirit. And [00:02:00] instead of you now using the energy to create it, it then starts to communicate with you about how to support it, in what it wants to become.

And so it becomes less, maybe from the ego we might say, um, into supporting it in its fullness and you realize that it's going to be something new in the world, um, and that it might mm-hmm. Actually be very different from the original idea that you had. That was the motivation for starting the project.

But in the end, it grows up, it goes to high school and then it's off to school, and that's when you publish. That's very similar to the, the healing path, I would say. You're kind of birthing something that kind of is from the mind and you're wanting to transform something and eventually becomes, uh, something that has a life of its own that's kind of guiding you if you're able to tune into it and see where it wants to guide you.

And [00:03:00] you've had a long, uh, experience of, of doing your own healing and a little bit of your profile. I'd love to share to people to give additional context to, um, you know, who's sharing space with me right now is that on your website you share. So though a very private person who was raised in a world that never resonated with me, white evangelical adoption and had to come out of many closets, intellectual, artistic, gay, adopted, transracial.

De transition sexually, ancestrally, abused, animistic, pagan. I began to see that my story of courage, self-love and connection inspired others to pursue their own healing by realizing that I could rewrite my story from a death sentence to a path of healing my life in offering this healing to all my relations.

I thought that was really beautiful and I think it, it shares a, a tiny little bit of your lived experience and how you've gotten to this point now of through what was a, a huge story of courage and [00:04:00] healing that shares more on the context to which you arrive here today. My path with the medicine is pretty unique.

It didn't start off by attending a retreat at a center. I was really on the edge of death when I approached the medicine. I'd been sick for many years. I'd been in deep pain. The kind of pain where you can't think. And I was, yeah, I was bedridden. I needed a lot of care. And I had gone through, um, the, the works of western medicine, the best of western medicine.

I got sick working at Harvard and supporting a sociologist in an MD there. And so it was really a hail Mary pass when I came to this work by drinking Ayahuasca alone, knowing that I might die in that moment 'cause who knows what's gonna happen. And also [00:05:00] knowing that that wasn't the ideal way to do it, I had really wanted to get to a real medicine person, and that was my intention the whole way through.

But I had, I had to drink alone for two years and kind of fumble my way in the dark to get my body to the place where I could not only walk by myself to the bathroom. But actually get to another country. So I ended up working in quite a few different circles. I got connected to Gvo mate and uh, worked with a healer who was trained in the Shabo tradition and who was Western.

And I worked with another Western healer. And then I eventually, uh, worked with a retreat center in Costa Rica. Worked with, uh, some different shabo healers. And in those spaces [00:06:00] where I was able to see the many different containers in which medicine can be done. And with my ever critical mind, think about what I might do differently and see what was being done.

Well. Much like a workshop. Um, I write memoir and that's what we do. We sit down and we say, what's really, really great here that should not change, and how can we also help this along, uh, to reach more people or to really, uh, do justice to the moment that's being written about. And I saw really that at every step in, when I saw people get hurt, when I got hurt in these spaces that were meant for healing, that it was always a lack of integrity.

Mm-hmm. It probably gave you a unique perspective that maybe a lot of folks wouldn't be able to access. Um, and of course everyone has their own unique lived experience and [00:07:00] they're all valued, but you came in with a, a life experience that is not common at all, especially in relationship to pain, in relationship to.

Integrity of care when you were needing it the most. You probably experienced a lot of dissonance there and, and a lot of also beautiful things as well that were provided to you during that time. So do you think that that lived experience gave you a different lens on this work that you brought in, in terms of attention to detail and, and what you saw could be improved?

Some of it was definitely coming at it from sort of the extremes, I guess, of privilege and also marginalization. It's like I was in that position because I was at the crosshairs of all of these, um, you know, in more invisible, less aligned with, uh, social norms in terms of, yeah, in terms of my identity. So when [00:08:00] I came into this space, I was in a particular position, but because it was so desperate and because I had also been.

I had, I had always valued education and, and so I had a particular background. Um, I became useful, I think, in the space to certain people, uh, who are building careers in the space. And so I was sort of elevated, I was helped, I was given, um, financial access to a lot of spaces that most people of various, uh, intersections of my identity are not.

And so being in those spaces, I ended up in a lot of medicine circles with what, what you might call God roamers, um, people with, uh, great material abundance and people who service those people. Looking back, when I [00:09:00] think about those 10 years in near isolation, in great pain, I can't imagine at this point having a clearer.

Intention than I did then. And in a sense, people tell me that I diet in a really disciplined way. And I do think I am disciplined in certain ways. But having that experience really prepared me for that because I was just in isolation, COVID, lockdowns. It was nothing. I'm like, oh, only three months. Do this for 10 years.

Cry baby. You know? And um, so yeah, it was like, oh, you can't have everything that you want to have. So in a way, it brought me to this baseline that was very bare, very simple. And when you're about to die, your values really snap into a [00:10:00] clarity. That I find as I get better is a challenge for me because they begin to cloud the longer I think I'm going to live.

So in that space, I'm not sure if I will have that kind of clarity again until I'm on my actual deathbed. So going into working with the medicine alone and in that psychological and energetic space, I think it really helped me, and I think it still serves as my North star, as I move forward with the medicine because I have that touch point of where I once was and the clarity I once had.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. What a beautiful journey you've had with that. And as someone who has chronic pain, and it's nowhere close to how it was for you. Uh, I, I relate to, uh, some of the medicines that come with suffering physically. Um, and I think that there's a lot of gifts to [00:11:00] unpack there, and I think that's very valuable for the space to have.

So we can, as a community, reflect and bring up these difficult conversations that may not be surfaced, uh, very commonly, but are needs to be talked about. And you mentioned, um, going through the, the hellish landscape of your, your condition and then having been elevated to these, what sounds like the stratosphere almost of maybe the, the, the halls of power in in the space, which, um.

Helped and support you and gave you a level of access that was difficult to attain for yourself at the time. And a lot of what I've been, uh, feeling and Elaine as well has been feeling in the last few weeks as Trump is coming into power and, um, sort of like the, the geopolitical shifts in the world are, have been, uh, rapidly changing in the last few years, is just this relationship to power.

And in the, the medicine space, um, a lot of of those dynamics are always present in every room, in every conversation, [00:12:00] in every relationship. There's always a power dynamic that is involved in that. And specifically in this space in terms of facilitation, those para dynamics are amplified 1,000 times over because of the nature of the experience.

There's always a little bit of lack of safety, I would say, as a baseline in general because of the nature of the experience itself. And so when you pair that up with another person and all their stuff. It can get very dissonant from what spiritual integrity or spiritual ethics would tell us would be a good and safe space.

So what I'm getting into, which is moving away from the modern superiority complex and specifically in the role of plant medicine and more culturally and geographically as well as psychologically and materially and what you shared after. Another word for this might be reparations and sacrifice. What did you mean by that?

Well, I find [00:13:00] that with healing and a lot of spiritual traditions talk about this, right? Like in the, in the Bible, there's that, that parable or that, that saying where Jesus says that, that a rich person can't enter heaven like period. And so what does that mean, um, to me? One of the most obvious points is that you're, you're missing something if you enable yourself to hold so much energy when so much of it is missing in those around you.

How can you stand in so much suffering, um, and wall yourself off from it when there's so much that you can do? And so why does that happen? Maybe it's because you're unaware of your own power. Maybe it's because you're so deep in your wound that you still see yourself, uh, in that scarcity mindset. I mean, there can be a variety of things, and that's why [00:14:00] we have to have compassion, right, is so that we don't assume where other people are coming from.

But there is a great imbalance and everyone talks about it, and few people are doing anything about it. When you have. Less so, for example, in, um, in, in India I believe there's a, there's a Hindu sect, and they're very interesting. The men and women of all casts would meditate together, but they have this idea that the less material comfort you have, the more motivation you have to do the work.

And therefore, uh, the higher the chance you have of really evolving very quickly in a single human lifetime. And the, the more you have, the more you have to lose. And what I have found is that the more you can coast, the more likely you are to coast. And so in this way, [00:15:00] I've become very grateful to my extremely desperate situation because it deeply motivated me, uh, to get my act together mm-hmm.

In ways that I find even now I'm slowing down a bit or struggling. In a bit because I am reentering the world and because I am more self-sustained in a way, and some people have more than other people, there's kind of only one way to put that back in balance is that some people have to give up some things and people don't really, they're not very good at decreasing their standard of living.

And that seems to be one of the single places that people don't really want to get truthful about. And, and, and also when it comes to, as an adopted person, this belief that people have the right to have children, um, that they have the right to, or even the, um, expectation to continue [00:16:00] on their lineage, their bloodline, and their responsible considerations.

Um, and there's also injustice there. So. For example, I think about, I read and who knows this if this is true, but I think the spirit of it is true that the, uh, average, modern Western child consumes the same amount of energy as 147 children in India. And whether or not that number is true, I've been to Nepal and yeah, if you have a kid who's never gonna have a car, never gonna use electricity, boom.

You have a pretty solid head start on a carbon footprint. And so yeah, to, to enter more discomfort, which is something we learn in the medicine space, right? We're trying to do that spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, we're going into some really fragile, vulnerable, uncomfortable spaces. And so I think materially and physically, [00:17:00] we also have to do that.

And for that we have to come to a space where we are, we find our tribe, but become less tribal. Which is paradoxical. And as an adoptee, I think about how does a person look at another person like blood, like family, just that open-hearted, unconditional love. Um, it's easier sometimes to do it with animals even though we're not even the same species, but what causes someone to take in another child?

And often it's narcissists who do this. I would say my experience has been that's actually, uh, the majority and, and, and comes from the wound of not being able to bear, uh, one's own children. But yeah, I, I, I think we have to start thinking outside of our own extended [00:18:00] narcissism where we think we're being selfless because we're doing things for our children when in essence our children are extensions of our ego.

I, I think about how the, like minimal movement and downsizing, but also just the beauty of giving things away, of donating of, you know, we all, we often talk about letting go and releasing, but how about our accumulated wealth? How about our unearned income from our ancestors? Things like that. Mm-hmm. You know, thanks for sharing.

And, um, as it relates to the, the medicine space and just in general, this bubble that we live in, all of these concepts apply directly to. Anyone who's in relationship to clients or to facilitators or to partners in the space or to the work that we're [00:19:00] doing, which is we're all bring our own stuff to this work, and it's gonna spill out.

It's gonna be shown in in ways that other people will perceive differently. They might judge you. They might think this, what's wrong with this guy? Or they might miscast you, or they might misunderstand. But also there's a lot of signals and energies and things, actions that get shared that myself as a representative of Nectar, as a co-founder, like I've held power that I wasn't aware of.

And a big part of that was my own wounding around power and my dad, for example, where I would show up in a space where I might have a little bit of power or more than I think of and I wouldn't realize it. Or if I show up on a call with Elaine who's co-founder with me now, or a couple holding this power together with one other person at the end of the call.

There's a dynamic there that we weren't aware of. I think that leads to a lot of blindside basically in this space. And matri like high levels of power, uh, which you alluded to in that [00:20:00] stratosphere spaces you were in, that are wielded by, by people in a space that's very highly sensitive with people that are seeking something.

So that, that meeting of those two worlds is very powerful. And what I'm understanding from, uh, what you're sharing is the importance of reflecting on the intentional and the unconscious harms that are done to themselves and for others in spaces that are meant to heal, are asking for feedback. People feel really hesitant.

I mean, it's sort of weird if I just, Hey, Pascal, would you like some feedback? You know, like, you're, you're doing this wrong. Like, it just, you know, can I interrupt you? You know, you feel like, and I learned this also from being. In a wheelchair and being very disabled that the biggest difference between people who have experience supporting people who don't have fully able bodies is that they're always checking in, do you need something?

Oh, do you need [00:21:00] help? They're always, they always have one eye on you. And if they see you struggling to open a container, like, Hey, would you like help with this? Um, because it's hard to ask. And that's a big thing in the medicine space. It is super hard to ask for space. That is sometimes, often the first medicine that people get handed, it's because they're going to be in a vulnerable position and I can't walk to the bathroom by myself.

I'm help. Um, so, you know, checking in again, it's that mm-hmm. Moving away from our self-centeredness, which isn't always a bad. Like, I don't necessarily mean that in a, in a negative way because there's this fine distinction, right, between narcissism and the fact that we are having a subjective experience.

Like we just are, uh, as, as very limited human beings. But that is kind of part of the point of this work is to expand our consciousness into that sort of [00:22:00] shared space that goes beyond us, that lets us see ourselves in the third person. It gives us some distance from ourselves, you know, checking in. And I think too, part of the distance is, you know, you know, we've got these guys talking about how they want to become like super bionic and they wanna mate with a computer chip and all that kind of stuff.

And, you know, but I think that what it, what draws me so much to the shabo and their way of working is that. You are actually doing the opposite of ai. You are doing ni, you are doing natural intelligence and in a way you are synthesizing with a plant. And so the more we can become plants, the better off we can serve the humans.

The two legged, the less we're in our own minds and [00:23:00] our own experiences as humans. Um, and the more we are in an alignment with nature and something that is outside of that, the more we are centered in our true essence, which isn't necessarily human Like. I think about how when I get out of the shower and my dog's there, there's no self-consciousness.

Like he's not having any cultural thoughts. He doesn't have a human body, it's just a dog. Even if it's pe I think people have that with family too. You know, it's just like, oh, it's just my sister, it's just my whatever. But it's hard to do that for humans. I think sexual energy in particular is the most difficult for a lot of people to hold in this space.

And so doing a lot of diets and getting yourself under control on a conscious, in an unconscious level, which is dream work, and the plants really clean you up there. So it's really important, I think, to diet and to do it under the [00:24:00] guidance of, uh, an indigenous healer who is rooted. And so it's not just.

Someone who's been practicing medicine for 20 years, it's somebody who's been practicing medicine for 20,000 years because it stretches back and their ancestors are holding you. And this is accumulated energy. Um, this also exists in eastern religions, right? You like, don't just become a rimpoche. And so when you work with these people, like we can become like little tree.

Like there's this amazing huge tree that someone with a massive amount of hope planted like 300 years ago in hawkish, this giant tree. And when I think about my diets, like they're just kinda little blips and, you know, in the ground and, and that's great. Um, but to me, to be an integrity in the space isn't just having the human.

[00:25:00] Background of, uh, you know, having a psychotherapy practice or, you know, uh, going far and coaching and all of that. But it's, it's also being really rooted in diets and a lot of, um, porousness to like welcoming feedback, which I, I, I, uh, appreciate that you bring that up because it is difficult and it's, it's something that I started to learn with, uh, our good friend Laura, who's also an nectar guide.

And they would, they have this lived experience that's, that's also was very difficult and, uh, you know, it could be a coincidence, but they, they would all always offer us feedback and I would really appreciate it. And it was a, it was a system change for me to be offered feedback to be shared, like in love, in compassion and empathy.

Not like, Hey, you did this wrong, but with Lord. It shifted my system to really appreciating feedback as a act of love. I'd love for you to share a little bit. About this idea [00:26:00] of welcoming feedback, because I do think it's a challenge in this space and a lot of people are holding ideals that are, they're very strongly holding them when they could benefit from even just asking for feedback and really diving into the deeper conversations of facilitation, what it means to truly create a safe space for folks.

Yeah, I mean, we're doing our work because we have blind spots and then hopefully those are getting smaller, but we're not doing that work on top of other people. Uh, at least intentionally. Part of it is what you alluded to about, I think it's really necessary to be aware of power dynamics. You know, the person that you're asking for feedback, are they in a position to give you honest feedback?

Are they your employee? What's the, what's the power dynamic? Could you crush them? Do they have fear? Do they have reason to fear? Have you built that trust? [00:27:00] Have you proven through your integrity that you don't hold these things against people? And in the same way that there's like an energy when someone apologizes, right?

Like anybody can say they're sorry, but you have to live it. And so another thing is you have to look at your council. You know, if you're, you know, a certain kind of person and all the people around you are also that kind of certain kind of person, then maybe open it up. Maybe have, uh, a council of diverse voices, uh, ideologically, not just, you know, in terms of palette or what have you, but real diversity of people who think differently than you do and really see the world differently and can articulate that well.

But what I find. For me that that works in the space is just expressing my [00:28:00] heartfelt desire to put the space above everything to really remind people that I am, I don't know, I'm allergic to pedestals and I'm doing my work and I'm deeply flawed in many ways. And this is not a space where I promise not to make mistakes, but this is a space where I promise to do better and to hear you and to be able to take in information so that the space only, uh, becomes safer and more realized and evolved.

And so. Full accountability, which I think is the acknowledgement and accountability to me have been the biggest unsafe factors is when it, it's okay if somebody makes a mistake, that's the whole deal. Like that's why we have hold these spaces with compassion and uh, you [00:29:00] know, because the minute you slam people down with shame, you stop the process.

So really being vulnerable and practicing what you're asking other people to do, stepping away when you have to step away, um, and, and doing your own work. It can be really, um, convenient to, uh, to put yourself out there and focus on other people for sure. But I think it's to really honor what other people's experiences are.

Look at everything as a teacher. And have people you really, really trust and ask them regularly if they'll be kind enough to give you feedback. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's a great point. Accountability partners can help illuminate certain things for us, um, you know, uh, and give us guidance from a completely different lived experience.

What I'm hearing as well from what you're sharing in terms of pedestals, which I I love that you say you're allergic to them. [00:30:00] Um, I think it also comes from a, a, you know, holding a worldview that also supports that way of, of thinking. Um, like I think of this concept of decolonizing your, your inner systems, removing this sort of me above the other.

Like you said, when someone says, sorry, you're right. There is this, this subtle power dynamic sometimes stronger of like, now you're like below the other person. 'cause you said sorry, and some people will take advantage of that. Um, and so I think it, it does speak that when we reflect on our own stuff and our own actions and, and yes, get the community support and feedback, we absolutely need to do that work.

Well. It does involve a lot of shifting of systems that might have been embedded from hundreds of years ago from our ancestors and from our, starting from our parents. I'm a big fan of Constellation work because of that, because it helps illuminate your different parts and um, allows you to go tap into your ancestry as well in a very intuitive way.

[00:31:00] And it also speaks, I think, to where the medicines are. Inspiring us to move into, which is a more of a we space. And so I appreciate the level of compassion you bring to this work as well. It's not about pointing fingers, it's about helping each other do better and we have to do it together. So I'd love for you to share a little bit more about your experience, the sh people, and how maybe you interface with their cosmology and how that helped instruct or inspire or shift your perspectives on power spaces and these pedestals.

One of the things that I saw initially in myself is my wound as an adoptee. Like I'm always, I was always wanting to be in some sort of group and have an identity because I had been severed from my own ancestral roots and given this, um, this, this family and their world. That wasn't my world. So I. When I found the [00:32:00] Shabo, it was like, yeah, let's, let's dig in.

These people are cool. Um, but just like, just like anything, there's, there's light and dark. They have a history, they have a past. It's not like everything dark about their world is because of colonization. Like they had their own stuff when you read the histories. And, uh, it's not like, you know, all the Native American tribes were singing Kumbaya until the white man came or something.

Like, you know, everybody, uh, you know, had their own version of RuPaul's Drag Race going on. So I think when I came to Culpa, when I really went to the home of the medicine, more than drinking the medicine there, which I think is a different experience, drinking the medicine in the home of the medicine, just like in the food world, they call it terroir.

Right. Like, that's why you don't drink champagne. If you're not in champagne, you're drinking sparkling wine, man. [00:33:00] Um, and you know, the produce and the wine is, uh, I don't drink, but the wine is theoretically amazing in Italy, right? You can, you can plant the seed elsewhere, but, but it's different. And so I think drinking the medicine is, is also different.

So I saw that there's not only an importance of doing it there, but I think it's important to be the kind of person who will leave your place in the world and go and go to them and not expect them to come to you. Uh, to not go to some extremely comfortable, again, physically or materially comfortable place traveling.

There's a reason they call this work a trip. Uh, right. And so, you know, if you travel internationally. Um, and, and try to do it in as an authentic way as you can. Uh, whether it's home stays or, you know, uh, not [00:34:00] staying at like the four Seasons in all these different countries, you do get to see that more and more deeply that you are not the center of anything except for your experience.

Right. And I've been to some extremely impoverished places, and when I got to Culpa, I was floored. I was really, really floored. It's energetically, I think it's probably the hardest place that I've ever been other than Korea, but that's because I was adopted there. And also because. K-pop is pretty intense.

Um, but when I was in Bacopa and I'm looking at these healers and I, you know, and seeing that contrast between my experience at, uh, retreat centers and also at, uh, just in different ayahuasca communities with very moneyed people [00:35:00] to see that disparity of how, you know, these people are like, oh, these people changed my life, this medicine, blah.

And it's like, wow. And this is how we let the healers live. Like, how can that be? And so for me, the biggest dose was just seeing where these people live and how they live. They live in a third world country on what is the equivalent of, you know, a, a native reservation. Um, I stayed in the house of Tibo for a couple weeks and it's like, okay, so we just don't have water now.

Okay, so we're just not gonna have electricity for, we don't know how long. There's no more gas to cook food, you know, it's really unpredictable. It's, it's really unstable. And so I, I think it's important to see that. I think it's important to go places. I think it's important to travel. There's a big, big difference between people who never leave their [00:36:00] hometown and people who have been everywhere, right?

And so to travel to the home of the medicine, I think there's some magic there that the medicine appreciates it in the same way that you appreciate it when someone comes all the way just to see you. Um, I think the healers appreciate it. They're also more comfortable. They don't have to leave their families.

They're embedded in their communities with their support to support you. And it's the hospital. Everywhere else you go is. Kind of the equivalent of a pop-up clinic. You know, where it's like the, I mean, whenever I would go to, to these retreats, it's like, we did what we could, but I only have what's in my handbag.

If you come to the hospital, I could have done a lot more for you, but I don't have my operating table. I don't have my staff there. And so it's like, there's something about just going there and having that experience there and having that [00:37:00] shared experience with the healers, rather than them having to be a bridge in a way for only them to have to have that double consciousness of the world they live in and the world that we live in.

Because we talk about, you know, oh, traveling to all these different worlds and interdimensional, it's like, how about going to the dimension of Pa Copa, Peru? That's big medicine. Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. And it's, it's similar to Bali in a way. Um, not to compare, you know, banana to orange. Uh, but it's similar because people here don't have a whole lot of money.

They live on maybe 150 to $300 a month. You know, you look around outside of Uber, which is. You know, a bubble by itself. There's like beautiful four and five, six stars hotels, and there's all these spaces that are created for expats. And the locals never go there. They're just there to serve the, the rich expats.

And you go out of the city and, you know, the, the way they live is [00:38:00] completely different than the way that, you know, we live here in the bubble of expats and there's a huge contrast there. And wherever we go and you know, like it or not, whatever way we handle things, like there's a power dynamic that shows up in those spaces.

And, you know, really humble, me too, the level of privilege that I have as well in this space. My personal experience of that has been that, um, there are a lot of bubbles of power and privilege and that a lot of times it's veneer. And if you look behind the veneer, there's contradictions that are shown in subtle, sometimes in major ways, and.

It's a compassionate relationship that we can have. And also, it's not always the case to have a compassionate relationship to that dissonance. And you know, I've, I've felt, and I've heard from from other people as well, that that relationship can be difficult, um, to not cast judgment [00:39:00] on or want to even remove yourself from all of the spaces because you've seen things that were out of integrity and you noticed all the things that are maybe not ethical.

How do you relate to that and how do you continuously come back to compassion? I think first of all, you just have to come to humility, and I do that by doing something really stupid every day.

So, you know, just acknowledging that of, you know, like, wow, you know, I could be thinking I'm, I'm so smart, and look at me. And then it's just like, wow. Look at that. So there's that. But the deep reflection that we protect ourselves from is often looking at the world, but not seeing that we're a part of it.

So for example, when the Me Too movement was going on, the only male voice that I heard that seemed to step [00:40:00] out of that self-centered or narcissistic mindset was ironically Anthony Bourdain, who, uh, I think was kind of well known for being quite the narcissist. But he asked a very important question that I haven't seen from anyone, um, who has found themselves to be part of a community in which the leader was outed for being abusive.

So I. One of the dynamics of power that I think a lot of people are blind to who aren't on the hurt or victim side of power, is that there's a whisper network. There are people who know, and it's not something that you could proven court, because that dynamic of power is created by abusers. Um, I mean, how much bill, billions of dollars the Catholic church poured into, um, how to [00:41:00] suppress voices of, of children who they had abused.

So to see that sort of deeper logic that goes into the di dynamics of power, because what happens is if you are of the cast or demographic that the system is built for, then that means you have the privilege of. Living in the light, you get to declare your taxes, you get to live everything by the books.

Lucky you. Um, but that is a great privilege, uh, in, in many cases. And so what Anthony Bourdain asked was, when, when a famous chef was, was outed and, and a lot of women had stepped forward, is he asked, all these people knew. All these women knew. Why didn't I know? Why wasn't I one? There were some men who knew, why wasn't I one of those men?

What was I doing? What was [00:42:00] I throwing out there? And I don't know if this is what they're talking about when they call, when they talk about microaggressions. I'm not quite sure what that means. But I do know that when I was growing up in the Deep South and realizing that I was a gay, that you remember everything.

If someone makes any sort of. You know, on the boundary comment, it's like, boom, locked in safe. You don't even necessarily need to remember, um, what exactly they said, but you just threw them in a category. And so this also happens when people come out of the closet and it's just like, oh man, you knew. How come I didn't know?

And then they get mad because that person didn't tell them. And it's like, it's not on that person, it's on you and you weren't putting it out there. And sometimes it's not even a matter of saying something that might be remotely dangerous, it's that you never put it out there that you are a cool girl, [00:43:00] right?

Because people, everything's in code so much about, that's where, um, so much, uh, like idio, idiomatic language comes from, it comes from code. 'cause either you're cool and you know what I'm talking about, or you think I'm actually talking about trees, you know what I mean? Um, and. And so there's a sort of kind of consciousness and a kind of sensitivity, and that comes from getting feedback, but also understanding that certain people don't owe you that feedback.

It's about being a bridge. So, you know, I know that sometimes I would have, uh, for example, uh, straight white people, um, straight white men want to ask me questions about being a lesbian. And it's just like you should ask somebody in your family who knows more than you because like, it's like going to a college professor and being like, how do you add one plus four?

[00:44:00] It's like, you know, this is how you show respect. It's by really honoring the level that someone is at showing some attunement rather than everybody having a to attune to you. Because that's also what happens when you're in a, a cast of privilege. Um, it's also. It's travel and it's seeing, it's also seeing cast because that really frames race.

It's like, you know, we can talk about bipoc all day, but going by color of skin doesn't work because the world is bipoc. You know, white people are the minority really in, in terms of the planet. And, and it's like, if you go, like I was talking to a friend about, um, everybody's favorite vek Ram and it's like, you know, in, in America, he's bipoc.

Like he gets to kind of play marginalized, right. And yet when I talked to my friend in Nepal, we're like, that dude's a Brahman. That dude is like [00:45:00] top cast. He's the equivalent of a white male in his culture. That's why he gets to be a billionaire because everything in his culture was aligned for him to succeed.

And he wasn't a total, you know, ass clown. And so yeah, he made it, you know? So I think it's really important to take things in, but I think it's always important to say, why wasn't I in the position to receive? Mm-hmm. Or in the position to be able to give feedback or call someone out or share something that, you know, was very difficult but could shake the boat too much.

And that's a very difficult position to be in when you've either received abuse or you've witnessed abuse to. Not have the container to be able to bring justice to or light to something that needs to be brought to light. Um, and there's a lot we can talk about that. And I also wanna bridge this conversation.

Um, and I, you know, this could be a multi [00:46:00] podcast series on, on this, but, uh, it was something that I did want to share and talk about, which is a bit of a controversial take that you have, uh, which is that you really don't think that Westerners should be serving sacred medicines. And I'd love to hear your your thoughts on that.

Well, I, yeah, I know it's controversial and people really don't like it. Um, I do think we each have our highest purpose. And when I look at Western Healers serving Medicine, it reminds me of when I watch a lot of, I like I. Studied history. And so it kind of reminds me of like watching old baseball games or basketball games before they let black people play.

And you know, I, I met somebody in Culpa the last time I was there and I was like, oh, you're doing medicine here? And like, yeah, I worked with a Russian woman in Russia and she brought a group down here. And [00:47:00] I was like, oh, well who, who'd you drink with? We drank with her. And I was just like, wow, you came all the way to Peru to drink with it.

Like to me that's like going to China and not studying with Bruce Lee. Like going and studying with Chuck Norris. Like that's, I I, there's something I think that is very important about ancestral lineage. Um, I think there's something important about blood. There is something that I've seen and experienced about medicine.

Uh, that flows from when healers pass and that when you're working with healers and you're working with this medicine, it is in their blood in a way that it isn't with ours. And there's just deep unconscious stuff. Like I think even if I lived to be 500 years old, [00:48:00] I can't change that. I grew up with Zach Morris and that, uh, you know, garbage pail kids cards and Barbies and all that stuff that, that's deeply meaningful somewhere in my heart and in my psyche.

And that doesn't go away. I mean, there's a reason whether we disagree with it or not, but in, you know, in the Chet experience, and I think Plato also saw this, that like you do have to take the kids when they're young to go into these practices. And even though. With the shabo, they don't do that. They're just in it.

And there's nothing that you can do for growing up in the Amazonian jungle, um, that, that awakens something really alive for you and deep in your DNA, uh, of your, a familiarity and childhood as opposed to shag carpets and screens. [00:49:00] Um, so I think that that's important. And also learning other languages. Um, when I was, uh, studying German at Harvard, I was talking to an assistant professor who was kind of lowly, but she was German and we were sitting in, and we were watching the chair of the German department with impeccable German.

But she saw, told me a story once where he was talking and he used the wrong preposition. And she was just like, it's fascinating because his German is so sophisticated. It's so high level, it's so high level that he's the head of the German department at Harvard. Uh, and yet no native speaker would ever make that mistake.

And so with this level of work, as nuanced as it is, uh, as dead on, and, and again, no one's perfect, it doesn't mean that a people person won't make a mistake or be like, man, I, I feel like I could have done that. It could grow better. Or something like that. Um, you can't replace any lineage, like when you [00:50:00] look at people with artistic parents and they become artists or just, you know, like I think about, um, because I'm, uh, epically gay.

I think about Liza Minnelli a lot and I think about how she comes from a lineage of 400 years. I. Generations of people in show business on both sides of her family. And then she's got Judy on one side and Vincent Minnelli on the other. Like, you don't just get a kid like Liza. It just doesn't happen. And so like, that's how you get an ego, right?

And so to me it's something similar. I don't know if the tibo lineage has ever been compared to something as gay, but uh, I think it's something similar where it's like you, you grow up and you're, you grow up watching your grandfather dieting and feeling his diets and your grandmother, uh, cooking ditta food and drinking ayahuasca, um, them giving you tastes of [00:51:00] ayahuasca when you're a child doing your first diet when you're five for like maybe two days.

Uh, there's just no, I don't think that, that a western person, uh, can, can carry that. It's still always going to be a second. It's never going to be our mother tongue. And I think that that's crucial in it. And I think it's also humbling because we tend to be, uh, in a, in a starring role paradigm. And this is ensemble cast in a sense.

And it takes a certain cast of mind, I think, to say, I want to support these people and this is what they need and this is how I can help them do what they do. And for us, for Westerners, I think it's facilitation. I think it's pouring money into this in the right way. Partnering with them, consulting with them so [00:52:00] that they can have what they need because they have better things to do than come on to podcasts or go be on panels, um, or, or talk to humans, quite frankly, like they've got some plants.

Uh, to go be with. So anything we can do to support that in the way that we would, if there was a genius scientist who was our closest, uh, hope to curing cancer, you know, it's just like, well, how can I cook you dinner? Like, what, you know, how, what can I do so that you can just keep doing that? Because that's, in a way, like that's what you're meant to do.

And I haven't seen it done in a way where, uh, it's not taking away energy in some sense that it's not taking away business. Um, I've never seen the case where the person, uh, who's the teacher, shabo teacher who quote unquote, gives permission. Again, that goes with the power dynamic of, you know, people are like, well, my teacher gave me permission [00:53:00] to pour.

It's like, but did they girl? Like, let's you know. What would've happened if they said no? Like, really, could they have said no? Um, and that, that works in dynamics of all inequality, right? So to really, to really look at that and to really say like, wow is the, you know, I see students, Western students who opened their own centers and, and all of that, and, and yet their teachers don't even have that.

So I, I think that it's part of our sickness. It's just how I perceive it at this point. It might change, but I, uh, I haven't seen it otherwise. To condense all of that into as, uh, a simple statement would be that you recognize the sacredness and the high integrity that, and authenticity that is required to serve, um, the sacred medicines in, in a fully authentic and integrous way based on long history of culture and [00:54:00] lineage.

Um, that it can't possibly be met by someone who doesn't quite have that level of history and ancestry, et cetera. And what would you say to someone who would say, well, the medicines are for everyone and they want to be spread around the world and they're free to be used and that other people can serve them as well.

It's a, it's a human right to be able to do that. Uh, what would you say to to that? I disagree. Um, I've seen many people hurt in those spaces. I see, uh, people with ungrounded energy in those spaces, and I've never seen it out of a place that didn't feel to me deeply as coming from ego. Um, because I'm not sure why you would do that when these people are suffering.

Again, it comes with back to the suffering when these people are suffering. When we are experiencing a cultural genocide, and honestly, I, I think we have a generation left. Um, in a way I, I [00:55:00] consider myself to be a medicine doula, uh, because I do believe that when the generation of my teachers are gone, I think this is gonna be gone, at least to the extent, um, that it is.

And it's already gone. Because if you talk to these people, they'll tell you it's already gone. You should have seen my grandma. We don't have Mariah's anymore. Go to Nepal. They say we don't have yogis anymore. Um, you know, so it's already been in their eyes, uh, corrupted or diluted or however, however you wanna put it.

And, um, you know, you can say that it's going in the right direction, but that would probably be the only thing that you believe is going in the right direction. So, um, to me it's in terms of the re relational reality again. Are you using less of a carbon footprint than these people, you know, is your, again, it goes back to kind of lived experience too.

I think that that's a really important [00:56:00] component to bring to this medicine and the lives that they live. It's, it is so disciplined. It's not the life that I would want to live. And I also believe that this language that they speak, I, when, when they went deep into the teachings of the IROs with me the last time I was in Peru, I sort of came to the conclusion that Shabo maybe the only language on earth that came from plants that, that actually, the frequencies and utterances that came through the chanting through Des.

Mm-hmm. Uh. Came to later be ascribed. The meaning that is now used in ordinary, uh, chappo, but they're not words. They were, they were made into words later. But the Shapiro are not actually chanting words. They're considered words now. [00:57:00] Um, but what they're actually doing is not that, I don't know. We're just e even if you're a linguistic genius, uh, it's energetic and you can do diets.

You can hear plant medicine songs, but it's still a mystery to me why you wouldn't just wanna support those people so that they can continue this and show your gratitude and your partnership and your humility as opposed to, you know, watching Michael Jordan and being like, you know, I'm gonna be in the NBA or something like that.

Yeah. Thanks for sharing. And, and you, you wrote this and I'll, I'll just share it as, uh, an opening to the. Next shorter conversation that we'll have, which is, um, so these are your words, the challenges around the intersection of an indigenous people and the modern world while managing staples of humanity such as discrimination, greeds, sexual abuse that transcends all cultures and meets in this space.[00:58:00]

Can you expand a little bit on that as it relates to what you just shared? Sure. Uh, I think it's important not to say that anybody is better than anyone else. I certainly don't think the shabo should be pouring medicine because they're better than us as people. I just think that it's theirs. They have the longest history.

I think it goes back well over 130,000 years in an unbroken way. Uh, that doesn't exist for us. We're all very colonized, but, um, they're still susceptible. For sure, like in every space where patriarchy reigns, uh, yeah, there's sexual abuse. There's, uh, issues with power, especially when there's the intersection.

There are indigenous people who will take advantage of, uh, westerners financially and, and in other ways. We have introduced, I think, some important values to the shabo as well. Our ideas [00:59:00] of gender and sexuality, um, are important. And yet I think that their, uh, heteronormative structure, I. Is also something that allows their tradition to persist.

I've seen it similarly with the Tibetans, and yet they, you know, they, they, they sort of have this cultural mindset of, uh, that, that a lot of sort of immigrant, um, families have, quite honestly, which is that, you know, they don't have a problem with, uh, these sort of foreign, more liberal concepts, but their community and their family doesn't really have that.

But there are gay shabo and, and all of that. But it doesn't, it the, you know, their acceptance and all of that, it doesn't look like ours. And again, part of that is just because their, of their structure, I think of like Korea for example, where 10 years ago, my understanding is that you couldn't eat in a restaurant unless you had three other people with you.

Because the way Koreans eat, it's like we are going to go kill a [01:00:00] chicken in the back. And for whatever we, we prepare, it's gonna take four people to eat that meal. So it's not like, oh, just gonna be me table for one. Like, they literally don't exist in a, in a lot of restaurants like that, you can't eat there unless there's four people.

'cause that's just how it's structured. And so similarly, the world of the Shabo is, has its own structure. Um, and they, they don't have like the, I think they're called the MOAs, which, uh, we have here, uh, in Oaxaca where it's sort of a third gender. Um, so in that way, one, one way of framing it would just be that they haven't evolved, um, or, or that they haven't figured out the space for that energy yet.

And so I think that there is a reciprocity and there's an opportunity for us to grow and learn from each other, but much like, uh, the encounters between cultures. [01:01:00] Often we sort of take the worst from each other. And so, um, it does provide a potential breeding ground for things like greed, corruption, sexual abuse, and all of that is ramp in the unregulated space of plant medicine.

Mm-hmm. Yes. And you, you said it before we started recording, that we're super organisms, existence can be individual, community, country, or species, and that there's always shadows and light in the exchange of, and all we can do is be responsible to ours. And I really like that. And touch a little bit on that before we close on that.

Shadows and light of, and, and in the exchange of energy, and we can be responsible to ours and maybe touch on the super organisms concept, which I think is, is uh, is really quite interesting. If you got each of those individuals in a room, you probably couldn't have freaked them all out. Um, it happened because there was this collective and they were feeding off each other's energy and, um, but we do have to be responsible for ourselves.

And it is hard, uh, not to [01:02:00] belong. It is hard to be like, I'm not gonna be a part of that, a part of this. And this is part of something that's happening in the, in the psychedelic space, right? They're definitely headliners, they're definitely very powerful people. And they are in alignment with the powerful groups that we find in every, uh, in every place.

And none of them are indigenous, uh, medicine people. You know, it's, it's people who just jumped in. They're people with degrees, they're, uh, big name trauma specialists. They are, uh, heads of, uh, big psychedelic organizations that are, that are making deals with the government and so forth. Mm-hmm. And this is why, you know, integrity isn't a hundred percent one of the things that we learn.

Um, I think when we, as facilitators, and, and also something you certainly learn as a writer is that you more than the words that are spoken, you're listening to the silence and you're listening to the space between the words and [01:03:00] reading between the lines. And, and so because of the power structure, I.

Many of us can't name names, we're not gonna go out to the public space or even a semi-private space like this and spill t. Um, again, because we don't, first of all, we don't want to get sued. And also because, you know, we don't have the evidence. It is sort of whisper network. And it is something that I think, uh, that there are a number of things that I'm aware of that I think will come to the light and I will be one of those people who's like, yeah, I know.

You know, and some people be surprised and then they get to wonder why they weren't one of the people who knew. Um, and so ways of, of exploring our light and dark is to see what kind of light we are able to do in the space. That's not, I mean, you know, I've, I've had confidential conversations with Elaine.

And, you know, and she said it quite well, uh, I hope I have her permission to say this, but [01:04:00] just that she wishes in one respect that I could just go out and say everything that I know. But she's also very well aware of the practical ramifications of that, and that might not be the best way to go about these things.

That it, you know, I also have to protect the work that I am able to do. And if I just get crushed like a bug, um, you know, so you, you are having to weigh and you are having to negotiate. But I think I. At the end of the day, you, you just have to be really honest with yourself about your own darkness, what you're trying to protect, uh, what you're trying to do to be really clear on your intentions.

And I think a lot of that comes through, through the really difficult work that we learn in plant. It's not just dieting, plants. A lot of the medicine around that is the celibacy. I mean, just doing a year of celibacy is amazing medicine. If the energetic space and when you give it up, letting it go into your dreams, um, letting it blow [01:05:00] out a few other chakras, the container is just as much medicine as the medicine itself.

And so in my opinion, the container should be an indigenous healer. Preferably in a container that's run by them where they have free reign and they're not beholden to a retreat center owner or something like that, where they're sort of on the lowest peg of the hierarchy and, and they're in their homeland and they're with their, their plant allies and they're in their communities.

Um, but yeah, I, I think that the blind spots happen when, when we try to put these healers on pedestals because they're gonna have bad days. And so in order to really kind of be in that place and, and be able to like handle that level of energy, I think the only way mm-hmm. To it is compassion. Yeah. And, and compassion.

I think the two ways, or at least the [01:06:00] two main components of nonviolent communication, which is another word for compassionate communication, is that every word that's spoken should be to deescalate. The charge of emotion and also to never lose sight of someone's humanity. And so it's really important, I think, in this way not to get caught up in identity politics or people's political belief systems because like, that's the fastest way.

This is the big thread of like left versus right when it's really bottom versus top, uh, in a way, you know, in terms of, of social justice. But that's a whole different podcast that I think we can talk about in our time. But mijo, thank you so much for your thoughts and your wisdom. Uh, I really appreciate it, uh, the, this conversation with you and, uh, and appreciate your work in the world.

I really appreciate, uh, you offering the space, um, for me to express some, some often uncomfortable and unused that get you disinvited to parties. Thank you so much for being here and for your work [01:07:00] and for your service. Thank you so much.

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