Elder Wisdom: When The Pursuit of Happiness Fails, What Next?

I think that there has to be enough maturation in somebody's life to get to the point where we're sick and tired of living that way another day. The pursuit of happiness is not going so well for me because I've done everything that I've been asked. I went to college, I got married, I got the house, I got the picket fence, the 2.2 kids and the dog and mortgage and two car loans. And what the man? Like, I am miserable, and I shouldn't be because I did everything right. What do I do? That's why I say, I think we got some work we can do. There is an awakening in people right now.

What does it mean to live a spiritual life?

There's a thousand books I could read out there. Not interested. Like, where's the solid gold I can go to? I'm like, you know what? I have all of these elders and mentors that I used to have. I want to look and see what can I get out of really taking an examination of their lives and seeing what model do they have to show. And it just hit me like a freight train. Josh.

Mark, brother, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, Josh. Thank you.

Been so cool to get to know you. Two years. Plus that we've spent time together and that I've been guided by you, man. So it's. It's super close to my heart that you're here. You came all the way from Santa Barbara. You're staying in the Austin studio.

Yes.

What does it feel like to come from Cali and be here in Austin, you know, as a mentor, someone who's a spiritual guide for many people, someone who's helped me so much understand, like, who's Josh Trent without all the mirrors and the fabrications of the ego with what you do in the world, like seeing the energy and the vibe in California, which I have my own opinions on. What's it feel like being here in Austin compared to Santa Barbara?

That's a great question. It's funny, I was just listening to a little joke the other day where it said, west coast people are really friendly, but they're not very helpful. And guess the farther east you get, the more helpful people are, but the less friendly they are. They'll change your tire for you in New Jersey, but they'll swear at you for being an asshole the whole time. In California, they'll say, oh, that's so really sad. You got a spare flat tire. But they don't bother to help at all. So kind of what I noticed when I got to Austin Is, you know, I'm standing out in front of this, this LA fitness place and this guy walks out and he's like, hey, nice jacket. And we just end up having this like great 20 minute conversation, you know, and he's talking about going up to Canada, which is where I'm from, and spending all summer, next summer in Quebec. And you know, we just had this incredible deep heart connection. And, and then the lady who picked me up to bring me up here, the Uber driver, just this super beautiful, cool woman. And so the, and then, you know, being able to be out and walk around the landscape, like the land feels different.

What does it feel like out here compared to California? Because I, I love California because there's the hills and the ocean. You can go almost anywhere in like 2 hours, 3 hours and get everything. Is, is it like, what does the land feel like out here? Because you've been working with and on the land for 40 years plus.

Yes, that's a great question. You know, it, so it's, it's, I don't know, like, like around the studio here. I'm not sure, you know, what the impact of all the building was, you know, but there's this, there's a lot of rock and there's a lot of, a lot of like, you know, I don't know what it is. It almost looks like it's old ocean bottom, you know.

Yeah.

And, but there's all these little pockets, you know, where, where nature's just like, okay, we're going to focus on this spot. We're going to build soil here. And just seeing like, oh wow, look at, there's this plant growing right here that, that, that's not growing anywhere else around here. I found that around here in like a dozen spots, you know, so it's just, it's really beautiful to see how nature has to be more selective here is what it feels like, you know, you gotta be a little more deliberate about how, how things grow and how, how nature is going to work within systems and, and just taking what's offered. So it's beautiful. I was just so fascinated walking around and, and, and like, you know, even where I'm at in Southern California, it's still not hard to find great big oak trees. And you know, I'm sure there's those around here, but I didn't see any of those. And so it's like nature's happening on a smaller scale, like a more diminutive scale.

I can relate to that. You know, my first year and everyone with us, we're going to link right below wherever you're watching this video. My time with Mark, my time with Tim, like being out there on the quest. And it was interesting because my very first year I literally had no idea what to expect. Which maybe you can relate to that with your work. I mean you've been leading people in the vision quest world and just as a spiritual mentor for how long now, how many actual years have you been doing quests in?

30 plus years now.

So in three decades, like I'm sure you've seen almost everything there is to see. But then when you take new groups and new people on, on quest and take them out, I'm sure that it's the same look that was on my face year one where you can really see the, the innocence of the soul trying to come through and. Yeah, and the true vulnerability of like a man or a woman that wants to go on the quest. What, what continues to fascinate you about this world of guiding people in nature and maybe just a brief summary of what the quest actually is. We're going to go into like your life story and, and how you and I, brother, connect on such a deep level and what I've received from you as a guide and as a brother. But give people a high level of, of what the vision quest actually is for like the modern day human.

Right.

And, and just a quick story of like how you, how you found it.

How I found the quest. I'll start there. Yeah, I think it was back in, it was 1988 and I was living in Edmonton, Alberta and I was the epitome of a starving student. Like, I mean I spent, I spent a ton of time in the library because I didn't have any money to do anything else. And so I'd read all the magazines and everything and then I was like, okay, well I've always into nature. Like my whole life I was like, maybe there's books about nature. It had all just been through firsthand experience living and growing up in northern, in the wilds of northern Alberta in Canada. And so I'm walking down and I see this big book on the shelf of the nature section. And I pull it off the shelf and it's like a great big coffee table book. And this is back in the days when they still had the cards that went in the books. Oh yeah. And so I open it up and you know how a new book when you open it like the spinal crack. So I open this book up in. The spine is cracking as I open it and I'm Like, I look at the card and the date that they had checked the book into the library was like seven years before that. Not one date in the, in the card. I'm like, no one's read this book in seven years. I closed it up, put it back on the shelf. I was like, I gotta have something that people like have like chewed on, you know?

Yeah.

And so I keep walking down and they're buried in on the shelf are these two little tan colored books. And they're diminutive, they're almost hidden in the shelf. And I pull them off and the front cover is like, the corner is burnt off and it smells like wood smoke and pines. And there's like little burn holes from a fire, you know, like on the book. And I'm like. And I open the book up and the whole front of the card is full, 3/4 of the back is full. I was like, this is my book.

Yeah.

And that was Tom Brown's Field Guide to Wilderness Observation and Tracking. And so I went home and I didn't sleep for two nights. I just devoured these two books over and over again. And I knew I had to go to his class. And when I went there, that's when I heard really about the vision quest for the first time. And I was like, I know I have to do this. I don't know why. I don't know what this is. I'm going to be going to a place that I don't know with people I don't know, but I know my soul is saying, you're going to get your ass there. And so that was my introduction to it. And I, I had the same thing of like showing up. And it was in northern Idaho and.

Fascinating, right?

We were only like a couple hundred miles from where you did your first quest.

Wow. That must have been like coming home again.

It really was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, I was, I was terrified. I was, I was confused. I, like, you know, every other moment I'm thinking I should just leave. This is stupid. Like, what am I doing? You know, and. But I stuck with it, you know, and came back a changed man. And then of course, the work is on, like, what do you do with that? Right. That's why, you know, I know we'll get into this more, but like, that last three days is so important and so to kind of take this a little different direction, you know, over that last 30 years, I ended up being mentored by a lot of elders that we'll talk about more later as well. And very traditional you know, like. And so what I spiritually was tasked with about five years ago was, how do I take what I've learned and find the essence qualities of what those are so that I can bring that to somebody like you or whomever it is now that comes on quest. Because if we were to do it in a very old, traditional way, there would be so much regalia that you would have to put together that would have no cultural meaning to you whatsoever. That is cultural misappropriation, in my opinion. So I was like, no, let's bring it into modernity. Let's find a way to be able to use what I know and bring it in a way where modern people could understand it. So that's really, to me, how I approach it. And so when people come to quest, and I always just get such a kick out of when people first arrive because I see myself in every single person. The fear, the anxiety, the not knowing, the. Like, I think I might have made a really big mistake, you know, and, you know, before a quest, it is not. Most of the time, every single person who signed up for the quest, I will spend an hour to 2 on the phone with them because they're like, I don't know if I should come. My life's falling apart. Sure, I got, you know, I'm changing jobs, I'm moving a house and everything. And I was like, that's the perfect time. The perfect time. Because we all want to come to something like that with our lives tied up in a neat little bow. But, you know, when I. When I talk to people, when they've arrived and find out how people are and see that most everybody is arriving, like, disheveled, like, they haven't changed their underwear in three days and they haven't had a shower, and they're dirty and stinky and messy and they're almost crying by the time they get out of their car, it's like, you're in the perfect spot.

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Yes.

And so what I remember experiencing was we were told that it was going to be three days of like, ego work and shadow work and stripping down the ego. Four days, 100 hours plus, by the way, it's actually over 100 hours of fasting. And literally all we get was a tarp, our clothes, a sleeping bag and four jugs of water. You know, no flashlight, no knife, no. No fire. And I saw all my shit come up. I'm like, what do you mean? What if a bear comes? What's gonna happen if I need to defend myself? And I remember you specifically said this is actually the training is to strip you so bare and put you in a place that most men and women never ever would experience in their lifetime unless their soul wanted them to go on that quest. What's the big difference in your opinion, between a traditional and. I say that with respect to a traditional Native American quest, to what I experienced, and to what people have heard me share so much on the podcast about, like, what's. What are the main differences there? Is there a lot?

Well, yes, there is. There's a lot. And frankly, most of it comes in the first three days and the last three days when you're not on quest.

Okay.

Like, you know, my first quest I was on, we got back that morning, you know, we sat around, everybody had a chance just to kind of like chill, pack all their gear and everything. And then, you know, we had like, just a little Bit of time by the fire that night, or, you know, and then the next morning it was like, don't let the. Literally, my quest guide said, don't let the door slap you in the ass on the way out. When we arrived, we arrived, and the next day we found our spot. The day after we went out, no work up, no reflection or mirroring after. Hmm.

Why do you think that that's the traditional way?

That's the traditional way? Well, because the. Why I think that's what you're asking.

Yeah.

Is because we used to live in a village. We used to be around people where. Where. Where to go on a quest was something that they saw people do every year. Or, you know, there was access to elders. There was access to people who carried wisdom, and they were watching you or me as we grew up. And, you know, there was guidance and there was. There was. There was, you know, mentoring happening that whole time. And so by the time somebody, excuse me, said that they were ready to go on quest, they were already 80%.

Of the way there because they had received so much mentoring in the tribe from the elders already.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So we don't get any of that, you know, like. Like, for. For men. This is. You know, I do. I have worked with young men a lot over the years. And, you know, one of the things I know, for example, is that a young man who's about to hit puberty will go through his spiritual awakening first, and then within a year or two, maybe even six months, he'll go through his sexual awakening. And so there's nothing in our culture to support that spiritual awakening and everything in our culture to exploit that sexual awakening. And so what happens is the two get born, balled up together, and then the work is on, literally, I think, the rest of our lives to untangle the two of those. And so in traditional culture, it would be, oh, look, you know, Josh and Mark just had their spiritual awakening. Let's celebrate that. And so we were brought into the world at our spiritual awakening with honor and respect and acknowledgement that this is what's happening. So it becomes real. So since we don't have that anymore, then there has to be some way of addressing that or dealing with that when we come on quest before the quest, so that there is actually some context created that otherwise wouldn't have been there.

So it's really about the first three days for Westerners that live in modernity. And I hadn't heard somebody say modernity, by the way, until I met you, until I was guided by you. And I remember you saying that when we first got there, the most, the most important thing that anybody can do is just be honest and let whatever wants to express itself just express itself. And I don't know if you remember this, but we were sitting in the big open area in Idaho and you were like. And we were all sharing and it was like, I think day one or day two, and you were like, well, what are you pissed off about? What do you really want to say? And I think I stood up or I might have come to the edge of my seat and I. And I screamed like, as loud as I possibly could. And it was like, made my voice instantly charcoaled. Like it just burnt my throat because there was so much anger and resentment about, like, did my father want me?

Right.

Did my father actually want me when he got my mother pregnant?

Yeah.

And I remembered, like, the, the power of that, because I really hadn't touched that in a long time. And I wonder, going back to the initial question of what's the difference between people in modernity doing a quest or people that have lived in tribes in a very authentic way? There has to be this two or three days of ego stripping for us to even have the essence of living in a tribe, the essence of being led by elders and mentors. Can you go a little bit deeper into that?

Yeah, I mean, so the three days we spent beforehand. So you have two experiences of that now, how did you feel about all those people after that first three days?

I mean, their family.

Their family.

They're absolutely family.

Right.

Well, we still in communication. We're totally talking.

Totally.

Yeah.

So. And. But you were. I remember. I think it was. I don't know if it was. If it was exactly on your first quest or right after you turned 4 or just before you turned 40. Yes, right.

Yes. It was the first quest.

The first.

My 40th birthday.

Right, yeah. And so looking back of the 40 years previous to that, like those. I mean, it's not that easy, you know, I mean, I think we, we, we run into that, you know, when we go on retreat or something like that, to fall in love with people so deeply. But that should be our experience every day. That's what people had got to experience growing up in an indigenous culture around the world, no matter where it was. So it's like, yes, we did. We recreated the village from a heart place, not from a mind place, about like, you know, all that stuff. We could just. We had to just be able to put that on hold for people to be able to go through that experience of really coming into a sense of community. So to know that, like, wow, this person genuinely loves me. So it almost answers the question of, did my father love me when he got my mother pregnant? To know that, like, here's these people I met, you know, what, 72 hours ago, and I would go to the mat for them. So in some respects, that anger, that frustration, all those things that come up, you know, there's subtle, like, this all happens on many different layers. Right. There's the physical level, there's the emotional level, the mental level, the spiritual level. So all that work we do is happening on all those different levels. And so those questions we have are the frustrations that there's answers on all different levels. It may not seem totally apparent at the time, and it obviously takes unpacking once we're finished, but there's some of the deeper, like the man behind this curtain, things going on.

Yeah, the. The also, I remember you telling me that you had went on a quest, and you, for one of your quests, you just got a blanket that's all naked with a blanket.

That's it.

So it seems like the intensity of a traditional quest, because I remember Tim wrote to me, and he was like, hey, I just want to let you know, like, you need to change this message. It's not actually a Native American quest. Yes, right. That's appropriation. Make sure that you say it's done in the image or it's done in the honor of a Native American quest, but it's not a Native American true quest. So what are. What are just a few, Just so people can really get clear on this. Like, I went through something that was based on someone from modernity that was based on somebody that doesn't live in tribes. I mean, we do our best here in Austin. I did my best in California. But it's not like we're in a village with people supporting us within one minute, walking. So what are just a couple other aspects of the difference between the Native American true quest and a quest for Westerners or people in modernity?

That's a difficult question to answer because it would be disrespectful and not true to try and lump everybody together into, well, this is what a Native American vision quest would be. I'm not Native American, so in some respects, like, I don't even know if I have a right to say that, but I will say that it's done differently all over the place. It depends on where you are, who your elders are, even within, like, you know, the, even within a particular group of people, there could be 10 different people who would put you out on a vision quest and they would do it 10 different ways. The, the, the essence elements of it are, is the time alone in nature, you know, the three or four days or, and it could be one day. You know, I've done, I've done a number of just, we call them overnights. And you know, I have a friend who that's, you know, in all the years he's been doing this, you know, spiritual work, he's only ever done one day, but he does it every year. That man is incredible. You know, just like the, the, the, the depth and the, the, the grounding to him. Just one day, one day. He's like, that's all I need. I know. That's all I need. And so, so it can happen. You know, it doesn't have to be four days. Yeah, but there, as you know, there is such a power to having that. And, and you know, and I think it's coming from the world we live in. It's like we need those four days. You know, if someone was willing to say, okay, I'm willing to do, commit for like 10 years, I say, okay, let's start with a day then. But, but most of us don't have that opportunity. Yeah, right. Yeah. And, and you know, the quest is like a cross cultural global thing that's done. You know, even like I'm, I'm, I come from north, from, from Scandinavia. That's where my ancestors came from, you know. And in old Norse mythology, Odin hung on, on Yggdrasil, the tree of life, for nine days on quest. You know, Jesus, Buddha, like, you know, there's all kinds of old mythology about people going out on quest and they all had to do it in a way that was right for them. And I gotta add this piece into it too, that the land speaks. You know, the land speaks. And so I have an elder who lives in New Zealand and a quote from him is that when we are born of this land, the land will claim you. When we come here and make this land our home, the land will claim us. When we come here and sleep under these mountains, the land will claim us. I'm like, oh, that's a beautiful little piece. What does it mean? You know, and it took me a long time to figure out what the other side of that was. And you know, and now the rest of the story is that we have to allow ourselves to be claimed. Like, sure. The land is saying, come to me. The earth Mother Earth is saying, come to me. You felt that she's saying, come to me. But we have to be willing to say, I'm going to fall, Mama, I'm going to fall into you and I'm just going to have faith you're going to catch me. And I know you had the experience of being caught. I've had that experience of being caught. So I think the most honest answer I could have for your question is this is to say that if we listen carefully enough, if we practice listening carefully enough, the land will tell us exactly what we need to do.

So there's no one size PDF for a quest, which is beautiful. I love that, I love that anyways, because why would there have to be one style that all tribes, all people, all differentiation of soul would follow? Like we have to have variety in this world.

Wouldn't make any sense.

So there's Mark Tolleson, the unique point of consciousness in the world, that's God experiencing God self. Same thing with Josh Trent, Same thing with all of us. But we're all seeking. It's like we're thirsty for a true spiritual connection.

Yes.

And you brought up, you know, the fact that the rite of passage, when boys or when anybody has a spiritual experience and a sexual experience, it's not celebrated because the faculty of society has really degraded in that way that, that the native cultures had. So then when we look at the quest, it's really a satiation for this thirst wanting to be quenched around. What is spirituality? What is a spiritual life? Like, what, what does it mean to be spiritual? Like we, you know, part of, of your guidance on the quest is I got rid of the word force on the podcast and it was replaced with wisdom. But going on these two vision quests, it was a, it was a huge hammer to my ego that shattered all the bullshit that I was out of alignment and out of integrity with anyways, Right. And that was the meaning of putting on a spiritual capsule to the Pentagon of wellness and adding a financial capsule. Because I think that finance and spirituality, they're the same thing for me, you know, not for everyone. So I'm so curious, brother, what, what does it mean for you to live a spiritual life and for you to guide others to do the same, whether it's through the vehicle of quest.

Right.

Or your own emotional intelligence process, like, let's unpeel that slow. What does that really even mean to live a spiritual life?

That's a great question. So, yes, one of the ways I do that with, is with, with the vision quest. You know, and I work one on one with clients a lot. And, and that's something that we're able to do on a, on a. On a much slower basis. It's less, it's less the drink with a fire hose and more like, let's sip this a little bit and let it have a chance to sort of trickle in. And I'll say this, like, what I do isn't coaching. For me, that word doesn't resonate because, like, a coach is the one that has the playbook that says, okay, you're gonna run a blue 42 and you know, or whatever. Like, I'm not, I'm not a. I don't have a playbook. And I tell people. And hopefully I've told you this during the quest. It's like I'm going to learn as much from this as you are. Like, we're in a co creative process here together.

I can tell you get nourished as a guide.

Oh, very much.

Very nourished.

Yes. Yeah. And so the reason I'm saying this ahead of time is like to say right now, what does it mean to live a spiritual life? I could say that what I say right now is true for me in this moment and whatever happens, the rest of today could change that. So, like, this, you know, this is only true for the moment. You know what I mean, brother?

Yep, yep.

So. But here's a few things I've learned, like, and this is, you know, some of my own hard, you know, breaking rocks in the sun in my own soul as well. Is that oftentimes spirituality? You know, I live in Santa Barbara, so, you know, there is, you know, there's a plethora of. Of places and people that you can go to to find enlightenment. But I started to notice, it's like, you know, when I would hang out with those people, there's a lot of them that like, like I couldn't feel their consciousness below here. Like, like, like, like this was active, but the rest of their body just felt like it was like this meat sack dragging them around. It's like, where's your connection to your heart? Where's your connection to your genitals? Where's your connection to your hara? Like to your knees, to your feet? Like, you know, and I'd even ask sometimes, like, can you feel your feet? And they'd be like, no, I can't feel my feet. Like when, when things were hard, you know, and I, I'm guilty. Well, I'm not even going to say I'm guilty. I Also did that. I realized after a time that what I was doing was really some really beautiful, well thought out spiritual bypass. You know, if I just prayed harder, then things are going to be okay. If I just prayed harder, then my finances are going to get better. If I pray harder then, then my relationships are going to get better. But they didn't. And, and so my hitting the wall, you know, a number of years ago was really realizing, you know what? And so here's what happened. It's like, okay, how do I try and figure this out? And there's a thousand books I could read out there. Not interested. You know, where are my, like, where's the solid gold I can go to? I'm like, you know what? I have all of these elders and mentors that I used to have, like most of them are passed away now I want to look and see, like, what can I get out of really taking an examination of their lives and seeing like, what model do they have to show? And it just hit me like a freight train, Josh, of just like, oh my God, you know what? Those people who, who were my mentors and teachers were absolutely crystal fucking clear about who they were as a human being. They knew their foibles, they knew their, their what. They knew about anger, they knew about sadness, they knew about fear, they knew about joy. And they were able to feel and express those fully and completely in their day to day lives. And I realized, you know what, like, if someone came to me and said, mark, I really want to live a spiritual life, I'd say, okay, get rid of the man bun. You know, no offense to people that have man buns, but you could probably.

Still be truly spiritual with a man bun. As long as it's an authentic man bun.

Yes.

It just can't be a fake one.

Can't be a fake man, right? And get to know who we are. Get to know who we are as a human being because we lie to ourselves over and over and over again. All the time, we lie to ourselves. And what happens as a consequence of that is that we allow our past to dictate what our future is going to be. And so time is not causal. I don't think, I don't believe that at all. But how much we live that way, right? Like, okay, the last moment's the one that's going to dictate this moment, which is the one that's going to dictate the next moment and on and on and on. So where is the chance for our higher self to draw us forward into A life that's really genuinely worth living. It doesn't because we're still being pushed by all those corpses that we're dragging around behind us of dead relationships, dead thoughts, dead ideas. And we have to listen to their endless rebukes about everything we're going to choose to do in our life when we realize that we don't have to live that way. That's why one of the. Again, this is where quest comes in. Right. When we come back, we realize there's a higher power. There is a higher me that's standing there in the future, calling me forward. And so to me, living a spiritual life is becoming brutally honest with ourselves about who we are and understanding that we need to shift our gaze. Instead of driving our car, looking through the rear view mirror, which is what most people do to looking directly in the windshield and say, what is my higher self? What is God calling me towards? What is that future self? The highest me that I can be. And then the work is on. It says, okay, there it is. Now I need to do that.

There's so much there. And the layers that I feel about what is a spiritual life, they all start with know thyself. I mean, it's written, you know, in Greece, the. The Apollo temple, like, know thyself and.

Right.

And I don't know how many guests I've had say that in some degree, where the work begins when you have the desire to know thyself.

Right.

And so it seems like when you crack that spine and you put the book away and you went to the one that was like, used and had been checked out a thousand times, like, I guess, in other words, success for spiritual growth leaves clues. So we get clues from our masters, whether they're ancient masters or a contemporary master. Like, we get clues from them. Knowing what you do now versus when you started, like, your first quest was over 30 years ago.

Correct.

So now after 30 years of questing and 30 years of mentoring specifically, it feels like, and tell me if I'm wrong, young men that really never had any kind of maturation process, would you say that you work more with men, or is it a balance now compared to when. When you started?

That's evolved. So I did work with young men a lot, you know, 15 or 20 years ago. And I tend to work now more with people that are in their 40s, men and women. And I get equal amounts that come to me who say, look, I really want to do this, and. And I really puzzled about that, you know, like, what's going on here? Because there's an arc to me, like, that's. There's something shifting. What.

What do you. What sense do you have about what's shifting?

What sense I have is like, you know. You know, once we hit, like, 40, 50, you know, I know I'm 55, right? So, like, I. I understand being in that place and what that feels like. And so what I see shifting is people are waking up. Like. Like, there's archetypal shifts happening on a big, massive level right now in this world, you know? And, you know, like, when we slow down enough, right, when we let go of cell phones and Netflix and enough, like, to just, like, create some space to say, okay, what's happening in the world? I mean, it can be absolutely terrifying. And so I get calls from people saying, mark, listen, I. My relationship is a piece of shit. And I think that when my kids are growing up, you know, I'm out, right? I'm like, okay, it doesn't have to be that way. It can be. I have no judgment about it one way or another, but let's figure out exactly what you're thinking that's bringing you to that place. Or I'll talk to somebody, and they're like, mark, I actually think I'm going crazy because I hear things and I see things and I look at somebody, and I will just kind of be told. I need to tell this person this thing. And I'm like, well, I have no judgment whether you're going crazy or not. Let's find out what's happening that's deeper underneath that. And those people all seem to be people in their 40s and 50s, 30s as well. So I guess I would say this. It's like, I think that there has to be enough maturation in somebody's life to get to the point where we're sick and tired of living that way another day. You know, it's what we say in Vision Quest. You don't come on quest until you're not willing to live another day the way you were. And so that's my best answer for you. It's like, I think that there is an awakening in people right now, and I think that it's perfectly suited for people who had a few more years under their belt to say, like, okay, the pursuit of happiness is not going so well for me because I've done everything that I've been asked. I went to college, I got married. I got the house. I got the picket fence, the 2.2 kids and the dog and two mortgage, you know, mortgage and two car loans and what the fuck, man? Like, I am miserable. I'm absolutely miserable and I shouldn't be because I did everything right. What do I do? That's how I say, I think we got some work we can do. Wow.

I'm thinking about Alison Armstrong's work where she calls it the tunnel. When a man goes from being a prince to a king, and very few people can become a king to an elder, it's not everyone's path. And I don't know any other way and I want to know how you feel. I don't know any other way other than someone's soul having a dharma, we're at 30, 40, 50, whatever age they are actually wanting, having the true desire, the cosmic life path to wake up, that has to be there first and foremost. And then also the necessary support and tools of courage for them to even receive the wisdom from a guide like you, from a quest. There's so many ingredients that go into people living a spiritual life. And I wonder if you were to look back on younger Mark and like scribble something down on a piece of paper, first of all, would he even listen to you? Would he listen to the, to the elder right now, back then when he was 18, 20, and if so, what might you tell him?

I know exactly what I tell him. I'm going to tell you a little differently than I would tell him, but the way I see it is we have three core griefs that each of us carry that come from our childhood. I would tell my 18 year old self, like, Mark, you gotta understand that you're being ruled by these things and you don't even know it. And believe me or not, I said I would say, but like look around and see everybody else's as well. Because we have a core belief about who we are as a human being that's negative. We have a core belief about other people that's negative. We have a core belief about this world we live in that's negative. And these griefs come from the things that happen when we grow up. And again, looking back at my teachers, the capacity to work and deal with grief was baked into, I think it's baked into every indigenous culture around the world, period. It has to be. And we have Prozac, you know, in value. Right.

Like, so we've replaced true ceremony with a pill.

Exactly.

Which then makes us take less ceremony in the future and more pills.

Right, right. And so the other thing I would say to my younger self is like, you have to become aware enough of who you Are as a human being to see how those three things are working in you. Like we depend on other people today to tell us who we are. Right? Like, so that's why we go to psychotherapy, that's why we do things like that. Because we are not confident in ourselves to say I can know myself. I don't believe that to be true. I think that we have incredible capacity for self consciousness and self awareness. But through the behaviorist movement we have been conditioned to believe that's not true. And that's now rampant in our education system, the military, our police system, our governance. Y' all people are. You actually don't have the capacity to be self aware. And so we have to tell you who you are. I would tell my younger self that's a fucking lie. And just work on those three things. Work on understanding what your core grief is about yourself, the world and other people.

And then once those answers can even be first received, which may be, can you say in full confidence that at that age yourself could have even received that wisdom, received those questions?

That's a great question. And, and you know, it's hard to say, but I, I will, I will say this. And you tell me if you had the similar feeling when you were 18. Like, like that feeling of like there's something bigger for me in this world. Of course I, like, I know it. Where is it? Like, like I want to find it. Like it. That's what I dream about. That's what keeps me awake at night. That's what, that's what actually makes me get out of bed in the morning. Because I. That thing that is my. Is that a higher thing that I can do like that. I know I've been here, I know I'm here for, I don't know any 17, 18 year old, 19 year old that doesn't have that feeling. I had that so strongly when I was 18. It. Buccaneer drove me crazy. And so what happens, right? We go to college. Do you find it there? No. Do we find it in the weekend partying? No. Do we find it in sex? No. Do we find it in drugs? No. And so we bury it. So I think that telling that to my 18 year old self, the chances of me hearing that, if I look at that from 18 to 54, probably 18 to 40, 18 would have been the best time to tell me.

I feel the same way. Okay. I have been feeling into this for a while and I want to know what you think because a lot of your work is about, you know, the name of your Program, like the main figurehead of your program in the nomenclature you use is really interesting. It's about like living a spiritual life. So I think about when I'm 18, 19, 20, I would have given anything to have that question answered that you were talking about. Like, what is it for me when I wake up in the morning that I just know that's the direction to go. That is when I was actually probably the most vulnerable. I had already had 18 years of conditioning, but I was the most vulnerable. Maybe where I was looking at the road ahead. And I remember when I was 18 years old, I had moved out of the house because of some real trauma and drama with my father. My mom wasn't well. I started bailing cardboard at vons at like 4 in the morning just to like make money. And this is what breaks my heart. And I wonder if you feel this is necessary for myself, for you and for all of us. Is it necessary that at that age when we're so vulnerable and so ripe for really transformation and leadership, that the world's responsibilities and modernity's responsibilities come in and really hijack us and then it's up to us to find our way back home, to find our way back to the path. It like breaks my heart thinking about not just my story, but everyone's story of really their base level needs being hijacked. How do I feed myself, how do I clothe myself, how do I just like take care of myself? Is that always necessary that an 18 year old man or woman goes through that much trauma and drama for them to really live a spiritual life? I don't think so.

Personally, I don't think so either. I don't think it has to be that way. But the reality. Right, let's stay with the truth here. The truth is, is that as much as we could postulate on whether that's necessary or not, it's what happens. And it is, it's just what happens. And so like, you know, part of my commitment in my work and what I was, you know, would have liked to have understood at 18 is that this is going to be my path. And so, you know, you talked about living a spiritual life. Like, you know, another way I would put it is the modern path of ritual and ceremony. Like we need to find a way to bring ritual and ceremony into our lives that meets us where we are today. And so as an 18 year old to be known to know that that's the path I was going to be on. Yeah, that would have been pretty helpful. You know, it Would have been a.

Really nice cheat sheet. It sure would have been for life and mentorship. But really, within that, the. The younger version of Josh, the younger version of Mark, or the younger version of all of us, that version would have to be able to have some kind of acumen for asking deeper questions. Like, there would. There would have to be some form of teaching. And I think this is what school doesn't do. It doesn't teach men and women how to ask better questions, deeper questions. It actually teaches us how to just receive whatever has been given to us and then do our best to be a cog and a wheel in a system that perpetuates the very training it's coming from.

Right.

So I'm. I'm curious, like, what you see now as an elder, and I said this before, I'll say it one last time. There's only about five people that I've had on this podcast that are true elders, and you're one of them. Like, you're. You're definitely an elder, because I've done the work with you. I really trust you in that way. So from an elder's vantage point, looking at the question I just asked you of how do we even have the faculty to ask deeper questions? How does an elder teach the world about how to ask themselves and other people deeper questions that allow them to have a spiritual life, a true connection to a higher power?

Good question. I would say the first thing we have to do is to stop believing what other people say about us or believing that anybody else has the right to tell us who we are. Not to say, like, that there aren't. There aren't things that we might get told by somebody that says, oh, that has some resonance. But it's still. There's an obligation on our part to be able to take that back and say, is that true for me? And that's not even enough. Right. Like, so we ask that question. This should lead to another question. See, so it's one thing to say asking better questions, that's important.

Yeah.

But even more important is not being that caught up in whether we get an answer or not.

What do you mean by that?

Well, how I would say it this way, Right? So the English language is 70% nouns, 30% verbs. Any indigenous language worth its salt around the world is going to be 70 to 80% verbs, 30% nouns. So everything is discussed and talked about in terms of motion, Right? So there's the thing, and then there's the motion of the thing. So what that does is it allows it to stay alive. It allows it to be able to be in motion of its own life. So if somebody were to ask me, hey Mark, what is that thing you're holding in your hand? It's a jar. Oh, the conversation is over. What other question are you going to ask about it? I just made it an inanimate object. If I ask a different question, right? Well, what do you think you could use it for? What is it to you? Like for example, I remember years ago I had this little girl, she was maybe three or four, and we were sitting by the stump of a tree that had been cut down. There's ants crawling all over the tree, all over the stump. And she looks down. This little girl had had a hard Life already at 4, and she looks and goes, what are those? I said, I said, they're pretty cool looking, aren't they? She says, yeah. And she says, are they good or bad? I'm like, well, let's find out. I said, put your hand down, let one crawl on your finger and see how that feels. So she lets this ant crawl on her finger and that is crawling on her finger. She says, do they have a name? I said, yeah, they're ants. And she's like, okay. And she watches her crawl in her hand for a little bit and she looks at me and the tears came to me immediately where she said, I think ants are good. She had the chance to come up with her own feeling about what an aunt is. And so in asking better questions, I want to keep the story alive. I want to know the next question that I can ask and then the next question that I could ask. So we become relentless in our capacity to be self aware and self observing and self managing, right? Because that's what happens, right? We ask a question, what is that? What does that mean to me? How is this helping me? So to keep asking a deeper question is not about finding the answer, really. It's a deprogramming tool is what I would say. It's a way we deprogram ourselves from living in a behaviorist world where somebody always has the right answer for us, to taking back our agency and authority, our personal agency, and saying, no, actually, I actually have the capacity to ask the better question myself. And then knowing this is the second part is allowing the universe to reflect back to us what the answer to that question might be. And so there has to be a faith in a higher power at that point, or at least a belief that we are connected to everything. So the second part, to say that a different way Is this. Is that we as human beings are a custodial species upon this planet. That's our job. We're the fucking janitors, Josh. And. And so what we do is we tend relationships, right? So the relational space between. Between you and me has. Has a. A quality to it. There's an essence to it. There is a beingness to the relational space between you and I. So in the work or time we spent together and the things we've done together. So if there's wisdom that I've gained from you, or vice versa you've gained from me, is that actually something that's in me? I actually. I'm coming to believe that I don't know that I feel that's true. That I think that that wisdom, or whatever that might be between us, it actually exists in the relational space between us. It's kind of like the Akashic record here, alive and present with us in this moment.

It's what's informing the space that we are inside of that is also inside of us, which sounds very esoteric. What I meant by that is it's the glue. It's the cosmic glue that we're just tuning into and we're open to, so we can even receive that wisdom. So when you share wisdom with me, it sticks to my soul. It opens up part of my heart where I can then reflect back to you. I know what you know, brother. I know. I feel what you feel. I. I understand the truth about what you've just said to me.

Right.

And that's why I remember someone on the show. I think it was Ben Stewart, actually. He was the director for the Psychedelica series. He said to me, when the Lakota would sit and circle and each person would speak, they would always take a big breath and a pause and they would say, aho. And that phrase, aho, that phrase has been very appropriated. I made sure that with my men's group here, that I told them, like, the history of it, but from an elder's perspective, that word aho. Right. I see you, I understand. That's my understanding of it. Or I hear you. I recognize you. I receive you. I acknowledge you. What does that word actually mean to you, with all you've been through?

Well, okay. So, yeah, thank you for asking that. First of all, I never heard any of my elders say aho. There was always ho. And then women had their own version that they would say. And I asked, you know, when I asked what that was, what is that? What does that word mean? It was very simply answered that Was the first sound in the universe. Ho. The first sound in the universe. And so the way I hold that, that it is what it is, it's like a remembering. It's a way we put the universe back together. You know, every time we. We do that, every time we come to gratitude, every time we approach somebody with love, it's a remembering that we. That we have to re. Put the universe back together moment by moment. And. And so to me, again, sorry, that may be really esoteric, but that's what that word means to me. Yeah.

I mean, what isn't esoteric? We're either tuned. We're either tuned into it or we're not. Mark. Like, okay, so I. I think about the 25, actually 30 years, really, because I. I feel like 13, 14 was my beginning of really feeling my spiritual awakening. Obviously, there's been bigger moments for me and for you along the way.

Right.

But when I look back, I think some of the biggest turning points were when I had done enough talk therapy to really receive whatever wisdom I could get from that. I'm not here to demean talk therapy. I think that. I think that talk therapy can be very valuable because it can point to some of the more spiritual aspects of self and some of the ways that we can really begin to identify who we really are without a therapist telling us or reflecting back to us who they think we are. Because there's always a bit of. And I want to know how you see this in your work. There's always a bit of depending on the level of consciousness from the therapist, from the practitioner themselves. There's always a tiny bit of projection. There's always a tiny bit of that healer or that therapist or that coach or guide flavoring the information they're giving to the person. This is why your vibe attracts your tribe. That's why I vibe with you, because I know you're aware of that. I know how long you've studied Carl Jung. I've understood your path. There's been a couple books you've introduced me to that are actually in the room. I saw them there. You saw that?

Yeah.

So from your space now and what you see, what is the core difference between talk therapy and the type of work that you do, which is really being more of a guide in spirit. And do you think that they both can be complementary for the road ahead? Because it's going to be a much different road ahead than it was for the past 10 years or more?

Totally. I do think they're complimentary. You know, I think that, like, Talk therapy, you know, it has a place like. Because I think a lot of times when people come into therapy, to begin with, the idea the function of knowing who we are as a human being is zero or it's enough that it got them, there's enough gas in the tank to get them to the therapist. And so yeah, for sure there's benefits in therapy and that it really can help people to know who they are. Right. To start to see, wow, that there's context and structure and there's nuance and there's texture and there's fascia in me that spiritually and emotionally and mentally that can create, that can create a self awareness and, and I'm all for that. Like, I think we should all. I don't know if we should all be in therapy, but we should all be seeking. We should all be seeking to understand who the we are.

Yes, yes.

And so the, and then the work that I do, it's. First of all, I don't. You probably noticed this with me, I'm very non directive. Like, I'll never tell you what to do. Like, you know, and this goes back to my early days with my elders and stuff, you know, where I'd say, hey, you know, uncle, like, you know, what about this? And he'd look at me and go, oh yeah, well go try that and tell me how it works out for you. You know, that was all the answer I got. There was no judgment on it. No, like, well, I don't know if you should do that, you know, maybe try this instead. It was very non directive. And so what I want to do with people is to really give them the tools so that they can see themselves and to be able to like, so I know I'm finishing the end of a work with a client when I'll be talking to them on the phone and they'll say, well, I had this really intense dream last night and you know, and I remembered what you said about like, you know, okay, you know, and about dreams and all the dreams we've worked on. And so here's my interpretation of my dream and I'm like, I'm thinking to myself, dude, I couldn't have done a better job of that, you know, or like they'll talk about it like an interaction they had with their partner, with their children or with somebody at work. And they say, you know, that was kind of tough and here's what I did about it, you know, like, and here's how I approached it. And you know, and maybe it was like, I really just looked for the sacredness of it or I just allowed myself to feel the emotions that came up. No judgment, just allowed them to come up knowing that it had nothing to do with them. It was all, I'm like, you know what?

Our time is complete.

Because what are they doing? Right? Right. They are actually self managing themselves. They are saying, I know who I am as a human being well enough that I don't need somebody else to tell me how to do that. Now, of course, Josh, like we fuck up all the time, right? I snap or I get mad, get angry, but you know what? Then we go back and we clean it up. Right? We can do that. And the goal, of course, is to get the time between the blow up and then the recovery to get short enough that you know that, that they're happening almost simultaneously.

Yeah. I remember feeling into this concept of shortening the cycle of recommitment.

Right.

So the less cycles that we have, whether it's like to love my husband, to love my wife, to love my brother, to love thyself, to love anyone, because if we're coming from that place, it's probably going to work out really well. But it's the cycle of recommitment. In other words, how many times do we have to recommit to a certain issue or a certain lesson that's coming up for us in life? And really if that cycles that you repeat once a year or once every 10 years, that, depending on how low the time is, is actually a barometer of more lessons needed. So if there's less time, like a day or five minutes between the cycle of recommitment versus a year or 10 years to recommit to loving thyself or loving someone else, that's a real barometer for success. It's sometimes hard to quantify emotional intelligence or spiritual work, but I feel like. And really maybe a mirror you can describe. I feel like it's a way for us to have some kind of inquiry into our health of spirit, our health of mind, our health of being. How do you organize the mirrors for your clients so that they can check in with themselves? What does that even look like?

That's a good question. And that's definitely like the beginning of our work for sure. And I love the little sticky note you have in the bathroom. What it says hard work beats talent. When talent doesn't work. That's it, right?

Yeah.

I was like, I took a picture of it, right?

That's my reminder.

I was like, that's awesome.

I'm not the most talented person. But I will commit to working until I can feel like I've really reached the edge of potential.

Yes.

So it's not about shaming myself. The reason that's in there is it's like my reminder every day at the studio, like, well, I'm just going to work until I feel like I'm at least at the level of people that don't have to work because they're more talented.

Right. I, I, you know, I studied painting for a while, and one of the things that my teacher told me, he's like, just keep painting. He's like, I've met so many people over the years that were incredibly talented, but they didn't paint. And he says, I'll tell you right now, if you keep painting, you will be better than them. You know, so, so that quote was really, really important because that's. That's kind of the essence of what I'll start with, with my clients is like, look, you have to be able to commit to hard work here.

Yeah.

You know. You know what? Okay, a word on work. I'm really doing my best to stop using that word, because, first of all, you know, work was, Was a, was. Was a curse given by God to us women got kicked out of the Garden of Eden. If you want to follow the Christian mythology. Right. You're now going to have to go and sweat your labor and toil. You're going to have to go work. And then the Puritans sanctified it and made it a virtue. So, sure. Yeah. Mark, it's an old story. It's from a long time ago. Yeah. But it has power still. And so I'm really moving away from. So for instance, how does it feel different if I said to you, josh, instead of saying, I got to work on my relationship, if you said, I'm committed to awakening to my relationship.

I love it. Or even instead of, I got to. I could say something like, and this isn't to wax poetic, but I could say, I get to work on myself today, or I. I get to awaken to yourself, grateful that I get to do something, or that. That to me feels way better.

Yeah.

Like, oh, you know, same day, different, different soup, same thing.

Yeah.

And I'm just like, that's such a tired way of living.

It's such a tired way of.

So exhausting.

Yes. So. So anyway, that's coming into all my client work now is. It's like, let's get away from talking about it. This is work.

Yeah.

And, you know, and the word I'm suggesting is awakening. And so going back to your question.

So think about the mirrors of how we show up in the world. Sometimes there can be, like, a lack of courage to where I might even ignore a mirror that's glaring me in the face. How do you organize the. The mirrors around your client so that. And obviously there's many. I'm sure we don't have time to go into all of them. But what are, like, maybe some of the ones that you see the through line of all your clients needing the most? What's one or two or three mirrors of self introspection that you think they might need the most? And we all might need the most.

One of them is, I get them. They have to go in nature. They have to have a sit spot in nature, right? So that's one thing I'll have them do. Another thing I have them do is they have to build an altar. And they're like, for what? I said, it doesn't matter. But I'm gonna ask you to build an altar because there has to be a point of connection, right? To spirit. There has to be a point of connection to nature. And then all of a. And then I said, just, you know what? Go out there, breathe. Don't take your phone with you. Just go out there, breathe. Just be at stillness and see what happens. Bring your questions to see what happens. So some of the mirrors that I bring around people is to start to help them to have the reflections of the universe come back to them and slow their mind down enough that they can start to see those. Like, you know, I'll get a call. You know, I'll be on another, you know, I'll get a call from a client, and they're like, I was out of my sit spot. And, you know, I'll say it this way, like. Like as. As they. As they grow their understanding of being in nature, right? You go to your sit spot, or, pardon me, you go out on vision quest, and you came by, come back, and you're like, oh, my God. There's all these little gray birds around me. It was so beautiful. They just chirped and fluttered in the branches of the trees. It was just so marvelous, you know, I wonder what that means. And then somebody who has gone through some nature connection comes back, and they're like white knuckled on the edge of the chair because they're like, mark, I got out there and I was surrounded by ruby crown kinglets all four days. And I know they're not supposed to be here this Time of year, like it's a whole different story at that point, you know, so when I work with a client, right, get them to start, they'll say, well, you know, when I was out there, these birds came around. What kind of bird was it? I don't know. Why don't you find out and let me know next week. Come back. I was a yellow breasted chat. Oh, well, what do you know, what they're like, how did it feel to you? You know, what, what, what meaning might that have for you? I don't know. Well, okay, let's call me back and let's, let's talk about it. And they go through their own process of discovery. I'm not sitting with like my big book saying, oh, well, that book, that's a yellow breasted chad. And it means this spiritually and that spiritually, like, I don't, that's not my thing, you know. Yeah, what I, what I, but the banks of the river that I really want to try to put up for people is again, it's listening. It's listening, listening, listening and telling ourselves the truth. And there's certain things that I do with people and I'll work with that over and over with them on telling themselves the truth. And it goes back to what we talked about is this understanding. And so a lot of grieving happens in my work with people. But to understand, like, we have a core grief about ourselves, we have a core grief about other people, we have a core grief about the world we live in. Like, for example, like, you know, my, my core grief I have about other people. It actually, you know, it took me a long time to figure it out. The one, like, if I ask you, like, well, what's the, what's, you know, what's the negative conclusion you have about yourself? Most people can come up with that within a few minutes. Like, mine came pretty quickly when I, when I started working with that and this camera all in. It's a longer story that probably we could have to do that over dinner one night, but I was in a field in the middle of the night in North Carolina when this whole piece on these griefs came because I was about to teach a class on village building, which is another huge passion of mine. And to me, one of the whole pillars of building the community is we got to know how to deal with grief. And so I was like, well, how the hell am I going to do this? And the communication I got was like, here's the three things. And so like, for example, for example, like my Core grief I have about other people is that I believe that people are self centered and arrogant. Like that's the negative conclusion that I have about.

No, most are.

Right, Right. Okay, so maybe you got a similar conclusion. You know what?

Not all, but most, but people are.

Also kind and people are also caring and people will also go out of their way to help us. And people are loving. You know, they are all those other things too. But if I hold to those as being the only version that I look at other people through, then I never see them any other way. And I'm also setting them up to fail because I'm just waiting for them to cross the trip line to say, oh, I see. Yeah, you're fucking selfish and arrogant. So you did that.

Dude, I so relate to this. I feel like we all, all of us do it. No matter how far up the tree we are. Even if you're like vibrating at 700 on the Hawkins scale, I feel like every person on a spiritual path, they have to constantly reflect on really how far they've come. And also the reminders of how far they still have to go.

Yes.

From their behaviors. From the lower vibrational behaviors.

Yes.

And I wonder if that was all in. The Creator's design was for us to just be in this spiral of healing where things come up, things come around, things come up, things come around. But maybe as we reach real maturity, we can just accept that that's part of the journey. We can just accept that there's always going to be some type of a spiral.

There's no destination.

There's no destination. So if that's the case, then as a mentor who guides people on quest, as a mentor who guides people to live spiritual lives, true spiritual lives, authentic spiritual lives. What is something you're still learning as an elder yourself.

It happened this morning, Josh. It happened this morning. You know, like, my, my whole family, we all went through Covid in the last little while. My daughter broke her leg. There's other things happening in my life and I'm kind of. I feel like I'm kind of in it right now, you know, like, lots of friends have had parents dying and, you know, it's like, okay, I don't know what's happening, like, but I'm feeling it in my body. So I went out this morning, you know, to the little sit spot I found yesterday. And I'm like, okay, like, I went out just like, I'm going to be out first light, you know, just watching the sunrise in the east, you know, I guess it's that way. And I'm sitting there, and I was just like, okay, what? You know, universe, tell me. I need a sign. And I look down to right next to where I'm sitting, and there's a big pile of shit. And I don't. I don't. I couldn't really tell if it was fairly well decomposed, you know, so I couldn't tell if it was dog manure or if it was coyote or something like that. Looked like dog. And I'm like, I'm sitting in the shit. I'm sitting in the shit. So I was like, okay, then just sit in the shit. Like, you know. And I was like, okay, got it. So, like, you know, the emotions I'm feeling around sadness, around, you know, people dying and, you know, fear, anger, you know, just sit in it. So it's day by day, Josh, you know, like, I never feel like I'm. I'm anything more than. Well, that's not true. Like, there's days I feel like, wow, I totally got this day. This is. You know, other days where I'm like, I'm. I. Me and Sisyphus, we are like, we're bros because I'm barely being able to push this rock up the hill. Other days, you know, it doesn't feel like that at all. So, yeah, yeah. Where's my edge? Where am I learning, man? I'm still learning about love, you know, I'm still learning how to be a dad to my kids. I'm still learning how to pray. I'm still learning how to listen. Like, all of those things to me are like, that's my edge, always. I'm still learning, you know, how to. How to know myself even better always.

Yeah, I remember you said something, and actually, I can go there right now. And I've shared it on the podcast before, but you said something that really stuck to me. It was on the first year of the quest, and you said, you know, if ever you're in nature, if you're ever lost out there in the forest, if you ever have no idea how you're going to be found, most people, they. If they're lost in the forest, they start running around, they start trying to backtrack themselves. And you said something so profound, you were like, if you're ever lost in the forest, just stop. Yeah, just stop. Because then if you stop, you'll have the space to be found.

Right?

And I don't know how many people I've told that to, because really, what you just described is a mirror of my Journey and all of our journey where I think we, as human beings, we tend to, when we're lost, try to do more and more and more and go outside of ourselves and get the new resource and find the new mentor and go to the talk therapy and all this stuff. But if we can just.

Yeah.

And just stop. Like, that is like, the most potent but yet simplistic medicine of the work that you do. Simple doesn't always mean easy.

No.

Like being in nature and being lost or being in our lives and being lost and having the courage to just stop.

Yeah.

To just stop.

Yeah.

I mean, that, like, I. Brings up emotion to me, just talking to you about it. Like, how do we do that? How do we develop the courage when we're lost to stop?

How do we develop the courage when we're lost to just stop? We have to believe in something. We have to believe in something. We have to believe we're worth being found. How many of us, Josh, don't even believe we're worth being found? That breaks my heart to know that that's been true for me as we've talked. I know that's been true for you, and I know that's true for a lot of people. We have to believe we're worthy of being found first, And then there's lots we can do. You know, like, I would say this. You know, we're lost in our relationship. What did you commit to? Are you. Do you remember? I mean, I'm not. You don't have to answer that question, but it's what I would ask. It's like, what did you commit to in your relationship? You're lost, but you don't know what. You don't even remember what you committed to. When was the last time you sat down and said, how do I live this day that is in the highest level of integrity I can to the commitments I made to this person? All of a sudden, the fucking rudder's in the water, bro. Like, my children. What did I commit to when I brought children into the world? Am I in integrity with that? The rudders in the water, with my work? And what commitments have I made to it? Fuck, that's half my problem. I haven't made any commitments to it. Right. Or I'm not. I'm not. What am I committed? I'm not. I don't even know what I'm committed to. I'm just doing it because I'm doing it. Well, there's a way to start. Like, I don't work with intention as deeply as I Used to. I'm saying this because to me, it fits into this really well. You know. You know, I asked you that your two quests are, you know, what's. Josh, what's your intention in this quest? And, you know, you. We all dutifully write something out and say, this is my intention.

I know exactly what mine was. It was to relieve my nervous system and my life and my lineage and especially the wounding around the masculine, the fathers going way back five generations, so that I don't pass that on to my son.

Right.

That was my. I still remember that like it was right now.

Yes.

The clarity on that. And that's still true for me, by the way.

Totally get that. How many times have you made an intent, you know, had an intention for something and it didn't work out?

Sure.

And we said, I never intended for that. What we're missing is the motivation. What was your motivation? What's your motivation in going on the vision quest? You know, so your intention and motivation are very similar. So even though, you know, and I didn't do that, this is only something that I'm starting to work with people in the last six months or so, realizing that, oh, my God, like, I work with intentions with people, but I'm not. I have no idea what their motivation. They have no idea what their motivations are.

Sure.

So going back and saying what's motivating you in the first place, I hope.

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What do you.

Sorry to interrupt you. What do you think is the difference, though, between something inspiring coming up or motivation, which can sometimes be an external locus of control? Because when you say motivation, I want to challenge you as a brother. Right? I want to be like, are we really motivated to have that be an intention? Or does the intention come from spirit, from mystery, from the collective, from our soul, from Dharma? Is it more than just us being motivated to have an intention about what we want in this lifetime? Or is it an inspiration? Are they blending together? Are they different? What do you feel?

That's a great question. I really appreciate you bringing that up because I realized that just as you're talking. Yeah. Motivation, that word has taken on a meaning that I don't think is in its original meaning. Yeah. And so great. That's perfect. So the way I hold motivation is all of those. It's like, okay, so what's my spiritual motivation? What's my physical motivation? Well, I'm going to this program or this workshop. Why am I motivated to do that? I kind of want to find a girlfriend. Right. Or I want to find a boyfriend or a partner.

Yeah.

You know, like. But you're going to the Spiritual retreat. Yeah, but that's. I. Sorry. That's still part of my mode. I want to. I want to, like, hang. I want to, like, hook up with somebody. Right. Let's just be honest that how. You know, people go to festivals and stuff like that, and they're. They say, well, my intention is to touch into my higher purpose, my higher power.

Yeah.

But my motivation is I want to find a lady or I want to find a man.

Man, I bet you 5 out of 10 guys that go to a yoga studio are just there for the Lululemon tights. Exactly. I'm sorry. People are gonna be like, oh, that's misogynistic. I'm like, if you really sat down and interviewed people, their intentions, their motivation is probably coming from something that isn't really what's externally present. It's probably not what you see.

Totally. So let's just. Let's just put it all on the table. Motivation. You know, like. And so. And so add in there. Yes. There is an inspirit to. Right. There is something that is breathing into us. Something. There's a motivation there too. I want to know that I want to have relationship with that I want. I want to be in. In. In. I want to be in love with God. I want to be in love with. With. With spirit. I want to be in love with nature. My motivation is that. That I keep feeling these things, and I want to know what it is. My intention is to go out on quest or to work with you, Mark. Or work with you, Josh. And my intention is to understand that better.

Intention is everything I remember. And because of the oath that we swore, I won't name any names on the quest, but I'll give an example. Right. There was a woman on the quest, and she arrived. This is so potent. She arrived to the sweat naked.

Yes.

And that, to me, was like the biggest representation of somebody being in true inspiration, like, from their soul, from their core. For a woman to arrive completely naked. And it was cold that morning. It was raining. We were all just, like, uncomfortable. And I remember just the power of a woman being naked and having to actually tend. And this is true. I haven't felt this in a while. Having to tend to the part of me that wants to consume.

Yes.

The part of me that wanted to see her and objectify her as like, oh, let me check out and see if she's sexy. Or let me check out and see if. Blah, blah, blah, blah. That ticker tape that controlled me for a long time, to be witness to that. To presence that to give that permission to go to sleep and not indulge in that. In that line of thinking and just see this woman for like the courageous, beautiful fucking soul that she really was.

Yes.

Was so healing for me. But it initially triggered me and how many times I was like, what is she doing naked? Is she trying to get attention? Like, what is this all about? And I remember then reflecting on that and just thinking like, wow, look at how I jumped to conclusions in so many ways in my own life.

Right.

And the layers that unfold inside of a vision quest are so fundamentally perfect that I don't think that anyone could ever have a quote, bad quest. Because there's always something coming through for them. There's always something that's going to remind them about the things that they think about themselves that they might believe to be true, maybe aren't true. They're just conditioning. And that conditioning is actually what is being peeled and sweated and fasted and fucking purified away.

Absolutely.

So then now you see this as a purification process or how do you see your work blended with the quest as like an integration, you know, post peri and even pre quest, is there a place for people to go with you in the work that you do that allows them to prepare for the quest, go on the quest, and then really, maybe even most importantly, how do they integrate what happens inside of that quest, which is missing from a lot of ceremony itself in the world?

Man, you're so right. If I had my way, I would take somebody out on quest and then I would do six to 12 weeks of work with them on reintegration after. Because that's the hardest part, you know, like, what are we? And that's, you know, I said, you know, like maybe five years ago, you know, I was really tasked with bringing this into modernity. And one of the main reasons was. Because of integration. Yes, because. Because, you know, the whole getting told, you know, don't let the door slap you in the ass on the way out.

Mark.

It's like that. I think that's almost cruel, actually. I think it is cruel to, to. To send people home without some understanding of. Of what's happened. What's happened to them.

Dude. To give someone a taste of their truest self.

Yeah.

And what love feels like and what nature really feels like when she holds you. And then bam, right back into buildings and skyscrapers and emails and nonsense. I agree with you. It is abuse. I think that would be abusive for people to do that. I know you don't do that. Tim doesn't do that. No, I've never experienced that from you guys at all.

Right.

But damn, I see that with psychedelics. I definitely see that with other programs and quests. It's not to demean them. It's to shine light on a darkness that's asking to be lit up.

Yes, absolutely. Looking at. Say, let's just stick with Vision Quest, because that's what I have the most experience with, you know, but, but. But we could even take it into. Into other ceremonial practices or, you know, like, retreats and stuff that people go on. Is that in our DNA? We know what. We still remember what it's like to be in the village. And I love your solo cast you did on epigenetics. That was really, really fantastic.

I'm fascinated by this. The way that we transfer emotions from literally hundreds of years and hundreds of years, and no one talks about it.

No one talks about it.

Well, we talk about it.

Yeah, right. I'm talking about it.

All we're talking about right now.

Yeah, totally. And so epigenetically, we still also remember what the village is. Right. Like, I think we still have those memories as well.

Yeah.

You know, epigenetically. And so when we come together for something like that, I think that there is an unconscious expectation that we will be able to step back into the village after and we'll be caught by people that know exactly what we've gone through. And so when. When shit comes up, you know, like. And, you know, we kind of are like, you know, having a real hard time or a really good time with whatever happened. There's. Our whole village can say, oh, yeah, come on, I can help you out. Or, like, let's go on a walk. Or, hell, let's go. I don't know, whatever. Or whatever it might be, but we don't have that. We don't have a noble culture to step back into. We also, I would say another. I'll leave it with that one. There's a lot of other pieces there that we could go into, but that's basically it. That's the big one for people, is we don't have a noble culture to step back into. So. And this is something I've talked about on, you know, coming back from Vision Quest. It's like when we. When we come back, like, we are looking to put our. Our axis mundi, right? Our. Like the. The core of who we are. We are. We are willing to be vulnerable enough to let our village hold that, to say, this is who I am. I'm here because of you. I'm here for you. I'm here to, to, to, to live my purpose, to make our lives better, hold my center of who I am. In some respects, we're almost letting our soul be held by them now. You painted the picture of a really beautifully skyscrapers and buildings and trains. It's like, I don't want that to hold my soul. And so to even understand when we come out from work like this, it's like the, the only place we have that we can really hold it now is inside of ourselves. Which, which the responsibility and the age and the amount of agency that we need to be able to do that is almost too much for us as humans, I think. But we have to try. We have to try because who else is going to, to create the village? You know, like, like, you know, in your solo cast you did on epigenetics, you know, I think you were saying it was a seven generation. How many generations of mice?

The, the research report was 5 generations. Even when they breeded with generations that weren't traumatized, they still still showed up in their DNA.

Right.

That they were feeling like on a cellular level, these mice, that they were traumatized themselves, but they hadn't experienced the trauma.

Right.

How wild is that?

It's totally wild. Right.

And how could you say that we're any different? I know we're not mice, but on a cellular level we're, we're them and they're us.

Yes, yes. Like, you know, I've worked with people who, who, who. There's lots of people that work with past lives. Right. You know, and, you know, and a lot of times when people are working with past lives, as in my experience has been, they will talk about the shitty things that happened to them in their past lives. I really do believe that that's epigenetics coming conscious. Yeah. And so, so let's like, okay, so five generations, so where does that go back to? We're now back, you know, like, we could say we're back as far as, you know, 1500, right?

Sure.

So, so that's fucking wild to think that we have the responsibility for dealing with the, the trauma that our ancestors came through in 1500. Like that, that's like, that's heavy duty. Right. And so you think about the colonizing of this, of this continent that we live on, of North America, you know, and so we as European descended people came over here at some point and so what did we, we came with that epigenetic memory. I mean, my God, in Europe they had 500 years of witch hunts, you know, where, like, if you were. If you were accused of being a witch, you're automatically guilty. You had to be tortured. And then all your property was taken by the church. Like that's what was going to happen for 500 years. And I'm not willing to bet my life on this one yet because I haven't done enough research. I actually need to find somebody that really geeks out on that and really wants to do that. But what little bit I found was that in places across Europe where the witch trials happened and witches were burnt, it was the next year that the commons were enclosed, and all that public land that was used for ceremony, it was used for food, it was used for medicine, was divided up and sold. And so who were the ones being burnt at the stake? Who are the ones had all these horrible things? It was the women, it was the midwives, it was the healers, it was the herbalists, it was the grandmothers. Those are the ones that were killed. And so you take away the cultural memory of your people, and what do we have left? We have this epigenetic trauma that we haven't dealt with. So by the time Columbus got here, he was fucking insane. How couldn't he be after, at that point, 400 years of inquisitions like that? And so here we are, and we're still dealing with that.

Oh, my God. Try this on, Mark. What if. I'm not saying that I know or that this is a 100% certainty, but what if we were traumatized so much as like a mixture of Caucasian men and other ethnicities? Right. But what if from the ruling class of England that tortured our ancestors so much so that we were motivated to come to the North American continent and arrive at Plymouth Rock and go through our own unconscious wounding and really genocide of the Native Americans, we literally, on an epigenetic level, on a deep, subconscious level, acted out the very torment, the very torture that we were experiencing.

Yes.

Onto the people that we freshly met.

Yes.

And how could that not be a bigger conversation about the true apology that is needed?

Yes.

And the ownership that is needed, not from building casino casinos.

No.

And giving little reparations, but like an honoring and a true apology, Like a. Like a genuine collective apology. And not just like the apology would make it okay, either or even ever make the pain go away. No, but it would at least be a coming to terms moment on a collective level. I just think that that right there is probably the biggest expression of emotional epigenetics that has ever existed. And maybe it's existed with Sicily and other continents and other countries as well. Do you think that your work in some way honors the trauma that we all experience and specifically the complete genocide of the Native American culture?

God, I hope so, Josh. I hope so. I really pray that it does. Here's the thing. What you said is absolutely right. One of the things that I. I mean, we have to do this together. It can't be us and them. This binary shit has to fucking go. It's old story. And I really. If I have motivation, one of my motivations is to. Is to not work in a binary system. And so if it is the Native Americans and us, like in a, you know, us as Western people, as long as we stay, and as long as we stay in that dynamic, I'm concerned. Thank you. That we have the capacity to actually find healing. We have to come together to find healing as hard as it's going to be. And here's the thing. It's like the Native American people on this continent are sitting in the presence of what they lost. We as. As European descendant people are sitting in the absence of what we lost. And I don't know which hell's worse, but we have to find a way to come together in order to heal. It's like. There is a beautiful book called Dancing with a Ghost by a man named Rupert Ross. He's Canadian. The book's really hard to find now, but it's worth reading. And one of the stories that they tell in this. And he was the equivalent of a DA in Canada, they call him Crown Prosecutors and he worked with a lot of small fly in only Native American communities in Ontario and Quebec. And there was a man in the village who. And this is just a story out of the book, so, you know, who had done some pretty awful things in this little village. And the community who does a lot of. They do a lot of their own injustice together, like, you know, as a community justice. And. But they decided the community did, that he needed to be incarcerated for a while. So Ross comes in, in the airplane and they bring him out of the airplane in handcuffs and leg cuffs. And all the old women lined up and hugged and kissed him before he got on the airplane. And he's like, I do not understand you people. People like, he raped your daughters. He broke into your house and stole some of your most precious things, like, what are you doing? And he, you know, and he. I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but what he said was like, he continually was blown away by the magnanimity of these people that he was working with. You know, they said to him very patiently, look, what you don't understand is this is the difference between your justice system and our justice system. In your justice system, you're always one step away from hell. And in what, you know, in the European justice system, if you do something wrong, you've made that step into hell. They said, in our justice system, when something. When somebody does something wrong, we all take one step from heaven. And he has to know he's welcome back here. He has to know he's welcome back, because if he can't come back, then none of us can ever heal from this. I look at it like that, Like. Like we have to come together. We have to come together as people, as, you know, as. As. As. You know, with all of the uniqueness and all the trauma and all the wounding that we have, it all has to be welcome. And God, Josh, I don't know how we're gonna do that.

Yeah.

I have no idea. All I know is that, like, I'm willing to work on that every day.

I'm here with you, working on it, being in it, swimming around in the cosmic soup where we're all, like, bumping into each other and trying to make meaning of the thing. Because I think it's really easy for people to hear a conversation like this or be inside of a conversation like this and maybe just pull out the comfortable bits.

Right.

But you just took a deep breath. I did, too. Because a lot of what we talked about for the past 10 minutes is really, really hard to accept. And it's pretty much easy to just bypass it, tuck it in a little box and put it away. But look at what happened across the world for the past hundreds of years. There are stories just like the Native American genocide that have happened across the planet. We're in this big purging, or as Alan Watts would say, we're all retching, but no one's vomiting.

All retch and no vomit.

All retch and no vomit. So I think about the way that maybe really what the conversation could be with us is, what are some loving ideas or what are some loving ways of being that are perfectly imperfect about us healing and truly coming together? Because I think it's a facade that a lot of spiritual commodity people do, which I believe you've talked about. This. The spiritual tourism that happens with people.

Yes.

What I'm about to ask you has nothing to do with. With spiritual tourism or people kind of dipping their toe in it. This is a big Question for the people that really want to do the deep work, right? What are some loving ideas? What are some loving ways of being that we can embody and we can act out that would truly bring us together? And by the way, is that even possible? Because I'm going to challenge you. You said you don't know. Let's just go for it, man.

All right.

What do you honestly think? What do you feel about what's the real thing that'll bring us together?

Stop lying to ourselves. Stop lying to ourselves about everything. We live in a world built on violence. We do, and we send our kids to school. It was built on violence. You know, the tofu scramble we had for breakfast is built on violence. You know, the neighborhoods we live in were built on violence. It's like tell ourselves the first truth. Like, you know, when we go to bed, you know, in the afternoon, like, you know, when we, in the evening, we hit that place where there's just hasn't been enough wine to drown out that feeling of hopeless despair. You know, we go to the restaurant, you know, you see the cute, you know, cute wait staff, you know, and have the fantasy of like, maybe they'll actually us. Like they care, you know, like, like we, we are drowning.

Yeah.

You know, and. And so to stop lying to ourselves about who we are, that's step number one. How. How can you and I, like, you know, be in long term relationship with each other if I'm lying to myself about who I am? Because I can never be truly authentic with you. I mean, if we got that far, we are miles better, Josh, in this world, because at least we're being honest.

See, but that's the thing. And I find this an intimate relationship because whether you believe this phrase or not, how you do one thing is how you do everything. I think that that's true, but also how you did the thing before was you at a different state of consciousness. So it's actually not true. In the statement itself, there's a fundamental flaw. Well, if how you do everything is how you'll do everything, then how does that take into the consciousness evolution that you go through as a human being?

That's a Class 1 error.

So I think that's kind of a bullshit statement, which is cool. I've never really thought about that before except for right now with this podcast. So if that's true, and I like to always pre frame my comments because I'm not like an orator, we're basically just sharing wisdom with one another.

Exactly.

If that is true, that we're on this continuous evolution of consciousness, then I would say the brick right next to your brick would be, can I love and forgive myself when I completely up and I don't know who I am, and I don't have an understanding of what makes me me, and I don't have the tools or really the wisdom or the teaching from an elder or from a guide to show me who I am. I think there needs to be space inside of that for humility, because too many of us are trying to fake it till we make it and Instagram models. And we're in this world where it's really just this house of mirrors that have been created by the technocrat gods that then use us to monetize their own system, and we don't even know it. But you and I do. Wow. I mean, there's a lot there. There's a lot there, because how would you instill space for that humility in this process of us coming together? And do you think that a collective humility is possible, barring nuclear war?

I appreciate you saying that. Like, what you said about the second brick and I often get caught in. Well, first of all, like, you know, when we're stuck in the Instagram, Twitter thing, like, you know, that's not the truth, first of all. And. And, yes.

Like, which is your first point, right?

My first point. Yeah. Right. We're still lying to ourselves. And. Yes. Like, to come to the conclusion that we are lying to ourselves and do that with incredible compassion, incredible equanimity, love, you know? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, and to me, like, they have to go hand in hand, you know, we have to be able to be. We have to love ourselves enough to tell ourselves the truth. We have to be forgiving enough to ourselves to tell ourselves the truth. And so how do we do. So your question was, how do we create that? Yeah. Outside of ourselves.

Sure.

Well, start with your partner. Right. Like, going back to what we were talking about earlier. Like, you know, you and her, what commitments have you made?

Yeah.

With her. And when you wake up in the morning, do you wake up thinking about, how do I most fully live into these commitments with her today? How do I most fully live into these. And what commitments have you made to your son and your. And your child yet to come? Way to go on that one, by the way. You know, like, what commitments have you made to them? And when you wake up in the morning, are you thinking about how can you live into those commitments as fully as possible? So we got to take the next step then, you know, so starting with our family, you know, that's. As one of my elders used to say, the smallest unit of governance is the family fire. Everything else comes from there. We cannot have good governance anyplace else if we're not. If we don't have good governance in our family fire. So bring in other people. Right. So, like, you know, you have people around you. I'm sure you have community here in Austin. And, you know, you said you have a men's group that you work with, get clear with each other. What's your commitments to each other?

Yeah.

What's your commitments to the men's group? What's your commitments to growth? I've done, I've done decades of men's work as well. And one of the reasons that I left my main men's group was because it dawned on me there's no commitment to change. Like, it's basically not that that's wrong. You know, I'm not putting a Valley judgment on it, sure. But I'd noticed that guys would come in and then, you know, every, however often, every month or two months or three months, they would do, they would work, right. We call it, you know, who's going to work tonight? They didn't get the memo about awakening.

Yeah.

And they would just, just rage, you know, about all the, you know, stuff going on in their life and then catharsis and crying and everything. And then, and then they'd be, you know, good. I'm good. You know, and then three months later, they're doing the same thing. I'm like, oh, my God. This is like the pressure relief valve that they have, which is fantastic because it keeps them from doing something probably really stupid. But what's the commitment to change? What's the commitment? So, so, like, you know, in your men's group or, or, or, you know, even, even as you, as we're going out and interacting with other people, what's our commitment to being around other people? You know, like, I was telling you about the great conversations I had with people, you know, on my way here. You know, the guy I met out in front of LA Fitness and the lady in, in the Uber car. I, I, I had that commitment. It's like, I'm gonna send, I'm gonna, I don't be loving with them. I don't treat them like they're the most special person that's right in front of me. Yeah. I want them to feel like I care.

Yes. And you know what's interesting is that commitment that you have that type of commitment is really love without expectation or love without trying to control them or the situation.

Absolutely.

And that is a big part of, I think, any guide or any, honestly, shaman. When shamans would work with people, they're not like, putting the shaman's energy of their stuff. They've done enough work as a shaman or a guide themselves to not put that onto their client or onto their participant or onto the loving person that they're trying to really just bring an awakening inside of themselves for. So if that's the case, if we know it's possible at the highest level to love without control.

Yes.

Then what does loving without control actually look like? Especially in this 3D world where everything really is based on a control mechanism, where most relationships are transactional. I do this for you, you do this for me. And when you don't, then love doesn't work anymore. Like, unconditional love, I think, has been fleeting for a lot of people. I know. It's definitely been that way for me.

Yes.

So if unconditional love is something that we all can achieve, we all can strive for, then what does it look like to have love without control?

That's a great question and so important. And you're right. You know, like, that's the way I was dealt with by my elders, was they weren't trying to. They had no predestined outcome for me. You know, they weren't trying to get me to a certain place. They weren't trying to make me into something different. They were just, well, let's just figure out how you can be the best you. You possibly can be. And so, like in dynamics of relationships, you know, oftentimes you'll have the person that's more of the. Of the selfless person, and then you have more of the person who's more the ego person. Right. And it's not selfless, like, in a good way. It's like I'm actually giving myself away.

Yeah.

And so, you know, is that what, passive aggressive? I mean, there's whatever label. I don't. I don't really care to put the labels on it, but there is, let's just say it this way. We each hold different dynamics in relationship with each other. And whether somebody's in the victim, villain, hero, you know, drama triangle. Right. Or we're not. Either one of those places is a place of control. Like, you know, if I. If I'm the passive aggressive one in the relationship or I'm the sub in the relationship, you know, I'm still. I'm still doing that. So I can have control. So to be able to be with our partners or with people around us, to let go of any expectation, like expectations kill relationships. And so that's where I would start with. That's where I start with people, is to say, you gotta get clear about what expectations you have of this person and then see how you back out of those or see how they change or morph or how does it become something that are then held as shared goals. But love without control, I mean, you can't. We cannot go into it with expectation.

Yeah. Because love. And my mom read me this from the Bible once. I just had this memory come through. All of a sudden, she was reading me this passage, and it was like, love does not keep score. Yes, that's in the Bible. And I'm not a religious man, but I think there's a lot of wisdom in the Bible, just like there's a lot of wisdom in many ancient texts. I don't throw the baby out with the bath water just because the consciousness of the movement itself was poisoned. The messenger sometimes is really just the vehicle for the message. I don't tend to just like, discount anything because, you know, of the trauma that people have been experienced by it. So when I think about love not keeping score, really what that means to me is I don't have a checklist of resentment against my woman because she said hurtful things, she's done things that have really wounded me. And I assume my hope is that I trust that she doesn't have that checklist either. So when we build checklists against one another, it's not loving.

No.

Where is it coming from? When I build the checklist against you, when I harbor a laundry list of resentments about how you've shown up, about what you've said and all these things. Is it really possible to clear all of those laundry lists in ceremony in quest? And what does that actually look like? So two really big bomb drop questions there. Number one, where the list even comes from? Why do we do that? Why do we create lists on one another of resentment? And then what does that look like in different types of ceremony to truly clear that?

Well, the first part, you know, where did. Where did the laundry list come from? We learned it, you know, like. Like, you know, we can all look back over our time growing up and think about, you know, okay, so how do. How am I the good boy? Well, I, you know, people are going to clearly tell me what I need to do. Oh, I need to get good grades, right? Oh, you Know, so here's these people for 12 years are going to tell me whether I'm right or wrong. You know, I don't get a say in that. I can't go up to my, you know, fourth grade math teacher and, or English teacher and argue about this dangling part of his principle that I, that.

I put it wouldn't work out that.

No, it wouldn't work out that well, you know, or to, you know, have that honest conversation with my mother and my father or my siblings. It's like we learn it, we learn how to be in relationships where love is controlling because that's probably how all most of us have ever seen. Now can we change that in ceremony? Yes, we can. What we can do is bring awareness to it. So I think I said yes, we can too quickly. So I'm going to back that off a little bit and say, yes, we can bring incredible awareness and understanding of whatever that pattern is. But the work then has to still be there once somebody's finished with the ceremony. This is where the commitment comes in. This is where the, the, the, the willingness to take responsibility comes in. Right. Like, so if I, I have seen this happen more times than I can count. Somebody will say, you know, I'm having a hard time, you know, and I need, I need like, you know, healing. Right. And so, and, and, and so they go into ceremony and, you know, ceremonies are just rocking like, you know, and this person just has gone through incredible catharsis and, and they literally walk out a different person. I've seen it happen many, many, many times or come through quests, they walk out a totally different person. Yeah. And then they go home. And what, where's the, you know, where have they made the commitment or taken on the authority the responsibility to be different. Right. Because as soon as you get back and say, I went through this great healing ceremony, now you have to change and be different so that I can be happy. Right. Not going to work.

That's the ultimate test. Someone comes home from catharsis, from learning, from breakthrough, but their environment hasn't changed. People actually will project onto them that they're still the person they were before the quest, before the ceremony.

Yes. Yes, they will. That's tough. That's really tough.

Yeah.

And so one of the things that I'm doing now with Quest is actually I've set up a whole system for how to create a harmonious transition back. Like when you did your second quest, I was blown away by how many of the men, when we heard back, were just saying, like, man, this is just a dumpster fire, dude. When I got home, my hell, it's even my ex wife I'm having a big fight with, you know.

Yeah.

And, and I realized, you know, and I think I said this on one of our calls. It's like it dawned on me like you went out there to be held by the goddess herself. Right. You went out there to be held by nature, to be held by the earth mother. And she loved you when you were out there. And so spiritually everybody came back with her lipstick.

Yeah.

And when you got home.

Yeah.

Your partner looked at you and said, you fucking cheated on me. You had an affair. I can feel it in you because you are in love with somebody else. And there was no context to hold that. I take response. That's actually something that I'm responsible for. I fucked up in sending you guys home that way, but I didn't realize that I do it totally different. I have an entire document that I made up with another person who, who. Which is, which is exactly designed to, to. To meet that. And, and I think it's going to become. I need to start using it more and more and more well.

And I think regardless of the system you have to help people ease back in and integrate. Life is going to bring what life brings because of so many other projections of other people in society itself that's going to test and challenge somebody who's gone through a breakthrough regardless of the support system they have. Yes, there's good support systems to have, but I think that's the nature of the spiritual path is like when you become anew, when you shed a layer, that layer of softness and of and of vulnerability has to come back into the quote, normal 3D world.

Right.

And be truly tested. And man, the ultimate question for me has always been like, how do I have thick skin but an open heart? How do I do both? How do I have thick skin and not allow modernity and the hooks to. To get so into me, but also have an open heart, which is such a paradox, man.

Yes.

I wonder your thoughts on that.

Yep, I'm dealing with that with my kids, you know, the 15 year old and a 12 year old and. And so tech is like it's. I mean they. What's the world. What do they call it when like when somebody grows up and they had texts and say we're little digital digital native. I don't know. I think that's what it is.

Yeah. Yeah. Transhumanism. Transhumanism.

Well, they're not getting in line for the chip in their head or anything like that.

Yeah.

You know, but. But it's a big part of their life. Like. Like both kids, like, they need a computer to go to school. Like, that's just part of. And I'm like, that kind of sucks. Like, I'm not super. You know, I was. Took me. But took me aback, you know?

Yeah.

I was like, wait, like, hold on a second here. Like, I didn't know I was gonna have to deal with this. And so one of the ways that I'm. I realized, like, I can't tell my kids, like, there's this. There's this YouTube channel I've been watching a little bit about this family way up in northern B.C. that are living totally off grid. You know, they have these two daughters and they're out hunting moose with rifles and stuff like that, you know, And I mean. And I'm surprised the amount of followers they got. But people, I think, fantasize about having that way of way of living.

Yeah.

It's not reality. That's not telling the truth. Like, if everybody did that, we'd be. We'd be. Then we'd be really screwed. So the reality is, is here we are. So, like, I can't tell my kids, dump your iPads and your computers in the garbage. We're moving out to the bush. What I have to do is say, how do I do that today? So I realized what I have to do with my children. And I think what we have to do with ourselves and with our relationships is we have to be building our connection to nature and spirit as fast as the constructs of technology are being built around us.

Yes. Well, man, I don't feel like that's happening. And I don't know how that's going to happen unless people become inspired by this conversation on a magnitude of 10, 20, 30 million x.

Right.

Then we can change the world. If so many of us have conversations like this, like, why do I feel doubt about that? I don't know. I just. I have that sense. I'm like, how do we. And maybe. And maybe that's the thing is, is we don't have to have it amplify on a big scale right now. Maybe it's not in our lifetimes, maybe not. Maybe it's not when you and I are here on the world.

Okay, let me put it this way. It's like, where is the limit that you're holding in your statement?

The limit is that I don't trust. I don't trust humankind enough because of the Demise of their consciousness and the way that they've allowed their amygdala to be hijacked and themselves to be programmed and their unconscious incompetence about not knowing what they don't even know about their darkness.

Okay, so to create opening and space for them to change, can you hold those people in a loving place of non judgment 100%. So if we hold them in that place, right, so we have no idea what the true capacity or the true capabilities of us as human beings are. Women lift cars off their children, right? That's not uncommon. And so it's in us. It's in us to have that capacity. And so, like chaos theory says, you know, like when something's just a little bit out of balance, it takes an insane amount of energy to bring it back into balance. If it's really far out of balance, it takes just one clear tone for it to come right back into balance. And so I look at it like, okay, this is the larger arc of humanity we're in right now. And so tell the truth, this is where we are. And, you know, raging about it just wastes my energy, you know, like, like being pissed off about it just, just, just waste my energy.

Sure.

What do I do? How do I approach this? Positively, you know, well, the people around me, right? You and I having this conversation, me just like, heart open to you, like, just sending like, you know, love, Josh, that's what I got for you, love, you know, like for my children, for the people around me. And we don't necessarily, at least I don't know how we are going to make either you or me enough difference to change the whole world. But I'll tell you this. An elder of mine who passed said that his people had a prophecy, and that the prophecy was that there was going to come a time where people like you and me, right, podcasts like this, the small groups, the grassroots movements, were going to lock together like this, arms together, and they were going to form like the facets of a crystal. And then when that happened, the governments of the world will be shed like a snake sheds its skin. That's their prophecy. So let's lock arms. We can't be the whole crystal. We can't be the thing that sheds that. But I can lock. I can lock arms with you. I can lock arms with the people around me that I love and keep doing that, awakening with them.

Or in such a grand, large, really timeless story, it's easy for you and I to sit here and say, oh, I know what a billion years feels like, or I know what 10 billion years feels like, and the sun might expire 3,500 billion years from now. Some insane number and something that's happened for me on both. The quest that I remembered from a psychedelic journey was this massive book with an uncountable amount of pages that was shown to me. Literally a number of pages that even if my human mind tried to conceptualize how many pages that was, I wouldn't be able to. And you and I are just this story, like, we're just this little story on a piece of paper. And all we're doing, Mark, is the piece of paper after us being honored by the lessons of those that came before us.

Absolutely.

And isn't that the whole thing? Because we can't go back and. And change what has happened. Like, we cannot. It'd be great if we could, but we can't. So all we have is now. So, you know, I can eat a piece of humble pie and go, okay, maybe. Even though I'm experiencing a doubt in my fellow humans that they could grow in their consciousness and that they are able to do this work. How cocky is it of me because of the things that I've been afforded and the challenges that I've had, which really were growth. And there were opportunities for me to even sit here with you right now and do what I'm doing. What if people that are lower on the consciousness scale or just haven't had as much experience in life, that it's not their fault. It's just not their fault. And so it's actually pretty arrogant of me to look back and say, well, why can't you guys just wake up and what are you doing? And I've been through waves of that where I've been so angry at the collective because of just this incredible immaturity that we have. And I always want to get to, like, the growth and I want to get to the thing of how do we heal and how do we come together. But that in itself isn't the pace of nature.

No.

You know, nature moves at her own pace. I remember when you took us on the walk and you showed us the fox walk where you. You try to walk and you. You don't even make any sound when you walk.

Right.

And that's really being in harmony with the species and the nature and everything that's around you. So, shit, man. Maybe that's it. Maybe really what love needs for us to grow is a fox walk where I'm not being angry and aggressive with other people to hurry up and change. It's more just like being the shining light in the example that's truly in harmony with myself and nature herself. So that people can just feel that because they're either going to want to change or not. Relationships are either going to want to change or not. When I'm forcing something, that's not very wise.

There's your sound bite, Josh. That's perfect. That's absolutely perfect, what you just said.

That's it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, That's. That's it. You know, like, give people grace. Just give them the grace to be where they are and who they are. And. And. And here's what I've seen happen when we are able to do that with my children. Right? So you got kids. You have one second on the way.

Yes.

Here's. Here's. Here's the upside of having kids besides no sleep. And, you know, all that kind of.

Stuff is like, no sleep is real, dude.

That's real.

Oh, my God, that is real. If somebody would have just warned, like, Drew Manning, my friend, he's like, watch out for sleep deprivation.

Right?

When he told me that, I had no fucking idea what he was talking about. True sleep deprivation is. It's a crucible of which I don't think anybody can understand unless they've gone through it with kids.

Totally. I remember when my son was just old enough he could stand up, but he couldn't lay back down again. So he'd be sleeping, and then, you know, in the middle of the night, you know, he would kind of like, come up in his sleep cycle, and it was a new. The new thing he knew how to do, so he would just stand up and he couldn't lay back down again. And so at that point, he was. He wasn't breastfeeding anymore, so he was over on my side of the bed. And so I'm. I'm waking up, getting him laid back down and back to sleep and. God, I don't know. Three, four, five times a night.

Oh.

And I remember so clearly. It's like, that's it. This is the rest of my life. Like, the rest of my life.

It was, like, so fatalistic.

Oh, my God. I was just like. I was just so raging angry. And looking back now, I'm like, it was probably three days, you know, but. But in the moment, yeah, it was, like, all consuming. All consuming.

Oh, my God, dude. Yeah, because that. That maturity that's. That's really forged, that's galvanized for. For you and I as fathers and. And definitely for mothers. You know, for mothers, it's actually from what I've seen from Carrie Michelle, it's times 20 of what we're experiencing. Yes. So there's like this gauntlet that we just get forged by the fire as fathers. And, man, how could I bring that wisdom to exactly what you and I are talking about, Right. With people that. With people that might be dealing with levels of unconscious incompetence, that it's not their fault. But here's the thing, man. It's our loving responsibility. It's our responsibility to heal. You know, look at the China Chinaman. And I think it was Tiananmen Square was the name of it.

Stood in front of the tank, Right?

He stood in front of the tank and he didn't even care if he was going to get run over. I think he was holding his groceries.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I'm just like, holy shit. Like, that's. That's actually everything. If I can show up like that. I mean, that's the work, that's the training. How do we show up? And it connects to threads of a lot of what you and I have talked about today and what you've shared around. All right. If I'm really going to do this thing, live this spiritual life, there's going to be some things that I have to let go of. And one of them would be love with control or love with expectation.

Yes.

And. And we talked a lot about the courage aspects, too, and we covered a lot of ground, dude. Like, what do you think we missed? When it comes to the ingredients, the way of being, from your life and from the people that you guide about living a spiritual life, what do you think we missed?

Well, we. What you talked about in Tiananmen Square, that's what I would want to just emphasize. And this is where I was going with having kids in that. It's the perfect laboratory. Right. So our kids are going to be a certain way, and they are. And then. So what do we do? How do we correct or adjust behavior with our children? Well, how about by letting go of the judgment we have around the behavior with our kids now. Not to mean there isn't time where our kids are going to fall down the stairs. And like, well, I'm going to hold the space so that my kid can't fall down the stairs. It's like, no, actually, I'm going to stop my kid from falling down the stairs. Let's be honest. Yes, but I'm talking about once there's practical spirituality. Exactly. Okay. And so once our kids are a Little older, you know, like, and this is something that I notice with my kids all the time. The more I come to presence, right. The more I'm able to be in that place of love, connection and non judgment with my kids, the more my kids have the capacity then to be different because I'm holding a different space. So even the people around us, right. That we may have been at one point in our lives in judgment of being like at a lower spiritual state, well then hold the space so that they can come out of that because we're co creating that space with them, like being janitors, being that what we're in charge of is tending relational space. It's not just between you and me, it's between us and everything. And, and, and so we contend that relational space between those other people around us as well. Without judgment, with love. Right. It's not easy. I'm not. This is not an easy road.

Yeah.

You know, and if somebody's like, you know what, There's a quote by a piece I love by EE Cummings and he says, do something easy like learn how to blow up the world, you know, but if you're, but, but because if you do go down this path, if you're gonna go down this work, you know, 10, 15 years, if you've had one original thought, you're doing really good. So like, like it's, you know, it's, that's, that's EE Cummings that says that man. And so I want, that's the qualifier. It's like, yeah, this is the hardest work we're ever going to do.

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Oh, you know what, that's a great question. I just went through a real transformation just like less than a week ago around that very thing. So I'm always asking the question where am I lying to myself or am I lying to myself? And I uncovered something really big for me and that was realizing that like I was still so enraged with how we as humans are treating this planet, you know, and, and I, I'll be honest, like, you know, I was mildly depressed most of my adult life because of, because of that anger and the sadness, you know, So I work with just four basic emotions, you know, guys. That's why guys like me is because I. We have 276 emotions that we have to figure out. No, there's four. Anger, sadness, fear and joy.

Anger, sadness, fear and joy.

And when we mix anger and sadness together, that's where we get depression. So when I got clear about what I was sad about, and when I got clear about what I was angry about, I've. I've not been depressed since. But I also haven't really dealt with all the anger yet. And so, yeah, this is just a few weeks ago, I hit this place of. Of, of, like being so fucking enraged by the roads and the buildings and the stores, and just like. Like, it just felt like it, you know, at that point, it just felt like death everywhere around me. It's just death, you know, and. And it was really hard. And. And I. So there was my paradox. It's like, you know, here, or at least in that moment, right, I have to live in this world, and I hate it. I fucking hate it. And I'm living in the world, and I hate it. Well, that doesn't really line up with my values very well. What do I do about that? And so my moment, you know, I've changed. You know, the way the paradox worked me was recognizing like, okay, what if 2023, you know, and this is going to drop, I think you said, in.

January 2020, right now we're in the thick of January.

So here, you know, here's our New Year's New Year's gift, right? One of the New Year's gifts. It's like, turn that around. What if everything, all the infrastructure that we have right now and are actually the tools that we need to take this world through, the healing that has to happen for us to become whole? My anger, my rage vanished when I realized, no, actually these are the tools we've created the perfect scenario for us to have everything we need to take this world through that healing. I was like, drop me to my knees, Josh. It dropped me to my fucking knees, like, with just the beauty. And I just. I wept. I was just like, oh, my God. And I'm. I'm like, you know, like, hugging the, you know, the asphalt and saying thank you for being here. You know, like, this ties in with a lot of the stuff we talked about earlier. Like, you know, I've. I've. You know, you look at the. On a sidewalk, right? There's plants growing through the sidewalk, and people are like, you know, look at nature, so vital. Look at her, you know, she's just going to show up everywhere. What a miracle. It's like, that's not the miracle. The miracle is the concrete, a substance that has had no ceremony done for it. Nobody asked that material if it was happy, if it wanted to leave where it was. Nobody had any relationship with it. Talk about, you know, an imperial mindset still at work, but yet that concrete still keeps doing what we ask of it. That's the miracle. So the miracle is, to me is like I had the paradox, was shifting from hating this world to recognizing that even this building that we're in, you know, not prayed for, you know, and all those things. But what if there is actually enough, so much love in these materials who are holding us as the children that we are and saying, yeah, I get it, this was hard for us, but we're here as allies and companions for you to keep doing this work, for this healing to happen.

I like that. I really like trying that on because it feels good. And I think the way that I feel when I receive an idea, when I actually experience an idea, that is what creates change. That's what creates the momentum for change. Like a lot of the concepts you've introduced today, somebody listening or watching has just been like, never heard that before. Right. Like, oh, my God. What do you mean? Like the. The concrete and the plants have feelings. Yes.

Yes, they do.

Because if all is God experiencing God's self on some level, everything comes from a creator, right?

Yep.

So if everything comes from a creator and the Creator creates things, then really there's no thing and everything at the same time.

Yes.

Which is so we. Our minds can't even conceptualize it. And even if I tried to speak it to you, I wouldn't do it justice.

Right.

The. The mystery of why we're all here. So I'd love to end in this space of mystery, because you had actually brought that phrase up to me two years ago in the quest. Leave space for mystery at the table. Yes, leave space for mystery. A lot of the concepts that we've explored today, they're so mysterious, there's never one answer. It really involves a deep inquiry about who we are, otherwise we wouldn't be living a spiritual life.

Correct.

The end result isn't to be super duper spiritual. The end result is to leave the earth and just honor the people that have come before us and honor our children that are coming after us. Which, I mean, that, like, that makes me sad, you know, because so many people won't do that.

Yeah.

In this lifetime. But I will. Yes, I'm going to. And so are you.

Yes, I am.

And so is everyone with us. Otherwise they wouldn't be with us. Right. We're leaving it different for our children.

Yes.

We're honoring the people from our past. Wow. That just emotion hit me so much. I. I actually lost my train of thought. But I. I believe where I was going, where I was going with that was if we are all part of this cosmic experience where there's no thing and there's everything at the same time to connect back the thread, then meaning is what we make of it. Like, if I. If it brings up emotion in me that's real. About leaving the world better for Nova and my second child. And leaving the world better for your children. What are your children's names?

Escher and Elsie.

For Escher and Elsie. For. For the world to be better for them, then we have to be committed, to use your words. We have to be committed to the promise that we made in the beginning, which was, for me, it's, how do I live my life well, that's. The commitment is to continuously answer that question. I mean, it's been that way since 2015. How do I live my life well? How do I live my life well? How do we live our life well? How do you live your life well? How does Mark Tollefson lead and live his life well? What does wellness even mean to you? How do you define wellness in your life?

I love that question. And how I define wellness in my life is how did I beautify the relational spaces between me and everything around me today? If I do that, I'm. Well, and what I mean, the relational space, it's like between me and that pile of dog shit I was sitting by earlier today. When I say that I. When I say relational space, I mean me and, you know, and the rocks that I played with out there today, or the dog I saw walking last night, or you and I right here, or. Or, you know, the fetus of your child still in your. In your partner's belly. Like we're in relationship. Like, there's not a quantum. It's quantum shit. Like, there's no computer out there that could calculate the number of relationships that we're tending at any one time. You know, we focus on a few, obviously, but it's not like we're still not in relationship with those cracks in the sidewalk or the sidewalk itself. So the beautifying of our relational spaces, that's peacemaking. And we haven't talked about peacemaking, and I'm going to leave that with the mystery. To me, living a life of wellness is living a life as a peacemaker. And that means to me, tending the relational spaces between me and everything that I'm in relationship with. Hmm.

Well, let's end on that. All right. What a beautiful way to. To continue the journey after someone has experienced this conversation. I say experience because I feel like we've been floating in a cosmic soup this whole time.

Dude, seriously, like, floating.

What a tremendous amount of emotions we've explored and possibilities of. Of how to truly, like, really grasp this concept of spirituality and living a spiritual life. So tell people where to go for your website. I know it's Mark Tollefson, but maybe I'm going to spell it for y', all, Mark. M A R K T O L l e f s o-n.com mentoring. That's where you can go. If you really felt a connection to Mark today, just go there right now. We'll link it in this video right below.

Great.

But that's the beginning place for people to engage with you. But I know in 2023, man, I can feel this, like, your. Your voice and your truth and these 30 plus years of mentoring and of questing and of everything that I've experienced from you. What do you feel is next? What can you share with us that is next? Obviously, we link the mentoring below so people can go there. But what's next for you? Like, what's really lighting you on fire for 2023?

What's lighting. Well, first of all, I have. There's going to be three vision quests that I'm going to be doing this year. The first one's already on my way, already on my website.

Okay.

So you can go to marktolofson.com VisionQuest and the dates are April 7th to 16th, and it'll be down in Southern California.

That's exactly when we're supposed to have the second baby. So I'm going to have to go to the next one because once a year, I quest, no matter what. It's my spiritual cleanout.

I'll be doing one up in Canada in the summer, and then we'll be doing Tim, and I'll be doing another one in the fall in Idaho. In September.

In September. Okay. So September 2023. If y' all want to join me, then definitely reach out and we'll link all the contact information below the video.

And I got a ton of new content coming out in 2023 on my website. I have a number of online courses coming. I'm starting an apprenticeship program because people keep asking me, like, mark, how do you do what you do? And I'm like, well, the only way to find out is to jump in. So. So that's going to be coming up. So there's a. I'm gonna have. I'm 20, 23. It's like, this is. This is. I am so excited about it. You know, recognizing. Going back to what we were saying, it's like, everything's my ally right now. Everything has turned towards helping this happen in life. So, yes, I got online courses. I got group mentorship programs that are coming online. We got Vision Quest happening, and I'm starting this apprenticeship program. It's going to be a big, big year. So people can sign up on my website to be on my mailing list, and so they can keep track of what's happening and what's coming forward. And I'm also. Oh, this is the other big one that it's actually. I do so much of it right now that I don't think about it. So I'm in the process of writing a book. Book. It's called the Modern Book of Ritual and Ceremony. And it's taking literally all the stuff that you and I have talked about and putting it in a book that.

Sounds like a book I want to read.

It's good. It's. It's good.

I love that. How far into the process are you?

I'm far enough into it that I'm going to crowdsource it. As far as, you know, I think by the time just after this podcast drops, so by the end of January, I'm going to start releasing chapters. So I'm going to. I want to create, like, a private group for people that can come onto. And they'll get every chapter. So I'm about halfway through right now.

Okay.

And. And. And the respites coming. Coming quickly.

Well, Mark, I feel so much gratitude for you. The fact that you come out here, dedicate this weekend to sharing your wisdom with all of us, man. So, you know, from my heart to yours, thank you. Thank you for the. The two quests that I've been on, and there's been things that I've shared on other podcasts, which we'll link below.

Great.

But there is. There is one thing that I want to leave with us just to marinate as we move forward this year, and that is something you said to me about the wound of my father. And many of us have a wound from our father I think that's kind of the Dharma that our souls choose sometimes. You said that maybe the. And I wasn't going to say this, but fuck it, it feels right. You said that maybe the greatest gift that your father could ever give you is his absence. Yeah, And I thought about that, and I was feeling that recently, and I was sharing this with Kerri, Michelle, and I. I just want to open that space up to everyone here. Like, sometimes, whether it's a father or a mother or a brother or sister or anyone. Like, maybe this is just a good time in the spirit of true wellness, in the spirit of living a life connected to a higher power, a spiritual life. Maybe this is just a good reminder for all of us to take inventory and just be grateful for the people that are. That are no longer in our lives, for the lessons they've taught us. And. And that, in a true paradox, gives me gratitude that you're in my life, that I get to have mentorship, that I get to have friends, that we get to do this podcast. It's fucking amazing.

Totally amazing.

So thank you for what you said to me on the quest. You and Tim are masters at what you do. You really are masterful. So all the information is linked below. Man, thank you for coming on the show. Thank you for being here in Austin. I look forward to the next quest that we do together at the end of the next year. And yeah, man, thank you for being here.

Thank you, Josh. It's been a real pleasure.

Yeah, lots of love, you guys, until we see you on the next episode. From my heart, from Mark's heart. We're both wishing you love and wellness. We'll talk to you soon.

Peace out.

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