 Welcome to the Dare to Dream podcast, which was nominated for two People's Choice podcast awards and a Webby Award. Dare to Dream is ranked in the top best podcast in USA in all of self-improvement on Apple podcasts and in multiple other countries. Thank you for joining us. Debbie Dashinger, your host, is a certified coach who coaches people to write a page-turner book, takes their book to a guaranteed international bestseller and teaches you the system to be interviewed on media and podcasts and get massive results. Debbie shows you how to use media exposure to locate your tribe, fill workshops, sell books, and gain followers. If you'd like to get your free set of tools and templates and to learn how to message yourself out to the world, go to debbiedashinger.com slash message. That's D-E-B-B-I-D-A-C-H-I-N-G-E-R.com slash message. Question, are you interested in knowing the effects that plants and medicines have on the mind? Debbie Dashinger's guest today is Dr. Richard Grossman, whose spiritual search started early and later, took him traveling the globe, exploring spiritual teachers and healing arts, studying Asian philosophy, Tai Chi, massage, macrobiotics, juice fasting, yoga, aikido, and herbal medicines. Through his studies, Richard earned a master's in acupuncture, a doctorate in Oriental Medicine, a PhD in Oriental Medicine, a diplomat in acupuncture, a diplomat of pain management, and a diplomat in acupuncture orthopedics. Since then, Dr. Grossman has become recognized for the healing work he does in ceremonial settings, which is a unique combination of traditional Amazonian shamanism, deep energetic healing, and sound healing techniques from many of the world's cultures. To learn more, go to heartfeather.com. Welcome, Dr. Richard Grossman to Dear to Dream. It is so great to have you here. Thank you. Great to be here. Yeah, finally, finally. So I know you on this end of things, and I'm looking forward to finding out the winding journey and also to pick in your brain some of the wisdom that you have to do what you do out into the world. I'm in awe of it, frankly. And I want to start with you being a ceremony facilitator or if there's another name you prefer other than ceremony facilitator, let me know that. I think given the times and given the corruption of various titles of such things, ceremony facilitator sounds pretty good. Yeah. So you definitely are that. You have unbelievable experience. I am curious how much did it take you to be able to do what you do today? How much drinking, how much traveling, how much indigenous experience, how much healing work did it take for you, that whole amalgam to be coming out on this side with what you do? It took a lifetime. I mean, literally somebody once said that you know what that you're doing is what you're supposed to be doing, putting supposed to in quotes, because I'm questioning that there's actually anything such thing as supposed to, but that you know what you're supposed to be doing when you look back and see that your entire life has been preparation for doing it. And you know my story, I'm writing a book about my story right now and so I could talk here for a couple hours just about how I got to where I am right now. But in a nutshell, I knew from childhood that there was something that I wanted to do and I knew what it looked like, I knew what it would feel like, I knew what it would sound like and I also knew that I had no idea what it was. I didn't grow up in any kind of healing environment or any kind of conscious spiritual environment, but there was always something in me that was pushing me in a certain direction. And I could say even from the age of four when I went through an extremely traumatic event and I was given the opportunity to meet beings on the other side momentarily that told me basically that this was all going to unfold. And they wouldn't tell me what was going to unfold but they told me it was going to unfold and they said, don't forget what we're telling you and of course now all I remember is them telling me not to forget what they told me. That's hilarious. And I went through a number of different phases in my life when I was 16, I started exploring psychedelics and from a unguided, no grounding, no indigenous roots, no tradition kind of standpoint and discovered that what worked best for me was to close my eyes and go inside and to explore this inner space inside of me. When I was 18 I ended up sitting on the banks of the Ganges with a great teacher exploring this inner realm more and more and connecting to divinity within myself. And at some point I don't know exactly well then came Chinese medicine and Chinese medicine was a very important part of my learning experience beginning to understand Qigong, beginning to understand Tai Chi and how the ancient Wu Shaman of China developed their philosophies via using the Yi Qing and other tools of spiritual exploration there and then round about two, maybe a year after I graduated from acupuncture school and got my license a friend of mine called me up and said I just brought back some ayahuasca from Peru you should try this. And I never heard of it, had no idea what it was it sounded intriguing to me because I'd never heard of it and so I did it. I took the plunge, drank the medicine, had the most extraordinary experience of my life and I can't say it was very pleasant but it was very profound and during that experience I knew without any any figment of doubt that that was what I wanted to do with my life I also knew without any doubt as well that I was nowhere near ready to do it. So after that I spent many years as an acupuncturist learning more about the human body learning about the human spirit learning about the human mind both from a Western and Chinese Asian philosophy I also was delving deeply into South Asian philosophies Hinduism, Vedic work, Buddhism and most importantly direct experience of myself inside of myself. So years passed I worked with Samaya Waska some more not a whole lot of times more but more and then at some point I really started to want to go to Peru I was having visions of Peru or imaginations of Peru I wrote a movie about Shamanism in Peru knowing nothing about it having no experience of it and very much surprised when I finally went to Peru everything that I wrote about was pretty accurate pretty accurate and so I went to Peru and I started off in Ecuador in Ecuador I had my first jungle experiences of the medicine and it was kind of an extraordinary experience because at one point one of the people in this little tiny group of Westerners I was in who were tasked with bringing this Shamanic family down the Rio Napo to the Amazon river ended up to Akitos on boat for a conference that was happening there we were going to drink ayahuasca with this Shaman who was a very old, well not very old but very ancient lineage many generations of Shaman's in his family they call them yachaks there not Shaman's of course we use the term Shaman here because it's easier to say and you know so we did a couple ceremonies with him and then one of the Westerners said well you know we gringos like the medicine strong and a little note to your audience don't ever say that just lean into his country oh my god the plant comes from, oh my he took it as a challenge and used some 100 year old ayahuasca vine he had and really maxed it out maxed it out so much that when we all drank it there was not a single person other than myself and his son who weren't hanging over the rails of this patio the whole night throwing up it was his first time in his life lead a ceremony it was so strong and his son and I were sitting next to each other going I'm not going to vomit until he vomits I'm not going to vomit until the ring go vomits you know we were like total warrior, crazy holding this intensely strong medicine down and there's a whole chapter in my upcoming book about this but the upshot was that during at the end of this experience we manifest spirit of what we call madre ayahuasca or the jungle spirit or pachamama or the goddess or kali or whatever you want to call this intense female energy came to me in a humanish form and said you're mine now and I said yes and she meant what by that did you interpret when you heard what I interpreted it as was that in my whole existence I'd been going into the realm of medicine work of consciousness of spirit kind of maybe not just dipping my toes maybe getting up to my knees or my hips and this was like we're lovers now you're mine, this intense energy pure consciousness of the jungle medicine claimed me and I knew at that point that this was going to be my life or at least this life may be more than this life I don't know and from that point where you were claimed and you surrendered it sounds like how much actual drinking have you done how much also work have you done directly under the tutelage of other shamans I did, I don't know I can't even tell you how much I've drunk since that time at some point I broke a thousand times and I don't know if I've hit two thousand yet I stopped counting I stopped caring I never really cared I think I counted to a hundred and then I stopped counting and under shamans, tutelage under shamans I have had an interesting different path with that in that I've worked with many different shamans from different cultures of the Amazon and I never really went to any one of them almost did but never really made it for a sad story but never really said you're my teacher and I'm your student there was one that I worked with probably the most who at some point looked at me and said you can lead ceremonies now and I don't know how many times that was many times and so my background is kind of diverse and adding to that diversity is my background in mystical religions so in my ceremonies it's not traditional jungle shamanism there is traditional jungle shamanism as part of it but as you know there's also goofy poetry and mystical poetry and flutes and jaw harps and you know sacred instruments from many different cultures we don't think of the jaw harp as being a sacred instrument so much but in the Tungus Siberian shamanism Mongolian and Tuvan it's a sacred instrument used by shamans yes, yes wear of all of that, that's amazing that you referred that I know so you know for people who are listening people who are watching Richard was my first ceremony officially and oh my gosh how lucky am I to have gone through that because what you provide and of course words will never suffice no one can understand till they experience period and you only experience I believe when you're called because it was a great surprise for me can we talk about that that calling because I was one of those people who was clear absolutely who would do something like that I didn't know anything about it I just sort of heard about plant medicine and pushed it off and I felt like I woke up one day and everything had changed and it became like I must do this I know I must do this I feel this so compelled to have this experience what is that Richard where does that even come from and why are some people tapped this is such a huge question I mean why do some people you know it's been it's been called the thirst in many cultures you know the longing of the soul the mystical poets talked about it it's the longing of the heart to know itself and through knowing itself to know the divinity that's within oneself and plant medicines are a particularly interesting and powerful path for at least beginning the journey of that at least beginning the journey for some people drinking plant medicine or taking a plant medicine is a one-shot deal or a two-shot deal or ten times or twenty times for some people it becomes their path you know it becomes a discipline it becomes an action that maybe not compelled because it's not a compelling experience as you know I like to joke with people like I've done this so many times and every time I'm sitting with my hand this is just green tea puer tea every time I'm sitting with a cup in my hand I'm shaking a little bit I'm still nervous about it and not imagine on my last ceremony that I do in this lifetime I'll still be a little bit nervous about it I love that you share that I'm so grateful because I've always felt that I do get nervous as well before yeah and there's another wisdom inside of me that says this is nature it's organic it comes from the earth it comes from Pachimama it's like you're drinking divinity I understand all of that how could it possibly be bad there's nothing chemical and yet something in me about stepping over that precipice and then I'm always grateful I did but I'm so appreciative to hear you who have had so much and say that you too go through that I'm glad you're appreciative because sometimes that scares the heck out of people if you're scared I wouldn't even call it fear you know it's not like earth-shaking fear it's just the knowledge that I'm going into the mysterious and the knowledge also from where I sit behind the altar behind the mesa we call it from where I sit I've got one heck of a responsibility oh let's talk about that because to me witnessing you is very awe-inspiring because you're officiating you drink not as much as we do I don't think although correct me but you do drink so you're in the same realm which I love as us and you do the most exquisite music that creates the most exquisite experience and as you referred to earlier at times when we are fortunate enough you will read poetry and I have simply never heard anyone read poetry in the way that you do you bring things to life you fill the heart how do you maintain a room Dr. Roseman in this state and still perform and create this experience for us I'm going to really terrify you I have no idea hmm I have no idea for me when I begin a ceremony I say a prayer and the prayer basically it's very similar to St. Thomas' prayer of make me an instrument of thy peace but it's kind of like you know here I am God, medicine, spirit, whatever here I am utilize me here allow me to be allow my hands to make your music allow my voice to sing your songs and so what I do basically as a ceremony leader is first off I can't say I've seen it all but I think I've seen it all I think I've seen everything a person can go through during ceremony so for me it's just sitting in a place of internal solidity like super grounded but at the same time very elevated you know but on the earth head in the clouds heart right in the middle of it all and I trust the medicine, I trust the songs I trust the music I trust my assistants and I trust the people that are in the room as well which is not always easy but I do because I know that if I'm in a good place 99.9% chance I'm going to take these people that have trusted me with their consciousness with their life really I'm going to take them from where they are to a very very very beautiful exquisite place that will help them to in the process of getting there to heal old wounds sometimes to heal the cause, the internal cause of illnesses that they may have at times to transform their lives heal relationships because all of these things have their roots inside so I'm trusting this experience I'm trusting my teachers I'm trusting the teachers going back to the first person in the jungle God bless him or her who mixed these two medicines together and drank it and had no tradition and no understanding what was going on and from there develop the songs and the music and everything else, thousands of years I think one of my teachers says 15,000 years we've been studying this medicine we have no idea what its limitations are other people will say well it's just been a few hundred years I don't buy it there's actually a new book out and Rob my partner can speak to it because he researches all of this and there's a brilliant book out that now has definitive scientific proof how old medicine is because they found it in vessels they were able to pull out and attest it in a lab and I know you'd probably be fascinated by this information and interestingly enough the academic who took up all this research actually never drank medicine before so he was pretty benign about whatever the results were going to be but he found a lot of things even in beer way back in the day so this is very ancient without a doubt if they found it in archeological diggings or runes or something like that that wasn't the first time it was ever on the planet it was like Chinese medicine the first Chinese medicine book was written thousands of years ago and it's so accurate and so advanced and so intense that of course the lineage of that existed for quite a long time and that book was even written so sometimes I feel like the medicine goes back 15-20 thousand years maybe more to when the people were first brave enough to live in the jungle environment in that tremendously vast pharmacy that is the Amazon jungle and learn the plants right and why the Amazon is so important and you know you bring up music and you told me a story not my first ceremony but down the road and fairly recently I would say in the last five months and you told me a story it was so meaningful to me because I shared something really intimate and you were really supporting me and encouraging me and I want to go there so you told the story about music and how you didn't have such a great relationship with music as a kid but here you are now this in my eyes very accomplished musician can you talk about that and what happened for you as a kid and then what it took for you to reopen to the magic of music sure this also is in the book commercial not out yet though my initial experience with music was the limited amount of music that I could hear on an a.m. radio or that the five or six records that my family owned that I could listen to maybe ten maybe two or three actually can't think of too many of them and then I was to learn to be a piano player and wasn't my instrument of choice but I studied music for several years I think from about six years old till about eight or nine years old when the music teacher looked at me and said you're never going to be a piano player and I was relieved because I really didn't like it of course like most people as an adult I wish I'd stayed with it you know but and then as far as singing goes I used to love to sing and my fourth or fifth grade music teacher Mrs. Sims one of the few people I remember her name we were testing out for the choir and so I sang she said you know you have the worst voice I've ever heard in the back of the room and pretend you're singing so that was it I never sang again that was it and I loved singing that was it and so years passed and somebody in high school I got a jaw harp you know snoopy jaw harp just not a very good instrument but I really love to play it and I love to listen to it and then one time shortly after high school this is a funny story I had been given some LSD and I was living in a group living situation up in Berkeley and I was 16 and looked like I was a lot older because I had a beard I like beards I had a beard and so somebody gave me a little tab of acid and I took the whole thing and his eyes popped open and he said that was four and a long story but I ended up at some point in my room barricading the doors hiding trying to understand what reality was and at some point I just plucked a hair from my head and stretched it and just went with the hair and it was such a great sound it was such a great sound that's like a hilarious story to me so that was my beginning of being a musician was playing a hair and a jaw harp very humble beginnings and at some point I was in a store and there were flutes there and I picked up a flute and discovered that I could play the flute already and it went on from there to this crazy collection of different instruments I have singing came to me pretty much when the medicine told me I was going to sing this teacher was full of it I mean you can sing yeah, yeah so sad about silencing you like that I went through something when I was a kid I started going to summer camp when I was 5 years old I know that's incredibly young but I did and I was an actress and a singer for most of my life and I also went to summer stock and I was so young and I went to a very reputable play house out on Long Island and at the end of the summer one of the main acting teachers would bring you into the theater and one by one talk to you about your talents and what you can make of yourself and give you suggestions where you might go my goodness I want to go out and hug that little girl because she walked into the theater and this man stood before her and said you have absolutely no talent like there's no reason for you to be pursuing this career I wouldn't even know what to do with you I wouldn't even know where to send you I just remember being so unbelievably crushed and of course you know screw him I went out to do it I went to USC, I graduated I did theater, I did film I did television and all of that but there's something about that very crushing moment when somebody takes your dream tries to silence your voice and your light and it's very strange and cruel and what's very interesting to me too about that is I noticed in college this is hindsight but in college there were people I would have said you know USC drama arts we had some incredibly talented people and yet there were people I would have picked out and said they'll never make it who are co-students of mine and they became some of the most famous people out there because it wasn't for them so much about the looks or the talent or whatever they had a kind of chutzpah about getting themselves out there and really pursuing and representing themselves and what did I know anyway so Music is kind of like a birthright we all have and I believe I have a friend from Australia and he says he's an aboriginal and he says if you can walk you can dance if your heart beats you have rhythm if you can talk you can sing you know it's true I mean talking itself is a form of singing and so what is the difference between regular music and an Icaros this is a really good question I'm not sure I can answer it I'll try an Icaro Icaro is a song that's traditionally used in the jungle during ceremonies they tend to be there's two different kinds of Icaros they'd be more than two but the two main ones are with the Shakapa which is a leaf rattle and then the ones that are done by the mainly Shepibo tribe which use only the voice and an Icaro is a song that interfaces the person leading the ceremonies experience and their wisdom with the power or the Maridi of the medicine and allows their voice to sing a song that affects changes in the people who are hearing it for example here's a tremendous story about this is I was once quite sick in the jungle it's a long story how I got quite sick in the jungle but I was quite sick in the jungle and having a severe cough and maybe some bronchitis and in ceremony one night I was starting to lose the ability to breathe I was like and I didn't say anything but the shaman called me up and sang a couple of his songs to me the Shepibo songs and I went back to my mat and sat down took a couple deep breaths and relaxed and thought it was really nice that I was sitting there and then I went wait a second there's no mucus in my lungs there's no congestion my throat doesn't hurt I'm okay and I was beforehand I was thinking I'm gonna have to get to the hospital because I was going into some distress with it and that would have been a bad idea because I was at least two or three hour walk into the jungle and at least two or three hour taxi ride to the hospital where I was so I wouldn't have made it but in the next day I said you know what did you do how did you do that and he said I just sang a song to your lungs oh that's so beautiful and all he was singing was stuff like if we translated it would be with the power of my medicine I'm cleaning your lungs I'm cleaning your sadness I'm cleaning you oh yeah because the lungs in Chinese medicine that's grief yeah in this case it was an actual infection I mean it was the works I have that acupuncture training so I could tell I was pretty sick but I didn't realize how sick I was until the ceremony started so in Icaros in a sense this is not something that's planned or written down but it may come through the shaman or whomever is leading that they can affect a change they can create a blessing move energy shift energy do some healing set an intention or something powerful for the room that's all Icaros I mean there are Icaros that a person will learn or experience the best ones come from yourself they're not songs that are you can go on to sacred valley tribe on the internet and find lots of Icaros that are other people's Icaros but the best ones come from within you and when I'm singing an Icaro what I notice is that I never sing it the same twice I have my songs I have my collection of songs that I've come up with over the years that have come through me over the years but they always change just a bit according to what's happening in the room according to what's happening to the person I'm singing them to and so technically I don't know what the exact translation of Icaro is or if it even has one my translation would be songs that heal songs that affect an emotional mental or physiological change in the person or room of people that they're being sung to my other analogy of Icaros and medicine songs which are more song like they're prettier they're usually song somebody else or you wrote that are written down that are the same each time but my analogy of Icaros in particular is like the world of Ayahuasca the territory of Ayahuasca is vast there's all three worlds heaven, earth, hell there's aliens there's astral beings there's gods and goddesses there's demons and devils and all of these astral things exist in this world of Ayahuasca so the analogy would be if you were to drop down in the midst of a city a huge city you know like like Lima for example huge city you don't know where you are first time there you don't know how to get there you don't speak the language assuming you don't speak Spanish of course but you don't speak the language you don't know what the good neighborhoods are what the bad neighborhoods are you don't know anything about it and you don't even know where you have to go to get out of it you don't know anything you're just there like and so the Icaro is what comes and takes your hand and guides you through that territory and takes you to where you want to go and during the course of a ceremony there'll be many Icaros many songs many different forms of music in my ceremonies and poetry but it's like each one has its experience each one has its universe each one has its level so in the beginning most of my songs are calling in the spirits of the medicines of the different plants it's calling in the power of ayahuasca calling in what we call the mariri the healing force the healing love of the medicine it has many different meanings but that's the one that I relate to the most it's stir things up to get rid of stuff that doesn't belong in people and then as the ceremony goes on the songs get more and more elevated you know it's like we're making our way through this realm of you know yucky vomiting and puking and all of this stuff that people are afraid and suddenly it's like well the songs take us through that into a beautiful place that's usually when I start doing the poetry because when I'm in a beautiful place with the medicine and the room is in a beautiful place and it's just like there's this beautiful stillness in it beautiful energy this beautiful vibration and then to hear the words of the mystics of the past is like you know yeah yeah here's my experience being put into words that somebody else put into words and there's a great deal of understanding with that and then as the night goes on the songs kind of like the girls get calmer and more into gratitude songs and kind of like oh we made it songs about water and songs about different things that are sweet songs a sweet song for me a sweet song in the beginning of the ceremony wouldn't work meaning the ceremony is really like we're here let's do some work let's get rid of this stuff that is blocking us from enjoying life good so that is perfect segue what about how much to drink somebody know I mean clearly we can check in we've got inner wisdom but in general how would you guide somebody to know do they take another cup do they take a third fourth cup do they stop after one how do we navigate those brewing waters yeah I mean that's my job is to choose what each person gets as far as doing ayahuasca on your own I don't recommend it I mean to me you're no but I mean I do mean in the context of working with a shaman or a ceremony facilitator absolutely that is where my heart lies certainly I want to be in a safe container yeah I mean when I'm pouring medicine for people I go by what I know about them like somebody who's been to three or four ceremonies with me is holding the medicine well doesn't freak out you know doesn't ask for help anymore and I start giving them more medicine stronger and I do leave it open for people to ask for strong and strong is strong strong few people ask for extra strong I have to know somebody really well to give them an extra strong dose most people I start off with a medium small dose mainly because I don't want them to get frightened for their first time you know I liken it to a first date you know first date ideally you meet at a restaurant for some coffee and you look in each other's eyes and you talk and you get to know the person you're with and then the second date and third date can get more serious if you want to, if you like them I find that medicine stays in me operational way longer than most people I've been in situations we're calling everybody in it's coming to an end and I'm like woo I'm still out there that's really also interesting to navigate as people are having conversations and they seem fully present and I'm still having an experience yeah it's physiology some people's bodies metabolize faster than others I'm usually already done by halfway and I need a little bit more so well what about heart feather where does that mean, what does that moniker come from and does it have heart feather comes from like a lot of my names have come from that I've used over the years is waking up in the middle of the night and having an oh heart feather of course and it comes from the Egyptian tradition Egyptian mythology where I believe it's Osiris when you die takes your heart out it's not Osiris it's somebody else I don't remember anyway bad Egyptian historian here anyway puts your heart on a scale one side of a balancing scale and a feather on the other and if your heart weighs more than the feather you don't get to go into heaven so the idea that your heart should be so light and so clean and so pure that a feather weighs more than your heart so that's where the name came from and let's talk about integration because so many it seems to me there's a lot of possibilities for ceremony not always the proper attention on assimilation and I think that's incredibly important to certainly been my experience the post ceremony what is your knowing about post ceremony what are your recommendations to do post ceremony yeah it's it's a good question a good a strong ceremony is like being born again not in the Christian sense of born again but like in really being born again and so how would you take care of a baby that was just born you know a baby that's just born you don't really want to give them a couple shots or a couple beers or you know put a joint in their mouth or give them some red hot peppers or you know give them a lot of deep fried food you want to like very gently nourish them into their new reality and so that's what I recommend for post ceremony is be gentle give yourself plenty of time to think to journal to eat gentle clean what would be called in yogic tradition satvic foods foods that are easy to digest foods that are delicious foods that are not fried and that are not salty and not hot no hot peppers and not a lot of oil or anything like that no pork no beef and let yourself have some days afterwards to be in nature if possible to sit with a potted plant on your patio if not and just to give yourself time to settle there's a new thing now a fairly new thing called integration circles where people get together and talk about things and I do provide that online for after ceremony for people about you know for the first many years I was involved in medicine work there was no such thing as integration circles I was like you figure it out and I did I managed to and most people that I know everybody that I know managed to so but the integration circles can be really helpful if a person is traumatized by the ceremony or if their stuff has been revealed or stirred up that they don't understand I'm a not skeptical of them but I don't think that it's of value to for example pick apart your visions what did this mean what did that mean I saw this and this and this what does it mean I don't think there's value in that in general unless what you saw or experienced was something that came from your real life for example if you discover a trauma that you didn't know was there I have for those you could need anything from an integration circle to you might need some psychotherapy to really work with it or some trauma release work some somatic work to really work with it I don't see ayahuasca as the heal all do all of everything for example I think in many cases it's better for giving a direction towards what to do to heal what to do to integrate you know like I used to smoke and I loved closed cigarettes and then they became illegal up here and I went to Peru and sitting at a restaurant and somebody walks by with a case of cigarettes selling them and there's the closed cigarettes so I started smoking them again and smoked and smoked and smoked and smoked way too many and I was sitting in ceremony one night and almost as though a station was turned on a television I found myself lying in a hospital bed with a respirator intubated tubes down my nose the monitor beeping behind me with a heart monitor beep beep beep and I died and then I usually don't recommend listening to voices telling you what to do but this voice came into my head and said if you smoke one more of those closed cigarettes this is your fate wow and I didn't want to test it by smoking another one I never smoked another one since so for me it was an integration circle to figure that out I didn't need a therapist to figure that out that was pretty clear I trust the medicine because it was good advice it wasn't like you should smoke ten packs more of those every day it was good advice I should quit we all know that and it was good advice and one more cigarette I didn't need to smoke one more cigarette maybe if it would kill me I didn't need to do that yeah it's a pretty clear message pretty clear message would one more cigarette have killed me I doubt it I do doubt that but I didn't want to find out yeah absolutely what grace bravo for really paying attention you Dr. Richard Grosman are currently involved in a mission very interesting about pursuing a gathering home can you talk about that what your dream is what your vision is what kind of deep needs it can fulfill what is it that you see this being and what is your greatest desire around it yeah yeah I mean I've kind of like have shifted everything into finishing this book right now first priority but you know as you know I've had this desire to have a space for the heart feather sanctuary which is what I'm calling our gathering our church our community you know I love the word sanctuary the heart feather sanctuary as a place that would be dedicated to doing deep work dedicated to doing deep medicine and healing work for people ideally a place where people could come and stay for a week or two or three or four and go into deep inner work and deep medicine work and a place where the community can gather obviously post COVID but a place where the community can gather and so that's that's really my vision and dream for it you see this being in California or is are you open to location I'm open to just about any ideas right now or any you know I'm paying attention to what is available and I'm keeping my eyes open and at some point it'll be clear to me right now it's not clear to me so I'm not acting yet mm-hmm okay so a community home base I love that idea and of course I know about these in other countries but not so much here so yeah there there's not a lot of it happening here there's a few places mm-hmm but you know I see it as as really a sanctuary one of my dreams long term you know initially I wanted to get some property in Baja and turn it into a community retreat location where people could come and really you know not for tons and tons of money but people who needed to heal could come to heal I mean I've unfortunately you know like anybody else who works with people there have been people who have come to me for help that have not made it and you know one person a year after their last ceremony we lost contact they didn't come back they committed suicide and what would have happened if they'd had a place to come to you know I can look at many of the musicians and stars and stuff that have overdosed or committed suicide what would have happened if they had a place where they could really go into their heart and learn their heart and experience the healing beauty that plant medicines have to offer mm-hmm I think it can change maybe not change the world in a big sense but certainly be one of the drops of water going into the ocean of change that can help humanity to heal and in the meantime something you do remotely I find really fascinating is Aiching yes so casting a casting of the sticks so to say tell me about that what are people who have a session with you an Aiching session to ask a question what's possible there what do people receive what is allowed in that realm Aiching is a tool for re-establishing connection to the Tao to the way to harmony to inner harmony and to outer harmony so my feeling is that outer disharmony almost always originates in inner disharmony if we were clear really when you're incredibly happy when everything is flowing when there's all of the steps on Maslow's pyramid are being fulfilled you don't think about what do I need to do you're doing it your life is in harmony and balance there's abundance things are flowing and then there's times where things get out of harmony through no fault maybe maybe there just something happened something went wrong someplace in China they call being in that harmonious state having the mandate of heaven heaven's grace is upon you and when the kingdom when the emperor when the emperor had the mandate of heaven there was no famine there were no floods there was no war there was no civil strife there was no hunger people were in harmony and joy and maybe this never really existed maybe it's just mythology is that when you have that mandate of heaven everything is good when you lose the mandate of heaven when the ruler is bad make the connections you would ever like to make here there's famine there's hunger there's civil strife there's climate change you know there's all of the things that are going wrong in the world right now because the world is out of harmony interesting so it just makes sense to me that this is how it is you know and because the world is out of harmony we're trying to fulfill ourselves by using methods that will never satisfy there's the idea of the hungry ghost in buddhism which is a spirit that has infinite desire to eat infinite hunger just will consume and consume and consume but it has a mouth the size of a pea it can never fulfill itself it can never be fulfilled so we don't have mouths the size of peas fortunately but that hunger that we have we started talking about it in the beginning what is that thirst that desire you know if that's not fulfilled then we look to the wrong medicine to treat our inner disease accumulating excessive wealth doing things that are bad for us you know everything that goes wrong with the human being can be traced back to that inner disharmony so the iching is a tool for speaking to that inner disharmony and giving guidance on how to correct what's going on inside sometimes outside to bring a person back into harmony and like any other tool it's going to give you advice and information well it's not like any other tool because the iching is pretty unique but it'll give you advice and information and then it's up to you what you do with it it's not going to an iching is not going to a psychic who tells you you're going to meet somebody next week and everything is going to be good and you give them lots of money and next week comes and nothing happens you know it's not like that kind of thing this is giving you a guidance an internal map of what you need to do to get your life back into alignment and you know surprisingly sometimes it'll tell people like what are you worrying about what are you doing this for your life is already great just trust what's going on trust who you are other times it'll be something like well what you're doing right now if you keep on doing this you're going to end up dead and they don't mean necessarily physically dead but if you're going totally in the wrong direction like how many times do people fall in love with the wrong person and spend years obsessing about it and even lose their health even lose their joy for their life at that point the iching would say something like you know what you are doing will not further you stop turn around go back find yourself and there's a very mathematical system there's 64 different hexagrams they call it each hexagram deals with a very specific aspect of life and in great detail with mythology behind it with understanding even with understanding the characters helps a lot as well and of those 64 there's six variations possible six different lines or six different possibilities so it's like it works out to 528 different readings possible using the sticks to cast it and lots based on the interpretation and how you hear it but it's a marvelous tool for inner exploration and for bringing your life back into harmony and what a great time for people to reach out to you for a session like that boy if ever hello I think Richard I once heard you say that ayahuasca is an internal pest purgative does that ring a bell what did you mean by that I was pretty fascinated what's known in the jungle is that the ayahuasca vine itself will act as a vermouthuge has something that will expel intestinal parasites wow so in certain much of the jungle culture the non-tribal jungle culture they will drink ayahuasca for the specific purpose of purging and of getting their intestines cleaned out and consider any visions or any other experience to be just an annoyance they have to put up with it's hilarious uh-huh 3 for 1 deal there yeah but it works if you've ever been to the amazon around the cities people poop into the rivers and then get a bucket and get water out of the river to drink and people throw their garbage into it and it's full of parasites and bacteria and all matter of things so they get a lot of intestinal parasites there and this gives them some relief for a while from the parasites we can use some ayahuasca when you go to india too oh yeah that would be a good thing to have in your toolbox I could tell you some india story about well richard this is dare to dream what do you next dare to dream what are your future dreams and goals uh get my book written published and hopefully have people's lives deeply affected by the reading of it and uh I have a desire a couple of desires I want to go back to uh parts of europe where I had communities that I've been able to visit for a year and redo or start to do ceremonies in those places again and uh I very much want to go to India and spend just some time walking around india experiencing it feeling and I was there when I was 18 and it feels like I've gone through a very long cycle of my life and I want to go back there while I still can thoroughly enjoy it and take lots of pictures I'm a photographer as well oh so that's another most people don't know that about you you don't know that about you interesting where can we see your photography is it up anywhere uh eyes of the heart dot zenfolio dot com eyes of the heart dot zenfolio dot com fantastic is there anything you'd like to tell people here at the end yeah you know we've been talking about ayahuasca a lot there's other plant medicines of course there's you know mushrooms which are gaining a lot of recognition as a treatment for depression there's san paedro and peyote which are very much the energetic opposite of ayahuasca that they're masculine and strong and bright and ayahuasca is kind of jungly and feminine and mysterious that's why I like her um there's a lot of different things be very aware and conscious of who you participate in ceremony with especially with ayahuasca uh there are many people who are not competent to lead ceremonies that are leading ceremonies mainly out of a desire to make easy money and that to me is a tragedy you know we have the example with the so-called qanon shaman of somebody who has seemingly abused psychedelics and um you know be very very careful let your heart really guide you as to who you are open to and let your intellect and reason and logic really see if this is the right person to trust your soul to because you are and um better to be cautious and do due diligence before just jumping into a ceremony all ceremonies are not the same all ceremony leaders are not the same all ceremony leaders do not necessarily have the ability to lead a good ceremony and even if they studied with a shaman in the jungle some of them don't have the soul or the heart that it takes so look for what resonates with your heart if something doesn't feel right trust that feeling it's a very important thing that you know I could really go into a lot more but uh don't just you know jump into the first ayahuasca ceremony you hear about yes be careful I'm so glad you brought that up really important uh self care right at the beginning about who you choose and why you choose and that they really are well well schooled and versed ready to properly facilitate you know what they're doing and that you know even that the medicine is really good especially in these times with you know I don't want to see a ceremony turn into a super spreader event and so I have not done any ceremonies since the pandemic started and there are some people who it's like the ayahuasca will protect us no no no no no no no no be logical be sensible ayahuasca is a plant two plants Richard thank you so much it's been such an honor and a pleasure to spend this time with you and and thank you for all the places and spaces you were willing to go thank you feels like we scratch the surface yeah so much more curiosity and maybe there will be more have you back this year that would be awesome um if you would like to find out more about him absolutely go to heartfeather.com as you can hear he is doing the ayaching sessions and I'm so excited about your book and I end the show with this quote from Christopher Columbus you can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore subscribe to this number one transformation conversation you can find us on youtube.com slash debbie dashinger on apple podcast and every major podcast site next week I have Stephanie James coming to the show she is a psychotherapist and a published author with over 30 years in mental health she's a podcast host and host of the spark summit a gathering of today's thought leaders in psychology spirituality and science remember to tell your friends and family about the Dare to Dream program share this show with someone you know will love it and benefit from it and don't just dare to dream dare to make all your dreams into your reality