 You know it's it's a total trip for me to be up here because when I was young The biggest fear I had was public speaking. I began having the this experience in 1981 that got me in a lot of trouble at first and So I'll just tell the story. I'll tell the first story to kind of segue into what I want to talk about So I had been I had experienced this incredible trauma and I didn't understand that there's a real correlation between trauma and some form of awakening and so I was in my you know in my Sort of I think I was 23 24 something like that and I just went inwards into because I quickly figured out that I couldn't figure my way out of my pain and suffering with my mind and And so then I just stepped back and just began to watch what was happening in you know, just in just on the inside of me and That was that was the only thing that actually made me feel better so I began doing that for hours and hours a day and and then what happened after months and months maybe 20 months something like that of doing that hours and hours a day I Got hit by this this this lightning bolt but it wasn't from the sky it just ignited inside of my brain and What happened next so within that next day, I had a friend I was living in the Bay Area and I had a friend who was out, you know, we were hanging out. He came he was in the East Coast and Where I'm originally from case you can't figure that out and That next day I began acting so unlike my ordinary sort of domesticated condition repressed self That he thought I was just having this total like breakdown and The experience that I was having was I all of a sudden was having the realization. Oh my god This is a dream. We're having a this this mass shared dream And I felt like I was on the cutting edge of actually this you know talk about The big bang I felt like I was totally on the Forefront of that and I was acting so ecstatic which is to you know, not be just stuck in my own Self but really in the state of fluidity That like I said my friend thought I was having a total breakdown psychotic break and brought me to a hospital and I remember being brought by hospital via this ambulance and And what happened next changed my life forever, I mean it was walking was like walking through a portal and What happened was as follows I get brought in Highland Hospital, Oakland, California May 1981. It's nighttime. They bring me into the psych ward and They bring me so I right away go into and there's this room where all the psychiatric patients are like this lounge and I walk in and I immediately see this woman and she's blind her eyes are totally opaque She has you know, it's clear. She can't see just like a blind person's eyes and Without any thought at all. I just find myself just drawn to her and I go up to her and As if being given these lines to say as if I had a script I Began saying the words all you have to do to see is open your eyes and look and I kept on Reciting those words getting closer and closer to her as I was staring at her eyes and the whole thing took under a minute and she regained her sight and Then as if you know just the timing was perfect then the doctor came with these attendants and took me and They put me in another room and I spent the night Just sort of like with whatever like chains or something just strapped up on a bed and you know, I didn't get a typical night's sleep that night you can imagine and It was clear to me as I was reflecting upon what had just happened that wow I'm having like some form of awakening and So then I began thinking, you know the subjective experience that I was having was that well Anybody I would think about I was actually in my imagination Bringing with me on the awakening. So I began thinking about all my friends and People I knew and then I just began expanding the vision to till it got to the point of the entire world and every being on You know in the whole universe okay, so the next morning they unstrap me and They put me in a room. I'm sitting at this desk and coincidentally the only other person in the room is that person is that blind woman who's now no longer blind and She's not saying anything to me at all She just has the biggest smile on her face as she's looking at me and all of a sudden my heart chakra just blossomed And and then I understood what had happened. It was like, oh, I get it Her eyes were physically fine, but inwardly she wasn't letting herself look and Somehow I kind of almost like this clairvoyant part of me sort of saw that in a very eye-opening way so to speak and and Then you know even I don't think that but maybe a long time after that I had the realization Wow So she was this blind part of me that wasn't letting myself look It was almost like, you know She was the embodiment of like a reflection of a part of me that I was helping to see and She was at the point in her process of being able to heal her blindness And I was sent by like, you know, sensual casting you could say to just play the role and say my lines It was almost like I had been preparing for a number of, you know Centuries or lifetimes or something for that moment Then so keep in mind she hadn't she hadn't said one word to me and all of a sudden she says to me Aren't you going to answer the phone call from your father and she says my father's name? and And my father's the one I have all my stuff with you know, and So then within seconds as you know into the room walks this nurse and says my father's on the phone Because my parents had just found out that I had had this psychotic break from reality So that was the start of my career in a way And I got out of that hospital after three days because the doctor in charge of me He reflected that I had to show him that I wasn't insane or he was going to keep me there for a really long time So, you know up until that point I just so to have an experience like that. You just so Let go I didn't care at all that I was in the hospital, but then when I reflected wow I don't think I want to stay here for a really long time. I mean, it's you know, it's May It's really nice outside. So I completely forced myself down out of my expansive state and began talking about my problems and all that and He said fine. You can you can go, you know And it was funny because I actually got together with the doctor and so so I get out of that hospital all of my friends who were just You know, they were like, you know consensus in the consensus like reality They were completely convinced, you know that I'd have this psychotic break and they didn't want to hear anything about like when I was Trying to explain to them in my excitement What had happened? They just weren't you know weren't into it to put it mildly, but um And then that next week I got together with the doctor because I called him up and I said look Can we get together for you know, like a meal just I wanted to tell him what had happened And it was interesting what he reflected back. He says, you know How come I actually let you go the fact that you were able to be fluid between the states? If you were really insane, you wouldn't have been able to just step into you know Your typical identity and then I told him about what happened with the blind woman and he got incredibly uncomfortable And he said oh we can't talk about it patient confidentiality Whatever and keep in mind that if I was in my typical mind I definitely would have gotten her name and number just to sort of you know as some sort of evidence that I wasn't just Out of my mind, but in a way that I want to say that I actually Was out of my mind in one of the ways that I've actually over the course of time described what happened to me is that I Stepped out of my mind in the sense out of my conceptual cognitive Mind and I had the realization that I was actually inside of my mind Just like when you have a dream and you recognize you're dreaming What you recognize is that the entire dream is just your own energy Projected out as the dream that you're actually inside the psyche and that what's actually happening in the seemingly outer world is a Synchronistic reflection of what's actually happening inside of us So that's what I was beginning to understand and of course This is in 1981 so I hadn't developed the fluency or the language like you know Whereas I actually write books about this stuff now But it was um That was not the end of it because during that next year I was out in the world I wasn't in a container. I wasn't in like an ashram or a monastery I was just out in the world and I was having you know this complete this unbelievable awakening where stuff began happening That was physically impossible that wasn't supposed to be happening in this third-dimensional reality and So maybe about three four or five six other times. I don't really know I got thrown in hospitals and told oh You are mentally ill. You're officially mentally ill. We're we're initiating you into a new career as a mental patient And I just thought they were out of their mind I was like and I would reflect back to them that I thought that which just confirmed to the psychiatrist How crazy I was in a in a feedback loop that was really like you know not not not so cool It was crazy, and it was difficult. I mean so that was really so then the final hospital was in 82 and You know in my experience at that moment was oh wow I Was having a spiritual awakening and the hospitalizations and the psychiatric You know the system really aborted and shut down my awakening which from one point of view is very true but over the course of time I began to have the realization That oh The psychiatric hospitalizations were actually part of the awakening that was almost like this a shamanic descent into the underworld Okay, now going back to that blind woman thing I didn't realize at the time but encoded in that you see one of the things that happens when you see that This is all a dream is you can interpret your experiences in waking life as if it's a dream and dreams speak symbolically Okay, and so when at a certain point in my life So right after though that you know the final mental hospital I was I mean it was it was so traumatic because that on top of having the trauma and the trauma had to do with my father You know just emotional abuse and all this stuff then on top of that I had you know the psychiatric trauma and so I was in deep trouble. I mean just inwardly. I was really really suffering and Then I began having night after night these incredible like These dreams that I couldn't ignore and they were just over the top So it really propelled me into really connecting with dreams and studying dreams and all that stuff and Then I began having the dreams where I was recognizing that I was dreaming and had lucidity and and That that really blew my mind that was an experience of a whole different order But just to go back to that blind woman Vignette for a moment. I Didn't understand this at the time, but you know a number of years later when I would contemplate it I had the understanding that encoded in that vignette with the blind woman Was the seed and the source of my entire work that I now do for my life Because what I've sort of developed is a way of Bringing people together who were tuned in to the dreaming to that we are having a mash our dream We're all dream characters in each other's dreams. We're all dreaming up. What's actually happening moment by moment not only just like if you're with one person but like All of us right here in this auditorium or the all seven billion of us on this planet We're actually dreaming up moment by moment what is happening and So in that experience with that blind woman in sort of encoded or hidden in it was actually it was showing me that and So I've been over the course of time decoding that more and more and more and mapping and articulating that and You know that brings me into so one of the things I do is I have all these circles of people all throughout the week because I'm here in Portland and It's people who are to whatever degree are having Awareness or experience of that we're dreaming and that we're having a collective dream and that there's a way of actually Hanging out together, which is it's not fabricated. There's no technique, but there's a way of following our experience Via the medium of us being together and just being related to each other There's a way of actually being together and following that and configuring ourselves Such that we help each other to wake ourselves up and that's what my work is about and And it's something that You know, it's totally It's accessible for all of us for all of you know every the all seven billion of us and it's what I call to dream ourselves awake That we can actually reflect and inquire into the nature of our experience together So that we actually dream ourselves awake so that we deepen our lucidity and stabilize our lucidity and have and we conspire To co-inspire each other. It's a true conspiracy theory, which means to actually Breathe together so we can conspire to co-inspire to dream ourselves awake and what you discover Or what can be discovered and keep in mind it's an endlessly deepening discovery is that You know that whole idea of we are the Messiah the idea of that we're you know hoping that Christ or the Messiah comes down or something That's external to us. No, that's that's not quite it. The point is is that the self the You know the true nature is Incarnating and it's not just incarnating through one of us It's incarnating through all of us and it's incarnating through our unconscious through our blind spot So that we act out Compulsively and if we don't have awareness of this archetypal transpersonal higher-dimensional energy Will act out in a self-destructive way so What my current book is about There's an indigenous term Let me show you the book Some of you probably seen me. I'm out in the hall with the book and What what Tico what Tico is a Native American indigenous term and it actually means the spirit of evil and indigenous shamans and Native American people have been tracking this for a number of years for centuries and What and I can just talk for me what I'm continually like discovering in my own life is as I more awaken and Get like kind of connected or being able to transduce light That the light it doesn't mean anything unless it makes the darkness Conscious unless it helps you to see in the dark The whole idea that you know one becomes in light and not by just imagining the light But by actually making the darkness conscious, that's a young has a famous quote like that and the idea is this is that When there's great darkness, it's an expression that there's incredible light nearby that's casting that shadow and so one of the big mistakes I see with a lot of like, you know spiritual people is That they're very into The light they don't even want to talk about any darkness They don't want it because in there there's you know the story they have in themselves Is oh if I focus on the darkness it's going to feed it and that's true on one level But what will feed it even more is that if out of fear you avoid the darkness and you don't look at it and become Blind to the darkness That actually feeds the darkness, but if you see the darkness and Don't become just overly like attached to it or fascinated by it or identified with it But if you see it then you can choose. Oh, how do I want to place my attention? What about now that I see you I can choose to place my attention over here and create the world that I want to live in That's different than just looking away from it out of avoidance Okay, now What I talk about in the book is that encoded in this darkness in the shadow and think about the shadow It's not just a personal shadow, but it's also like more of this collective shadow That if we don't so here's the thing with with what Tico it operates through the unconscious blind spot of us through the psyche Compelling us to act out in ways that are self-destructive One way of describing it. It's that it's a psychic. It's a blindness a psychic blindness think of the blind woman a psychic blindness that actually Believes it's it's not that she believed this but it's a psychic blindness that that that has a belief that it's not only sighted But arrogantly believes that it's more sighted than anybody else. That's what Tico in a nutshell okay, and but what I'm pointing out in the book is that so it's like this this like Sort of like a tapeworm where a tapeworm gets in you and And it'll inject chemicals where you crave food that feeds the tapeworm so it grows and it kills the host which is you It's a it's a psychic tapeworm what Tico and And it feeds on our unawareness of it It flavors our perception so that we don't see it We see through its lens out in the world, but we don't see how it Actually distorts our perception and when you begin to see it It can't stand that because then it becomes out of business Because when you see how this kind of like darker spirit that operates through the unconscious actually compels you To become its instrument When you see that you take away its omnipotence and its autonomy and it can't act itself out through you anymore So what I'm pointing out in the book is that encoded in the what Tico virus is a blessing That's actually helping us to wake up because the what Tico virus is showing us the dreamlike nature of reality So here it is it's like a quantum phenomena, you know like is light a waiver a particle Well, it depends. How do you observe it right same thing with like what Tico is? It killing us is it going to destroy our species is it going to take down, you know the entire The biosphere or is it going to wake us up? Well, it depends how we gonna how how are we going to actually dream the dream? Okay, because the thing about what Tico is that It actually plugs in where all these like in a sense geniuses In the sense that we have a genius for creating reality and the what Tico will plug into our creative genius in a way that turns against ourselves an Example say if you're in a dream if you're in a night dream, right and you're holding a particular Perspective in that night dream Keeping in mind that what is a night dream, but it's just a reflection of Your own mind So if in that dream if you all of a sudden change your viewpoint in the dream the dream has no choice But to shapeshift spontaneously shapeshift and reflect back the change in viewpoint in no time Outside of time faster than the speed of light it does that and That's not just in a night dream. That's in the waking dream, too So if we hold a particular point of view and if we have this universe solidified in any particular way Being like a dream this world will Instantaneously shapeshift and reflect back our viewpoint Confirming to us at least in our imagination now we have all the evidence To prove to us that our viewpoint is correct So then we get entrenched even more in our viewpoint and the more entrenched in our viewpoint We get the more the universe just reflects that back in a feedback loop that happens outside of time in such a way that We've tricked ourselves and our own Genius for reality creation is getting turned against us in a way. That's not serving So what my whole work? which started 30 years ago more in that Psych you know in that psych unit with that blind woman is trying to show people when you bring people together Who are waking up to the dream-like nature and that includes yourself? That we're all these dream-like beings that when you try to find out who you are as an actual Independent intrinsically existing entity What you find is very interesting because you don't really find anything of substance In the same way with the outside with the world that side. It's all very fluid and impermanent and It's a function of consciousness. So when you bring people together who are tuned in and turned on to that to the dream-like nature You can actually change the dream and that's evolution. That's what's available to us as a species And this isn't just some sort of theory You know, oh, it sounds great, but you know like I was saying I have these these circles of people and You know it happens You know all throughout the weekend right here in Portland and then it brings it brings up the idea of What you discover is that who we are are these artists with these multi-dimensional artists whose canvas is this universe and So I've actually I've been um, you know creating and you're all invited to join in there's no there's there's not any membership fee There's full benefits. I'm helping to create because it's not just me it has to be a collective creation It's called an art happening called global awakening in which More and more of us actually are waking up and what you wake up to is that we're not separate You snap out of the spell. It's really like a spell that we exist as these These isolated entities that are separate from each other and that are in competition with each other But when you are in a dream and you wake up in the dream you realize oh wow We're actually dream characters who are actually interconnected interdependent parts of one another and We can actually that we're all on the same side and we can actually help each other to awaken so that's in a way the art happening called global awakening and The way to really even get a deeper understanding of that is through the imagination because what you discover is That every moment of our experience is a function of our imagination So just imagine for a moment if we can invoke the imagination what I call like, you know the sacred imagination or called a whole number different terms but um just imagine you're in a dream and Imagine you you recognize you're in a dream. You have lucidity. You've stabilized the lucidity, right and then just imagine That so what happened for me? So that was my experience basically, you know in 81 But I hadn't integrated it and I hadn't you know developed any sort of skill in in Transmitting my realization without completely freaking people out Um, but imagine then in that dream that you've just woken up in you've recognized It's all your own mind You're recognizing. Oh all the other characters in the dream or aspects of me just a dream characters and Then imagine that you meet somebody else in the dream who also has lucidity and You hang out and you share notes and you contemplate what you've discovered. Oh my god This is a dream. This is all our own mind We're all dreaming this up and more and more and more so then you meet like another character And then there's 10 or 20 or a hundred of the dream characters in the dream that are having this realization What you discover is that you can change the dream you can put your sacred power of Dreaming together in a way where you can change the dream you're having and That's what's available to us as a species in our waking dream you know and The thing which is interesting is I was talking about making the shadow making that you know this the the shadow conscious Built in it's almost like a mathematical equation built into The whole system and I imagine this is just my imagination But we've probably all experienced this that as we get closer to the light The actual dark gets even more you know ferocious or intense or whatever it's almost like it's invested in us not waking up and So it's interesting because in one way one way that I found this that I discovered this in my own life was So here I had mentioned the whole origin of my process was this deep Trauma from my father who wound up being really kind of like you know a real psychopath But People didn't know that but I was the one I was the only child who was like you know sensing something and pointing at it and Didn't understand that that's not a very popular like a voice enough in a system and what I what I understood Was as I was trying to shed light on the darkness that was coming through my father and was playing out in the family That the entire family system including not just my mother and the relatives, but my friends and then the mental health system They all conspired to protect the abuser and I couldn't believe it, but it was you know the more I was mapping that the more I was like having the realization Oh my god, there's like this not a A non-local Protection record the word non Local is a physics term that basically means it transcends third dimensional space and time So there was like a higher dimensional process that was that was elaborating itself through the field through the non-local field Such that whenever light was trying to come in it seemed to be protecting the dark Now that seems to be an expression of something really like evil and dark and sinister and from one point of view That's true, but when you actually see that when you actually see how the field is is is like Doing that in protecting the darkness. That's actually Can help you to wake up to the non-local field? So what seemed to be evil would seem to be darkness is actually the very thing that's helping you to wake up It's the darkness itself that actually wakes you up in a certain way And so one of the expressions if not the expression of This understanding that I'm talking about when you have the realization of the dreamlike nature and that we can Actually help each other to dream ourselves awake and And you begin to realize that this world is dreaming itself awake through us that we're the instruments like I was saying We are the Messiah and when we it's just simply having that recognition of that and Stabilizing that and not forgetting just like it's the same thing when you're in a dream You can have the recognition that you're dreaming that's not hard But it's so easy to get absorbed back into the form so the dream and forget But when you stabilize that realization and particularly when you hang out with other people And you will help each other to stabilize that that understanding then an incredibly strong field gets conjured up That more and more begins to attract the rest of the universe into itself and that's what's available to us and the energetic expression of this understanding is Compassion Because what you begin to see like and how I know this from my own experience even though I feel like such a beginner In that I feel like I have such a ways to go to more cultivate compassion You know for parts of myself or other people who really trigger me or whatever But how I understood this the first dream I ever had In which I had the recognition that I was dreaming as Soon as I recognized that I was dreaming and this was 30 years ago or something like that I spontaneously without even thinking about it began chanting a mantra That I did that it was I didn't even really know this mantra and the mantra was all money pay me home You probably know what it's the mantra of compassion And and then the second time I had loose you know became had had lucidity in the dream same thing As soon as I recognized I was dreaming it was like this deeper part of me Oh money pay me home. Oh money pay me home And I just began chanting that and radiating out compassion and love for all beings in the dream Who I was having the recognition were just aspects of me and I didn't understand at the time that in Tibetan Buddhism They'll talk about that when you have awakening. It's always the co-joining of two factors of what's called emptiness and Compassion and emptiness. That's the lucidity. That's that's having the recognition that this world you're in is not separate from your own Consciousness that it doesn't exist separately from your own mind So from that point of view Right now we're having a dream and you are all like dreaming me up here Moment by moment to say whatever it is. I'm saying because people were you know before the talk they were saying they were they were saying to me so what are you going to talk about and I would say well, I have no idea really You know, I mean it's because it's way more interesting for me that way seeing what's going to come out of me Then if I had something prepared and the interesting thing is I was talking about how we're all artists And I was talking about the darkness in the the watiko in the evil and just etymologically this all ties together because The word diamond the diamond it actually is the guiding spirit or the inner voice That's what the word means and it's related to the word genius Which is related to the word genie as an I dream of genie the old TV show That's related to the word calling to hear voice and vocation So the point is is that if you honor your diamond, which is sort of like this transpersonal spirit It's like that voice that can potentially be you know The source of guidance and inspiration if you if you get in relationship with that diamond and honor it You'll find your genius Your calling You'll find your voice. You'll find your vocation But if you turn away from that diamond Say if it's telling like for me at a certain point my diamond was telling me Oh, I'm an artist or I'm a healer or you know And if I would have turned away from that and said, oh, I can't do that I can't make a living. I have to get a day job that I don't like and I'll just whatever What what happens when you turn away from the diamond it becomes a demon Okay, but if you actually honor what the diamond is showing you in telling you It like I said, it may it helps you to find your genius your vocation. You're calling all those things your inner voice and One of the Young was asked about the the diamond and the diamond the diamond. I can see it's very interesting It's a transpersonal archetypal energy So it's not a personal energy. It's an energy that takes Over a person or a group of people or a nation or a species and they become the instrument through which that Diamond that higher-dimensional archetypal transpersonal energy acts itself out and The Dymonic according to young Encoded in the Dymonic is the not yet made real creative So the point is is that to the extent that any of us can actually tap into The part of us that's the creative artist in whatever medium it doesn't make a difference. What medium we use That in a way is in the service of connecting with our diamond and our genius and our vocation and our calling and all those things And how we can actually help each other because what you discover when you wake up in a dream By not being separate by being interconnected and interdependent is that if I help you if I'm serving you In some way I get as much benefit as you do because we're not separate and that's a whole new sort of way of Seeing the world and seeing ourselves and the thing about What I write about in my book what Tico is that so it's a spirit of evil And I'm not making any metaphysical claims because I'm not a metaphysician in that way I'm just saying in the psychological realm It's it's not even a question that there is something called evil that get we all play it out every day in different ways But what what I'm the point I want to make at this moment is that that what Tico actually To the extent that we don't see it it can inspire us to in a compulsive way act out whether it's addictions or habitual patterns Or there's limited identity or self-destructive behavior that doesn't serve us, but it also Plays itself out collectively on the world stage so the what Tico virus is actually informing what's actually happening in the world and Contiguous with that manifestation of what Tico on the world stays on the world stage is that it's showing us It's actually revealing to us that we're dreaming, but only if we have eyes to see you know and then that's why the importance of Actually hanging out with other people who are also having awakenings What one of my favorite definitions of the word bodhisattva in Buddhism is a being in the process of Awakening and who among us is not in the process of awakening We're all these bodhisattvas in training and what you discover is that we can actually hook up with each other and get in Sinking in phase and hang out with each other in a way we can help each other to deepen our realization That's why in in Buddhism They'll talk about the the jewel the three jewels the Buddha Dharma sangha the teacher the teaching and the community and the Buddha literally says One of the most important supports for enlightenment is the community is who you hang out with he actually says don't hang out with fools Hang out with other people who are also plugged in to the dream-like nature What the word Buddha literally means is he who is awakened to the dream? So, you know, it's it's really kind of a very creative situation because when people ask me well What is this art happening called global awakening? I? Don't know what to say except I'll say to them. Well, what what is your imagination? How do you if you were to wake up in the dream right now? Fully and utterly wake up and have lucidity right now in this dream What would you do how would you dream the dream and I would like to suggest that It probably you probably wouldn't be fully satisfied until every being on the planet gets it until we all wake up and That's the whole idea of the bodhisattva in Buddhism is that they they've woken up They've attained enlightenment. They're they're about to enter to Nirvana and then they look back and they see all their fellow suffering brothers and sisters and They what they've woken up to is that oh my god, they're all not separate from me Here these are the parts of me that are still asleep that are still under the spell That's when they make the the whole the the the bodhisattva vow of I'm not gonna enter Nirvana until I bring everybody else there first and Like I'll be like I've been saying we're all these bodhisattvas and I want to combine that with like being a shaman because The archetype of the shaman Typically gets constellated when there's like a deep disturbance in the psyche when there's abuse a wounding trauma That constellates the archetype of the shaman because then what happens we're split a part of us is disassociated So that activates the part this other part of us to go in search of ourselves. That's the journey the shamanic journey and Typically the shaman when they get called it's not something you ever decide consciously Oh, I'm gonna go to shaman graduate school or I'm just gonna take a workshop and become a shaman No, you get called by the spirits and If the would-be shaman or bodhisattva or healer like fill in the blank If they when they get called if they don't assent and agree to the calling That's when they get really sick to the point where they can really go go totally out of their minds and even die But if you actually subscribe and sign on and say okay I'm gonna follow this deeper process that I've gotten sort of enlisted into Then you discover that the same energy That that all of a sudden you'll be starting to get exactly what you need for help allies or Students or clients or customers or teachings or whatever because the same energy that was the sponsor of The actual initiation of being wounded is The same sponsor It's the same source that sends you exactly what you need But what it needs in order to do that is for you to assent and say yes and co-operate with that deeper calling And so typically when a shaman gets called it looks like they're having this breakdown Because their whole constitution their whole inner constitution is being deconstructed so as to be re sort of You know kind of creatively Designed in a whole new way or engineered and and part of the shaman as I think all of you know is in always involves a descent into the underworld Into the unconscious into the dark But then if you're able to not get caught in that and the shaman also takes on the illness of The person they're working with or the tribe or the community and they literally get sick themselves But if they're able to not stay stuck in that stickness and actually are able to Come out the other side, you know typically they're presented as oh then they have incredible blessings or gifts for the community and What I'm why I'm talking about the shaman who's related to the bodhisattva is that we're all shamans in training and Don't think of our you know like the old shamans their implements might be rattles or drums Maybe our implements might be like a video camera or a keyboard of a computer you know and the bodhisattva and shamans it's totally related to like there's a archetype of the wounded healer and That's something that I know really really well because of Having this profound wound that I got from my father We're free long long time. I would be blaming him and oh if only he didn't do this and more and more of understood Oh, well that this is my initiation. This was somehow from the cosmic point of view my way to get introduced To this deeper non-local field to that we're dreaming and the archetype of the wounded healer is but it's not by going around The wound but by going through the wound that the wounded healer gets their gifts and is able to actually be with other people in their wound in a way where they can be of benefit for people So that you know the whole point is is that we're all wounded healers were all bodhisattvas were all shamans were all having awakenings and We can actually hang out with each other support each other in a way that helps all of us to awaken and that and that's like totally mind-blowing because Instead of it being a competitive thing It's actually something that we all have access to right now you know so Yeah, it's too bad like you know, I don't have there's not a space, you know for it to happen You know during this conference, but just let me share with these groups. I have and I'm wanting to get these out to the world I mean we've been wanting the people there are people in the groups for 15 years for 12 10 years in The sense that there is something that's so amazing when you bring people together who were actually Turned on to that. We're dreaming in a way that it's like a psychedelic it's like going into a flotation tank and having an altered state and But what I'm talking about is that the actual the medicine or the the the vehicle is in you know necessarily a substance or something, but it's actually just there's a way of configuring ourselves relative to each other that Is incredibly helpful for all of us that creates this win-win