Birdsong with Caiyuda

Planetary Human Vision Keys & The Astronaut Overview Effect | Richard Whitehurst (2020)

Richard Henry Whitehurst from Season 1 (2020).
Richard is an Educator, Ericksonian Psychotherapist, Transpersonal Hypnotherapist, published author, and an international speaker, having been involved in meditation, transformation, and helping others expand their awareness since 1970.
He has roughly 30 years of clinical experience when it comes to therapeutic trance states and heart-centring orientations to heal trauma, increase emotional maturity, gain freedom from emotional pain, and engender positive changes in thousands of clients from all over the world.
He’s the former president of the Ericksonian Hypnotherapist Association of Australia, the former vice-president of the Queensland Professional Hypnotherapists Association, a certified HeartMath trainer and has lectured extensively in colleges, universities, workshops and conferences in America, England, Europe, India and Australia. Richard is the founder of The Overview Institute of Australia and its sister organisation, Planetary Human.
 
TIMESTAMPS:
[3:55] Richard opens by detailing his relationship to honouring the sacred
[4:30] The foundational intrinsic awareness & heart-breath synchronization
[5:25] The sacredness of the heart
[6:35] The four beats in - four beats out meditation
[7:15] Everything is sacred
[7:35] The Planetary Overview
[8:39] The wonderment of telescopes and our moon
[9:44] Buckminster Fuller: We’re all crew on a spaceship
[10:37] Questions on being a Planetary Human & The Planetary Human Vision Keys
[12:16] Planetary outlook and the only border that really matters
[13:50] The Home Planet by Kevin W Kelley
[15:31] Byron Bay & the Intense Raging Ball of Fire in our Sky
[16:30] Lewis CK: You don’t have the right to be bored
[18:46] Birth and destruction: it’s bloody and it’s intense
[20:05] An overview of The Overview Effect
[21:00] The two most important things of psychedelic journeys
[32921:38] Terrence McKenna: Culture is not your friend
[21:50] Thomas Aquinas: Give me the boy til he’s 7 and I’ll have him for life
[22:30] Cartesian split and extrapolating out “mind”
[22:50] Cognizing “empty-ness”
[24:54] Be the change you wish to see in the world
[25:28] King Warrior Magician Lover
[26:00] Resonant causation vs Impact causation
[27:41] Intrinsic Awareness
[28:40] OVERVIEW on Vimeo
[29:23] “My websites are like home movies”
[31:30] Edgar Mitchells succinct and potent quote
[32:20] Suggestive language and gaining access to the imaginal realms
[36:24] In the hood: Richards rapport on the streets
[38:10] Emotional response from the planetary effect
[39:30] Virtual reality and the magi-pod
[41:13] The importance of reorienting our language and perspective
[43:46] The various ways in which synchronization manifests
[44:45] Living life as a waking dream
[46:05] Idio-dynamic methods of inducing trance & integrating the masculine + feminine
[51:30] Coronavirus: If this was a dream, what would be the characteristics of the symbolism of this dream?
[53:10] It’s all synchronicity and all consciousness matters
[54:30] Musings on quantum entanglement and the interconnectedness of life
[57:05] David Hawkins and the Map of Consciousness
[59:30] Physics is coming around but some of the “old-school” just need to die off
[1:00:00] We live in a misdirected civilization
[1:01:55] Richard’s experience with a bikie who did “collections”
[1:03:10] Follow your bliss BUT ALSO follow your blisters
[1:04:37] Jumping over stuff with our spirituality AKA spiritual bypassing
[1:05:14] Men have been conditioned to be tough: “be a man”
[1:06:40] Carl Jung: Neurosis is the result of insufficient suffering
[1:07:45] If we fight our emotions they cling on
[1:08:35] Psychedelics, skilled supervision and the need to suffer
[1:09:40] Very few parents are trained to be parents
[1:10:45] Resonant vs impact causation & the heroes journey from a masculine vs feminine perspective
[1:12:59] Revisiting Terrence McKenna
[1:13:30] Integrating resonant causation and impact causation
[1:14:40] Supporting the re-emergence of the goddess principle
[1:16:05] Joseph Campbell & The Hero’s Journey
[1:16:54] Douglas Gillette & The Shamans Secret
[1:17:45] Embrace death from a place of intensified being
[1:19:16] William Wordsworth Poetry - Ode: Intimation to Immortality
[1:19:50] The Hero’s Journey is not just for men
[1:20:19] Many women are overbalanced in their masculine
[1:22:25] Men need the empowered feminine principle
[1:22:40] Islam gesture of receiving
[1:23:57] Bottom Feeders: A Poem by Richard spoken by Caiyu
[1:27:30] The key is we: the time of the lone wolf is over
[1:230:48] Richard closes up with a short prayer: don’t forget your magnificence

Filipino Shamanism, Myth, Traditional Tattoos & Cultural Connection | Lane Wilcken (2020)

Lane Wilcken from Season 1 (2020) of Birdsong.
Lane is a scholar, cultural tattoo practitioner, known as a mambabatok, and an advocate for the critically endangered practice of "batok" which are the cultural tattoos of the Philippines.
He’s studied many of the indigenous traditions of the Philippines and greater Pacific, with nearly three decades of research and experience. He’s the author of "Filipino Tattoos Ancient to Modern" and "The Forgotten Children of Maui: Filipino Myths, Tattoos, and Rituals of a Demigod."
He’s also been a contributing writer to "Back from the Crocodile's Belly: Philippine Babaylan Studies and the Struggle for Indigenous Memory" and "Shamanic Transformations: True Stories of the Moment of Awakening," as well as several articles for various magazines and journals.
In this conversation, we cover traditional cultural tattoo, animism, shamanism, mythology, origin stories, similarities between not just the Philippines, but many of the islands and cultures within and around the Pacific, cultural restoration, and several other threads that we stitch into the fabric of our dialogue.
 
TIMESTAMPS:
[3:35] Lane open the conversation with a Filipino prayer
[6:25] How did Lane get started on this path?
[7:30] The Philippines are a product of an admixture of peoples for over a millennia
[8:15] Why did Lane feel so comfortable around Hawaiian culture?
[9:15] The similarities between pre-contact Philippines culture and Polynesia
[10:00] Lane’s rite of passage into tattooing
[18:20] Philippines: The Island of the Painted People
[19:00] Ancient tattoo artifacts discovered roughly 4,000 years ago
[19:45] The link between ancient tattooing and Chinese medicine / acupuncture points
[21:20] Sacred geometry in tattoos and the potential link with psychedelic trips
[21:56] Animistic relations and tattoo symbology
[23:00] Filipino plant medicine and acacia??
[25:30] Animism and the understanding that everything has a spirit
[26:00] Banyan trees and deification of the dead
[26:35] Filipino afterlife beliefs
[28:15] Filipino shamans (Babaylans) and ancestral rituals
[31:36] Lanes grandmother as a Filipino healer
[32:23] Lane discussing his “activation” of ancestral healing knowledge
[35:00] Self-initiation as a response to the lack of connection with our ancestral roots
[36:00] Was it predominantly the women who became the shamans?
[37:47] The matriarchal thread throughout traditional Filipino culture
[41:00] Women were considered spiritual portals into this world and the other
[41:23] The story of the Babaylans being fed to the crocodiles
[42:42] Headhunting traditions and eating part of the warrior as spiritual culture
[44:00] Is there a link between symbology and practicality when it comes to shamanic canoe travel?
[46:46] Cross-cultural pollination between seafaring Pacific cultures
[49:33] The great debate of whether the Philippines is linked to South East Asia or Pacific Island
[51:15] Mainland Asian culture vs Pacific culture
[53:00] Linguistic similarities between traditional cultures
[54:50] The sweet potato of the Philippines is of Native American origin
[56:15] Did Maui, the Demigod, bring sweet potato to both the Philippines and New Zealand?
[57:20] Laumuaig / Maui fishing up the islands
[59:00] Tattoos as mnemonic devices that commemorate ancient mythology
[1:00:36] For Filipinos, the Philippines is not our original homeland
[1:01:30] The link between ancestral arrivings by bamboo tube and the symbolic feminine
[1:05:10] Nurturing the soils of cultural restoration
[1:15:38] The tribe known as the Dreamweavers
[1:21:30] Cultural appropriation and rebuilding a visual vocabulary of entholinguistic groups of the Philippines
[1:23:00] From pottery and textiles to tattoos on the skin
[1:24:40] Receiving tattoo meanings through dreamtime realms
[1:27:12] Lane gives thanks to close up the conversational container

Wild Intelligences of Nature & Navigating Ecological Crisis | Skye & Miraz (2020)

In this Season 1 (2020) of Birdsong we have Skye and Miraz joining us.
We go deep into a number of themes exploring the culture of separation that plagues the collective sphere we all find ourselves in, the re-orientation of our perception to animistic worldviews, their many years in the amazon jungle studying amazonian shamanism, the frameworks that the indigneous shipibo people passed onto them to assist in the relating with a living breathing jungle, and extrapolating from that, a living breathing planet, and how this path interrelates into the work that they’re currently doing, known as deep ecology, aka, the work that reconnects.
Skye was raised on (and by) a farm on the edge of a wildlife reserve in South Africa. Her early childhood was spent wandering barefoot, immersed in the imaginal worlds that emerged between her senses and the touch of lion’s roar, river song, and rolling thunderstorms across the bushveld.
Her teen years were spent hand-raising and rehabilitating wildlife, she later became a wilderness guide, she trained in traditional Taoist healing practices for three years, became a qualified yoga instructor, and this was all before travelling to the Peruvian Amazon to undergo an in-depth apprenticeship in Amazonian curanderismo.
Miraz also grew up close to nature, but attempted to ‘civilize’ himself through higher education and for a few years as a corporate lawyer, but through the good fortune of an existential crisis he wound up in the jungle, where he and Skye met, and where there was a remembrance in what it felt like to belong to the world.
Along the way he trained as a counsellor, a psycho-therapeutic journey practitioner, alongside breathwork and bodywork practices. They now apprentice themselves to the deep ecological movement arising in response to the darkness of the modern industrial growth culture, which includes the work of John Seed and Joanna Macy: The Work that Reconnects.
Their offerings are a synthesis of plant medicine practice and ecological awakening, including the facilitation of study groups, retreats and intensives, and one-on-one sessions.
 
TIMESTAMPS:
[5:14] Opening the Container: Skye opens the container with an acknowledgement of the beauty and pain that exists in the land and a gratitude to the world that supports us in this moment
[11:06] Going real with gratitude
[12:39] Disconnected perspective
[18:28] Personal development vs social activism
[25:32] Cultural duality
[33:25] Skye’s crisis
[38:30] Miraz's journey
[47:35] The jungle apprenticeship
[51:54] A re-introduction to animism
[52:32] A new perspective on an oak tree
[53:40] Dietas
[58:49] Reconnecting to our wild senses
[1:08:49] Challenges on the path
[1:12:00] A beautiful passionflower story
[1:20:17] The emotion medicine in plants
[1:25:00] How do we become fully human?
[1:27:49] The Work That Reconnects
[1:30:29] Back to civilization
[1:39:30] Starting to reconnect
[2:03:00] Closing the Container: Miraz closes the container with a very interesting poem about whales...and you’ll have to see and hear it

Demystifying ”Starseeds & Lightworkers” Soul Aligned Service & Spiritual Purpose | Heath Myers (2020)

Heath Myers join us for Season 1 (2020) of Birdsong.
Heath is a Quantum Evolution and Leadership Coach, a Divine Channel for various Star Races, Elementals and Enlightened Masters, a healer, thought-leader, and he’s the Founder of Mastery Matrix® and The Starseed Activations™.
His mission is to activate The Starseeds and mobilise their service to the world, in pursuit of the rapidly accelerating planetary evolution. Now if you don’t know what starseeds are, alongside other words like lightworkers, timelines, codes, well, these are some of the terms we dissect and demystify in our dialogue.
Heath’s journey into spiritual evolution and purposeful business work was catalysed by a life-changing spiritual awakening; the result of which saw him searching for answers. It marked the beginning of nearly 20 years dedication to a vast array of personal and professional development, healing modalities, shamanic practices and embodiment arts.
In that time he’s built a successful, impact-driven business that’s transformed the lives of thousands of people and assisted 100's of other way-showers to expand their influence and aid humanity, through holding channeled planetary activation ceremonies, coaching purpose-driven business owners, conducting social responsibility programs and leadership facilitation for senior leaders in financial institutions.
 
TIMESTAMPS:
[5:21] Opening the Container: Heath opens up the space with chanting and clearing the space for our spirits to work at the highest vibration in this moment
[9:48] What is channeling?
[11:58] The pivot point that led to Heath’s spiritual awakening
[23:32] Lightworkers
[25:35] Improving our connection with Nature
[30:56] Shadow work
[32:00] Starseeds
[36:57] Quantum spirituality for the rest of us
[45:24] Understanding reality in 4-D
[47:37] Choosing a better reality [48:34] Timeline
[51:33] Coding (from a spiritual perspective)
[1:00:28} Fatherhood
[1:07:01] The divine spark within us
[1:09:08] Inner vs Outer Purpose
[1:14:48] There is no difference between me and you
[1:26:03] Mentors
[1:30:33] What do you need to get better at?
[1:30:08] Closing the Container: Heath closes the container with the ritual he uses to reconnect to higher vibration throughout the day

Ancient Remembering & The Wild Wisdom of Nature | Jiro Taylor (2020)

Jiro Taylor joins us for Season 1 (2020) of Birdsong.Jiro is a mystic, a poet, a storyteller, he facilitates wilderness rites of passage, he’s an artist, a creative, and a mentor to those seeking deep connection with their soul path and their wild wisdom within.
His work honours ancient wisdom and flows into modern life through art, nature based mentoring programs and wilderness quests, with the intention to help individuals remember who they are.
Jiro is the founder of Shambhala Warriors and the flowstate collective, and I consider him to be an all round great guy, stepping into the role of wise sage and seer in the larger community, and to me, he’s both a comdrade and a teacher in many ways.
We cover a lot of fertile ground here, from nature immersion, the domestification of humanity, remembering our roots, ways in which we can cultivate a deeper connection to nature, similarities between various wisdom traditions, we talk about soul language, language of the earth, we riff on shamanism, we explore how the mind is not exclusively a human possession but mind extends out to the entirety of our environment, and, a lot of other ideas, and ways of living and breathing.
 
EPISODE NOTES:
A powerful story to remind you about the incredible mystery of spirit
The importance of sharing your creativity
Honoring the Story inside of you
The mental traps of civilization-Disconnect, Individualism, and Mental Overdrive
Why our “Nature connection” needs to be more
How can I connect better with Nature?
Is our culture too obsessed with the “mind” and “mindset”?
Remembering our “wild” past Do we have a “flat” imagination?
Learning how to listen on a deeper level
Have we made “spirituality” too complicated?
Going deeper into the wisdom of Shamanism
Being comfortable with yourself...without labels, without justification, and without excuses
The pure ceremony and wisdom of fire
What does prayer mean to you?
Honoring the sun
Remembering the medicine and wisdom of plants
The wisdom and blank slate of a vision quest
 
TIMESTAMPS:
[5:23] Opening the Container: Jiro reminds us to reconnect with the wonder and awe of spirit in a story from “Women Who Run With Wolves”
[11:43] Honoring the Story
[18:49] Balancing the “high” of spirit with the “low” reality of living on Earth [20:06] Making a deeper “nature connection”
[25:06] Improving our connection with Nature
[34:18] Too much “mind” in the mix
[41:16] Remembering our wild
[42:00] What do we really know?
[43:56] Expanding your imagination
[44:17] The skill of story listening
[45:44] Communicating with society and ourselves
[53:51] The “Pathless Path”
[1:03:20} shifting from “knowing” to “experience”
[1:06:28] Shamanism
[1:11:00] Daily Rituals
[1:17:00] Prayer
[1:18:04] Honoring the life-giving powers of the sun
[1:21:05] Honoring the wisdom and medicine of plants
[1:23:42] Vision Quests
[1:30:08] Closing the Container: Jiro closes the container by reminding us to give respect and thanks for those who came before us (ancestors) and those who carry us now (plants, Sun, nature, and more)

Re-Wilding, Caveman Diets & Surviving Off The Land | Adam Kavanagh (2020)

Adam Kavanagh join us in Season 1 (2020) of Birdsong.
Adam is an adventurer who seeks out wisdom from nature based cultures around the globe, in particular through the powerful way of living and breathing known as re-wilding, we’re talking living and surviving out in nature, off the land.
Adam worked as a coal miner for 9 years, and as you might expect, there’s going to be some level of physical, mental, emotional exhaustion to be suffered, which became apparent for Adam with a crippling overactive thyroid.
Somewhere along the way he stumbled across and adopted the caveman diet, essentially a Paleo style diet, which paved the path to some deep healing and nourishment and lead to his realisation that a barefoot approach to life was calling out his name.
He eventually quit his job, traveled around the country, and spends time living and surviving off the land; sharing his experiences with community primarily through instagram.
My interest in having a chat with Adam arose after seeing some epic photos on his instagram feed, as well as listening to his appearance on Evolve hosted by Pete Evans.
In this episode Adam touches on some of the ins and outs of his approach to paleo / the caveman method of eating and how it helped him on his health journey, I was interested in his experiences when it came to bowhunting, connecting with the land, tuning into the seasonal changes and the elements, re-wilding in general, and we chat about some of his animal experiences out on the land alongside more of Adams personal journey.
 
EPISODE NOTES:
Rewilding Adam: Adam’s journey from overworked coal miner to bow-hunting caveman
The one meeting that sparked Adam’s “rewilding” journey
Adam’s journey into Paleo Learning to eat for your body vs a “diet”
Having respect for where your food comes from
The “heaviness” of hunting
What’s it like to live and eat in the wild?
Is it true that you use ALL of the animal when you live out in the wild?
How do you hunt boars gone wild?
Getting medical care...when you’re away from civilization
The vegan vs carnivore (and everybody in between) debate
Being spiritual in the wild Working with the cycles of nature to get your food
Being grateful for the simple things in life
Stories from the Dreamtime
The ONE book series Adam won’t leave for the Australian wild without
Remembering to honor the small things in life we often take for granted
 
TIMESTAMPS:
[4:00] Opening the Container: Adam invites us to the sacred space of our conversation with a reminder to be grateful for the simple things like the kookaburra
[10:12] The meeting that changed everything
[13:23] From Modern diet to Paleo
[16:30] Eating for the body, not the book
[22:20 Hunting and self-sufficiency
[28:54] The “heaviness” of hunting
[33:23] Hunting in the wild
[36:16] Do you use all of the animal that you hunt?
[39:00] Boars gone wild
[41:26] Getting medical care with a tusk through your hand
[57:34] Wild spirituality vs modernity
[1:01:07] The cycles of nature
[1:04:18] The simple things
[1:12:00] Dream time stories
[1:14:10] Rites of passage
[1:20:00] Closing the Container: Adam closes the sacred space of our conversation with a reminder to be grateful for the things we often take for granted

Rose Medicine, Initiatory Descent, Ayahuasca, Astrology, Venusian Mysteries | Lara Charlotte (2020)

In this episode from Season 1 (2020) be have Lara Charlotte on the show.
Lara was born in Aotearoa, New Zealand and spent 5 years living in Peru studying traditional Amazonian Curanderismo, where she co-founded The Garden of Peace Ayahuasca and Master Plant Healing Centre.
Lara has a specific passion for womens health and the reconnection of our earth-sky axis, through her work with the Venusian mysteries and the lineage of the Rose. She is an avid student of transformational astrology, yoga, ritual healing and heart centred harmonious living.
I loved this conversation, Lara took me on a journey down into the bones of some of the feminine mysteries and cycles, the importance and potency of initiation by descent, into the darkness into the shadows into the muk and grime of the underworld, we talk about astrological and lunar wisdom, plant intelligence, ayahuasca, the lineage of the rose and so much more.
Her song at the end of the show to close up our space was beautiful, so make sure you stick around until the end, as Lara is a powerhouse of knowledge and wisdom and carries such a deep embodiment of the feminine essence, and has a way of weaving the ancient with the modern, so I think you’re really going to enjoy what she has to share here.
pathoftherose.com
instagram.com/pathoftherose
saferceremony.com
EPISODE NOTES:
Connecting to a world beyond words: Understanding and appreciating the unexplainable world of “mystery” and spirit
Getting initiated by descent-Why going through darkness can lead to better times
Growing up with a burial ground, non-imaginary friend, and nature in your backyard
Going up or down: Should our spirits go up, down, or stay detached?
Healing spiritual imbalance through the wisdom of plants and nature
Why the rose is more than you think
Learning from the cycles of the moon, the stars, and planets
How do we balance masculine and feminine energy?
Healing society’s trauma with balanced spiritual energy
Why plants are complete badasses
Ayahuasca
How do the signs in astrology work?
What if I’m not a “woo woo” person?
What the moon can teach us about our bodies and our emotions
Going through the pain and trauma to find your healing
TIMESTAMPS:
[4:25] Opening the Container: Lara invites us to connect on a deeper level with our ancestors, the healing power of the rose
[7:32] From a marketing job to the Amazon jungle: Lara’s journey from trauma to healing and mission
[17:57] Lara’s first Ayahuasca experience
[26:00] Ascent vs Descent:
[30:46] Fixing spiritual imbalance
[36:21] Lara’s spiritual journey through rose
[42:48] Masculine energy & the rose
[44:26] Why we need feminine energy
[47:24] Rose physical balance
[51:44] Venus in astrology…. for a beginner
[57:38] Understanding astrological signs
[1:02:17] Helping “Non Woo Woo” People
[1:05:00} Lunar cycles
[1:16:00] Initiation into masculine/feminine energy
[1:18:42] Psyche & Eros
[1:26:00] Ayahuasca
[1:38:40] Closing the Container: Lara closes the space with a beautiful song

Wisdom of Storytelling, Wilderness Initiation & Mythopoetic Landscapes | Leon Cossar (2020)

In this episode from Season 1 (2020) we have Leon Cossar on the show.
Leon is an outdoorsman, a burgeoning poet, rascally storyteller and independent scholar of deep ecology, anthropology and mythology. He is currently studying a masters in ‘The Poetics of Imagination’ with Dr Martin Shaw and leads online programs guiding people into the mytho-poetic conditions of their life.
As Leon puts it himself, he was born in big sky country and is a 6th generation farmers son. He grew up with dirt spittin larrikins' spinnin’ yarns of brawny bush rangers and wide eyed toothless shearers who were kings of the wool sheds and scrappin’ pub brawls.
When the prison bars of school bent open he flew from the parched textbooks and drought riddled country upon the wings of an inner dream and calling to become a wilderness guide on the high seas and soaring mountains. As a wilderness rites guide Leon leads rites of passage programs with youth, vision quests with adults and as a death doula offers his services to the ones who are passing through.
He writes among other things on the miraculous human pilgrimage from here to there and the questions we must ask ourselves to guide us in genuine ways toward our one day, all at once, full arrival and disappearance.
It was such a pleasure to have Leon on, and I really enjoyed delving into the mytho-poetic landscape, wilderness connection, and all the rest of it…
 
TIMESTAMPS:
[5:20] Opening the Container: Leon opens the circle with an appreciation for the “mystery” & offers a unique twist on ways we can invite the sacred into our space
[12:08] Gargoyles
[16:00] Understanding “soul language”
[16:46] Diving deeper into myth
[20:14] Myth & poetry
[21:56] Charles Darwin...and poetry?
[32:08] Going beyond the limits of what we call “language”
[34:40] Where have the “original people of the land” gone?
[36:28] A spiritual experience with the wind
[37:24] “You’re not from here….”
[40:18] Taming the wild man with education
[41;17] Turning to face the beast
[44:18] Men and the need for rites of passage
[50:51] The Vision Quest
[55:33] Addiction
[57:34] How do you make something sacred?
[58:37] Initiation in every day of our lives
[1:00:00] Questing
[1:04:00] Listening to the communication of nature
[1:15:04] Understanding death
[1:16:00] Psychology and myth
[1:17:00] The alchemy of communication
[1:11:00] Writing your language
[1:20:00] Deepening your relationship with poetry

Walking Kokoda Track with ONLY HALF a Pelvis & Cultivating Resilience | Adam Kellerman (2020)

In this episode from Season 1 (2020) we have Adam Kellerman joining us.
Adam is quite frankly a remarkable human being. The reasons I invited him on as a guest become evident as I detail his bio, which essentially becomes some of the story he walks us through.
This includes surviving cancer as a young teenager, having half of his pelvis removed, going on to play professional wheelchair tennis which included two Paralympic games in London and Rio, he was ranked #8 in the world and #1 in Australia, but after a pivotal point in his career, he winded up doing charity work in Africa and in Australia, and somehow went on to stop using his wheelchair, and ended up on a grand journey to hike the very well known, and very challenging, Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea.
On top of that, his life is intertwined with practices that cultivate a well-rounded approach to holistic health and wellness, which we explore throughout his story, including his connection to ceremony, ritual, facing death, honouring the sacred, connecting with nature and more.
He’s now a motivational speaker for schools and businesses and he speaks to the importance of building resilience, overcoming adversity and thriving through change, he mentors cancer survivors, people with chronic pain, and young adults, alongside teaching standing meditation and Calligraphy Qigong, amongst all the other roles he slips and slides into, like we all do.
It was a real pleasure to sit down and weave in and out of Adam’s own Birdsong and I trust you’ll find value in our dialogue to carry with you on your own path forward.
 
EPISODE NOTES:
Healing your life emotionally and physically after bone cancer
Tapping into and taking control of your own healing power
Some of the pillars of Adam’s healing journey
Healing trauma on a cellular level Learning lessons from pain
Choosing life in the face of pain and darkness
Understanding why life, the blessings and the challenges, are a gift
Embracing the challenge and opportunity of COV-19
The sharing of wisdom
The simple magic of rituals
The healing power of connecting with your spirit
 
TIMESTAMPS:
[4:00] Opening the Container: Adam opens the circle with a reminder to bring our focus back to the breath
[8:27] Adam's current mission: Walking for the Age of Ability...AFTER removal of his right hip
[10:00] Recovering after a bone cancer diagnosis
[14:18] Taking charge of your healing
[18:32] Adam’s support network during his journey
[27:00] Dealing with trauma on a cellular level (Lessons from Adam’s masseuse)
[35:00] Dealing with (instead of running from pain)
[58:25] Musings on choosing life
[1:00:00] All of life is a gift
[1:06:28] The challenge (and opportunity) in the COV-19 crisis
[1:12:00] Confronting the Uncomfortable & Learning
[1:19:00] Dealing with the Lessons of Pain
[1:21:00] Rituals
[1:26:00] Healing spiritually
[1:32:37] Closing the conversation

Earth Medicine, Bioregionalism, Sacred Cacao & Plant Wisdom Keeping | Renée McCready (2020)

In this episode from Season 1 (2020) we have Renée McCready joining us.
Also known as Lady Pachamama, Renée is a plant wisdom keeper, ceremonialist, shamanic healer and therapist, she’s a kitchen witch, yoga teacher, an earth doula, bio-regionalist, and a practicing animist. Renée runs various workshops, sacred cacao ceremonies, mentoring programmes and her personal practice from the forest highlands of Regional Victoria, Australia, which just so happens to be her home.
She offers ceremonial work with sacred cacao and other plant medicine, spiritual nutrition and education around food as medicine, plant and earth wisdom work, ancestral healing, embodiment work, and more. It’s part of her mission to help people recalibrate and realign back to their own original human blueprint, which is something that we’ll touch on during this episode, but essentially what we’re speaking to here, is our roots within nature, our remembrance to our ancestral lineages that had a reverence and solid connection to the land beneath their feet.
This ties in nourishing that mind-body-soul connection that we all have, and tapping into our own unique personal medicines, our passions, our heart and of course our purpose, our great reason for being here. As you might guess from her bio, there was a lot to unpack and explore, touching on many of these themes, and it was a pleasure to welcome Renée to the show.
 
EPISODE NOTES:
Why living in the forest is the perfect environment for Renée
Respecting the power of the native plants we share our living spaces Honoring our sacred connections to the ancestors and their land
Working as an Earth Doula
Creating year-round health using the wisdom of the Earth
Grocery Story magic: Learning Earth medicine on a deeper level at the grocery
Learning and healing from the wisdom of our ancestors and the land
Tapping into the Old Ways
Using your intuition Sacred cacao, or trend going in the wrong direction?
Dealing with skeptics
 
TIMESTAMPS:
[6:08] Opening the Container: Renée opens the container by inviting us to slow down
[9:14] What is the Original Human Blueprint?
[12:55] Renée's journey into the Old Ways
[17:48] Living in the forest
[18:25] Plant wisdom-keeping that respects the land
[21:53] Sovereignty: Respecting the sacred connections in and around our living spaces
[24:54] Lessons from the transitions of plants
[29:05] Food as a medicine throughout the year
[31:37] Grocery store plant magic
[51:18] Learning and healing from the land of our ancestors
[1:01:25] Tapping into the power of the Old Ways
[1:21:00] Are we honoring the cacao in modern times?
[1:27:30] How to respond to skeptics
[1:38:00] Closing the container with a sacred sound