Just started there recording. Reza, you want to introduce the call? Or shall I? Or are you gonna run it? Um,
well, let's do, let's just do a quick chicken. And Jeff is going to do a little presentation. And it's kind of like last week's, but we're going to use different iconography, because we had a very interesting conversation that actually went for two hours. Lorraine and Mary were there. And it was, it was really cool. It was a question brought up by Laura Lee about, you know, what she felt were more christianized. iconography. And so we Yeah, so this is was good feedback, because let's try a different iconography and see how that lands. I wish Laura Lynn was here for this call. But uh, well, maybe she'll join late. So let's just do a quick round of chicken, see how you're feeling what you're coming in with and help me feel grounded and present? Who would like to start, let's just, you know, what are you coming in with, just make it short and sweet, but just give us give us a little window into your soul.
Last part, oh, happy to see all these phases. I have missed you guys. I'm gonna have to learn to balance my responsibilities differently. And now that I am kinda unofficially working part time. So I will structure my life differently. Because I've been missing you. So that's what I'm coming in with just so happy to be back here.
Yay. Great. I can follow that with an echo. Sad to miss you all last week. But really great conference, I was attending couldn't it? It was just too juicy and running over and was actually some really amazing content coming out of the gritty on them and jumps Lee about World Social initiative forum and kind of actually really participating in the global social movement. So that was inspiring. And I reluctantly I presented I guess I mentioned I was presenting this thing in my last presentation kind of went really well. And and I was asked if if there was any books about it. And I agreed to kind of consider writing a book and was really crazy. Lee surprised that the whole outline came in a matter of hours. Cool. Kind of floored at how easy this is all flowing. And the collaborators are all jumping up to help. So I'm kind of feeling a huge rush of Oh, I guess I get out of the way and let this come through.
Wow, cool. Awesome, Tim. Welcome learning. We're just doing a quick round of chickens. I'm sorry for being late. No worries at all. Glad to hear he wants to go next for chicken.
I'll jump in. I'm also very glad to be here. I'm going to miss next week, which is part of what I'll check in on now. Which is I'm feeling very bewildered. There's a lot of stuff like a lot of turbulence and strange things happening in different parts of my life. I'm okay, but it just feels like every turn. There's like big decisions and big disruptions and yeah, feeling a bit topsy turvy. And in that mix, which is mostly a good thing, I think I'm going on a 200k walk track fast camp next week. Yes, busy mountains, which are a little ways kind of north east of here. It's coming together, but it's really crazy. So I'm feeling just like wanting to kind of hide under a rock a little bit. And that's why I'm here. This is a rock to hide under. here and see you guys.
Awesome. Thanks for coming. Who's next?
I'm feeling a little wonder I was talking to some old colleagues a few days ago. And they brought an image of a seed pod. And here's a seed pod from my garden. Wow. And I've just been sort of, you know, letting that image sort of live in me. And did Jeff do a drawing of a sea Puck? That's what I'm wondering. I have something in my hand. Undoubtedly.
Very important. Image. Yes.
There's some recollection. Yeah. of something I've seen with magenta and awesome. Thank you, Mary. Who's next? I'm happy to jump in.
You know, I'm feeling great. I mean, Portugal's incredible. And I'm feeling just a lot of trust. And the process to been pulling bodies clouds, which have just continually said, Stop moving forward, just slow down and, and don't do anything rashly. So just really, you know, taking that on board to take my time and enjoy the place on that. Cool.
How about you? laureline? What are you coming in with today? tonight.
I'm feeling good tonight. have had a fun night yesterday where I went out with a friend and in the neighborhood, and like, she has a restaurant. And so we're the only one because it's normally open only during the day. And neighbors just kept coming in. This kind of people just kept coming in sitting at our table and sending us stuff. And it was like this huge table full of people, which is super strange in the neighborhood that I live in. Like it's it's really weird, like, perhaps and so it was fun. And so I've stayed with this kind of mood all day.
Awesome. All right. Thank you, everyone. You want us now officially present? Jeff, turn it over to you.
We're going to pick up where we were. Last week. I'll check in by saying a couple of things. I've been on a similar extraordinary journey the last few days. As I've mentioned several times, Louisa and I have been so seeing into the future of magenta studios and trying to feel our way forward wherever we're going. And it's a dynamic sphere of perception between sort of market resonance, personal spiritual growth, relationship growth, and life mission and company mission. You know, so all these factors come into the equation and business model, and what's business and what's not business, what's culture, what's economy, but we we are excited about where we're going. So that's one one development, it's been, there's all kinds of interesting things happening with that part of my mind. And so today's today's continuation of last week's conversation really, is kind of anchored in some of Laura liens questions, and we chatted a little bit on email. And, you know, she, if you don't mind my saying some few things from that email. You know, she was like, well, well, let me just say, I think these are not just personal questions. These are important questions that pertain to the larger conversation and larger culture, about representation about inclusion, about diversity of thought about a healthy kind of global community. That's not corporate globalism, but that is a more cosmopolitan culture. And that's, that's rooted in locality, and so on, and so on, and so on. So there's so much. There's so much energy in that in that space of humanity right now. And we want to be part of that conversation and not not part of the continuation of colonialism in any form. So what I thought to do today, and the reason I chatted about this was to just share, share another perspective. And this is still going to come out of the same school of thought, but it's a radically different set of images and imagery. Because the school of thought is is native to the school as its native to us. It's where we situate ourselves but but we see connections with that school of thought and many other schools of thought around the world. For Sample out of the Southern African traditions, you know, the Zulu traditions and things like that. So I want to start with the question of the phenomenology. And that's, Oh, hang on, we've just checked in, and we're getting going, welcome. And just anchoring the whole thing in a lived experience, right? That's, that's key, because the lived experience is the terrain. And so not not the ideas or the words that we use, because that can so easily be misunderstood or be misconstrued or be wrongly stated, or inaccurately stated, or half complete, or dogma dogmatic. But if we aim towards the question of lived experience, and we really look at the phenomenology of what we're talking about, then we can find meeting points. And there's this, I should have put this in the presentation, but I'll just draw it real quick. There's this great image that I've seen on a book cover the book wasn't that good, but the image was really good. And it was basically about basically, the idea that in all spiritual traditions, and cosmologies, and worldviews, and so forth, on the surface of things, they can appear divided and very different. But if you go, if you go deeply enough into the roots, or the histories, you'll find of connection. It's not that they're all saying the same thing. It's not that they can all be combined into one, it's that you can find meaning points.
And the way that we've chosen to kind of go through that threshold, that line, and look for this meeting point is in the phenomenology of the inner life, of lived experience. So that is where it's really interesting to meet someone from this from another world from the Zulu tradition and South Africa, and have a kind of conversation where there can be a meeting point of experience, where there's not one way or the best way or an argument but simply a meeting. Does that make sense? So I'm checking out the chat, seeing if anybody's commenting. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna share my screen. Let's make sure that I share the right screen.
Can I just say one tiny build on that? really tiny? Yeah, yeah, I think I think if we aren't able to seek together even in the most extreme about diversity for that meeting point, then we failed with our school like this is the training is that we learn to do go deeper and find the meeting points without D validating someone else's point of view. Or or. Yeah, someone's worldview. That's it, man.
Good build. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.
Okay, so
can you just pull that diagram up for a quick sec? Okay,
you tell me what it says. Well, you can't read my satiric and exoteric. Is that right?
Yeah. Thank you. I was being cheeky. I can barely read my writing sometimes.
What is read?
I don't remember the name of the book, but if, but I can probably find
it. No, that's okay.
That was it.
That's, that helps. That's what I did. Okay,
so let me share now last week. Last week, we, um, we ended here. And, you know, there was there was a question about this light and dark and this, this bad and good and good and evil and all this. And, and so I really appreciated that. And Louisa and I had some very rich conversations about that is like, you know, how do we show and have conversation around the phenomena? And it's an open question, you know, and so we're going to just, it's a great, it's one of those great artistic questions really, that can that can be very generative in a community or an artistic setting. So I thought to share a little bit of both my personal journey and a very interesting development in 20th century art, but not one that most many of you People just don't know about now, if you live in Europe, you'll you'll know who this is. Or if you studied art history, you'll know that this is a man named Joseph Boyce, here he is with Andy Warhol. And he grew. He grew quite prominent in, say post war. Art in the latter half of the 20th century, he's probably one of the most influential artists of the latter half of the 20th century definitely is. And he, he pioneered work, he helped pioneer what today is called performance art. Now, boys, was conscripted to the Nazis, as a young man as a teenager, he flew for the Nazis, he was shot down in the, in the war by the Russians. And he went through a giant life crisis in realizing, you know, exactly the whole extent of the war and the Nazi ism and all that and really spent his 30s trying to put his mind and his soul back together. And in his 40s, and 50s, he started making this artwork that made no sense to people. Because at the time, his that the, what was popular in art were things like Rothko, and Picasso, these great modern, modern artwork pieces that spoke of beauty and grandeur, and purity and transcendence. It was before the dawn of post modernism, a school of thought which came along and said, You can never exclude the context from art because modern art was trying to say it's not about context. It's not about culture, it's about it's about this beautiful on your knees in front of the masterpiece kind of experience it's almost like a church of art. Okay, so what happened in mid century art was kind of a church of hierarchy, a church Enos of hierarchy, saying, This is superior, and boys and others, and this was the beginning of feminism and art as well. We're saying you know, hang on, and it also goes back to data and Duchamp and early women women pioneers who were completely disregarded at the time, who now are appreciated to say wait a minute, the artists the context the culture it all it all does matter. Okay. So, boy started to come out with this work that had been had nothing to do with grand your and you know, aesthetics, aesthetic form, it had to do with a completely different quality of experience. And so for example, in a boys piece, this is this is a room with stacks of wolfelt you can you see that sorry about the grainy picture. stacks of wool felt and and half inch thick sheets of copper. Now, as a concept, if you see this picture, if you see even a better picture of it, you're like what, but if we if you walk into this room, you will feel a difference if you're paying attention in both that the quality of the air and the quality of the sound, because this felt has a presence
and this copper has a presence. So he started using materials, such as most famous piece his pieces use fat gate giant lumps of fat, which oozed and melted and reshaped. Okay, so imagine an artist's coming into the art world where Rothko and Picasso and pure form and, and, you know, this sort of aesthetic purity, this church Enos, and you're gonna, you're going to stuff a giant lump of fat into a corner of the museum and it's going to ooze into the sheetrock. And the narrative was, we just went through a war where people were burned in ovens. Okay, and we have to rebuild the human spirit. So in that context, he was putting something that was visually ugly, but was charged with the pret with making you come into your body making you feel the fattiness in your own body or the copper or the, the the density and the air in your own body. So he was he was pulling people out of the heaviness and the church Enos. And they're sort of fantasy Really? What would you call the bypass the spiritual bypass and pulling them into reality into grief into woundedness into read and redemption. Okay, so a lot of his work I when I was young, and I started to see this work, what came to me was, this is about the space between death and a new life. So this work, for example, there were 40 of them coming out of an old VW bus, and, and it's all about rescue. Okay, it's called the pack, you can look it up. So imagine 40 of these coming out of an old VW bus. And on this sled is a small piece of fat. And then some, I think there's sometimes there's chocolate, for nourishment, a warm blanket for warmth, and a flashlight for light. And this was an image of Art's role as, as being able to help nourish and rescue and redeem. So he was he was constantly placing before the viewer. Challenging pictures of the present and the future, this is called the end of the 20th century, placing these giant rocks with stuff, there's a hole here that's stuffed with fat, and then there's wound has been plugged. Okay, so there's a woundedness in each of these stones, and are these animals of a corpses. Okay. So one of his projects, for example, piled these stones, just in the center of Kassel, Germany, where the bodies were piled after the bombing in 1943. So there were 7000 of these stones piled there. And then that's the death piece. Okay, that's facing the past, you probably know how long it took Germany to face its past, it was not popular, not not in the 60s, not in the 70s, not in the 80s. So he this, this occurred in 1982, where he put these stones in the middle of the city and said, these are the bodies, this is the war, this is us, this is what we did. And then each of these stones was picked up and planted or planted next to a tree in the ground. And there were 7000 of these stones in tree, some pears placed around the city. Let's call it 7000, folks. And the idea is that each stone is dead, it's just going to wear away, it's not going to grow. But over the next 300 years, these trees will become massive, they will change the landscape of the city. And so they will they will send a subtle message all the time about life, death, rebirth and renewal.
So in the end of his life, voice was was teaching he started a school for the called the free International University. And he was he was articulating social three folding. We says if we want to, if we want a healthy society, we have to think in terms think and act and work in terms of three distinct spheres, governance, economy, and culture, our culture has to be a distinct sphere of life and freedom, or else this whole thing is going to get out of balance, right. So this is very pertinent today and will be for a while. So the reason I wanted to present this is that not only my purse, this is my personal journey a bit but millions of people the reason boys became so famous is that millions of people had this experience in these museums and so on, where they were, they were broken up and they were challenged to listen and make sense of this work and and find the phenomenon that he was describing. And his artwork became like a bridge through over which they could walk. And I know that because I had this experience and I've read a lot about it and so forth, where they can have the experience of their own cognition, of their own memory of their own trauma, of their own potential to to transform Okay, so this is, um, you could probably find a lot of artists, I know that you can wear the subs where the work itself is drawing from the same phenomena. You don't have to find something churchy, and you know, it was a good and fair point. But in this course, you want to find the phenomena of potential, the phenomena of possibility phenomena of newness, and, and, and learn through practices and disciplines to perceive that more and more, because in our experience, that practice of perception just opens and opens and opens and opens and opens and opens and opens and opens and opens. Alright, so let me stop there. And let's, let's have a conversation, I just wanted to jumpstart this. So this is not meant to persuade or you or convince or you know, anything like that, it's just meant to provide some food for thought about how infinitely diverse the the imagery, and the articulation of the phenomena can be. So let me stop there, and just, we can just talk about stuff for a while.
Boris was trying to bring back the people into their bodies into the lived experience of the war, and the grieving that needed to happen before we could move on. Yeah, well, we could move into new life.
Yeah. But he was also trying to nourish that new life.
Yeah. I can see the first in his art more than a second. But you know, what much better than I.
So, so we can talk about voice in talking about voice you may want to talk about voice. We can also talk about this phenomenon of, of really experiencing when, when a certain compulsion or way of being or habit begins to lose its strength or its grip. And and you and your lived experience, start to experience distance from that, and more agency, and more and more potential creative possibility. That's the space between death and life that I'm pointing to. That's the space. That's the space of practice that I'm saying. Is it is it x? Yes.
Okay, so that's in my experience, and how the reason I've designed the course that's this, you know, lastly, last week, Marlene said there's not really this is why I understood you not really movement you're always in the same place. There was some image that you that you offered and I think that's true, you're always at that x point it's just an image is not a once and never again assertion, you're always at that crossing point of that potential and that possibility. Anyway, let me stop there. I'd love to hear your reflections
i think that's that's what I experienced in your work Jeff and invoice and and others is, is and has been for me in my life really crucial the role of allegory and metaphor in self metamorphosis. And that process of having an authentic image that can unfold a reality that's in myself that I can't otherwise See, clearly. gives me an opportunity to take that view to another level and see what's next. To see what's coming towards me at if I can create a new process for myself. Create a new Yeah, if I can build on but like in compost, what's no longer food for me and make me and I find that invoice a lot as As a reaching for what is what is the authenticity that what is the authentic allegory that really speaks the truth or builds residents or calls you to stop seeing the surfaces to stop living in the mundane and to resonate more deeply and authentically with what's whole and happening. So that it can be a solid foundation for the next steps. So far more clearly than I said it, but
I think you said it clearly. At least. Yeah, the role of allegory and metaphor and self development, I think that was really well said, how could we possibly navigate and observe phenomena if we don't have pictures? And I think it's a fascinating journey, because of course, art. Not all art, a lot of art is enough, I think in terms of sound, because that's my tendency. I'm not as visual as some of you here. But in music, there's a different kind of pictorial language of play. That speaks more to mood, right, whereas Jeff is so visual. And he's taught me a lot about how to observe. But yeah, how would we do this without pictures?
Anyway, I was going to close this door. Yeah, just on that note, I think what I most appreciated about what you shared was the way that by it being a public art piece, kind of like the mayor in in Colombia, right? Something is done that has the whole community, go, Wait a second, you know, what else is here? So I really, really like that about how we're exploring how to do it on a group level to have this awareness and perception that leads to the breakthrough experience. So thanks for sharing that.
A couple things came to mind for me, one is not very nice, but I'll share it anyway. Although it's nested in deep appreciation for the journey, you just took us on Jeff, so I went with you. And it made sense, and I appreciated it. But the nice thing is, I generally have, I'd say an aversion or just like a total disconnect to male European art of the last 500 years, I just feel like it's from another species. And unless somebody like you walks me through why it mattered to you and why it spoke to you, I generally I like I, I find it annoying, I find it annoying that so much time and attention is paid to it when there's this whole other world of expression. And this whole, almost almost exclusively other gender expression that doesn't make it into the modern cultural airwaves. So I have a kind of visceral reaction, it's probably petty, it probably comes from like, a sense of my own forms of expression not being appreciated, or like I didn't take that stuff in school, and so I feel ignorant or something. But there's that. But when I set that aside, and I listened to your journey, what it reminds me of, there's sound, Louise, I appreciated that. And there's art. But I think there's another form.
We talked about
the kinds of I forget the words you were using in the first module, spiritual, emotional, etc. And I offered perhaps there's another which is physical. And I feel like when I think of my experience in sport, for lack of a better word, there's a parallel, which is you can like you can learn how to do something, let's say in my instance, distance running, I can like run, the way I would run, put on some shoes and go and kind of just be and get to a certain point, and that's fine. But then I can also learn more from other experts or I can focus more I can think about it more, I can make some decisions that allow me to kind of expand my ability and pass through that was actually kind of painful and chaotic, because you don't know what it's going to feel like on the other side. And it involves doing things that are physically beyond literally beyond my ability until they're within my ability. And then suddenly they're within my ability. And I was like what was so hard about that. Why did I have to Why did I even think I couldn't do that? Repeat right? And it's like, and I'm actually now that I'm about to embark on a 200 kilometer unsupportive track. I'm like, crap, like, it's that's sense of turbulence and chaos and worry and fear and all that. And then I think well, it's that's just another face when you talked about the opening and opening and opening and opening. And not that it means one has to always like, accomplish more, that's that the metaphor falls apart there. But I can feel that and I can see this endless sense of potential to understand or to sort of experience turbulence and discomfort to begin a new in a different way. So both of those things were kind of happening in parallel, and probably have to work on my respect for some of the clearly very talented artists who've come haven't gone, that God famous, along with the billions of others if nobody ever talked to
me just one note on that, in the case of voice, it will be very hard to argue that a lot of the really important developments towards feminist art and inclusive inclusion in culture. You know, boys helped open that in his own little way in his own little world. So a lot of really important artists, Marina Abramovich is one saw what boys was doing and took it up. So just for what it's worth. He was kind of a European male, calling out the European male tradition and saying the dark, the feminine, the the marginalized, the forgotten, who was later in post postmodernist theory, it was called the object. And there was a lot of feminists writers whose who were kind of aligning with that idea of the object. And and saying, femininity and darkness and compost and fertility, and generativity have been ignored and overturned and taken advantage of and steamrolled. But now we're claiming it. So, you know, boys has a role to play in that. He's not the father of that. But he certainly articulated that and was an early pioneer in our world of embracing that, because he already started already in the 50s. That So anyway, just for what it's worth, a little bit of context.
Near the thoughts and reflections?
I have a question. I'm trying to make the leap between voice and what Tim was talking about the use of allegory and metaphor into in self transformation. And and Jeff, you said, when the when the compulsion begins to lose its grip on you, you have more agency. And you're always at the crossing point between death and life.
Well, the crossing point between past and future, the
past and future, so So Tim is talking about getting to a point outside the compulsion, so that you can see the way forward a different way forward. Right, Tim?
Yeah,
it's a new way forward. Yeah.
Right. So with Boyce's example of the stones and the trees, I feel, you know, you have this much more clear picture that I can even say, of if we don't recenter ourselves on the dead, and the death and the destruction that we all participated in, and take it up as a task to bring more life out of that process into the world. Those stones can be in our way for the rest of our lives, or we can take them up and make new life out of them create growth, create a process that honors that decay, and builds for the future at this in add of something new out of a new effort to address the truth of my reality of the of the past that I created the past that I'm carrying around. And I and I, I have a practice of doing that. Jeff and I shared that with a group A year ago on you know, how do you do Take something that is a problem for you, and create a practice of finding a piece in the world that is ugly to you. And then figuring out what part of me This represents? And how do I take up seeing that, and that can often and that has me and many other people lead to a new understanding of this part of me that I'm not able to take up otherwise, by having something that I can hold outside myself that stands in for this gap in what, in my set with this part of myself that I don't recognize as higher than I can take that up in a new way to see how I unfold it. And what's the process of metamorphosing that are composting it into, you know, like the butterfly, how does this part of my insides become shining, new part of my outsides for like the caterpillar becoming the butterfly, now, sorry, I jumped metaphors there, hopefully, it was able to track
Well, I'm, I'm getting the connection, because I'm at a I'm just outside of a compulsion, where I'm experiencing agency. And looking for the way forward. And, and that metaphor, voices is really potent, in, in my experience right now.
And I think that's one of the most magical pieces of metaphor, and especially finding really authentic metaphors, really deep, true metaphors is that they can, you can keep returning to them, and they keep unfolding new understanding a new truth for you as you're available to them. voice was an absolute master at that. And I'm sure many other people that didn't get celebrated were also masters of that.
That reminds me of some of mythology and story, as a place of obviously allegory and metaphor. And there's this book called six, seven arrows. Seven arrows full of stories set at the time when the when the colonialists were decimating the Native Americans, and their devastating stories, but also just amazing in interspersed amongst these stories are Medicine Wheel stories. So all these, one of which is the jumping mouse, which I believe is in one of them, right? That is from that book, seven arrows. And I highly recommend reading it because they are deep teachings about the transformation of salt of the soul. And of course, you know, fairy tales from European traditions also are precise analogues of soul transformation. Like, you know, I often mentioned Rumplestiltskin in coaching. That's a powerful story of naming your wound, and then it doesn't have the same power over you anymore. So and I've also used other stories like Stephanie, the story pacifically, with people who are dealing with sexual abuse that can be depending on the context, quite helpful. Yeah, anyway, that's my contribution.
Any other thoughts? Yeah, I'm happy to try and put into words this whole mess I have in my head. But what what I find interesting in this conversation, so that we're talking about metaphors and allegories and representation of a moment of this situation where there is this potential for transformation. And in a way, I guess, every one of us, and for the ones who have this kind of visual way of being in the world will have maybe a slightly different representation of what it looks like, you know, whether like, so I guess what we're seeing is like Jeff sway, in a way, like the way he found that was the most true to his own vision of what his potential this transformation was. And, um, and in a way that what matters in the moment is that this image talks to someone you know, like someone sees this image and understands you know what's happening or it resonates Then at some level with something that they've lived or they've experienced, or they can relate to. And what's interesting in that case is that the metaphor can both actually like truly align with something that somebody has lived or just somehow suggests that there is a possibility of going through this process. And it's more like about being intrigued or being curious or wanting to experience it and the to have values, I mean, whether it resonates directly, or it's more like an inspiration. But at the same time, many people may have had this kind of phenomenology, and phenomenology or experience of the transformation, but may not represent it like this at all in their own life. And they may come up with other either representation of metaphors to talk about this transformation, that may or may not resonate with the same people, I mean, sometimes you can see similar to a different lighting still rings true, you know, your house has value for you, both as resonance or as inspiration. And I, I don't know, if there is a possibility to ever find, you know, like the the metaphor or the representation that will talk to everyone at the level that you want to talk to people. But, and you never really know what talks to them, or what they really understand, you know, when someone has some kind of aha moments like, you know, exactly what the hype is about, like maybe something totally different from what you were living or trying to express. So it, it somehow points out to this impossibility to convey things in a way that you're at this, at that, that's your show, you know that you're there. Maybe you're there, maybe you're not at all, but like, there is no possibility to know and this is the kind of communication we have in this human existence, you may feel like you're totally in connection with someone in terms of ideas and, or ever experienced, but you have no way to tell whether you're there, or you're not. And,
and what I find interesting in my own practice or process is not so much to try and be there to try and reach this kind of truth or like this way of expressing myself, that would be the way that everybody would somehow agree with it. I mean, I used to try and do that. And bass like it was so much it is kind of like truce thinking seeking process. But I was always hoping I would get to this point, like, what what I would write or say, would be so clear, everybody will agree. But in the end again, like I don't know, if you agree, or if it's just plain, well written, or whatever. But what I find interesting today is to have this process where there is more dive, like, the moment where people are not like, Oh, I fully agree with you, but like, I'm not sure I see it this way. Because I like the fact that maybe there is still like, process, like we're constantly evolving and how we understand things. And we're definitely limited in our thinking. And we're constantly Yeah, changing and the references and our societies and our culture evolve. And so, there I like the movement of trying to get to this point where we may believe that we're actually there, maybe we're not, but we're still in this movement and in the curiosity of constantly challenging our own representations and giving different meanings or experiences. And embedded it does change somehow the paradigm of what of the teacher, you know, like you're no longer the one knows, you know, where the point is, and you want to bring people there You're the one who is open to constantly discussing and being on the path and it's not necessarily very well welcome to the yet this this positioning, like sometimes people want to be sure that you're the one who is actually just searching like, I'll go and see the one who says you know, even though the very differently so yeah, that's that's what I wanted to share.
Yeah, that's awesome level of that. And one thing I wanted to say just to build on that Laura lien is somewhere where I would very much like to take the community part of it is to explode it and have actually that not exploded in like destruction where I mean exploded as a make it much more the central part of how this happens because Jeff and I, we are students of our own work. You know, the process of building these modules is very difficult because we have to grow in order to have the experiences in order to represent in order to bring But it's also constantly. It's like, it's amazing how stupid you are two weeks ago. So amazing. Right? You know, you've all experienced it. So in terms of exploiting the community that I think there is so much richness present in each of you. And the peer to peer learning, I think is where, where I would very much like to take this because, you know, we're all students of this work, and we don't really want a hierarchy of expertise, represented, what we want, is a peer learning and peer accountability. So that was just a little build on what you're saying. And you know, very, very resonant
with that.
I think one of the just real quick, 15 seconds, one of the reasons we haven't yet published more content is that we're wondering about the form of the course and the, whether the videos are the right form, or rather, you know, in what sense, they could be dialogue starters and dialogue welcomers. So to what extent Am I personally, a teacher versus just someone sharing what's worked for me versus someone who's conveying other people's work? And because if you don't do anything, nothing happens. But if you do the wrong thing, also, nothing happens. And so we're very much engaged in this question of what's the right, or the best or the most helpful form. So this is a really living, really important ongoing dialogue. It's like, when I go to sleep with at night and wake up with in the mornings, like, how can we do? What can be most helpful?
Any other thoughts, especially from those who haven't spoken so much? Like Betsy, I don't think we've heard anything from you, do you have any any thoughts you want to share?
You don't have to, of course, just taking it in.
I'm thinking about the felt, and how the air changed, and about sort of how to do that, um, you know, I just have had everyday experiences of light for meeting putting a large branch on the board table, and how that changes the air, so to speak. Or right now with gardening, and my new home, I put a lot of energy into my front yard, thinking about the neighbors. And there isn't a day that goes past without someone remarking about the garden, even though it's very hodgepodge at the moment, and it just gives me the energy, the image that we're also dead, in a way. I mean, sometimes I go, what do they see in this garden, but it's life that it's bringing in? Yeah, sort of that mystery of how to change the air, or how to wake up the dead, so to speak, or bring that energy.
Thank you for bringing that up. That was a really, I meant to that I noticed that too. Yeah.
Awesome. Well,
how about we do a quick round of checkouts. See what you're leaving with? Maybe one sentence seems like a good time. Who would like to start?
I'll start I just so appreciate everyone showing up and being sincere and honest and, and sharing and asking stays with me and makes a strong impression on me. So I welcome that dialogue. Love it and feel very grateful. And now I'm leaving with the question about the the form of the course and how we can just ponder this and see what comes. And welcome your ideas and suggestions, thank you.
I'm going to have to jump off for immediate and in a minute. But leaving with appreciation, I feel like, this is such a deep subject, and we just barely scratched it, but it's worth scratching it. If you know what I mean. Like, it just reveals that there's more to explore. Great to see you all, thank you so much.
Right? by Karen, I find myself searching inside for a metaphor that can show me the way forward and in this place that I am. And, and that's it's so powerful, you know, I'm writing a memoir, and not I mean, the power of metaphor, in my my own life is just huge. And when you mentioned Miriam Abramovich, and that the Artist is Present. That has been one of the most powerful metaphors for me and bringing myself present. But it makes me curious, really curious, I'm leaving with a lot of curiosity, to look for more metaphors that to help me help pull me forward. What a great thought.
You know, jump in, I'm leaving with an awareness that I have really unresolved tension, that's probably a place to lean into versus to veer away from like, there's something really bothering me about. I realized when Jeff, I read your chat, sort of defending who all came out of voices work, and it's like, oh, I have nothing, no problem with the artists. It's, I think what it is, is the art industry and the way we've interpreted art and used art and sold art and bought art and talked about art, that just repulses me. And so I'm just feeling like, disgusting about the whole industry, in spite of the beauty and importance and story and metaphor, and allegory and everything that the artists bring. In fact, I feel like it's been a disservice to the artists, the fact that you have to build you don't have to, but you're choosing to build it into this dialogue shows what a disservice has been done that, so few really understand what was meant or intended. So I'm just feeling this like, like really anguished whirlwind of energy around. Why is there even a word art? It's a stupid word. It shouldn't exist. There shouldn't be an industry. It should be how we are or something. So yeah, there's something I need to lean into. That's mine to solve. And I'm very grateful for this crew. Yeah, and I'll miss you guys next week. But I'll be thinking of you for sure. And look forward to catching up later.
I came into this session with a sense of wonder and and leaving with a different kind of wonder and curiosity.
I'm leaving with Mary's questions, how to change the air, how to wake up the dead. Those were real, really well worded. provocative questions for me. So thank you, Mary.
Yeah, I'm leaving with that deep end, as well as the twins that came up for me when hearing about new images and new other other iconography and in the reference to South Africa twice, really had me hoping that we were going to see some other culture than Western images in that. Thanks for sharing the women in that chat. So I have research to go to fill that void. And that that piece of the removing the economic
contamination of the creative process that you spoke to Lorraine of art of the commodification of art and the building a culture of, of toxicity around creativity that happened through the white men of the West. And I just received a book called ISIS, Mary Sophia that I think might help me with that tension.
And you and I'm also working on developing some kind, of course, at the moment, I'm throwing into the question your viewing position of the person who today offers some learning. So happy to talk more with you. And when Mary said, like, how, how do we wake up the dead? I was like, shall we wake up? Did we do we just let them sleep on their own? When when the red is red? Because otherwise? I don't know. That's a good question. That's it for me.
Yeah, well, just, it's, it's a journey in creating this course, it's very hard to find.
It's surprisingly hard to find salient points of reference. In non Western culture, especially history, the further you go back, not because those representatives aren't there. But because they're not written about. And so if you're using Google, or anything, you're using algorithms that have been coded, that are prejudiced The world is prejudice or cultures, when lists. But for every, for every artist, for every reference that we put into the course, we we spent 5678 times the amount of time finding looking for points of reference in other cultures and other histories because we understand this diversity thing. So so bear with us, and and and I've seriously asked this before, but as you in your own research, find points of contact, find reference points, just please share them. Because I think we're talking about something genuinely human and something important for the Cosmopolitan culture is phenomenology, this social sculpture is healing is creativity. It's not a Western thing. It's not a white thing in my view it to Laura, Laura lanes point in lines, points going to be said differently by different people. The more reference points we have, the more we listen for those voices and hear those voices, the more we can listen to them and learn from them. So just bear with us and be part of the solution by by sharing in any way that you want. On a community platform to me personally to Elisa, jewels and gems that you find where there's a light when there's a some truth, some healing some picture. And we'll we'll we'll curate it, you know, well, I mean, we if we can, if we can make it coherent, in the course we'll include it and or we'll find some community. So anyway, that's, that's an open invitation.
As far as I didn't check out not about check in Sorry about that. But my check out is just to resonate with something that you said arraign which is your outrage at the the the fact that we have a word for art that we have to have a word for. This is a bit of a pivot that I have been making with what we're doing in with willmaker and that is to de emphasize the change agency and and more emphasize the creativity and awakening creativity. and strengthening and building culture as how we're going to change the world. It really depends on you awakening and potent ties in your own creativity in this expanded definition, you know, life, creativity, practical creativity, spiritual creativity, social creativity, physical creativity, physical creativity, very important. You know, what art form doesn't resonate very strongly with threshold experience, or as coolamon called it, limit experience that you're describing. So that's my check out very stimulated. Thank you so much, once again. Love it. And we'll see most of you next week. Thanks, guys. All right. Yeah, the rain. Good luck. Luck. Yes. Have fun. Good luck. You guys, too. Bye. I
love the chance to check in with you and Jeff and Louisa about this question about the presentation. I've been working on that a lot, especially with this writing a book on geometry as inner practice, and then octave and developing this curriculum for the apprentices that that question of how the world learns now is really feeling different.
So
collaboration on that I'd love to help. Yeah, that said something
that said something maybe we can wrote wrote Laura lean into that. Yes. And she's doing a course as well. And, and it's good idea. You know, there's something in this phenomenology that maybe we can translate and do it in a different word. Yeah.
Well, I've been doing a lot of research in online, online learning, and I want to make some pretty, majorly radical changes to world makeup, and how we're how we're learning together. So I have some things to say. as well about that. I can share my my learnings with I can share my just where I've been getting my information, depending on what what you're needing.
Yeah, yeah, I think, obviously, the world needs a whole new way. So yeah, yeah, that's right. However, I can help you. I love your guys's work, and I do feel it's so valuable and important.
Thanks, Tim. Just reach out. We'll set something up.
Okay. We'll do think you're about to write
it to Tim. Congratulations on the connections for the book.
Yeah, well, I have to present on it. And then a month to a large forum. We'll see how its unfolding. But kind of crazy.
That last how I wrote this down, get out of the way and let this flow through. As long as we're all trying to get out of our own way. Yeah. That's true. That's true.
We do make good hurdles for ourselves. Don't we? Wait, dude, yes. repeatedly.
Along with human beings being exceedingly good at assuming what's bad for them, or making what's bad for them out of what they think is good for them. Okay,
yeah. Yeah. All right. Take care. Hey, Betsy. Hey, I just wanted to say hi, and see your faces and I get there in a week from Yeah. So what's to be done between now and then but let's just keep working.
I like that piece of furniture behind you, by the way. Very cool. Very cool.
Where did you get this? I'm copying you guys. Oh,
I still want to see I still want to see the the lighthouse up there behind you. If I ship it to you, will you hang it up?
That would go if you ship it to me, I put it in my other room because I look that's kind of like my inspiration board. Little quotes and things I'm
there. Could you move that to the right right to your right or is that where the doorway is?
That is where a doorway is. And then I have a wall but the wall is I don't know if I'd like it over there.
Well, yeah, I noticed that you've color coded your books.
That's very cute.
But from a presentation standpoint, I think be the lighthouse would look really good there
in the lighthouse would look really good
in terms of being on zoom and being an influencer and being about us. People would be like, what, what is that painting? Just move out of the way we're gonna see
that? Well, I think we determined would have to be a print. Um,
no, I'm thinking of shipping you the original, because I'm just not going to get into prints. I've got too much going on. I'm doing an FTA some. I'm willing to part with the original and
yeah, you should, you should say yes. But to say yes, yes. Yes. Okay. We got it. We got to move these paintings. So many than Moore's pouring out. Yeah. Wait, for a Moore's trick. Yeah, that's still there leaning against the walls. Yep. Anyway, I'm gonna jump. Yeah. Lots of love. And we'll see you very soon.
Okay, see you soon. Love you.
All right. are you jumping to bits?
Yeah. Okay. I gotta get you to work, but I wanted to hang on and just see your eyes.
Thank you very much. I've missed you. It's been rough lately, but good. It's. Yeah, I'll tell you what I'm up to when you're out here. But it's things are a little crazy at the moment. Okay, yeah, the roller coaster. Sorry.
I will just keep praying for the stamina to.
Yeah. I think if I can ride this roller coaster for the next seven or eight or nine months, it'll come something will come with it. But getting into NFT world is a freaking roller coaster. So can I just tell you in three minutes? Yeah. Okay, so I raised some money, some crypto money for the project. And
Peter and his friends.
etheria has one friend Ethereum has grown. So you've already made money. I don't know how much you invested. Did you invest $300 or something?
I don't even know. I don't think I went back and added more.
Yeah, so it's growing. Doesn't mean it won't take but right now it's growing. So that money went up. And then I and then I did some research and I decided to buy invest in some NF T's that other people are making as investment. And I found this really cool project. And I bought some NF T's and I was just so happy with it, I was just like, this is gonna just so great. And they weren't expensive. They were like $100, each with gas fees, which were gas fees for like $50. So $50 for investment. And that was like between 11 and 12. And I owner was here visiting and she bought one. And then at four o'clock or five o'clock. And everything in NFT world is Twitter, everything is Twitter. Okay. And then from there, things branch off into different platforms. Someone posted something about another project and and said that this project pretends to represent women is actually run by three Russian dudes. And that blew up. And our project got associated with it because our project is also run by Russians. And our project is about stopping Asian hate. It's about it's a cyber cyber girl cyber city Girls Club, and it's about these Asian girls who live in the future and fight a good fight. And these projects were promising to give money to charities. And and basically what happened was that the Russians didn't understand that representation. And identity politics is so important in American culture. And so they published some very cool projects, fully intending to give money to the charities that they promised but they were just doing it as entrepreneurs and as artists. No Luckily, our project does have a female Asian Russian artist on it. So, you know, we had, we had that the project that I invested a little money in,
right, the whole thing blew up
in this space. And pretty soon it was like these Russian scammers, but I jumped in and like I got on Discord. And I got on chats. And I was like helping people understand that this is mostly a cultural misunderstanding, and we need to give people space to talk. And they did and they gave people space to talk. And they came clean. They, they, there were few projects implicated. And all this great stuff started to happen around these projects, of people just out of a cultural misunderstanding, and a lot of hate, a lot of blame, a lot of suspicion. So that has been very interesting. And I've made some friends with some people who know the NFT space and been successful in it. So it's been, it's been interesting, but it's also reminded me that, you know, it's mainly question like, well, shoot, you know, it's gonna take, I have a ton of art. I can get into this, I can sell art, and I can make a lot of money here. I'm pretty confident about that because of the art. But I have to learn how this space works. So this was a deep dive into the fire of how things work in the NFT world. So that's, that's what's been happening over the last 24 hours while my fire. Yeah, while the last thing that Louisa said about slightly adjusting the customer persona away from the social change agent to the person who's becoming creative in their lives, the healing journey and the creative journey. That's what we've been talking about doing. So that we can really marry the message and messages in the art to the messages in the course and therefore we're not so divided. You know, we can integrate these two. And I think there's a much, much bigger audience for that. Because not everybody is a professional change agent. There's very few people who are professional change agents. No recording. Oh shit. Thanks.
