https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=C2LVB2DOmzQ
Hello, everybody. This is me back again with Sherry on another episode of Unfolding the Soul. Sherry is going to share about her journey. I met Sherry in the early days of the Bridges of Meaning Discord server. We hung out for a long time. And then I kind of moved away, left her in the dust. Like she probably has left many people in her life in the dust. I always, you know, when you did move on, actually, I was glad for you. I was, I told many people that. I was like, I think Manuel has found where he belongs, and I’m very happy for him. Well, yeah, I don’t know if I found where I belong, but I found a way to find where I belong, which is the most important part. There’s a community over there on the Verveki server. And it’s a good community. So yeah, we all have our little places where we feel comfortable and grow. Yes. And you had to find those places in your life. And you had to take journeys to get there. So yeah, what is your earliest memory of journeys? Oh, gosh. I was one of those little kids who ran away from home a lot. My mother actually tells the story. I don’t remember this, but she tells the story that my grandmother, her mother-in-law, because apparently I was always saying I was going to run away. I wanted to run away. And my grandmother said to my mother, well, just pack her a suitcase and let her go. She’ll come back. You know, just let her go. So my mom did, against her better judgment. She didn’t feel good about it, but she packed me a little suitcase and she said, okay, here you go, Sherry. You can run away. And I left and didn’t come back. And she had to go find me. She said to my mother-in-law, it’s not working with this one. And yeah, I would describe myself as like extremely curious and not afraid, you know. And so for, you know, in the case of my being a little kid and walking off with my suitcase, I was completely confident in the world around me for some reason. I didn’t have any fear about it. And I just wandered off into it, you know, curious, right? And that’s kind of been my journey as a whole, like just led by curiosity and the kind of curiosity that says, well, let’s see what happens when I go down this road, you know. Let’s see what happens. I’ve been down that road. Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it wasn’t so good. But I have to say, all in all, it wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t that bad. And it could have been, you know, like I put myself in a lot of perilous situations. But I wasn’t that kind of risk taker. I wasn’t like the one, I wasn’t trying to harm myself. I was genuinely curious. And when my curiosity was satisfied, I was gone, you know, down the next one, down the next road, so to speak. And that is also combined with needing to be challenged, because I’m always thinking about things. And I don’t know how to describe it. Maybe if I feel like the train, let’s put it in these terms, the train of thought that I’m on kind of leads to a dead end, then I have to find another one that challenges my thinking. So there’s a parallel journey in your mind. Yeah, that’s good. So I also got the sense when you were talking about always needing to be on a journey with the curiosity leading you, but there was something else also there holding you back. Well, I wasn’t like I was, I was naive, but I wasn’t stupid. You know, I remember realizing that the world wasn’t really friendly towards me that the world did contain malevolence. And that was really hard for me to digest. I was about 17, actually, at the time. You want to jump in that story? That’s the first big journey that you were able to go through. Yeah, that would have been a big one. Yeah. So I had my own apartment. I left home when I was 17. And it was the first time I had been on my own. And I had an apartment. And I was falling behind on my rent. And the apartment was above a store in a downtown area. And the store owner met me one day going into my apartment because I used a similar entrance to his store, but I had stairs that went up. And he said to me, Sherry, I heard you’ve been having trouble meeting your rent. And it wasn’t his apartment. It belonged to a different guy. And I said, yeah, but I’m going to pay it in full this month, and I’ll catch up and all. And then he said, well, I could help you out with that. And I was like, really? Well, that’s nice. And then he said, well, you know, for some favors. And I still didn’t get it. It was like, oh, I could clean your store or something. And he was getting nervous because he realized that I wasn’t cluing in. And then suddenly I clued in. And I almost burst out laughing because this man was about probably a tidy 450 pounds, you know, and old enough to be my grandfather. And I was like, and the first thing I thought of was him naked. And I was like, no, oh my God. And I said, you know, I said to him, I said, well, that’s awfully nice of you, but. And then I went up to my apartment and I thought, oh, really? Like, it just hit me, you know, I was like, that’s awful. Like, that’s really awful. The whole thing, everything about it was awful. He never looked me straight in the eye after that, you know, and then it was just kind of you know, and then it was just kind of one thing after the next. I want to get into the details, but it was a really harsh awakening that year of my life. And it was those kinds of realizations, you know, because I thought, I really did think that the world was just going to open its arms and welcome me and give me all the help I needed. And that was not the case, right? And I did suffer depression as a result of that, for sure. Yeah. Not just that one, it’s not that one, not because of that one encounter, but it was a series of encounters, right? So was the depression related to a specific event or just a general malabarance in the world? It was really my disappointment in the world. If I wanted to put it in a more specific way. Bluntly, I was just disappointed because to me, the world was beautiful. It was enchanted. It was full of wonder. And none of that. And I could tell that none of those people saw the world like that. They saw it as a thing to be used, abused, wielded, you know, and which made them evil to me. Right. They would think that way. And I didn’t really want to think about people as being evil. So there was a sense of denial there? No, well, I don’t know. I didn’t know. I fully realized it. I took it in. And that’s why the depression, right? Because it wasn’t what I wanted. And before that, that’s what I mean. I had this naivety to me. But it was more like a childlikeness, like a full of wonder kind of naivety. And, you know, like my little story reveals, it took me a while sometimes to catch on to the malevolence because I just wasn’t living in that world. Right. Because I just wasn’t living in that world. Right. So. But I just, I got smarter. You know, I ended up getting smarter. And I always chose to first to see the best in someone’s intentions, regardless of what my intuition might be telling me. Right. And I think that’s, you know, because I put myself in perilous situations, I actually think that because of my good faith approach to people in general and situations that they actually turned out good in the end. They could have turned out really badly. But they didn’t because I didn’t want to see them for what they were. And in a sense, they disarmed situations that could have maybe escalated into something terrible. Yeah, because acting innocently, for example, with the guy, right, like in the apartment, he got flustered. Right. Like he had to speak out the thing that he was trying to hide for himself in some sense. Yeah, like I can’t imagine. Right. Like it’s kind of what, well, I’m just going to go outside of my knowledge. But kind of like what Jesus did or the saints or whatever. Right. Like they provoke by their presence. Right. And there’s an authority that is associated with just being there and standing for what you stand for. And then the other person has to relate to you instead of that you relate to them. And I think that’s where their power comes from, that you have to relate to them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Jesus talks about him being the stone that either people smash themselves up against or it crushes them. And it’s kind of that, I think, what you’re describing there. So this depression, how did that relate to your curiosity? Did it like kill that? No, I was, what ended up happening was I mean, I was 17. Okay. And suddenly, my childhood just like fell away. And I felt naked and vulnerable. And I was angry. And so I went through a period of, you know, real anger and bitterness. And it took me a long time to I wasn’t like projecting it out onto other people, but it was brewing inside of me. Right. What was the target? At the end? Or was it just general? I didn’t. Well, that was part of the problem. I didn’t really know who to blame anything on. Right. Like, how do you blame anyone for the world being malevolent? Like, you know, I tried to, but it always fell flat. You know, I like I would try to blame my parents because they didn’t prepare me or, you know, I’d have all these thoughts. And then I think, well, that’s stupid. You know, of course, of course, they did. You know, they warned me, they told me that I need to be aware and stay safe and things like that. But yeah, so I didn’t know where to go with all that anger. And I ended up actually in a hospital and was really well cared for by a registered nurse in that department. And it seemed like she was the only person there who actually could see me underneath of it all. You know, she could see beyond the anger and the depression, and she could see me for who I was. And she spoke to that person that she could see. And I did, I responded to her. And so it didn’t, it didn’t take me long because I have an extremely strong willpower. Like, I’m very motivated when I want to be, which is, yeah. And so I kind of, all I needed was for somebody to reach in and touch me. And as soon as that happened, I knew what I had to do next. And I checked myself out of the hospital and I moved and I got my head on straighter, not perfectly straight, but straighter. And it was just more, how do I put it? I wasn’t angry anymore. I just let it go. I knew that it was detrimental to myself. Yeah. So was the anger, like, did that feel in like a driving force in you? Like, was it motivating? It was pretty powerful for probably almost a year. And yeah, it was a really terrible year of my life, Manu. I don’t really like talking about it much, to be honest. Because I was just, it feels to me, like when I look back on that, it feels to me like everything fell apart for me. Everything that I thought I knew wasn’t what it was. And I was just, I was just, I was just, I was just, I was just, I was just, I was just, I was just, wasn’t what it was. Or let’s say maybe that the veil was lifted and what I was looking at wasn’t very pretty. Not just in myself, it was mostly outside of me. And because, like I said before, the world was always beautiful to me. Everything was enchanted. It was, I literally felt like I lived in a fairy tale most of my childhood, right up to that point. And then it was just, well, it was a nightmare, essentially, right? It’s like waking up and realizing that you’re in a nightmare. And so, and I just didn’t know what to do, right? I just got really angry. And then you kind of got over it, the anger? And so there’s a void. I determined not to let it overwhelm me. Like I knew that it was detrimental to me. I could see what it was doing to me. I was drinking too much. I was drinking all the time. You know, I ended up in a hospital. I was putting myself in really dangerous situations with my mouth, saying things that I shouldn’t have said to people I shouldn’t have said them to, you know? And it wasn’t the answer to any of my problems, right? Like after almost a year of doing this, I was just falling deeper into darkness. And so I realized very quickly that this is not the way out. The way out is to put all that behind you, right? Not to put it in front of you. So what does it look like to put something like that behind you? I just wouldn’t, I just didn’t give it any credence in my life. I just believed, I believed it was a lie. And did you manage to get the enchantment back as a consequence of rejecting the lie? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, let me think how to describe this. And I wasn’t having any religious experiences. Like I wouldn’t call myself a Christian or anything at the time. I knew that I couldn’t, you know, you can’t erase what you’ve just been through, like your experience, your feelings, and the situations that made those things come to the fore, right? Like I couldn’t just erase those, but I didn’t want them to define me. I knew who I was, you know, before those things happened. And I believed that that person that I saw myself as was really me. And so I just rejected, I just said no to it, basically. Do you see yourself still as that person? Yeah, I do. Yeah. So you’re getting yourself a little bit back together. Yeah. And you start a new journey, journey to? Yeah. Well, I did a little detour. That’s part of journeys. I saw a road that I hadn’t been down yet, right? So I was like, well, let’s go there and see what’s down. Let’s see what’s going to happen down there. And then I ended up pregnant at the age of 19 and refused to have an abortion, which by that time didn’t surprise me that that’s what the father of the child wanted, right? Like I wasn’t shocked by that. I was like, here we go again. Here’s that malevolence, you know? And I just said no, no, and we’re not talking about it anymore. That’s the end of it. It’s not happening. And yeah, so we ended up splitting up and I had my daughter and I raised her on my own for three years. And when she was about, I don’t know, 18 months or something, I met my husband and but he he lived in Switzerland. I lived in Canada. And so we corresponded per letters, per post. And then we got married when she was three. So we have this long distance really this long distance relationship. We saw each other a couple of times in between, you know. Yeah. And then so I journeyed into motherhood and marriage and then I moved to Switzerland. So I journeyed into a foreign culture and a foreign country and a foreign language and foreign food and foreign, you know, everything’s. What’s the state of the anger by then? Is that still an issue? No, no, no, I thoroughly left it behind. Yeah, thoroughly left it behind. Yeah. Yeah. And then lived in Switzerland for 11 years. I told my husband before we got married that I would marry him and move to Switzerland with him, but that he had to promise to try living in Canada. And if that wasn’t if that was, you know, wasn’t something he wanted to do, then we wouldn’t get married because I love the bush. I love nature. And I couldn’t imagine myself not being here at some point, not it didn’t have to be forever. It still doesn’t have to be forever. But that was kind of the condition for me to get married. And he said, yeah, of course. So we lived in Switzerland for 11 years. We had two more children. And then we moved to a very remote area of British Columbia and we homesteaded there for three years. Off grid, the whole nine yards. And that was kind of something I always wanted to do. I don’t know if it was something my husband always wanted to do, but when he met me, it became something he always wanted to do. And so that was kind of like a dream come true for me to be able to go and do that. So you’re talking about a bunch of big transitions involving children. Yeah. So what is it like to decide to homestead when you have three children by then? Right. Yeah. Our oldest was 14 and our son was nine and our youngest daughter was six when we moved up there. And I mean, we lived in a house in Switzerland and we had a yard and the kids were basically always outside. They had a big wood pile they could take from and build forts and they gardened with us and we had a big garden in the yard and we had ducks in our yard. You know, like we were a bit of an anomaly in the neighborhood. And we spent a lot of time most weekends we were hiking in the mountains. And so the kids were pretty used to, you know, and there was no internet, there was no video games, there were no iPads, you know, so the kids didn’t grow up occupying themselves with screens. They were outside all the time. And when we moved, they were excited. They loved it. They still think of it fondly, you know. So how was the decision for you? Like, was it something you worried about or was it just, oh, we got to do this and let’s just go? It took us about a year to find, to find, finally, you know, we had to sell our house and we at first we tried looking for something from Switzerland then we finally came to the conclusion we just have to go. So we packed our things up in a container and shipped it on a slow boat. And then we flew to Canada, bought a truck and a camper and we just lived in that for let me think, like three or four months with the kids. And started looking for a place to live. And so we traveled all over, you know, to these little remote corners because we knew the only criteria we had was we wanted to live somewhere where there were no roads. So how do you navigate where to go? Like, because there’s no internet, there’s no Google Maps, right? There was internet by then. This was 1997. The internet was fairly new. And so there wasn’t, it was interesting because there wasn’t a lot on the internet, you know, like not every realtor had his website on the internet at that point. But there were some realtors who kind of were, you know, maybe ahead of their time or whatever. And they, you know, so we were on the internet looking. We actually started looking on the internet in Switzerland where my husband worked. They installed a computer in the main lobby, right? That was connected to the internet. And so when he was done work, because he was the last to leave the building, he worked late, he would go on there and look for things, you know. But like I said, it was very limited what you could see on the internet at that point. And yeah, so we found a realtor in Vancouver and kind of gave him an idea of what we were wanting. And he gave us some suggestions and we mapped them out on the map. And then we just jumped in the truck and went to see them. And that took us all over the place in these far away little corners, you know, it was really fun. It was like a vacation. It was, yeah. With the aim of actually staying somewhere, right, for a period of time. I mean, we didn’t have a plan. We didn’t know how long we would be there, what we were going to do there. We were just really living in the moment. But you did ask about, so when we finally left Switzerland, actually the weekend that we moved out of our house, we were just really living in the moment. I actually had a really difficult time leaving the house, which surprised me. Because we had completely renovated that house and I’d had two more children in that house. And it was just full of us, right. And it didn’t hit me until I walked past the doorframe in the kitchen and there was a marks on the doorframe where the kids were measuring themselves. And I thought, oh my gosh, I’m leaving all this behind, you know, all that history. And that really surprised me. So I had like, I don’t know, a couple days of feeling sad about it. But then we were onto the next adventure. So. So is it one of these things where you don’t know what you’re missing until it’s gone? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we were so excited and forward thinking, you know. And then when the day actually arrived, it was, then it hits you, you know, kind of thing. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So you sold the house. So you guys did have financial security? At least the feeling of it. Yeah, we had a little bit. We had a little bit. Our husband did work. We lived on very, we were very frugal. We self-sustained. So we grew out all our own food. We had goats for meat and milk. And we had no overhead. We were able to purchase this property for next to nothing. Like it was super cheap. And we had to fix it up because it was, it was in, you know, bad repair and stuff. But so we had no overhead and we could, we could live you know, on a very small amount of money, which is what we did. Yeah. And how did it go with school? Like, do you? Yeah, well, this is where all the little journeys start, you know, it’s like a river, right? This is how I see it, you know, as you come into the world, you’re kind of on this, on this current in this river. And then as, as life becomes more complex, you know, you add people into your life, like your kids, a husband, you know, then it starts forming like a delta, right? There’s all these little, little fingers of the water moving everywhere. And, and so- What’s the water? Is that your attention, your commitment? What like- That’s what you’re floating. It’s what you’re floating on. Whatever you’re floating on. Okay. Yeah. Like, I don’t feel like I, I guess, I guess if I, if I was to psychoanalyze that, I would say I don’t feel in control. I’m, I’m, I’m being taken on a journey. What’s pulling you. Yeah. And, yeah, so, you know, now suddenly you’re, you know, you’re outside of this artificial world where everything is provided for you, your electricity, your septic, your water, your food, you know, it’s all gone. Right. And, and even school. So then I, you know, I had to learn to, I mean, I didn’t have to learn. I was pretty good at it at home anyways, because I was gearing up for this for my whole life. Basically, I was always like, Oh, what are these things? And, but I was homeschooling. I was gardening. I was, I had to deal with goats. Never had goats before. Milking goats, kidding, getting firewood, you know, fixing septic. What else? Planting fields, clearing land. Yeah. All that. Raising a family, you know, enjoying the Northern lights. Yeah. So, so, so what’s the day? Like getting up real early. Yeah. The days, well, where we lived, we had almost 24 hours of daylight in the summertime. That was, that was more challenging. Well, it, you know, it was challenging in a different way. I remember the first summer there, the kids were like, Mom, we’re hungry. And I’m out in the garden, you know, digging and the sun is shining. And I’m like, well, I just got to, what time is it? Oh, my God, it’s 10 o’clock. You know, of course you’re hungry. And so we had to kind of fall into this rhythm of, you know, what, what normally the sun keeps you in, you know. Well, and society as well. Yeah. The sun never went down. I mean, it actually went down for a very, it didn’t go down. It was like dusk for a little, maybe an hour or two. And then it was full blown sun again. And then in the wintertime, it was dark. So you have the opposite effect. And of course, the darkest months, November, December, January, and then February, the sun kind of peeked over the mountains again, and actually shone into your window. And it was, it was probably dark around 3.30 in the afternoon, like pitch dark, you know. And we didn’t have electricity. We had kerosene lamps and, you know, we did have a generator, but we only used it when we needed it for more than one thing, like power tools and whatever. Right. And yeah, I’m trying to remember what you were asking me about now. Well, I was trying to get a sense of what a day’s like, right? There’s these big transitions that are happening. Right. Yeah, well, it was get up in the morning. We were pretty scheduled, which was nice. Get up in the morning, milk the goat, and then breakfast, and then school. And school started at nine, went till one. And the kids could choose what they wanted to do first. They had to do, they had to do what, what was required in a day by one, but they had, they could choose which one they wanted to do first. I didn’t force them to do math first thing in the morning or something, you know. And what was kind of interesting about that was that they always chose the thing they hated the most first. And so I asked them one day, I said, why are you doing that first? Because if it was me, I’d be doing the thing I loved first. Right. And they were like, because then we can get it over with. Right. That was their logic. And I was like, oh, man, these guys are smart. So that’s how they did. And then after that, the day was theirs. I mean, so to speak, there were chores to do and stuff. But we weren’t slave drivers, you know, but we also didn’t just let them lull around. And if they ever said they were bored, they were given a bucket sent to the raspberries or something, you know. And so they’ve very quickly learned to occupy their time and not say that they were bored. I made sure of it because I could stand that when I heard them say that. So, yeah, no, no. You’re a mom, you’re a teacher, you’re a steward of the land. So, yeah, like, yeah, what journey started there? And I, we bought horses, we went to buy two horses, and we came home with four horses, and two of them were pregnant. And the morning we arrived, we arrived home, one of them had her baby, like five hours later. So now we had five horses. And then a week later, the other one had her baby. And then we had six horses. And only one of those horses was rideable, was broke. The others were all just young and or not trained, not never ridden. And I bought a book on how to train horse, how to break horses. And I didn’t have any infrastructure. I had no corrals, no riding arenas, no nothing, just an empty open field and a halter. And literally took my book and read a paragraph, tried the thing. And then read the next paragraph, tried the next thing, you know. And before too long, we were riding four of those horses. So I started down the journey of training and breaking my own horses. I don’t know if I approve of your, your learning method there. But well, it worked. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I believe that. Maybe it’s just better to go by feeling some sense. So yeah, like that’s, that’s a big change. It’s like, yeah, it was a huge change. Yeah, went from living in suburbia in Switzerland to living in the middle of nowhere. And we did it for three years. And the reason we came here where we are now is because the schooling required the kids to finish their last two years of high school outside of the community. And my oldest daughter went when she was 16 to finish her last two years of high school. And I basically never saw her after that, because there was no reason for her to come home after high school. There was nothing in Telegraph Creek for, you know, a graduate, so to speak. And I couldn’t travel, you know, to, I made it for her grad, but it was like a two and a half day drive. She was on Vancouver Island and I was like, I think it was 2100 kilometers away, something like that. So, you know, like I didn’t go to her Christmas concert and, you know, I didn’t, you know, she came home for the summers in between, but yeah, when she graduated, she was just like, yeah, I want to get a job. I want to do something with my life, right. And so my husband and I thought, it’s not really what we want to happen with the other two kids. And and so we moved here where we are now. And it’s about, there was a school bus that picked the kids up for school and they had about an hour on the school bus and then they were home in the evenings and they could do, you know, I mean, I home-schooled them until they reached high school age and then they were given the choice if they wanted to continue home-schooling or go to school. Of course, they always wanted to go to school and I wasn’t going to take that away from them, you know. So they chose to go to high school and that’s what they did. How long is the walk to the school bus? The walk to the school bus? Well, they used to be able to catch it at the end of our driveway and then and then there was a cut in the budget and then I had to drive them to the highway, which was 17 kilometers one way. So they only went to the end of the driveway, I think, for the first year we lived here and then after that I was driving them out to the highway until they finished high school. Yeah. I think the next journey is when the kids are gone, isn’t it? Yeah, yeah, the kids grew up and went, I mean, my oldest daughter was out of the house after she graduated basically. I mean, she came back a few times for short periods and my son graduated from high school early. He was 17 and then he did a two-year post-secondary education in Vancouver and so he was gone at the age of 17. And my youngest daughter graduated at 17 and she went to SFU, Simon Fraser University and then she went to St. Mary’s University in Nova Scotia and then she got accepted to Dalhousie and then she decided not to complete her university. She wasn’t interested in that. I think after about seven years living in Vancouver, my son decided to go to Berlin and live there with a friend. The two of them left Vancouver together and they gave themselves like a year. My son has a Swiss passport so he didn’t need a visa to live there. And then his friend left after the year was up and he stayed and he’s still there. And my oldest daughter went to Switzerland at some point to do a practicum. Met her husband, got married and stayed in Switzerland. And then I said to my amish, you need to go over there and see what life is like in Europe. It’s almost like the amish, right? They have the passport, right? So I was just like there’s no reason to not do it, right? So she stayed with her older sister and did a practicum in Switzerland but met a German guy and they got married and so she’s over there too. So they’re all there and we’re here. Yeah. And I was always, I mean it was hard. I missed them. I missed them a lot. I wish they were closer for visits and birthdays and Christmas and all that stuff. They do make their way over here but not very often. And with COVID it’s been really difficult, right? And we’ve gone there. But I always felt like as a mom my job was to equip them to be able to do that. And it’s kind of like birds. Birds, they care for their young intensively, right? But the whole time they’re doing it, they’re doing it for the sole purpose that when the time comes they can fly and be independent without their parents. And that’s kind of how I felt about it, about raising my kids. I wanted them to be able to just go and be who they are. And that doesn’t come pain free as a parent, right? But at the same time I think it’s the most satisfying. It’s one of those bittersweet things, you know? Yeah, so you have a hole in your life at that point, right? Like no. Mm-hmm, sort of. I mean, you know, I think for a lot of people when the kids leave and you’re getting older and some, you know, they, for a lot of couples anyways, you move into this phase where suddenly you’re just the two of you again and you don’t really know each other anymore because you’ve been so busy for the last 20 years. But that didn’t really happen with my husband and I because we didn’t, he never worked a conventional job and we were always together and we were always working. This was our work. Our life was our work, right? Where we lived and how we lived. That was the job that we both took very seriously. And so yeah, the kids left and what ended up happening was my husband, he actually started gardening and because I used to do all the gardening before that and he got in, he just got into it and he’s like, geez, what am I going to do with all this food? Because we had a huge garden, right? Because we were self-sustaining for the family. Now all the kids are gone. And so he started taking his extra to the farmer’s market. And so he’s been doing that probably about 12 years now. And that’s turned into something that he really loves. He really loves doing that. He has two big market gardens actually. Yeah. And you? And me? Well, I just keep finding challenges. I love, I love, I love my home. I love incorporating beauty into my life. You have a Discord on the internet for some strange reason. Yeah, yeah, I did. Well, I started listening to Jordan Peterson, the old story, right? I started listening to him because of that Bill C-16 thing and it popped up in the news in Canada, right? That this psychology professor wasn’t going to use these pronouns. And at that time, there was a more fair take on it. Some people didn’t like it that he wasn’t going to do it, but other people were like, well, yeah, kind of an interesting argument. And I thought, okay, who is this guy? He’s an independent thinker. I like him already. He’s not going with the status quo. And so I Googled him and I found all his classes online on YouTube. And so I started going through them. I thought, if I really want to know who this guy is, I have to see, I have to see it over time. And so I watched, I took in the Maps of Meaning course and the Personality course. And then by that time, he had started that biblical series. He was well into it by then actually. And then I started watching that. And of course, that was like, you know, all of the outward journey that I’m making, like when I talk about being a mom, you know, breaking horses, working in a garden, homeschooling, that’s all what you can see on the outside, but there is an interiority to all of that, right? Like you’re discovering things about yourself, about the world, about nature, about God, right, about being. And I’m that kind of person. I like thinking about those things. And so when I started listening to Jordan Peterson, he was talking about all the things that I had already been thinking about. And he was confirming for me a lot of things that I, a lot of the conclusions that I had already come to about stuff, you know. You know, like a lot of people say, oh, I’ve always thought that, but I never knew how to articulate it. And that’s kind of what happened for me when I started listening to Jordan Peterson. And then I discovered Paul VanderKlay, thanks to YouTube, and started enjoying his content. And then he started Discord server. And by then I was well involved in the comment section of Paul VanderKlay’s, you know, videos, which was like a first for me, you know, like I’m not a, you know, like I’m a bit of a Luddite, like I don’t have a cell phone and I’ve never had any social media or anything. And I’m trying to remember why I even bought it. I bought myself an iPad for some reason. Oh no, my son gave me an old iPad that he had. And it was on that iPad that I started watching Jordan Peterson. And it was so old that it wasn’t able to keep up. And I bought myself a new one so I could keep watching. And before that, YouTube was like, when people would say they were watching YouTube videos, I thought they were dumb, you know. And I remember my husband like, because I also spin wool and raise sheep now. And so I was, you know, I spend hours spinning or, you know, preparing fiber. And my husband will come in and say, are you still listening to that guy? I’m like, well, he’s got tons of content. And it kept me company and it kept my mind occupied. And I loved it. I loved everything that he was talking about. So yeah, and then Paul started the Discord server. And I jumped on like day one when he announced it. I was like, of course, I want to meet these people, you know, because he had been doing all these randos conversations, right. And you’re getting to, well, you feel like you know these people in some weird way. And so I was very excited about the Discord server. They could actually just talk to each other. And that’s where I met you. Not instead. And that’s where I met you. So yeah, that’s like a big shift, right? Like from being with your hands in the earth to being with your head on the internet. Yeah. Yeah, but my head was always my head, my head actually, my head. How do I put this? When my hands are busy, my head is very happy. It’s very happy. It’s like meditation for me when my hands are busy, right? If I’m digging in the dirt, like all that kind of thing, turning compost, cleaning out a barn, it’s mindless. It’s mindless work, right? And you can actually just reflect. And things come to mind and things come together, you know. And so my head was always very philosophical. Actually, I think it’s a trait of a lot of farmers. They spend a lot of time doing mindless things, you know, cutting wood, driving around in a tractor, harrowing a field, you know. Shop food, carry water. Yeah. And so and it’s like, and you get to see the cycle and the patterns of nature. And it’s always talking to you, you know. And I know when I get together with old ranchers and stuff, they’re just like philosophers with calluses, you know. That’s really what they’re like. And there’s a lot of wisdom to them. So and something that I had always wanted to do was like, I’ve always written. I’ve written poetry all my life, ever since I was a very young child. And I always wanted to go back to school and actually, you know, do something about it. And I don’t necessarily want to do that anymore. But this has been like my idea of university, let’s say. You know. Better probably, right? Probably. I think it’s actually better. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, for that reason, it’s, I’ve just been, I’ve been filled full, really. Really. And I’m at a point in my life, too, like, you know, the kids are gone. I’m older. I’m not working. I don’t have a job. My days are pretty scheduled and pretty regular, unless, of course, some mishap thing happens, you know. And I can set aside time for this, you know. Yeah. So, so how do you see your role? Like, what are you enacting apart from getting your poetry? My role in what way? Like in the world or in my family? Well, well, yeah, like, like, like, I do. Well, at least when I was hanging out with you, I, I got the sense that what you were doing, right, like you, you were partaking in something. Like, like it was a big part of your life. Yeah, well, yeah. I felt like, you know, honestly, Manuel, I felt like I was learning from you guys. Okay. Because, like, I have a pretty solitary life. And I, you know, I’m not, I was alone with my thoughts most of the time. Sometimes I could talk to my husband about some of the things I think about, but most of the time he wasn’t interested. And that’s fair, right. I’m not always interested in what he, what he wants to talk about either. And, and so I knew things, but I didn’t know what the names of them were, you know, or, or I knew something, but I didn’t know how to articulate it. And so for me, having that opportunity to, to actually talk about these things and find out that, oh, there’s a name for that, you know, it was, it was really great, you know, and I feel like I’ve been learning to articulate ever since properly what I think, you know. And I guess, you know, there’s, there’s kind of this experience, you know, I have this, I’m older and I’ve had a lot of experience in life and, and my lifestyle, you know, farming and homesteading gave me kind of like a, a grounded kind of wisdom. And, and then people started calling me the mother of the discord, which really I didn’t want. I didn’t actually want that. That’s what happens with nicknames, right? Like you just get them assigned to you. Yeah, am I, am I like, what does that mean? Because I mean, for some people, their mother is like, they just don’t want to have anything to do with her, right? I’m like, is that what that means? It’s like, oh, oh, everyone has to straighten up now. And, you know, because the mother is here and I just wanted to be, I just want to listen, you know, and I wanted to exchange and I wanted to learn and I wanted to expand my vocabulary and, you know, so yeah, there was that. I’ve learned to live with it, but yeah. So, so you got to sign a role and you somewhat embraced it. Yeah, I didn’t want to disappoint people, you know, and be in you have some successes as well. So, so. I still feel like I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m like in a, like a, what do they call them? Like just a, an eternal child. Like, seriously, like I’m still, I just love learning, right? You also don’t, you don’t want to be confounded. You don’t want to be bound. Yeah. And I don’t know what, like we’ve had these discussions, Manu. Well, you know, what, what does that mean? Right. What does agape mean? What does, what does hope mean? What does mother mean? You know, Well, I actually probably have answers now. So that’s, that’s, yeah, I know. I know. That was always the thing in my mind was, well, when, when this guy says mother, he’s got an image in his head. And when that guy says mother, he’s got an image in his head. So which one of those images am I, you know, at this point in time, right? And so that, that’s the problem to me. You create the image. You don’t get it as science. Well, yeah, I tried. I tried. I tried to break the frames. So, so, so is, is that something that, that you, you’re looking forward to explore, like being the mom of the discord, like, or do you want to explore your poetry or like where is it going? Well, I’ve actually kind of taken a step back from the discord, not because I wanted to, it wasn’t intentional. It was, I just, for me, I’ve only got so many hours in the day and I’ve only got so much room in my head. And so, you know, I got involved with Nate Heil and Jedediah and Michael and the Grail Country Channel. And we’re basically going through books and discussing them, which means I have to read the book and think about it. I don’t read books. Yeah, right. So, and we’ve talked about other things too, like other things that just pop up that we, you know, that we want to talk about. And I tried to keep up with both, you know, the discord and Grail Country. And at some point, something had to give. And so I decided because I was, because I’m the eternal child and always want to learn, I went with Grail Country instead of being the mom of the discord. Yeah, that’s, I certainly have not arrived. Okay. I’ll tell you that right now. I have not arrived. Like, don’t count on me to have arrived. Didn’t I have conversations with you about the wise old woman archetype? Yeah, you did. That one didn’t land. I appreciate it. Like, I know, I know that, that I have a wisdom to me. Like, I know, I know, I’ve always had it, actually, even as a kid, people used to say, Oh, you’re so wise, you know. But, and I don’t, I’m not afraid of being old either. So don’t worry about that. I’m embracing my age. No, well, you know, saying the wise old woman, like that doesn’t, that doesn’t, I’m not afraid of that. That’s the archetype. But I feel like, let me say this as honestly as I can, I feel like it is, what’s the word I’m looking for? I can’t think of the word, but it’s like, I feel like a bit of an imposter if someone sees me as that, because there’s a lot of things, like, the more I know, the less I realize, I know, right? Like, I come into this place of unknowing, let’s put it that way. And it feels presumptuous on my part to portray myself as someone who’s wise, because I don’t, I don’t, you know, I don’t see myself as entirely wise, honestly. I make a lot of dumb, dumb mistakes. And I need the freedom to do that. I need the freedom to make those mistakes. I don’t want to be locked into a, you know, an image. So you need the freedom to make the mistakes to do what? Like, why are you making the mistakes for? Well, I think that’s how we learn. We don’t, we don’t. Yeah, but what are you, what are you trying to learn? Learn. Just purposeless? No, no. No, no. The way, the way that I see it is that we’re, we’re on a journey of becoming, which means we’re dynamic, like, we don’t arrive. We aren’t anything. You know, I’m not the wise old woman. But to me, that’s, that’s having reached my destination. I certainly have not, right? You can be the wise old woman. At times I can. Yeah. Yes, I agree. Well, I’m looking for the aspiration, right? So it’s like, yes, right? Like, there’s an endless journey. My aspiration, my aspiration is easy. It’s, it’s to know God. That’s my aspiration. And it means further up and further in and further down those roads that I haven’t traveled yet to see what happens. That’s really my aspiration. Did you think those, those roads lie in books? No, no. But, but they can. So, so, so sketch me five years from now. What do you see yourself doing? Are you visiting Rome? Like, like five years from now? I have no idea. It depends on the great reset. I don’t, I don’t think you’ll notice much from the great reset. I can’t travel. So I’m not allowed out of my country. Still? Yeah, because I’m not vaccinated. So as long as I’m not vaccinated, I can’t go anywhere. I can’t get on a plane or a train or a ship. So if I just, if that’s what it looks like in five years, then I hope to become a member of the Orthodox Church. There’s also a couple down about an hour, no, two hours from me. In another town who are doing a reader service at their house. And we’re going to be doing that together in the hopes that we can establish some kind of mission in Williams Lake, the town that I, that I’m close to. I have an old log building on my property that is kind of sideways, sinking into the ground. It’s just a little cabin and I want to fix that up and turn it into a prayer chapel. I want to be, I want to, I want to age well. I want to age well with my husband. I want to finish well in my marriage. I want to be as active and participatory on the land as long as I can. And, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m really a homebody. Like I live, I have no neighbors. I live an hour away from a town. I’m a mile off the main road and this is my heaven. So, so I, I do get a sense that, that you. I want to write. I want to write more. I want to learn how to write better. Is there, you want to? Huh? Is there, is there something inside of you that, that you specifically want to get on paper? There has been for a long time and I don’t know what it is. Like I couldn’t tell you what it is that I want to write. But I know that there’s something that wants to be expressed and, and I always felt like the time will come for that thing to happen, right? And it feels like it’s getting closer. That’s, that’s how I would describe it. And it’s like an Easter egg. Yeah, yeah. So I, I want to, I want to, I would like to take some writing, online writing courses. Just to give myself a leg up, you know, getting started, so to speak. I never completed high school and I never did any post-secondary education. So there are some areas where I feel like I’m just floundering, you know? Yeah, well, I can empathize. I actually started writing a book. Did you? What is it about? Or do you know? Um, it’s, it’s, it’s, I’m, I’m trying to basically write a secular Bible without too much stories. Just give, give away of re-engaging with the world from a participatory. Oh, interesting. Anyway, yeah, that’s, that’s still. Far in my future. I mean, what I want to write, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t mind putting together like a volume of, and this wouldn’t be a very big one, but poetry because I have a lot of it. And, and I want to edit a lot of it because a lot of it’s very old and very basic. And I feel like I’m, I’m ready to do that. Like I could actually do a good job of it. But I would like to write a fiction, a book of fiction, a story. Yeah. Do you have more teasers than just a book? No, not really. Because it’s about journeys. I don’t even know, you know, like I don’t even know. And every day, every day, actually, I kind of run through the opening lines and. It’s like a little, it’s like a little exercise where, where I do the opening lines and then go, yeah, no, not that. So far I haven’t been happy with any of them. It’s, it’s like a practice where you’re like, I’m looking at a bit of your soul, you’re basing it on the paper. It’s like, nope, you’re still in there somewhere. That’s not the opening line. That’s probably somewhere towards the end of the book or something, you know, and I don’t want it to be a story about me or my life. A lot of people have said to me, oh, you need to write a book. You know, your life has been so interesting. And I, I, I agree. It has been interesting, but at the same time, it’s just a life. Like we all have interesting lives. Like we do. Everyone has a story. And, and I would like to talk about that somehow. The fact that people have stories. Sort of the archetypic way. That every life is amazing and sacred and holy as in unto itself. So maybe we can end with a suggestion of mine there. Maybe you, you can provide people a way to access that in order to people. Cause yeah, that, that’s my mission. Giving, giving people access to, to things that they can’t get to by themselves. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I honestly believe that a big part of it has to do with our relationship to nature. I always felt ever since I was a teenager, a young teenager, that the industrial revolution was the worst thing that ever happened to people. Getting them off the land and into the city, you know, and I’m not saying that the city is evil, but there is, there is a divorce that happened between, between humanity and, and the earth that really needs to be restored. We should check out Genghis Khan. Okay. Yeah. So we’ll put an end on this. I think it was a great privilege to have you here. It was really nice to talk to you. I’m glad you’re doing this. I really love it. Yeah. And I want to ask everybody to share the lessons that they, they got out of Sherry’s story. And I want to invite you to partake again next time people and goodbye. Bye.