https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=F9t-eQ7OewE
Welcome everyone to another Voices with Verveki. I’m here with some very close colleagues and friends, people I’m working with very intimately and intensely, especially in connection with the Verveki Foundation. We have Ryan Barton, the executive director, Christopher Mastapietro, who many of you already know, who’s my partner in many things and is really taking over an important role within the Verveki Foundation and Taylor Barrett, who is leading the way, is also now part of the Verveki Foundation in developing our entire ecology of practices, our starter courses, etc. And we’re here because we want to talk about a couple of related things. One is we want to announce Awakened to Meaning and what this is. It’s basically a dojo for those of you who don’t do martial arts. A dojo is where you go to practice your martial art and learn and instruct and spar, interact. It’s not a gym because it’s a lot more about learning and interacting. And there’s not just a physical part of a good dojo. We in the martial arts community make fun of the just punch and kick schools. We also, in a dojo, we’re learning philosophy. Again, not in some arcane, woo, fashion, but like, how do I gain virtues, courage, discernment? You need those to be a good martial artist and you also need those if the martial artist is going to transfer out into your life in a transformative way. And a dojo isn’t just a woo place. It’s a dojo place. You sit around and you have to build up habits and skills and access new states of mind. So this is what Awakened to Meaning is. It’s a dojo. We’re going to talk about that. We’re going to talk about this, how we’re building a lot of entry accessible points for this and how you should understand what this practice is. We’re not meaning something arcane or strange or esoteric when we’re talking about the cultivation of meaning and its related cultivations of virtue and wisdom. So I’m going to let everybody reintroduce themselves and then we’re going to pick this up. I’ll name everybody and you can introduce yourself a little bit more and how you’ve come into this. And then we’ll start the discussion about the dojo and about what we’re hoping you can get from this dojo. So I’ll start with Ryan Barton. Yeah, thanks, John. So I want to clarify that it’s not a technical dojo in the martial arts sense. It is an online place for wisdom cultivation and for these practices. And I’m really excited about this launch because it connects very much to my own journey in this. I mean, I first found your work through a podcast, as so many have, where you were on another podcast years ago. And it came at such an important time of that second half of life worldview building that Jung points to. And that led me to embracing the ecology of practices that created such a depth within me, even as philosophy gave me such a lens to see the world and myself and to understand and to stitch together the multiple disciplines. And so that, of course, led me to reach out to you and to offer volunteer and support for these initiatives. And it’s exciting because this site that we’re launching at AwakendMeaning.com is one of the many projects that’s coming out of the Reiki Foundation. It’s an early project and it’s currently in an early phase as of July 2023. But it’s an actual place where we’re getting to practice and we’re getting to do these things together with other people who are focused on cultivating virtue and becoming home in our bodies and our relationships and with reality. And it’s a really exciting moment. Thank you, Ryan. Christopher. Yeah, so I’ve been working with John for many years now and I’m just coming on to the foundation as of this month. So I’m very excited. This is all sort of a long time coming, but also brand new. It’s a great combination. And so I’m going to be working on all kinds of things in the months ahead, helping, for instance, with Taylor to design courses and to keep these practices both evolving across time, but also deepening and becoming more complex and intricate. And also helping to take all of these arguments and all of this work and the nitty gritty of the work and actually help it develop and help it make it more accessible and help it reach people in a way that it becomes relevant and salient and able to be digested. And there’s so much that we have on offer already and there’s so much in development. And so it’s rather a question of how to take all of this and make it palatable in such a way that we can understand what we have and and make it help to frame it such that people can actually interact with it meaningfully, both to port it into other areas of their lives. But also to develop a relationship with it that’s very personal and very individual in addition to being able to participate in it communally and that individual aspect of it the way that a person takes it on in their life is a really important aspect to all of this that I’m really hoping to develop more. So this is all very exciting. Over to you, Taylor. Taylor. Yeah. Yeah, so I was sitting with a lot of excitement to get to sort of talk about this. For me, my background, I’ve spent about 10 years in the authentic relating and sort of circling world. And, you know, within that, I’ve been running a community, leading community originally with my wife and then more or less on my own since she started psychotherapy school in person with Authentic Relating Toronto. So where we would offer, you know, drop in events, but then also move into more complex things like facilitation training, leadership training, circling training. So, sort of like the my, my culmination of experience is sort of part of what’s leading me to take this, this role and and sort of taking a lead on developing this platform and, you know, building the dojo. And, you know, a real important evolution of what I’ve been doing sort of came online for me in late 2019 now, after having met John, and then starting to dive into his work and awake into the meeting crisis and it’s starting to fill in all the gaps of my knowing. And then, you know, with the projects, you know, that John’s been involved with with the respond network and me being involved with that it’s starting to bring in the domains and the dimensions that we’ll probably be talking about this really starting to like pad out not only my own personal practice, but also what I see makes a good ecology of practices that expands beyond, you know, authentic relating in Toronto. So it’s, it’s also a bit exciting is a bit of a learning experience for me to us I’m collaborating with, you know, new facilitators and leaders across different domains, and also like enriching my own personal practices as well. And it’s just been so great to work with them. Ryan and Christopher. Yeah, it’s just a super awesome team and of course you know john as a mentor, co conspirator. Yeah, I’ve just, yeah, I’m, this just feels so, so right and so good I’m just really excited about what we’re developing. So, maybe we’ll start with Taylor but, you know, more a little bit more freeform now. Let’s begin with, you know, the site, awakened to meaning what is there what can people expect. How should they approach it, how should they move through it. Yeah. So I mean it’s certainly want to emphasize the part that Ryan did is the you know we’re in early stages and we’re rolling out. So currently the focus is on our events calendar, and the offerings that are there. So we sort of are trying to, and you know and it’s going to grow but we’re trying to try to reach a different. Categories of people familiar with practice or depth of practice, where they’re at. So one of the offerings that we just launched last week is the starter ecology of practices so this is really just a low barrier of entry, you know, for people who maybe don’t have intentional practice in their life. Or, or maybe they have one practice that they do really well but they’re missing the other dimensions, or other domains, I should say. So, this is sort of introducing them to things, you know, and very much a guided way so you know journaling is a session that we have you know the sort of guided by a facilitator but it’s mostly done in science we have a meditation which is largely guided for people who don’t have, you know depth of meditation experience. And then we have an authentic relating session where in that session we try to build up a daily habit of actually speaking what’s happening right here right now in connection with other people, because in some ways some of us actually don’t do that we wear the mask, or we should be doing so we’re building up a habit in that. And then there’s embodiment, because I think for a lot of people in my experience that tends to be an area that’s very, what would I say, devalued. So this is sort of an opportunity to remind people like hey you’ve got a body. And it’s like it’s connected to your whole system it isn’t a separate mind body thing. So yeah, so we have these half hour sessions that we’re running four times a week right now. And hopefully we look to expand that across the different time zones. But yeah, just getting people to drop in for a half hour, at least for Eastern time people in the morning, and just get their day started as if they were going to go do stretching in the corner or maybe do a little set. So that’s, that’s where we started there and then of course we have workshops like bespoke workshops we’re reaching out to other people who John’s had on a weekend. Sorry on voices with Reveki in another context, and they’re offering their workshops. So across again, the various dimensions and domains, you know if dialogue imaginal mindfulness and an embodiment work. So starting to move into more of something you can just drop in and sort of take a taste of like oh what’s like an embodiment session like like maybe you’re not interested in starter college you bet oh this is two hour session, and I saw this person on voices I’m curious more about them or what it is they’re offering. So those exist as well. And we’ll start building actually from the starter also a beginner ecology of practices which will, you know, again sort of like take us a little bit deeper into our practice and building up that have are keeping that habit going. And then we have some more intermediate sort of advanced offerings that are through the site so for example like things like the circling and the logos weekends. And this is training that Christopher, Robert Gray and I are working on for dialectic, the logos. So, this is, this is sort of what’s here and what what we’re sort of announcing or launching right now and it’s just, you know, I’ll continue to curate these workshops and we’ll continue to add in these practice sessions connected to an ecology. So that’s everything around practice but we’re also going to want it to sort of be of a hub where we can bridge, you know, john’s, you know, theoretical work into the practice piece you know a lot of the work that he was doing that I saw that you were doing john and after And sort of like sort of picking up on that and bringing it in as like a like a resource and trying to meet people where they’re at and provide them a bit of a trying to remember what the term is that journey around the Ryan uses you know a journey for them of how they might use practice to sort of help them in their lives and increase increase more meaning for them. Yeah, it was, it was interesting. There’s been so many people who have helped with the design and the structure of this, and if anyone listening is interested I think the best thing to do is go to wake and meeting calm and sign up for newsletter, like that’s the best way to then get updates and, and make sure. And I think that’s the best way to get into this right away. But in all of the people and all the conversations we’ve had around designing this, a common theme has been, how do we, how do we just make this all a lot easier. And in a way how do we serve folks like our past selves like how could we’ve made it easier for our past selves, because I know for myself there’s a sense of this little corner of the internet providing a home like an intellectual home. But then this desire to turn that into action like okay I get it I believe that my cognition is that I’m mired in self deception I believe that I am not framing the I believe I need to come into a better participatory participatory relationship with myself with others in reality. How do I do that how do I connect that into my life how do I actually take action and then how do we take action with other people and develop relationships in this that can hold the fullness of who I am and this journey, and then how can we do that together and then have some kind of service through this and, and it’s the it’s the goal to make that whole journey easier and to make that more accessible to all of us who orbit this little corner and who are so drawn to your teaching john and the teaching of others. And you want to actually put it into practice and take action and begin to do some of this hard specific work of virtue cultivation. The other thing maybe to say about this is that even though, even though it’s. Yeah, just one thing john which is that you know even though there’s a rigor to all of this. And there’s a great playfulness to all of this too, you know there’s this real opportunity for experimentation. And there’s an opportunity to test different kinds of practices and different kinds of things to see how they how they weigh against you as an individual are they way against you and what you’re bringing into it we’re all coming with very very different backgrounds. Some of us are coming with a kind of religious framework some of us are coming without a religious framework. Some of us are coming with certain belief systems that are intact and that direct us to particular ideas and particular ends and that kind of. shield other influences and some of us are come in this completely open ended way, having no idea what we’re looking for but wanting something having a hunger that doesn’t really have a particular object. And for some people they are there’s something very specific that they’re after there’s a real something really specific is in the crosshairs that they’re looking for. The idea here is that this is a place for all of those kinds of people this isn’t a this isn’t a place for one kind of person. And this also isn’t a place that’s trying to put you through a gauntlet of something very very specific this isn’t a one size fits all right. This is an encounter of an with between an individual and a variety of possibilities both kinds of people and kinds of practices that offer very very different dimensions that can then be ported back into life. We all have different commitments of time and different commitments of activities and routines there’s an endless variation to all of this. But part of what’s on offer is an opportunity for a bit of trial and error into experiment to tumble around and the dojo and the dojo analogy so I mean study of an analogy it’s just it is a dojo. By definition and it’s such a beautiful way of thinking about it because you imagine entering into a vast dojo space and seeing. Different kinds of arts being practiced all around you and getting to step into this onto this mat step off of it step onto this math step off of it and with each of those mats also comes. The kind kinds of different ways of interacting with people and you might find that you really take to one particular kind or you really take to another but you’ll find in the midst of all of these offerings a combination thereof that perhaps speaks specifically to you. And what it is that you’ve come in looking for and so there’s a the thing I think that excites me about all of this is there’s there’s this middle where everything that’s sort of idiosyncratic about each of us what we each of us need that can’t be compared to exactly what each of the other people need. And so you know this is this is really a place where someone can find what it is that they need while coming into contact with a variety of other people and being exposed eclectically to a lot of possibilities that may be there. And so you know this is this is really a place where someone can find what it is that they need while coming into contact with a variety of other people and being exposed eclectically to a lot of possibilities that may be get to draw us beyond the boundary of what it is that we want specifically in that moment. Yeah, we, we transcend ourselves by internalizing people that have perspectives and ways of life, other than ourselves. And, yes, this isn’t a martial arts dojo it’s so I guess you’d call it a developmental dojo. That’s what we’re trying to do. And we talked about the three DS Taylor has been alluding to them there are the three dimensions. Now this is work done with Taylor and Chris and Ryan but also with Nathan Vanderpool. So this is our way of trying to take notion of wisdom, that’s going to be been investigated by religious and philosophical traditions and science and make it something that is in a format and a form that translates directly into you beginning to practice and acquiring And then when that’s all integrated towards what is true good and beautiful. You have the cultivation of virtue, and each virtue is just a way of being wise in a particular situation nothing arcane, nothing who, nothing that you have to travel the top of a mountain to hear a gray bearded man say, it is not being, but the empty mind. You must abandon yourself to find none of that. Right. This is okay. The three dimensions are view, care, and action view meaning. Right. This is okay. The three dimensions are view, care, and action view meaning. How do you view the world in that very broad sense care, what are you caring about Socrates really proposed a rationality of care what the, you know, Jesus said where your heart is there you are also. How are you caring, instead of it happening automatically unconsciously reactively, you can make it happen consciously creatively constructively action. Okay, take all of that. How do I zero in on the relevant right thing in a messy ill defined situation in which people are perhaps not sharing my point of view to bring about the best navigation best orientation of the world. The best orientation and navigation to what is closest to what I most strongly have come to conclude is true good and beautiful. That’s it. View care action. Those are the three dimensions of wisdom. And then there’s the four domains in which you want to apply wisdom. This is dying. There’s the dialogical and this is not just talking. It’s not just discourse and not just what we mean by dialogue and there’s a lot out there. And maybe we’ll get into this a bit, but you know how deal logos is not just dialogue. It’s about this right it’s this way of communing relating mutually transforming right tapping into a flow state that actualizes collective intelligence to give us individual guidance and collective guidance. That’s the dialogical the imaginal, which is that’s the, the eye and dime. It’s not just imagination. It’s imagination for the sake of enhancing your set your, your perception enhancing your awareness, and there’s a way to practice this mindfulness, not just meditation, meditation, contemplation, not just seated mindfulness but moving mindfulness bringing this all in and embodiment, like Taylor said we’re going to have this this is a challenging one for us because this is virtual but we’re working with people on how we can bring in the embodiment aspect so that the body gets deeply involved in all of these as you have the three domains. So sorry, the three dimensions of wisdom, apply to the four domains. And then we’re right now we’re working on it, and we’re going to release eventually the, the, you know, the design principles. So how do you design a good ecology of practices so those are the three domain, the three D’s of the developmental dojo. There’s the three dimensions of wisdom, the four domains of application will come up with a great acronym soon for the design principles. That’s it. That’s it. Again, yes. Right. Put that aside, put aside the fact that the word wisdom has either been captured by who or trivialized to just something you put on your book, you know the wisdom of eating or like just that it’s, we’re trying to get out of that cultural abuse of this term and recover it in a way that is accessible and challenging to you in your life right now. And it occurs to me something maybe something to say about the three D’s is in some ways like, this is really helpful information, you know, if you’re interested in willing to sort of digest it and you sort of want to self direct and create your own ecology of practices. And there’s also a way in which it’s like, you don’t have to worry about it too much if we’re doing our job well, and we’re built you know and we’re offering, you know, we’re presenting the offerings and you sample from them and you sort of start to lean into it I mean, there’ll be offerings. There are offerings also through the site in terms of transformational coaching, as well as philosophical counseling. We’ll talk about that. I don’t know where we’re at quite in this moment about the therapy aspect just because there’s usually geographical boundaries but also sort of providing that one on one direct support as well for individuals, such that you know you could say like, hey, here’s the practices that I’m currently doing on the platform. You know, and here’s how they’re going for me. What do you think about, you know, do I have any sort of holes in my in my ecology or, you know, and there’s this opportunity to say well why don’t you go check out Alexander Zachary’s art fellowship series that sounds like something that maybe you’re not touching on in your ecology. So, you know, we’re certainly hoping to sort of get to that place where people really deeply engage with it in a way. You can of course, you know, read all the propositional material around the three D’s. And I’m, I know a number of you will certainly want to do that is very important to me as a, you know, as a course designer and ecology designer to know that. But, you know, if you just want to like practice and enhance you know meaning in your life as well. I’m hoping that we can also offer that particular journey for you as well and where it’s actually not that important to, to take that on and we’ll just sort of guide you through it up until the point in which you’re ready to take the wheel for yourself. Yeah, each person will sort of have a different point of entry and and those points of entry won’t be the same, you know, and I don’t think you have to think of it as you don’t have to take everything on at once. In fact, that’s that’s not probably not possible for most people nor really desirable because if you overwhelm yourself quickly then it’s a really good way to discourage yourself from doing anything. I know that’s true for me, right. I take on one little thing at a time and slowly integrate them. It’s a lot easier than suddenly overwhelming myself with a variety of novelty. And so, you know, wherever the comfort is just on the edge of that comfort is a good place to begin. And wherever the intrinsic interest and intrinsic passion seems to be is usually a good place to begin. You know, follow what’s already, already present already true, right, already beautiful to you and then see how that begins to fan out. And it’s amazing how the the energy required to undertake a lot of these, these practices and this kind of spirit of play required to undertake them is actually comes as a consequence of doing them. It’s not something you have to summon single handedly, which is something I’ve learned in the course of all of this. Thank goodness that’s true. Yeah, the goals that you start with and start with them are not the goals, you’ll have as you go in. And so, we are very, like, we’re very aware of background in, you know, developmental psych and stages of development and growth. I’m a little bit wary of the stage model being too rigid, but the idea that, you know, you have to meet people within their particular framing and the goal set that defines that framing. And then what people typically do is they get an aspirational intimation of a goal they’d like to take on, and then they move to it. And we are designing this to try to be very responsive and sensitive to that, so that your, your aspiration will be the engine of this, we won’t be imposing something on you. We will be challenging you but we will be challenging you in an aspirational fashion. And I think many of us long just for a place that is well oriented, so that we can genuinely aspire again. Just think about how much that could mean to a place where you can inhale, right, the inspiration again because you are being right, like, properly oriented and guided it just so you can navigate a real aspirational project. Remember project means to throw out in front. And so, like, for me just like I would have, I did, I long for just a place where I could aspire. Right. And where that wasn’t just sort of like having wonderful feelings but like, no, I want to actually, I want to become my better self and not in some trivial way, and not just for myself but for other people. And nowadays for many people, I want to be a better self because I want a better world. And so that’s, that’s what is really on offer here. I just had a thought, John. I remember when you were at the Rebel Wisdom closing, I remember one of the questions somebody asked you, and they sort of, I’m going to paraphrase this a bit and maybe miss some nuance, but I believe it was a woman and she sort of came to you and said like, I’ve been watching your lecture series and I’m like really getting a sense of like it really opened up my eyes to what’s, what’s happening. And then she felt like a bit of a freeze around like, but what do I do with that now? Yeah, what’s next? I’m hoping in many ways, you know, with Awakened to Meaning we are actually offering that opportunity of engagement of what could be next for you. Taylor, that’s a great way of putting it. You know, this is the place, the dojo you go to when you’re asking the question, what’s next? This is where you come. And that’s all you need to come. It’s just have that sincere, aspirational question or quest for yourself. That’s all you need. Okay, my eyes are opened. That’s the beginning of the view, right? I do care, but what do I do? What’s next? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s, you know, this is the what’s next dojo. Basically, you come here when you’re at that place. That’s what’s so beautiful about wisdom cultivation, isn’t it? Is that sometimes we might hunger for someone to tell us what to do. Like, I see all the problems in the world and the problems of myself and my relationships. And what do I do? And, and the invitation to cultivate wisdom feels like, wait, I have to spend all this time and I just sit and focus on my breath and I just engage with people with what is like that. Like, but the world is on fire. And haven’t you heard about artificial intelligence and what’s happening? And it’s like, well, actually, the only way for us to be able to have any kind of impact that’s meaningful is for us to first be come more wise. And for us to live out of the being mode, for us to have our deepest, deep connection to our ancient sources of wisdom within us and without. And that as we cultivate that naturally we see the opportunities around us to impact differently. Naturally relationships start to renew and shift naturally opportunities in career. We see them differently. We show up differently and that starts to direct the world around us differently, which is why I think this cultivation of wisdom as what’s next is also that answer that leads to all of those other opportunities because it takes all of us becoming who we can as wise as possible becoming as sage like as possible. All of us together doing that for us to have hope in this culture and hope in our lives for a more beautiful experience in life of this one precious life that we get to live. That was beautiful, Ryan. It might be helpful just right. You just jumping off the back of that, right. It might be helpful to be a bit clear about, you know, what that what that can sometimes mean what that can sometimes mean in the everyday. Like what is it? What do you start to feel when you know you’re you’re engaging with a wisdom practice or when you’re engaging with this project? What actually happens in the day to day of your life? Nobody on this. None of the four of us are presenting as as as so called wise people or I’m certainly not right. We’re not we’re not we’re not styling ourselves that way. That’s not what we mean. Right. What we’re trying to say is that by exposure to this kind of work, we’ve witnessed changes that happen in many domains of life simultaneously and those changes seems to feed themselves back into that work. So doing dialectic in the deal logos, for instance, right. Years now, a few years of intensive exposure to deal logos begin to loosen things that were formerly very tight. They begin to certain certain features of of the world become pronounced that weren’t pronounced before. So what does this mean practically? Right. One of the things I find, you know, and it’s subtle. That’s the thing. Right. And that’s important to say in all of this is like it’s not like you, you know, you go to a dojo, you do some practices, you leave, you might very well leave with that with a glow or a sense of energy or a sense of confidence or a renewal of engagement or or or or an appetite that maybe you found hard to come by before. But, you know, day to day that can also fluctuate. So it’s important not to think of it as well. I go and I do some practices and I come out and suddenly I have the energy to take on the world and solve all problems. It doesn’t really work that way. I think it’s much subtler. It’s a much longer form process and it’s gradual, just like training in a dojo is gradual. Right. You can’t do the splits after a month. Right. You can’t like you can’t you can’t get there’s no mastery that comes after, you know, a few days of practice. What does begin to happen, though, I find, is that certain problems that seemed insoluble before suddenly there’s a way through them. A dilemma that presented with two competing options, both of which seemed, let’s say, less than ideal, suddenly reveals a third. A relationship that has sort of that it’s in an impasse. I don’t know how to there’s a there’s a truth that’s unsaid in this really something is unspoken in this relationship that needs to be said, but I don’t know how to say it. Suddenly that begins to loosen. Right. Suddenly there’s an opportunity for disclosure where before there may not have been or a dilemma that was just really foggy and obscure suddenly becomes a little bit clearer. My experience is that those things gradually begin to happen and they don’t seem always to be connected to the practice, just like when therapy people undertake long term therapy. Sometimes the therapy starts to have an effect on life without obviously having a direct effect on life. Right. But that those things in the everyday those dilemmas or those impasses or there’s those things that prevent us from moving forward that seems to that seem to get us stuck. Start, I think, in my experience, start to loosen. And we begin to see things we couldn’t have seen before we begin to say things we couldn’t have said before we develop patience where we didn’t have it before something’s clear where before it was obscure. Those little gradual changes that amount to everything. I think begin to become available because of this kind of work. And that’s a long term thing. It doesn’t happen immediately. But I think the idea is that the playfulness of the process of undertaking the practices, especially the social aspect and the novelty of it and and everything that sort of new and interesting and challenging at the beginning. The beauty of that is hopefully enough to draw interest, initially, and be worthwhile for its own sake at first, but I think in the longer term. The changes are subtle, but they’re very real, and they don’t take place just, you know, in the four walls of a zoom screen. Right. They take place everywhere else. Yeah, that’s the point. The point is broad, deep and effective transfer. As always Chris spoke very beautifully. I think his description of how this unfolds is very accurate in fact, part of what one of the first initial lessons I learned was to shift my focus from the wonderful experiences I was having because you’ll have those to the long term, more subtle, but more substantial change. For me everything Chris was talking about in the loose thing is, I want to just amplify it a bit. For me it’s also it’s a kind of liberation. And of course many of the wisdom traditions talk about liberation looks. But it’s. There’s paths into self deception. I’m starting to become John who’s going to roll in the professor and override this person because they’re actually pushing on a point on me that I don’t want exposed. So that’s what I’ll do. I’ll crush them. I’m gonna go no, wait, no, no, I’m not going to do that. I’m going to step aside and notice how this just takes so much. It takes a virtue because you’re, you’re, you’re trying to reach so many different aspects of yourself and And cultivate a sensibility so that you can just wait. I don’t actually have to do that. I’ve got some skills now. And I’ve got some orientation, so that I can go and let that vulnerability be not be threatened as much so I don’t have to do that because that has typically actually ended up badly. It has the immediate effect of defending me, but it has the long term effect of isolating me. Things like that. So there’s also a, I mean, progeny means this is the Buddhist term this self liberating intelligence. Right. And so there’s also right we talk so much in our culture of freedom, but we’ve just, unfortunately, and there’s a lot to be said about this. And I’m not going to, we just equated this with maximizing consumer choice, whether it’s the consumption of products or the consumption of positions, political positions and freedom really isn’t that freedom is the ability to enhance your agency. It’s to become as autonomously agentic, but also as deeply participatory with others as you possibly can. And so, this is also for me. Again, this sounds trite and it sounds like things that would be on a Hallmark card but like, like Chris said, there’s that loosening. And it’s also a liberating that’s happening for me. And I wouldn’t trade that for anything. I would say it’s not this powerful oh when I saw the space cells when I was deep in the right right and I’m not I’m not this thing psychedelics or anything like we have a hunger for intensity. And that’s often at the expense of long term legitimacy. And what Chris is talking to is what we’re offering. And the way it shows up in your life. It’s still it’s, there’s a metaphor, some of you heard me use. It’s the way you become friends with somebody. You don’t have you don’t necessarily start a friendship with like, oh my god, like, you don’t have to have this cat. And then, actually, the person is, you find that they’re weaving into your heart and your mind and your body, and your thoughts turn a different way, and how you assume your identity starts to turn into it and you just feel that, and then they just, and that friendship is a portal into the, in the universe. And that’s what it’s like. This is what you know we are not wise we are lovers of wisdom, we, we are, we are people who want to be befriended and seek to befriend wisdom. That’s who and what we are and it is. It is. I think what we have on offer here. The term is so lacking in our culture what Chris put his finger on that more subtle nuanced long term we have the simple instant gratification mode. We are dominant in our culture, and we’ve lost the being mode the developmental mode. I think about how long it takes to become mature you know and maturity isn’t, I had you know what I was immature and I had the wonderful experience on Tuesday and thereafter I was mature. That’s not how it works. Right. That’s not how it works. It’s just, we’re asking you to consider something that is in this proper sense deeply counter cultural. This is a way for you and all of us individually together to steal the culture. So, I just wanted to, I thought what Chris said was beautiful, and I just wanted to bring out. There’s this deeper, there’s this deep dimension he brought out and amplified it’s, it’s loosening it’s liberating that like it’s, it’s deeply connecting. Yeah, and our hope is that this is one area of practice among so many, and there’s so many people doing wonderful work in here but that it would could grow into a model of an ecology practices with a very low, low barrier, very easy accessibility because I know that in my journey you know this was not these kinds of practices were not adjacent to me growing up this was not something normal meditation I was actually taught that you could be filled with demons if you meditate and empty your mind and get to still and like I had to overcome that and, and for me my experience because you talk about the being mode. You know at first, the password was just hard that just sitting and meditating was just hard and it wasn’t comfortable at all, but you john had convinced me that there was enough value in this and I knew that what I was getting in therapy was really transformative and I needed more tools and he needed something more and so your arguments in the and the college of practices were incredibly convincing to me and then after a couple of months sitting began to be like a place of refuge and I realized oh if I’m dysregulated throughout the day if I’m anxious rather than trying to control things around me rather than trying to have other people help to regulate me I can go and sit and in 15 minutes I can I can actually be regulated I can do that for myself that was a life changing realization that I can go and get to a calm peace filled body with nothing changing around me. And then as I continue to practice it began to be sweet began to be a pleasurable experience began to be experienced like drinking water from a cool stream. It began to be something that I hunger for now if for some reason there’s a day where I can’t practice in the morning. I’m like looking for the opportunity I’m hungry not out of desperation but just out of a joy for it and then as other practices started to stack on top of that and the contemplations and and self I have fast and developing more of a dialogue internally and then doing these workshops and getting these beautiful experiences with creativity and with embodiment and then getting a deeper practice of yoga and with Feldenkrais and with these embodiment practices and stitching these together all of a sudden it’s been like a way of starting my day I’m one of those people that I wake up in the morning I feel like I’ve kind of come unfraid and night most often like a lot of dreams and a lot of I wake up and I’m like what am I even feeling and sort of where am I. And now immediately I can orient and I have a set of practices I start as soon as I wake up with stretch and I say the Lord’s Prayer and then I move into an ecology of self practices that then nest into these kinds of events with practices with others over time and it’s given me such a an experience of the being mode such a sense of peace and then I’ve noticed in my life as an entrepreneur. I see things differently things don’t stick to me the same way upset clients can’t get to me in the same way if they can my mindfulness is so much greater able to see opportunities of contemplating a new doing a new start up right now and last night I was realizing I’m all stirred up and what is this and oh I can dialogue with in and see that there are motions that are stuck around this it’s keeping me from seeing the clear path and then I can come and I can welcome these my attitude internally is changed and and I’m saying this is someone who is just so growing and sees myself as a person who is just so growing and sees myself as a person who is just so growing and sees myself as a person who is just so growing and sees myself as a person who is just so growing and sees myself as a person who is just so growing and sees myself as a person who is just so growing and sees myself as a person who is just so growing and sees myself as a person who is just so growing and sees myself as a person who is just so growing and sees myself as such a student of just how transformative it’s been but I think what can be frustrating for me when I dialogue about this with friends with others and I work with is that there’s that barrier initially where we don’t know what we don’t know we don’t know an experience of being embodied and being still and being regulated if we haven’t had it we don’t know an alter state of consciousness if we’ve never been there and so it’s hopefully these two-hour workshops are easy ways that people can drop into and start to get an experience and say wait what was that and I could live out of that and I could live out of that more and and just and then and then hopefully that we can together with a community encourage each other so we stick with this long enough to get those results where then we learn to hunger for it and we have this desire and this becomes habituated and it actually becomes something that we long to do and love doing rather than just a discipline but in the beginning for a lot of us it starts very much as a discipline. My experience and you know the first first sort of a event that I ever did I had no context for any sort of practice I never went to attend meetups or anything like that and this woman that I was dating about six weeks into our relationship and she sort of like invited me to this thing and it was called a tea group of practices been around for sixty maybe even seventy years now and you know I go there and it feels very bizarre like these people are just you know using the structural way of speaking you know like oh I noticed I feel this oh I noticed I feel that and I’m just like this is kind of a bit surreal and then in the break you know one of the other participants who are eating our snack and the perk and she sort of started to speak to all the like all the things that were happening for me is like this must seem really like strange or convoluted like yeah it is and that sort of like lowered it for me such that when we went in the second session you know there was a moment where this guy said like oh I feel like that’s the story of my life and then I noticed suddenly like oh oh I felt something when he said that you know like I have no I’m so so not awake so asleep you know and he sort of said that and I’m like oh now I get what we’re doing here and it was like that was like the catalyzing moment for me such that you know after this this practice experience with tea group my wife and I spent like the next three hours eating french fries in the park and like starting to talk to each other in this way and it just became such a massive accelerant for us in our relationship and you know so it’s just something about like I wasn’t looking for this I had no idea what to expect it sounded silly to me actually at the time to be honest and then I just sort of allowed myself to be open to the experience and then just like and I mean here I am 10 years later I mean if it didn’t have that experience it wouldn’t be here right now so yeah just you know something about the not knowing and trying to build something for my past self like I had no idea what was possible in relationship until I started doing the practice of authentic relating and circling no idea and now it’s just like so much richer I love the juxtaposition of like the first you work through all this weirdness and what is this experience and why are we doing these things and then immediately it bore fruit in a relationship that she obviously became your wife and like that like immediately started to rich and you had this new thing and I think that’s what you know my own experience is circling and authentic relating it’s like oh seeing this is a gym for our relationships like a thing where we work out and we do these exercises that in the most healthy culture we wouldn’t necessarily have to do and it’s the same with all of these psycho technologies that we’re talking about that in the best of culture with the best of religion that that is really homing us well with the best of families we might not need to do this but we but we have to grow in these ways and we have these psycho technologies that are so deeply scientifically back so rich in tradition that when we come together we start to get these experiences and develop this cognitive flexibility that immediately can go out and impact life and I think these experiences and get very excited talking about it because it really works. Perhaps you could say a little bit about no. I don’t know what to call it different different ways in which things are being offered in the summer pre and so on things like that. Yeah one of the things to try to be really responsible about is is recognizing that not everyone has any resources and yet and it needs the opportunities to cultivate wisdom and engage in practices you know they have no ability for financial resources and on the other hand the only way that we can do this is if people are spending their time their vocation in this and they have to live and they have to you know don’t muzzle the ox you need to be able to have resources coming out of the value that we’re creating in the world and that a lot of these events. There’s tremendous value in them that we should be paying for things that are valuable and paying in a way that’s sustainable and we want to actually try to make sure that everyone in this sort of wisdom economy is able to have a self sustaining and good life and have a living wage that’s in this space and so we have to put those two things into dialogue and wrestle with them and I know sometimes I see comments or feedback of like why are you charging like I don’t have the money and now I can’t cultivate wisdom it’s like no tremendous amount of content for you and you tube and then let’s have all kinds of free session practice sessions and then a responsible ladder of opportunities that allow us to be self sustaining that we can’t do this if we can’t generate some financial return from it and so. At awakened meaning dot com there that starter ecology practices is no cost and so people can drop right into them it’s not like a series where you gotta wait to start something you can just drop in and begin to learn and begin to experience these and then there are some other opportunities at no cost. And then as of right now at least and I don’t know when someone’s listening to this things things will change and evolve a lot through this platform but it’s also linked to the patreon so the verveky patreon community. Where there are different opportunities for practice so there are different tiers where there’s practice sessions with you john there’s different tiers that are monthly costs where there’s. Different workshops that are available and then of course there are the bigger events which are available either through a patron to your or through direct costs such as the circling and the logos slash after Socrates intensive weekends that run about every six months. And the next one is in October of 2023 that’s coming up the dialectic and the logos training is that’s obviously going to be an intensive course that would that will have a fee associated with it and then our hope is that. Individuals in the space to take some of these trainings can then go and host their own practice sessions and then that will increase the number of free opportunities so that anyone who’s. Gone through that training and said yes you can practice on and leave practice sessions on this can then do a deal logos practice session on a Thursday night and invite who they would like to come and attend that or then go and do it in real life I mean the reality is that all of this is much much better in person and I fight within this. Like i’m on my screen all day for my career at the end of the day, I want to go and be in person and and I don’t want to be doing this on zoom or you know on a screen and so. I think our hope is to be a place of training where those who don’t have access to in person communities of training can come. And then we also want to be a place of training where we can train responsibly enough that we can then go out and start informal or formal in person communities, you know i’m. Looking to anyone who’s in the Charlotte North Carolina area like reach out to me through the raveki foundation form if you want to get together for some of these practices in person. Later 2023 or early 2024 and I think those are the kinds of things that we want to start in different areas and eventually we’ll have those listed. On the website so we’ll have multiple we have multiple opportunities at multiple different tiers and trying to be really responsible about access and self sustainability from a financial perspective. Yes, and. I I I trust Ryan to do that balance, not only with virtuosity because it was excellent competence, but with virtue we like he’s really he he’s really holding that. Very carefully. And with a lot of reflection and dedication and so. yeah we’re not trying to create you know a pay funnel or anything like that we are trying to. Create something as Ryan said is self sustaining so that it will be there, because this this. What we need is not going to go away like the problems we’re facing aren’t going to go away individually and collectively they’re not going to go away in a month or even a year. Right, so we need something that’s self sustaining and so but that’s going to be balanced by but how can we get it, you know as accessible as to as many people as possible. So I would ask that you know people come to this with that same balance come to your evaluation of what we’re offering virtuously don’t come in with an axe to grind. Please i’m making that request come in in good faith, we are trying, we are really sincerely, and especially because of Ryan’s amazing leadership trying to do this as virtuously as possible to balance off those two things, can you please consider. You know, appreciating what we’re trying to do trying to understand it and value it from a place of virtue as well, and so that’s what that’s what I would ask. Thanks john and i’m you know the way i’m trying to do that is by building the best collective intelligence of the team as possible that can wrestle with these perennially. And we have a great we have a great team and I want to I want to take a moment to just really thank the patrons, I mean we have an amazing group of hundreds of loyal patrons. Who are giving money every month considerable for all of them, I know, but some of them really considerable sums that we just couldn’t do without them, we have major donors in addition who’ve given many thousands of dollars in some cases 10s of thousands of dollars to. To be able to fund this, I mean if anyone who’s followed your channel has seen from you know mid 2022 to 2023 the increase in video production quality, the amount of content that comes up the YouTube that’s the work of. Of Eric foster and upfire that is now paid for through through the patreon community like it couldn’t happen without that this whole project is because patrons have asked for people in the Community have wanted this kind of a place, and so we’re able to actually fund this and build it and build the technology around it. We’re able to fund time for writing the books, whether it’s mentoring the machines on AI or waiting for the meeting crisis book one which Christopher has been writing which will come out later in 2023. Followed by other books within those series which so many have asked for we’re working for translations, so this can get into other languages. We’re working to help with respond to steward and make sure that respond network can be a broad place for communities of communities and many different people using this kind of a wisdom framework. There’s obviously or I shouldn’t say obviously, but there’s a third series being planned that will be the follow up that’s incredibly exciting that’s going to take funds and resources and it’s really thanks to all of these supporters these patrons that we can do anything so anyone wants to join. Need access to certain practice sessions and join patreon there also just helping this whole team to grow to try as many responsible operationally sophisticated projects that we can to wisely. Put a megaphone on your work john to steward its connections and partnerships and extensions and then create these projects that give a chance for growth so that it’s kind of like sending seeds out into ecology and sing okay can we help to cultivate the soil and we send seeds. That give a real chance of having an answer to the meeting crisis that’s that actually impacts our bodies to practice and through communities and that can afford the chance of a broader impact through the way that we lead organizations the way that we can found new institutions the way that we can see the world. That your work opens up john we’re trying to be responsible and create these kinds of projects around and it all is thanks to patrons and supporters and anyone who wants to join with that anyone who’s interested in donating getting involved like please you can contact us through your baking foundation. Or you can join the patreon the links are all in the description of this but like this has to grow as a pluralistic communal thing otherwise it doesn’t it doesn’t grow and it doesn’t happen. Thank you Ryan that was great. I also want to emphasize. The leadership that Taylor is giving us in this he’s basically become he’s working officially part time for the foundation he’s basically the steward of the practices and the courses he’s working a lot with Chris who’s responsible in very many ways with the foundation. Who’s responsible in many ways for the overall vision of the foundation, but I met Taylor first as my teacher, my facilitator authentic relating. And I. I, I’m getting better I hope. I think there’s reason to believe that, but I don’t extend trust readily. But he earned my he earned my trust. He and his wife. Very quickly and then you know his competence in that. And then it became, you know, very apparent that that that bespoke his leadership capacities. And so, I am just extremely grateful that he has taken the position who is a person who’s really helming this for us. I can’t think of a better person for it literally for doing that. Just like, for me, I mean, quick. I can’t think of a better partner for all of the projects that then Christopher master Pietro, who’s in many ways my better self. And, and so I just wanted to speak to that. And if it means anything to you, if I’ve earned some of your trust. I want you to know that, you know, these three gentlemen are people in whom I have. And I continue to place a lot of trust. And so I’m also making a request that you consider extending trust. I know in the marketplace, with all the bullshit. And with all the conning and with all the manipulation, with all the pseudo religious right cult formation. All over the place. There’s suspicion and we’re inundated with the hermeneutics of suspicion. I understand that. And I want to speak to that now and the and I can’t, you know, I give you arguments and but what what’s ultimately at is, you know, at issue here is trust. And I’m asking you to extend some initial trust towards these people, because they have deeply and continuously earned mine. And I would ask you to extend that and think that. But behind all that suspicion, the hermeneutics of suspicion, there is a hermeneutics of beauty. Sometimes people are authentic in the sense that their appearance actually discloses their deeper reality. Those are the people. And so I get it. I really do. I, you know, I understand it like there’s that. It’s just another somebody else selling something that can’t always be the case or we just be an absolute chaos. There are enough people out there still pursuing and practicing the good because everything else is parasitic on that, dependent on that. I strongly believe and believe in that I found good people doing good work and creating a great place for other people to come who want to pursue the good. So I just wanted to address that concern you might have and ask you to hope rationally hope that there’s an alternative to all of that bullshit. And that’s on offer here. I would say to folks like Trust with Grace because we’re trying to start a lot of things and build things with limited resources. But I would also just say thank you, John, so much for you could take your platform and try to monetize it. Instead, you started a nonprofit and said, OK, it goes there. And you need to be self-sustaining in your life and career. But you are very clearly not trying to get rich off of all of this. You are choosing the resources that are generated from Patreon and from advertising and from donations and from all of this to go into this work to allow us to do this. And so that is there’s such a deep attempt at virtue in the heart of all of this. And we are all flawed and foolish. That’s probably why we love cultivating wisdom so much. I just think we have a great sense of our own foolishness and our deep need for it. At least I’ll speak for myself. And so like it is no perfection and no and it’s also not sophisticated yet. If anyone’s hearing this in 2023, like it’s very early and we’re trying things and things are going to fail. And maybe this doesn’t work, but we’re trying to do this responsibly and to take advantage of the opportunities that your work affords and that by the thousands of people who resonate with it, you say, yeah, I want something more and I want to grow in these kinds of ways. How do we do that together? Thank you, Ron. And I want to address one another concern. And Chris alluded to it. And I welcome the rest of you to comment on it. We are this we are not coming at this from a particular religious framework, but nor are we anti religious or allergic to religion. I offer this to people who have no religious framework as a way of virtuously and respectfully giving them a lot of what a religious home does for people. But if you have a religious orientation, but you still think there’s something missing. Another thing I can say is many people have looked at the work, both the theory and the practices and found a way to rejuvenate or perhaps return to their religious heritage and recover it in a more profound way. So we are in that sense and not in a trivial sense. We’re very properly pluralistic. We we we don’t we’re not pushing or expecting a religious outcome or religious conversion. You won’t suddenly find yourself writing checks at 3m to the local Buddhist temple or something like that. That’s not happening here. And if you are somebody and it’s a growing number of people that the legacy religions just don’t appeal to you. They don’t call to you or they’ve harmed you in some fashion. This is on offer for you. But and this is part of, you know, the our middle path that we’re trying to find. But we also have found that this work helps many people recover, return, rejuvenate their their membership, their belonging to their existing or perhaps their childhood religious home. And so this place often, in fact, offers a courtyard where the religious and the non-religious can deeply commune, not just communicate, but commune with each other. And in a way that is helpful to both parties and is kind of the spirit of this corner of the Internet. So I just wanted to also address that concern. This developmental dojo right is in that, I hope, profound sense, not in the trivial sense of sort of, you know, small l liberal democracy. We tolerate everybody. It’s much more like common unity. It’s much more properly pluralistic in that fashion. Yeah, absolutely. I feel inspired to sort of, you know, share. I really don’t I don’t have a religious background. I’ve been to church, well, twice with you, John. So I’ve actually been to church more times with you than I ever was before that. Those were conferences. But what I’ve noticed is I certainly, you know, before I got involved and started up, you know, practice in the habit, you know, in the relational practice and leadership that I’ve been doing, I had a very negative view of religion in general. Very negative view. And actually, these days, I notice a lot of appreciation and a lot more comfort in that environment and with people. So it’s and it’s not a tolerating. It’s just like like a richness. Like I can I can take the I can take their perspective, you know, and I can check to see if I’m taking it properly, too. And I can appreciate what’s good and true and beautiful about that perspective. And it doesn’t have to compete against my own perspective. It’s like I can include it as well. So it’s actually been quite nice to not see, at least for me to not see religion as something that threatens me or threatens society or culture the way that I used to see it. Yeah, I feel like a lot of embracing and I’ve even I’ve even sort of recommended and sort of steered people towards like, oh, have you know, do you have this particular practice? You know, what I get about it, I think this might actually be for you. So, yeah, I just felt inspired to sort of share that. Yeah. And on my part, you know, having grown up an evangelical Christian fundamentalist sort of approach, how do I hold these both? And it’s actually been such a beautiful renewal and reciprocal opening of the practices in Christianity to me. And I would say my my love for Jesus Christ and inspiration and desire to follow Jesus and my deep appreciation of the scriptures and in practice, Alexio Divina on them and get so much more transformation out than when I used to do the one year Bible and just read through it every single year, many years in a row. And now I’m like chewing on it and mining it. And it’s just absolutely been beautiful in my life. And I think that it’s awesome to see how out of these practices, there are so many who are seeking to integrate and renew as well as sort of stand up and be able to be at home without a religious framing and that we can do both together. It’s just a beautiful, beautiful mark of this work. That’s very well said by all of you. And I’ve had very, very similar experience to what you just described, Ryan. One way of thinking about it, I think, is that, you know, the change, the way that this kind of work impacts your relationships is true of every kind of relationship that you have. We have relationships with people. We have relationships with our goals. We have relationships with ourselves and our life and our, you know, we have relationships with our careers. We have relationships with all of the different domains of life in which we have to step in and step out of. And we have, and for those of us who have a relationship with a religious tradition, which is sort of like saying a relationship with our being, a relationship with the question of questions that prevails over us in every waking moment of our time, that too is a relationship. And it’s a relationship that tends to organize all of our other relationships. And so in the same way that our relationships with one another, with the people in our lives and the tasks in our lives and the goals in our lives are impacted by this work and opened and gradually softened and made more porous. So too is that greater order of relationship that it becomes, you know, in my experience, more legible, more beautiful, more inviting. There are appetites that are able to come to the fore that maybe were suppressed before, or a certain disdain or contempt that prevented that participation is softened and loosened. There’s a way in maybe now or before there wasn’t. And so I think it’s, I’m grateful that you’re emphasizing this point, John, it’s very important. This is not competing with anything. It is a way of enriching what already is as a compliment and as an amplification. That is as true of a religious identity or religious relationship as it is true of any other kind of relationship. They are all, we’re talking about the same thing at different scales and at different orders. Thank you. Some of you may say, this is just a demographic thing. I’m spiritual but not religious and that’s how I want to remain. I ask you consider the fact though that for many people, being spiritual but not religious. It’s not clear. And I mean aspiration we clear what that means. It means they have sort of intimations and perhaps hopes, and perhaps they’ve sort of crafted some practices for themselves. But you actually do your best learning. When you’re challenged by an ecology of practices and a community of others that might put you into that place that Chris said, you know, just, you know, in technical terms, it’s called the zone of proximal development, you always want to be learning beyond what you can learn just on your own. If you’re only learning on your own, you’re not doing your best possible learning. Now of course we don’t want to put you to a place where even with our help, what are they talking about? We don’t want to do that either. That’s what we’re talking about. So in that sense, and remember the word discipline originally meant to follow, right? This is a way also for those of you who identify and are happy to identify with spiritual but not religious, and there are many of you. This is a place to bring disciplined learning to that proposal. And so there are many people that come and that’s how they’re oriented and that’s how they practice. And they get they’ve gotten a lot out of this, precisely because of that. We so often will get people saying, I was always looking for this but I didn’t know. And that’s what we’re offering. That’s what we’re offering. And you can’t really get that unless you’re in a discipline of practices challenged by that discipline and by people other than yourself. Is there any final things we should anybody wants to say? I think we’ve covered all of the bases. Is there anything else anybody wants to bring in as a final parting word? I would just say please check out AwakendMeeting.com. Sign up for newsletter, sign up for an event, sign up for Patreon, like whatever level of commitment or interest there is. But if this is at all peaking in interest, if this is inciting an aspiration, then sign up on something and let us keep in touch. Taylor or Chris, any final words? Maybe the only final word is to say, as Ryan said, this is all just beginning. And when you’re signing up to participate, when you’re signing up to take a course or a workshop, what you’re doing indirectly, I think, is you’re helping to create. You’re contributing to the creation and the unfolding of this project. That’s also what you’re doing. And that’s important because that’s what we want. This isn’t a one, this doesn’t come in one direction. This flows in both directions. You’re not simply taking something away, but you’re actually giving into it and you’re giving into it is going to help make it what it is. And so this isn’t this is a participatory process and it’s a co creative process. And it has to be that in order for it to fulfill its own intentions and be true to its own intentions. Yeah. Yeah. All I would say is I feel like a deep satisfaction. I think that’s a good one. The box or the bucket is full and I really appreciate the bow that Chris just put on top of it. That feels very, very important and central. I’m glad it got said. So thank you everyone for your time and attention. I look forward to meeting so many of you. Take good care of everyone.